𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘕𝘪𝘯𝘦: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘉𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘧 (𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘔𝘊𝘙 𝘋𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘌𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘠𝘦𝘵, 𝘋𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘵 𝘔𝘦)

« 𝙼𝚊𝚐𝚗𝚞𝚜 » 

"All students are to report back to the Great Hall immediately." We had only just gotten back to our common room in the dungeon when Professor Snape came in and gave this bold statement without context. 

"Leave your belongings," he snapped when people started to scoop up their bags again. "There is no time for dilly dally. Move along, now!" 

"What's going on, Dad?" Nina asked the question on everyone's minds. "Has something happened? Is it Sirius Black? Is he on school grounds?" There were some nervous mutters here; Pansy Parkinson latched on to the Rich Twit's arm (the one in the sling so we all knew was faking when he didn't jump through the roof). The first and second years looked like they were on the verge of tears; the older students might have been dissociating. It was hard to tell, but most of them wore blank, stoic expressions. 

"The Headmaster will explain in the Great Hall," he said, looking a tad impatient. 

"That wasn't exactly a no…" Nina said. 

"Nina! Move to the Great Hall! No questions!" And more than anything else that got people moving. If there was one person in the world Professor Snape never ever got short with it was his daughter; a fact that had loads of people envious of her. It must have been something pretty bad if he snapped like that at Nina. 

Nina huffed, looking disappointed and annoyed, but she followed the others out of the common room. 

Foggie didn't say or do anything out of the ordinary, but I caught him glancing my way more than once so I knew he was worrying. I wasn't though. At least, not about myself. If it was Sirius Black, and he really was in the castle, and if he really was after my sister, Potter, and I, then I hadn't seen him down in the dungeons. Which meant he must have started his murder spree up at the towers where the Ravenclaw  and Gryffindor common rooms were. 

I stopped in front of the professor. People shot me dirty looks for getting in their way, but I ignored them. "Professor, my sister, and, and there's this kid in Ravenclaw I know, Kip. They ──" 

"Will see you in the Great Hall, Pettigrew," Professor Snape said shortly. "Now, move along!" 

But contrary to what he told me, I did not see my sister anywhere in the Great Hall. I spotted Kip with the two friends he'd told Tilly and I about earlier so I knew he was fine, but she was no where to be seen. I moved through the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of Matilda's shiny tortoise since there was no way in hell I'd manage to spot her among all the other gossiping students. She was too short. 

I spotted her friends acorss the other side of the room and dragged Foggie behind me so I wouldn't lose him too. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were both holding on to each other in that weird way girls like them did when they were together. When they saw us coming over they both tensed up, like they thought Foggie and I would hex them or something. 

I ignored this. There were more important things to worry about. "Where's Tilly?"  

"With… with Dumbledore…" Parvati said. "She… she… saw him!" I wasn't liking the way her eyes swelled up with tears as she said that. 

"Saw who?" I asked, worried that I already knew the answer. 

"Sirius Black!" Lavender sniffled. "He… he attacked her!" She wailed and hid her face in Parvati's shoulder. "Oh, we shouldn't have let her go back to the common room! We should have gone with her, we should have ── "

"Hang on, hang on!" I said. I needed answers and the crying was not helping. Foggie was giving me concerned looks next to me, like he thought I'd do something stupid if I didn't like their next answers. A good assumption, actually. "What do you mean he attacked her? What the hell happened? Where the fuck is my sister?" 

"He was trying to get into the common room, and she had gone back to get her notebook. And… and… he slashed the Fat Lady's painting, but I don't know the rest. She wouldn't say," Parvati explained. Lavender was too busy bawling. 

"But… but she's fine?" I asked. The world was spinning around me now. A sort of head rush that came with the rollercoaster of emotions I'd just unexpectedly gotten on. 

"She didn't look hurt, no…" 

I breathed deeply. "Then, why the hell did you say she'd been attacked?!" The girls flinched. I wasn't really annoyed at them, I just didn't handle stress well. "I ── sorry. I didn't mean to shout…" 

"Magnus." Foggie nodded at the door where Dumbledore and the rest of the Head of Houses were coming in, now. The candles above us caught on something behind the head master ── a glint of light on gem. 

"Tilly!" Forgetting to stick together, I bolted across the Great Hall. She jumped, almost dropping Jewels the Tortoise. "Are you alright?" I looked her over. She seemed fine. At least, there were no obvious bruises or scratches or anything that I could see. She was just shaken. "What happened? Did he try to hurt you?" 

Remember earlier when I said that a mass murderer on the loose wasn't scary? Well, as it turned out I was wrong. Very, very wrong. Maybe it was something about him actually being spotted in the school, actually being near my sister. It put the danger of it all into perspective. Made it real. 

Tilly was holding Jewels close to her, the gems of his shell poking into her skin. She was staring off into space without blinking. I didn't like that. "I, um… Dumbledore….he, uh, he told me… he told me not to say anything. Not now anyway." That didn't answer my question, nor did it do anything to reassure me. 

"Alright, but ──" 

"Ti ti!" Tilly's friends had followed me. Lavender wrapped an arm around her like a shield. "We're so glad you're alright. Oh, poor thing. You're in shock. Come sit with us. We'll have a look at Witch Weekly to calm your nerves, yeah?" 

"We'll take it from here," Parvati told me as if I didn't know how to comfort my own sister after doing it for thirteen years. But fine. Whatever. I let her go with her friends. 

As Professor Snape had said, Dumbledore explained to everyone about Black breaking into the school (though by that point the Gryffindors had already spread the news around for him anyway). He left Tilly out of his story, but I think most people knew anyway (because, again, the Gryffindors had already told everyone).

“The teachers and I need to conduct a thorough search of the castle." He spoke as calm as could be, as if it were perfectly normal for dangerous criminals to wander the castle at night (though I suppose at Hogwarts dangerous things did tend to happen all the time). 

Professors McGonagall and Flitwick closed all doors into the Hall. They locked them tight and put charms and jinxs around them just to be safe. 

“I’m afraid that, for your own safety, you will have to spend the night here," Dumbledore said. "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 disturbances should be reported to me immediately." 

The Head Boy, Percy Weasley, nodded curtly at this, looking proud and important. He wore an expression that read something like 'My time has come!' 

“Send word with one of the ghosts.” With that said, the headmaster turned to leave, only to stop again a moment later. “Oh, yes, you’l be needing...”

He waved his wand. The long tables flew to the edges of the Hall and stacked themselves against the walls; with another wave the floor was covered with hundreds of sleeping bags.

“Sleep well." The Headmaster and teachers left the room after that, closing the door behind them. But I was too anxious to sleep now. I couldn't stop thinking: was Sirius Black still in the castle? What would happen if they caught him? And how had he gotten in, in the first place? 

By the sound of it, everyone else was wondering the same things. Chatter from every direction. Theories being thrown around by everyone third year and up (we were already used to the craziness that happened every year). 

"It's very lucky he picked tonight, you know," I heard Hermione Granger saying. "The one night we weren't in the tower…" 

“I reckon he’s lost track of time, being on the run,” Ron Weasley replied. “Didn’t realize it was Halloween. Otherwise he’d have come bursting in here.”

"Maybe he knows how to Apperate," Evelynn Carter from Ravenclaw house suggested. "Just appear out of thin air, you know?" 

"Disguised himself probably," said a Hufflepuff fifth year named Celeste. 

"They're asking the wrong questions." 

I jumped. Foggie made a startled noise. "Jeez, Neen-uh!" She had once again appeared from out of no where. I swear to Merlin she could teleport sometimes. 

"Nine-uh," she corrected. She surveyed the crowd in the Great Hall, like she was watching a fun little circus act. "He obviously used one of the secret passage ways." 

"Sewcwet what now?" Foggie asked. 

"The secret passage ways," Fin Hagrid said, making her way over. Next to her I felt like a tiny, insegnifgant mouse, and I really hoped she wouldn't squash me. "There's at least seven of them through out the school, didn't you know?" 

"I did not know," Foggie said. 

“Everyone into their sleeping bags!” shouted Percy Weasley. “Come on, now, no more talking! Lights out in ten minutes!”

"How do you know about the secret passage?" one of the Weasley Twins asked as everyone picked up a sleeping bag. I watched Tilly settle in a corner with her friends. She seemed better; Jewels the Tortoise was laying next to her, gems reflecting off the candle light. The three girls were flipping through magazines and joking around like nothing had happened. 

Meanwhile, Kip was chatting with his own friends. He was the calmest of the three, much less freaked than I thought he would have been. Maybe it was just that the dementors were much scarier than Sirius Black or maybe it just hadn't hit him yet. But for now he was fine. 

I relaxed. 

"Nina and I have been at Hogwarts longer than anyone," Fin told him. "Of course we know about the passages." She rolled her eyes. "The real question is: how do you know about them?" 

"Well, we won't say in front of…" one of the Weasley Twins started. 

They both glanced at us Slytherins with identical looks of suspicion, but they lingered on Nina the longest like they thought she was the most  untrustworthy out of the three of us. I thought it might have been because she was not only a Slytherin but also Professor Snape's daughter. 

After a second she cleared her throat, muttered something about feeding a cat, and slipped into the shadows again. Which sucked because she seemed like she had some interesting theories, and I wanted to hear them. Plus, I was wondering what she meant when she said people were asking the wrong questions. 

"Good going," Fin huffed. "You've scared her off." She stomped off after her friend. 

That left Foggie and I standing alone with the Weasley Twins. For a moment no one said anything. I expected this kind of thing to happen once we got back to school. They'd only tolerated me on the ride to the train because my sister was there. Not that I blamed them for their bias. A lot of people in Slytherin (namely the Rich Twit and his loser friends) kind of sucked. 

"Awkward…" Foggie muttered. 

"George, is that Ramona and Lee calling?" Fred (I suppose unless George was talking to himself) said.

"Let's go see what she wants shall we?" George suggested. We all knew no one had called them anywhere, but Foggie and I let them go. It was better to keep Gryffindors and Slytherins apart anyway. 

◎━━━━━━◎━━━━━━◎

I had a strange dream that night. It was dark. My dream self was crouched in an alleyway behind a dumpster, watching something. It took me a minute to see it: two figures had stepped into the light of the street lamp. I don't know how, but I knew what would happen. This would not end well for anyone. I repositioned myself, getting ready to bolt. 

"How dare you!" This came from the taller of the two. He was easily recognizable from the Daily Prophet. Long hair. Dark eyes. Sirius Black pulled a snarl that somehow looked very unnatural on him, as if that wasn't how his face was supposed to work. His voice was deep, hoarse. When the words came out, they almost sounded like a growl. Not just because of his tone either ── I mean, an actual growl, like something you might hear from a rabid dog. 

The second man I was sure I'd never seen before, but he looked familiar all the same. He was much smaller in comparison to Black, much heavier too. The shadows obscured his face, but even from a distance I could make out his watery eyes. "S-Sirius, p-please! Just… just let me explain…" 

"Explain! Explain what?" I won't say he 'barked' his response, but Black was becoming more and more canine like the longer this scene went on. I half expected him to grow sharp teeth and fur like a werewolf or something. "James and Lily are dead, Peter!" 

Oh. 

The second man (my father?) whimpered. He got down on his knees, hands clasped together. "Please, Sirius, please…" 

"Please? Please what? Why shouldn't I just kill you right here?" The shadows hallowed his face; he bared his teeth like a dog preparing for attack. My dream self was frozen in place. I didn't want to see what happened next, but I couldn't look away. "After what you did?!" 

Black was screaming, wand clutched in his hand. A crowd was forming. Muggle people from across the street or stopping on the side walk a few feet away from them. Lights from apartment buildings flickered on, casting beams over the pavement. They were muttering, wondering what was going on. 

"Sirius, Sirius, please. We're… we're friends…" The man ── I mean, my dad, I guess ── hung on to Black's waist. His voice was trembling; sobs catching in every word.  

I wanted to scream at the muggles to go away, that they didn't understand what was about to happen. They needed to get away, to find safety. But my voice wouldn't work. My body wouldn't move. 

Black made another canine-like growl and shoved the other guy (my dad, whatever) off him. He landed flat on his back with a thud, whimpering and crying. The crowd's muttering intensified. Black didn't seem to notice them. He kept his glare fixed on the other guy (or, well you know). "Not any more. Not after this." He raised his wand, and then ──

I scrambled to sit up, now wide awake. It took me a moment to remember where I was and why I was there. My hands were shaking, heart still thumping from the explosion in my dream. Laughter echoing from all directions. Pure, mad, evil laughter that you'd only ever get from a villian in a superhero movie. 

My mouth was dry; maybe it was the fact that I was trying to sleep in the room I normally ate in but I was really cold. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to process what I'd just dreamt. I wanted to believe it was just my imagination. That it was my brain making it all up, what with Sirius Black being spotted and Nina having just told me he killed my father not too many weeks ago. Of course I'd have nightmares about it. 

But I wasn't so sure. 

I wasn't completely on board with Tilly's seer theory yet (at least, I wasn't ready to believe it, I didn't want to believe it), but I had to admit it was almost starting to make sense. Strange things, stranger than normal, were happening left and right. This was the third time something bizarre had happened to me in the span of just a few weeks. First the dementors and the hallucination on the train, then The Rich Twit hurts his arm only a few hours after I said he would, and now this. 

The dream was just as vivid as the one on the train had been. The same intense emotions lingered in the air, as if it were happening in the present and I was really there. Only difference was one was the past and one was the future. I wasn't sure, but I thought that put a dampener on Tilly's idea. 

I took a deep breath to relax but almost jumped out of my skin when I set my hand down and touched something hairy. It squeaked, and I heard tiny feet scurrying to hide under my pillow. 

"Oh. The Weasley Rat." I pulled him out and held him up by his tail. The rat squealed in protest. "Shush, you'll wake everyone up." I dropped him on top of the pillow, and he glared up at me indignantly. It almost looked too human to belong to a rat. I ignored that.

[Yes, Tilly, I know that rhymed. No, I'm not changing it.] 

I pulled the covers closer to me, still freezing. "What was your name again? Sully? Smea? Scratchy? Oh! Scabbers. I think…"

The rat squeaked in approval at the last one.

"Right. Well, I think you're on the wrong side here, Scabbers."

He squeaked again, burrowing himself in the sleeping bag with me when Hermione's cat mewed and ran by, leaping over sleeping students. The cat ran out of the Great Hall, apparently looking for Scabbers.

"How's the Gryffindors bringing their pets in here?" I wondered. "Snape didn't even let us grab our bags, never mind people's cats. Guess he doesn't love us as much as McGonagall loves them. Sad." I looked back down at the rat, still trembling under the sleeping bag. "Anyway, the cat's gone now…"

Scabbers didn't move.

"Alright, fine. Stay there. I'm too tired to care. I'll give you back tomorrow." I flopped down again, face first. After that nightmare I was exhausted. And freezing.

"But between you and me," I muttered into my pillow, pulling the covers closer, still. "Hagrid's hut is a great hiding place for small things…" 

◎━━━━━━◎━━━━━━◎

"It's not my fault. I can't control what my father does!" 

Weeks had passed, and there were no more signs of Sirius Black. The older students, more than used to the chaos by now, got on with their lives rather quickly; even the younger years seemed to calm down after a while. It helped that the first Quidditch game was just around the corner ── a nice little distraction for students and staff alike (I'd been freezing cold the entire time, so I'd taken to wearing a jacket at all times, which got me some strange looks since no one else was wearing one, but whatever, I blame Scotland's piss poor weather. Seriously, it had been storming for days). 

It was supposed to be Gryffindor vs Slytherin, but at the last second the team captains changed it to Gryffindor vs Hufflepuff (personally I was rooting for Hufflepuff ── go badgers!). 

"The weather will only ruin our chances," the Slytherin captain had said when asked about the change. "Plus, Malfoy's arm is still healing." He gestured at the Rich Twit, who gave a little whine of pain and got a lot of pampering from Pansy Parkinson. 

"First, you're literally not fooling anyone, you twat," I told Malfoy, and a few people shifted uncomfortably (because they knew I was right). "Second, I thought we were supposed to be ambitious? What's more ambitious than playing in bad conditions? You guys are being bad Slytherins." 

The Captain (should I bother learning his name?) scoffed. "Well, Pettigrew, since you feel so strongly about it, why don't you just take Malfoy's place and mine, seeing as how you think you can do so much better than either of us." 

"Nah, I'm alright. Don't have that kind of attention span; plus I don't fancy getting pneumonia ── Oh! Look, a mermaid's in the window!" 

Now it was the day before the match, and I caught Nina in the library, slamming her books on one of the tables in the back after a very bad DADA lesson. Apparently, Professor Lupin was ill, and her father had substituted for him, which meant he spent the whole time bullying the Gryffindors. People were very fussy about it afterwards, and some even went so far as to shoot snide remarks Nina's way. 

She dealt with this in a very Nina-like fashion: hunching in the darkest corner she could find and burying her nose in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  

I slid into the seat across from her. "Alright, Nina?" 

She glared at me from over the top of her book. I'd pronounced her name wrong again. In hind's sight: maybe not a bright idea to push her buttons when she was already pissed off. I grinned sheepishly. Well, tried too, anyway. I don't think it worked, because she kept glaring at me. "Sorry." 

She huffed and went back to reading. At least, she was looking down at the pages, but it didn't seem like she was taking in any of the words. "Go away."

"That's rude. I was just saying hi," I said. She ignored me. From across the room, I could see a couple of Gryffindors whispering behind their hands, glaring over at our table every now and again. "Why do you care what they think, anyway?" 

"I don't." 

"Seems like you do."

"Go away." 

"S'not good to bottle things up, you know." 

"I thought I told you to go away." She narrowed her eyes, still hidden behind the book; they did this weird thing where they sort of changed from blue to green. Something to do with the light, I think, but it looked wicked. "That's three times now." 

"You did. I'm ignoring you." I leaned my elbows on the table and stared at her until she finally looked up. "Blatantly." 

Nina scowled. "Why don't you pilferage something from someone else, since that's all you're good for?"

I sat up. "Hey…"  My voice came out weaker than I'd meant it to. That was sort of crossing a line. It wasn't like I wanted to become a thief. Just sort of happened… 

Nina's hands tightened around her book; she stiffened her whole body, taking a deep breath. In a manner that seemed much too gentle for the mood she was in, Nina set the book down. "I'm sorry." It sounded like she meant it, so I shrugged it off. Also, her eyes had changed colour again: a deep, dark blue this time, the same shade as the Black Lake outside the Slytherin common room. "I don't know why I said that…" 

"It's fi ─" 

"I'm not an evil person." 

"Didn't say you were." 

She eyed me for a moment, like she was looking for some kind of 'gotcha!' sign. As if I might suddenly jump up and start calling her devil's spawn. I wondered if she got that a lot because of her dad. She never acted as if she noticed what people said about her, or her father for that matter, but maybe she noticed more than I thought. Maybe it messed with her more than she let on. 

"Good." Nina picked her book back up and hid behind it again. It seemed deliberate; I got the feeling she was specifically hiding her face from me. Which was sad because her eyes kept changing colour and it was fun to watch…. Not that that was important. "Because I'm not." 

"I know you're not." I suppose I could see where she was coming from. Slytherin, as I'm sure you know by now, had a very bad rep. Foggie and I had spent the first two years of school trying to make it plenty clear we didn't associate with the rest of them. We weren't one of the biggoted bullies. And one of the main reasons the Sorting Hat had put me in the snake house was because I wanted to be the first "good" Slytherin to come out of it (but then I realised how objective that was and ditched that idea all together). 

But I didn't have a father (I tried not to think about my dream). So, I wasn't sure how I'd handle things if I had a dad who ran around tormenting the people he should have been teaching and making me look bad by association. Foggie might have (he'd told me his dad was a follower of Voldemort, the same way Sirius Black was), but he didn't like talking about it. Plus, I had no idea where he was at the moment. I'd lost him in a crowd of Chocolate Frog Card traders. 

"He's not that bad either." Nina wasn't even trying to look like she was reading now. She was holding the book so close to her face it would have been impossible to see the words right. "My dad… I mean… he's different at home…" 

"Oh." Super intelligent response, I know. But I didn't know what else to say. 

"He's not… he's not a monster. He just has problems…" 

"You don't have to apologize for him, you know." Nina shrugged but didn't say anything. It was odd how fast her mood could change in a matter of mere minutes. "I mean it. It's not your job to make up for the way he treats people. Anyone who holds that against you is rubbish and you don't want them around anyway."

She stayed quiet for a long time, just hiding behind her book. "Buckbeak, that hippogriff that stomped on Malfoy, he's got a trail with Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. They want to behead him."

 I thought maybe she was changing the subject on purpose so she didn't have to admit I was right, but I listened anyway. "Fin was very pissed off. Hermione Granger is studying past cases and things to help with the appeal." Her hands tightened around the book, still hiding her face. "She looked a tad stressed, trying to keep up with all her classes plus that so…" 

"Let me guess, you asked if you could help, and she just figured it was some trick or something." Nina said nothing, which I took to mean yes. That was usually the way it went. I mean, sure there are a lot of pricks in our house, but I thought most of us were alright. Still, one bad apple and all that, I suppose…

"Sorry," I said.  

"Eh." Nina sat up straight, placing her book down again; this time her eyes were the same colour as mint. "It doesn't matter, anyway, does it? I've got my own things to worry about, haven't I?" 

"Uh, yeah. Sure," I agreed because she seemed like she needed to hear it. "Does that mean you're not going to Quidditch match tomorrow?"

She pulled a face. "Oh, Heavens no. I don't sport well." 

I sniggered. "To be fair, sports are terrible."

Nina nodded in agreement. She seemed slightly better now. Or maybe she was just really good at hiding things.

"Something's the matter with you as well." Unfortunately, for me, Nina was just as good as picking up other people's feelings (at least mine anyway) as she was at hiding her own. She was eyeing me with a knowing look in her eyes, as if daring me to argue against her statement.

I decided not to argue. The truth was, I had been stressing about the dream I'd had about my dad (I guess?) and Sirius Black, try as I might to forget it. I didn't know why it bothered me so much. I just got the feeling it would matter somehow. As if it'd come up one of Professor Binns' pop quizzes in History of Magic class one day. I felt like I needed to memorize every detail of it, which was frustrating because it was fading fast.

Then, there was the vividness of it all. Normally, my dreams didn't feel that real. I didn't like it. Plus, you know, it was unnerving to watch your father (apparently?) die in your sleep.

Expressing all that to Nina was kind of hard, but I gave it a go anyway. She'd shared her problems with me, anyway. I could trust her with mine, too. She stared at me intently as I told her about it, not interrupting. 

When I'd finished she stayed quiet for one, long minute. "That's...quite the affliction."

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Listen, if you want advise, you'll have to seek out a Hufflepuff. I'm no good at consoling people."

"I've noticed."

She made a face a child might make if they were pouting. Which was so unlike the intimidating, shadow dwelling Nina everyone seemed to be so afraid of. Maybe it just took spending some time with her to realise it, but Nina was a girl with many sides. She wasn't some one dimensional git like the Rich Twit.

It made me feel a little better.

We spent the rest of the day together. Mostly dodging our problems with nonsense. I listened to her info dump about serial killers and cold cases at the Ministry (she wanted to be an auror, she'd told me, but she didn't really need to since it was kind of obvious), and she let me teach her how to pick pockets. She was a fast learner too. By the time curfew hit, she was an expert at it.

Everything was fine until after lights out and everyone had fallen asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night, colder than ever. It didn't matter how many jackets I shoved on, I was still freezing. I was almost convinced there was invisible snow and ice in my dorm, it was cold; I mean, sure, the dungeons were typically colder than the other houses... but this was madness! 

But I seemed to be the only one effected by it. Everyone else was snoozing along, as if nothing were going on, which I thought was really inconsiderate of them. The least they could do was wake up and suffer with me! That was what dorm mates were for! Or maybe I only thought that because three of my dorm mates were the Rich Twit and his nitwit friends, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and I wanted them to suffer, because my fifth roomie was Foggie and I didn't want him to suffer.

Anyway. It was cold, and I was mad that I was the only one who'd been woken up by it. I lived on the streets ninety percent of the year. I should have been used to the cold. But this... this was something else... something almost colder than normal cold. As if all the warmth had been sucked right out of the world, snuffing out all the light with it, freezing everything over.

An eternal winter, just for me. Oh goodie.

The anxiety settled in next. Everything hit all at once: the threat of Sirius Black, the fact that my sister could have died when she'd met him outside Gryffindor Tower that day, the creepiness of my dreams and visions or whatever. I didn't like what they meant. Apparently the wizarding world's biggest, baddest, meanest bully was coming back. At some point. Who knows when. Or how.
And he was going to kill Harry for some reason?

I wasn't sure how I was suppose to deal with that, assuming it was real and I wasn't going mad and all the other things weren't just freaky coincidences. What was even the point in seeing stuff like that? What was I supposed to do about it? I was just one kid. Just one boy with absolutely zero heroic skills. I was more inclined to hide under my covers until it was over. Besides, it wasn't like anyone would believe me if I tried to tell them about it (Tilly, Foggie, and Nina didn't count since they're my sister, girlfriend, and best friend respectively).

Also, I had no idea how I was going to keep my sister and I together come next summer. We were going to be separated, and then we'd never talk to each other ever again. And then, at some point, we'd completely forget the other exists. We won't even remember we're twins. We'll just be strangers who pass each other on the way to our future jobs and think 'Hm that person looks familiar.'

And on top of all that, I was somehow expected to focus on school. Study hard, get good marks. Pass exams. Impossible. I was going to fail. And then I wouldn't get a job. And I'd wind up being without a house or money, and I'd be living on the streets (well, I was already there on that last one, but you know what I mean!).

I hadn't been freaking out this bad since the train ride from King's Cross... or any time I got too close to the gate's at the entrance to school grounds...

And then it hit me.

The reason I'd been so cold the past few weeks. The reason it was so bad now...

"The dementors are coming..."

If I really was a Seer, then I suppose it made sense for me to know stuff like that before it happened. But, like, again, what was I suppose to do about it?

With no definitive answer, I elected to shove all my anxiety in an invisible box, get a piece of muggle chocolate from the bag Tammi had given Tilly and me before leaving King's Cross, and climb back into bed and go back to sleep. 

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So, like... here's a meme for the end of this chapter just 'cause (I actually have like a whole bunch for my HP ocs but not all of them work without context...)

(Image description:/ A three part photo split vertically. The top is an all white background with black lettering reading: "Magnus when he realizes Dementors will probably show up at some point"

The second part is an image of Jeremey Clarkson from Top Gear sitting with a disgruntled look on his face. There are audience members in the background. The caption (in white lettering) reads: "Oh no!"

The third part, on the bottom, is also Jeremey Clarkson, now with a passive expression and the same audience members in the background. A new caption (also white letters) reads: "Anyway." /: End description)