Motion
Astraea dismissed it as nothing. A trick of the candlelight. A moment of dizziness. But the second time, she couldn't deny it. It began with a name. A name that shouldn't have meant anything to her, but it did. Harry Potter.
The words had stood out on a copy of the Daily Prophet left in her father’s study, their ink stark against the yellowed parchment. She hadn’t meant to linger, but something pulled at her, unseen hands dragging her gaze back to those two words, whispering in the hollow spaces of her mind. Her fingers brushed the page, and the cold came.
Not a passing chill. Not the draft from the open window.
Something deeper. Something wrong.
The world dimmed, the ink seeming to bleed across the paper, spreading like veins beneath her fingertips. Shadows stretched where they shouldn’t. The candlelight flickered, guttering in a breathless moment of stillness. A distant pressure—like the weight of unseen eyes—settled over her skin.
And then—
Two paths. Two futures.
A boy with lightning on his brow, standing before something vast, something inevitable.
A broken figure, eyes like dying embers, walking toward the end.
Astraea ripped her hand away, her breath sharp in her throat. The world snapped back into place. The shadows retreated. The words on the page returned to their ordinary stillness. But the cold lingered in her chest, curling between her ribs, waiting.
This was the ability she thought she had left behind. The one that had ruined her in another life. The one that had been triggered and awakened when she glimpsed toward her Uncle.
She swallowed, wrapping her arms around herself. It was different now—more controlled, but heavier. It felt less like a gift and more like a warning.
But a warning of what?
She spent hours lying awake, staring at the ceiling of her room, willing the answer to come. The flickering images hadn’t shown her enough, only brief snatches of something vast—a fate already written, yet shifting under her gaze.
Harry Potter.
She had never read the books. Her mother had warned her never to touch them. Had she always been meant to end up here? In a world that had only been fiction to her before?
It wasn’t just about Harry. It was about why she had been placed here. Why death had let her come back again. What it wanted from her.
The thought sent another chill through her. She curled deeper into her sheets, fingers gripping the fabric as if it could anchor her in place.
She was Astraea Moonglass now. She was alive. She had a home. A family.
And yet, something was still waiting. Watching. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what it was.
The air was thick with the scent of parchment and polished wood as Astraea Moonglass stood in the entryway of her home, her trunk packed and ready. The weight of her Hogwarts robes settled over her shoulders, unfamiliar yet fitting, as though they had been waiting for her all along. Remus stood beside her, his expression unreadable but warm, as he adjusted the strap of her bag over her shoulder.
She had said her goodbyes to her parents this morning before they left for work. It was brief and emotional, and better that way. She knew if they had stayed behind and had the choice , they’d change their mind in a heartbeat and keep her here forever. So, with love and blessings, her parents departed for work and left her in the hands of her capable Uncle she treasured.
“Ready?” Remus asked, his voice gentle.
Astraea nodded, though her fingers twitched at her sides. There was an unease curled in her stomach, a quiet whisper that something was shifting, something was beginning. She didn’t know what yet, but the cold was settling in her bones again, the way it always did before something important.
••••••
King’s Cross was a blur of bodies and steam, the calls of children and last-minute reminders from parents ringing in the air. Platform 9¾ loomed ahead, and before Astraea could dwell too long on how utterly strange it felt to step through the barrier into the world of fiction-made-reality, Remus placed a steadying hand on her back and led her forward.
The Hogwarts Express stretched before them, a scarlet serpent against the morning light. Astraea breathed in deeply, feeling the energy crackling in the air—new beginnings, old echoes. She followed Remus inside the train, finding an empty compartment as the station filled with students.
As the train lurched forward, Astraea finally turned to Remus, curiosity weighing on her tongue.
“Can I ask you something?”
He hummed, his gaze shifting from the window to her.
“What was Hogwarts like when you were a student?”
A soft chuckle left him. “It was... chaotic, in the best way. I had friends who made it that way.”
Something flickered in his eyes then—that same shadow of sorrow. Astraea tilted her head, sensing the ache hidden beneath his words.
“You miss them.” It wasn’t a question. Just an observation, one she felt deep in her chest.
Remus exhaled, nodding. “I do. Every day.”
Astraea didn’t press further. She could feel the quiet grief lingering around him like a phantom, and for once, she did not want to look too closely. Instead, she let the silence settle between them, offering Remus respite as he leaned against the seat and closed his eyes. Since the morning he had worn a pale complexion. She’d only seen it twice over her childhood… Astraea knew her uncle was a tad sickly in certain days of a month. Today was probably one. Soon enough, his breaths evened out, the exhaustion in his frame finally pulling him under.
The train continued on, gathering more students at each stop. Astraea remained still, waiting, listening to the hum of the wheels against the tracks—until the door to her compartment slid open.
She turned.
A boy stood in the doorway, dark hair ruffled from the wind, a lightning-shaped scar barely visible beneath his fringe. His green eyes met hers, and for a moment, everything else ceased to exist.
Astraea felt her oxygen dissipate for a moment.
The world around her pulsed, a sharp, aching feeling surging through her veins. The compartment was gone. Instead, flashes of something—someone—filled her mind.
A boy reaching for her hand beneath the stars.
A whispered promise, lost to time.
A figure cloaked in darkness, stepping between them, pulling them apart.
The vision snapped away as quickly as it had come, leaving Astraea cold, her fingers digging into the seat beside her.
Across from her, the raven haired boy stiffened. As if he too, had seen what she had too.
His breath had caught in his throat the moment he met Astraea’s eyes, something foreign clawing at the edges of his mind. Images he didn’t recognize, feelings he couldn’t name. A deep, unshakable knowing. And yet—it was impossible. He didn’t know this girl. He had never seen her before in his life.
Before he could make sense of it, a voice interrupted the moment.
“There you are, Harry,” Hermione said as she stepped into the compartment, Ron trailing behind her. Her eyes landed on Astraea, then flickered to Remus, who was still asleep. “Oh, I didn’t realize this compartment was occupied.”
“It’s…fine,” Astraea said, her voice even, though something still churned beneath her ribs.
Ron and Hermione exchanged a glance, wary of her tone. There was something about her that felt... off. Not threatening, but distant, as though she were half in this world and half somewhere else entirely.
But Harry—Harry could not look away.
And neither could Astraea.
The steady chug of the Hogwarts Express filled the compartment, punctuated by the occasional rattling of windowpanes and the muffled laughter of students in the hall. The warmth inside contrasted with the dreary, rain-streaked sky beyond the glass, but despite that, Astraea felt cold.
It was an emptiness that curled around her spine, settling in her bones, though she wasn’t sure if it came from within or from the weight of something unseen pressing against her. The train felt like it was carrying her toward something inevitable.
She sat quietly in the corner, fingers idly smoothing the cover of a book she appeared to be skimming through but she wasn’t reading. She was too occupied with the figures in the space; especially the boy she knew and yet not.
Across from her, Harry Potter sat stiffly, his green eyes flickering toward her in between glances at the sleeping Remus. Every so often, his fingers twitched, as if resisting the urge to rub his arms against a phantom chill.
Something was wrong.
Harry didn’t know how else to explain it. He had spent years encountering strange, unexplainable things— the newly introduced dementors, basilisk voices, Voldemort whispering in his head. But this was different. This was subtle. An itch in his mind. The creeping sensation of recognition when there shouldn’t be any.
He had never seen this girl before. And yet, when their eyes met, something twisted inside him. The feeling must have shown on his face because Ron suddenly cleared his throat, shifting awkwardly.
“So, uh… you’re new, yeah?” he asked, his tone light but uncertain.
Astraea lifted her gaze, expression unreadable. “To Hogwarts? Yes.”
Ron blinked. “Right. So, where were you before?”
A pause. A flicker of something unreadable in Astraea’s eyes.
“Elsewhere,” she said simply.
Hermione shot Ron a look before offering a careful smile. “Were you homeschooled?”
Astraea inclined her head slightly. “I was.”
There was something oddly formal about the way she spoke, as if every word was selected with deliberate precision. It unsettled Hermione in a way she couldn’t quite explain.
Harry still hadn’t looked away.
He didn’t know what he was searching for. But when Astraea’s violet eyes met his once more, he felt it again—that strange, dizzying pull, like standing at the edge of a memory that didn’t belong to him.
Flashes.
A flicker of candlelight. The feeling of something slipping through his fingers. A voice—soft, distant, but painfully familiar—saying his name like it meant the world.
He stilled.
Astraea, too, stiffened. The cold was stronger now. The shadows in the corners of the compartment deepened.
She felt it.
The brief, electric spark of something old, something wrong.
A whisper that she should know him.
And yet, the knowledge slipped through her grasp, dissolving before she could make sense of it.
The train compartment grew quiet again, save for the rhythmic clatter of the wheels against the tracks. Rain began tracing lazy patterns down the windowpanes, the grey sky stretching endlessly beyond them.
She could feel the weight of their three pairs of eyes on her.
“Right, well,” Ron was the first to break the silence again, his voice carrying an awkward sort of cheer. “I’m Ron Weasley. This here’s Hermione Granger.” He gestured beside him, where Hermione sat with her hands primly folded in her lap. “And, uh—” he motioned toward Harry “—this is Harry Potter.”
Astraea blinked slowly, as if tasting the weight of the name in the air.
The boy she’d dreamt of. The boy from that one book she should not have touched.
The name sat heavy in her mind, tugging at something she could not see. A thread buried deep, wound too tightly around her ribs. She had seen his name too—inked boldly on a newspaper in her father’s study. She knew what he was to this world. The Boy Who Lived. The symbol of something greater.
But none of that explained why the very sound of his name felt like a hand reaching into her chest, stirring old embers into reluctant flame.
And then—
“You?” he spoke for the first time.
It was just a word. Just a single syllable, laced with quiet curiosity.
And yet, something in her shuddered.
Astraea had not realized she had been holding her breath until she exhaled, the motion slow, measured. His voice was… familiar. As though she had once heard it not in this life, but in another—whispered across the edges of a farther dream she could never remember.
She did not let it show.
“Astraea Moonglass,” she said, her own voice drifting through the air like a fragment of a half-forgotten melody.
It was Harry’s turn to tense.
It was just a name. But when she spoke it, it was as though the syllables held weight beyond what should be possible. It wasn’t just the way she said it—it was the way it felt when it reached him.
Like something slipping through his fingers. Like something he should know.
Harry swallowed. “Nice to meet you, I guess.”
Astraea only inclined her head slightly. “Likewise.”
The room felt heavier now, the air thick with something unspoken. Ron, blissfully unaware of the undercurrents crackling between them, clapped his hands together. “So, er—first year, yeah?”
“No,” Astraea corrected simply. “Third.”
Hermione’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh! You’re a transfer?”
Astraea’s violet eyes flickered to her. “Something like that.”
Hermione, unaware of the storm passing between them, shifted uncomfortably. “Erm… well, I suppose it’ll be nice to have a fresh start at Hogwarts,” she offered. “Do you know what house you’ll be in?”
Astraea finally looked away from Harry. If she looked any longer she swore she would break into unexplainable tears. “No.”
“Probably Ravenclaw,” Ron muttered under his breath. Hermione elbowed him.
“You don’t have a preference?” Hermione pressed.
Astraea only blinked, unmoved by the exchange. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
Harry barely registered the conversation anymore. His fingers curled into the fabric of his robes, willing away the unease creeping into his skin.
It was just his imagination. It had to be.
The feeling—the strange, creeping sensation of recognition—hadn’t left him. If anything, it had only settled deeper, curling into the corners of his thoughts like a whisper he couldn’t quite hear.
There was something about Astraea Moonglass. Something that made the hair on the back of his neck rise. He knew it wasn’t anything ill intended like his previous encounters with others the past two years.
There were no words…something that made his chest ache in a way he did not understand.
Astraea did not look at him again. But in the quiet of her own mind, she could not shake the feeling that she had walked into a story that had already begun long before she had arrived.
After the brief introductions and exchanges, the three were talking lowly about something. The name Sirius Black popped out around two to three times. Something about Harry Potter being in danger this year and ectera ectera. Astraea paid no mind, her book becoming much better to invest her being into than holding the urge to stop looking up at Harry.
They asked about her Uncle Lupin, surprised at an adult riding the express with them. Some blonde boy and others came barging into the compartment too, and it wasn’t until Harry referenced the adult being their new “Professor” and scaring the wits out of him with her abnormal eyes that he left in a scurry.
The train rattled along the tracks, the rain outside now heavier, hammering against the windows in an unrelenting downpour. The lanterns in the corridor flickered, casting long, wavering shadows across the walls. The conversation in the compartment had drifted into silence, a quiet lull settling between them.
Then—
The temperature plummeted.
Astraea felt it before she saw it—the way the warmth in the air evaporated, replaced with a creeping, unnatural chill. A shadow slithered through her chest, twisting around her ribs, pressing against something she could not name.
She had felt this before.
Not here. Not in this life.
But somewhere.
She wasn’t using her dormant ability was she?
Ron shuddered violently, wrapping his arms around himself. “Blimey, why’s it so cold all of a sudden?”
The lights dimmed, flickering one last time before being snuffed out entirely.
Darkness.
A presence was coming. Something old. Something hungry. She could feel it—like icy fingers brushing against the edges of her mind, searching, sifting through something she did not want to give.
The door to their compartment slid open with a slow, creaking groan.
Astraea did not move. Neither did the rest of them.
A tall, hooded figure, akin to the Grim Reaper from legends, loomed in the doorway, its very presence suffocating. From beneath the ragged folds of its cloak, an unseen maw gaped open, inhaling the air itself.
Cold.
So much cold.
Her vision blurred for a moment—her head light, as though something else were being pulled from her. The creature was reaching, clawing through her memories—through lifetimes—searching for the deepest wounds, the darkest moments.
Astraea clenched her fists.
Not again.
Not this time.
A wheezing breath rattled from the Dementor’s unseen throat, the sound thick with decay. The temperature in the compartment dropped further, and then—
A strangled noise escaped Harry.
Astraea’s gaze snapped to him just as his body lurched forward. His eyes were wide but unfocused, his face draining of color, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
“No—” His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. He was hearing something. A scream. A woman’s scream.
And Astraea knew, without a doubt, that whatever horror the Dementor had dredged up from the depths of his soul—it was not something from this lifetime alone.
Her blood ran cold.
A great rush of noise filled the air, the scream in Harry’s mind rising, reaching a terrible crescendo—And then everything went black.
Harry collapsed.
“Harry!” Hermione lunged forward, catching his shoulders before he could hit the floor.
The Dementor loomed closer, its rattling breath curling through the frigid air—
"None of that, now."
A flash of silver. Blinding, brilliant light. The darkness recoiled. The Dementor let out a terrible, rattling hiss as something powerful, something ancient, burst forth in a rush of silver-blue. It charged, driving the darkness back, banishing it.
The weight lifted. The air filled with warmth, with breath, with life.
Astraea’s vision swam, her chest heaving. A heavy, deliberate step echoed through the compartment.
Remus Lupin stood tall, wand still raised, his expression composed—but there was something in his eyes. Something sharp. Something wary.
His gaze swept over them, lingering on Harry, then Astraea.
"Eat this," he said quietly, breaking the silence as he fished through his pockets. A bar of chocolate, divided into pieces. "Both of you."
Astraea took it with unsteady fingers, handing the other piece to Hermione who held it by Harry’s lips to give when he too became steady.
“Stay put. I’ll need to speak to the driver. Excuse me…” Lupin exited, as the rest of the train had been driven to madness with students crying in various places.
Harry stirred, his breathing shallow, his forehead damp with cold sweat. His eyelids fluttered, and a small, pained sound escaped his lips as he tried to anchor himself back into consciousness.
"Harry?" Hermione's voice was strained with concern as she leaned forward, shaking his shoulder gently. "Take it easy."
Astraea had already moved. Unthinking, unbidden—drawn to him like the tide to the moon. She knelt before him, her hands hovering over his arm, but she didn’t touch him. Something in her, something ancient and weary, warned her not to.
Ron shifted uncomfortably beside Hermione, eyes flicking between Astraea and Harry with clear suspicion.
Harry's lashes fluttered, then, with a deep, shuddering breath, his eyes opened.
Green.
A deep, verdant green that struck something inside Astraea like the echo of a forgotten melody. Mesmerizing.
Violet.
In the dim lighting it was like observing the wind breeze through a field of lavender sitting under a starry night. Captivating.
Harry blinked, unfocused at first, then his gaze locked onto hers.
The compartment felt impossibly small.
Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.
Astraea studied his face—pale from the encounter, features slack with lingering exhaustion, yet aware. Not wary, not uneasy, just… searching.
Hermione inhaled sharply. "Moonglass, maybe you should—"
"It's fine," Harry rasped, his voice hoarse but firm.
Ron’s brows furrowed. "Mate, are you sure?"
Harry swallowed, his throat working. His head ached, his limbs were still cold, but for some reason, Astraea’s presence wasn’t something he wanted to push away. If anything, it steadied him.
Astraea tilted her head, observing him in that quiet, unreadable way of hers. Then, finally, she exhaled, a slow breath through her nose, and leaned back, giving him space.
The moment passed, yet something between them remained.
A thread.
Faint, invisible, yet unbreakable.