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"Night overwhelms, but it shall not prevail."

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December 18th, 2023

The desk was pushed against the window, and the boy sitting at it was staring out into the night. The warmth of the streetlights below bounced off the snow on the ground, and red and green lights twinkled on trees through every window in the street. Every window except his. 

The low light of the candle on his desk cast only a dim glow on his face, but even then his conflicted expression was clear. He tapped quill against parchment, motions jerky and uncertain. The parchment was filled with ink splotches and lines scribbled out, as were many of the crumpled papers strewn about the floor of the tight bedroom. 

Footsteps in the hall, mounting the stairs. The boy's breath caught, as if he were engaged in some illicit activity and wary of being found out. He crumpled up the parchment in front of him, gathered the others off the floor, and shoved them in the desk drawer. He'd just turned back to the window, hand protectively hovering over the drawer, when there was a knock at the door. 

"What are you doing in there, darling?" came a woman's voice. 

"Nothing." His voice was quick, squeaky, obviously untruthful. The boy cringed. 

The woman outside took several moments to respond. "Well, I'm going to bed. You don't need anything, do you?"

He had to clear his throat to get the words out. "No, Mum."

"All right. Good night."

"Night."

A few footsteps, and a door closed across the landing. The boy waited several minutes in silence before relaxing, opening the drawer, pulling out the mound of papers. He let them fall to the floor, sifted through until he was holding an envelope. Hand shaking, he read it, as he had dozens of times prior. The front only contained a name, as if he didn't know what the address might be. 

"You'd better bloody believe this," he whispered. To the envelope, or to the night, or to the pile of letters on the floor, or perhaps to the man whose name seemed to be having such a great effect on him.

Neville Longbottom.

~•~

December 23rd, 2023

A black-haired girl slipped through the crowded office, arms stacked too high with folders and files. She was nearly staggering under the weight, though no one seemed to be paying her any attention. As she wove her way through the noise and bustle, nearly invisible to the politicians and bureaucrats around her, her eyes scanned the room, as if she were looking for something, or perhaps someone. 

She reached her destination, set the files down on a desk and began sorting them, nodding mechanically when the woman at the desk berated her for taking so much time. Still watching the room, eyes roving across the different faces.

"Imagine that, calling a meeting two days before Christmas," one man complained as he walked by.

"...meant to spend time with my family," filtered a woman's voice from across the way. 

"...if those bloody DA hooligans had their way..." drifted another conversation. 

"...happy to welcome you to Parliament."

The girl's head snapped up. Across the room, the pot-bellied head of some department or other was speaking to a young man with messy brown hair. "Look just like your father, you do. Glad you don't think like him, ey?" The older man nudged him as if he'd told a remarkable inside joke, and the young man laughed as naturally as if he really had. 

The girl set down the file she was holding and slipped away from the desk. The woman who had been berating her a few moments ago seemed to have forgotten she existed already, so no one paid any mind as she wove her way across the room, stopping only when she reached the young man. She tapped his shoulder.

He turned, and the pleasant expression on his face turned sour instantly. "What are—"

"Hello," she said, a little too loudly and a little too happily. Her smile was very wide, maybe even forced. "Can we talk?"

"What's this?" the old politician bustled, giving her a skeptical look. "Don't you have work to do? Don't bother our newest Parliament member."

"Excuse me, sir, but we're old friends from school," she said, giving the man a sickly sweet smile, as if she had practice being overly polite to older people. "It'll only be a moment."

The man looked at the younger boy, who appeared to be very near to rolling his eyes. He seemed to be only very grudgingly agreeing when he said, "Right. Old friend. Sure. What do you want?" 

"Just to catch up." She slipped her arm through his and began to drag him away, with enough force that he stumbled a little, seeming surprised. "It was such a pleasant shock to see you here a few days ago, and I was so excited, hoping to see you again..." 

"Pleasant shock?" he asked. "Are you ill?"

She carried on as if he hadn't said that. "And I knew I needed to talk to you." 

The girl took a sharp turn through a doorway and closed the door, plunging them into the darkness of a broom cupboard. When she lit her wand, the boy had pulled as far away from her as he could, stepping into a mop bucket in the process, though he either didn't notice or didn't care. He was eyeing her with something that seemed like suspicion. "The hell do you want?"

The girl's politeness and smile were gone, replaced by a very serious air. She looked him up and down. "Listen, I can't imagine what you're doing here," she said, shaking her head, "but I want to help."

~•~

December 28th, 2023

In the shadows of the alley crouched a boy with a cloak pulled down over his face, obscuring pale skin and pitch black hair. He was watching the people walking by, none of whom seemed to take notice of him. He seemed to lying in wait for someone, eyes darting across the crowd, searching. 

A tall girl crossed by on the other side of the street, but she paused outside a shop door to twirl a curl of her hair. She looked around casually, almost exaggeratedly, and her eyes caught the boy's gaze. She stared at him for a moment, her expression as unreadable as his. Before too long, she turned and walked into the shop. 

The boy waited several seconds more, then followed her. 

She was standing near the back, obscured by one bookshelf and scanning another. She seemed to not notice the boy as he stopped next to her, silent as a shadow. He picked up a book without looking at it. 

"Do you know where they are?" the girl whispered. 

"Who?"

A nervous glance around. Lowering her voice to barely audible. "Albus and Colette." 

The boy blinked at the book in his hand. It seemed like those hadn't been names he was expecting to hear. "What?"

"They were taken by the aurors?" The girl glanced at him quickly, then looked away as if she shouldn't have. "I thought you knew. We haven't heard anything since school got out, so it's been almost two weeks. I thought it was possible you might have heard something, maybe..."

He turned to stare at her, something akin to horror on his face. "When did that happen?"

"It was that Thursday night after you left, before we went home for the holiday. During dinner." Another glance at him, as if that were more important than the opinions of possible onlookers. Eyes widening at the expression on his face. "What? Is it bad?"

"I don't know. I haven't heard anything. I'm sure it is..." The boy closed his eyes, laid the book back on the shelf, put his head in his hands. "I just think it might be my fault."

~•~