Monochopsis
Noun: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.
»»———- ———-««
The nightmare is always the same.
Pitch black. A dull scraping noise rings in my left ear. A broken mirror. My reflection—only it’s not my face I see. It’s someone else’s—someone long gone, or maybe a fresh departure. I can never tell.
Screaming. Scurrying feet. Desperate spells that ricochet off the walls—then, silence. The room is holding its breath. The people, too.
A flash of light, then total blackness again. A searing pain in my chest—then my throat, then my head. Behind my eyes. In my jaw, in my teeth. Hands all over me, grabbing at my arms, my legs, my sides, my neck. Crushing grips. Tighter, tighter, tighter still.
The room tilts. My head pounds. A cool breeze laced with rain whips at my face, but I can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t hold up my hands to stop it.
I open my eyes, and I’m on the railing of the Astronomy Tower, perched high on my toes, barely balanced. I can’t pull myself back, can’t scream, can’t do anything except pray to whoever is listening.
My arms are outstretched on either side of me, as if pulled taut by an invisible force. Suddenly, something barely presses on my spine, and I’m leaning forward, and the people are laughing, and I can’t stop myself—
I wake with a start, clutching my chest as it rises and falls rapidly. When my eyes adjust, I look around frantically.
I’m in my dorm. In my bed. I’m safe.
I move my curtains aside and peer at the beds around me. My dorm mates are asleep, just as they have been for hours.
The clock on the wall reads 4:30 AM. I don’t even try to go back to sleep—it never works anyway.
After grabbing my wand out from under my pillow, I throw off my blankets and swing my feet over the edge of the bed. I’m relieved to find solid ground beneath me.
Padding out into the common room barefoot, I wrap my sweater tight around my arms. The stone floor is cool, but I welcome the bite—it reminds me I’m still here, still anchored. The torches are low, casting long, flickering shadows across the walls.
Of course it had to be the Astronomy Tower again. It’s always the Astronomy Tower.
I lower myself onto one of the velvet couches by the fire, curling my knees up to my chest. I don’t bother lighting the flames—there’s enough heat from the nightmares still clinging to my skin. I just want quiet. Stillness.
But the dungeon never quite gives it.
I hear the soft creak of another door. I tense automatically, retreating further into myself. Maybe it’s a ghost. Maybe it’s the shadow. Maybe—
Of course it’s him.
Malfoy steps into the common room, his hair a mess and his shirt wrinkled like he’d been lying awake just as long as I had. His eyes land on me, and for a second, neither of us says anything. He just blinks at me like I might vanish if he looks too hard.
“You’re up,” he says finally, voice low.
“No,” I deadpan. “I’m sleep-floating. It’s my new thing.”
A flicker of something crosses his face—maybe amusement, maybe guilt. He steps closer, but not too close. Just enough to suggest he’s testing the waters.
“I haven’t seen you since…”
“I know,” I say, cutting him off. “It’s been nice.”
And it has. A week of silence, a week without him pestering me—it’s been freeing.
He nods slowly, tongue pressing into the inside of his cheek. “Right. Look, I—”
“Don’t,” I say, looking at the embers in the fireplace instead of him. “I’m not in the mood for more half-apologies or revisionist history.”
He lets out a quiet breath. “I wasn’t going to apologize.”
“Even better,” I mutter, dragging my fingers through my hair.
Malfoy stays quiet, then walks over to the armchair across from me and drops into it. He doesn’t say anything for a minute. Just stares into the dark, like he’s trying to see through it.
I wait for him to get bored. To leave. He doesn’t.
Finally, he speaks again. “Do you ever wonder if it changed you? The… incident, I mean.”
My throat tightens.
“Every day,” I say.
We fall into silence again.
“I didn’t think it would happen like that,” he says quietly, and when I glance at him, his eyes are distant—almost haunted. “That night… I was trying to impress Theo. I didn’t think you’d actually go.”
“I didn’t go,” I snap, voice sharp. “I was led. Lured. Baited by you.”
His jaw clenches. “I know.”
I look back toward the fireplace, my nails digging into the sleeves of my sweater. “I was different after. I felt it. I still feel it. And no one believed me.”
“I did.”
“No, Malfoy. You saw me shaking and you left.”
His silence confirms what I already knew.
I rise to my feet, blood humming in my ears. For a moment, it’s almost like the room itself tilts—leaving me dizzy and sick. “You don’t get to play the ‘I cared all along’ card. Not when you were part of the reason I can’t even sleep through the night.”
He doesn’t try to stop me as I walk away, but just before I round the corner toward the dorms, I hear his voice—quiet, raw:
“I see it, too.”
I pause—but I don’t turn around. “See what?”
There’s a shuffling sound behind me. Suddenly his hand is on my shoulder, turning me around to face him. “Let’s not talk here. Come with me.”
I smack his hand away, backing up a step. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Halloway, please, I swear I—”
“Hell no,” I shoot back, sharper this time. “I’d sooner pitch myself off the Astronomy Tower before I follow the likes of you again.”
He winces at my words. Good. He deserves to be uncomfortable. To feel guilty. He should.
Malfoy sighs, his hands balling into reluctant fists at his sides. “I understand why you don’t trust me. I do. But if you just give me a chance to explain—”
“Explain?” I echo, voice rising. “How do you explain luring me to my death, Malfoy? And worse, leaving me there? I trusted you! I thought you were my—” I cut myself off, unable to finish the sentence. Friend.
He flinches like I’ve slapped him. But I don’t care. I want it to sting. I need it to sting.
We stand there, tension taut between us like a stretched wire. It’s quiet except for the pounding in my ears and the low crackle of dying embers in the hearth.
I don’t know who moves first, but suddenly we’re face to face, a breath apart, each daring the other to break first.
“Say something,” I hiss, voice trembling with the force of everything I’ve buried since that night.
But he doesn’t. Not for a long moment. And then—
The light shifts.
I see it before I understand it—the flicker of bluish-grey filtering in through the tall, arched windows behind him. The black lake, once just a dull mirror reflecting the torchlight, is now faintly glowing, ripples of dawn washing across its surface.
My stomach twists.
“Wait,” I breathe, stepping around him. “Is it…?”
He turns too, following my gaze. We both move to the window at the far end of the common room, where the underwater shadows of the lake have begun to give way to light.
The soft, pale glow of morning creeps in through the water. Not the golden warmth of full sunrise, but the early hush—the kind that makes you feel like you’ve overslept in a world that kept going without you.
“That’s… not right,” Malfoy murmurs.
I glance around, then spot the old grandfather clock tucked in the far corner, half-hidden by a dusty tapestry.
We walk over together, still not speaking.
When I see the time, I freeze.
7:41 AM.
My throat goes dry. “That can’t be right. It was just half past four.”
Malfoy runs a hand through his hair, frowning. “You didn’t do a Time Turner thing, did you?”
“Do I look like I have access to a bloody Time Turner?”
He lets out a tight breath. “No. You look like you haven’t slept in a year.”
I ignore the jab, heart pounding faster now. Three hours. Gone. Swallowed. Vanished into the black of the dungeon, into the haze of our fight, our silence, our words that didn’t heal anything.
“What the hell just happened?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer me.
Instead, his eyes flick back to the lake—narrowing. “Did you feel anything… off? During the last hour or so?”
“Besides wanting to hex you into next week?”
He doesn’t rise to it. “No headaches? Sudden cold? Déjà vu?”
I hesitate.
“…The room tilted,” I murmur. “For a second, I thought it was just me getting dizzy, but—”
“Yeah,” he says, like it confirms something for him. “Me too.”
We stare at each other again, the silence between us now laced with something… heavier. Unease. Curiosity. Fear, maybe.
“I don’t think that was just a fight,” I say slowly.
He nods once. “Something’s wrong.”
And for the first time in a long while, I see something in his expression that mirrors my own: Dread. And the quiet, creeping sense that whatever’s coming—we’re already in the middle of it.
~
“I’m serious, Uncle Sev. You have to believe me.”
Snape gives me an exasperated look. “You know how I loathe when you call me that.”
I huff, crossing my arms. “You’re the one who told my parents you’d look after me and became best mates with them. It’s your own fault.”
He shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose as if my mere presence is giving him a headache. “That doesn’t mean—never mind. You’re sure you weren’t sleepwalking? Or, I don’t know, dreaming?”
“So Malfoy and I had the same exact dream? That’s likely.”
Snape pulls his wand out and points it at my head. “If you’re certain. You’re right—it’ll be easier to study if I can see it.”
I nod. “Go ahead.”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Legilimens.”
Within half a second I can feel him in my head, poking and prodding, trying to find the memory. I see flashes of what he sees—the nightmare, the shadow in the halls, punching Malfoy square in the face—before I’m reliving the argument with Malfoy, mere moments before we realize that time has slipped away at an alarming rate.
The connection snaps and my mentor stares at me, though he isn’t really seeing me. He’s thinking, considering, piecing things together in the way he so often does.
“I told you.”
He shoots me an unamused look before straightening, turning to his shelves. “You’re quite certain you haven’t done anything recently that could alter time? Smuggling artifacts, practicing rituals, trying unauthorized spells?”
“The only time I do any of that—minus the artifact thing, I don’t have anything like that—is with you. Do you think it was the potion we brewed?”
Snape whips around to face me. “Did you drink it? I told you not—”
“No! No, I didn’t,” I reply, annoyed. “Don’t you think if I did and some crazy time skip happened I would’ve mentioned it?”
Snape narrows his eyes. “Not necessarily. You’re prone to recklessness and conveniently forgetful when it suits your narrative.”
I roll my eyes. “Thanks for the glowing character review.”
He exhales slowly, clearly trying to rein in the impatience that’s crawling just beneath the surface. His gaze shifts to a heavy tome on the far corner of the shelf. Without a word, he flicks his wand toward it and the book floats into his hand. He flips through it rapidly, skimming page after page, his lips pressed into a thin line.
I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Finally, he snaps the book shut and mutters something I don’t quite catch.
“What?”
He looks up at me, and for once, I see it—genuine uncertainty. That rare, unsettling moment when Severus Snape does not have the answer.
“I don’t know what this is,” he says bluntly. “Temporal distortion isn’t… common. And it’s not something that just happens, especially not at Hogwarts. There are wards in place that should prevent it.”
“So you believe me now?”
He levels me with a sharp look. “I didn’t say I didn’t believe you. I said I had to be sure.”
I stare at him, waiting for more, but he only sets the book aside with a tight movement and begins pacing, long fingers steepled under his chin. That’s when I know he’s truly rattled.
“Could it be connected to…” I hesitate, glancing around the office, “you-know-who?”
“If the Dark Lord was meddling with time, the effects would be far more widespread. Cataclysmic, even.” He stops pacing, his brows furrowed. “No. This feels more… isolated. Targeted.”
“Targeted at me?”
He doesn’t answer, which is somehow worse than a yes.
Snape finally sighs and turns toward me, folding his arms. “I’ll need time. Research. And silence, if you can manage it.”
“Do I ever manage it?” I deadpan.
The corner of his mouth twitches, just barely. “No.”
He moves to the door and swings it open. “Go to breakfast. Act normal. Malfoy, too. And don’t speak of this to anyone else. If someone is watching, we don’t want them knowing we’re aware something is wrong.”
“Right,” I say, stepping toward the hall. “Because secrecy always ends so well for this school.”
He gives me a sharp look, but there’s something softer underneath it. Something protective. Wary.
As I step out into the corridor, he calls after me.
“Halloway.”
I turn back.
“Whatever this is,” he says quietly, “we’ll figure it out. You’re not alone.”
For a split second, I believe him.
Then the door clicks shut behind me—and the corridor feels colder than before.
At least now an adult knows. I can go through my day without that guilty gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach.
The shadow doesn’t follow me in the daylight—only at night, when I’m at my most vulnerable. Shocker, right?
No, there’s no shadow bothering me right now. Just my own doubt creeping into my peripheral vision, making it very difficult to appear put together. I just look tragic—exhausted, thin, vaguely anxious and jumpy. I mask it with carefully constructed anger and indifference, and most people buy it. After all, I am the crazy American girl.
That is to say, the only person who sees right through me is Hermione. My best friend and confidant, my emotional support, who knows more about me than even I do sometimes.
I never sit with the Slytherins at meals. The professors don’t really care, to be honest. The house tables sort of formed themselves, but you’ll often find a stray Ravenclaw at the Hufflepuff table, or a Gryffindor with some Ravenclaws.
Me personally? I sit with the lions.
The other Slytherins hate it. They call me a house traitor and all kinds of other names—but I couldn’t care less. It won’t matter after school, anyway. These seven years will all just be a drip in the bucket of the cesspool of adolescent hormones that made us into… whoever we’ll be, I suppose.
Hermione eyes me as I slump onto the bench beside her, pushing a bowl of porridge toward me like I’m some kind of malnourished stray.
“You haven’t eaten,” she says, not bothering to soften her voice. “And don’t lie—I’ve been watching.”
I shrug. “Not hungry.”
She frowns, that deep Hermione Granger frown that says I’m worried and you’re being an idiot. “You haven’t slept either, have you?”
“Define sleep,” I mutter, poking the porridge with my spoon like it’s personally offended me.
“Y/n—”
I cut her off, lowering my voice. “There was a time skip.”
Her frown deepens, but she leans in. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I was in the common room, arguing with Malfoy at like 4:30 in the morning, and the next thing I knew it was dawn and only twenty minutes to eight. No idea what happened in between.”
Hermione’s mouth opens slightly, like she’s about to say something but hasn’t decided what yet. So I keep going.
“He looked just as freaked out as I was. Which is saying something, because Malfoy doesn’t do freaked out. Not publicly, anyway.”
Now she’s silent, chewing on the inside of her cheek in that way she does when she’s connecting dots I can’t see.
“I think something—or someone—is messing with our heads,” I finish, stirring the porridge without ever taking a bite.
“And you’re just… walking around like normal?” she asks, incredulous. “Not telling McGonagall or—”
“I did tell someone,” I say. “Snape.”
Hermione blinks. “Snape?”
“He was actually… not horrible about it. Said he believed me. Told me I wasn’t alone.”
I don’t look at her when I say that last part, because the words still feel too fragile, like something I could shatter just by breathing wrong.
Hermione is quiet for a long moment. Then, gently: “You are alone if you keep running yourself into the ground like this. If you won’t let anyone help you.”
I force a smile, sharp and tired. “You’re helping. You’re listening. That’s enough.”
But we both know it’s not.
“I’ll look into it,” Hermione says dutifully, already pulling out a notebook to start scribbling some notes down. “Surely there will be something in the library about time manipulation or loops or whatever is happening with… that.”
“You don’t have to do all that for me,” I tell her, already knowing the answer she’s going to give me.
She shoots me a look. “As if I’d let you deal with this by yourself.”
I shake my head. “What about Harry and Ron? I thought you guys were working on something.”
Harry and Ron, who had been completely disinterested in the conversation until now, perk up when they hear their names. “Oi, what about us?” Ron asks, leaning forward.
“Honestly, Ronald,” Hermione and I chide him in unison, glancing at each other briefly before I press on. “If it was important, I’d tell you.”
Harry palms his scar. “Sometimes importantthings can’t be discussed out in the open. Did we miss something?”
“No more than usual,” Hermione mutters under her breath, pulling a genuine laugh out of me.
“I think I need to steal ‘Mione away from your little group project for a couple days to figure something out,” I say simply, taking a bite of my food. I don’t miss the way Hermione’s eyes light up when I do. “There are few things the brightest witch of her age can’t figure out.”
Hermione swats at my arm. “Not you, too.”
“It’s a compliment!” Ron exclaims, exasperated.
Harry elbows his best mate in the ribs, earning a glare from the frazzled redhead. Hermione doesn’t dignify his words with a response, just goes back to her breakfast. We lapse into a comfortable silence.
My friendship with Hermione was an unlikely one, bred out of pure coincidence. After the incident first year, I started avoiding the other Slytherins like dragonpox. It worked out, honestly, because they all thought I was crazy (or worse, cursed).
Unfortunately, though, the DADA curriculum made it impossible for me to completely isolate myself. I had to choose a partner for dueling practice, and I was the last snake standing. Hermione hadn’t yet been accepted into the boys little group, so she was the last lion.
The rest was history.
I impressed her with my magic, she impressed me with her wit. Ever since then we’ve been close—a little too close, maybe, because I know I should keep people at arms length but I just can’t with her. It feels unnatural. She gets me in a way no one else does. Who would I be to give that up?
Harry and Ron are fine, I guess. They’re a little energetic for me, a little too “punch first and ask questions later,” but they mean well. I tolerate them for Hermione’s sake.
Oh, and the cherry on top? Malfoy hates them.
He really hates Harry, mostly because he’s jealous of him, but Malfoy would never admit that. He hates Ron’s family because they’re poor (not a valid reason to dislike someone in my opinion) and Hermione because she’s muggleborn.
I don’t really see how their families are any of his business considering the situation his is in.
Lucius Malfoy has tried to make my family’s acquaintance on more than one occasion—everyone wants a taste of the new circles an American pureblood family brings, but Lucius especially so. He tries to write it off as business, but we know the truth; he’s trying to find more places for Voldemort to take control of.
The Malfoys are disgusting people if you ask me. At least, the ones I know. Narcissa is neither here nor there; I haven’t interacted with her much but she seems relatively quiet and submissive. I think she just does whatever Lucius asks to appease him, maybe to protect her son from his wrath. I haven’t read much into it.
All that aside, I know that’s what Malfoy has really been after. He doesn’t care for friendship—he just wants to make his father proud. Lucius probably feels like I snubbed him (and for good reason, because I have, on multiple occasions) so his son has been trying to get on my good side ever since we met in the Slytherin common room for the first time.
Clearly, it isn’t working.
My robes flutter behind me as Snape makes his way up to the professor’s table, most likely to have his usual breakfast of black coffee and a piece of toast. He’s not a morning person; today he’s even less so because of my ambush earlier. I can see it in the way he blows off Professor McGonagall when she tries to speak to him, or how he glares at chattering students for no apparent reason. He’s in a particular frustrated mood today.
“Y/n? Are you listening?”
I focus back in on Hermione, who’s waving her hand in front of my face. “Sorry, what?”
She eyes me warily. “I said heads up, your favorite housemate is headed over.”
Of course, as is my luck, Malfoy is striding straight over to our table, eyes locked on me. I sigh dejectedly. “Does he never know when to give up?”
“He’s a Malfoy,” Ron sneers. “Of course not.”
Malfoy stops just behind me, close enough that I can feel the chill that always seems to follow him. He doesn’t say anything right away, just lingers—like he’s waiting for someone to beg him to leave. Spoiler: no one does.
I look up at him through tired eyes. “To what do I owe the displeasure?”
He gives me that signature smirk, the one that says I know something you don’t, but it falters when his eyes flick to Hermione. “Granger,” he says, venom coating every syllable. “Still lowering yourself to sit with her?”
Hermione stiffens, but before she can open her mouth, I’m already on my feet.
“Careful,” I say, voice low and sharp, “you might just choke on all that superiority.”
“Just asking a question.” He shrugs, like he hasn’t just insulted my best friend to her face. “It’s funny how loyal you are to a mudblood, given your family’s oh-so-exclusive standards.”
Ron knocks his bench back like he’s about to leap across the table. Hermione goes rigid beside me.
And I—well, I’ve had enough.
My fists curl at my sides as I step toward him. “Do you want to taste your own blood again, Malfoy? Because I still remember the angle of that punch—and I’m sure your nose does, too.”
There’s a flash of something behind his eyes—shock, maybe even respect, though he masks it quickly with disdain. “How ladylike,” he drawls.
“I’m not here to impress you,” I snap. “Or anyone else who thinks blood status matters more than who someone actually is.”
“Save the lecture,” he says, tone sharp now. “That’s not why I’m here. You don’t know what you’re playing with.”
“And you do?” I shoot back. “Because last time we were together during one of those incidents, you looked just as shaken as I did.”
The word together lands like a slap. His mouth twitches.
People are starting to notice now. Heads turn. Whispers spark.
“Careful,” he says, quieter. “You keep poking around in things you don’t understand, and someone’s going to get hurt.”
I open my mouth to respond—something cruel and clever on the tip of my tongue—but I never get the chance.
The world lurches.
Not physically, not like a stumble or a fall. More like… a blink.
One moment, we’re in the Great Hall, the sun still rising outside the tall windows, the buzz of breakfast all around us.
And the next—
—it’s gone.
Gone, or different. Plates are cleared. Students are standing, confused. Light streams in from the windows at a much higher angle, telling me it’s at least an hour later. Maybe more.
Hermione’s hair is windblown now, like she’d been outside. Ron’s still sitting, half a piece of toast raised to his mouth, frozen in place.
Malfoy is still in front of me, looking confused, and Blaise and Theo have appeared at his side—equally bewildered.
Silence stretches. Then murmurs erupt like a dam breaking.
“What the—?”
“Did we all—?”
“Where did—?”
“Was I just…?”
At the head table, Professor McGonagall is on her feet. Flitwick’s wand is already out. Snape, however, doesn’t move. He just stares directly at me.
Not at the hall. Not at the chaos.
Me.
And something in that look says he knows. Or at least, he suspects.
I feel Hermione’s hand grab my wrist, pulling me towards her.
“Y/n,” she whispers. “What just happened?”
My throat is dry. My heartbeat loud in my ears.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But it’s getting worse.”
Malfoy shoots me a look that says, “What the hell?” For once, despite my feelings towards him, I reciprocate. I shake my head helplessly, a silent, “I have no idea.” Because I don’t. I have no clue what’s happening.
And neither does anyone else.