Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

October 31, 1994

The castle had long since fallen silent.

Ava lay rigid under the covers, eyes wide in the dark, counting the cracks in the canopy above her bed. The old paint peeled like dry skin. Sleep wasn’t even a question, the Goblet had spewed Harry’s name into the air earlier that night.

The ring on her hand hummed once. It vibrated against her skin, the way it always did when he called for her.

Now, the warmth from the Headmaster’s fireplace licked at her back, but it might as well have been a world away. The cold had gotten into her feet, into her hands, threading up her bones no matter how close she stood to the flames.

No. No. No.

She didn't move.

Not when he said her name.

Not when his hand stretched toward her, expectant.

Ava stared at it. At the deep lines cut into his palm.

No. No. No.

She had always felt stronger in this office, needed, part of something big and important. But now her legs felt weak.

Snape’s boots scraped the floor as he shifted beside her.

“You’re hesitating, Ava,” Dumbledore said softly. His hand remained extended.

"Why" her mouth was dry "... is this necessary?"

Dumbledore tilted his head, the glow of the firelight caught the edge of his half-moon glasses. He exhaled slowly.

“Necessary?” He echoed, savoring the word as though she had missed something painfully obvious. “Ava, your loyalty is a wonderful quality. But loyalty is... sentimental. It bends under pressure, twists under fear.” He let the words hang. “You don’t build a house on sentiment. You build it on foundation.”

He gestured his open hand towards her. “This vow, this safeguard, is that foundation. It’s not about questioning you, Ava. It’s about protecting Harry. You understand the stakes, don’t you?”

Ava nodded.

“This isn’t about your feelings, Ava. Your doubts are irrelevant. You know why?” He stepped closer, curling her hand from her side onto his open palm. “Because they don’t change the facts. Harry needs you. Not your fears. Not your hesitation. You.”

His skin was papery against hers, too warm.

"You don’t see the whole picture," he murmured, almost kindly. "And you don’t need to. That’s not your job. Your job is to do what I ask, when I ask it. No questions. This isn’t a request, it’s a responsibility.”

The fire hissed behind her.

"And only someone as remarkable as you could handle it."

Her lungs felt tight.

He leaned in slightly, his voice softer somehow, almost fatherly. “You’re the strongest, the most capable.” Ava blinked. How could she be? She was only fourteen. “And that’s exactly why I’m asking this of you, because I trust you to do what no one else can. To see it through.”

Ava's eyes flickered toward Professor Snape.

He didn’t look at her. He didn’t look at anything except the roaring hearth, his wand ready in his hand.

Ava felt corned and guilt followed immediately. There was no reason to feel that way. She should be grateful Dumbledore trusted her enough to ask. So, she nodded.

Dumbledore's smile widened, pleased with himself. “Good girl,” he said. “Now, shall we get on with it?”

Snape stepped forward, robes whispering against the stone, the edge of his wand lifting over their joined hands.

Ava’s sweat cooled against her skin, uncomfortably pooling under her arms.

She heard the faint intake of Snape's breath before he spoke. “Do you swear to protect your brother to the best of your ability?”

Her heart rammed against her ribs. “I do.”

A string of fire erupted from Snape’s wand, coiling around their hands.

“Do you swear you will not let your brother die in Voldemort’s hands or as a casualty of the upcoming war?”

“I do.”

The second flame licked at her wrist, her skin prickled.

“It is finished.”

Ava jerked her hand back, cradling it to her chest, the phantom burn still there. Nausea twisted lower in her stomach.

Dumbledore smiled faintly, as if she had just completed a simple charm successfully.

“Thank you, Ava," he said warmly.

Whatever he asked, she would give.

Chapter Text

August 14, 1995.

It’s quiet now, except for the footsteps on the stairs and the occasional thud of someone dropping their boots a little too hard. She doesn’t need to look to know who’s who. She has been paying attention, as fruitless as it has been. 

Tonks has that quick, careless rhythm, like she’s never learned to walk without bumping into something. Moody’s got the heavy, uneven tread. Thunk, step, thunk. Kingsley’s voice drifts past the door, he’s saying something that makes Remus huff a laugh.

But no one said anything important. Nothing about the war. Nothing about what happened. Nothing about her. 

The first night when the adults started sending the others upstairs for the Order meeting, they looked at her too. She didn’t argue, of course. What right did she have to ask for trust now? To sit at the table with the ones actually doing something?

Whatsmore none of them knew she’d started training at twelve. Or that Dumbledore had made her take the vow when she was fourteen. So it wasn’t just that she’d failed them by letting Harry go off alone, though that was bad enough. She couldn’t fight for a place at the table without unraveling everything Dumbledore had laid out for her.

So when the adults told the kids to head upstairs, she went too.

But the stubborn part of her didn’t get it. If he didn’t trust her with what was happening, what the Order was doing, what Voldemort might be planning, then how was she supposed to protect anyone? 

What if there’d been attacks and she didn’t know? 

What if people had already died?

What if no one was doing anything at all?

No. She shouldn’t think like that. She didn’t want to think that. She didn’t. It wasn’t fair. They were all doing what they could. Ava knew that. 

She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, pretending to focus on the chessboard in front of her. Ron was grinning wide, the way he always did when he was sure he was winning. 

And he was.

Ava and Ron had been playing since first year. Harry never had the patience for it, and Hermione had better ways to spend her free time. She was tucked into an armchair a few feet away now, reading ahead in one of their textbooks like she always did.

For days now, Ron had been walking around with that smug little smirk, stacking win after win. It had never happened before. Ava let out a slow breath through her nose and tried to focus. She could see the board clearly now, no way to win. Not even a draw.

She moved a piece, already knowing it was useless. Ron whooped, then launched into that ridiculous little victory dance he always did. The prefect badge on his chest caught the light. Hermione’s was upstairs, neatly stored away in her trunk.

A grin tugging at his lips. “Shall we go again?”

Hermione looked up from her book. “What you should be doing is studying. OWLs aren’t going to pass themselves, Ron.”

“Yeah, yeah. I will,” Ron muttered.

“She’s right, you know. You’ll have less time now that you’re a prefect. ”  Harry’s tone was flat with resentment.

He was angry. Again. And, as always, he didn’t know what to do with it.

Ava hadn’t even realized this was the year prefects were chosen. That detail had passed her by entirely. But apparently Harry had been expecting it, and he had expected the prefect badge to go to him. Not Ron. 

It had surprised Ava too. Harry was after all Dumbledore’s favorite. But no. It had gone to Ron.

And honestly? Ava was happy for him. Ron deserved a win. For once. 

Ron didn’t answer. Just puffed his chest slightly and picked up the only broken chess piece from the floor. Without a word, he left the room to hand it off to someone who could fix it. 

It was easier back at Hogwarts, there, they could repair things themselves as they broke. Here, everything cracked stayed cracked just a little longer. 

Ava’s gaze slid back to Harry.

He sat hunched, pretending to read the Daily Prophet , eyes flicking across the page without taking any of it in. Ever since he’d learned they'd been tearing him down all summer, he insisted on reading every issue. Said he wanted to stay informed but all it did was keep him angry.

He wasn’t fun to be around when he was like this. 

Ava caught Hermione watching him, too. 

Hermione had been surprised she’d gotten the prefect badge too. She’d assumed it would’ve gone to Ava, everyone had: Ava had the best grades in their year. But Hermione had still been pleased with herself, and said something along the lines of Dumbledore rewarding real effort. After all, Ava had the Time-Turner, and “that was basically cheating,” while Hermione was all hard work.

She’d even managed to look incredibly sorry about the Time-Turner being confiscated.

It might’ve offended Ava if she gave two shits about academic titles. But she didn’t. Honestly, Hermione did deserve it. 

Harry and Ron had been more honest. They were nearly as gutted as Ava. Ron, especially, had been hoping for another time-travel adventure ever since missing out on the one that saved Sirius.

It was during that mission that they found out Ava had the Time-Turner, Dumbledore had proposed it and that was how the truth had slipped out. 

Now, with the quiet stretching in the corridor and Ron still not back, Ava found herself glancing down at her wrist.

The skin there looked unchanged. Pale, faintly freckled, nothing new. Nothing to see.

But she could still feel it.

Not in her skin, but in her mind. A weight not attached to her body, but lodged somewhere in the architecture of her thoughts.

The Vow.

It wasn’t something she thought about often, not because she’d forgotten, but because she’d learned to file it away, like everything else.

In her mind, difficult thoughts weren’t left loose. They were shaped and named, then tucked into neat compartments, stones, each with its own texture and weight. 

The Vow had its own stone.

From the beginning, she’d treated it like any other difficult variable: identify it, label it, store it. A necessary action. A fixed point. Not something to negotiate with, just something to account for.

She’d filed it away properly. Gave it its place and left it there, untouched but never unaccounted for. Because thinking too long about what it meant, what it cost, served no purpose. It didn’t change the facts.

So she hadn’t ignored it. She’d just learned to step around it.

But now… she found herself staring at that stone again and again.

The other night had made sure of that.

Or maybe it had started before, back at the last trial. Back in the stands during the third task. She’d thought that it had been her own fear, her own instinct that made her run toward the maze when she’d felt something had gone wrong. And yes, part of it had been. Of course it had. But not entirely.

She remembered it all. How every other thought had slipped away, dull and distant, as if someone had drawn thick curtains around her mind and left only one single path in the light: get to Harry. Nothing else had mattered. Not the crowd. Not the looks from the judges. Not even her own fear of what she might find.

It was like that again the other night. 

It’s stupid. She knows it’s stupid. Of course she was going to help Harry. Of course she was going to cast the Patronus spell. But knowing that in those moments, her will wasn’t fully her own. The way everything else in her head had been pushed aside… that unsettled her.

Even if the bond only nudged her where she already wanted to go, even if she would have chosen the same path, did it matter? If the choice wasn’t entirely hers anymore?

She guessed, reluctantly, that this was the bond’s way of making sure the vow held. Of ensuring there could be no hesitation, no second-guessing, no failure. Maybe that was the point. Maybe that was how it was supposed to work.

Still. It would have been good to know. To be told.

Across from her, Ron had started resetting the board. One pawn at a time. Grimmauld Place’s drawing room didn’t have great lighting, everything looked grey, heavy with dust no matter how many times they cleaned, but the chess pieces gleamed anyway.

She didn’t move to help.

Her arms were folded. She wasn’t cold, but the sleeves were pulled over her hands anyway. 

Ron cleared his throat as he put a knight in its place. She blinked, barely hearing the clack of wood on wood.

She knew she would not be able to concentrate in this match either. 

Her fingers tightened beneath the sleeves.

The hearing had been two days ago. She was cleared. But she’d fucked up. Badly.

The Time-Turner was gone.

Her wand wasn’t snapped, but the damage was done. The Time-Turner had been the only way she could keep up with training and still pass as a student aiming for a future in potions.

Losing it ruined the plan. Their plan.

“You let him out of your sight.”

Ava didn’t speak.

“Tell me,” Dumbledore said. “What exactly about your assignment felt optional?”

“I didn’t think it was optional-”

“You didn’t think,” he cut in. “That’s the problem. He’s not a child you’re babysitting, Ava. He is the axis this entire war turns on. And you -” he pointed at her. “ You let him walk out. Alone.”

Her mouth opened. “I didn’t want to suffocate him.” She spoke too fast, opening her palms in front of her. “He’s been through so much last year. Cedric’s death, the nightmares. He needed space.”

“I don’t care what he needed, Ava. Do you think he cares?Do you think he cares that you were trying to be kind? That your heart was in the right place?”

“No,” he said, answering for her. “Because if you had been just two minutes slower, he wouldn’t get to care at all.”

Tears pricked in her eyes. She blinked them away.

“You made it worse. Not just for him. For me. For now I had to explain why a girl your age was even capable of a spell so advanced for your year. That’s time and energy wasted. Because you weren’t thinking.” His fists were planted at his waist, he leaned in as he spoke, more furious than she had ever seen him. “They took the Time-Turner, Ava. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” 

He waited for no answer. 

“That Time-Turner wasn’t a gift. It wasn’t for your comfort. It was my tool. Bought with favors and patience I no longer have. It gave me hours I needed, we needed, because the normal amount of time in a day was not enough to make you what you have to become.” He stepped forward.  “I pushed for that Time-Turner so I could drag you past your limits, past what anyone your age should even dream of doing. And now? It’s gone. Because you couldn’t control your brother. The chosen one. You are not the chosen one, Ava. You don't get to make these type of mistakes.”

He tilted his head. “One would think,” he said slowly, “that you’d take this assignment more seriously, knowing your life is literally on the line.”

She swallowed against the rising heat in her throat.

 “And here you were, thinking the vow was unnecessary.” She looked away. “You thought your loyalty would be enough. That your love for your brother made you reliable. But look where that love gets you. Blinded. Soft. One mistake away from costing me everything.”

She opened her mouth to answer, but what would she say?

That she was sorry?

That she didn’t think he’d go far? 

That she didn't expect them to take away the time turner? 

“You are not here to care for him. You are here to protect him. Those are not the same.” He exhaled slowly. “And let me be very clear, Ava. You don’t get to decide what he needs. You don't get to decide anything. You’re in this until the war ends. There is no bench. No replacement. There is only you and the boy who must survive. So get it right.”

August 22, 1995. 

Ava sat in a chair in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. The book in her hands wasn’t the one it appeared to be. The Art of Unmaking. Ava had a better title in mind: How to Lose Your Sanity in Twelve Sentences or Less. 

She had glamoured the book to look like the Charms theory book Hermione had been reading earlier in the week.

Hermione had seemed pleased. She’d even joined her once or twice when they had a break between cleaning and organizing, sitting across the table and pointing out useful passages. Ava had let her think she was helping her study, though Ava had already read that book years ago. 

But today Hermione was upstairs with Harry and Ron. Molly was cooking, the kitchen smelled like too much thyme. Remus sat near the end of the table, slowly sipping coffee. Sirius leaned on the counter, talking to him. She was sure the coffee was spiked. They weren’t trying very hard to pretend otherwise.

Her fingers tapped lightly against the spine. She squinted at the page again. The sentence she’d just read had shifted subtly, the phrasing different now than it had been the last three times. 

She missed the time turner dearly. Right then, she would’ve gone back, ten minutes. Reread the chapter. Do it as much as she needed. But she didn't have the Time-Turner anymore. And even if she still had the Time-Turner, it wouldn’t matter. She wasn’t allowed to use it outside of school grounds. 

The Ministry only approved it for academic purposes . That meant Hogwarts grounds. Nowhere else. 

Right now, she was the only person in the country who’d been granted use of a Time-Turner. That was part of the Ministry’s rules, only one in use at a time. Even if that rule hadn’t existed, the approval process was brutal. Applications were never accepted. Hers had only gone through because of Dumbledore.

The Ministry had given it to her in second year, when she had started her training, so she could “pursue her academic goals.” That was the official reason, early Potions Mastery, impressive records, future career.  In reality, Dumbledore asked for it so she could train longer. Harder. The extra hours were for him. For their schedule.

Youngest person to ever be trusted with one.  It had been a big deal, secretive too, the whole thing. 

But the terms had been strict: academic use only. Hogwarts only. Every time the device was turned, it appeared automatically in a Ministry registry book. The log showed the exact time, location, and who used it. 

And if the Ministry had seen Ava Potter using it outside of those limits, it wouldn’t have been a slap on the wrist, it would´ve been over. 

That was why she hadn’t used it to go back and stop the Dementor attack that night. She’d thought about it. Of course she had. But if the Ministry saw a record of her turning time outside Hogwarts, they would’ve taken it away on the spot. She just hadn’t expected them to take it for underage magic. That had nothing to do with the Time-Turner. 

So.

This wasn’t Hogwarts.

And even if it was, she didn’t have it anymore. No more squeezing extra hours into her day to fix things. 

She groaned, head falling back against the chair.

It made her want to scream. 

She stared up at the ceiling.

It wasn’t fair.

But the missing weight of the time-turner in her chest had not been the only thing bothering her. 

Her fingers tightened around the book. 

No. There was something else bothering her. 

Something small, stupid and completely unrelated. 

It had no business taking up space in her head. Not with everything else going on.

And yet…

Her eyes drifted to the empty chairs across the table. They felt too empty, like she was waiting for someone to show up.

Him.

That fucker.

Which was in itself, ridiculous. It made no sense. She was at Grimmauld Place, not Hogwarts. There was no reason she should be expecting him to walk in, let alone missing it.

She hadn’t realized how used to his presence she’d gotten. Not his company, exactly, just... him in the background. Nearby. Reading. Pretending to read. 

She could deal with the missing Time-Turner. With Dumbledore being furious. With Snape not being able to look at her in the eye since she arrived at Grimmauld Place, fine, weird but fine. Although that one was going to need some attention eventually, but not now. She had enough on her plate.

But this? Getting distracted because Draco fucking Malfoy wasn’t in the room? As if she needed the presence of that ferret to concentrate.

That was just annoying.

She knew where it came from, if she was honest, but getting accustomed to it wasn’t something she´d noticed happening. Just something that had crept in over time. A quiet shift in her routine. One day he was there. And then he always was.

And now he wasn’t. And apparently her brain had an opinion about that.

Last year she had started hiding in Hogwarts library around November with an invisibility charm. She had reading to do, real reading, not classwork. Books from Snape. Scrolls from Dumbledore. Material that required her full attention and that would raise questions if anyone glanced too closely. 

It had almost happened once, the charms on her textbooks didn’t fool Hermione for long. There’s only so many times you can reread school material before it gets weird, so Ava had started disguising them with the covers of Muggle novels. Meant to throw people off, of course. Instead, it made Hermione curious. Unfortunately, pretending to read Pride and Prejudice without knowing who Mr. Darcy was turned out to be a mistake. 

After that, Ava stopped pretending to read other things and just made herself disappear.

She could sit in the library under the invisibility charm for hours without being interrupted. No questions. No conversation. No risk of someone asking why she was studying about magical theory that hadn’t been published in Britain for decades. 

At some point, Malfoy started showing up.

She didn’t think anything of it at first, she was invisible after all, and the library was public. It wasn’t like she owned the corners she hid in.  

But he kept appearing. 

He’d walk in, look around, pick a seat. He never sat at her table, but always close. One row behind. Diagonally across. 

Th at’s when it started to register. How regular it was. How intentional it seemed. Which was ridiculous, because, again, she was invisible. He had no way of knowing where she was. And no reason to care.

There were moments when his eyes would shift towards her, like something had caught his attention. Then nothing. She started to think her spell work was flawed. Maybe she’d been tired while casting it. Maybe she hadn’t pronounced the word right, hadn’t cleared her intent properly. Because he shouldn’t have looked. Not if the charm was holding.

So why the hell was he still looking in her direction? Why was he even there?

She’d convinced herself it was a coincidence. He wasn’t interacting with her, after all.

That had gone on for the better part of last year. And now, frustratingly enough, she found herself noticing his absence?

She huffed a short irritated laugh. Remus and Sirius both turned toward her.

“Something funny, love?” Sirius asked, lifting an eyebrow. His grin was lopsided from the spiked coffee.

“Just remembered something,” 

Remus gave her a look that didn’t push, but waited. 

“I’ve seen that face before.” Sirius laughed. “You are angry.”

“I was thinking about how infuriating someone was,” she admitted.

Remus took a sip from his mug. “You?” said pointing at Sirius.

Sirius clicked his tongue. “Impossible.”

Ava smiled, for real this time. She closed the book and leaned forward in the chair.

“Do you want tea?” Remus asked. He was already moving before she answered. 

“Sure.”

Sirius pushed off the counter. “She’ll need honey.”

“Guess no scotch for her, huh?” Remus muttered with a laugh.

Sirius leaned in and said something back, too quiet for Ava to catch, but loud enough for Molly to hear. She didn’t even turn from the stove. “Don’t even think about it.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Sirius looked over at Ava then, still grinning, and for a moment he looked like a boy. He laughed like someone who hadn’t spent years in Azkaban. Someone who hadn’t been handed a life he couldn’t live in.

Ava didn’t say anything. Just smiled back. It was sad, really. How rare it was. He only ever acted like that on days when the Order didn’t meet, those were the days he allowed himself to drink. 

“Sirius…”  she warned. “ She's just… ” Her angry voice broke off. Whatever came next, she swallowed.

The men ignored her and Ava watched them move around the kitchen. Nothing perfect about them, but they were there . They bickered gently over honey spoons and argued about water temperature. 

Remus handed her the mug gently. “Careful, it’s hot.”

“Thanks.”

The tea was too strong. The honey clumped at the bottom. But the mug was warm in her hands. She smiled widely. 

“Dinner will be ready in an hour,” Molly said. “Could you tell the kids once you’re done with your tea, darling?”

“Sure thing.”

She set her book aside for dinner. Not because she wanted to, she was behind, and the thing was already fighting her, but because she knew how it would look if she didn’t. So she joined the table. Ate what was served, because pretending to be present was, in itself, a kind of practice.

She listened to the noise around her. The scrape of forks against mismatched plates, the fire crackling fiercely in the hearth, Fred launching into some ridiculous story that had no punchline but still managed to make everyone laugh. Ava laughed too, though she thought the joke wasn’t really funny. 

She was letting others feel like she was still here.

She kept her eyes present. Kept her face responsive. But her thoughts were already elsewhere.

Dumbledore had taught her this himself, operate in parallel. The outer self and the inner one. The part of her that made conversation, smiled at Ginny, passed the bread. And the part of her that was already turning inward, setting her mind in motion. 

She practiced silently, over a half-finished plate of stew and the voices of people she loved. Small disciplines woven into ordinary moments.

One hand on the table, one hand in the dark.

The matter at hand, tonight, was Draco Lucius Malfoy.

Pure-blood wizard and the son of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. 

It surprised her, how clearly he appeared in her mind. Not just a vague memory, but him. His movements, his voice. The places his face creased when he smirked too hard. The way he tucked his hands behind his back. She could remember two freckles on his otherwise too-perfect skin, near the edge of his jaw. Tiny, irrelevant things she hadn’t realized she’d memorized.

Which was ridiculous, how she could remember him so clearly. 

But at the same time it wasn't such a surprise that she knew him so well. She had spent months, years in shared classrooms, hallways, detentions. He was a constant. A fixture. Even when he wasn’t running his mouth, his presence was hard to miss. Familiarity that had sunk in like damp through floorboards.

She disliked him. 

Distrusted him. 

He was spoiled, sharp-tongued, entirely too aware of his own importance. He’d mocked her, insulted her brother, her friends, they were practically his hobby. And Merlin, did he enjoy it.

Future Death Eater.

A festering little shit in green. That’s what he was.

But without him, the usual rhythm of her reading felt misaligned. It had only been eight months, reading in the same space, and somehow that had been enough to establish a pattern.

And now the absence of that pattern was… noticeable. Annoyingly so.

She sat with the contradiction.

Then she did what she’d been trained to do.

She didn’t dismiss it. That would only leave it to fester under the surface. Occlumency demanded better. Ava turned the feeling over carefully, like a stone in her hand. Noticing the edges of it, the mild frustration. The faint curiosity. The irrational sense of something misplaced.

And then, she filed it away.

Not ignored. Not forgotten. Just stored, right next to the Unbreakable Vow. 

She would have to work on her guilt for losing the time-turner too, and the irritation at having lost something so useful.

“I swear this is the same spoon Ginny used to clean her boots,” Ron said, frowning at it.

Ginny didn’t look up. “You can’t prove that.”

Ava couldn’t tell if she was bluffing or not, Ginny’s poker face was that good.

“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t have taken more than three bites,” Hermione said, still scanning her packing list, quill hovering in midair.

“I did,” Ron muttered. “But now I regret it.”

“You’ll forget your wand at this rate,” Hermione added, this time aimed at Harry.

Harry grinned, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “I’ve got my wand. I just haven’t seen it since yesterday.”

“That’s not reassuring,” Ava said.

Fred leaned in slightly across the table. “If he loses it completely, we’ll just get him one of those tiny wooden spoons from the drawer.”

“A lot safer than Ron’s last wand,” George said. “The one that tried to set fire to him every time he sneezed.”

“It’s still somewhere in the Burrow,” Ron said defensively.

“Probably cursed Mum’s knitting by now,” Fred added.

Ron rolled his eyes. “Better than when it backfired and hit me in the face with my own Slug-Vomiting Charm.”

Tonks, who had clearly been listening in, paused mid-bite. “Is that why you flinch every time someone says ‘slug’?”

“I do not flinch.”

“You just flinched,” Harry said, laughing.

Ron shoved another spoonful of stew into his mouth. “That’s just my chewing face.” He looked vaguely sick. 

“Your chewing face looks traumatised,” Ava said.

Hermione let out a long sigh. “Honestly, you’re all hopeless. Wands are dangerous magical instruments. You can’t just misplace them.”

Ron leaned back. “Tell that to Seamus. Last year he tried to butter toast with his wand and nearly set the table on fire.”

“That explains the scorch mark on the Gryffindor table,” Ava said. “I thought it was from Fred and George enchanting that teapot to sing.”

“That was a different scorch mark,” George said, completely unapologetic.

“You lot are why we can’t have nice things,” Ava said, leveling her spoon at the three Weasleys. “You’re like a fire hazard with freckles.”

“Hey, I’ve only caught fire once,” Ron said. “And that was an accident.”

“Oh, the time your robes went up during Care of Magical Creatures?” Harry grinned. “That wasn’t the wand’s fault.”

“No,” Hermione said. “That was entirely the Fire Crab’s fault.”

“Technically, it was Ron’s screaming that startled it,” Ava added.

Ron looked deeply offended. “It charged at me aggressively.”

Later that night, when she returned to the book, she noticed, somewhat grimly satisfied, that the words had stopped shifting.The language settled. It was as if the book could finally trust her to read it, like it had been waiting for her to clear the noise. 

The concepts began to click into place. Patterns emerged. Lines she’d read five times without meaning finally made sense. And the more she read, the more present she became.

She was no longer distracted, she could read now. 

She’d turned in around eleven. She hated the idea of wasting time, which made putting the book down harder. Still, she needed sleep. For years, she hadn’t had the luxury of regular sleep, even with the Time-Turner. There was only so much she could rewind in a day before the dizziness set in. Summer was the only time she could sleep freely. Even then, this summer hadn’t been a good one. Not with Harry’s nightmares.

At Privet Drive, she’d taken to sleeping in his bed. It helped. He rested more deeply with her there. But here, he’d insisted on fending for himself,  even though he had been hugging her in his sleep like some overgrown koala the previous weeks. The result: Ron had been waking up instead. And, to his credit, hadn’t complained. He’d taken to waking Harry when he cried out, sometimes even sitting with him until he settled again. 

He was a good friend.

Still, Ron was the only one who heard the screams now, because Ava had asked Fred to cast Muffliato around the room, so no one else had to deal with it. She’d also told Ron to wake her if it ever got too much. He hadn’t, so far.

She was shorter than Harry now. She hadn’t noticed the shift until this summer and hadn't cared much either. He was taller now, but still too thin. Her own body looked stronger in comparison, muscle layered into her frame from training. He was narrow and pale beside her, all elbows and shadows. It worried her sometimes. 

She drifted toward sleep, talking herself down from the guilt again. The Time-Turner was gone. Obsessing over it wouldn’t change that. It had its own stone now, placed quietly beside Cedric Diggory’s, which reeked of guilt too, if not more. 

5 am. 

She hadn’t meant to wake this early. But footsteps outside her door brought her to full awareness. 

She sat up, there was a brief rush of disorientation, it told her she’d been deeper asleep than she thought. 

There was likely no threat, not here, but then again, she had thought the same back at Privet Drive. 

She opened the door soundlessly.

Remus stood there, backlit by the low hallway light. He still had his jacket on. The cold clung to him, he hadn’t been inside long, and there was something off about the way he leaned, just enough to know he wasn’t sober. He looked at her lifted wand first, until she lowered it. Then at her face. 

“May I speak with you, Ava?” His voice was soft and warm.

No apology for waking her up in the middle of the night. 

She nodded once. 

He held her gaze a second longer, then turned and started down the hallway. Ava stepped out silently, careful not to let the floorboards creak. Ginny and Hermione were still sleeping inside. 

In the kitchen, he moved quietly, didn’t speak. Just pulled two mugs down from the shelf and set a kettle on the stove. She sat at the table, hands folded in her lap, watching him out of the corner of her eye.

He added honey to her cup, sugar in his.

When he finally placed the mug in front of her, his fingers lingered a moment on the rim before he pulled his hand away.

She reached for the cup but pulled back immediately, it was burning hot.

He sat across from her, leaning forward slightly, elbows on the table.

He turned slightly. “You’ve been listening.” It wasn’t a question, but she nodded nonetheless. “Truly, you know nothing?”

She shook her head once. 

He gave her a tired smile, then he nodded. “Right. We’re trying to get organized again,” he said. “The Order, I mean. Most of us haven’t worked together in years, and some of us…” He paused. “Well, some don’t trust each other anymore. That’s the first hurdle.”

Ava blinked once, her eyes swollen from sleep. She hadn’t expected him to say any of this. She didn’t speak. Didn’t even nod. What if a single word broke whatever thread had made him start talking in the first place?

“Second hurdle,” he continued, “is funding. We’re broke. Not just the Order, half the people who’ll side with us are scraping by. We need gold, potions, ingredients, brooms, safe places to meet… Not to mention paying off the right people to keep quiet when things go wrong. Mundungus is running deals out of Knockturn to funnel coin in, and we pretend not to know how…  you know those cauldrons you lot found upstairs the other day, while cleaning out the doxy nest? That’s one of his. Molly was only angry you’d seen them. He was stupid for leaving them there.”

Her fingers tightened around the mug.

“Third hurdle,” Lupin said. “is surveillance. Ministry’s sniffing around everyone Dumbledore speaks to. They’ve got a tail on Arthur…”

Ava’s lips parted, but she didn’t interrupt. 

Would she say something to Ron? She couldn’t see the point, only reason to worry him. Would Lupin tell him? Would Arthur? Probably not. They wouldn't tell the kids every time someone was at risk of exposure, or even physical danger. This was normal now, however strange it still felt.

“We’ve got people working legal fronts too,” he added. “Trying to keep werewolves out of Greyback’s hands, stop giants being pushed to You-Know-Who’s side, that sort of thing. Mostly it’s knocking on doors and getting them slammed in your face. But it’s necessary.”

“We’re spread thin,” he went on, elbows on the table, hands loosely clasped. Both cups remained exactly where he’d set them, untouched. “Most people don’t believe Dumbledore. Or they don’t want to. And the Ministry’s giving them plenty of reasons not to. Fudge is obsessed with keeping his seat.”

Ava opened her mouth to interrupt but thought better. She lowered her eyes to the steam rising from her mug.

“But what is worse is that he believes his own lies. That makes him unpredictable.”  He leaned back, exhaled through his nose. “Dumbledore’s trying to rebuild with no funding, no public support, and spies in every corridor. We’re being watched from both sides. People we thought we could count on are staying silent.”

Ava’s brow creased. “That's not very promising.”

He nodded. “But it’s early. Right now, all we are doing is damage control, making sure our allies don’t get picked off quietly. Securing safehouses. Sending messages through back channels… We’re trying to figure out which old alliances still mean something,” Remus said. “Goblins, centaurs, werewolves. The Ministry burned every bridge that could matter. We show up to conversations already underwater.”

“Are the werewolves listening to you?” she dared ask. But she feared she knew the answer was no.

He exhaled slowly, and in that breath, he seemed to age. Ava stilled. He never looked like that. Not to her.

He hesitated. “I haven’t gone yet... There’ll be a few months where you won’t have to brew, Ava. I won’t be here, and when I go, I won’t need it... That’s all I’m telling you…”

She leaned forward, concern clear on her face. “Remus-”

“Dont.” he interrupted. The shadows around the scars of his face grew darker, drawing attention to them. “I’m only telling you because you’d notice. When you’re not asked to brew, and when Snape isn’t brewing either… its a potion that takes time, and you spend enough of it with him, unfortunately, that you’d put it together anyway.”

Ava’s fingers tightened slightly around the mug. He didn’t know about the training, but knew from his year of teaching at Hogwarts that she spent an ungodly amount of time with the man. 

The explanation had been uncomfortable for everyone involved. Lupin had barged into Snape’s quarters late one night and found her there, thankfully seated on the sofa and not yet bleeding. 

She would only learn later that he’d seen her on the Marauder’s Map, her name hovering inside Snape’s private quarters well past curfew. It had been enough to send him hurrying through the castle, straight from his office to the dungeons, into Snape’s private rooms, which lay tucked behind the potions classroom and office.

The man had jumped to an unspoken but unmistakable conclusion, one rooted in Ava’s unfortunate resemblance to her mother

She had rushed to explain, her voice barely audible over Snape’s escalating fury. He wasn’t just insulted, he was outraged, spitting accusations back at Lupin with venom, demanding to know if the man had lost his mind. At some point both had drawn their wands. Through it all, she kept insisting: there was nothing inappropriate. 

She wanted to become a Potions Master.

That was a lie of course. 

A contingency, put in place in case a situation like this ever arose.

Lupin had gone to Dumbledore anyway, angry and deeply unsettled, as any sane man would. Questioned why a girl her age was alone in a grown man’s quarters so late at night. 

Dumbledore had taken the concern seriously. He'd invited Lupin into his office, late at night as it was, sat him down, and gone through it all with precision so no further problems would arise from this. 

On paper, everything was in order. 

The arrangement was technically unofficial, Ava was still too young to be formally registered as an apprentice under the Guild of Alchemical Practitioners, but the process had begun. She was in what Dumbledore called a "preparatory apprenticeship," a provisional status allowed under Hogwarts educational exemptions, especially when mentorship involved mastery-track coursework.

Snape had never taken an apprentice before. Ava was his first. And while it was uncommon to start at such age, it wasn’t against the rules.

Dumbledore also explained that under traditional apprenticeship models, it was standard practice for a Potions Master to house their apprentice during the full term of training, sometimes for years. That arrangement wouldn't begin until after Ava graduated, of course, but even now, her constant presence in Snape’s private workrooms wasn’t technically out of line. 

So yes, it looked strange. But within the bounds of magical law and educational policy, it was entirely aboveboard. 

Dumbledore had said all of this calmly, with that maddening mix of absolute control and faint amusement. 

He had also asked lupin to keep quiet about finding ava there. Any raising questions could be damaging. Whispers alone could ruin reputations, Ava’s and Snape’s both. In the eyes of the public, perception often mattered more than truth.

And that had been the end of it.

At least officially. Because Remus was not happy, not one bit. 

“He’s not unkind to me,” she said, evenly. “Professor Snape.”

Remus studied her for a moment. “I know,” he said finally, matter-of-fact. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Ava looked down briefly, then back up. “I’ll keep brewing,” she said. “Just in case I ever really do have to stop. And… if Snape isn’t available, you shouldn’t be relying on us.”

Remus reached out, no tremble, but no grace either. Just tired movement. He took her hand from around the mug. Her skin was rougher than it should’ve been. He noticed it felt a lot like his.

“My wellbeing shouldn’t be your burden,” he said.

“It isn’t.” 

That was all she said.

Remus gave the smallest shake of his head, like he didn’t agree, but he wasn’t going to argue either. His thumb pressed once against her hand before he let go.

“There’s a list. A long one.” he started again. “Things we’re trying to do: raise money, gather information, keep tabs on who’s moving where. None of it is glorious. Just long nights, bad leads, and making sure no one’s alone when they get hit.”

Her jaw worked but she said nothing.

He tapped a finger once against the table. “We’re not building an army. Not yet. We’re building a network.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” 

Lupin looked down at the table, thumb brushing a scratch in the wood like he could use its texture to think. Ava waited. 

“Why isn't Harry here?” 

Lupin looked up. “If you think he should know,” he said calmly, “you can tell him. Or I will. If you wish.” He said it like it was simple. Like it wasn’t strange he’d chosen to speak to her alone. She stared.  “I didn’t run this past Dumbledore,” he added, softer now. “Or Molly. Or Sirius.”

“I’m fairly sure none would’ve approved.”

“Molly’s terrified,” Lupin confirmed.. “She wants to pretend none of it is happening, not really. 

Sirius…” his mouth tightened faintly “He’s having a hard time seeing Harry without thinking of James. Sometimes it’s like he’s looking at James all over again, and that scares him. He wants to be responsible. To protect both of you. But sometimes that responsibility feels like too much. The alcohol doesn’t help… Because of that fear, he ends up being overprotective. Not because he doubts you, but because he’s afraid of losing you like he lost James and Lily…”

She didn’t answer. Her throat had gone tight, and she felt the sting building behind her eyes. She looked down, focused on a mark in the wood grain of the table. She didn’t want to hide behind Occlumency to keep it all buried. She wanted to feel this raw. 

“And then there is Dumbledore-” He trailed off, then shook his head. “Dumbledore doesn’t explain anything unless he has to.”

Ava wanted to laugh, but didn´t. 

 “Why are you telling me all this?” she asked again.

She could have used Legilimency. But she didn’t. It wasn’t that she couldn’t. She just didn’t want to. She trusted him with her life.

“They think keeping you out of it is protection. Because you’re kids. I don’t see it that way. Not with you. I’ve watched you long enough to know you don’t operate like a child. You don’t ask unless you’ve already guessed the answer. You don’t panic. You don’t interrupt. But you’re always paying attention.”

“You started brewing my Wolfsbane when you were thirteen. You got Snape to take over when you couldn't.” The gratitude was clear in his voice, the regret was too. 

She looked down briefly at her hands, still resting on the table. Palms open, fingernails clean. 

“That potion is nearly impossible to brew right.” Pink tinted her cheeks.  “Expensive to buy. I should’ve stopped having it after Hogwarts, that was the arrangement. But it kept coming. Month after month. Bottles, freshly brewed. Brewed by you.” 

Worry crept in. It had been easy with the time-turner. How would she find the time to brew the Wolvesbane now? 

“It doesn’t stop the pain, but it gives me my mind. Every time I transform, I know who I am. That’s not nothing.” He looked away, ashamed. “It means I don’t wake up having killed someone. It means I don’t have to be afraid of myself. It shouldn’t have been your burden. And for that, I’ll always be grateful.”

He looked tired now. Maybe a little sad. “I owe Dumbledore,” he said. “But I like owing you better.” 

He gave a small shrug, like that explained it well enough.

 “So. Here we are. I'm not telling you details, just the general gist of it because I know you care and you are mature enough to handle it. I owe you as much.”

Then stop drinking. 

But she didn't say it at loud. 

She took the mug in her hands. This time, it was warm in her hands.

“Thank you.” 

Chapter Text

Ava spent the previous day of leaving to Hogwarts reading in the living room area, reluctantly being distracted by the mundane scenario of Harry and Ron coming and going with the mission of retrieving their books and belongings from all over the house. It was odd how widely their possessions seemed to have scattered themselves since they had arrived. It took them most of the afternoon.

Mrs. Weasley returned from Diagon Alley around six o’clock, laden with books and carrying a long package wrapped in thick brown paper that Ron took from her with a moan of longing. 

“Never mind unwrapping it now, people are arriving for dinner, I want you all downstairs,” she said, but the moment she was out of sight Ron ripped off the paper in a frenzy and examined every inch of his new broom, an ecstatic expression on his face. 

In the kitchen Mrs. Weasley had hung a scarlet banner over the heavily laden dinner table, which read “Congratulations Ron and hermione. New prefects!” 

“I thought we’d have a little party, not a sit-down dinner,” she told Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Ginny as they entered the room. “Your father and Bill are on their way, Ron, I’ve sent them both owls and they’re thrilled,” she added, beaming.

Fred rolled his eyes. Sirius, Lupin, Tonks, and Kingsley Shacklebolt were already there and Mad-Eye Moody stumped in shortly after Ava had got herself a butterbeer. 

“Oh, Alastor, I am glad you’re here,” said Mrs. Weasley brightly, as Mad-Eye shrugged off his traveling cloak. “We’ve been wanting to ask you for ages, could you have a look in the writing desk in the drawing room and tell us what’s inside it? We haven’t wanted to open it just in case it’s something really nasty.” 

“No problem, Molly…” Moody’s electric-blue eye swiveled upward and stared fixedly through the ceiling of the kitchen. “Drawing room…” he growled, as the pupil contracted. “Desk in the corner? Yeah, I see it… Yeah, it’s a boggart… Want me to go up and get rid of it, Molly?” 

“No, no, I’ll do it myself later,” beamed Mrs. Weasley. “You have your drink. We’re having a little bit of a celebration, actually…” She gestured at the scarlet banner. “Fourth prefect in the family!” she said fondly, ruffling Ron’s hair. 

“Prefect, eh?” growled Moody, his normal eye on Ron and his magical eye swiveling around to gaze into the side of his head. Ava had the very uncomfortable feeling it was looking at her and moved away toward Sirius and Lupin. 

“Well, congratulations,” said Moody, still glaring at Ron with his normal eye, “authority figures always attract trouble, but I suppose Dumbledore thinks you can withstand most major jinxes or he wouldn’t have appointed you…” 

Ron looked rather startled at this view of the matter but was saved the trouble of responding by the arrival of his father and eldest brother. Mrs. Weasley was in such a good mood she did not even complain that they had brought Mundungus with them too; he was wearing a long overcoat that seemed oddly lumpy in unlikely places and declined the offer to remove it and put it with Moody’s traveling cloak. 

“Well, I think a toast is in order,” said Mr. Weasley, when everyone had a drink. He raised his goblet. “To Ron and Hermione, the new Gryffindor prefects!” 

Ron and Hermione beamed as everyone drank to them and then applauded.

 “I was never a prefect myself,” said Tonks brightly from behind Harry as everybody moved toward the table to help themselves to food. Her hair was tomato-red and waist length today; she looked like Ginny’s older sister. 

“My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities.”

 “Like what?” said Ginny, who was choosing a baked potato. 

“Like the ability to behave myself,” said Tonks. Ginny laughed; Hermione looked as though she did not know whether to smile or not and compromised by taking an extra large gulp of butterbeer and choking on it. 

“What about you, Sirius?” Ginny asked, thumping Hermione on the back.

 Sirius, who was right beside Ava, let out his usual barklike laugh. “No one would have made me a prefect, I spent too much time in detention with James. Lupin was the good boy, he got the badge.” 

“Good boy, huh?” Ava laughed.

“I think Dumbledore might have hoped that I would be able to exercise some control over my best friends,” said Remus.. “I need scarcely say that I failed dismally.” 

Ava smiled widely as she imagined it. 

When she looked towards Harry, she noted his mood had lifted. Our father had not been a prefect either. Seeing him smile as brightly as he was now, Ava felt as if the party had become much more enjoyable; she loaded up his plate, feeling unusually fond of everyone in the room. 

Ron was rhapsodizing about his new broom to anybody who would listen. “Nothing to seventy in ten seconds, not bad, is it? When you think the Comet Two Ninety’s only goes from nothing to sixty and that’s with a decent tailwind according to Which Broomstick?” 

Mrs. Weasley and Bill were having their usual argument about Bill’s hair. “... getting really out of hand, and you’re so good-looking, it would look much better shorter, wouldn’t it, Ava?” 

“Oh, I dunno…” said Ava, slightly alarmed at being asked her opinion. She’d met Bill during the Quidditch World Cup and had a bit of a crush. It made sense, she supposed. She already liked Fred. But Bill looked older. No baby fat left in his face.

She slid away from them in the direction of Fred and George, who were suspiciously huddled in a corner with Mundungus. Mundungus stopped talking when he saw Ava, but Fred winked and beckoned Ava closer by the hand. “It’s okay,” he told Mundungus, “we can trust Ava, Harry is our financial backer.”

 “Look what Dung’s gotten us,” said George, holding out his hand to Ava. It was full of what looked like shriveled black pods. A faint rattling noise was coming from them, even though they were completely stationary. 

“That's Venomous Tentacula seeds,” said Ava, closing her hand over Georges and positioning herself between them and the rest of the guests who were entertained chatting at the table. Ron was still showing off his new broom . “They’re a Class C Non-Tradeable Substance. Why would you need them?” 

Fred's hand had subconsciously found its way to her lower back but he pulled away almost immediately. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it, his smile fading a little bit. 

“We need them for the Skiving Snackboxes but we’ve been having a bit of trouble getting hold of them.” Explained George.

“Ten Galleons the lot, then, Dung?” said Fred, recomposing himself.

“Wiv all the trouble I went to to get ’em?” said Mundungus, his saggy, bloodshot eyes stretching even wider. “I’m sorry, lads, but I’m not taking a Knut under twenty.”

 “Dung likes his little joke,” Fred said to Ava. 

“Yeah, his best one so far has been six Sickles for a bag of knarl quills,” said George. 

“Be careful,” Ava warned them quietly. 

“What?” said Fred. “Mum’s busy cooing over Prefect Ron, we’re okay.” 

“But Moody could have his eye on you,” Ava pointed out.

Mundungus looked nervously over his shoulder. “Good point, that,” he grunted. “All right, lads, ten it is, if you’ll take ’em quick.” Mundungus emptied his pockets into the twins’ outstretched hands and scuttled off toward the food. 

“We’d better get these upstairs…” Fred said, then walked away without looking Ava in the eyes. A faint shade of red in his cheeks.

She watched them go, looking back towards the table Mad-Eye Moody was sniffing at a chicken leg with what remained of his nose; evidently he could not detect any trace of poison, because he then tore a strip off it with his teeth. His electric blue eye was staring right back at her. 

“Come here, I’ve got something that might interest you, Harry. You too.Come.” he said. From an inner pocket of his robes Moody pulled a very tattered old Wizarding photograph. “Original Order of the Phoenix,” growled Moody. “Found it last night when I was looking for my spare Invisibility Cloak, seeing as Podmore hasn’t had the manners to return my best one… Thought people might like to see it.” 

Ava leaned in as Moody tapped the picture, causing the little people inside it to shift. 

“Marlene McKinnon,” Moody pointed, his voice rougher now. “They got her whole family. Frank and Alice Longbottom... poor devils. Better dead than what happened to them.” Ava felt a shiver crawl up her spine as Moody continued. “Benjy Fenwick... they only ever found bits of him.”

Bits of him? She looked over at Harry, he looked paler than herself.

She looked back at the picture, their smiles frozen in time, completely oblivious to the horrors awaiting them.

Moody poked the picture again, jostling the figures. "Gideon Prewett... took five Death Eaters to kill him and his brother. They fought like heroes. And that’s Dorcas Meadowes... Voldemort killed her himself.”

For a second she assumed Dorcas must have been important. Important enough for him to do it personally.

As Moody continued, she frowned. These weren’t just names. These were people who had given everything. She saw them in her head now, not waving happily from a photograph, but cold and lifeless, scattered in pieces or lost to madness. 

Ava felt a chill creep down her spine as she imagined herself, years from now, or maybe just months, reduced to a name in a photograph. 

Would Voldemort kill me himself? 

The thought gnawed at her, and as Moody pointed out more names, more heroes, Ava could barely listen. 

“That’s Emmeline Vance, you’ve met her, and that there’s Lupin, obviously…  Sirius, when he still had short hair… and… there you go, thought that would interest you!” 

Ava heard Harry smile and got distracted by him, turning to see him, just in time to see his face turn sour. She looked down at the picture again. Their mother and father were beaming up at them, sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man Ava recognized at once as Wormtail.

Harry locked eyes with Ava, to see if she was thinking the same thing. 

Evidently Moody was under the impression he had just given them a bit of a treat. 

“Yeah,” said Harry, attempting to grin again. “Er . . . listen, I’ve just remembered, I haven’t packed my . . .” He was spared the trouble of inventing an object he had not packed; Sirius had just said, “What’s that you’ve got there, Mad-Eye?” and Moody had turned toward him. 

Harry then crossed the kitchen, slipped through the door and up the stairs before anyone could call him back.  

Ava watched him go. She would give him a few minutes, then she would go up to find him. 

Sirius shifted, sitting next to Remus. The chair creaked under him as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, he now held the photo carefully in both hands. Sirius looked at the photo for a long moment, then lifted his head and gestured for her.

She stepped over as he reached for her wrist and tugged her gently into place standing beside him, then let his arm slide around her waist. She shifted her weight, settling in. One of her hands came to rest on his shoulder. 

He adjusted the photo in his hand. His thumb moved along the edge of the image, pausing now and then as the figures shifted, mom laughing, dad looking over at her over Wormtail,  Moody scowling even in motion.

Ava noticed Sirius hadn’t changed clothes since the day before yesterday. 

Ava’s fingers moved into Sirius’s hair, combing through it without thought. Her gaze stayed on the photograph. She didn't feel sad. She could not mourn her parents, it was more like standing in the empty frame of something that could have been. 

She didn’t remember them so there was nothing to miss. 

No sound of her mother’s voice. 

No memory of her father’s laugh.

She pitied them. Both Remus and Sirius were still struggling with the loss. They had real grief. Names tied to voices, habits, jokes. Ava had none of that. Her parents were photographs. Faces in frames. Stories told by family friends.

And still, she was the one who had their name.

She felt like she was wearing something too valuable, walking around with all this legacy stitched into her, and no real claim to it. No grief that lined up with everyone else’s. Only the shape of it. 

The absence.

The guilt came from that dissonance. That she should feel more, that she was supposed to. But when Sirius handed her the photo and his hand lingered like he expected her to ache with him, she wished she could. Harry could. 

Around them, the laughter hadn’t quieted. Someone clinked a bottle against a glass. A chair scraped. Someone had turned the wireless on and the music sounded faintly behind the chatter. The scarlet banner still hung above them, someone had conjured little paper stars that floated around it. They looked more magical than the wand in her belt holster.

She looked down again at a photo of two strangers she was supposed to grieve and felt empty instead. 

“…and then he signed off with ‘Yours, Viktor.’ ” Hermione flushed as she said it.

Ava raised an eyebrow, pausing mid-bite of a Chocolate Frog. “ Yours? Hermione.” She grinned.  “That's basically a declaration of eternal love in Durmstrang language, isn't it?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Hermione huffed. “He’s just… polite. And formal.”

“Polite?” Ava echoed, amused. “You’re telling me a seventeen-year-old international Quidditch star writing you weekly, asking what book you’re reading and whether you’ve tried the local wizard bakery near your house and signing off with ‘Yours’ is just being po lite?”

Hermione tried to frown but the corners of her mouth betrayed her. “It’s not weekly, exactly.”

Ava tilted her head “How many letters since the last day of term?”

“…Seven.”

“Seven,” Ava repeated laughing “That’s like one per week ! ”

Hermione rolled her eyes, though her blush had deepened. “It’s not like that. He’s just… sweet. Thoughtful. He wants to know how I’m doing with my reading list. He even asked if I’d consider visiting Bulgaria sometime.”

Ava blinked. “Hermione. That is a soft invitation to meet his parents.”

Hermione let out a groan and dropped her head into her hands. “Don’t say that! Honestly, I haven’t even written to him back this week.”

“Well, now you definitely have to. Just to confirm you’re still alive and not avoiding his Bulgarian advances.” Ava leaned in conspiratorially. “Tell me you at least blushed a little when you read it.”

“I might have…” Hermione admitted, peeking up from her hands. “But you’re terrible, you know that? I come here seeking a calm, rational conversation, and instead I get-”

“Proper analysis of romantic subtext?” Ava said sweetly, popping the last of the Frog in her mouth. “You’re welcome.” mouth half full.

Ava leaned her shoulder against the window frame, watching the blur of countryside flick past, then glanced sideways with casual interest.

“So… does Ron know you’re writing to Krum?”

Hermione went still for a half-second. “I don’t report every letter I write,” Hermione said lightly, adjusting the clasp on her bag with unnecessary focus. “Besides, it’s none of his business.”

Ava hummed.  “Right. Just curious.”

“It’s not like I’m hiding it,” she added quickly. “If he asked, I’d tell him.”

“Sure,” Ava said, turning her gaze back to the window. “But he hasn’t asked?”

“No.” Hermione was still locking at the clasp of her bag. “Why would he?”

Ava just shrugged.  “No reason.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment. The compartment hummed with the rhythm of the train, and outside the hills rolled by in soft waves of green.

“So anyway,” Hermione said briskly, straightening up, “What about Fred?”

“What about him?”

“Really?”

“Hey if we are pretending you and ron do not exist, then Fred and I don't either.”

“But you have kissed. Ron and I have never…” Her voice drifted off, suddenly embarrassed.

“Yeah, guess you´re right.”

Hermione sighed and refocused on her. “So?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Have you kissed again?”

“We haven't even talked about it, Hermione.”

“You spent almost a month under the same roof and nothing happened?”

Ava just shrugs. 

“You spent a lot of time reading.”

“Sorry, are you telling me I should've spent more time flirting with a guy  rather than reading? Who am I talking to?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying that. I’m just… surprised.”

“Well, don’t be. It’s not like he brought it up either.”

“Did you want him to?”

Ava glanced out the window. “I don’t know.”

“You do know.”

She gave a dry laugh. “Okay, fine. Maybe, but I decided it was better not to.”

Hermione leaned forward slightly. “Why?”

Ava exhaled slowly. “I mean… Voldemort came back last year,” Hermione flinched when she said the name.  “And I’m a Potter.It’s not exactly a subtle combination.” She paused. “I don’t blame him, Hermione. I don’t. It’s just… everything changed after the third trial. For everyone.”

Hemrione stayed silent after that. 

Up until then, Fred’s interest had been steady. He’d been shy about it, probably thought she’d turn him down. But when he asked her to the ball, she’d said yes before he’d even finished asking. 

Sometimes at night, before sleep takes her, she retreats to her mind palace, sitting with the rocks stacked all around her. She arranges them methodically, as a way of training. She knows exactly where each one is.

Fred has his own stone in her mind. Warm, somehow, when she holds it. Not like the rest. Most of the others are cold, different shapes and weights but his is the only one warm. 

She doesn’t step around it. She could, but she doesn’t want to. She lets herself hold it, turn it over in her hand. It feels good, soft even. 

When she holds it, she remembers the kisses. Not just one, lots of them. On the dance floor where everyone could see. Up the stairs when they slipped away. His suit soaking wet with butterbeer after that Ravenclaw fourth year crashed into him. She’d had just enough smuggled firewhisky in her to think it had been hilarious. Enough to think helping him out of his wet clothes was the best idea she’d ever had. She remembers fumbling with his shirt buttons, laughing against his neck. 

And then Snape showed up and ruined it. She had no idea how he found them, though. She’d cast a spell to keep people away, but then again Snape had taught her nearly everything she knew. It didn’t surprise her that he saw through it.

Snape had escorted her back to the Gryffindor common room, lecturing her the entire way about how young she was to be getting involved with boys in that way. He had been right, of course. But she’d still told him to fuck off. “I can’t be with boys, but I can use the Cruciatus Curse?” loudly, right in the middle of the corridor. Thankfully, it had been an empty one, with no portraits and no students nearby. It still earned her a slap across her face.

She’d been prohibited from drinking after that. And the truth behind Snape’s words lingered, leaving her quietly ashamed for days.

After that, they held hands in the corridors. They met up in Hogsmeade. He’d promised to write that summer. Every week. 

Then Voldemort came back. The Triwizard Tournament ended in death and everything changed. She can’t blame him for backing off. She’s a Potter. Anyone close to her would be a target later on. He probably realized it before she did. 

Summer came and went. No letters.

She really does not hold it against him. And a part of her was glad he had walked away. She’s trained to protect Harry, not to keep a boyfriend safe. No point pretending otherwise. A relationship would only make her split her focus. And she can’t afford that. Not now, not ever, probably.

But it still bothers her. That fire he lit up in her. The wanting. That wasn't there before. He made her feel like a girl. Not some guard dog carved down to nothing, stripped of any right to softness or self-preservation.

The training with Snape had taken everything that mattered to a young girl, her pride, her femininity, her shame. He’d seen her at her worst, broken and exposed. Naked, shivering, covered in blood or/and piss, he looked at her with no trace of judgment or desire. It wasn’t sexual, not even close. She was not a woman, not in his eyes.

But she was a woman in Fred's eyes. 

His kiss had stirred something alive, something that made her want to show herself to him, to be naked not out of weakness but out of choice, out of desire. She’d never wanted that before, never felt the urge to be seen as a woman, to let someone touch her and know her in that way. 

But now he was pulling back, and she couldn’t blame him. 

Maybe it was better this way. Harry needed her. He was out there, carrying the weight of being the fucking Chosen One, and she had to be there, had to protect him, had to keep him alive. She couldn’t afford to chase this spark, this wanting that Fred had woken. It was a distraction, a weakness she couldn’t indulge. 

She’s alone in this. 

Hermione seemed to remember to check the slim silver watch on her wrist and sighed, already halfway to her feet.

“Ugh. I have to go. Prefects meeting. Supposedly we’re coordinating patrol schedules… And guess who’s a prefect this year?” she asked, clearly annoyed. “Draco. Fucking. Malfoy. Can you believe that?” 

Ava raised an eyebrow, more amused than surprised. “Malfoy? Really?” 

Hermione exhaled sharply, adjusting a stack of papers in her hands with a little more force than necessary. ““Honestly, it makes no sense,” she said, shaking her head. “As if he needed more reasons to walk around like he owns the place. Anyway,” she huffed, straightening her robes, “I’ve got to go. Duty calls.”

The door slid shut behind Hermione with a sharp snap , and Ava leaned back in her seat, letting out a long breath as the compartment settled into quiet.

The door opened again. “His loss, Ava,” Hermione said quietly.

Ava smiled back at her.

 “Yes, it is.” She lied. 

Chapter Text

The first days being back were a complete mess. 

Not just the usual post-summer chaos of suitcases exploding open, untrained owls shitting the halls or first years crying in corridors because they miss their families, but something worse.

By the second meal in the Great Hall, the gossip had reached a volume that made even the portraits start muttering. Everyone had something to say about them. That Harry was spiraling, making things up to stay relevant now that his fame was fading, like claiming You-Know-Who was back. That Dumbledore was losing it, being as old as he was. That Ava was just as bad, if not worse. 

Some said the two of them were locked in some trauma-fueled delusion, convinced they were the only ones who knew the truth. That they fed off each other. That maybe something had always been off about them, how else do you explain the drama that follows them year after year? 

Even the more generous theories weren’t flattering. Maybe they were traumatized, poor things, but that didn’t mean the rest of the school had to be dragged into it.

It was stupid, loud, and wildly off-base. So, naturally, the entire student body believed it.

In a few hours, Harry’s mood had gone from “tired but trying” to “actively homicidal.” At one point, he told a group of second years to “choke on their pumpkin pasties” without even raising his voice.

Harry remained in a state of simmering rage, fueled by the ridiculousness of having to convince people Voldemort was real. 

No one really knew how to handle him. The only thing keeping him steady were the Quidditch tryouts on Friday. Now that Angelina had been named Gryffindor Captain, she didn’t seem to share everyone else’s opinion about Harry, or if she did, she kept it to herself. Like Oliver, Quidditch came first.

Ava was irritated by the whole ordeal, she did care, but arguing with people who'd decided they were crazy wasn’t part of her job description. If Seamus’s mum needed a signed affidavit, she could wait. Ava was too busy figuring out how the hell she was supposed to keep up with training for a war already happening without her fucking Time Turner.

On the other hand was Dolores Umbridge. 

Ava’d seen her before. She was one of the Ministry witches who’d smiled like she’d tasted something sour during her hearing. Now she was their Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, and the first class had barely begun when Harry opened his mouth.

There were a lot of things she could do. Disarm. Shield. Bind. Kill, technically she hadn't done that yet. But protecting someone from their own stubbornness in a Ministry-run classroom was not one of them. Especially when “the someone” was Harry, who seemed physically incapable of not mouthing off to authority, particularly when the authority was smug, cruel, and wearing a pink cardigan.

She shifted in her chair, shoulder aching with the movement, but kept her expression neutral as Umbridge’s gaze kept darting to her.  Harry kept arguing about the importance of actual spells. It was a good point, technically. Just... ill-timed. 

She glanced at him sideways. He looked furious and stupidly self-righteous.

It was shaping up to be a very, very long year.

 Especially after the way Snape had acted during training the night before.

Unlike past years, Ava hadn’t been granted a week to settle in. No buffer. No grace period. Not even a full night’s sleep before being dragged into drills.

Harry’s voice rose again, something about Cedric’s body now, but Ava’s attention slipped. Her mind stayed fixed on Snape. Something about him had been off. Off in a way that unsettled her, had left her worried.  

She assumed it had to do with the position he was in. Working for both sides was never going to be easy. Snape was a double agent, Dumbledore’s man, yes, but also bound to Voldemort. That must take a toll. 

Even if he loathed teaching, even if he claimed to detest “insufferable children,” as he so often called them, the classroom might be the most peaceful part of his life now. A controlled space. A place where he still had authority.

She brought it up a few weeks ago. She asked him if everything was all right, if he was alright. He couldn´t hold her gaze for more than a second, then told her not to ask about it. He’d been evasive all her stay in Grimmauld Place. 

What did being welcomed back into the Dark Lord’s circle really look like? She doubted it had been as simple as Dumbledore vouching for him and Voldemort shrugging it off. No. Snape wouldn’t be trusted without proving his loyalty again, and Ava didn’t even want to imagine what that entailed.

He was too valuable a piece for either side to lose.

Ava’s brow furrowed slightly as Harry kept speaking in the background.

Something was wrong with Snape. 

The rest of the day was followed by Double Charms and succeeded by double Transfiguration. 

Professor Flitwick and Professor McGonagall both spent the first fifteen minutes of their lessons lecturing the class on the importance of O.W.L.s. 

“What you must remember,” said little Professor Flitwick squeakily, perched as ever on a pile of books so that he could see over the top of his desk, “is that these examinations may influence your futures for many years to come! If you have not already given serious thought to your careers, now is the time to do so. And in the meantime, I’m afraid, we shall be working harder than ever to ensure that you all do yourselves justice!” 

They then spent more than an hour reviewing Summoning Charms, which according to Professor Flitwick were bound to come up in their O.W.L., and he rounded off the lesson by setting them their largest amount of Charms homework ever. 

It was the same in Transfiguration. 

“You cannot pass an O.W.L.,” said Professor McGonagall grimly, “without serious application, practice, and study. I see no reason why everybody in this class should not achieve an O.W.L. in Transfiguration as long as they put in the work.” Neville made a sad little disbelieving noise. “Yes, you too, Longbottom,” said Professor McGonagall. “There’s nothing wrong with your work except lack of confidence. So . . . today we are starting Vanishing Spells. These are easier than Conjuring Spells, which you would not usually attempt until N.E.W.T. level, but they are still among the most difficult magic you will be tested on in your O.W.L.” 

Ava waited until Hermione successfully vanished her snail on the third attempt, earning her a ten-point bonus for Gryffindor from Professor McGonagall, to successfully vanish her own  snail.  

On the other hand, by the end of the double period, neither Harry nor Ron had managed to vanish the snails on which they were practicing, though Ron said hopefully that he thought his looked a bit paler. 

Ava and Hermione were the only ones not given homework by McGonagall; everybody else was told to practice the spell overnight, ready for a fresh attempt on their snails the following afternoon. 

Now panicking slightly about the amount of homework they had to do, the four of them decided to spend their free period in the library. 

“Do you think it’s true this year is going to be really tough?” Harry asked suddenly.  

“For the exams, you mean?” Ron said through a mouthful of toast. “Oh, yeah. Has to be, doesn’t it? The O.W.L.s decide everything—jobs, future careers. Bill told me we need to pick which N.E.W.T.s to take based on what we want to do after Hogwarts.”  

Harry frowned, thinking.  “Do you guys know what you want to do after Hogwarts?”  

It was a simple enough question, yet she had no answer.  She’d never thought about it. Not once. But now… was she supposed to be thinking about that? The thought was so foreign it made her uneasy.

“Not really,” Ron whispered. He hesitated. “Except… well…”  

Harry raised an eyebrow. “What?”  

Ron glanced away, suddenly looking embarrassed. “I think… I’d like to be an Auror.” He said it quietly.  

Harry immediately perked up. “That’d be brilliant.”

“Shhh” snapped a Ravenclaw boy from a few tables away, not even bothering to look up from his book. 

Ron let out a breathy laugh and tried to speak quieter. “Yeah, except only the best get in. You have to be really good.”  

“Well, you are,” Harry insisted.  

Ron didn’t look convinced but didn’t argue. Instead, he turned to Hermione. “What about you?”  

Hermione hummed, thoughtful. “I don’t know yet. Something that actually matters, though.”  

“Being an Auror matters,” 

“Yes, but it’s not the only thing that matters,” she countered. “I mean, if I could take S.P.E.W. further”  

Ron groaned and turned to Ava. “And you? Ah right, a Potion Master.” he said, like it was the most underwhelming answer she could’ve given.

Ava blinked, then nodded slowly. She hadn’t really thought about what she really wanted before. Being a potion master sounded alright. She liked the work. Didn’t want to teach, though, and Snape still had that post, probably would for a long time.

Maybe she could open her own shop. Like Fred and George’s, but hers. A potions place. The Potion Emporium , maybe?

Or maybe not.

She didn’t know yet.

She looked down at the scroll in her hands and ran her thumb over a crease, pressing it flat.

Thinking about the future was strange.

But not bad.

Maybe she could be an Auror. She had the skills for it.

Being an Auror meant good grades. Five N.E.W.T.s minimum, with Outstanding or Exceeds Expectations . 

She winced. She used to have Outstandings in all her subjects. She looked down at the empty scroll in front of her. How was she supposed to keep up those grades without her Time-Turner?

She guessed she’d have to put in four times the effort she did before. She had put in effort before,  just... on her own terms. Afternoons used to be almost endless. Now her day only had twenty-four hours  and that was without counting sleep, food, and the extra hours of training Snape had added to her schedule this year. Plus bathroom breaks. Plus time with Harry, Hermione, and Ron.

Well… fuck. 

She went over her subjects one by one, trying to piece together a new academic plan, minus the luxury of a Time Turner.

Defense Against the Dark Arts was required, obviously, but she had that covered and came easy because of the training. 

Potions and Herbology, they had been part of the act that she wanted to be a Potion Master, plus she’d needed them for offense, defense, and healing in the field. Battlefield work. Quick antidotes, fast-acting powders, controlled poisons. She was good at those. The other things like slow-growing plants for digestion or hair regrowth, the potions for sleep, skincare, or seasonal allergies, she couldn’t bring herself to care about any of that, but she still put in the work. And she’d have to keep those up too with Outstanding.

Charms and Transfiguration… She was excellent at the spells. Best of the class,though she always made sure to act like she came in second to Hermione or whoever got it first. Theory, though? Not her thing. Her essays were only excellent because she’d had ten hours to kill before actually writing something coherent. She didn’t care who invented the spell or how it spread through wizarding society. What was she going to do now? She couldn’t waste ten hours ignoring a book on purpose anymore. She couldn’t win those ten hours back now.

Then there was History of Magic and Care of Magical Creatures… well, she didn’t need to keep those at Outstanding. She could afford to drop to Acceptable. Sorry, Hagrid. When he came back from whatever mission he was on, he’d probably scold her for it.

Arithmancy and Ancient Runes she’d taken on because of Dumbledore. They were necessary for her training. If he wanted her working with layered magic that couldn’t be undone with a counterspell she had to understand how it was built. Runes gave it structure. Arithmancy made it stable. It taught her to calculate strength, limits, and consequences of complex spells. Boring and hard as fuck.

He wouldn’t let her slip in those.

She pouted. Maybe Hermione was right. Maybe she had been cheating all these years.

She blinked rapidly. No. She had the discipline. She’d done harder things than study. Training was worse. A thousand times worse.

She could do this.

The day had become cool and breezy, and, as they walked down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid’s cabin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, they felt the occasional drop of rain on their faces. 

Professor Grubbly-Plank stood waiting for the class some ten yards from Hagrid’s front door, a long trestle table in front of her laden with many twigs. As the four of them reached her, a loud shout of laughter sounded behind them; turning, they saw Draco Malfoy striding toward them, surrounded by his usual gang of Slytherin cronies. 

He had clearly just said something highly amusing, because Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy Parkinson, and the rest continued to snigger heartily as they gathered around the trestle table. Judging by the fact that all of them kept looking over at Harry, Ava was able to guess the subject of the joke without too much difficulty. She ignored them. 

“Everyone here?” barked Professor Grubbly-Plank, once all the Slytherins and Gryffindors had arrived. 

“Let’s crack on then, who can tell me what these things are called?” She indicated the heap of twigs in front of her. 

Hermione’s hand shot into the air. Behind her back, Crabbe did a buck-toothed imitation of her jumping up and down in eagerness to answer a question. Pansy Parkinson gave a shriek of laughter that turned almost at once into a scream and Ava was the one to laugh this time, Ron snorted beside her. 

The twigs on the table had leapt into the air and revealed themselves to be what looked like tiny pixieish creatures made of wood, scaring Parkinson. 

“Kindly keep your voices down!” said Professor GrubblyPlank sharply. 

Ava turned to the table again, ignoring the menacing face Pansy Parkinson was giving her. 

“So, anyone know the names of these creatures? Miss Granger?”

 “Bowtruckles,” said Hermione. “They’re tree-guardians, usually live in wand-trees.” 

“Five points for Gryffindor,” said Professor Grubbly-Plank. “Oh, Miss Potter.” She blinked, clearly surprised to see her. “What are you doing here?”

Ava offered a polite smile. She was a new professor, after all. “I’m in this class, Professor. Both us Potters.”

“Oh no, dear,” the professor said, frowning gently. “You dropped this class.”

Harry, Hermione, and Ron all turned to look at her

Ava didn’t blink. She smiled again, just as polite. “I’m sure I didn’t, Professor.”

Grubbly-Plank’s expression softened with something like regret. “No, darling. I received a letter this morning from Professor Dumbledore himself. He said Ava Potter had officially dropped the subject. If you’ve changed your mind, that’s quite all right. No need to lie.”

Almost all the students laughed. Her polite smile vanished.

“Yes. Sorry, Professor. It must’ve slipped my mind.”

“What?!” Harry snapped, outraged.

Ava silenced him with a single look.

From the Slytherin corner, Pansy Parkinson smirked and said loud enough for only them to hear. They all laughed. 

Hermione spun around with narrowed eyes. 

“May I be excused to go to the Headmaster’s office?” Avas anger simmered quietly beneath the confusion twisting in her chest. 

“I’m not your professor anymore, dear,” said Grubbly-Plank, with a forced sort of cheer. “And this is no longer your class. But yes, you may leave.”

When Ava turned to leave, only Neville moved aside to let her pass. Everyone else just stared. She had to push through Gryffindors and the wall of Slytherins, shoulder brushing robes and bags and students who didn’t care to move.

It would’ve been so easy to jinx Pansy Parkinson right then, especially when she had to shove past her. The spell had practically written itself in her head. But she was better than that. Even if the idea had been very tempting.

Then Draco Malfoy stepped in front of her.

She shifted to the side.

He moved with her.

Then again.

Ava stopped trying, sighed through her nose. This whole day hadn’t just drained her, it had aged her

She didn’t inclined her head to look at him, just kept staring straight at his chest, at the crisp line of his collar. Malfoy would have to move at some point. 

He was close enough that she could smell the expensive perfume he’d been wearing since third year. This one she actually liked,  warm leather and woody, maybe a hint of black pepper. Unlike the old one, which had that sharp mint scent she’d always hated.

“Tell me to move, Potter.” he murmured, his voice low and velvet smooth. “But you have to look at me when you do.” 

Well, fuck me . She flushed. What the hell happened to his voice over the summer?

She almost did look at him but then Parkinson’s stupid giggle stopped her in her tracks. 

Professor Grubbly-Plank’s voice cut through the standoff. “Let her pass, Mr. Malfoy, or I will deduct points from Slytherin.”

Malfoy held his stance a moment longer then finally stepped aside.

The gargoyle didn’t even ask for a password when she approached. It moved aside without a sound, revealing the spiral staircase behind it. That, more than anything else, unsettled her. It meant he was expecting her.

Ava climbed the stairs two at the time, an eerie feeling settling in her stomach. By the time she reached the oak door, her hand paused on the brass handle for just a second, then she pushed it open.

Dumbledore didn’t look up when she stepped inside. He was at his desk, writing something in long strokes, his quill moving like a metronome. The weak daylight filtering through the rain-streaked high windows painted his silhouette pale across the floor in long lines.

“Professor,” she said, her voice level.

No answer. She waited.

The scratching of the quill stopped. He placed it down with deliberate care. Only then did he raise his eyes to her.

“Ava,” he said. “Close the door.”

She did and waited until Dumbledore gave her permission to speak with a hand gesture.

“Professor Grubbly-Plank called me out in front of the whole class. Said I had dropped the subject and asked what I was doing there. I’m sure she was… confused?” 

“No, Ava. It was not a mistake.”

The way he said it, told her the conversation was already halfway over. She knew this routine by now. He never gave the full truth up front. You had to ask the right questions. Everything came in portions.

“Then why was I removed from Care of Magical Creatures?”

Dumbledore’s mouth pulled into a frown. “I thought it would be obvious.”

She licked her lips, searching for the answer he thought she should see. Came up empty. 

“You weren’t dropped , Ava,” Dumbledore said, folding his hands together, after getting no answer from her. “You were relieved . Of dead weight.”

She blinked.

“I don’t have time to explain every decision to you. You’re not here to be indulged.”

“But I signed up for that class years ago-”

“You were allowed to take that class when it seemed like you’d be able to hold the weight of it. That’s no longer the case.” he took a deep breath, as if tired of the conversation already. “If I could remove you from Hogwarts entirely, I would. But you’re a minor. And unfortunately, for now, we are all stuck with that fact.”

She stared at him, then, she focused on the desk. The quill stand. The low ticking of some old clock in the background. Anything to not give in to the pure and cold fear that erupted in her chest. 

She lifted the mental walls, coaxing the panic downward until it curled in on itself. Tighter. Smaller. Until it was nothing more than a stone. The smallest she could make it.

Dumbledore smiled faintly, satisfied with her lack of reaction. He had trained her well.

“You had a free period today, what did you do with it?”

She held his gaze now. “I worked on my Charms essay.” voice void of emotion. 

Dumbledore’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Why what, professor?” Her confusion didn’t entirely come to the surface, it stayed trapped beneath the ice with her panic. 

“Why,” he repeated, “were you doing Charms homework ?”

“Because I have a Charms essay due Friday.”

“You don’t need to worry about homework anymore.”

“I don’t?”

He leaned back slightly. “Have you forgotten? You forfeited that narrative. The Potions Master dream, the lie of a girl with academic ambition? That entire story we gave the world about you so we could get and keep the time turner? That was your only reason to push for top marks. ”

“And now?”

He folded his hands again. “Now that’s over.”

“I have to sit the O.W.L.s this year. Won't I fail them?”

A pause. For a moment, she thought he might actually shrug. Instead, he tilted his head.

“You won’t,” he said. “You’ll pass, because we’ve conditioned you well enough to do so on momentum alone.”

“But-”

He looked into her eyes and she felt him enter.

Her mind was always open. That’s how Dumbledore wanted it. 

It was the first thing he taught her, don’t let them know you can close the door. Don’t let them know you’ve built one at all. 

Real Occlumency wasn’t brute force. You couldn’t just shove someone out with will alone. Walls cracked. Exhaustion made them thin. Pain wore them down. It didn’t matter how strong they started, eventually, someone always found a way in.

He entered easily.

And as he did, the world behind her eyes took shape. That endless white room, clean, quiet, filled with stones. Countless stones, scattered across a flat expanse. Some small, no bigger than marbles. Others heavy as boulders. Some clustered in piles. Some lonely. Some polished smooth. Others jagged, unfinished.

Her mind was ever so curious to him. All those stones scattered across an endless white expanse. 

He focused on the nearest one. A small, gray stone. She let him have it. It was today’s Care of Magical Creatures lesson.

Dumbledore  turned it in his hand, accessing the memory. But she knew he wasn’t here for that. 

He wanted her.

She felt it, the pressure of his attention inside her mind. He was calling her forward, and so she went, obediently.

She appeared before him in the space, hands behind her back. He reached out a hand.

She flickered and vanished, reappearing what felt like kilometers away, standing before a small rock, the one she had just created. She crouched. Picked it up. And as soon as her fingers closed around it, the contents bled into her.

The fear, the grief, the panic. 

This afternoon, just hours ago, she had done something she realized she’d never done before: She thought about her life after the war.

The idea hadn’t occurred to her until Ron asked what she wanted to be. It was a simple question, offhanded even, but it landed in a way that surprised her. She didn’t have an answer, because the thought had never come.

She had never pictured a future beyond the war. Never imagined what would happen after Hogwarts, after the war, after the vow was fulfilled. It simply hadn’t crossed her mind.

But when the question came and she let herself think about it.

For the first time, she wondered what she might want. A real career. A normal path. Maybe Potions, like they had told everyone. Maybe Auror. Maybe something else. She hadn’t decided but that didn't matter, what mattered was that she had the possibility of being something to begin with. And it had felt new. Quietly hopeful.

Now, just hours later, it didn’t matter anymore.

Dumbledore's message was clear. She didn’t need to focus on academics. Her grades didn’t matter. That meant a future in school, anything that came after, wasn’t part of what was expected of her. That wasn’t what she was here for.

And a part of her understood that.

Ava had made her peace with dying in the war a long time ago. The fear hadn’t left her, Snape made sure of that. Fear kept you sharp. Fear kept you alive. But the fact of it, the possibility of death? That, she’d folded away like something already settled.

She trained for this, gave up her time, her energy, most of her teenage years and the ones to come, not out of duty to Dumbledore, but out of love for Harry. She would do anything to protect him.

That choice never felt like a burden. 

It never once felt unfair. 

She’d made it freely.

She had never expected anything in return.

When Dumbledore asked her to take the Unbreakable Vow, she accepted. Not because she didn’t understand the weight of it. But because it was for Harry. That had always been the reason for everything she did. 

And she had not panicked. 

She had not hesitated. 

She trusted Dumbledore with her life. 

But now she had seen something she hadn’t before: The idea of a future. A version of her life that didn’t revolve around keeping someone else alive. Guilt. It had come to her only today, and she had let herself imagine it. And for a few hours, that hope had felt real. Guilt. 

It was gone now. 

This is what she felt now. Fear of losing an academic future, something all her peers had. But that fear felt disproportionate, larger than what her rational mind believed it should be. It flirted with panic. Panic at the idea of being asked to sacrifice yet another piece of herself. And grief. So much of it she couldn’t hold it all. Couldn’t even trace where it started, only that it soaked through everything.

But that made no sense.

She hadn’t panicked when Dumbledore asked her to make the Unbreakable Vow. She’d accepted without hesitation , driven by love for her brother. That had been a heavier choice. This was nothing in comparison.

So why now? Why panic now?  Why feel fear now, when she hadn’t then? Where was all this grief coming from? 

It flooded her. If this were the real world, she wouldn’t be standing. She’d be broken, helpless, the weight of it spilling out in desperate cries.

She walked the distance back to him, barefoot across the blank white floor, stepping carefully around her stones. The one in her hand growing heavier with each step she took.

She opened her palm to him, the stone waiting there for him to take it. But he didn't. He put his hand above hers. 

He could feel it now too, he could see inside her heart. 

All pressed into the shape of a small stone in both of their hands. 

He held her hand between his, his thumb tracing slow, gentle circles along the side of her palm.

“You’re alright, aren’t you? This doesn’t frighten you. Not really. You know I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“You’re doing this for your brother. Because you love him. You always have.”

“You’re not giving up anything. Your career? That can wait. The war won’t last forever. When it’s over, you can return to Hogwarts. Sit your exams. Catch up, if you want to. You’re bright. You’ll manage.”

“You’re not losing anything that can’t be found again. But your brother… Harry needs you now . This is your choice. And you want to do this, for him.”

Then he smiled. A small, approving thing. “Because you’re brave. And selfless. And you love him.”

When he let go, she felt light, clear-headed. Peaceful.

She left his office with calm pride nestled in her chest. Not everyone could be this selfless. She hadn't even hesitated. OWLs, N.E.W.T.s, her academic future, who cared? She was doing the right thing.

She smiled faintly to herself as she walked the corridor. There was something noble in letting go of her own plans, wasn’t there? Something brave.

She was proud of that. Proud of herself.

Somewhere inside her, deep in the white, stone-filled landscape of her own mind, the truth remained. The stone was still there. The one that pulsed with panic, doubt, grief and with the sting of being asked again to give something up.

But over it, Dumbledore had laid something like silk. A spell carefully woven not to hide the stone, but to make it beautiful. Cloaked it in loyalty so complete, she would never think to look beneath.

Now it shimmered softly with pride. 

With clarity.

With a love for her brother so consuming, so righteous, it left no space for questions.

Because after all, Dumbledore always said, Love is the strongest kind of magic.

Chapter Text

Dark magic rewards surrender. 

It makes you feel powerful. Invincible.

Like a god in your own skin.

But it lies.

It corrupts you slowly, sweetly, until your insides are hollow and you’re too drunk on the rush to notice.

A little taste and its fun, feels harmless. You think it's not that big of a deal as everyone makes it out to be, so you indulge. 

You let yourself tiptoe around it until your feet are in the water and you swear you’re just standing on the edge. By the time you realize the current’s dragging you under, it’s too late. You still feel fine. Your lungs haven’t noticed they’ve stopped breathing. But your body has and it dies quietly.

Dark magic tastes sweet. 

It's easy to give in to it.

No one is above its corruption. 

No one is immune. 

Use too much dark magic without something to anchor you, and eventually your instincts stop being yours. They lie to you, just like the magic does. It’ll whisper ideas that don’t sound like you, until one day you act on them and tell yourself it was your choice.

That’s why counterbalance isn’t optional. 

For Ava, Occlumency had always been that tether. Dumbledore drilled it into her before she ever touched a dark spell, discipline before temptation. Those who mastered it, occlumency,  had a chance at control, for when it came to dark magic, discipline was the difference between using it and being used by it.

Now,  in an empty and shrunken Room of Requirement, Ava sat cross-legged, alone. A single sheet of parchment hovered before her, flame burning at its center. Its nature was to spread. It wanted to.

But it didn’t.

Because she would not allow it.

The task was simple: keep the fire from spreading, while she practiced Occlumency. 

Dual focus. Physical control and mental precision, if either faltered, the parchment would burn. 

It was the kind of discipline Dumbledore pressed hardest, refinement past the point of necessity. That alone made Ava certain he was preparing her for something. Why else force her to repeat skills she had already mastered? Couldn't be worse than the Unforgivables, though she couldn’t yet imagine what.

When Professor Snape had taught her those curses, he’d cast them on her first, then made her return them on him.  “You need to know how it feels. Both ends. Otherwise, it’s just words on a page.” It was no lesson fit for a child, though a child was what she had been.

It had taken her over a year to make the Cruciatus work, mainly because she couldn’t bring herself to mean it. The spell obeyed nothing but intent, the will to hurt. And for a long while, she lacked it. His tolerance for pain was unnerving. It was clear for Ava, that this was not the first time he had been subjected to it, and that her own performance had been the weakest of all.

The Imperius Curse had been different. Easy, even entertaining.  When you’re a child with too much power, making your professor  hop on one foot, or pick his nose feels nothing short of hilarious. Childish stuff, really, but Snape never reacted angrily at that, beyond a look of deep, personal regret.

It had taken Ava some time to resist his Imperius. Mainly because she trusted him. There was no fear. No reason to pull away from the control, not really. That changed when Professor Snape, irritable as always, instructed her to use Occlumency not only against Legilimency, but to resist the Imperius as well.

Suddenly, it wasn’t about fear anymore, it was about awareness. She learned to trace the edges of her own mind, to feel where another’s will pressed against hers. Slowly, she could pull back. The resistance was no longer instinctive but deliberate.

She remembered the day Professor Moody used her to demonstrate the Imperius Curse in class. She had to fight the instinct to recoil, summoning every ounce of self-control to avoid giving herself away.  Fifteen and resisting the Imperius? That would have invited far too many questions, and far worse, knowing now that the man under the skin was none other than Barty Crouch Jr.

Then there was the Killing Curse. 

That one, she hadn’t used. And if Snape had anything to say about it, she never would. He was worried about her soul. Ava could suspect from their long talks that it was more of a personal fixation, one of Snape’s rare, stubborn hopes. 

She’d asked Snape, what made the Killing Curse worse than any other way of ending a life? The books didn’t say. They just repeated the warning: it damages the soul. But they never explained why . 

She honestly didn't know what difference it made, killing someone with the Killing Curse or with a Diffindo to the throat. If anything, the second was messier. The Killing Curse dropped them clean. So why was that the one that supposedly damaged your soul? Why was it worse? 

Professor Snape had told her that the curse demanded a piece of you, because what mattered wasn't how the victim died, but how you changed the moment you decided they should. The soul didn’t break because of the death itself. It broke because you agreed to become the thing that ended someone’s life. 

You had to decide, fully and without hesitation, that someone else’s existence was yours to erase, and then do it. Not out of necessity. Not out of fear. Not even out of anger. But for the kill. 

And once you crossed that line, there was no uncrossing it. You didn’t go back to being someone who hadn’t. You couldn’t. That version of you didn’t exist anymore.

And that? That was the part Snape didn’t want for her. 

So whatever she was preparing for, could not be worse than that. 

For the rest of the afternoon, she didn’t break focus, but the silence was starting to feel like noise. Out of boredom, she silently summoned a second parchment, if only for the novelty.

It floated beside the first, identical in shape and weight. She lit it carefully, summoned another tight flame at its center. The original still hovered before her, flickering steady. 

Nothing changed. She was still in control. So she added a third.

The new flame sputtered briefly before steadying under her will. Now three sheets of parchment floated before her in a loose triangle, each one holding its fire dead center, the edges of the parchment intact.

She stacked another stone in her mind. 

The fourth parchment resisted, just for a second. Its flame widened at the center, reaching, before she stopped its advances like a dog on a leash. Her hands didn’t move. Her breath didn’t change. 

The fire obeyed.

She wasn’t bored anymore. There was something satisfying about managing all four at once, the micro-adjustments, the pressure behind the eyes. Practicing Occlumency had become something else entirely once the stakes outside increased.

Maybe she could add a fifth. Just to see.

By the time dinner arrived, Ava practically bounced down the corridors, satisfied with herself, her stomach growling in anticipation.

“Well, you can just go straight to her and ask her to let you off on Friday,” Ava overheard Angelina’s angry voice cutting through the hall. “And I don’t care how you do it, tell her You-Know-Who’s a figment of your imagination if you like. Just make sure you’re there!”

With a flick of her robes, Angelina stormed off, leaving Harry standing there, his back turned. 

“What was that about?” she asked. He jumped when Ava made her presence known.

“Oh, fuck,” Harry muttered, startled, spinning around to face her. “Where the hell have you been? Did you drop Hagrid’s class?”

“Yes, I did.” 

“You can’t do that.” 

“I can, Harry. It’s an optional subject. Plus, I still have Arithmancy and Ancient Runes,” she pouted, her voice almost teasing at the end.

“No, I mean you can’t do that. Hagrid’s gonna feel hurt if you drop out. Why did you drop?”

“Well, you know I don’t have my… time-turner .” She whispered the words, “So I just figured dropping a class was necessary. It’s for the best, Harry. Believe me. Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

“How can I not?” Harry snapped, exasperated.

Ava glanced sideways at he brother as they turned toward the Great Hall. She nudged his arm with her elbow.

“Don’t be cross,” she said. 

Harry didn’t answer. 

They stepped into the warm, loud glow of the hall, where Hermione and Ron were already seated, starting with their meals. Hermione looked up immediately, eyes narrowing.

“You really dropped Care of Magical Creatures?”

Ava slid onto the bench beside her. “It wasn’t personal,” she said, reaching for bread. “I just needed fewer classes, and it was the most sensible to let go.”

Ron blinked. “Sensible? You, seriously?”

“I’ve still got Runes and Arithmancy. It’s not like I’m slacking off.” She shrugged, then added casually, “Spent the afternoon studying.”

Hermione frowned. “Studying what?”

“Arithmancy,” she lied, breaking her bread roll in half.

 “But I'm doing all three of them.” stated Hermione bewildered, holding her fork. “Arithmancy, Study of Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures”

“And that’s why Dumbledore made you Prefect, Hermione, and not me,” Ava said, mouth full of bread. “Without the Time-Turner, I just can’t take the load.”

Hermione tilted her head, considered what Ava had just said, and looked almost satisfied. 

“And what, you just forgot you dropped the subject?” she said. “And forgot to tell us?”

“Well… yes. I made the decision in a rush. And you know I’ve got a lot on my mind.” Ava tilted her head toward where Fred was sitting a few meters away, animatedly telling a story to Dean Thomas. 

Ron and Harry turned to look at Fred, then exchanged a glance that screamed not touching that one. They both returned to their food like it had suddenly become fascinating.

Ava didn’t wait for Hermione’s response. She picked up a goblet and steered the conversation elsewhere. “Anyway, what was that about?” she asked Harry.

“Angelina’s furious I can’t make it to the Keeper tryouts on Friday,” Harry muttered. “It’s not like I chose detention.”

“Well, you chose to get detention when you talked back to Umbridge like that,” Hermione pointed out crisply, distracted already.

“You did too!”

“No, I didn’t. I asked a few questions. Then, when I realized it was pointless trying to reason with that woman, I shut my mouth.”

“She’s right,” Ron mumbled into his goblet.

“You’re supposed to be on my side!” Harry said frustrated.

“We are on your side,” said Ava calmly. “But you went full stupid Gryffindor in there. You almost dragged me into it too.”

“You did duel him!” Harry snapped. “You can face Voldemort but won’t talk back to Umbridge?”

“You really need to ask?” Ava said with a dry laugh. “Plus it wasn't  a duel, I mean... it was more ‘please don’t murder me’ than ‘let’s see who wins.’, you know?” She laughed again, but Hermione and Ron just stared at her, clearly more horrified than amused. 

Ava cleared her throat. “Nevermind.”

Harry groaned, stabbed at his food, grabbed a warm piece of bread and stood abruptly.

“Where’s he going?” asked Ron.

“Detention starts tonight.,” Ava shrugged.

Snape poured carefully, the steady stream of tea filling the silence between them. He slid the cup toward her, then sat back, fingers still resting on his own. The steam from the tea curled upwards, carrying the faint tang of bergamot.

They were in his quarters, waiting for curfew to fall so they could make their way to the Room of Requirement unseen.

This waiting was never wasted. He usually used it to go over the theory behind whatever they would be working on later. Even when she thought she knew the material, he had a way of drawing out details she had overlooked, correcting the smallest errors, and stressing what he thought mattered most. More often than not she left these talks seeing things differently, aware of how much more he expected her to catch than the obvious. 

Other times, they brewed together, and that was what she thought they would be doing, for as soon as she arrived, he had told her she would need to begin preparing a personal reserve of potions, a survival kit of sorts. It would be her responsibility to brew them, to keep them in order, to monitor their shelf-life. All in readiness for possible emergencies now that everything around them was quickening its pace.

But, instead of brewing, he had chosen to… talk. 

“You seem… untroubled,” he said.

“I am,” Ava replied easily, lifting the cup.

His eyebrow arched. “I heard my students discussing what happened in Care of Magical Creatures. They found it… entertaining. From what I heard, you seemed irritated enough at the time. One would expect the humiliation to linger.”

Ava gave a small shrug. “It did, briefly, but then I realized none of it matters.”

His mouth curved, not quite a smile. “From indignation to serenity in a few hours. Strange, for someone your age.”

“I’ve always been strange for someone my age, Professor,” she said quietly. “You helped make it that way.”

He ignored the comment. “So you dismiss the worth of your own studies entirely.”

“No.” she corrected. “I know their worth. I also know where my energy matters right now. This” she gestured slightly around her “, this lets me make a difference.”

Snape finally sipped his tea, setting it down with a muted clink. The fire snapped in the hearth. 

“You speak with remarkable certainty,” he said at last, voice flat.

Ava nodded, hands wrapped around the warm cup. “Because I am certain.” 

He studied her for a long moment. “So you feel no… deprivation. No sense of being diminished?”

Ava’s patience thinned. “Not at all. It feels right. Harry needs me. I can actually do something that matters.”  Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “ What I don’t understand is where you’re going with this, Professor. If anything, I expected you to berate me for losing the time-turner, that I created the problem. That it’s my fault. Maybe this conversation is your way of admitting you’re glad I’m accepting the consequences with dignity.”

Snape didn’t answer. He only looked at her, his usual irritation etched in his subtle scowl, no hint of anything more. She held his gaze as she always did, she knew it irritated him, for all the other students always looked away in defense. 

And then she felt it, so faint she might have missed it, the expert brush at the edge of her consciousness, a feather-light tracing of thought. 

The sense of someone standing at the threshold of her mind.

She breathed in, but refused to look away, didn't want to. 

He had never stepped inside her mind before, nor she in his, for Dumbledore had been the one to teach her Legilimency and Occlumency. Surprisingly, Ava felt a spark of anticipation, a strange warmth at the edges of her awareness. 

Legilimency should feel like intrusion, a violation, but this… this was different. She wanted that kind of familiarity with him. 

The air between them seemed charged, brittle with possibility, as if the smallest movement could tip the balance.

Yet he withdrew just before her consciousness began to bleed into his. 

The pressure lifted, leaving her hollow and strangely alone.

“Drink your tea,” he said curtly, turning his eyes to the fire.

When it was time to leave for the Room of Requirement, Snape opened the door to the corridor, walking several paces ahead of her. The moment he stepped out, he stopped dead, still within Ava’s line of sight from inside the room. She froze too, staying hidden in the shadows of the potions classroom.

“Mr. Malfoy.” Professor Snape said, his voice clipped. “This corridor is not yours to patrol, nor is it your hour to do so.”

“No, sir.” Malfoy replied. His tone was steady, though there was an uneasy edge to it. “I wanted a word with you. Privately.”

“This is hardly an appropriate time.” Snape started, already dismissing him.

“It cannot wait,” Malfoy pressed, and this time Ava heard the desperation in his voice. “Professor, you don’t understand, it has to be now.” 

Snape studied him in silence, eyes narrowing as he looked at him. Then, without a word, he glanced back toward Ava: she was to leave. 

Quietly, she slipped out of the Potions classroom and back into Professor Snape quarters.

She closed the door behind her and leaned into it, listening. For a moment she heard the scrape of their footsteps moving into the classroom, but then the sound dulled to nothing. Snape had cast Muffliato. She knew better than to try and counterspell it. It would be useless. 

She sank onto the sofa and rolled her eyes, the gossip would’ve been interesting.

What, truly, could Malfoy want with him? It was hard to imagine it had anything to do with lessons. No, the timing and secrecy suggested something different. 

Their families were too bound up in the same dark circles for the matter to be trivial. Snape wore the Dark Mark, and so did Lucius Malfoy. Any interaction between a Malfoy and Snape carried potential implications, no matter how small. It was not unreasonable to think that Draco Malfoy’s request touched those same currents, though exactly how remained opaque.

Could he already be part of it, she wondered. He was far too young for such thing. And yet age was hardly protection; she knew that from experience. 

Ava could tell from the urgency in the Headmaster and Professor Snape that the war was accelerating.  Accelerating the pace at which people were drawn into it, willing or not. Perhaps Draco was being pushed along too. If that were the case, the urgency in his voice made a different kind of sense.

For a moment, she allowed herself to consider the possibility that he had already been drawn into the war. Not as young as she had been when she first became entangled, but still far too young to carry the weight of it all. The thought was uncomfortable, and for an instant, she felt a flicker of something almost like pity, though only for him; she herself was grateful to serve the cause. 

Could it be that he longed to serve as well, but for Voldemort?

The thought did not interest her. 

If there were similarities between them, she did not care for them. Whatever secrets or ambitions he harbored, they were none of her concern. He could carry as many hidden layers as he liked, they did not matter to her at all. He didn't deserve that space in her mind. 

He had spent years trying to keep her off balance with his attempts of intimidation. 

The constant angry stares, his knack for colliding with her in doorways, talking over her, pocketing her quill when she wasn’t looking and his friends’ low laughter from behind always made it clear the whole thing was meant as a joke at her expense. 

When they were younger, it worked. He got under her skin. She used to take the bait every time. He irritated her until she snapped back, which only seemed to encourage him further. 

But last year, under the weight of the Unbreakable Vow and the intensity of her training, she had stopped reacting. Ignoring him had become easier than feeding his need to be noticed. What once exasperated her now passed by like background noise, another minor irritation among the many obligations Dumbledore had placed upon her. 

She’d stopped reacting, and not long after he stopped trying. She figured the two had to be connected, ignoring him had been the trick all along. 

But this year, she wouldn’t study in the library, not knowing if he might appear again, trying to unsettle her as he had last year. Even though she had grown used to his presence while reading, if he was tangled up in Death Eater business, he remained a danger she couldn’t ignore.

She dismissed the thought and poured herself another cup of tea. By the time Snape opened the door, nearly fifty minutes later, Ava was already asleep on his couch.

A red curse tore through the air. 

Her shield shimmered to life, blue and bright, catching the brunt of the blast with a deafening crack, the impact loud enough to rattle the windows. Sparks flew, her boots skidding backward across the stone floor from the force. 

One spell. 

Another.

A third slammed into her shield, driving her arm lower with the weight.

She blocked all of them, tried to step closer but Professor Snape knocked her back. Sweat pooled in her brows and underneath her nose. 

One step. Two. Three.

She returned fire, hex after hex, every one meant to hurt him severely.

The wall to her left burst open, stone dust filling her mouth as the blast threw her to the ground.

The prefects’ bathroom held its own kind of silence at four in the morning. She was always tired at this moment of her day, almost the end, but not close enough. 

She set her things down on the bench by the wall, fingers clumsy with the bandages. 

Ava peeled away the bandage from her arm, slow, careful. The cloth had stuck where Snape’s dittany had dried into it, tugging against the new skin underneath. She hissed through her teeth, then dropped the strip of linen onto the pile by her boots.

She lowered herself into the water, the heat catching her breath. Her muscles tightened, then slowly gave in, leaving the dull throb of ribs, wrists, shoulders. Too many impacts in too few hours. 

She let her head tip back against the marble edge, eyes half-shut.

She had lost count of how many times she’d come here like this. Snape would wound her, Snape would mend her, and then she would come here alone to bathe, relax her muscles and her mind. It had become routine.

Her chest tightened. She should feel proud of herself, being able to keep up with Snape in a duel was no small feat. But it was hard to believe it when she couldn’t remember a single duel that didn’t end up with him patching her up. She hadn’t once walked away untouched. 

Inside the vast, white, space of her mind, the rock that kept that night's memories, the graveyard memories, vibrated. 

She crouched before it and held it in both hands, close to her face, as close as Voldemort had been.  

She had met him and lived, yes, but only because he had been half a man then. She meant what she said during dinner. She had been terrified. That night had been luck, nothing more. There would be no luck next time. Next time he would be what he was meant to be, equal to Dumbledore. She wasn’t. Not even close.

Her fingers drifted in the water, breaking the surface into ripples that spread across the pool. 

She sank lower, chin brushing the water, hair clinging damp to her face. The warmth didn’t ease much. It only reminded her how sore she was, how heavy her body felt.

Alone in the silence, it was harder to avoid the question she carried with her every time she came here: what if she wasn’t good enough? 

Ava closed her eyes, not wanting to give in to her anxiety. 

She breathed in for six long seconds, filling every corner in her lungs. Held it. One, two, three. Then out, seven seconds, emptying herself until there was nothing left to push. 

Picked one point to focus on, the sound of dripping water from the far corner of the bath. Nothing else. Just the drip. Drip. Drip.

Drip. 

Drip.

Drip.

Chapter Text

Draco walked the corridor slowly, wand raised to light his path. The glow barely reached the walls on either side, just enough to make out the stones ahead of him while everything else fell into shadow. 

It was late. He hadn’t checked the time before leaving the dorms for patrol. Why bother? It was always some ungodly hour when Pansy knocked on his door to exchange places, and honestly, it made no difference. 

There was a time, not long ago, when he would have complained about the schedule. About being up and out this late. About how unfair it was, how stupid, that prefects were still made to do rounds when they could easily hire someone else.  He would have complained to anyone who would listen, and made sure everyone knew just how put upon he was.

But that sort of thing didn’t matter to him anymore. 

He didn’t care about House points this year. He didn’t care if his robes were tailored in Paris, or if someone else managed to get their hands on the same broom. He wasn’t counting down to Hogsmeade weekends, or Quidditch matches, or any of the things that used to give his weeks shape.

Many things didn't matter anymore. 

Just like sleep hadn’t mattered to him in weeks. For it barely came at all now, and when it did, it wasn’t rest, just a shallow drift that left him more drained than before. 

Because when he slept, there were no dreams, only nightmares. 

Screams. 

The Manor had stopped being a home the moment the Dark Lord claimed it for his court. Its halls carried the sounds of torture now. Wizards dragged in as prisoners, their wands already stripped from them, were made examples of under the Cruciatus. Sometimes creatures too, goblins, half-breeds, howling in voices not meant for human pain. 

The stone walls did nothing to muffle it.

The screams had been real. The strain in their voices had been real, cords pushed past the point of damage. Yet in sleep, his mind was crueler than reality for it claimed them for his mother. In his dreams, every tortured scream he had heard awake, became hers. Sometimes he saw her body convulsing under a curse he couldn’t stop. Sometimes he saw her dragged across the floor, other times it was only the sound, but it was always her. And her suffering was entirely his fault. 

He would wake up calling for her, unable to shake the dreadful feeling in his chest. She was being punished because of him. Because he had been weak.

It was the thought of his mother paying for his weakness that silenced every excuse. That was what drove him to Snape  the very first week of term.

The Manor had already shown him what failure looked like. He knew what happened to people who disappointed. 

So he went.

The walk down to the dungeons had been a punishment in itself.

Just thinking about Snape knowing, seeing, understanding… The shame of it was almost too much to stand. 

By the time he had reached Snape’s door, his hands had been cold and damp. He could hardly remember the words he’d meant to say.

But none of that mattered. He could trade every last scrap of pride and still count it a bargain, so long as it wasn’t his mother left screaming in those halls.

It was the first time he saw how little of his life was his own. How the things he thought were his alone could spill over, dragging others into the fallout. Up until now, the bane of his existence had just been that, an annoyance he had to live with. A fixation he resented, yet indulged.

But that had changed. 

The Dark Lord had returned near the end of last school year, and what had been a harmless, but irritating, infatuation, became dangerous. Consequential.

Now the Dark Lord walked the same halls Draco had grown up in. Ate at the same table. Sat in his father’s chair. 

His presence turned the Manor into a place Draco could no longer stomach, though it was supposed to be his home. And there was no safe distance. Hogwarts offered no real protection, for all its stone walls and wards, it might as well have been another corridor in the Manor. Distance meant nothing because the Dark Lord would be there waiting for him when he eventually returned home.

He still didn’t know how it had gotten to this point. Everything in him had been conditioned for the exact opposite. And yet, here he was. Somehow, against every effort to the contrary, it had taken hold of him.

Draco had been raised to despise the very air the Potters breathed. From the moment he was old enough to grasp the weight of his family’s name, he understood the counterweight the Potters carried. They were the heroes, the afterimage of the Dark Lord’s fall, the family his father spat on as the reason for disgrace.

Before he even set foot in the castle, he already loathed them. Already knew he would be measured against them by his father. He was expected to be better than the offspring of the family that had undone everything his father revered.

And when he finally met them, the Boy Who Lived turned out to be simple enough to despise, disappointingly ordinary, even for a small kid. But hating her had proven to be both easy and impossible. 

Easy, because every time she bested him it carved yet another wound into his pride. 

Impossible, because she refused to fit the role he had prepared for her. She didn’t gloat, didn’t boast, didn’t even seem to notice how often she outdid him. She denied him the satisfaction of her arrogance, and that made the hatred fester all the worse.

While Harry, the celebrity, was a constant source of annoyance, Ava was a constant reminder of his own inadequacies. 

In every classroom she outdid him, charms sparking clean from her wand on the first try, potions simmering the exact shade the book described, essays handed back with marks that made even the meanest professors nod in approval. She never needed to boast; the results spoke for her. And every time he caught sight of her across a desk or in the glow of a cauldron, it was like being forced to stare at a mirror that showed only his shortcomings.

He’d catch her out of the corner of his eye during Potions, the flicker of the cauldron’s flames dancing across the strands in her hair, making her look softer, like something out of a dream rather than his nightmares. The firelight would shift and, for just a moment, she would seem almost unreachable, standing on the other side of some invisible line that separated her from the rest of them. From him. 

At first, he mistook it for a childish crush, the kind of fleeting indulgence boys sometimes nurse toward girls they cannot have. Something that should have faded after a term or two. But it didn’t fade. It settled in, deepening each year until the line between loathing her and fixating on her blurred beyond recognition.

By fourth year, the shift was undeniable. Puberty molded every feeling into something entirely different. What might once have passed as harmless was no longer harmless nor innocent at all. He saw her when he closed his eyes, her figure bending over the desk and the graceful arc of her back imprinted in his thoughts. 

From a distance, he could just about endure it, carrying the weight of her in silence. Pathetic, yes, but it was his to guard, and no one had to know.

But Voldemort was back. Nothing about it was harmless anymore. Nothing about it was safe. He couldn’t relax into his old patterns, couldn’t move through the days the way he used to, not with the Dark Lord walking among the living.

He knew what would be found if his mind were ever forced open: years upon years of rot, indulgent thoughts he had fed willingly. 

Filth.

A fucking goddess on earth. 

Not some haloed saint, but a crawling, festering blasphemy lodged in his brain like a parasite.

He'd tried to get rid of it. 

He'd tried. Merlin. He'd tried. This summer more than ever.

Getting her out of his head had never been more urgent, more necessary. His life depended on it. His mother’s life depended on it. And still, still, he couldn’t stop.

He had been lucky this summer; Voldemort had not taken interest in him. But how long would that last? He was getting older, and he knew he would bear the Dark Mark in his own skin any day now.

He wanted her gone. Out of his life, out of his head. 

The shame only fed the hunger, and the hunger only deepened the shame. It choked him until every thought curled back to her, until his body betrayed him for her. 

A parasite. 

A shrine.

A shrine he pissed on and worshipped in the same breath. 

When Ava and Saint Potter had returned from the third task, dragging Diggory’s body with them, crying out that Voldemort was back, Draco had believed them with no doubt in his heart. 

He remembered the hair on his arms and neck standing on end. The Dark Lord was back. Cedric Diggory was dead. 

It should have been a nightmare. But Draco’s mind had split him in two. 

One part of him knew terror, knew with absolute clarity that his life had just been cut short. 

The other part had looked at her and nearly broken with the force of it. 

If he hadn't been so completely, terrifyingly aware of what this meant for him, he might have been hard right there, in front of everyone, from the sight of blood matted across her hair and her eyes. Merlin, those eyes; locked on Dumbledore burning with a defiance that could shatter wards. No tears for Diggory in sight. 

Some part of him must have known it that night, watching her holding her brother close as he cried over the Hufflepuff boy, that he himself was doomed no matter what he did from now on. 

But he still tried to mitigate the damage.He spent what little was left of that school year forcing himself to stay away from her. He didn’t bother her anymore. Didn’t sit near her. Didn’t make her the butt of his jokes, though there was more material than ever to work with.

He starved himself of her, he fought it like a cornered beast. 

But he knew, less than a month of distance could never erase anything, he had indulged too much when it came to her. He had let it grow wild, given it every chance to spread until it consumed him. 

He had gone so far as to stalk her earlier that year, for Salazar’s sake. 

The thought alone made him sick. How had he let it get that far? How had he not stopped himself? He wasn’t a child anymore, and yet he had behaved like one. He had been so stupid.

But even when he called himself that, another voice in his head asked if he could have prevented it. Could he really? She vanished day after day, slipping from sight while her brother was left alone with the mudblood and Weasley. And that was the part that made no sense. He knew her too well, she was overprotective of her brother.  And yet, when Potter was actually in danger, when he was preparing for tasks that had already killed students before him, she was gone. How was Draco supposed to ignore that? How could he not notice? 

He tried to reason it away at first, but the more he thought about it, the less sense it made. The questions kept piling up: Where was she going? Who was she with? Was she sneaking off to meet someone? Was she with him?

The thought struck like a Bludger to the chest, splintering ribs and reason alike.

Was she with him? 

Was she sneaking off with the photocopy, so enamored she had forgotten about her brother? 

He’d suspected there was something between them even before the Yule Ball. That kiss had only proved it. Summers wasted at that shabby excuse for a house. Hogsmeade days spent with only him. Family friends? Please. He was older and never subtle, always pressing his luck, always flirting as if she were his to toy with. And she let him. Which was almost harder to stomach than the flirting itself.

It had been like watching something rare and ethereal and brilliant willingly sink into filth. 

Draco needed to know. 

Had to know. 

His mind refused to let it rest. 

Was she with him? 

And because he valued answers over decency, he started following her. 

It wasn't long until he trailed her into the library and lost her. One moment she was there between the shelves, the next she was gone, swallowed by the rows.

He searched until frustration bled into rage, prowling the stacks long after he knew it was useless. Hours had passed after he had sunk near the entrance, simmering, when she reappeared. Alone. As if she had spent the afternoon studying like any other student. And Weasley nowhere in sight.

Again and again, he walked the rows, running his hand along stone seams, pressing at edges, tracing the lines between shelves in search of a hidden latch. There had to be a passage. Hogwarts was full of them. But found nothing.

He was about to give up when he smelled it.

It caught in the back of his throat with a trickle of warmth, sweet at the edges. His eyes narrowed, scanning the corner even though he knew it was empty, she’d already left, but the air still carried her.

He’d noticed that scent before, on a few occasions over the years. At the time he hadn’t known what it was, only that it clung to her, a faint trace left behind whenever she practiced magic. A residue.

Before, it had always been brief, fleeting doses. But here it was stronger than ever. He figured it was because she’d been sitting there for a long stretch, probably casting spell after spell, maybe even reading magic-heavy texts. The air around her had accumulated it, layer upon layer, until the magic itself seemed to hang visibly in the space she’d occupied.

He lingered there, turning it over in his mind. She actually went so far as to hide herself just to study? For what possible reason? Yet the question dulled beneath the weight of relief: Ava wasn’t with him. That alone was enough to settle his nerves, to make the strangeness of it almost irrelevant.

The longer he lingered, the more intensely her magic etched itself into his senses. It clung to the inside of his nose, settled against the back of his throat. Almost intoxicating.

After that, he stopped searching aimlessly.

Instead, he began drifting back to the library more often. He’d wander the stacks until he found the spot where her magic lingered strongest, then lower himself into a chair. Sit still. Shut his eyes. Let it wash over him. Let it fill him.

Sometimes the scent came in waves, stronger, he knew then she was actively using magic. Weaker when she was only maintaining whatever charm she used to hide herself. Those were the moments he sat perfectly still, heart hammering, knowing she was there even if he couldn’t see her.

He started bringing his homework with him. A cover. Something to ground him, to make him look like any other student killing time in the library. Hoping that if he looked ordinary enough, she wouldn’t change her routine. Of course, she wasn’t stupid. Draco knew she’d noticed him, how could she not? But the fact that she kept coming back told him she tolerated his presence so long as he didn’t intrude.

And she kept coming.

So he kept returning.

The exposure was so much that her magic had started clinging to him longer than he realized, soaked deep into the fabric of his robes. It was only weeks later, standing half-dressed in his dormitory, that he realized. The scent was still there. Hers. As vivid as if she’d brushed past him only moments ago.

He drew the fabric of his robes close, breathing deep. Once. Twice.

He couldn’t bring himself to wash it.

He folded them carefully, kept those robes apart from the rest. Wouldn’t let them mix. And when, eventually, every robe he owned carried her scent, he welcomed it.

It tore at him whenever the elf collected them for washing. Each time felt like a theft. So he resolved that when summer came and he went home, he would smuggle one robe apart from the rest, hide it deep in his wardrobe, and never let it see soap or water. He didn’t care how disgusting it seemed, because it was her smell in those robes. 

But then the world changed.  

Voldemort returned, and with him, Draco’s plan to rid himself of her came to life. The scheme of keeping a robe unwashed was swallowed up by the weight of what was coming.

Yet when summer arrived, and he went home, he couldn’t bring himself to hand them all over to the elf. He held onto a single robe, despite reason or sense.

It wasn’t long before he found himself pulling it from the wardrobe again.

One blink and he had the fabric against his nose.

Bliss. A ragged gasp escaped him, her magic was still there, woven into the fabric like smoke that hadn’t fully cleared. 

Another blink, and he was moaning into his own school robes, under the same roof where Voldemort prowled.

He did it anyway. Again and again.  Heart a war drum in his chest, limbs shaking with the exquisite terror of it. 

One moment he was coming to her scent, then he was choking back tears in the shower, feeling filthy, scared and pathetic. By dinner, though, he was marble again: composed at the long oak table with Voldemort, Death Eaters, and his parents, sharing a seemingly pleasant dinner. 

When Draco understood that even the nearness of the Dark Lord could not stop his thoughts from circling back to her, something else settled in with it, the certainty that his mother’s death would be his fault. 

And once the thought took root, it spread. Every glance at his mother was full of guilt, every word from her mouth came with the knowledge that she lived only so long as the dark lord was kept away from his mind. 

The Dark Lord valued loyalty above all. Loyalty and utility. A servant’s worth was measured by what he could contribute and by what he could sacrifice. To think of Ava, to desire her, meant attaching value to the wrong side, to the wrong bloodline, to the surname the Dark Lord wanted erased from the earth. That alone would mark him as compromised. Voldemort had no patience for weakness that tied one’s hands. To him, desire that could not be weaponized was nothing but betrayal waiting to happen.

And if the Dark Lord ever saw it in Draco’s mind, he would not view it as harmless fancy. He would see proof that the Malfoy heir’s instincts leaned toward the enemy. That the Malfoy family could not be relied upon. His father’s influence, though considerable, could not shield him from scrutiny forever. One big misstep as this one and their family’s position, and their safety, would crumble in Voldemort’s eyes.

What Ava represented could undo generations of careful positioning.

His mother would be the first to pay, as a lesson. He would follow.

Once he understood this, the nightmares began. His mother’s screams, his family name dragged through the mud, his own body discarded like something defective. Again and again he saw it, every ending the same.

If thinking of her couldn’t be stopped, then he needed another plan. 

Occlumency.

There was no other way. And as much as it turned his stomach, there was only one person he could ask.

It wasn’t only Snape’s skill that mattered, though Draco knew his reputation spoke for itself. What mattered more was his mother’s reliance on him. Narcissa Malfoy trusted no one, not even family, but she trusted him. Their long history gave her information Draco didn’t have, and she had judged him dependable. That was evidence enough. If his mother trusted Snape, it was only rational to do the same.  

And so, against his own instincts, Draco had accepted it: Snape was his only option.

What Draco had thought would be a negotiation, had turned into something closer to an execution. He had prepared for it, rehearsed the words in his head, trying to frame his request as something other than desperation. But standing in front of Snape, he knew before he even opened his mouth that nothing he said would change how it looked once Snape inevitably pried his way inside. So, rather than drag it out, Draco ripped the bandage away himself. He told Snape to use Legilimency, to see it for himself.

When Snape entered, it was almost clinical. No tearing, no pain, just the cold discomfort of being opened without consent. Thoughts slid out of hiding, memories tugged into view before he could instinctively push them down. Snape moved through them with a skill that should have been invisible, if not for how exposed it made him feel.

But that had changed quickly. Every memory turned over only seemed to sour him further, his presence pressing harder, the transitions between memories more violent. 

Draco could feel the anger in the intrusion itself, the fury bleeding into the pull of each recollection. The deeper Snape went, the more it hurt, as if pain had become his way of condemning what he found. What had begun as exposure became torment, and the humiliation was doubled: not only could Snape see everything, but he was making Draco suffer for it.

The pressure built behind Draco’s eyes, splitting into fire at the base of his skull. His head throbbed with it, his throat raw with sounds he didn’t realize he was making until the silence that followed revealed them as his own screams.

When Snape withdrew, the real disgrace set in. Draco was on the floor, palms clamped over his head as if to keep it from breaking apart, like a child. He hadn’t felt himself fall to his knees. 

Draco was small. He was exposed. He was, in every sense, utterly beneath the scrutiny of the man who had never spared him before and would not start now.

“How predictable.”

“How pathetic.”

“You spoiled, entitled, ungrateful little brat.” Snape raised his wand just enough to make him flinch, the faintest motion loaded with the threat of pain. “You have everything handed to you on a silver platter, and you squander it. You are given the world, and you cannot appreciate it because you’ve never had to fight for anything. And now the one thing you want is the only thing beyond your reach.”

Snape’s hand fell to his side, shaking his head. “You are entirely predictable, Draco. Intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, you are a child playing in a man’s world. Your entitlement blinds you. Your obsession exposes how immature you truly are. You cannot tolerate not having what you want, and so you pursue it with the intensity of someone delusional, unpracticed in restraint, unfit to comprehend consequence. That is your mind: weak, transparent, and utterly predictable.  You drag her into your fantasies, daring to imagine ownership where there is none. You are pathetic.” 

He paused, the most humiliating pause in Draco’s life.

When he dared to glance up, Snape’s eyes were already on him. Just then, Professor Snape opened his mouth again. 

“I’m going to take pity on you, and I’ll help you, consider it a debt long owed to your mother. But don’t forget: an apple never falls far from the tree. You will always be Malfoy’s disappointing boy, Draco. You… you will always be the boy who cried himself to sleep because his daddy hurt his feelings. She is above you. She always will be. So better keep her name out of your moans.”

“You are small, pathetic, and unworthy. Thankfully for me, you are fully aware of it.”

Now, not far from the very classroom where his pride had been obliterated, Draco’s footsteps carried him deeper into the bowels of the castle, walking aimlessly. The dungeon corridor stretched ahead, unlit and airless. No windows, no torchlight. The silence wasn’t empty; it echoed the way he felt his life had become: confined and narrow. 

Tomorrow would be the first day of Occlumency with Snape. By logic alone, it should have been easier now. Snape had already been inside his mind. He had already seen the worst of it. There shouldn’t have been anything left to dread.

But that was the problem.

It wasn’t the invasion itself that haunted Draco now, it was having to walk back into that classroom knowing Snape carried every detail with him. He would stand there, wand in hand, and Snape would look at him with the knowledge of what he had seen, and with the judgment he had already made.

Draco knew exactly what that judgment was. Snape hadn’t been quiet about it. He hadn’t spared him a word. He knew what Snape thought of him, what he was worth, what his mind was made of. And Draco would have to stand there tomorrow pretending he didn’t remember every word. Pretending he still had any pride left.

The humiliation had followed him out of the room and into every step since. And now, with tomorrow drawing closer, he only felt it all the worse.

Every insult, every word from Snape’s mouth had been deserved, he had earned it, he knew that. But the guilt of putting her mother in danger pressed down on him heavier than any humiliation Snape could deliver.

He turned a corner and stopped.

Violent, warm and electric. The scent so unexpected his knees almost buckled.

Merlin. 

It was like starving, then being force-fed the very thing he'd gone into withdrawal for.

It was her. Her magic. Unmistakably hers, like the air around her bent to her presence. 

It climbed the back of his throat, curled low in his gut drawing a subtle throb between his legs, his arousal pressing warm against his thigh.

She’s here.

Draco inhaled loudly as he looked around in the seemingly empty corridor. Her name looped in his head, everything else got shoved to the side.

She thought she could walk past him unnoticed?

She hadn’t set foot in the library once this entire first week. Not once. And now, now she was here? Wandering the corridor at four in the morning?

He moved. One step, then another, drawn forward, hand reaching toward the place where her scent lingered strongest.

His fingers closed on air

Nothing.

She must have dodged him.

She was still there though, he could tell because the scent didn’t fade. It came in waves, mocking him.

Under the invisibility charm, Ava stood frozen, eyes wide. He’d lunged straight at her. Not near her. Not her general direction. Right at the space she occupied. Her spellwork wasn't basic. They were multi-layered, sound-dampening, light-bending. She was careful. Flawless. He shouldn’t have noticed anything, but he had.

She hadn’t seen him cast anything. Could he cast silently? 

A couple of seconds ticked by. 

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. His wand hung loosely in one hand, motionless. His eyes were shut, brows drawn tight under the faint glow of his own wandlight. 

So she backed away. 

One step. 

Then another. 

She turned and disappeared down the corridor, her gaze still fixed on the unmoving silhouette of Malfoy, standing alone in the corridor.

He made himself draw steady breaths, clinging to the faintest trace of her in the air, but it faded all the same; leaving him utterly disappointed. 

A certainty settled in with the silence: he was alone. The corridor pressed in on him, walls too close, the stillness broken only by the sound of his own breath, louder than it should have been, uncomfortably loud.

The corridor suddenly felt hostile, too bare, too exposed without her lingering there with him.

He turned, his feet carrying him toward the Slytherin common room, each step weighed with a simmering frustration. He felt a grim sort of gratitude for the privilege his prefect badge afforded him: solitude. Privacy, where he could cling to what little of her still burned in his head.  The responsibility of patrolling the corridors slipped from his mind entirely.

Draco shoved the door to his private prefect quarters open, slamming it shut behind him, the lock snapping into place with a flick of his wand and Muffliato in place. His boots skidded on the stone, cock straining against his trousers. 

He didn't make it to the bed. 

The smell of her, had hit him like a drug, intoxicating after so long without it. Now with it fresh in his memory, his fingers were already clawing at his belt, the buckle jamming before giving way with a clink. 

He shoved his trousers down to his thighs, freeing himself, cock springing up hard and already leaking with pre-cum, hitting the cold air. His hand closed around it punishingly tight, veins standing out under his palm. The pressure made him hiss through his teeth. 

He held back for two breaths, forcing his grip to loosen and not actually hurt himself in the process. 

He gave the first stroke down slowly, the length filling his hand, then up. 

He imagined her there, on her knees, mouth hot and wet as she took him in, lips stretching around his thickness, tongue flat against the underside. Sucking slowly, drawing him in deeper with a pull that made his hips jerk forward. The thought made him spit into his hand, a thick glob landing on his palm, slicking his length with a warm, messy slide as he pumped again, the spit mixing with pre-cum, making each stroke wetter, the glide turning slippery. 

Drool gathered at the corner of his mouth, slipping down his chin in a thin trail, eyes squeezing shut as the fantasy played in his mind. Her cheeks hollowing, throat working to take more, humming low around him, pulling groans from his throat that turned to choked sobs. 

His knees buckled slightly, thighs tensing, almost whimpering as he stroked faster. The pressure building like a coil in his gut, balls drawing tight.

Hips moved meeting his hand, the wet slap of skin on skin filling his ears, pre-cum and spit dripping over his knuckles. He pictured her gagging slightly, eyes watering up at him.

He gagged as the first hot spurt shot out over his knuckles, warm and sticky, sensitivity kicking in right away but he kept pumping, now using his own mess as lubrication. Each slide sent jolts of pain through him, but he liked it. He deserved it. 

His free hand gripped his trousers. He gagged again, throat working, as he dragged his fist slower, milking the aftershocks. But there was no real release in it, only the reminder that he would go on wanting what he couldn’t have. 

It was over quickly, too quickly, and then there was nothing. No comfort, no easing of the aching inside him. The room seemed colder, the silence loud. He felt used up and no closer to peace than when he’d started.

He lifted his eyes to the door that led to the bathroom, to the shower waiting beyond it. 

There was no difference between tomorrow and now; the memory was already created and he would see it. He could already feel Snape’s eyes on him, the way they would be when the memory was dragged forward. 

Draco breathed out, resigned.

“I know you’re there. I’m sorry.”