#phill.hl

“You’re joking! Three Sickles and fifteen Knuts for a Pocket Sneakscope? That’s way too expensive!”

Lifting your eyes from the list of gadgets you need to buy on your next trip to Hogsmeade, you raise an eyebrow at the second-year Ravenclaw boy. He’s taller than most of his fellow housemates, shows signs of a long, hawkish nose and has pimples scattered on his cheeks like a Leaping Toadstool Cap. You can’t really remember his name. Freddy or Fred or August, maybe.

This early in the morning before classes start, the air is especially thick with the smell of late-summer: sweet buddleia in full bloom, the rich green leaves of trees as they sway gently in the wind. Mist hangs low in the valley and over the Great Lake, a milky curtain hiding its resident gently poking long tentacles into the warm sun. The castle is only slowly waking up after a short night—the last grace of long summer days approaching their end as October draws closer.

A beautiful landscape you can hardly enjoy with the second-year’s whiny voice buzzing around your head like an annoying mosquito.

“Look, you wanted a Pocket Sneakscope, I got it for you,” you say and unhitch yourself from the cool stone pillar, one of many holding up the roof of the Viaduct Courtyard’s passageway. “It’s not my fault the underground path is infested with spiders.”

Damned Weasley could have warned you though. You have been using the secret passage under the humpbacked, one-eyed witch leading to the cellar of Honeydukes since your second year when you spied Garreth Weasley sneak through it, and since then you both agreed on staying out of each other’s way as long as nobody rats out the secret passageway to the faculty. He gets to obtain whatever he needs for his weird concoctions, and you get to continue your little business of providing first and second years whatever they want from Hogsmeade since they can’t go themselves yet—all for a certain price. It makes trips to Hogsmeade easier when you can’t use your broom, though the occasional acid spit launched your way is less favourable than the breathtaking view of Hogwarts towering majestically as the sun sets, throwing the whole castle in stark, black contrast against the warm, orange sky.

“Unless you want someone else to get you stuff from Hogsmeade,” you continue with a shrug. “Good luck finding them though.” You move to put the Sneakscope back into your pocket, barely managing to keep on a neutral expression when Freddy or Fred or August, maybe, gasps as though you have reached into the Ravenclaw’s house point hourglass, grabbed a handful sapphires and chucked them at the Headmaster.

“It’s just—it’s just a whole Sickle more than I can spend this month!” he protests, but judging by the quiver of his voice he’ll eat out of your hand in no time.

You give your brightest smile. “Not my problem.”

The Ravenclaw-boy fumes, but when you hold out your hand, he slaps the coins into your open palm, his pale face blotched red with fury.

“Pleasure doing business with you.” You hand over his Pocket Sneakscope and watch him stamp off towards the double doors leading inside the entrance hall. He stops with a small, pale hand on the bronze doorknob, turns around as by his touch alone the doors squeal open with the magic that recognises students entering. “You are the worst Hufflepuff at this school!” he shouts and quickly dashes inside.

You don’t know why he felt the need to point it out. It’s not as though people don’t know who you are: the Hufflepuff who burnt down the left greenhouse in her second year when trying Incendio after agreeing to a bet; the Hufflepuff who broke a Ravenclaw’s nose because said Ravenclaw accused her of cheating in Defence Against the Dark Arts; the Hufflepuff who smoked Silverweed in a corner under the Great Staircase in her third year to see if it would yield any relaxing effects; the Hufflepuff who actually cheated on her very first exam in History of Magic—all in all the Hufflepuff who really should have been sorted into Slytherin on her first day, according to everybody else. Except the Slytherins have no love left for you because you wear yellow.

It is a wonder you have not been expelled yet, surely to do with the fact that despite it all, one student outshines your delinquent record. Your grades are passable, neither at the very top nor bottom, though you do have a knack for quickly learning spells and charms. What keeps you in somewhat good grace is being the Beater for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team—and what a Beater you are: ruthless and quick with strong arms. Maybe not as fast as Slytherin’s Captain on a broom, but you feel comfortable enough up in the air. All your problems seem so much smaller when you soar through the sky. Speaking of Quidditch, a Gryffindor second-year asked you to get a fake Snitch to practice for the team’s try-outs. Hopefully the Spintwitches Sporting Needs opens within in the next week; you’re in need of a new broomstick servicing kit, preferably before practice starts.

You move towards the Great Hall before they clear out breakfast. You did ask Javi to save up some Pumpkin Pastries for you, but he’s been in a foul mood since yesterday because Peeves destroyed a bust in the Astronomy Tower and he had to take the brunt of it. But while you’re crossing the courtyard, you notice a shadow standing under a wide archway, tall and sinewy, though body shapes are usually hard to guess under the loose, floaty school robes. Yet you know that despite looking lanky, this boy is nimble and quick, and his presence is utterly unappreciated—that is how the circle closes; the reason why you can’t stand him.

Even from this distance, you can make out Callum St. Jude’s pale grey eyes—they stand stark against his unruly map of ink-black hair. Paired with skin pale as moonlight, he looks like one of Hogwarts’s residual ghosts.

You feel your face turn into a scowl. It seems that no matter where you are these days, he is lurking nearby. At first you thought he was spying on you to check out the competition for tonight’s Crossing Wands duel. It is the finale after all. But when you had confronted him about it, catching him on his way down to the Slytherin dungeons in the Grand Staircase after your shared Charms class, he had considered you with a blank expression. “Who are you?” he’d asked, looking down at you from a few steps above.

Behind him, trailing him like a shadow since day one, Sebastian Sallow had sniggered. “Seems like you already have admirers,” he’d said with his insufferable haughty voice. “Though that Hufflepuff is more trouble than she’s worth.”

You were about to show him trouble, face hot with shame, when Javi hauled you up, hands under your armpits, and carried you away as if you were a sack of potatoes. “You can’t get detention now, it’s still the first week,” Javi had said mildly.

At least it would have been worth it. It would have been so satisfying to blast that cocky grin off Sallow’s face, to silence St. Jude’s little mocking huff. You firmly believe St. Jude is suffering from the worst ailment to date: Main Character Syndrome.

The symptoms have been evident since his first day: joining Hogwarts as a fifth-year, arriving late to the Sorting Ceremony due to a dragon attack, besting Sallow on his first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson (though you can hardly criticise him knocking Sallow down a peg) and mastering every new spell and charm as though it is as easy as breathing. Just last week, he fought off a grown troll and defended Hogsmeade, and now the whole school doesn’t shut up about it.

It is with eager anticipation that you await tonight’s Crossed Wands’s finale. Your fingers practically itch to draw your wand and Flipendo him just to juggle him around a little and wipe that blank expression off his face. He is beautiful, you hate to admit, feeling a sour taste in the back of your throat, but he’s using that face in all the wrong ways. He has the sort of face they’d probably frame in a museum, the kind that’s unbelievably pretty, but unattainable.

“Preying upon second years this early?” St. Jude tuts. “It seems there really is no rest for the wicked.”

“Looks as though I am already punished for it,” you grumble. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have to deal with you.”

St. Jude cocks his head to the side, looking thoughtful. “Interesting way to talk to someone you fancy.”

“I do not,” you press out between gritted teeth, shouldering past him as he steps into the entrance hall first, “fancy you.” You hope the Thunderbrew potion will be the first you’ll learn in Potions class. Watching St. Jude getting struck by lightning would lighten your mood considerably.

“For someone who pretends not to be interested in me,” he continues, ignoring you, “I see you around an awful lot.”

You consider tripping him as you two ascend the stairs. “Yes, that seems to be the very problem.”

“Won’t make me take it easy on you tonight though.” Since he is nowhere near a gentleman, he doesn’t hold the door open for you and it almost slams in your face. “I always duel to win.”

“I hope you don’t mind spending the next couple of days in the hospital wing.” You bump into his shoulder, hard, when you finally enter the Great Hall and immediately aim for the Hufflepuff table to the far right of the hall without another glance at him.

The hall is buzzing with students, the air filled with the tasty smell of crispy bacon, grilled leak, slightly burnt toast with melting butter on top. It isn’t as crowded as at lunch or dinner time—most students tend to skip breakfast to either sleep in after a long study night or use the hour before classes to finish assignments and homework.

The ceiling shows a clear blue sky with thin clouds drifting past lazily. You slide in the free seat next to your fellow Beater near the front of the table. Javier García is shoving scrambled eggs into his mouth, his bright brown eyes fixed on the Daily Prophet. In your first year, you didn’t pay much attention to him. If you look up Hufflepuff Student in any dictionary, it will show Javi’s face—a hard-working, loyal individual that always reminds you of a golden retriever until he steps on the field and turns into a pit bull from a fighting ring. Every summer he returns to his muggle family where he helps tending to the crops and fields, evident in his arms the size of tree trunks used to heavy lifting. Perfect for hitting Bludgers at opponents and slamming them off their brooms.

You pour yourself coffee and begin spooning slabs of apple-cinnamon-oatmeal into a bowl.

“Ranrok’s Loyalists have put up more camps around the Hogwarts highlands,” Javi says, mouth half-full. “It looks like they’re moving closer towards Hogwarts.”

“Why would they come to Hogwarts? There’s nothing here.”

“The castle has tons of secrets still uncovered. Why wouldn’t they try and get inside?”

“As if they’d manage to get through the defences. Hogwarts is impenetrable.” You take a long sip from your cup, hoping the caffeine kicks in fast. “No one’s going to get inside. Forget about the goblins. Did you see the Quidditch board? Our first game this season is against Gryffindor.”

Javi groans. “I hate their Seeker. Too small to hit with a Bludger, too quick to slam off the broom. We might as well throw in the towel.”

“Don’t let Captain hear that or she’ll turn you into a fox and wear you as a collar.” The Hufflepuff’s Quidditch Captain, Mary J. Lockwood, is sweet in pretty much every aspect except when it comes to Quidditch, and she never hesitates making you take the brunt of it. You’ve stopped counting how often she’d condemned you to run laps around the field as punishment for talking back or disrupting practice.

You finish breakfast and quickly drop by the common room to get your parchments and books for Divination class, hoping it will let time pass quickly until evening. But while staring for roughly an hour into the lazily swirling fog inside a crystal ball without an answer to how this year’s Quidditch season will end, time seemed to move slower than a snail. After dozing off twice and woken up by Adeleide Oakes’s pointy elbow to your ribs before Professor Onai could notice, the class finally ends.

Next up is Herbology and after that you’ve got two free periods until lunch and then end the day with double Potions. It’s a slow day for a Wednesday, and you can’t wait until practice starts in October to give you some change from sitting for hours in the library and going through dusty old tomes or watch the first and second-years getting roped up into playing Gobstones in the common room by the older students, filling it with the putrid smell of its foul liquid. You just enjoy being outdoors more. Which is why Herbology is somewhat fun, even if you and Javi prefer to pass time by betting on who can stick their finger closest to a Chinese Chomping Cabbage, earning a scornful side glance from Leander Prewett.

You promised Samantha Dale and Nellie Oggspire to work on the assigned group project for the essay on Ghouls for DADA during your free period, but when you’re about to set out to the Great Hall to grab a few snacks before going through the list of books you’ll need from the library, Professor Garlick appears before you suddenly as though sprouting from the ground like a flower.

“Oh, delightful, my dear, there you are!” she beams. Small brown parcels flutter around her head like butterflies. “Here is the delivery for Mr. Ollivander, if you’d be so kind and bring them to him now.”

Just in case, you look behind you. Nobody there on the stairs leading up to the central hall. Even Javi has made himself scarce already. She really is talking to you.

“Why me, Professor?” Someone must have hit you with Obliviate. You can’t remember having agreed to any favour for her.

“Oh? Frederick Gustave told me you would offer! Quite an attentive, nice boy! He will grow into a splendid Ravenclaw student one day!” Frederick Gustave? In Ravenclaw? You don’t know anyone called Frederick or Gustave or—the thought strikes you like lightning. Freddy, Fred or August. “All you need to do is bring these little parcels to Mr. Ollivander in Hogsmeade. These are magically nourished woods he has requested, and I am quite eager to see the results for myself.”

With a flick of her wand the parcels change course and begin to circle around your head before you can even begin to explain that this is a huge misunderstanding. She pats your cheek affectionately and twirls around, descending the stairs back to her flowery domain.

Javi is waiting for you at the top of the stairs, ignoring your scowl as he whistles the tune of The School of Jolly Dogs. His face lights up. “Since you’re heading to Hogsmeade, can you bring me some white Chocolate Frogs? Mine hopped out of the window last night because Arty forgot to close it.”

You answer with a rude hand gesture and stomp out of the hall, heading for where you keep your brooms stashed in the Hufflepuff locker room.

~ ⋆｡°✩ ~

The flight to Hogsmeade takes longer than usual. Every time you move too fast, the parcels begin to cry and whine like little abandoned ducklings until they catch up to you. Other than that, it is a beautiful morning as the sun keeps dipping in and out between wispy smears of clouds on the wide blue canvas. The tiny, homey town is alive with witches and wizards scurrying around to get their errands done. The novelty and excitement from visiting Hogsmeade in your third-year has worn off after two years, but it’s still a nice change from the dark school corridors and unending spiralling stair cases.

You leave your broom leaning next to the entrance of Mr. Ollivander’s shop. This shouldn’t take more than five minutes, darting in and out; you’re pretty sure you’ll be quicker than a Niffler digging through a pile of Galleons.

The door swings open easily. It has been five years since you last set foot into the small, cramped shop, yet nothing has changed and suddenly you feel as though you’re eleven again, entering for the first time. It smells of polished wood and something burnt underneath like a misplaced Incendio. Nearly every wall is stacked high with countless wands up to the ceiling, waiting to choose their witch or wizard. Back then you felt very small as a first year, anxious and excited to finally attend Hogwarts and get your own wand—the very first object that truly belonged to you and was not one of your older sisters’ hand-me-downs.

From the back of the shop you hear heavy knocks and a shrill screeching sound that makes you want to put your hands to your ears. Just like five years ago, you reach for the bronze bell on the counter but before your fingers can touch it, it lifts on its own and jingles beautifully. The knocking immediately stops, followed by a last dull clatter and then Mr. Ollivander emerges from the back room, dusting himself off.

He looks at you over the rim of his golden glasses, and a small smile spreads on his face as recognition dawns. The wide counter flap squeaks open when he swishes his wand to step through.

“Ah, the Hawthorn girl,” he says in greeting, quickly closing the space between you and taking your hands in his; you feel every wrinkle against your palm, every patch of rough skin from decades of work as he squeezes your hands. “I have hoped that I would see you soon.”

The question mark must be evident on your face, for Mr. Ollivander explains, “I remember every student and wand I paired, and you my dear, I remember the day five years ago when you came to my shop and your wand found you. Spiral, twelve inches, and a phoenix feather core. Unyielding. But what makes your wand so special is the wood it is made of. Hawthorn makes such a strange, contradictory wand, as full of paradoxes as the tree that gave it birth, whose leaves and blossoms heal, and yet whose cut branches smell of death.” He chuckles to himself, blinking as if lost in a memory; not noticing how tense you are and the way your uneasy smile curls downward. As though you could forget what the hawthorn means. But instead of allowing your mother’s voice inside your head and poisoning your heart, you square your shoulders and pull your hands away from Mr. Ollivander’s grasp.

“Delivery from Professor Garlick,” you say with a faux cheery voice. It seems only then does Mr. Ollivander notice the parcels still fluttering around your head.

“Ah, yes, yes! Allow me.” He points his wand at the parcels, then to his back room and they float through the shop in rank and file, all in proper order. “And here of course, the payment.” Mr. Ollivander hurries behind the counter, and produces a heavy pouch that he hands over to you. It jangles handsomely when you take it from him.

“Well then, I wish you a nice da—”

“Tell me, dear, have you met him?”

Feet already pointed towards the entrance, you turn your body halfway back. “Met who, sir?”

Mr. Ollivander looks up from the account books he’s been writing in. Something glints in his eyes, but maybe it’s just the reflection on his glasses. “Why, the Blackthorn boy of course.”

You rack your brain for anyone you know who’s called Blackthorn but come up empty. “I’m afraid I have not made any acquaintance like that, sir.”

The wandmaker’s eyes are calm, a sparkling blue of sunlight lancing off a stream. “I see,” he says. “Well, my part of this was fulfilled when I matched your wants with you. Everything else is up to you.” He gives you a little secret smile, then goes back to his ledger, the conversation clearly over even though you have dozens of questions swirling in your head.

Back out on Lower High Street, you have been released of the fluttering parcels and instead Mr. Ollivander’s words torment your mind. You can feel a memory hiding behind a thick fog, blurry and barely visible but its presence heavy and lurking like a ghost.

Wasn’t there something he had told you five years ago? When he had presented your wand to you, still resting in its narrow satin casket. You were too excited to pay him any mind—it had sounded too much like one of your mother’s stories; like an augury or worse even, a prophecy—when he had told you about a cursed kingdom, two brothers, and a hawthorn and blackthorn tree. Why listen to old fairy tales when the real adventure—Hogwarts—was waiting for you?

Besides, if by ‘Blackthorn boy’ he meant someone with a blackthorn wand, finding that person would be nearly impossible. And why would you look for him in the first place? Superstitions and divinations have no place in your life. Not after how it had dictated your childhood with a cold iron fist.

The trip back to Hogwarts is significantly faster without having to look after enchanted parcels behaving like newborn Fwoopers. With what happened at Mr. Ollivander’s, you completely forgot to drop by Honeydukes for Javi, which makes him look like a kicked puppy for the rest of the day.

You manage to start your essay for the group project, although you don’t get nowhere near where you wanted to be before the match. Lunch is a blur of tasty shepherd’s pie and grilled mushroom skewers with a small handful of students passing where you sit to wish you good luck, pattung your shoulder hard enough you almost choke on your pumpkin juice. Others send you little notes with crude drawings showing St. Jude zapping you with a spell and losing tonight’s duel. The messages are charmed to head dive into your cup and plate, splattering mashed potatoes on your uniform.

Adeleide plucks a nervously flapping piece of paper out of your meal and unfolds it. “At least they’re creative,” she notices mildly.

You throw a wary glance at the note. “That doesn’t even look like me.”

“I don’t know.” Javi slurps loudly from his cup. “They got your scowl right.”

Double Potions after lunch flies by for a change. Your Wiggenweld Potion tends to be a tad bluer than Professor Sharp’s apple green concoction bubbling at the front table for reference, but you have a hard time focusing when your mind is already occupied with how tonight’s duel might go.

You have a handful favourite spells that you’ve practised long enough they come as easy to you as breathing. But from what you have seen during the last Crossed Wands duels where St. Jude has participated, he seems to have a natural gift for duelling. You’ve heard he competed alongside Sallow in his first duel, but every after he’s been on his own and you’ve seen the battered and bruised leftover competitors limping out of the Clock Tower. You don’t plan to follow in their footsteps.

When evening falls on the castle and the long, narrow corridors awake with dim candlelight, you follow the throng of hooded students hurrying towards the Clock Tower after dinner. The excitement ripples through the lines of people like a physical force, alive and rearing when the first students file into the Clock Tower and find a seat close to the walls and away from accidental stray spells.

You spot Lucan Brattleby surrounded by a handful Hufflepuff and Slytherin students. Javi is among them, and when you draw closer you notice the ledger in Lucan’s hand and the Sickles being passed between him and Javi.

Javi startles when you step next to him like a Mooncalf facing an oncoming card. “Hiya,” he says in the very familiar voice that sounds a lot like him hoping you won’t be mad.

You raise an eyebrow. “Placing bets?” Your eyes linger on the page as you scan the names on the chart on your side. Only a few names—Leander, who’s been especially snappy since he lost against St. Jude in the semifinals, a handful other Gryffindors, one or two Ravenclaws and the rest are students from your house. On St. Jude’s column, Lucan has started to write the names as tiny as possible to fit them all on the page. Javi’s is amongst them. He ducks away from your scrutinising gaze. “He slew a fully-grown troll last week!” he pleads his case. So much for the infamous Hufflepuff loyalty. “I’ll invite you to Honyedukes after and pay whatever you want from the win.”

“Whatever.” You turn away to get ready, walking into a hard, solid body.

Callum St. Jude steadies you before you can stumble. “Easy there.” His smile slices white. “Am I already sweeping you off your feet? We haven’t even started yet.”

You shrug his hand off your arm. “The only sweeping happening today is when I wipe the floor with you, St. Jude.”

He hums thoughtfully. “We’ll see.”

You stare daggers at his back as he retreats to his side of the hall, welcomed by other Slytherin students who pat his back and ruffle his unruly jet-black hair as though he is the fifth year’s Champion already. He doesn’t linger around them for too long, and instead retreats to a far corner where Sallow is already waiting for him. What an annoying duo.

Tugging your black robe off, you begin to stretch your limbs. For today’s occasions you’ve chosen to wear a simple shirt with ribbon uniform tucked into your plaid trousers. More mobility, less fabric flapping around. A tie or a blazer would allow too much surface for a nasty Accio. From the last duels you’ve watched, you know St. Jude is as sharp as a whip, and he uses everything in his so far meagre arsenal of spells to win.

You’ll need to keep all your wits about you. If he, and the majority assembled under the giant swinging pendulum today, underestimate you, it will be your pleasure to remind them what vicious creatures badgers are. And that they devour snakes.

When you turn, St. Jude is already standing ready, his wand raised. He’s shrugged out of his robes as well and pulled off his tie, following your example. Gone is the hint of the cocky smile he always wears, so infuriating and inviting to punch. Now he is serious, his face an impassive mask that betrays nothing but you have seen it change within a heartbeat before knocking an opponent out with a savage blast of his wand. Like a snake, waiting and watching, until it strikes viciously and sinks its venomous fangs into your skin.

“Attention!” Lucan Brattleby hops in the centre, his arms raised. “Wizards and witches! Welcome to the fifth year’s Crossed Wands Championship Round!” He lets the audience get the whistling and bellowing out of their system before he introduces both parties. “Competitors, let’s get started!”

He quickly dashes out of the way—rightly so, for St. Jude’s opening move is always a lightning-quick Levioso, just like Professor Hecat taught him. You dodge the spell and hear it disperse against the wall behind you, feeling the sparks nip your skin.

“Accio!” You whip your wand towards you, only able to catch St. Jude by the cuff of his white sleeve as he evades with a side-step. But it’s enough to unbalance him as his arm is pulled in your direction and he retaliates by using the moment to blast a few Basic Casts your way which you block by well-timed Protegos.

The crowd’s cheers disappears into background noise as you and St. Jude continue your tense dance of attack and parry; a step forward, another step back, his Incendio is answered by your Glacius; since he prefers fire you do him the pleasure of casting Confringo which forces him to dive to the side. Your spell blasts the wooden weapon rack behind him into splinters and pieces, showering the Slytherins sitting beside it with glowing embers.

“Come on, new guy, give her a proper Slytherin treatment!” one of them yells. St. Jude doesn’t let himself get distracted, not even by the instructions of his fellow housemates or the quips from your side of the room. His eyes are pinning you like a butterfly on a corkboard, following your every step. They are frighteningly bright, you have the feeling that no move will go past him.

From behind you, you pull a large crate from under the buttocks of two Gryffindors with Accio, ignoring their protests when in the last second you fling it bodily towards St. Jude with Depulso. You’ve been working on the right timing for this for a long time—people usually don’t expect to be thrown at with things instead of spells. It hurls through the hall, and to your utter astonishment St. Jude blocks it in the last second with a flying object of his own—a practice dummy.

But where was the spell? You didn’t see him cast one when he hurled that dummy through the air.

At your puzzled expression, St. Jude grins at you, his smile so sudden and jarring as a thunderclap. You narrow your eyes. There’s something growing in the pit of your stomach, rearing its ugly head and snapping sharp, volatile teeth. Basic Casts don’t feel enough, and every vicious Diffindo St. Jude parries or dodges in the last moment. His retaliation is a fiery Incendio after Incendio—you’d think after this time one of you would grow weaker, lose focus, but the heat flaring your way and the flames licking up your uniform feel anything but harmless or tame.

Sweat runs down your temples, along your cheeks, down your neck. Your wand feels hot in your hand, but you grip it tighter, knuckles white. Your lungs feel tight in your chest, but you breathe in stronger, eyes wide. That rage that always lives inside you rears. It is an almost physical pain, like nails against flesh; like teeth against bars. That unwanted animal is starving, it wants nothing more than to get out and you’re surprised nobody else can hear it howling.

“Not as quick or cunning as that Sallow boy, but her spells pack a mean punch,” they say about you. You couldn’t best Sallow, and now there is this new contender and you refuse, refuse to slide down to number three; always coming in last, always pushed aside. You snarl at St. Jude as though trying to wrap your teeth around the world.

The air crackles with magic. Faintly, you hear an echo of a familiar voice. “Do not be surprised at your wand’s ability to perceive your intentions—particularly in a moment of need.”

It seems your wand shares your taste for violence—you can feel that this is the best Expulso you have executed since you taught yourself the spell in year four. You swing your arm, wand scorching hot in your hand—vibrating even—and hurl the Blasting Spell at St. Jude.

You can see his mouth move as he speaks a spell, blue sparks fly from the tip of his wand and then crackling lightning intercepts your attack. Through the sparks and bolts you see St. Jude’s puzzled expression—now is the chance to strike. A surprised opponent is a weak opponent; you swing your arm back—your arm is stuck.

From the tip of your wand a wiry crimson light crackles across the room, connected to St. Jude’s wand. When you try pulling back again, an invisible force lurches you forward, forcing your arm up until the thin light grows stronger, redder like spilt blood. Your arm shakes with the feeling of wrongness crawling up your arm, a kernel of god-awful flavour that has you biting your bottom lip. You feel an awareness. No. More than awareness, more sentient than that. It is recognition.

The point of your wand, shining a blazing white, shakes with the effort of you trying to pull back; shakes from whatever magic is transpiring between you two. On the other side, St. Jude has his free hand around his other wrist, trying to lower his wand, his face as white as a wall. To no avail.

The magic spreading from your wand through your body is like curious, warm fingers touching up along your arm, curling around your shoulder, settling against your cheek. They wander lower and splay across your chest, then sink through your ribs. Close around your heart. Squeeze.

The world explodes.

The magical blast sends you flying. Your teeth clang together as you slam on your back. Pain radiates through your body. Black dots dance before your eyes and blur your vision as you’re struggling for air.

A hushed silence has settled inside the Clock Tower. You shake your head, your free hand rising to your chest where you still feel a sharp twinge. Gingerly, you pick yourself up, carefully feeling for injuries. The whole room is a mess as though a wild Graphorn has ravaged inside and destroyed most of the furnishings. When your eyes lock with St. Jude’s across the room, your heart beats in your throat, making it hard to breathe.

Mirroring you, one hand is pressed against his chest, the other holds his wand in a vice-grip as though his life depends on it. You see him shudder helplessly, as if it were winter and he has gone outside without gloves and caught a terrible chill. His eyes meet yours, then drop to your wand. His lips mouth a single word, and you stare at him, throat tight, the cold sweat sensation of dread spreading slowly through your limbs.

And all of a sudden, you remember very clearly one thing Mr. Ollivander had told you all those years ago.

Once your paths cross, your fates will be irrevocably connected, growing together like the roots of old trees. Your wands have come from the same seed. There is no doubt that you fill find him.

Your Blackthorn boy.

Sitting cross-legged on the dusty ground in front of the Potions classroom, you pass time until the lesson starts playing Exploding Snap. With soot-black fingers and a singed collar, you’ve made your peace that within the next turns, you might lose your eyebrows—and worse, the game. If only Poppy’s expression would give away any hint, but she has an impressive poker face, and is still impeccably put together after three rounds.

Your skills are horrid. Or maybe the old suit of armour behind you is helping Poppy out, which you wouldn’t put past it after you accidentally knocked it over last year. These suits can be so resentful and petty. Whenever you lost a round, it creaks and clanks, laughing wheezily.

“Curious, isn’t it?” you muse. Poppy knows of your side business, but she’s been a good friend since year three, and not quite innocent herself when it comes to disobeying rules. “I don’t remember us having such a generous service when we started at Hogwarts.”

“Generous?” Poppy snorts.

Your answer gets stuck in your throat—you feel his gaze on you before you see him rounding the corner from the Central Hall. The feeling in the pit of your stomach is less that of a hook pulling you than a black hole sucking you in, leaving you breathless. The only satisfaction dampening the blow to your gut about how you react to this appearance is that St. Jude isn’t left unaffected as well.

He stops dead in his tracks—comically so, as though he’s walked into an invisible wall—and stares as if he’s seeing you for the first time. His chest is rising and falling, as though he is a drowning man who just got out of water and breathes air for the first time.

It’s just seconds. It feels like a lifetime—and then Sallow flings his arm around St. Jude’s shoulders and leans into him, lips almost brushing the shell of St. Jude’s ear as he whispers something.

St. Jude flinches at the sudden proximity but the grin splits his face, and he laughs at whatever Sallow said.

They walk past you inside the classroom, St. Jude doesn’t spare you another glance and the moment he disappears out of sight it’s like a noose lifting from your neck.

It takes a minute to shake off the heavy feeling, like fog lifting from your head. You wonder if St. Jude spent the night with your face imprinted on the back of his closed eyes. Like you did. You wonder if that is a side effect of whatever strange magic spun your wands together, so tedious and annoying you had stuck your wand tip-down into the pot of a young Kris plant in your bed chamber, only to wake up this morning and find the plant completely wilted and dry, much to Lenora’s horror who’d gotten that plant on a trip to Africa. Her cries were just background noise as you’d stared at your wand. The hawthorn whose cut branches smell of death.

Poppy’s small hand settles on your shoulder and the contact disperses your thoughts. When you look up at her, you reel back at Poppy’s knowing gaze, the secret smile flirting with her lips in the half-shadowed hallway.

“A troubling pair,” she states as though you’ve given any indication to the opposite. “But quite good-looking, aren’t they?”

You leave that without comment as you let Poppy pull you up to your feet and follow her inside the classroom. You assume people call Sallow handsome, the sort of generic handsome any growing boy with acceptable features might be.

St. Jude though—St. Jude is pretty in the same way the larkspur lining the road towards Hogsmeade are pretty: pretty dangerous, pretty lethal. Even brief contact with the flower can cause skin irritation or allergic reaction—which is pretty much what you feel crossing paths with St. Jude.

You shove the thought of him away.

Contrary to what everybody believes due to your grades, the subtle science and exact art of potion-making is one you sort into the more interesting classes. The classroom always smells pleasant—of dried herbs and rich fumes, of burnt wood and charred coal which you enjoy most with your love for setting things on fire. But you have no patience for looking after a softly simmering cauldron day after day, the care more demanding than looking after a delicate newborn.

Where you usually sit next to Javi, the seat is occupied by Imelda Reyes, which is the first warning flag that something is off.

“Right on time.” Professor Sharp rises like the fog over the Black Lake, stepping right between you and Poppy, and brushes the non-existing speck of dust from his handcuffs. “Despite my clear instructions that in your fifth year, you will switch your potions partner, I have yet to see any actual change. Thus before we waste any more time, let me do it for you.”

You flick your eyes to Javi. He doesn’t seem too sad about losing you in favour for Reyes, which is no surprise with his embarrassingly raging crush on her: he looks at her as if she is the moon and he the ocean’s waves, her pulling him in with such gravity he can do nothing but let her do what she wants with him. It is a bit embarrassing, really.

You quickly turn to Poppy. “Poppy, would you—”

“Miss Sweeting will pair up with our new student,” Professor Sharp announces. “And you will work with Mister Gaunt.”

Your stomach drops to your feet. Better than St. Jude but compared to them all it just feels like the lesser of two evils.

You trudge over to his potions station, unsure what face to make after what happened yesterday. It takes you ten seconds to realise how stupid that is because Gaunt can’t see you, so you just slide up right next to him and shrug off your robe. It won’t take long until the classroom feels like an oven, hot and humid from the fire and steam rising to the ceilings in swirling tendrils.

“So, what are we cooking?” you ask.

Gaunt’s head slightly turns your way. He looks very unimpressed. “Ah,” he says, recognition dawning upon hearing your voice. “You.” Only it sounds as if he’s addressing a servant or house elf.

“Me.” You throw your robe over the chair’s backrest and yank your sleeves up. “A pleasure, Gaunt.”

“We’ll see about that. If you think you’ll get easy grades from working with me, I must disappoint.”

“Disappointment is pretty much what I expected.”

Gaunt’s milky eyes flicker towards you, sending a scathing look in your general direction. Without another word, his hand reaches across the table, and he yanks the textbook towards him. With an impatient flick of his wand, the book snaps open to today’s lesson: how to brew the Draught of Peace.

After Professor Sharp’s usual instructions about the powers and dangers, and emphasizing twice that it often comes up at O.W.L.s, he leaves you to work.

You skim over the ingredients and see what is already at your station and which ones you have to collect from the ingredient shelves.

“I’m going to grab some syrup of hellebore,” you tell Gaunt, and from the trunk under the worktable, pull out a few stewed mandrakes. “Here, cut the mandrakes into cubes.”

Gaunt doesn’t move. He barely dips his head towards the sound of you shoving the chopping board his way. “Bold of you to trust a blind man with a knife,” he states.

You click your tongue. “Fine. Then portion the powdered ingredients. Can you do that?”

“I don’t know what the ingredients look like.” A hint of impatience steals into his voice. “Do you want us both to end up at the hospital wing?”

“What can you do then?” you snap back. As if you’ll do the whole work and just let him ride on your coattails.

Gaunt raises his chin. “Read the instructions.”

“Oh, yes. You prefer ordering people around, what a surprise.”

“If only people would actually listen.”

Merlin’s beard, you want to be done with this. You leave Gaunt at the station and get the remaining ingredients. Gaunt reads the whole recipe out first, loud and clear, the tips of his index and middle finger following after the flashing tip of his wand as it runs along the black lines on the page. You’re not sure how that magic works, but as long as he assists, you don’t care (you still make sure he doesn’t read something wrong off the list, glimpsing at the book whenever you finish one step).

The more Gaunt reads the more you get used to listening to his voice—and realise he has a nice, soothing voice, slightly higher in pitch than his other male classmates. Clear as spring water, like pearls gliding off a smooth surface and then you don’t listen to the words he’s saying, just his voice.

When he suddenly stops, it’s like a rope snapping in half and suddenly you’re in free-fall.

“You are not paying attention,” he snaps, slicing your thoughts apart with his sharp voice. You blink through the dark grey steam rising from your cauldron. Gaunt must have picked up on the small cues; he must have heard you’ve stopped moving about, stopped measuring the ingredients and just left the cauldron on the stove without reducing the heat. The smell itself doesn’t give away that your Draught of Peace is in danger of becoming a catastrophe.

You quickly lower the temperature of the flames, knocking over half of the other glass bottles and an inkpot as you reach for the hellebore. Black spills over the surface, drenches your parchment scrolls, the textbook; fizzes as small drops fall into the gentle fire beneath the cauldron.

Gaunt’s hand moves out in a flash, slender fingers curl around your wrist, pressing into the inside of your thin skin where your pulse hammers against his fingertips.

“What are you doing?” he hisses, and for a moment you think he sounds like a snake.

“Adding the hellebore, just like the recipe says.” You try to move your hand, but for someone with bony wrists Ominis Gaunt is surprisingly strong. He pushes your hand down until the small bottle smacks with a decisive clink on the table and your hand becomes trapped between the hard, cool surface and his warm, rough hand.

With a deceptive calm, Gaunt says, “You’re supposed to let it simmer for seven minutes. I’ve heard you don’t care much about grades, but I cannot afford to fail Potions.”

A snicker crawls its way up your throat, spills like the ink. The black pool has reached the table’s edge and leaves dark smudges on your white shirt, sticks to Gaunt’s long sleeves dragging over the surface. Somehow this is far more satisfying than anything you could say. “And now your grade hangs on how well I perform. How does it feel having to rely on other people your whole life? Maybe you should be a little nicer to me, Gaunt.”

His nostrils flare. You feel him dig his nails into your skin and you brace yourself for his retort, ready to devour any ammunition fired your way.

A familiar redhead pops up beside you. Garreth Weasley has one of the kindest faces you have ever known, and gentle green eyes. None of which means he is the innocent sheep walking among the students. He slumps against the desk, leans his waist against the edge and considers the mess on your potions station.

Weasley grins. “Am I interrupting something?”

Gaunt immediately shakes your hand off as though burnt and retreats to his side of the station. You turn to Weasley, scowling. You are spoiling for a fight and looking for trouble, but that trouble wasn’t supposed to be 6’5’’ tall, broad-shouldered, freckled-faced with almost any type of powdered potions ingredient perpetually embedded under his fingernails. “What do you want, Weasley?”

“My darling Hufflepuff,” he starts, and you see the warning signals for what they are.

“No.”

His face falls. “I haven’t even asked—”

“I don’t want to know.”

Weasley groans. “Come on, do your favourite Gryffindor a tiny favour, will you?”

“You’re nowhere near my favourite Gryffindor. I’ve also decided I am going to live an honest student’s life from now on.” You solemnly place your hand above your heart. “Steer away from any trouble.”

Weasley snorts. He looks like he doesn’t believe you. Gaunt looks like he doesn’t believe you. He doesn’t even pretend he’s not overhearing your conversation, eyebrows drawn together, head slightly inclined towards you. It seems he barely endures your presence as if you are a stone in his shoe, a minor but constant annoyance.

“Thing is,” Weasley says as though you haven’t said anything, “I sent the new kid to fetch a Fwooper feather for me from Sharp’s office. He hasn’t come back yet.”

Involuntarily, your eyes swivel through the classroom—and indeed, you don’t find St. Jude.

You exhale air very, very slowly. “Why in Merlin’s tits would you ask him to do that?”

Weasley rolls his eyes as if you’re some simple-minded Muggle incapable of comprehending that Unicorns indeed exist. “Well, I can’t just waltz in and take it. I’m pretty sure Sharp has enchanted the door with some anti-Weasley spells.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“And besides,” Weasley continues, ignoring you, “you’ve just run out of hellebore.”

“We have not run out of—”

With a swift swipe, Weasley pockets your glass vial, and winks. You feel an awful itch to cast a toenail-growing hex on him as he turns around and strolls back to his station.

There’s an awful silence as your potion simmers on its flame. In another corner of the room, you’re pretty sure Arthur Plummly is having a crisis because his brew keeps spattering and splashing like hot oil in a pan.

Gaunt clears his throat. “Did Weasley—”

“Yes.” You grit your teeth against a groan of frustration. “Yes, Weasley did.”

Gaunt crosses his arm. He looks as if he’s aged a couple years, which you feel is a common reaction to being subject to Weasley’s shenanigans.

You yank your sleeves back down and shove your chair out of the way—an awful screeching sound which doesn’t go unnoticed by Gaunt. He narrows his eyes. “Where are you going?”

“You heard the man. We’re out of hellebore.”

You don’t wait for his response. Sharp’s office is on the other side of the room; Sharp himself is currently trying to calm down Plummly, so this might be your only chance to slip in unnoticed.

The wooden door opens without resistance, and to your surprise and relief without any noise. In all five years you have only been inside Sharp’s office two or three times—for reprimands, to fetch ingredients, to prove Prewett you could indeed cast Alohomora flawlessly in your first year. Not much has changed. The desk is much messier than the one in the classroom, as though a storm has swept through. Shelves with ingredients line both sides of the room, the usual you recognise from lessons and some you’ve never seen before.

The only thing out of order is St Jude who, with hair askew and dust smudges on his face and shirt, is currently crawling on the grimy, dusty floor, hands scrambling inside a half-opened cupboard. You wait another long minute, just to really cement the picture into your brain.

“Looking for your dignity?” you ask aloud, watching St. Jude start hard enough he wrenches his hands back and hits his wrists against the cupboard’s edge. It looks painful. Good. “I’m afraid you won’t find it in there.”

St. Jude glowers at you, his grey eyes cutting like a sharp blade. It’s a gaze that crawls under your skin and chisels off the carefully constructed walls around the well where you’ve drowned any sort of curiosity at the very beginning of fifth year when you wanted to know who this mysterious new kid is. The fact that it is resurfacing when you thought you got rid of it is more than annoying.

“It’s only your second lesson and you’re already stealing from Sharp.” You whistle, making sure you’re extra loud just to see some fear or anxiety in those scrutinising eyes. “I don’t know if that’s brave or stupid.”

St. Jude climbs to his feet, quickly dusting off his pants where the dust left grey spots on his knees. “What do you want?” he asks, quickly moving past Sharp’s desk to the other side. He looks paler than usual, and there is an urgency to his stride as though he’s trying to run away. You almost ask him if something is wrong. Almost. “I’m busy.”

“Oh, I’m sure. Though you should have told Weasley you don’t know what a Fwooper feather is. You wouldn’t be wasting all our time like this.”

St. Jude stops dead in his tracks. He turns slowly to you, and with grave satisfaction you notice the crimson pinpricks spreading high on his cheeks. He opens his mouth, closes it. He looks like a little boy who’s been caught with his hand inside the cookie jar, which makes you realise two things at once.

“How do you—” he begins.

You nod at Sharp’s desk. “You’ve walked past it twice.”

He swallows. His chin juts out and his Adam’s apple catches—it’s a whole scene as he wearily eyes the clutter on the desk, and finally spots the glass container stuffed with dozen different feathers in every rainbow’s colour. He still doesn’t move.

“It’s the bright pink one,” you tell him.

Very slowly, St. Jude moves over and stuffs the Fwooper feather inside his robe’s pocket. A grin spreads slowly on your face. “You’re not from the Wizarding world, are you?”

Just as quick as the flush has spread across his face, it drains and St. Jude blanches.

“Because I don’t know what a Fwooper feather looks like? Pretty sure I’m not the only one.”

“Because you just told me.”

St. Jude blows a stray curl from his eyes. He looks as if he’s … pouting? “Does it matter?” he asks, casting his gaze from your head to your feet. “You don’t strike me as a pure-blood elitist.”

“I’m not.” You cross the room to the other side and grab another vial of hellebore-syrup from the shelf, shuddering at the dozen unblinking blowfish eyes pressed against the inside of a glass bottle. “Just wondering what your deal is.”

When you turn around, St. Jude stands in front of the door, staring at you for a long minute. “That isn’t what you said yesterday,” he says.

You shoot him a quick, warning glance. “Nothing has changed.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Why are any of us here? The universe is funny like that—”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Obviously. Weasley seems to worry about his new protégée. Or he just really wants this feather for his new concoction.”

St. Jude thinks about that. You see his jaw work, as if he’s trying to speak around a word. “You’re friends?” As if he can’t believe you are capable of having one.

He isn’t wrong. “Friends is a bit much.”

If you had a Galleon for every time you have made out with Weasley in a corridor to throw off prefects from the One-eyed Witch Passage, you’d have two Galleons. Which isn’t a lot, but it is weird it happened twice. The conversation after was beyond embarrassing. Weasley had a hard time articulating any words—I’m not interested, I mean there is hardly time; it’s not you, it’s me; I’m not interested in romance to be frank—He’d pulled you out of breakfast for that, doughnut still in hand which you had shoved into his mouth to shut him up. No, you’re not interested in him either, it is called distraction and, no, you don’t care he’s neither into women or men, that’s all his own business.

Weasley had looked relieved—more than relieved. Thankful someone doesn’t ask how and why and are you sure it’s not a phase?

“It’s none of my business,” you had said.

“I think you’re nicer than you let on,” he had insisted.

You’ll show him how nice you are next time you smash a Bludger into his face during a game.

“Having friends is good.” St. Jude’s voice pulls you back to the present. “Beats being alone.”

You shrug, feeling this is the moment to go, to leave and turn your back on him. Your feet don’t move. “Why are you doing all this?” you ask instead, and then you bite your lip because why are you still talking to him?

One black brow twitches up. “Doing what?”

“Being everybody’s errand boy.”

St. Jude leans against the dungeon wall, arms crossed. It seems he’s also building up a wall behind his eyes, they begin to flick from you to the shelves, up to the ceiling—everywhere except your face. “I’m the new kid. It’s kind of hard to get in with people who have known each other for five years.”

“And you think they will like you if you do their dirty work for them?”

A shadow falls over his eyes, the bright grey darkens like a brewing storm over the sea. “I like having people in my debt,” St. Jude says slowly. “You make friends faster than throwing money on the ground.”

“That sounds a lot like something Sallow would say.”

St. Jude’s eyes settle on you. His gaze is like a physical weight on the back of your neck. “You don’t like him.”

You snort. “What gave it away?”

“Why is that?”

You don’t have to think about it—the memory rises unbidden: you high up in the sky and Sallow on the broom approaching with neck-breaking speed. Your spiralling thoughts—He won’t; Sallow isn’t mad enough to fly right into me—though of course Sallow is ruthless and determined enough to do whatever it takes to win. The fall, the pain, the weeks spent in the hospital wing. “Because he is a bad person pretending to be good.”

“And you are a good person?”

“Maybe not. But I don’t pretend to be something I am not.”

“No.” His voice is disarmingly soft. “No, you do not.”

You meet his gaze head on as if it’s a challenge. It feels like everything with St. Jude is a challenge.

Then, all of a sudden, he asks, “Sebastian’s sister. What’s she like?”

“Why all those questions about Sallow? You could just ask him yourself.”

St. Jude gives a slow, inconspicuous shrug as though that is reason enough. You chew on your bottom lip, tipping the vial of hellebore upside down and back. Anne Sallow, now that is a name that has turned into a wisp since her leave last year, nothing more than a phantom’s memory to most students.

“If you think Sallow is good at duelling,” you start slowly, “you should see his sister. She even gave sixth-years a run for their Galleons.”

You remember Anne Sallow—not that she was easy to forget—always in her chequered trousers leading Sallow and Gaunt from mischief to mischief, her laughter boisterous and loud, filling the rooms and halls and announcing her presence. To this day, nobody knows why exactly she hasn’t returned to Hogwarts, but the rumours ran wild. Until people stopped caring. “They were always trouble, but Anne … when Sallow does something, sometimes you might think he actually intends to cause harm. Anne was bolder, and more mischievous. But she was also kinder.”

You see her face, peaking around the curtain, wincing in sympathy at your broken arm stuck in the sling. Only in your third year you realised the Sallow twins had the same eyes. When Sallow had said sorry, he wasn’t sorry for kicking you off during the Quidditch game, he was sorry that he’d been caught and punished for it. When Anne had said sorry, you believed her.

“Interesting,” says St. Jude. “You can say nice things about people.”

You brush past him and stop in front of the door for a moment to listen if anyone is walking past on the other side. “Don’t think you’ll get the same treatment, St. Jude.”

“Callum.”

You wait for him to add something, but nothing comes as he looks at you expectantly. “Yes, that is your name,” you say after a moment.

“You should start calling me Callum.”

You consider him with a blank expression. “No thank you.” With that, you push the door open, ear pressed against the hard surface to listen to Sharp’s limp.

St. Jude hesitates for but a moment, a shadow flitting over his face.

Before you can remind yourself you don’t care, your mouth speaks, “What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head as though trying to shake off a weight. “I am not fond of the smell of smoke and fire.” There is a scratch to his voice, like a broken record that keeps on spinning despite the damage. You don’t know what to say to that—you can’t remember a time where that smell has not brought you comfort.

“You’ll get used to it. I mean, it’s not the worst smell that can stick to your clothes down here.” You don’t know what you’re trying to do—reassure him or make light of the mood. Anything that would wipe away the pale, blank slab that his face is.

St. Jude sighs, resigned. He waves his hand at you with impatience, your cue to leave. You push the door open and squeeze past the narrow opening, slipping back out into the classroom. When you return to Gaunt, the damage is long done. Thick, black curls of smoke rise from the cauldron. The Slytherin boy sits on his stool, arms crossed, a slender finger tapping against his arm.

“I take it I was gone for more than seven minutes,” you say with the clinical observation of someone who messed up and does not want to admit she has messed up, or take the responsibility for it.

Gaunt has switched from sulking in his seat to trying to balance his wand on the tip of his index finger. “At least it seems most of the class has failed the task,” he says sullenly. “Professor Sharp advised us to ‘use that pile of pudding we call brain for once.’”

You assume Sharp’s mood might be worse than an offended Hippogriff, which also means that hopefully Weasley’s concoction works out for once instead of causing even more trouble—which is of course the moment Weasley’s cauldron explodes in a fit of colourful blasts, sparks, and a pungent odour of rotten eggs that has the surrounding students ducking away, retching.

From across the room, you meet St. Jude’s eyes. It takes exactly five seconds for Sharp to appear beside Weasley’s potions station despite his limp, rising like a Dementor ready to deliver punishment. There is no need for words: Sharp dips his chin, and then his eyes swivel like a compass and they settle on you first, then on St. Jude. Again, Sharp does not speak. Again, you meet St. Jude’s eyes, and you both move towards Sharp who is waiting for you two with an unreadable expression. You imagine facing a real Dementor might be more pleasant.

“When I allowed you to fetch what you needed from my office,” Sharp speaks and you can feel St. Jude deflate beside you which should give you some sort of satisfaction, “I did not mean that you can hand out my ingredients as if this is a common marketplace.”

St. Jude recovers quickly, lowering his eyes to the ground in unabashed guilt that reeks of shameless pretence. “I simply helped a friend in need, Sir.”

Two sets of dark, unimpressed eyes spear him; Sharp turns to you next, even more annoyed. “And you were not allowed to set a foot inside my office in the first place.”

“We’ve run out of hellebore essence,” you say, not looking at Weasley. “And I heard an Auror once say it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

It is a dirty card, quoting Sharp himself and he does not appreciate it judging from the glare he bends on you. When he cuts his gaze to Weasley next, the Gryffindor standing next to you actually flinches.

“There is only so much I can say to you Mister Weasley before turning into a broken record. Yes, you might have a gift for potions, but no, it does not give you permission to brew chaos—certainly not during class.”

“Sorry Professor,” is all Weasley says, crestfallen. He seems more disappointed about the fact his little project didn’t work out than getting caught.

“That’s ten points from Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor. Again. I do hope that in the future, should anything happen, it won’t always be you three causing trouble. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Professor,” choruse you, St. Jude, and Weasley in surprising and probably never-to-be-repeated unison.

“Good. And since all four of you seem so keen on taking responsibility, detention for the whole next week will suit you just fine.”

Weasley and you sputter at the same time. “But, Quidditch—”

“Sir, Quidditch practice starts next week!”

Only St. Jude picks up what you other two miss. “Four of us?”

“Precisely. I can see you listening in on our conversation, Mister Gaunt.”

Three heads swivel around to Ominis Gaunt still sitting where you left him, his face turned towards you. His brows are tightly knit together. “Why me, Professor? I didn’t do anything.”

“Exactly. To my knowledge, Mister Gaunt, you are blind. Not deaf. You could have stopped your potions partner from embarking on something stupid. It is in all our interest to teach students to look after each other.”

Now that leaves Gaunt actually speechless. It would be funny were it not for a tiny prick of guilt settling in your chest for dragging him into this. As though he can smell your guilt, like a hound on the scent, his grey eyes glare in your direction as though everything about this has been your very idea from the start.

“Until Monday evening,” Sharp says. He dismisses you with a curt nod, then limps back to his class as he dismisses class with a sharp flick of his hand.

You scuff back to your place to get your robe and schoolbag, bracing yourself for whatever Gaunt has in store for you because going for conflict seems to be your default setting for anyone hanging around St. Jude lately.

But Gaunt just packs up his scrolls and quill and manoeuvres around the stations towards the exits, his wand flashing an angry red on his way out.

~ ⋆｡°✩ ~

It starts with a hunger.

To be touched, to be loved, to feel anything at all. It is such a familiar feeling that at first, nothing strikes you as out of order. Then comes the laughter—bright like clear bells, innocent. Unmistakably young, children’s voices.

They echo down a decrepit, narrow hallway drowned in shadows, the lily-of-the-valley wallpaper damp and overgrown with something dark and reeking of waste. Portraits, framed in rotten wood, hang askew, showing cobblestone alleys and crooked church towers. The only light crawls from open doors to adjacent bedrooms with bunk beds and half-deteriorated cabinets. Children’s toys lie scattered on the muddy ground as if recently used. On these walls hang crude crayon drawings of small children crying blood and adults hanging from the gallows, their neck crooked and twisted. A feeling of wrongness blooms within your chest, thick and sharp vines that grow up your lungs and make it hard to breathe.

You pass these corridors, eyes roaming over the unfamiliar faces on the portraits—James, Annabel, Theodore, Alice—but how? You have never seen them before.

The corridor ends in a wide-open hall with long tables and benches placed in an even distance from another. There are just leftover scraps on the dirty plates, an amount not meant to satisfy anyone’s hunger. The hunger in the pit of your stomach grows, snarls, gnaws at you.

The sense of wrongness spikes, a steady built up at the back of your head until you find him, cowering in a corner, face hidden behind his hands, save for the narrow gap between his small fingers where one eye is peeking through—looking right at you, at the world, like a single silver star flashing in the dark night.

The pressure is a steady column building, growing, pushing until you feel it overflowing from your pores.

Destroy it.

Destroy what?

Everything.

Everything?

And then everything is swallowed in flames.

You come out of the dream with the scent of burnt flesh and thick smoke in your nose and the taste of hot ash in your mouth. The fire took a dozen lives—the orphans whose name everyone forgot, everyone but you. James, Annabel, Theodore, Alice—except it wasn’t you who blew up the orphanage. Your sense of self shudders before separating enough for you to get a grasp of who you are and who you are not.

Callum St. Jude.

“What about him?”

You blink away hot tears from your eyes. Lenora shakes you with an urge as if she’s trying to shake the sense back into you. “Wake up. You’re scaring the other girls.”

“Fire—” You gasp, and choke as your lungs fill with clean air free from smoke and fire. “There’s a fire—”

“There is no fire.” Poppy’s wand swirls through the air and a small cup with water floats into your shaking hands. “It was just a bad dream.”

No, not a dream. A memory.

Poppy yelps when you shove the cup back into her hands, spilling half of its contents onto your and her nightclothes. Scrambling for your robe, you tumble out of bed and grab your wand before rushing out of the bedroom, the racing of your heart in your ears drowning the other girls’ voices.

The common room is dark and abandoned, the only light the softly crackling fire in the chimney still burning and for the first time you look at it and feel terrified. But the terror mashes and mixes with a rapidly swelling anger that chokes you up, sits on your chest and squeezes your ribs because why does he do that to you? What exactly is it about this boy that holds you like a bird in a cage?