Chapter Text
Blips were all that she could recall. Blips and shortened clips, one minute was a warm and sleepy mother’s embrace, followed by cold cobblestone and well-oiled mustaches. Thestrals fading into sight, the sinking feeling in her stomach followed by a sharp descent, and then returning back to a chain behind her stomach. Yanking, ripping, a sensory experience that one wouldn’t be able to forget despite their best efforts. Ghosts of ancient magic, no longer ephemeral but fully phased into being. Not just in a poetic, metaphoric sense but in a literal, axe-wielding statue way.
Frances couldn’t place the number of times she’d refrained from vomiting in the last 24 hours, but it was well approaching a dozen by her least generous assessment. And she stood facing what was likely her most nail-biting opponent, being a late addition to the sorting ceremony, both in the sense that the sorting ceremony had already ended and also in the sense that she was 15, well past the typical age of a Hogwarts first year.
At least the constant threat of death meant a quick exit, but the combined experience of a rather abrasive headmaster followed by being an unusually old new student, with an equally unusual length of time beneath the sorting hat, was as close as Frances could fathom to the cruciatus curse. Evidently, continuous mortal peril wasn’t enough to overcome the horror that was being a teenage girl put on the spot in front of a large crowd.
Right when the weight of hundreds of eyes became near unbearable, the sorting hat let out a resounding cry, clear as a bell and twice as confident,
“Slytherin!”
With that, she let out a bated breath just in time for the chorus of applause. Frances wasn’t quite sure she’d ever been perceived by this number of people before, and it was most unnerving. She rose with the same level of confidence as a deer taking its first steps, mirroring the same warm smile that Professor Weasley gave her. A warm feeling rushed from her shoulders to her toes, and she looked down to see her previously unmarked robes shift to more precisely reflect her standing as Slytherin’s newest student.
Frances scurried alongside Professor Weasley as the two shifted away from the center, allowing Headmaster Black to once again resume the stage in order to make his closing announcements, beginning with the apparently tragic announcement that quidditch had been canceled for the year. She didn’t quite have an idea of what that was, although she did recall overhearing the word a number of times during her trip to Diagon Alley and could surmise it had something to do with broomsticks and perhaps beating other students. It was hard to discern whether or not Frances was disappointed about the lack of it this year, as the entire premise did seem a bit perturbing to her now. At the very least, she could tell that this was a widely contested idea among both the students at the long tables ahead of her and the faculty behind her, judging by the groans and sighs of discontent from both directions. Most curiously, to Frances’s direct left as well. She made a mental note to pick Professor Weasley’s brain on the topic at some point in the night.
As though she sensed Frances’s impending barrage of questions, Professor Weasley turned to her and began a warm introduction,
“Quite an entrance! It’s lovely to meet you, I’m-” she managed to get out before Headmaster Black, who Frances was very well beginning to develop quite a strong opinion on, cut in. “Professor Weasley, would you be so kind as to show our new student to their common room?” he called out, barely even glancing beyond his shoulder at the pair as he strode away. Much to the benefit of Frances, considering she lacked the necessary mental fortitude to school her expression into anything less than utter disdain. Somehow, despite quite literally coming into a mysterious brush with death which may or may not have been intentional, Headmaster Black had become the singular entity to get under her skin more than anything.
“I shall see to it, sir.” Professor Weasley said, pausing with a tight-lipped expression that softened as she turned back to Frances. “As I was saying, I’m so pleased to have you with us this year. Please, come right this way.”
Frances excitedly fell in step with Professor Weasley as the two carried on out of the Great Hall, and further down into the school. From Frances’s memory, she did recall reading somewhere that the Slytherins made their home in the lower reaches of the school, peering into the great lake on the grounds. Wizards evidently have more resources to combat dankness and mold, she thought. Her childhood home faired fairly well in the wet British weather, though it seemed staving off moisture was a constant endeavor. Anti-moisture charms were yet another thing to add to her future repertoire of resources under her belt.
“Professor Weasley, forgive me if this sounds ridiculous, but what exactly is quidditch? I’ve heard it mentioned but the concept just seems so foreign to me.” Frances blurted during a lull in the conversation, and the professor smiled gently in response, a slight twinkle of humor in her eye.
“My dear, never apologize for a desire to learn. It’s the most popular wizarding sport, played atop broomsticks. Hogwarts’ best player is in your house, Miss Reyes. I do suggest finding her, I’d imagine she’s quite incensed on the loss and perhaps educating a new student may relieve that fire.” Frances nodded along, not fully satiated but at the very least given a lead on where to find more on the topic. Professor Weasley’s attempt to foster a budding friendship between her and this Miss Reyes did not go unnoticed, and she was deeply appreciative.
“At any rate, we’ve reached the entrance to the Slytherin common room. You must recite the password at this spot, and the entrance will oblige. Simply say the word aspiration, and access is yours.” Professor Weasley instructed, and Frances nodded in time with her words. Admittedly, speaking to an unassuming brick wall felt rather ridiculous, but given the fact that equally unassuming statues turned out to be ancient warriors adamant on her destruction, perhaps it all tracks.
“Aspiration,” Frances said, utterly entranced by the weaving snakes that revealed an intricate doorway. She suspected that no amount of practice or exposure would ever truly make her feel less awed by even the most everyday magic.
“Excellent work! Now please rest, you’ve had quite a long journey and you must regain your strength for classes tomorrow. I will come to fetch you in the morning, and we can further discuss your academic plans then. Understood?” Frances simply nodded, mouth agape. Professor Weasley held back a well-meaning laugh, the wonder of new students experiencing Hogwarts for the first time was absolutely infectious. It was perhaps even enough to overcome the growing anxiety and discontentment she held towards her position, what with the stifling presence of Headmaster Black.
Enough, do not allow him to taint yet another moment, especially one as unique and rare as this.
“Sleep well, Miss Weller. You may claim any available bed in the fifth years’ dormitory,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back and making a swift turn on her heel, leaving Frances to brave this new world.
Logically Frances knew she could not rely on Professor Weasley as a social crutch, although she did wish to bask in her warmth for just a bit longer. Everything had been so deeply unfamiliar and threatening, and it was at this moment that Frances missed her mother most of all. Regardless of this, she took the first brave step across the threshold and made her way up the winding stairs. By this point in the night most all of the students were already retreating to their dormitories, unpacking what items they’d brought and recounting summer stories to their returning friends. On account of having neither possessions to unpack nor friends to gossip with, but certainly enough fatigue for her lifetime, Frances promptly trudged her way into the fifth years’ dormitory, stripped down into her underlayer, and became absolutely unresponsive under her covers, barely having the energy to say a brief hello and goodnight to her new found dormmates.
Sometime later, in the wee hours of the night, she could feel her skin turn cold. At first, it was subtle, as though her skin was pressed uncomfortably hard into marble, feeling the etching of the stones dig into her and what felt like marble hands pushing her down. Then it felt cold like ice water, as though she has been dunked, wrung out, and then dunked once more, with the same cold marble hands working her as though she was simply a stained robe in need of a thorough wash. Frances awoke with something akin to a gurgle, with the overwhelming sensation of drowning despite her lungs contracting and expanding rapidly with no issue. Her eyes scanned across her darkened dormitory, thankfully dry and pleasantly warm.
Nightmares had never been a prominent factor in her life, although given the stress of the previous day it isn’t fully shocking that one would make an appearance. She just desperately hoped it wasn’t yet another aspect of life to adjust to.
With a dry mouth Frances rose from her four poster and slung on her singular robe. The weight of the dormitory walls and the gentle snores felt suffocating, and perhaps the dim blue glow of the large windows she saw when entering earlier in the night would provide her some respite. On a tray near the dormitory entrance there was a pot of perpetually warm tea, a luxury that Frances felt keen on partaking in at the moment. She shakily poured a cup and curled up on a rather squishy loveseat under the window that faced a wall just a few feet away, staring wordlessly into the murky brown of the cup in her hand. She was still quite alarmed by her faux drowning and was thankful there was a seat where she could still watch the blue light drift through the window and feel the thrum of the lake without actually having to brave its depths.
It was in this position Frances dozed back off to sleep once more, and she still sat this way when she was startled back awake by the sensation of a warm body pushing her down into the seat. An unintelligible grunt that one could only accurately compare to a troll left her as she fruitlessly kicked out her legs in order to catch herself, despite the fact that she was still very much seated and the only one falling was the unfortunate young man who hadn’t spotted her on the seat.
Who she had also happened to kick as he fell, perfect. An absolutely charming first impression.
The young man choked out a breath as he rolled over to his back at her feet, clearly having had the wind knocked out of him. Frances looked down in utter shock, confusion, and even a bit of frustration because how on earth did this boy not notice her? Just as she was about to let out a cutting remark, she saw the milky appearance of his eyes,
Ah, yes, that’s why. Being blind does make it awfully difficult to discern whether or not someone is in the seat you wish to occupy, especially if it’s late at night in an otherwise fully empty room. For once Frances thanked her relatively slow wit in the first shadows of being awake, while it typically embarrassed her it at least served her well this time, saving her from an extremely uncouth response to the poor boy she assaulted.
“I am so incredibly sorry! Are you okay? Do you need help? I can move, or if you want you can sit next to me, I’d love the company! Nightmares are awful and I am so afraid. Oh, did you hit your head? Do you know where to go if you did? I’m new and frankly, I don't even know if Hogwarts has a healer, although it would definitely be prudent to. Oh, that's an awful question, of course, they have a healer, though I’m not even sure how healing with magic would work. I know there are healing potions, I hate the taste, but would those work for a head injury? I don’t even know where a healer would be located in the castle. Oh, I’m sorry again, I got distracted, are you quite okay?” Frances spouted, rapid-fire and at a volume a tad too loud for the situation, peering down at the boy who was still on the ground, looking as though he was questioning how he ended up in this scenario. With each progressive question he looked more and more confused, and Frances could feel her metaphorical foot going further and further into her mouth, but tragically not gagging her enough to make her stop talking.
It’s just that even in the best of times Frances struggled to communicate with anyone, much less anyone within her age range. Especially boys, most of all boys. Worst of all were boys that she found to be quite handsome, much like the one she’d just assaulted.
“Oh, I am so sorry.” she quietly squeaked, in abject horror, apologizing more for her general existence rather than the swift kick to the stomach. Perhaps she never woke from her nightmare, and at any moment she’d wake up in her bed and be able to laugh at herself because surely Frances Weller was not at all incapable.
Who was she kidding, she was absolutely that inept.
The boy sat up, blinking a bit slowly, and took a breath through his nose. He had the general energy of a cat who just had a small child tug its tail far too hard and it made Frances's stomach twist. This was her very first social interaction at school, and it was exactly as disastrous as every other aspect of her first day. At least it hadn’t ended with a body count, although there was still time to change that.
“I am not going to even attempt to answer those questions as it’s far too late for this and my head, plus now my stomach, hurt far too much for me to even begin to process anything you have said. I’m alright, and I do not at all need a healer, thank you.” the young man said tightly, facing her general direction and brushing off his shoulder. He easily rolled himself up to his feet and took a seat on the far end of the loveseat, taking extra precautions to not flatten Frances yet again. Whether that was out of consideration for her or fear of bodily harm for him remains unclear. At the very least, he hadn’t run screaming from her, so all in all Frances counted this as a win.
“Really, you are okay. I typically have my vision assistance charm, but no one is ever in this corner at this time so I forgo it when I come to sit here,” he said after collecting himself for a brief moment, “My name is Ominis Gaunt, I take it you’re the new fifth year?”
Wait, had she actually managed to escape the situation with only moderate damage to her social standing? Frances couldn’t tell if this was a credit to her bumbling being endearing, some latent and previously untapped charisma, or if Ominis had actually hit his head and was simply too concussed for good discretion. Truthfully, he couldn’t definitively answer that either, though if you asked he’d firmly confirm the last option.
“Y-Yes, my name is Frances Weller, it’s good to meet you, Ominis. How did you know? That I’m the new fifth year?” she rambled, twisting at the sleeves of her robe as she studied his expression. There were dark purple streaks under his eyes and what appeared to be a crease on his forehead that she suspected never fully went away. Briefly, she wondered if he had frequent nightmares, it certainly wouldn’t shock her given his appearance.
“Well, your voice is definitely much too old to be a first year’s, but your… zest for life absolutely reeks of a new student. Welcome to the school, Frances,” he said, sinking into his seat and running his hand through his hair, lightly gripping his roots for a moment. “May I ask why you chose this spot in particular, however?”
The corner seat by the windows had been his designated spot since first year, and it wasn’t exactly that Ominis was opposed to sharing, he just simply wanted to avoid it unless absolutely necessary. His post-nightmare state was not his best, and it lends itself to more than a couple of nasty encounters with well-meaning classmates. He hoped his question was subtle enough to not offend but obvious enough so to let Frances know she was encroaching on a previously claimed territory. As Ominis would soon find out, however, social subtlety is not a natural skill of Frances’s.
“Oh, I enjoy the feeling of the lake at my back, it has a warm hum, but, well, I just don’t like looking at the water. Especially now, nightmare withstanding, the blue glow is pretty and I light seeing the lights dance. I quite like this spot, we can be seat partners!” she explained, pulling a pillow into her lap and resting her head on it.
Yes, subtlety was indeed outside Frances’s realm. Ominis’s strict schedule for ruminating, mourning, and stewing had been interrupted but shockingly, he wasn’t as upset as he would have expected himself to be.
The relief of a friendly shoulder to lean on, no matter how new and unfamiliar, can never really be understated. While Frances and Ominis both found broaching the topic of their nightmares a bit too unappealing, an amicable silence as the two worked through their inner trials was a welcome addition.
Ominis in particular was grateful as he’d typically wake Sebastian in the night, but the other boy had left sometime in the night. The two had a mutual understanding, and Seb was one of the precious few who could really grasp the extent of his terrors without holding a judgment over his head. At the very least they did, prior to Anne’s condition. Lately, he felt his best friend pull away, and tonight had struck harder than most.
In years past Sebastian had always pulled him along for his extracurricular jaunts through the castle, and the rare times he was absent Sebastian at the very least had Anne to revel with. He possessed many skills, but self-soothing and appropriate risk assessment were not one of them. This made his absence in the night all the more concerning for Ominis, and he had a sinking gut in his stomach that this had something to do with the increasingly concerning solutions for his cursed sister Sebastion had conjured in his mind.
He pressed his palms against his eye sockets. Focusing on the declining state of his closest friendship was incredibly counterintuitive to winding down from the nightmares that plague him. Quite frankly, anything would be preferable to think about. Even the increasingly fidgety new student to his left. His mind wandered, wondering exactly what series of events would lead to a 15 year old first year. Much less a 15 year old first year tied up in a dragon attack that led to the demise of a ministry member.
He listened closely, hearing the slow breaths to his left, feeling the cushion shift as she crossed, uncrossed, and then re-crossed her legs.
“What exactly is in the lake? I’d imagine more than just your usual fish and… kelp? Is kelp a lake thing?” she asked, and Ominis pressed his lips into a restrained smile.
“A wide range of things, mermaids, the lake monster, dugbogs, all of your typical guests, you know?” he explained after pausing for a moment. “Between you and me, I do enjoy telling the first years that the mermaids occasionally dance outside our windows, but that’s entirely untrue. Some have stayed for hours in hopes of a show.”
Were she a first year he would’ve been inclined to tell her the same, but he had a feeling that the last day was enough of an initiation itself. And frankly, Ominis was worn a bit too thin to even find jest in misdirection at this point.
“Oh, that’s positively cruel!” Frances laughed, “But what exactly is a dugbog? I can’t say I’m familiar. My parents are, what do you guys call them? Muggles, I believe?” she finished, feeling the impish joy from a moment earlier fade. Just in the brief walk from the Great Hall to the common room Frances had heard no less than three students mention their disdain for her very existence. Of course, it wasn’t targeted towards her, no one knew her family history yet, but the sentiment applied still.
The grease between Ominis’s eyebrows deepened as he sensed the increasing tensity in her voice. Not even a full day at Hogwarts and Frances had already learned to be cautious of the mere mention of her parentage. Despicable.
“Ah, forgive my assumption. They’re these large creatures with tongues entirely too large for their bodies. I’m afraid I can’t describe their appearance for you with any personal experience, but I’ve been told they’re similar to an overly large toad with teeth.” he explained, debating on whether to broach the subject of blood status. On one hand, it was an unpleasant concept and Frances had surely been through enough in the past day, but on the other hand, she did need a warning on the extent that their peers could display cruelty.
No one better than him to explain, he supposes. May as well get it over with.
“I also figured I should mention now before you find out in more unsavory conditions or without the proper context. My family has a pointed disdain for muggles and anything even adjacent to them, a sentiment I wholeheartedly do not share. Though I can not say the same for some of our classmates.” he finished, unsure why he was looking out for Frances, but doing it nonetheless. The moment of silence that stretched ahead felt endless, and Ominis briefly wondered if it was inappropriate.
And as to whether that was an appropriate direction for conversation at four in the morning with a total stranger, Frances couldn't discern either. To be fair, she was unsure if there even is an appropriate conversation topic in this context. Either way, it did do a bit to lift her spirits, “I do appreciate the warning, Ominis. And I’m glad you feel that way, more than you know." she smiled, and Ominis stopped worrying the skin on the side of his fingernail. There really was no reason he should be this concerned over her, although he did begrudgingly admit it wasn't entirely out of character. Sebastian and Anne frequently poked fun at his rather nurturing sensitivities, calling him their little group's mother hen.
Anne. Not a good topic, a bad topic. Not at all conducive to his task at hand, which was simply just coping. Ominis gritted his teeth, rolled his neck to the left, and stood. "Well. That's good. I'm going to head back to bed, we'll speak some other time." he spoke, quickly turning and following his memorized pattern back to the fifth year dorm. With one last glance at Sebastian's empty bed Ominis realized that this year was going to be a long one.