7 NOVEMBER, 2001

—

hours lost to my tangled thoughts
with nowhere left to call home

excerpt from poem #23, "continuous," in my poetry book aftertaste

—

With great vigor Anastasiya clutches the paint tube and watches as red spills out.

She has given zero thought to what her end product should look like, and as she guides her brush through the oil she lets the paint tell its lawless tale. It becomes something of blood, or perhaps fire.

For a time known as witching hour, 3 in the morning is unusually cruel to Anastasiya. Every so often, she swears she sees faces in the flame of her candle, but that would make no sense, even in the Wizarding World.

"Can we bring a croissant back for Viktor?"

In the last five years, she has never been able to make out the words that drift into her more troubling dreams. Even in winters past as her body begins to tense in anticipation that she is never relieved from, the two sisters in her nightmares have always spoken in a jumbled language of her own.

She mixes red with black and watches what could be a representation of the crimson of her blood and the obsidian of her eyes dancing furiously across her canvas. With her free hand, she rubs the tired from her eyes. What a cruel exchange, receiving both unending fatigue and haunting visions every night. The cloth in front of her blurs as she loses more mental control over what she's doing. Yet, it's the most therapeutic phenomenon she's experienced in a while. Her oil paints bend the limits of truth, and in the face of her nefarious reverie, she doesn't mind. She doesn't mind not knowing what her body aims to create, and she doesn't mind standing on the line between genius and delirious.

"We won't be home until after the new year; the croissant won't be fresh anymore."

Fury boils inside her head, running at an unnatural speed to power the fluid movements of her wrist. She's well aware some would consider her painting wasteful as she leaves knots of scarlet and mahogany. Normally, she would attribute these shades to the wines she loves so dearly, but tonight all she sees is gore and flame.

While the rest of Cambridge sleeps soundly, one woman is wide awake, filled with all the rage she can muster. She's come to handle and toughen out many preceding nights, but in her candlelit passion, she wants a revenge she cannot and will not get. The best she can do is lash out on her canvas.

"But you can use magic to make it fresh again, can't you?"

Anastasiya doesn't know why she's painting with a bloody red — there was no sanguine fluid in her nightmares tonight, or any night for that matter. Death comes in many forms, and the one that dances before her while she's asleep never drips crimson.

She's always been an artist. It helps her express herself and make sense of the fragments of logic she operates on. Charcoal has always been her comfort zone, which is where she likes to stay. From childhood her sketchbook has been her third arm. Yet as she broke through adolescence, she began to find that values of gray were simply not enough to express the deep anguish rippling through her veins. She felt the peculiar ache inside her chest and refused to believe she could be feeling pain in her heart, and thus vowed to bring the sensations out through her hands. Since then, her oils have become her sanctuary, although a morbid one.

"I don't know everything, Milena. They haven't taught us that charm yet."

Anastasiya paints furiously, her arms growing more and more weary. Yet, she finds nothing that compels her to stop. She sees the movement of the hands on her pocket watch out of the corner of her eye, but in her creative rampage, time does not exist.

She incorporates every unforeseen detail — the paint that drips below its intended position, the dark that splatters onto the light. What is the goal of her artistic outburst? Perhaps she aims to work her brain so much she squeezes the life out of her nightmare, or maybe she is just trying to kill time in order to avoid confronting her fear of falling back asleep.

"I love your magic, Alyona. I think it's pretty."

Tears begin to well up in the corners of Anastasiya's eyes — whether from exhaustion or from misery she doesn't know. She misses the time in her life as a child when she was able to focus on the future; instead she's stuck in a past that replays her greatest fears until she caves in.

To both her delight and horror, her painted production matches a sea of Durmstrang students, clothed in red and black. Nostalgia could often be welcomed, but memories seem to instead taunt Anastasiya as even in her efforts to escape the past, she has found it standing right in front of her again, her own subconscious begging her to confront it.

Setting her supplies down, she figures she can cast an erasing charm another day when she wants to start over and paint something with the ends in mind. As for her own body, she decides on a bath, rather than using some quick magic.

Soft flaxen light gently streams in through the windows in the hallway as she pads into the kitchen. In her youth when she had trouble sleeping, her mother would pour her a glass of milk, but Anastasiya has long traded this habit in for a less healthy one, instead emptying out the rest of the wine bottle she had opened earlier in the week. She was always told that a glass of wine before bed was good for you, but she isn't sure how much truth that held in the middle of the night.

Reaching her bedroom again, she sets the glass down on her dresser as she goes inside the bathroom, turning the faucet to fill her bath with hot water. She'd discovered early into her teen years that hot baths and showers were preferable to cold, but tonight more than ever she needed the soothing temperature to help relax her tired body.

Rest comes naturally as she delicately undoes the buttons on her silken pajama top and pulls down the matching shorts, slipping into the tub with her glass of wine. The warm water covers her gently, her body sinking in to receive its comfort.

—

17 DECEMBER, 1994

Anastasiya curses Lilah and Astrid, or whoever's idea it was to jump into the Black Lake this late at night. The fact that she's been staying up every night the past week studying for exams and is now beyond exhausted is not even the most concerning part; the low temperatures of the water have convinced her she has no limbs. She could have sat this one out and stayed fast asleep in the dorm like Zoya and Brielle, but she had put swimming in the Black Lake on her bucket list for her year at Hogwarts at the start of the year anyway.

She quickly treads, hoping to warm her body up, but slows down when her muscles soon begin to tire. She leans back and rests her bent arms on the dock, where Astrid comes to join her.

"How do you think your exams went?" Astrid says as she wrings out her coils.

"Most of them were too easy; I could have aced Charms and History of Magic in my sleep. Dark Arts was not as hard as I expected. I couldn't be bothered for Divination, but I stayed up all Thursday night studying for Astronomy and I'm not sure how it went," Anastasiya replies, nervously picking at her nails.

"I'm sure you did well," Astrid reassures her as they watch Harper and Paloma splash around. "You always pull through."

A sudden gust of wind sends a sharp shiver down Anastasiya's spine at the same time that Alyona comes paddling over to her two dormmates. She still seems to have copious amounts of energy in her body because she keeps herself afloat in front of the other two girls, arms and legs all paddling in the water.

"Astrid, is it true you were studying with the Harry Potter the other day?" Alyona has always been one to love gossip, but it is never out of malice.

Astrid laughs loudly. "Oh, I just needed help finding one of the Herbology textbooks and he was in the library at the same time as me. I promise whatever you were told was much more dramaticized than what actually happened."

"Well, that's more progress in interacting with him than any of us have made, besides the time Zoya literally ran into him in the forest," Anastasiya says as she lightly kicks her legs back and forth in the murky water.

"Nevermind any of that," Astrid says as she nudges Anastasiya's arm that sits next to hers on the dock. "Tell me what's going on with you and Draco! I heard he asked you to the ball after dinner."

Anastasiya huffs, "yes, he asked me rather confidently, not realizing it was a tad bit late." She fiddles with the strap of her bikini top. "You know I'm going with Eloise, so I had to say no."

"Would you have gone with him if he asked first?" Alyona inquires.

"Probably," Anastasiya says nonchalantly. "Not because I have a crush on him or anything," she adds when she sees her friends exchange a glance, Alyona struggling to hide a smile and Astrid raising her eyebrows.

Astrid pushes further, "why don't you like him? I think he's sweet to you."

"What's the point in having crushes this year if we're just going to leave at the end of the academic term?" She traces along the natural markings on the wood of the dock. A ways off, the Durmstrang boat mildly rocks back and forth in front of the castle.

Alyona sighs. "You're never going to have any fun if you put an expiration date on everything, you know."

Astrid hums in agreement. "Just enjoy yourself this year, see where things go. If you want to keep talking to him after, you can write. If you find you don't care anymore, then at least you'll have some memories to take home with you."

The three waded in silence for a little while longer, taking in the world around them. Along with the slight crashing of waves, the biting sounds of bugs and the winter wind create an orchestra together. The only sources of light come from the moon hanging high in the sky and the few flares still burning in the castle and the ship. Despite the lake being painfully cold upon their entrance, all three girls have grown accustomed to the temperature and now sink in, relaxing into its embrace as they ponder on the events of the fall term and watch their friends continue splashing around. Right now, Lilah, Harper, and Paloma seem to be singing something they made up; Anastasiya only matches to catch a few words about a hippogriff and a mandrake. She does have to admit that this must be one of the memories Astrid was insinuating about, and she wouldn't mind sneaking out to the Black Lake one night with Draco.

—

7 NOVEMBER, 2001

The hot bath and glass of wine work well to warm up Anastasiya's body. She sits sipping as she lets her muscles relax, mulling in both the suds and her thoughts.

The past few months had been unexpected, to say the least. She's probably spent time with more friends these days than she has in the years since she's graduated. Although she's grown used to her own company, she cannot deny that she's enjoyed the liveliness of her new companions.

It's not that she's deliberately avoiding anyone, but it also hasn't exactly been convenient for her to see her old friends as they've scattered about the world. However, she can't say it particularly bothers her.

It seemed Draco felt similarly, as Anastasiya knew he had been avoiding his childhood friends for a while. Yet, something felt so natural about having everyone together. Still, she could only imagine the messy combination of emotions she would feel if she had reunited with her own school friends.

How unpredictable life had turned out to be.

Nearly everything about Anastasiya had changed in the last few years, but something that's stayed with her for better or for worse is her stubbornness. Astrid's words still rang in her ears all these years, and she has never stopped wondering if perhaps she's right.

Even now, with no end date in sight, she finds it hard to trust Draco. It's not even like they're dating, or like their fathers are forcing any sort of relationship upon them — she can cut ties if she ever wants to. But she notices from the way he follows her like a lost puppy that he wants more.

She can't even reason why he'd be adamant on pursuing her, considering the two hardly know each other. Sure, they've looked at art together and shared dinners together and even danced together, but what can you really know about someone in such a short amount of time? For all she knows, he still sees themselves the way they were in their youths, two children painfully unaware of what was to lie on their paths ahead. Not that she doesn't enjoy his company, but the walls around her heart are far from coming down.

Anastasiya leans her head back against the edge of the tub, observing the pruning on her fingers. Part of her wishes she had brought a bottle of wine up, but she reminds herself that the purpose of the glass is to coax her body back to sleep, not to numb.

By the shade of the sky that peaks through the small window, she guesses it's been about two hours since she first jostled awake. She would stay immersed in the hot water, which she's had to pull out her wand and reheat several times, but she's expected at work in a few hours. She drains the tub, watching as the water surrounding her begins to sink, slowly and then running faster and faster until it's gone.

She takes a look at herself in the mirror before heading back to her bedroom. It's probably impossible for the crescent moons that sit below her eyes to have already darkened from one more restless night, but that's what it feels like. Luckily her muscles have unwound from the bath, but hints of fatigue still rest heavily on her shoulders. Anastasiya fixes her eyes on her face, observing the hollows of her cheeks and wondering if the ghosts of memories she carries with her sits in them, caving away at her livelihood. She turns away before the voice inside her head can lodge any insults, quickly picking up her silken clothes and putting them on again.

Her head sinks into her hands as she rests against her headboard, letting out a loud sigh. She's exhausted. She has been for a very, very long time. She sinks down into her sheets, begging for just a few hours of peaceful repose.

—

just filler today; sorry! i wanted to give y'all more insight into anastasiya's head since that's where she processes life the most. i promise the next ten chapters will be more interesting and things will start to make more sense.

thank you all for bearing with me while i was back at school this month! the break was much-needed emotionally and socially and i haven't been that happy in a really long time.

anyways, tell me how you've all been!

qotd: what is your favorite way to relax after a long day/night?

aotd: i love painting my nails or doing a face mask while i watch a comfort show/movie.

thank you for reading and don't forget to vote!

wishing you lots of love, joy, and peace : )