Chapter Text
Journal entry: One
Screams echoed below the balcony—-not of pain, but that of laughter.
Children chased one another through the streets of London. Their joy slicing through the warm September air. It should have been a peaceful last morning in her little flat, instead, Vyras half packed trunk rattled at the corner, its claps trembling in the corner of her eyes.
Vyra had opened her journal to the first page, ready to write, mid sentence, when a blur of fur burst from the top of the bag. Coins and trinkets scattered across the floor in a bright, mocking clatter of sounds as the Niffler launched himself onto the windowsill and vanished into the street below.
"Chip!"
By the time she reached the street, he was gone.
Worse...the familiar weight at her throat, lighter, the gold necklace missing as her hand reached for it. Her Stomach began to drop, if he was not found soon, the ministry would have her head. Harboring a thieving creature was one thing. Losing him was another entirely, and not the way she intended to begin her final year at Hogwarts.
She scanned the streets, muttering every curse word she knew under her breath. Scanning the ground and anything shinning too brightly around her when suddenly, a sharp pain jolted up her spine. Her wand arm flared; sparks tingling at her fingertips.
"Apologizes!" The cyclist called over his shoulder without so much as a glance back.
Vyra lay on the pavement for a heartbeat, trying to convince herself she did not care, the pain would pass.
But when he flew headlong into the curb, and spilled across the pavement, she allowed a half smile. Perhaps not all accidents were underserved.
Pushing herself upright, brushing the dust before glancing down the road, across the bridge where professor Fig first introduced himself. A slow grounding breath, at the memory of how long ago that had been.
"Wish me luck, professor Fig." Voice coming out a whisper.
"Seems you have not learn to leash him."
Her heart and eyes leaped, spinning around to that familiar voice and was immediately stepped up into Garreth Weasley arms, spinning her in circles all within one breath, giggles bubbling from them both.
He was taller, his freckles faded, but the boys grin remained, etched into an older version than the last time they had seen one another, a few years ago.
"Garreth." She exhaled, in disbelief, clinging tighter than intended, the sock of excitement beginning to fade at the thought of her still missing Niffler.
He finally set her down, though his arms lingered.
"A certain professor thought you could use a familiar face for the journey back. Naturally, I was the best choice."
"That's debatable." But the smile widened despite herself.
Both of them took out their pocket watches, checking the time, before giving worried glances, she went to gather her belongings before they headed to the train station. She held a shiny coin along the way, knowing the little beast could not resist.
By the time the they arrived at the train station, it was almost ready to depart, following Garreth through the crowd of people, hands intertwined as they pushed themselves through the stone wall, the air shifting, even the sounds became lighter but more filling after stepping through the stone wall.
As she stepped up into the train, the hand holding her coin was gone, as well as Chip, who was just a blur of fur running inside before her. A quick roll of her eyes but also an ease to her chest knowing he will be coming with, somewhere. Before she could take a look, Garreth took her by the arm and into a seating compartment, giving a reassuring grin.
They chit chatter about mundane topics, then about how life been since she had been gone. Leaving a gold coin by the door, glancing at it every moment.
Another familiar voice filled the space between them just then.
"You both will not believe what I read in the daily prophet— six wizards escaped Azkaban last week!" Looking up sharply to see a wide spread grinning Poppy, bursting into their compartment, with longing and tight embraces.
"Poppy." They clung to one another, unwilling to let the other go just yet.
"Did you take the train out to London just to take it back with me too?" Poppy nodded happily, as she took in Garreth, simply waving at him.
As they both sat, worry forming along Poppy's forehead. "I read all your letters. And I understand why you needed the time away. But this year will be different, I can feel it."
Vyra gave her a forced smile, while listening to how Poppy had cared for each one of beat in the room of requirement, explaining some she had found homes for close by to the castle, the surrounding areas were as safe as could be.
"She lost her little Niffler, too bad I had not shown up sooner." Poppy giggled, Garreth giving Vyra an apologetic smile.
"Ahh you mean Chip, not to worry, it's very natural desire for them to always be searching for hidden treasure, especially when it comes to someone's else's treasure.
He would not go far from you, we will leave a trail back the castle and a piece of clothing that smells like you."
A trolly then came by offering drinks and snacks but when Vyra went to grab her coins, her pocket came out empty, along with a long exhale.
"See he is on this train somewhere, allow me to cover you both today." Garreth began asking for chocolates and drinks.
"I wanted to ask you in our owls how certain beast were fairing since I had been gone." But vyras voice stopped short at the temperature drop.
"Is it...colder?" Poppy's breath became visible in the air between them.
"It's August....." Garreth muttered. "That's not possible."
A scream erupted from down the train as the lights went out, the train still moving at light speed. All doors to the train inside sliding open simultaneously.
Vyras stood slowly, despite Poppy's protest to stay seated, peering out down the walkway. A strong chill moved through the air around her.
The sunny warm day just moment ago, darkening around the train as the door shut closed behind her locking. Before she could attempt at opening it, sound muted in the air, so still, but she felt the presence of a dark figure down the hall.
Slowly turning her head, did she see the dark floating figure, draped in a waht looked as a black ragged cloak, its long fingers curling open and close as it stared at her.
Shock stood her still, taking one step back at a time until she backed into soemthing, bouncing her back as she braced her self for impact, landing on her side partially.
Looking up she saw another dark cloaked figure, a silver mask cover half their face, looming over her.
Her breaths came heavy, sharp as she tried back away on the ground but stopped short as they loomed down to eye level with her taking the mask off.
Those eyes caught her at first glance. Soulless, dark, peering.
"Sebastian." The sound barely left her lips at the sight of him.
The scream echoed so loudly it pierced her eardrum, blood pooled from her ears, she grabbed her head with both hands, grounding herself. Eyes tightening as she watched the dementors came into view. Circling Sebastian like loyal hounds.
It was pure fear at the. Thought of him rotting away in one of those cells, the tremors the dementors kiss had left her that day years ago. Fear for him.
But as he looked down at her, it was as though she was just another witness to his crimes to be taken care of.
"Your death should be painless, only fitting is it now?" His voice hadn’t sounded real.
She scooted back more before attempting to stand.
The train lurched to a grounding halt, breaks screeching, just then, the doors opening. Her fingers still not finding her wand.
The momentum thrusted her against a hard surface, bringing darkness around her but that face loomed over her as she drifted into darkness.
The darkness had not lasted long, poppy and Garreth nervous face peered down at her, faced she had not expected.
Was it real, did they see this, or was she truly losing it once more.
"What did you see?" Poppy voice came out to her as though speaking through water.
The last thing she was, burned painfully right behind her eyes, was Sebastian sallows silhouette framed in the doorway, dementors clinging to him like loyal hounds answering a silent command.
"You hit your head when the train stopped abruptly, not sure why." Garreth said quickly. "There was a terrible screeching sound then the day went completely dark....bizarre indeed. But we are almost to Hogwarts." She was unsure if that was reassuring yet, as she had not stepped foot in the castle and already was experiencing similar occurrences from years prior.
Garreth knelt beside her, pressing a bar of chocolate in her hand, holding it there until she eventually gripped it back.
Struggling to sit upright, seeing the sun shinning through the windows once again.
Her voice came low. "Where is Sebastian?" The question slipped out before she could stop herself.
Poppy hesitated a breath too long. "I...don't think he'd take the train." She spoke gently, but concern tore through. "I didn't see him, maybe you mistook Garreth for him, you did hit your head."
"No...I saw him." Her tone came sharper than intended. "And the dementors."
Silence and their worried glances spoke her, what their words would not. Something inside her twisted, and now she was getting glances as if she were insane.
She pushed herself to up, ignoring the dizziness, and staggered into the corridor. Cold air cut across her face as she moved to the back of the train, eyes scanning every shadow, every reflective surface.
Nothing. Just steel rails vanishing into the distance. Wind. Absence. A hand settled on her shoulder, solid, grounding. "Should we are you to the nurse?" Garreth asked quietly.
Vyra crossed an arm over her waist, pushing her hair back, forcing a smile that did not quite hold. "No. I am alright, just maybe a bit overwhelmed to b coming back is all, it will be fine."
He studied her carefully. Then opened his arms, stepping forward.
Relief washed over her immediately at the warmth of his embrace.
When he pulled back, his thumb brushed the curve of her chin, giving a reassuring smile.
"If you need someone to talk to this year, or a potion brew, I am your wizard," he said lightly.
She smiled back but something shifted. The train slowed to a groan before anything more could be said. "Come on," Garreth add, offering his hand. "Let's find Poppy and the rest of your friends,, and start this last year off correctly this time."
Their final year. The thought felt unreal. They gathered their belongings, boarding a carriage drawn by thestrals whose skeleton wings beat the air in silence. "No driver?" Vyra asked.
"After that dragon incident.." Garreth pointed out. "No one's wanted the job since then. Must be an enchantment guiding it.
She did not bother asking if he could see the thestrals, Poppy hauling her nap sack over.
An uneasiness still lingered from the train while on the path to the castle. From the dementors or Sebastian. Or whatever it was she had truly seen.
By the time the castle loomed above them, her nerves had dulled. The castle glowing warmly, lanterns steady, towers familiar. Almost safe.
Inside to the Great Hall, Headmaster Blacks voice boomed over the crowd. Vyra barely registered it. Names blurred together. Faces passed. There were clearly fewer students this year, noticeably so.
She caught herself glancing over at the Slytherin table again and again, those two faces not among the rest. The headmasters voices rising, bringing her back to the end of the Hall once more.
"It has been a pleasure to announce another year here at Hogwarts, and at last I will be reinstating Quidditch...."
The Hall erupted, but Vyra barely heard it, a sharp pain coming and going fast behind her eyes. Those familiar faint whispers drowning everyone out for a few moments, indistinct, and persistent, years since she had heard them.
"Please settle yourselves....but remember..." her focus drifting to words too low to understand, murmuring just out of reach. "If any incident occurs, it will be taken away once again as..." the whispering seemed to halt, her focus coming back as the Headmaster was ending his speech.
Poppy and Garreths making their way over, Garreth taking her bag, watching Vyra sway slightly.
"Where is Natty?" Poppy voice was then strained.
"Oh she is going to be immensely bust this year, in preparations for the NEWTS, she has plans to working for the ministry itself!" She paused as they all began walking to their common rooms. "She told me she is thrilled to see you, but had to take a trip out for a meeting for the ministry."
Amit waved at them at passing, along with Samantha Dale, and a new transfer student from Illvermorny, she seen during the sorting ceremony.
"The new student is of course Slytherin, his family is well known." Garreth spoke with mild disgust.
While being a new student, something she understood well, but this would be his last year as well. Reasoning unknown.
"well known for what?" Vyra looked back at the student as she spoke, he met her glance for a moment, a small smirk played on his lips before he kept walking.
"They're as bad as the Gaunts, pureblood status of high importance to them." Poppy ignored Garreth, unsure of hat to respond to this new information, not wanting to gossip.
Then Vyra remembered her little shop in Hogsmeade, of how Poppy had been taking care of it with Penny. Noting to herself she would make a stop there soon to see how it was fairing.
"Poppy....I have been wondering how the shop has been doing?" "Poppy nodded excitedly at this.
"Oh yes, little Penny has done a wonderful job, there has been no need for me, customers did ask for more variety to be sold but nothing major....I listened about not opening that large chest in the back room as you requested."
The rest of the evening slipped into something gentler as the hours before it.
Garreth had insisted—insisted—that the positions mishap warranted compensation in the form of "relaxation and strategic humiliation," which apparently, meant Wizarding chess in one of the quieter common areas of the castle. Poppy trailed along beside us, arms folded, already protesting that she was not very good at either chess or summoners court.
"You'll never get better if you don't play." Garreths voice floated cheerfully, confidently. Setting the board and pieces in front of them. "Besides Vyra needs all the practice she can get too."
Vyra shot him a stern look. "You're unbearable."
"And yet," he replied, smirking. "You keep sitting down across the from me." And yes, Vyra was determined to try again this game.
The chess pieces sprung to life between them, stone knights stretching and cracking their movements, pawns shifting. Garreth played with infuriating ease, as if the board bent to his will. Vyra tried to anticipate his next move, but one after the other, he countered the all effortlessly.
Her Bishop shattered under a careless misstep in her planning. "Oh no," Garreths voice floated mocked far too solemnly. "A tragedy."
Poppy snorted. "You are enjoying this far too much." Garreth grinned at that before finally putting vyra out of her misery.
"I always enjoy a fair fight," he said. "This just isn't one." Leaning back in her chair, rubbing her temples.
"I swear the pieces like you better."
"They respond to confidence," he said lightly, enjoying the stare she's not him. "And maybe charm."
"Or maybe cheating," Vyra muttered. Despite herself, a smile spread over her lips.
After an inevitable defeat, they all moved onto summoners court. The soft hum of magic filled the air as court balls activated, humming faintly.
Poppy went first, nearly knocking them al off, one teetering on the edge of the platform.
"I told you," she groaned. "I need more practice."
"You're improving," Vyra said honestly. "You didnt almost fling one at Garreth this time."
"High praise," Garreth said, clapping once. "Truly inspiring."
Poppy leered at him. "Those were on purpose Garreth." He winked at her instead.
When it was Vyras turn, focusing harder this time, jaw clenched, heart racing. The court ball sailed forward—too hard. It clipped Garreth's just enough to nudge it, not out but right into fifty extra points.
"So close," he said gently this time. "Again, thank you for the extra points." The second try was worse, fall right off the platform, defaulting into the grass.
Exhaling sharply, frustrated. "I do not remeber struggling this much before."
Poppy glance at Vyra, head tilting slightly. "You've had a lot on your mind today and...."
The words landed heavier than she meant them to. Garreth didn't tease this time. He just nodded. "We will call it a draw before someone breaks something or someone."
They sat for a while after the games, talking about classes, Quidditch tryouts, professors missed and others not so much. It all felt...normal. Warm. Similar to slipping into an old sweater that still remembered its shape.
Eventually, the hour grew late. Candles burned low, flickering along the halls. The castle creaking softly around them.
"I should head up," Poppy said, standing and brushing dust from her hands. "Early class tomorrow."
"Same." Garreth agreed. "And id rather not explode anything before breakfast."
They laughed quietly, gathering their things before parting ways with Garreth, him lingering at their common room for a moment.
And for a moment Vyra told herself this was all there was tonight. Friends. Games. And familiar warmth from the castle and laughter echoing just softly enough to feel its safety.
Her room was empty. A parchment stuck to the door, —no roommate assigned.
Poppy beamed at her excitedly. "I am going to request we room together, maybe we can sneak Natty in too!" She watched Poppy skip down the hall as she yelled.
She turned to her common room, heading inside when he quiet began to feel too loud once more.
Vyra stepped inside greeted by her owl and her things already set and put away. The familiar warmth of the crackling fireplace, filling the sound around her thoughts, distracting her briefly but not eliminating the unease within.
The room felt occupied. She sat at her desk finding a scrap of parchment, waiting. The hand writing was unmistakable.
Sebastians hand but not his words.
Her pulse roared in her ears. Was it truly him? Or had the past fractured her mind more than she admitted? Refusing to regret coming back she shook it off.
Her quill spreading ink in the little journal quicker as her eyes began drifting closed.
The fire dimmed as she fell onto the bed, shadows stretched along the walls. And she felt distinctly, unmistakably, watched.
Journal Entry: One
First night back at Hogwarts, the castle does not sleep. I only realized this after my feet carried me back into the halls of the castle late at night, corridors bending around me, not remembering how I had gotten here, leaving my warm bed.
The stones were cold against my bare feet, the torchlight low and breathing...each flicker of the flames matching the rhythm of her heartbeat.
I moved slowly, dream-soft. The hem of my nightgown flowing around me. Unease settled in my chest, fear threatening to bubble over, this setting felt simply wrong.
I paused near a tall window overlooking the grounds. The moon hung low, bright but fractured by clouds, illuminating the land below. Something shifted in the distance, too deliberate to be wind. Too quiet to be footsteps. I turned. There as nothing there. Still, the sensation lingered as I walked on.
My fingers trailed against the stone walls, grounding myself in their solid certainty. Hogwarts was always safe to me, protective within its walls. A place that remembers its students even when they forget themselves.
Tonight it felt....observant. As if it were holding its breath. I then rounded a corner I do not remember choosing, near the Slytherin bathrooms, stopping short.
A folded parchment laid on the ground, neatly, waiting for me it had felt, deliberately placed. Unmarked.
My heart stuttered. I crouched and lifted it slowly, half expecting it to burn me.
Inside, the writing was neat precise. Too careful to be kind.
—leave Hogwarts. Before it's too late. You no longer belong to yourself.
My breath caught in my throat, reading it again once more. And again.
The words settling deep within my stomach, heavy. Almost intimate, like it had been written from someone who knew my whispers. The letter then burst into flames, causing my fingers to drop it, watching it burn before me.
The words still settled in my thoughts over and over. "You do not belong to yourself." Is that anyway related to the voices I hear often, more often now that I am back in this castle.
"Who would..." I whispered but the corridor swallowed the sounds from my lips.
The torches flames flickered quicker. For one moment, just one, I was certain someone stood behind me, close enough to touch. I spun. Nothing.
My pulse thudded loudly in my ears.
It is just nerves for my first night back, I told myself even after my feet took off without me accepting it without my bidding.
The castle shifted. Staircases creaked softly. Shadows lingered and corridors blurred at the edges, like a memory already fraying.
The last thing I remember is passing a tapestry I am certain I have never seen before, a figure woven in silver and gold thread, reaching for soemthing just out of its grasp.
Then, nothing.
I woke with a sharp breath, siting upright in my bed, moonlight spilled across the bed, my heart rate increasing as I listened to my own breathing, gripping the sheets to ground myself from slipping back into thinking this moment was not real.
My blood turned cold at not remembering how I ended up back in dormitory.and in my hand...was the letter I watched burn....no...it ...was...just...a dream. I repeated it over and over until it felt true. What remained still...was. Fear.