Chapter Text
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PROLOGUE
"nosce te ipsum"
know thyself
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IT ENDS WITH THE CAVE, as far as she could tell. It was dark and she couldn't breathe. It felt like she was drowning or dying. Her chest was burning. Her thoughts were beyond hazy, spiraling to the point where everything was blurring together, black spots hindering her vision.
The only thing she couldn’t make out from all the chaos was that…
It hurts.
Well, in theory, that is. At this point, the pain that was gnawing on her entire body had evolved into a certain kind of numbness that took over all of her senses, and the only thing left for her to do was to breathe.
But breathing can be awfully taxing at times, wouldn’t you say?
And yet, she has to. If not for herself, then for them for him— because Regulus refused to leave her side. He's holding her tightly and screaming in agony.
She wishes she can make out what he was trying to say over this deafening silence, but to no avail, her consciousness is fading.
‘Maybe this was it,’ the girl wonders. She can’t help but let out a breathy laugh as if to mock the way things seemed to have gone.
Fate truly was both funny and cruel at times.
The memories of how it came to be phased through her head rather slowly like a ripple in the calm waters, like the Inferi holding her ankle, dragging her into the deep to the point of no return.
IT STARTS WITH A DREAM. Amaris Selene Leclair was nothing if not a dreamer, you see. She dreams of a world of castles and magic, where portraits talk and staircases move as you walk. She dreams of laughter and candlelit dinners; of stories by the fireplace; of creatures she has never seen before. She dreams of a world where she fits in; where she won’t be made out to be as different as the Muggles had deemed she’d be. She dreams of a place that’s warm and homey, where she’s surrounded by everyone she loves, a faraway place that she can call home.
She is a child of the moon, with a rare gift of hope, standing for all that is good. She is a girl who always sought to seek the light amidst the darkness, who dreams like she breathes, who yearns for things far out of her reach.
But beyond that, she dreams of a boy.
(And see, unbeknownst to them, that is where their story truly starts.)
AT THE AGE OF EIGHT, before she even learns of magic and its existence, she dreams of a boy with a mop of raven hair and silver eyes; of a boy with a smile so golden it can rival the sun.
He would snicker cheekily as he hid around their home, under the creaky staircase, inside dusty narrow cupboards, behind their heavy gothic curtains, and yet nothing compares to the grin on his face when he is finally found (even if that meant losing their game of hide-and-seek).
AT NINE, she dreams of cauldron cakes and birthday candles; of the boy whose tousled hair is ruffled by his brother, who commends him for learning his first charm.
She dreams of the same two brothers with sun kissed skin and uneven tans, swimming in the lake, water splashing in chorus to their boisterous laughter amidst the summer breeze.
AT TEN, she dreams of the boy who walked through empty halls, who wrote letters left unanswered, whose golden smile was now long forgotten.
She dreams of the boy and his lonesome figure, waiting on rooftops, waiting for something— someone. She can’t tell who. He gazes up to greet the stars, and there is something so unbearably sad about the look in his dim silver eyes. It reminds her of jewels that lost their luster; of silver artifacts that were tarnished over time.
Once, she even dreams of gaining answers, of meeting the boy who haunts her sleep— a dream manifested by her yearning, quite unlike the last few ones.
And yet, like all dreams, she forgets them once she wakes. A fading scar at the back of one’s mind. Familiar yet forgotten.
It’s only before her eleventh birthday that she dreams of him once again.
SHE DREAMS OF finding the boy in a district that is loud and lively, amidst boutiques she’s never seen before. Red brick walls and a cobblestone street line her vision; it is the path she follows among the busy crowd. She dreams of the boy, with his raven hair kept neat, pretty gray eyes narrowed and lips twitching as it morphs into a subtle scowl.
She wonders why he glares.
She wonders if he knows her.
Wonders if he felt the same sense of familiarity she did.
When he turns around without sparing her another glance, she reaches out and grabs his arm, and then, the world spins.
She is transported to a dark cave; violent waves crashing against the walls. She remembers the darkness; the crack of light at the top of the cave was the only available escape.
And as quickly as she catches a glimpse of the uncanny scenery, she jolts awake, bathed in cold sweat and heaving heavy breaths.
So, yes, she supposed she should have known how it would go from the start. The signs were all there. The signs were always there. It was only a matter of remembering said signs when she wakes and goes about her day. (And well, there’s also the matter of trying to defy fate itself, that is.)
Then again, even if it had gone she yearned, as hard as you try to predict the future, not everything goes as planned.
She liked it that way. (Leave it to her to always be the optimist of the group.)
The element of surprise led to oblivion ; an emotion that didn’t seem to bode well with people, especially those who would fear the unknown. But beneath all those was hope. It was the light amidst the darkness. It was an opportunity for change.
But it was that same way of thinking that got her in trouble in the first place.
⊹⊱✩⊰⊹
It also happened to be a day before her eleventh birthday when everything was set in stone. She found herself getting lost in town after coming across an eerie establishment that was painted in black and adorned with an array of colorful crystals that she could’ve sworn were calling out to her.
Before she even realizes it, she lets go of her sister’s hand amidst the busy streets, walking toward its door as if she were caught in a trance.
The storefront signage swings alongside the strong breeze of the wind, creaking as it sways. In golden embellishments, the words on the glass window read:
ALEA IACTA EST *
The door chimes ring gently as her little palms push the glass doors.
In her defense, she’s seen this place once. (Or perhaps twice.) If her dreams were anyway to go by, there was a thin line between the things that have actually happened and the things that she thought have happened. And maybe this was just one of those times when Amaris Leclair acted as mental as everyone thought she was.
But then again, her hunches had always been something else.
There was something about the store that was calling out to her. A brief image of a boy enters her mind. She can’t tell his features, such was the cost of a dream, but she does know he’d once come here asking the old fortune-teller for answers, demanding them even. Whether or not she was there at the moment was a whole different story, however.
And that was always the thing: Amaris Leclair was in the right place at the wrong time.
It will be a truth that will remain constant for quite a while, and this just so happened to be the first of the many circumstances the young maiden will find herself in.
As such, when she entered, she came across the said old woman who greeted her with a gentle smile that tugged on wrinkled cheeks; who observed her with hooded eyes hidden by the dark veil that cascaded over her nose.
A chill runs up her spine at the sudden appearance of the stranger. The little girl stumbles backward only to be caught by a chair that moved her towards the velvet-clothed table, trapping her in her seat.
Everything else seemed to go fast from there.
“Aha! you are blessed with the sight,” the strange lady's smile grows as she greets the child, peering closer to have a good look at her.
The next thing she knows, there’s a crystal ball at the woman’s right and a deck of cards laid out in front of her. She shuffles them gracefully despite the ghastly complexion of her bony fingers.
“Would you like to have your fortune told, little one?”
The little girl’s bright blue eyes blink twice. Her blonde hair glimmers from the candlelight, seeming golden, akin to the intricate pattern of the tarot cards.
Before she was able to muster a response, the woman had already cut the deck in three, all of which were facing down.
She flips the first card.
The Hermit. Reversed. Her past.
It depicts an old man standing at the peak of the mountain, a lantern and staff in each hand.
Loneliness. Isolation. Rejection.
“You once stood alone on this cliff—” the woman began as she turned the next card.
Death. Upright. Her present.
The grim rides on a beautiful white horse, holding a black flag adorned with white details.
It’s the end of something. Change. Metamorphosis. Letting go.
“—But on the night of the blood moon, you will look death in the eye—”
Flip.
The Hanged Man. Upright. Her future.
A figure hanging by foot from the living world tree.
Sacrifice. Uncertainty. A different perspective.
“—There will come a day in which you will decide whether you are to trade a life in exchange for another—”
And then she continued, “From that great height which you’ve climbed, you will equally fall into a great abyss, drowned by whatever is in your heart, suffocated by that everlasting darkness.”
As the little girl swallows the lodge that had formed in her throat, the old woman is already reshuffling the deck, cutting it in threes once again and setting them diagonally as she continued to speak in incomprehensible riddles.
She flips a card.
Four of Wands. Upright.
Home. Stability. Belonging.
A couple dancing behind a wreath tied between four wands, a canopy of flowers, and a time in which a celebration had been held.
“—There has always been too much to lose. To name a few, they are that which has given you the light you are so proud of—”
Flip.
Strength. Upright.
Courage. Confidence. Compassion.
A woman overpowers a lion by the jaw, holding it with grace and kindness.
“—But don’t you worry, my dear. Search for the heart of the lion and wield your strength, for it is within the darkness that you’ll learn of how much easier it is to find the light—”
The last card turns.
The Star. Upright.
Hope. Renewal. Healing.
A water-bearer kneels at the edge of a pond, one foot inside the water, the other on the ground. A large star and seven small ones from behind her.
“Have faith in the star that lights your way. Else, it will be swallowed by the shadows of the night sky.”
The woman hands her a pebble just as the reading ends. It was dark and smooth to the touch, engraved with incomprehensible old runes with a rather prominent hole in the center. The Adder stone weighs in her small palms and she accepts it gratefully despite her confusion.
“Through this will you see that which you ought to see,” is the last thing she hears because as soon as she peers into the stone, and—
She can’t breathe. She can’t breathe. She can’t breathe.
Furthermore, she is dragged by the tide, drowned in a sea of darkness... Until she finds herself back where she came from.
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The young maiden then found herself alone in the busy streets, panting heavily as she attempted to catch her breath. Her wide azure eyes squint at the brightness of the sun, trying to regain her composure after being violently pulled back into reality.
She is enveloped by a tight embrace as soon as her sister finds her.
The expression on the older girl’s face gradually relaxes from fear to relief, having been searching frantically, oblivious to what her younger sister had walked into.
The way the child acquires a high fever later that night doesn’t seem to alleviate her worries.
Their fear of the unknown only grows.
AT THE AGE OF ELEVEN, on the night of the blood moon, just as the old clairvoyant had predicted, they finally get the answers they were looking for.
The foreshadowed present knocks on their door. The path to her future becomes set.
It comes in the form of two things: a letter and a dream.
She dreams of a boy bathed in the moonlight in a tower way up high.