wibbly wobbly timey writey stuff.

A strange, invisible weight that settled itself behind her ribs and in the middle of her chest. It's a pressure that creeps up suddenly with no warning. Elena exhales slowly through her nose, trying to shake the sensation. It doesn’t leave, it doesn't settle, It adapts.

Her fingers curl into the blanket without her realizing it. Her breath staggered into the dark. This wasn't normal. She doesn’t move right away. Because movement makes it real. And if she stays still long enough, maybe her brain will decide it’s just a dream bleeding into wakefulness or fade back into nothingness

But the silence around her is too clean for that. Too structured. Like the world is holding its breath. 

When she finally sits up, the sirens are already fading. They leave behind something worse than sound. Absence.

She swings her legs off the bed, feet touching the cold floor, grounding her in something physical. It helps. A little. Not enough. Her hand drifts to the wall as she stands, fingertips brushing paint she hasn't memorized since moving to the small town.

Touch helps more than sight. Touch is real. It's something to cling onto when one's mind tries to trick them. 

The hallway is dark when she steps out of her room. Her father is asleep down the hall. The house is supposed to feel safe. It does. Technically. But safety and certainty aren’t the same thing.

She pauses at the front door. Doesn’t even remember deciding to stand there. Her reflection is faint in the glass panel—pale, slightly tired, eyes too aware for this hour of the night. 

A small voice in the back of her mind slips trying to stop her from acting out of instinct

Not fear. Instruction. Sharp and unfamiliar. Elena stops and stares at the front door for a moment. Then reaches for the handle anyway. The click of the lock sounds too loud in the quiet house. 

Outside air hits her immediately. Cool. Clean. Real. The street is empty in the way small towns always are at night, like the world is paused between breaths. Streetlights hum softly above her, casting long, stretched shadows that don’t quite match the things that make them.

Elena steps onto the pavement. And immediately feels it again. Pressure.

Not stronger. Not weaker. Just waiting for her. Like it was already here before she woke up. Her gaze drifts automatically toward the edge of the neighborhood. The trees. The preserve. She doesn’t consciously decide to look there. Her attention is pulled. And that’s what makes her pause. Because she notices that. Not just the feeling, but the fact that it directs her. Instruction.

She starts walking before she can talk herself out of it. The closer she gets to the trees, the more the world feels like it’s losing definition. Not visually. Sensory. The distance between sounds stretches. The wind doesn’t feel like wind anymore. It feels like something passing through space that doesn’t want to be noticed. Elena slows without meaning to. Her steps become more careful. Measured. Not because she’s afraid, because something in her is paying attention in a way she can’t turn off. 

Her hand brushes bark as she reaches the tree line. Rough. Cold. Real.  The moment she crosses it the shift happens. It isn’t gradual. It’s immediate. Like stepping through water into something denser. Her breath catches sharply as sensation floods in all at once. Not sound. Not vision. Not thought. 

Feeling.

Too much of it, too fast. It presses against her mind like a physical force, forcing her awareness outward instead of inward. And underneath it something else. Anger. Not human anger. Not simple frustration or pain. Something layered. Old. Deep. Hungry in a way that feels intentional. Elena grips the tree harder than she means to. Her nails pressed into bark. As her other hand reaches for her head. She tries to ground herself again. Focussing on something real. The texture. The cold. Her own breathing.

In. Out. But the feeling doesn’t respect that. It spreads. Expands. And then, underneath everything, pain. Not fresh. Not new. Something that has been sitting in the dark for too long. Something buried.

Her stomach tightens. “…Okay,” she whispers, but this time it’s less steady. “Okay, what is that?” Her words slip, the words don’t answer. But something inside them shifts.

Subtle. Like attention turning. Her breath hitches. Because now she knows, it knows she’s here. A branch snaps somewhere deeper in the forest.

Sharp. Final. Elena freezes.

The silence that follows is worse than the sound. Because it isn’t empty. It’s focused.

She doesn’t move. Neither does whatever is out there. And for a second there is a shared stillness between them. Like both sides are waiting to see what the other will do. Her heart beats louder now. Not fast enough to panic. Not slow enough to be calm. Something in between.

“Hello?” she calls out. Immediately regretting her decision to call out to whatever is lurking. The word feels childish in this space. Too small. 

No response.

But the pressure in her chest changes. It sharpens. Condenses. Closer now. Elena takes a step back. Then another. Slow. Controlled. Because running would mean admitting she understands what this is. And she doesn’t want to understand it.

Something moves. Fast. Too fast to track. Just beyond her vision. Her body reacts before her mind does, shoulders tightening, breath cutting short. But there’s nothing to see. Only absence where movement should have been.

“Okay,” she breathes, backing up faster now. “I’ll go now.” She turns. Leaves. Doesn’t run. But she doesn't walk normally either. Something between the two. A controlled retreat. The feeling follows. Not physically. But in awareness.

Like it doesn’t need to be close to be present. Only when she breaks through the tree line does she stop. The street hits her like a different world. Lighter. Louder in a way that feels almost fake. She bends slightly, hands on her knees, forcing air back into her lungs in a steady rhythm.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

It takes longer than it should to feel normal again. But “normal” is relative now. She straightens slowly. And looks back. The forest is still. Unchanged. Unbothered. As if nothing happened. As if she didn’t just feel something inside it looking back at her. Her fingers tighten at her sides. The realization settles slowly. Not dramatic. Not suddenly. Just inevitable.

“…That wasn’t an animal,” she mumbles quietly. And what unsettles her most, isn’t that whatever it was answers. It’s that she already knew it before she said it.

That night, sleep doesn’t come easy. It fragments. Every time she drifts close, she’s back in the woods again, not visually, but emotionally.

That pressure. That awareness.

That sense of being noticed by something she cannot see. At some point, she stops trying to force sleep and just lies there, staring at the ceiling, listening to her own breathing like it belongs to someone else. “…It was real,” she whispers once, just to hear it outside her head. The silence agrees. Or doesn’t contradict her. Which feels like the same thing.

Morning arrives too quietly. Too ordinary. Light spreads across her room like nothing unusual ever happened. Elena sits up slowly, eyes adjusting, body still carrying last night in ways she can’t explain. She dresses in silence. Every movement is automatic. Controlled. Routine is safer than thought. Thought leads back to last night. And last night doesn’t make sense in daylight.

Downstairs, her father is already awake. Coffee. Newspaper. Same posture as always, like nothing in the world has ever required urgency from Tom Reyez..

“Morning,” he says without looking up.

“Morning,” she replies.

There’s a pause. Normal conversation would fill it. But nothing feels normal right now. Her father notices something eventually. He always does. “You didn’t sleep well,” he says. Not a question. a simple statement. “Bad dreams?”

A simple out. It’s an easy lie. She considers it. Then, “No,” she says instead.

Honesty, for reasons she doesn’t fully understand. That makes him look up. Briefly. Studying her face. She keeps her expression neutral. Controlled. After a moment, he nods once. “Jet lag?” Like that should be enough. Like it explains the way she still felt watched.

“…Yeah,” she answers quietly. “Maybe.”

The Silence returns. But it doesn’t settle. It lingers. Because now she knows something she didn’t know yesterday. There are things in Beacon Hills that don’t belong in daylight explanations. And whatever stood in the forest last night, didn’t just notice her.

The street of Sycamore Lane was nothing compared to what it looked like during the day. A lost football lay in the yard of the house on the corner and the swings from the playground were being pushed by no more than the warm breeze that filled the neighborhood.

The man halted his pace as he passed a dark alley in the middle of the street. He chuckled softly and muttered “Good Evening, Professor McGonagall." He turned his eye to the shadows and smiled at the rather severe-looking woman that was walking into the light.

“Good evening Professor Dumbledore.” The woman took a few quick steps to catch up to the man his side. "I suppose you have a good reason to be back here?” She gave Dumbledore only a sideways glance as if expecting he would tell her something, but he appeared to only listen as the woman continued to speak. “Rumors are flying across once more Albus. The most terrible rumors at that.”

Professor McGonagall appeared to have refused to believe any of them as true unless Dumbledore confirmed them.

But the man himself provided no conclusion to the story, it was up to her to come out on a rumor that he would need to either confirm or deny. "Pettigrew was apparently shouting upon the Potters' deaths that it was Sirius Black who betrayed them to You-know-who. Then, before anyone could comprehend what was happening, Black showed up and bombarded an entire street. Murdered everyone within twenty feet of himself. Twelve muggles death, and all that’s left of Poor Pettigrew is his finger." Professor McGonagall trembled as she continued.

"Albus, could you tell me, are the rumors true? Was she there with them? Is Fiona really dead?" Dumbledore bowed his head. "Sadly.”

"Fiona,... I can't believe it… what about her child, the little girl?”

“Perfectly safe.” Reassured Dumbledore. “I've come to assure that Mrs Quintin arrives here with her grandparents.”

"You can't possibly be referring to those two elderly muggles!?" Professor McGonagall exclaimed. "Come now Professor McGonagall, John and Alice have always been kind to us."

“Kindness shall do little to protect the girl. How do you suppose those muggles explain her mothers death? Her father being imprisoned in Azkaban?”

“Truthfully.” Professor McGonagall opened her mouth to protest but no words left her. “I’ve also written them a letter.”

“A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall “You and your letters!”

“In time she shall learn to understand her mothers sacrifice was made out of love for those around her.” Dumbledore said. “It takes great courage to stand up to those close to us. and far more bravery to risk oneself at the same time.”

“Everyone is speaking of Fiona and Pettigrew as if they are some sort of heroes! They will all know what happened, they will know who that girl is.”

“Yes, they will. Mrs Quintin shall always be reminded of an act of courage by her mother, the same act that presented her with once greatest loss, the love of her own mother. Can you now see how much better off she shall be in the hands of her grandparents.”

Professor McGonagall never argued with Dumbledore about his decisions, taking his word and beliefs as her own and trusting him in all he did. “You are right, as always.” She said, “But how will the girl get here?”

“I have informed our friend Remus Lupin of the tragic events and asked him to return from his business and bring Mrs Quintin to us Safely.”

"Remus? He's been traveling across the country for months.

Do you think it's wise to entrust him with something that is as important and fragile as a child?"

"To this day he remains one of Fiona, her closest friends.”

"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," Professor McGonagall grumbled. "That is why I see no problem in the matter.” The surrounding silence was broken by a deep rumble. Both professors peered down the street to a soft yellow light that appeared from around the corner. A dark Grey Oldsmobile Cutlass pulled to a halt right before the two professors, the lights that eliminated the street returning to darkness and the sound of a rambling engine welcomed the surrounded silence once again. The car door opened with a high pitched squeal and out stepped a tall and slender young man. “Professor.”

“It’s good to see you Remus, I apologize it has to be under such sorrowful circumstances.” Remus nodded to Professor Dumbledore once, no need to dwell on the thoughts of all the friends he had lost in so little amount of time. “There was no trouble I hope.” Dumbledore questioned.

“Except for the girl with her grave talent of mistrusting a new face, none at all.” Remus said as he worked to lift her out of the car. “She fell asleep an hour into the drive.” Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall looked at the young girl wrapped into a blanket, her head laying on Remus’s shoulder as her snores filled the late hours.

"We no longer have any business here.” Dumbledore said, breaking through the silence deeming his task of the night fulfilled “Remus is more than capable of taking the girl to her grandparents himself. I assume this is alright with you.”

“It would be my pleasure, professor.”

Dumbledore took one last glance at the young girl who nuzzled closer to the man holding onto her, a young girl that had yet to understand the world she would one day enter. Rummaging in his cloak, the Professor found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. Taking out an envelope he handed it to Remus carefully before bowing his head to the man.

Professor Albus Dumbledore walked down the street in the town of Little Whining until he heard the sound of the doorbell at Sycamore Lane number twenty-tree.

When the front door of the house furthest away opened to welcome a young girl to her new home and a warm summer breeze ruffled the trees, on the corner of the street where a strange man had appeared earlier that night all that was left now was a tabby cat who purred into the night as a few simple words carried themselves away in the wind.