Chapter 1
It was dark outside when I woke up, but I was grateful for it as I quietly slipped from my bed and toed my slippers on. My hands instinctually tightened my robes around me, and I went quickly to the loo before wandering upstairs to the empty common room. I had always been a fan of the rich, royal blue and silver accents, but I felt it couldn’t often be enjoyed with the hustle and bustle of my classmates. It was the first week back to school, and every Ravenclaw was dutifully living up to our reputation and spending their free time studying in the common room, or hosting witty games on the many sofas and chaise lounges scattered strategically around the room. It was nice to have so much space to socialize, but my favorite part of it all was the constellation spell suspended eternally in the ceiling. I selected a sofa closest to the crackling, simmering heat of the fire and curled in on myself, setting my gaze upon the beautiful enchanted imagery above me.
Having a moment to quiet my scattered mind was imperative to my ability to function throughout the day, and it was often very difficult to find a few moments of silence each morning without waking up before the sun. Thankfully, my roommates liked to sleep in until the very last minute, which gave me time to sneak out and focus on centering myself each morning, only to return to the room where they were all rushing around to get ready for the day.
I used to be able to still my mind while I went through the motions of my meticulous morning routine. I used the monotony to separate my thoughts and feelings from what I needed to accomplish for the day and stuff them into their respective compartments. Now, the process required my full attention. Not doing so typically resulted in my heart racing in my chest as I struggled to tame the pinging of my thoughts. Sometimes the struggle to contain it all would make me dizzy, nauseous even, heaving over my knees to shut everything else out and get control of myself. The worst part was that I couldn’t pinpoint the cause of it, nor could I slow any of it down to grab onto the thought and compartmentalize jt once it reached its frenzied state. It was overwhelming and vomit-inducing, like a jumble of a thousand words being spoken into my mind all at once.
When I started my second year at Hogwarts, I initially believed I was going mad. I read extensively on the issue, finding any manner of things could be the cause for it, even a muggle mental illness like schizophrenia. I was also too afraid to share such things with Madame Pomfey, fearful that it might result in a rather unpleasant visit to St. Mungo’s, something that could and often did result in a permanent residence. So, I kept it all to myself, determined to clear my mind each morning and make it through the school day until I had the opportunity to clear my head again at night. Though, everyday it grew harder, as if my willpower was being drained from me entirely.
I stayed there on the sofa until the sun began to peak over the horizon, and then I walked back up the stairs to my room, quietly slipping in to gather my things at the wardrobe.
“Think you’ll ever not be a morning person,” Celeste yawned, stretching her arms up over her messy head of dark curls.
That’s what I had told my roommates to justify the mornings I spent in solitude. I offered her a teasing smile and shrugged, “Probably not.” I wasn’t a morning person by nature, but the result of not completing my little ritual was far worse. As much as I would like to be able to sleep in peacefully, it simply wasn’t an option.
I finished getting ready while my roommates began to wake up and started moving around. Celeste finished dressing not long after me and together we walked down to the Great Hall for breakfast.
“I can’t believe it’s only been a week since this year started. It feels like it’s been an eternity,” she sighed, sliding in next to me at our usual table.
I tilted my head at her curiously. She loved Hogwarts, and while I was quite certain she would love working with the Ministry as well — a goal of hers post graduation — Hogwarts wasn’t a place she had ever been keen to leave. It also seemed very unlike her to wish away our last year here together. But, then I caught the direction of her gaze, which was narrowed in on Tomas Hillstaff.
Tomas, a seventh year Gryffindor who Celeste had very much cared for last year, now sat with his arm slung around a laughing Jessica Margrave. Tomas had broken up with Celeste last year, citing a need to focus on his studies with no distractions considering he would soon be applying for the Unspeakables program. It had come as a shock to Celeste, but they had agreed to stay friends and potentially reunite when seventh year ended and he accomplished his goal. It was a ridiculous excuse in my opinion, and I openly disliked his treatment of her even when they were together. He often prioritized his friends and quidditch teammates, but somehow was always available when he wanted to get his rocks off.
His dishonest behavior was revealed, however, when the week before we left for summer holiday, he was caught with Jessica in a hidden alcove of the Quidditch stands. Despite the betrayal, Celeste couldn’t just turn her feelings off. He was her first in every regard, and she thought she had loved him. Now, he was open about his relationship with Jessica. He had tried to apologize when the gossip reached Celeste, but it was futile. The damage had been done, and none of us were willing to drag her back into his open sorrow-filled arms.
I huffed and nudged her shoulder with mine, “You can do so much better than him anyway. Besides, if he does become an Unspeakable, you wouldn’t be able to talk about practically anything that his day consisted of, and you’d feel totally neglected and distant. Not a great mix for someone who clearly already struggles with honesty and communication.”
She glanced at me, somewhat embarrassed for getting caught, but appreciative for my comments nonetheless.
“And what about you?” She smirked tauntingly. “I do hope you’ve been playing me this whole time and really haven’t managed to endure an entire six - nearly seven years at Hogwarts without a relationship or some sort of romantic tryst.”
I rolled my eyes, “Yes, well, as I’ve said before, no one’s caught my attention. Also, things have felt… almost incestuous around here,” I frowned, glancing at the many couples who had switched partners a multitude of times over the years.
There were so many that had been with each other’s exes that it just felt gross. She acquiesced on that front and scooped up a small portion of fresh sugared berries. I followed suit, placing a slice of French toast on my plate. I touched my forehead, wincing slightly at the sharp pain that rocketed down between my eyes, down to the back of my skull where it dulled to a thudding ache.
Celeste frowned at me just as Amelia slipped in across from us, not bothering with any greetings as she poured a large mug of piping hot tea to the brim. She skipped out on the milk and sugar until she downed a few more sips, and then added in her preferences.
“Are you still having headaches? I thought you said they’d gotten better?” Celeste inquired, ignoring our friend who was obviously nursing one herself.
I shrugged. “Sometimes. Usually, I’m fine but they always come back in full force when we return to Hogwarts, and when we leave. They dull in the periods between.”
“Stress maybe? Nervous about a certain someone, Hellstrand?” Elijah grinned, sinking down beside me. He snatched a large helping of potatoes onto his plate, then pushed back his gold-brown hair and took a large bite of toast, not stopping to chew before he shoved a piece of fruit into his mouth with it.
I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “No, just allergies or something perhaps.”
“Please remind me to never challenge Ari to another drinking game again. Bollocks, I don’t think I’m going to survive the day,” Amelia interrupted, clutching her head.
“You should try coffee, tea will do nothing for you,” Celeste chastised, clucking her tongue.
“That vile liquid is not coming close to me,” she snapped, finishing off her tea with a small vial of Pepper Up potion.
“Well, good luck with that, then. Ari’s Irish — you’d think you’d know better,” Elijah teased.
“Ari just bloody turned eighteen,” she huffed dejectedly.
“Runs in the blood, I’m afraid,” Ari grinned, plopping down beside Amelia with a chaste kiss to her cheek.
“Oy! Shove it, Ari, or I swear you won’t leave this table pleased with the outcome. I’m not above blackmail,” she warned.
Ari’s brows furrowed as he politely filled her cup with more tea. The couple was rather upfront about the details of their intimate relations, and while I had no desire to be privy to it and did my best to block it out, the warning clearly had much to do with a certain something being withheld, indefinitely.
“Anyhoo,” Elijah chirped, skirting past the obvious awkwardness, “what do you reckon is up with Snape? He’s been quite prickish this year.”
Ari choked on his bite of sausage and cleared his throat, “Elijah, you have met the bloke, haven’t you?”
“Yes, yes,” he waved dismissively, “but I heard he sent seven first year Gryffindors to detention yesterday and deducted twenty points from Hufflepuff alone the day before. Not sure how but he seems much more on edge this year.”
“Twenty points!” Celeste gasped, making Amelia cringe at the volume of her voice.
He nodded incredulously, “Exactly! From Hufflepuff! I asked what they did, but apparently they’re not even really sure. Someone said they were whispering during a lesson. I heard from someone else that it was due to a cauldron exploding, although that’s rather common for the first years.”
“Hm.. maybe he’s peeved with someone on staff then,” Amelia hummed quietly.
“Ooh, I reckon it’s about that roar between him and Dumbledore,” Ari said suddenly, shrugging his shoulders.
“What?” I gasped.
“You’re telling me you heard the two of the them arguing, and you didn’t tell us?” Amelia swatted at him.
He stared at her open-mouthed, “It wasn’t dire news. Besides, I don’t even know why they were arguing. Something about a feathered wand getting stronger and causing some issues…or something.”
Celeste snorted, “I’ll bet someone ended up with a phoenix-feather wand core and can’t control it well. They’re supposed to be rather potent. When we went to Ollivander’s for my little brother’s first wand, The old goat was blabbing about how rare it was for two to be selected in the same century, that it had mysterious effects when it was from the same Phoenix. Not that the brat got one — when he touched it, the display case exploded.”
“How old is your brother again? I thought he was a third year,” Amelia interjected.
“Yes, he is but,” she shrugged, “he made it seem like such things could manifest at any point, sooner or later.”
“My wand is a phoenix feather core,” I said suddenly, my eyes wide with surprise. Why didn’t I know about this?
“Really? Let me see!” Elijah gasped reaching for my concealed wand.
I swatted his hand with a glare.
“Wait! Why didn’t you ever tell us?” Celeste demanded, shocked.
I laughed, bewildered,” I did when we first met. We had an entire conversation about it!”
“Oh, well, I didn’t know then that it was special,” she frowned.
“We actually just learned about that last year,” Ari noted, “in that weird class…what was it called?”
“Magical Oddities and their Properties?” Amelia guessed.
“Yes, that one. Don’t you remember?” He asked me.
I shook my head, “No, I had Advanced Potions during that period, although I really wanted to take that course.”
“Hm, I’ll owl my mum and see if she can send me the textbook. You can read it,” he offered.
“Thanks,” I smiled.
“Wonder why you haven’t had odd things happen, then,” Celeste frowned.
“There must be another person with a Phoenix-feather wand. They were definitely talking about its side effects and what-not,” Ari suggested.
Breakfast ended soon after that, and together, Celeste and I attended all of our morning classes. We went our separate ways after lunch, where I had most of my afternoon classes with the annoyingly, adept Weasley twins. They often liked to prank me, mostly because I apparently produced the most hysterical reactions. We’d been decently close friends from our first year at Hogwarts, but as their skills only improved in potions and all other manner of magic, my love for them wavered from time to time. Usually when I was the victim of a new product or idea they’d developed.
Quite possibly the worst prank they pulled on me was when they, by some miracle, formulated an undetectable, powdered polyjuice potion and slipped it into my lunch when they came by to chat. Shortly after finishing my food, I was transformed into a rather terrified version of Dumbledore, and had the Headmaster not found it delightfully amusing, I am certain Professor Snape would have had them expelled. After all, it was he who had worked day and night for a solid week, studying the formulation they had created to create a reversal potion. In the process of manipulating the original ingredients to transform it into a powder, they conveniently left out the one that makes its effects temporary.
Had it not been for Snape, I would still be wearing Dumbledore’s skin. Thankfully, Madame Pomfrey had done me the courtesy of suspending me in a magically induced coma to prevent needing to use the facilities or perform any other sort of bodily maintenance in that form. It had been horrible, and I was finding long, silvery hairs in all of my belongings for two months after that.
Now, only because of their genius in the art of potion making, the twins were allowed to be in the advanced class with me. Unfortunately, seeing the pair seemed to sour Snape’s mood every single time,, and my head still throbbed from this morning, so I wasn’t keen on being snarked at by the intimidating wizard. I also wasn’t too sure it wasn’t worsened by the discussions about the peculiarity of my wand. Stress or anxiety always made the headaches worse.
Fred and George playfully blew kisses at me as they claimed the workstation in front of me, and I rolled my eyes at them. I had mostly forgiven them for the prank, and they took delight in being able to find creative ways to make it up to me. Lately, that meant pulling pranks on anyone who irritated me, although, conveniently, the two of them were never their own victims.
“All right there today, Hellstrand?” George asked.
“Fine, fine,” I muttered, feeling my heart rate increase as my head began to pound, and my thoughts started to spiral.
It was nauseating, and I took the few somewhat quiet moments before class began to steady myself. What if the twins wanted to prank me again? What if Snape is really mad about the wand issue and demands I volunteer to help the student, given I have the same wand core? Did he even know that I had one? What if I don’t pass this class and fail and can’t become a professor’s assistant like I planned? What if I do pass and still don’t succeed at securing an apprenticeship? What if I have to go to a different school to do my apprenticeship and I hate it, and realize I only ever wanted to be a professor so I could stay at Hogwarts? And on and on the thoughts ricocheted, moving so fast I couldn’t grasp on to anything that rolled through my mind between the thousand what if questions. It was like a cacophony of my own words spewing at me: taunting, degrading, and warning.
I shoved them down, locking them into the metal chest I saw in my mind. Some escaped, doubts about my abilities, and concerns over whether it was the wand making me crazy, but finally I was able to breathe in, releasing the heart-pounding fear welling up inside of me.
“Seriously, all right there Hellstrand?” Fred whispered, leaning back to speak to me.
I nodded insistently and offered a warm smile. “Yes, fine, sorry. I have a headache.”
Suddenly, the door behind me slammed shut, and I jerked upright as I heard the familiar footfalls of Professor Snape gliding up the aisle to the front of the room. I expected he was coming from the main Potions classroom, which was on the other side of the long, winding corridor, slightly further from the freezing confines of the dungeon. The Advanced Potions class was the closest to whatever lurked down there in the cells, and the chill in the room certainly testified to that. Even the corridor was frigid, and my fingers were already tingling. I tucked my cloak tighter around me.
Snape, who spent most of his time down here, was probably well accustomed to the biting chill, something that only worsened as winter approached. The factors that attributed to it — the stone walls, the corridor being partially underground, and the lack of fireplaces in this area of the castle — all made the atmosphere feel that much more intense. And, while the boiling cauldrons did provide some heat to the rooms, it put a lot of moisture in the air, making the would-be warm steam feel cool against any exposed skin.
Snape’s coal dark eyes roamed the room, assessing every student and mentally taking attendance as he appraised us. His skin was so fair that it clashed with the depths of his onyx robes and equally dark hair, which was currently somewhat frizzed from the humidity and dangled haphazardly around his face. With a flick of his wrist, his hair was pushed back, falling back around his features almost immediately, and he directed a perfectly poised wand towards the chalkboard. It flipped, revealing the neat scrawling of his own Victorian-style handwriting.
He stood still and silent as he analyzed us, and given his rather increasingly sour mood this year, he was met with utter silence. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and even that almost perfectly-placed, stoic expression seemed to wilt under his displeasure.
“Today you will be brewing Felix Felicis, also known as liquid luck. You have studied this potion in your sixth year and were refreshed on it your first day back. I expect you to be capable enough to brew it by now….”
The temperature in the room plummeted at the dark, haunting tone of his voice.
“Begin,” he snapped, and immediately we obeyed, jumping to the page in our textbooks and getting to our feet to collect the necessary ingredients.
I carefully copied down the list of items I would need and slipped past the twins to the cupboard to stand in line behind two Hufflepuffs. I felt a sharp tug at the back of my head and turned swiftly to see Fred grinning innocently at me, clutching what looked to be a strand of my hair between his two pale fingers.
“Sorry, Hellstrand. Saw a little bug,” he explained, scratching lightly at the back of his head.
I narrowed my eyes, but determined to stay out of trouble, I ignored his antics and set about getting what I needed. When I returned to my desk, I made quick work of the vials, gripping my specimens with tongs and prepping the first few ingredients. I tossed the first bunch into the cauldron and waited precisely five minutes for it to bubble before swirling the contents clockwise once, then counterclockwise twice. I added the minced beetle to it, and swirled again. The pungent smell was rather intense, so I breathed through my mouth while I chopped the other ingredients I would need for the day. After about thirty minutes, Professor Snape stood from his desk and made a slow perusal down the aisles, pausing to examine the contents of each cauldron. I watched with quiet suspense as he immediately admonished a Slytherin at the front, chastising the dark-haired boy for his stupidity in adding the beetles far too soon. It was surprising to see him so harshly berate a member of his own house, but I supposed no one was to be safe from his wrath this year. I worriedly glanced at my own cauldron and retraced my steps, verifying mine were added at the correct timing. The color looked right and I was going exactly by the book, so if something was wrong, it was the author’s fault. Though I suspected that excuse would not be enough to save my arse.
The next reprimand was delivered at a Hufflepuff who flinched at the sudden words near his head.
“Dispose of your cauldron and start anew. There is no salvaging that,” Snape frowned disapprovingly. He tilted his head up in disdain when the boy considered this, reluctant to dispose of the contents he appeared suddenly attached to, and then, finally, scourgified the cauldron and hastily slipped past the professor to gather fresh ingredients.
Fred and George were next, and luckily for them, neither received a comment, which was a far better fate than receiving a negative one. When he reached me, I held my breath, feeling my heart rate sky rocket. The soft fluttering sound of his robes made me tense and shiver simultaneously, but the rest of his movements were eerily silent and impossible to detect. It wasn’t until I caught a whiff of his scent that I realized he was so close behind me, peering over my shoulder into the contents of my cauldron. He was easily a head taller than me, enabling him to see the potion without leaning over me, but even so, he did. No doubt doing it to heighten my nerves and make me clumsy enough to make a mistake. I clutched the stirrer tightly in my hand, readying myself for the next stir, trying to focus on anything other than the oddly alluring scent of him. He had never dared to step so far into my personal space.
He smelled of parchment and ink, something woodsy and musky, but also like spiced tea. It was captivating, and my fingers trembled on the spoon, trying to dissuade the shocking warmth that churned in my belly.
I bristled as his robes brushed against mine, easily extracting the handle of the spoon from my hand without so much as touching me. I froze as he dipped the wooden stick into the cauldron and swirled it once clockwise, causing the contents to whirl and settle into a cool, pale green. I cursed myself internally, haven’t forgotten the timer resting on my desk in my fear. I prepared myself for the chastisement, but it didn’t come, and he was gone before I could even chance a glance at his expression. I set my trembling hands down on the desk and glanced up at him when he reached the front of the room, returning his gaze to the workstations. His dark eyes found mine instantly and narrowed, and terrified, I buried my head back in my book.