pearls - sade ✦°

°✦ 'she lives a life she didn't choose, and it hurts like brand new shoes.'

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"AND THEN HE SIGNED THE FORM. and harry, when i tell you it looked exactly like my dad's handwriting, i am not exaggerating!" 

by the time the two had finished talking, it was time for the feast. though it was only today, y/n looked back at herself and thought about how dramatic and utterly stupid she had been. though she supposes she'll always feel that way about her past self, everyone does.

they reached the courtyard, only to realise they were just scraping six - time for the feast!

they hurried through the courtyard and into the crowd, finding ron and hermione in the midst talking about lupin drinking the potion from snape, which y/n obviously didn't know about yet but harry had already told ron and hermione before going to find the h/c girl. 

"but if he — you know" — hermione dropped her voice,glancing nervously around — "if he was trying to — to poison lupin — he wouldn't have done it in front of harry."

"yeah, maybe," said harry as they reached the entrance hall and crossed into the great hall. it had been decorated with hundreds and hundreds of candle-filled pumpkins, a cloud of fluttering live bats, and many flaming orange streamers, which were swimming lazily across the stormy ceiling like brilliant water snakes.

harry kept glancing at the staff table. y/n noticed that lupin looked cheerful and just as much he ever did; he was talking animatedly to tiny flitwick. y/n moved her eyes along the table, to the place where snape sat. was harry imagining it, or were snape's eyes flickering toward lupin more often than was natural? yeah he probably was. was y/n imagining it or was harry a bit too invested...y/n did not think it was a big deal that lupin drank something that snape gave him. he was greasy git but he didn't have the nerve to poison him. and anything harry ever theorised about snape turned out to be completely wrong. always.

the feast finished with an entertainment provided by the hogwarts ghosts. they popped out of the walls and tables to do a bit of formation gliding; nearly headless nick had a great success with a reenactment of his own botched beheading. it had been such a pleasant evening that harry's good mood couldn't even be spoiled by malfoy, who shouted through the crowd as they all left the hall, "the dementors send their love, potter!"

it was a good thing he wasn't acting out with his unnecessary anger issues because y/n was not in the mood to deal with an unhappy harry. she herself had a bad feeling about something...

the quartet followed the rest of the gryffindors along the usual path to gryffindor tower, but when they reached the corridor that ended with the portrait of the fat lady, they found it jammed with students.

"why isn't anyone going in?" said ron curiously. y/n stood on her toes and peered over the heads in front of her. the portrait seemed to be closed.

"let me through, please," came percy's irritating voice, and he came bustling importantly through the crowd. "what's the holdup here? you can't all have forgotten the password —excuse me, i'm head boy —" y/n rolled her eyes at that.

and then a silence fell over the crowd, from the front first, so that a chill seemed to spread down the corridor. they heard percy say, in a suddenly sharp voice, "somebody get professor dumbledore. quick."

it was such an unusual way for percy to address any situation, with his head boy this and that, that even y/n was intrigued. and it took effort to get her interested in something so mundane, like a hold up to getting to the common room. she might've had her attention peaked if maybe someone screamed. but it was just a crowd of people, nothing special. 

"dont jinx it "

"don't jinx what?" y/n turned to harry, a questioning look on her face.

"i didn't say anything." harry frowned.

y/n's face visibly dropped but she covered it up with a shaky laugh (that was entirely unconvincing but she supposed with the chaos already there, harry didn't notice).

"oh i- someone else must've been talking..."

it was a reply to her thought. it could not have been anyone else.

y/n thought she might be losing her mind and that was why all these strange instances kept happening.

people's heads turned; those at the back were standing on tiptoe.

"what's going on?" said ginny, who had just arrived. a moment later, professor dumbledore was there, sweeping toward the portrait; the gryffindors squeezed together to let him through, and the group of four moved closer to see what the trouble was.

"oh, my —" hermione grabbed ron's arm.

the fat lady had vanished from her portrait, which had been slashed so viciously that strips of canvas littered the floor; great chunks of it had been torn away completely. 

harry took hold of y/n's hand as if he was making sure she hadn't gone anywhere. she squeezed his hand in response as reassurance and he smiled at her softly.

dumbledore took one quick look at the ruined painting and turned, his eyes somber, to see mcgonagall, lupin, and snape hurrying toward him.

"we need to find her," said dumbledore. "professor mcgonagall, please go to mr. filch at once and tell him to search every painting in the castle for the fat lady."

"you'll be lucky!" said a cackling voice. it was peeves the little shit, bobbing over the crowd and looking delighted, as he always did, at the sight of wreckage or worry. 

"what do you mean, peeves?" said dumbledore calmly, and peeves's grin faded a little. he didn't dare taunt dumbledore. instead he adopted an oily voice that was no better than his cackle.

"ashamed, your headship, sir. doesn't want to be seen. she's a horrible mess. saw her running through the landscape up on the fourth floor, sir, dodging between the trees. crying something dreadful," he said happily. "poor thing," he added unconvincingly. y/n laughed, but then remembered that other people might think she was laughing at the situation and not peeves, so she froze, and harry, noticing her mistake, pulled her by her shoulder into his side so she was turned towards his chest, making it look as if she was sad instead.

"did she say who did it?" said dumbledore quietly.

"oh yes, professor head," said peeves, with the air of one cradling a large bombshell in his arms. "he got very angry when she wouldn't let him in, you see." peeves flipped over and grinned at dumbledore from between his own legs. "nasty temper he's got, that sirius black."

professor dumbledore sent all the gryffindors back to the great hall, where they were joined ten minutes later by the students from hufflepuff, ravenclaw, and slytherin, who all looked extremely confused.

"the teachers and i need to conduct a thorough search of the castle," professor dumbledore told them as professors mcgonagall and flitwick closed all doors into the hall. "i'm afraid that, for your own safety, you will have to spend the night here. i want the prefects to stand guard over the entrances to the hall and i am leaving the head boy and girl in charge. any disturbance should be reported to me immediately," he added to percy, who was looking immensely proud and important. "send word with one of the ghosts." professor dumbledore paused, about to leave the hall,and said, "oh, yes, you'll be needing ..."

one casual wave of his wand and the long tables flew to the edges of the hall and stood themselves against the walls; another wave, and the floor was covered with hundreds of squashy purple sleeping bags.

"sleep well," said dumbledore, closing the door behind him. the hall immediately began to buzz excitedly; the gryffindors were telling the rest of the school what had just happened.

"everyone into their sleeping bags!" shouted percy. "come on, now, no more talking! lights out in ten minutes!"

"no need to be such a buzzkill perce!" said y/n. 

"yeah! he only just left- " george popped up beside y/n.

"-you can give us time to settle in you know." fred finished his brother's sentence.

percy literally just rolled his eyes and walked away, to which y/n muttered under her breath "moody bitch", causing fred and george to laugh heartily at the remark.

"c'mon," ron said to harry, y/n and hermione; they seized four of the purple coloured sleeping bags and dragged them into a corner.

"do you think black's still in the castle?" hermione whispered anxiously.

"not with all the commotion that was made when the fat lady was noticed as missing." y/n said wistfully.

"dumbledore obviously thinks he might be," said ron.

"it's very lucky he picked tonight, you know," said hermione as they climbed fully dressed into their sleeping bags and propped themselves on their elbows to talk. "the one night we weren't in the tower. ..."

"i reckon he's lost track of time, being on the run," said ron. "didn't realise it was halloween. otherwise he'd have come bursting in here."

"no..he's not dumb, he escaped azkaban after all. he was after something, and everyone being at the feast must've been the perfect timing for him to get it..." y/n pondered aloud.

hermione shuddered.

all around them, people were asking one another the same question: "how did he get in?"

"maybe he knows how to apparate," said a ravenclaw a few feet away. "just appear out of thin air, you know."

"disguised himself, probably," said a hufflepuff fifth year.

"he could've flown in," suggested dean.

"honestly, am i the only person who's ever bothered to read 'Hogwarts: A History'?" said hermione crossly to y/n.

"probably," y/n nodded. "why?"

"because the castle's protected by more than walls, you know," said hermione. "there are all sorts of enchantments on it, to stop people entering by stealth. you can't just apparate in here. and i'd like to see the disguise that could fool those dementors. they're guarding every single entrance to the grounds. they'd have seen him fly in too. and filch knows all the secret passages, they'll have them covered. ..."

"the lights are going out now!" percy shouted. "i want everyone in their sleeping bags and no more talking!"

the candles all went out at once. the only light now came from the silvery ghosts, who were drifting about talking seriously to the prefects, and the enchanted ceiling, which,like the sky outside, was scattered with stars. what with that, and the whispering that still filled the hall, y/n felt as though she were sleeping outdoors in a light wind in the middle of summer.

once every hour, a teacher would reappear in the hall to check that everything was quiet. around three in the morning, when many students had finally fallen asleep, dumbledore came in. y/n watched him looking around for percy, who had been prowling between the sleeping bags, telling people off for talking - he'd told y/n off countless times already, every time she tried to strike up conversation with harry, who was laying beside her. percy was only a short way away from the quartet, who quickly pretended to be asleep as dumbledore's footsteps drew nearer.

"any sign of him, professor?" asked percy in a whisper.

"no. all well here?"

"everything under control, sir." yeah right.

"good. there's no point moving them all now. i've found a temporary guardian for the gryffindor portrait hole. you'll be able to move them back in tomorrow."

"and the fat lady, sir?"

"hiding in a map of argyllshire on the second floor. apparently she refused to let black in without the password, so he attacked. she's still very distressed, but once she's calmed down, i'll have  mr filch restore her."

y/n briefly wondered if paintings felt pain. she heard the door of the hall creak open again, and more footsteps.

"headmaster?" it was snape. harry kept quite still, a hard look on his face that made him seem constipated and made y/n want to cackle in the silent hall. "the whole of the third floor has been searched. he's not there. and filch has done the dungeons; nothing there either."

"what about the astronomy tower? professor trelawney's room? the owlery?"

"all searched ..."

"very well, severus. i didn't really expect black to linger."

"have you any theory as to how he got in, professor?"asked snape. harry raised his head very slightly off his arms to free his other ear. 

"many, severus, each of them as unlikely as the next."

"you remember the conversation we had, headmaster, just before — ah — the start of term?" said snape, who was barely opening his lips, as though trying to block percy out of the conversation.

"i do, severus," said dumbledore, and there was something like warning in his voice.

"it seems — almost impossible — that black could have entered the school without inside help. i did express my concerns when you appointed —"

"i do not believe a single person inside this castle would have helped black enter it," said dumbledore, and his tone made it so clear that the subject was closed that snape didn't reply. "i must go down to the dementors," he continued, "i said i would inform them when our search was complete."

"didn't they want to help, sir?" said percy.

"oh yes," said dumbledore coldly. "but I'm afraid no dementor will cross the threshold of this castle while i am headmaster."

percy looked slightly abashed. dumbledore left the hall,walking quickly and quietly. snape stood for a moment, watching the headmaster with an expression of deep resentment on his face; then he too left. harry glanced sideways at ron and hermione. both of them had their eyes open too, reflecting the starry ceiling.

"what was all that about?" ron mouthed.

but when harry looked at y/n, she displayed only a warm expression, in contrast to the worry on ron and hermione's faces. she held her hand out of her sleeping bag for him. he took it, his hand warming up from her heat.

y/n's eyes fluttered closed, as she let the darkness engulf her, taking her from the star-lit hall, to the deepest depths of her mind. her breath slowed and she took in the surroundings of the vision she was being shown. 

there appeared a beach, upon which the salty air flowed through her hair as she looked around. a bench sat to the right of her, and on the bench sat a man y/n had only partially viewed in the mirror realm, unconsciously so. his dark hair ruffled in the breeze as he stared deeply at the rosy and golden hues reflecting upon the waves in the horizon. 

y/n walked, barefoot in the cool sand towards him. 

"who are you?"

a familiar voice reached her ears. 

"you know who i am, y/n. you just need to remember." he replied coolly.

and then he began to fade from her, slipping from her mind's grasp, and she could no longer hold on.

she gasped and sat up.

a/n:

damn guys. it's been a hot minute.

- p

word count: 2495