Chapter Text
The storm had arrived in the middle of the night, slapping its wet hands against the windows of Wolfe Hall. By morning, the sea had swallowed half the cliff.
Lily stood at her dorm window, brushing her teeth and watching the rain tear sideways across the courtyard. Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang. It always rang a little too early here — as if the school were trying to beat time at its own game.
“Don’t look too hard,” Pandora murmured from the other bed. Her voice was scratchy with sleep. “She’s still there.”
Lily turned. “What?”
“The girl on the roof.” Pandora rubbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her jumper. “You’ll see her if you stare long enough. Just don’t blink.”
Lily froze, toothbrush paused midair. “That’s…a weird thing to say, even for you.”
Pandora only smiled.
⸻
Breakfast at Wolfe Hall was served in a sunken dining hall with arched windows and chandeliers so dusty they resembled jellyfish. Lily picked at a piece of toast. Across the table, Emmeline and Dorcas were whispering in quick, clipped tones. Marlene slid into her seat a moment later, rain still streaking her cheeks.
“Did you hear?” she said, too loud. “They found a journal in the library — not in the stacks, just sitting on the floor. Belongs to a girl who doesn’t exist.”
“That’s just a story,” Dorcas said without looking up.
“So was the North Wing fire,” Marlene shot back.
Lily glanced sideways. Pandora was stirring her tea with the handle of her spoon. She hadn’t blinked once.
⸻
They had Philosophy that morning, in a high-ceilinged room that echoed when no one spoke. Remus sat near the back, a little too far from Sirius Black, who had returned just that week without warning, his uniform coat longer than regulation and his collar turned up like a wolf hiding its teeth.
Evan Rosier passed a folded note to Barty Crouch Jr., who unfolded it like he’d been waiting all year. When he smirked, Evan rolled his eyes — and the radiator by the window let out a groan.
“Something wrong?” asked Professor Slughorn.
“No, sir,” Barty said, far too sweetly. “Just a difference of opinion on moral relativism.”
“Debate society,” muttered James from beside Regulus, who was chewing the end of his pen like it owed him money.
Slughorn sighed.
⸻
After class, Lily and Pandora walked the long corridor toward the library, past the broken clock and the old anatomy lab no one used anymore. The building smelled like books and salt.
“She doesn’t speak,” Pandora said suddenly.
“Who doesn’t?”
“The girl on the roof. In the dream. She opens her mouth, but her throat is full of seawater.”
Lily stopped walking.
“I have that dream,” she whispered.
Pandora just looked at her, like she’d known all along.
⸻
That night, the rain didn’t stop. Someone scratched the words “REMEMBER HER” into the mirror in the girls’ washroom.
And at exactly 3:17 a.m., Sirius stood in the North Wing staring at a door that wasn’t supposed to exist. Remus found him there. He didn’t ask why.
He just said, “You’re bleeding.”
And Sirius, who was not, said quietly, “Not yet.”
—
It had started as a dare.
That’s what Evan Rosier told himself anyway—every time he leaned too close, every time he caught the devilish glint in Barty Crouch Jr.’s eyes and didn’t flinch away. Every time his skin tingled like it was catching fire just from Barty’s voice dripping into his ear like poison and sugar all at once.
They weren’t friends. They weren’t even rivals, not really. Evan had stopped calling it rivalry after Barty kissed him in the back of the potions storeroom two weeks ago and Evan had kissed him back like he meant it.
He hadn’t told anyone. Neither had Barty. And still it was happening again and again—between classes, during study hall, once under the Quidditch stands after dark. And now this new arrangement had started.
“You want to be seen with me,” Barty had said, lounging sideways across the Slytherin common room sofa like he owned the place. “So let’s make it mutual. You can bask in my charming reputation and I can pretend to care about anyone at all.”
“And in exchange?” Evan had asked, wary.
“In exchange,” Barty had said, voice low and mischievous, “you keep kissing me like that and I’ll pretend we’re normal.”
Now, they were being watched. More than usual. Whispers in the corridors. That infamous Rosier-Crouch combination. Deadly. Attractive. A little too close. A little too sharp.
Evan caught Marlene McKinnon watching them from across the Great Hall and smirked. She raised a brow and turned away to whisper something to Dorcas Meadowes, who grinned and rolled her eyes in tandem.
“Careful,” Barty murmured, sliding into the seat beside Evan at the Slytherin table. “They’re going to start thinking we actually like each other.”
“Don’t we?” Evan asked.
Barty looked at him sharply, like the ground had just shifted beneath them. And then he laughed—soft, cruel, but just a little too real.
“No,” he said. “Not even a little.”
Evan didn’t believe him.
—
Elsewhere
“Mary, if you ask me one more time whether I think Emmeline likes you, I’m going to throw you out this window,” Lily whispered from the library table, gesturing to the giant arched window beside them.
“She’s just so—she looks at me like she knows something I don’t,” Mary hissed, ducking behind her Charms textbook. “And then she lent me her spare scarf this morning. Who does that unless they’re in love with you?”
“I do that,” Lily said flatly.
“Yes, but you’re in love with someone else,” Mary replied without looking up. Lily’s quill froze mid-stroke.
“Shut up,” Lily muttered.
“Mmhm,” Mary sang softly.
A few tables away, Pandora Lovegood was pretending to read Advanced Transfiguration while covertly watching Lily through the cracks between pages. She doodled quietly in the margins: tiny flowers, abstract hearts, a pair of green eyes behind thick lashes.
She did not lend anyone her scarf. But she thought about it.
—
James Potter was very distracted.
This was dangerous, considering he was a Chaser currently barreling toward the goalposts, but he couldn’t stop glancing toward the bleachers where Regulus Black sat with a book and a look of pure disinterest—though James knew by now it was an act. Regulus wasn’t here for the game. He was here for him.
The problem was that James had told him he’d be focused today. That there would be no blown kisses mid-air, no flying loops just to show off.
He did a loop anyway. He couldn’t help it.
From the stands, Regulus rolled his eyes but smiled.
—
They were alone in the corridor behind the potions classroom, again.
Barty leaned his shoulder against the wall and stared at Evan like he was a puzzle. Evan didn’t like being looked at like that—it made him feel cracked open.
“You’re doing it again,” Evan said.
“Doing what?”
“That look.”
Barty tilted his head. “I didn’t realize I needed your permission to think about you.”
Evan’s breath caught.
And Barty—who was chaos incarnate, who never told the truth unless it would hurt—reached out and touched Evan’s wrist, not to drag him closer or pin him down, but to hold. Gentle.
“What are we doing?” Evan whispered.
“I don’t know,” Barty replied, voice uncharacteristically soft. “But I haven’t wanted to stop.”
They stood there, surrounded by the distant murmur of cauldrons bubbling and the echo of steps above them. For once, it was quiet.
Not a dare. Not a game. Just this.
Just them.