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Andy Sachs felt a strange sense of anxiety and unease about moving into her fifth year when the new term began. Although receiving that gleaming Prefect badge was certainly something worth celebrating, to be honest, the thought of the upcoming O.W.L. exams left her in absolutely no mood for anything resembling a celebration.
As an excellent Ravenclaw, Andy had outstanding grades. Before receiving her letter of acceptance, she had almost no connection whatsoever to the wizarding world. Her parents had been deeply hesitant about whether this was some absurd scam, but when a wizard specifically assigned to families like theirs appeared and took them to purchase their supplies, that concern was finally resolved.
After being introduced to an entirely new world, Andy was like a sponge, desperately trying to absorb every piece of knowledge she could find, and even then, she vaguely felt that it was not enough. That was precisely why, after learning that Ancient Runes was an extremely difficult subject, she had chosen it without hesitation and thrown herself deeply into it.
Unfortunately, it was exactly that decision that had landed her in the situation she was in today.
As mentioned before, Ancient Runes was an extremely difficult subject. This was not merely the case for students. In fact, all the Ancient Runes knowledge that could currently be deciphered was only the tip of the iceberg. Complex spells and inscriptions were mixed with all kinds of obscure and difficult-to-understand magical arrays, and even the knowledge found in textbooks—which did not even come close to being an introduction—always had interpretations that differed wildly from one version to another.
Even the teachers who taught the subject did not have a complete understanding of this knowledge. They often found it difficult to answer questions beyond the textbooks, and sometimes even had their own unique interpretations of certain textbook material.
The greatest living master of Ancient Runes research was Miranda Priestly. Andy had seen her cold, haughty profile after turning a few pages in various textbooks. Of course, her books were still far too difficult for them, and Andy had never actually read them. She truly hoped that she could receive better instruction in Ancient Runes.
To be honest, Andy was not actually that passionate about Ancient Runes. Whatever enthusiasm she had possessed at the very beginning had gradually been worn away by the endless inconsistencies in interpretation and the excessive confusion surrounding its translations. Modern wizards were accustomed to using simple spells and waving their wands to perform magic, while the runes of Ancient Runes and those obscure inscriptions, where a single mistake in pronunciation could lead to terrifying consequences, were clearly not Andy's preferred type of magic.
Even though her grades were good, when the multiple interpretations of a single rune left her with such a terrible headache that she was almost on the verge of breaking down, she still wanted to know what practical use these academically ambiguous words could possibly have in the modern world.
But she would not say it aloud. She merely frowned, hoping that she could think of a better solution.
The train carried her toward the new school year. Andy was nowhere near as enthusiastic about walking around the carriages as her Slytherin friend, Doug. In fact, she was almost completely trapped in her own worries, unable to pull herself out. She had little hope that the Ancient Runes classes in the new school year would suddenly become clear and orderly. She knew that she had to find a way to get along with the subject better.
“Look at this. Our very own miserable Prefect.”
When Doug pushed open the compartment door and teased her with a laugh, she merely rolled her eyes, opened the box of Chocolate Frogs in her hand with a sullen expression, and swallowed the chocolate. She took the card from inside the box.
“Who is it?”
Lily leaned over with interest. As a Ravenclaw surrounded by two Slytherins and sitting in the Slytherin prefect compartment, Andy felt no discomfort whatsoever. She blinked and looked at the silver-haired woman who had flashed across the card for a moment.
Her chin was slightly raised, and a single perfectly curled lock of hair resting against her forehead accentuated her high, elegant cheekbones.
Without even turning the card over, Andy blurted out the woman's name.
“Miranda Priestly.”
Hearing that it was neither a famous gossip columnist nor a Quidditch star, Lily and Doug both leaned back, losing interest, and began unwrapping their own Chocolate Frogs. Andy turned the card over and stared at the impressive list of achievements. After a long while, she carefully slipped the card into the small card holder she carried with her.
………………………………………………
Unfortunately.
Andy’s pessimism about the class had been completely justified, and things were even worse than she had expected. When she asked the teacher why the internal patterns of a rune could produce different effects without changing at all, the teacher was unable to give her an accurate answer.
There were pitifully few people in the class, and everyone listened with considerable effort. To be honest, if one did not ask those questions, the knowledge taught in class might barely be enough to get students through the exams. But Andy was dissatisfied with the idea of “barely enough.”
Although she could not say that she particularly liked Ancient Runes and did not have too many thoughts about it, she did not like the idea of studying a subject merely well enough to “pass the exam.” She had an inherent hunger for knowledge. That was probably also why the Sorting Hat had shouted “Ravenclaw” the moment it touched her hair. And besides, she intended to continue studying the subject. She firmly believed that Ancient Runes could be of great help in understanding modern magic. But when she thought about how confusing and difficult even the introductory material already was, she hardly dared imagine how chaotic it would become if she went deeper into the subject.
The quill between her fingers swayed absentmindedly as Andy wrote down those rigid key points that were no different from the exact wording in the textbook. Looking at the gloomy weather outside the window, she sighed helplessly.
She did not go to dinner. Really, the stifling frustration from Ancient Runes class had already filled her stomach. She walked through the library, searching for any book that might improve the situation.
Well, there were pitifully few books on Ancient Runes in the open-access section. Andy stood there dejectedly for a while before deciding that she might as well study her own notes. Although there was not enough knowledge in them yet, at least they were sufficiently well organized.
When she returned to her dormitory, her robes slipped off automatically as though they were alive. Almost all of her belongings had been enchanted with magic. This was something she had accomplished through years of daily practice, just like the “magic” in the cartoons she had watched as a child. All she had to do was walk over there, and all the steps of changing and washing would be completed automatically. Just as she was preparing to throw herself onto her bed, she suddenly noticed one of her roommates, Amanda, watching her with a good-natured smile.
“What?”
She asked somewhat strangely, lowering her head as she spoke to inspect herself and see whether she had put something on incorrectly.
“No, no. It’s just that no matter how many times I see it, I still think it’s amazing, those little spells you created yourself.”
Andy politely thanked her before crawling into her bed, which she had enchanted with a Silencing Charm. She gently waved her wand, and the bedside cabinet opened. A record flew out, and at the foot of her bed, she had cast a small piece of magic that allowed it to hang there and play as though it were on a record player.
Quiet music flowed through the room. Just as she was almost falling asleep, Amanda’s words from earlier suddenly flashed through her mind.
“…little spells you created yourself.”
Yes. Andy was good at creating her own magic. That was probably one of the advantages of not having grown up in the wizarding world. Andy was not constrained by those familiar forms of magic. When a spell could only accomplish the first step, Andy would always wonder, Why not take it one step further?
Perhaps because she lacked some of the caution surrounding the modification and creation of magic, Andy had actually succeeded quite a few times. So…
Why not try to go one step further?
Just as she felt every time she attempted to create or modify a spell, a surge of excitement rose in her heart.
She summoned her notebook and the book about time that she had received permission from her professor to borrow. Since this was Ancient Runes, she thought, then perhaps she should simply find someone from ancient times… But that might make the time gap too great. Andy probably would not even be able to understand what the other person was saying. Besides, time magic had always been dangerous and rare, and there were no accurate references to work from. However, Andy had an idea.
Creating magic was indeed dangerous, because it was like reaching into the void and trying to grasp the star you wanted. She might lose herself, or she might fail countless times.
But take the Time-Turner as an example. (Unfortunately, they had all already been destroyed, which was also why Andy had not signed up for all the courses.) If there were a certain medium to serve as an anchor, then it seemed easier to accomplish. Her notebook had already been enchanted with an Extension Charm to prevent her notes from running out of space. If it were used as a medium for communication, it seemed suitable enough.
Now, she stared at the notebook, searching through the book for the information she wanted. In her mind, she rapidly dissected and analyzed the spells she was capable of understanding. Andy had always firmly believed that it was not only difficult spells that could possess great magical power. She believed that as long as they were used correctly, even those seemingly simple little spells could have an effect that could not be ignored.
Considering that she was only a fifth-year student, no matter how talented she was, there were limits to what she could accomplish. So she could only follow her own line of thought and try to modify the small fragments of time magic in her mind. Then she raised her wand and pointed it at the notebook, thinking:
“As long as it is a master who is truly skilled in Ancient Runes, even written communication will be enough.”
Oh, although she knew that what she was most likely to connect with was a truly ancient wizard who was still using Ancient Runes, meaning that she would still have to analyze the other person’s language or bridge other differences, she still could not help holding onto a faint hope that she might connect with someone who could communicate with her more smoothly.
Magic flickered, but soon, it went out of control. Clearly, this was much more difficult than Andy had imagined. She felt as though the other end had become connected to a gigantic fishing net filled with fish, while her own magic was desperately trying to drag out the one she wanted from within it.
Sweat dripped from her forehead. Her limbs became soft and weak, as though all the bones had been pulled out of them, yet she stubbornly continued to hold up her wand. Her magic was still being drawn away endlessly. She secretly prayed that this would not have any overly serious consequences.
Her vision began to blur. Andy bit her lower lip, knowing that the force of it would make her pay for the skin she had broken on her lips when she woke up the next morning. Of course, that was assuming she could wake up at all.
Just before she collapsed awkwardly onto the soft bed, she was still thinking about whether her magic had succeeded. This was only an attempt; success was almost impossible.
But Andy had a kind of confidence, or perhaps a kind of hope. She truly hoped that this could succeed.
Before the exhaustion from being completely drained overwhelmed her, she wondered who she might have summoned. When the name “Miranda Priestly” hung in her mind like the Morning Star, she finally could not resist the weakness and slowly closed her eyes.
There was nothing particularly special about the dream. Of course, she was playing Quidditch. She really was quite good at her duties as a Seeker. But suddenly, a piercing sound made her fall from her broom. The sensation of weightlessness dragged at her as she jolted upright and almost reflexively stopped her alarm, only to suck in a sharp breath when the stiffness and pain in her lower back, caused by her terrible sleeping position for that moment, hit her.
Her sleeping position actually could not be described as particularly terrible, but last night she—
Right!
Last night!
She remembered the reason her position had been so terrible and hurriedly rummaged through the mess covering her bed until she found her notebook. On the outside, it seemed to have undergone no changes at all. Her hands trembled slightly with excitement as she quickly opened it to look inside.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Well…
Apart from her own notes, there was almost nothing there. It seemed that she had failed. She sighed and casually flipped through the notebook. Just as she was about to close it and think of another way, the faint traces of ink she could see on the very last page caught Andy’s attention. Her notes were written much earlier in the notebook, and she had no habit of writing out of order, so…
The ink on the last page could not possibly be hers!
Her fingers trembled as she turned the pages. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. With expectations almost overflowing, she quickly opened that page.
There it was!
Unlike her own rounded and messy handwriting, a string of sharp and elegant sentences declared its presence.
She exhaled a breath she had not even realized she had been holding. Her eyes quickly swept over the sentence, almost as though the upward strokes of the letters might pierce them.
“What is going on?”
Andy was almost overwhelmed with happiness. She picked up her pen, wanting to write a response, when suddenly, her alarm rang once again. As a double safeguard she had set herself, it was obvious that if she did not leave now, she would be late for training.
She had no choice but to reluctantly put down the pen and hurriedly run out to get ready.
…………………………………………
Honestly, she was completely distracted for the entire day. Training was out of the question. If your mind was filled with the grand possibility that you might have connected with a master from another time and space, how could you possibly concentrate on finding that little golden creature?
As for classes, they were not difficult for her. She performed as she always did, answering the teachers’ questions, but during the breaks between classes, her thoughts always returned to that notebook.
Finally, when classes ended, she hurriedly took some mashed potatoes from her house’s dining table, without lingering at all, and immediately went to wash up, change clothes, and crawl into her bed.
She did not even look at it. She simply summoned a record and let it play. In fact, she did not care about anything right now, except for the line of writing in the notebook that she was sitting there and staring at intently.
She unconsciously twirled her quill, thinking for a long while, before cautiously writing:
“Hi!”
The ink immediately melted into the paper, as though it had been printed there. She waited patiently, but no other writing appeared on the page. Perhaps this had only worked once…
She was a little disappointed, refusing to think about the possibility that she had missed her chance to communicate with a master.
But holding onto hope, she continued writing.
“Sorry to disturb you. I just… I have a lot of questions about Ancient Runes. The knowledge taught in class is so confusing, and there are so few things I can use as references. So I put a little spell on my notebook, thinking that perhaps I could find a master to talk to… Speaking of which, if you don’t mind, could you tell me your name?”
She watched the paper swallow the ink and could not help becoming nervous. The next moment, her eyes fixed themselves on the unfamiliar ink that appeared on the notebook.
“After suddenly barging into someone else’s notebook and then making them wait an entire day, am I supposed to assume that you are a troll?”
Oh, God.
Andy’s face immediately turned bright red. Well, whoever was on the other end, they probably were not particularly easy to get along with. She straightened her back somewhat awkwardly and picked up her quill, wanting to write something, but the other person continued.
“Since you mentioned that you are studying Ancient Runes, I will assume that you are not. But I suspect that you lack even the most basic knowledge of etiquette…”
Whatever the case, judging from the other person’s extremely high regard for Ancient Runes, perhaps this really was a master. Andy stared intently at the ink, watching it slowly write the next line.
“…When asking someone else’s name, you should introduce yourself first.”
Then the writing stopped. Andy knew the other person was waiting. She stared at that elegant, sharp handwriting for a long time before picking up her quill and writing:
“Andy. By the way, I’m female. My friends just happen to like calling me that.”
The reply on the other side paused for a moment. Then the ink appeared, but it was not the name Andy had expected in response.
“Someone who likes to say so much, yet chooses to simplify her name exactly where it matters. I believe that is not your full name.”
Well, Andy should have been able to tell from the handwriting and tone that the other person was not someone who would appreciate nicknames. She bit her lip, picked up her quill, and wrote her full name.
“Andrea.Sachs.”
She stared intently at the notebook, waiting for the other person’s response, wanting to know exactly whom she had found. But apparently, she was destined to be disappointed.
There was no reply from the other side of the notebook. Andy waited, but clearly, the person on the other end had no intention of continuing the conversation. If it were not for the fact that she had not actually lost anything, and that she had been the one to initiate the magic in the first place, it would have felt exactly like the classic “don’t talk to strangers” scam her parents had always warned her about.
That night, she went to sleep feeling dejected, and when she woke the next morning, there was still no new reply.
She carried that same frustration with her to class. Then, during Ancient Runes, when she opened her notebook, she suddenly noticed something had changed.
Not on the side where she had been communicating with that unknown person. On the other side, the side containing her class notes that she had not checked, that sharp and elegant handwriting had appeared in all the corners of her somewhat messy notes, answering the questions that had remained unresolved for so long.
She immediately became energized and eagerly read through them, her gloomy mood swept away in an instant.
That evening, after giggling and joking around with her roommate, she climbed into her soft bed, opened the side of the notebook used for conversation, and quickly wrote:
“Thank you.”
The ink was absorbed. She waited, and a moment later, that now somewhat familiar handwriting appeared on the paper.
“I expect you to be more professional, Andrea.”
…………………………………………
“Does a language that no one uses anymore still have any meaning?”
Warm-colored light swayed in the world behind the bed curtains. Andy listened to the soothing music with a relaxed smile, lying there and staring at the notebook, waiting for a reply. When handwriting that did not belong to her slowly appeared on the paper, she hurriedly leaned forward to take a look.
“I thought that was why we contacted each other in the first place. Ancient Runes.”
Well, Andy smiled.
“Guess what I said.”
There was no response. Well, that was the style of the “mysterious person” on the other side. Andy had already gotten used to it, and that did not stop her from eagerly writing down her answer.
“I told the bronze eagle knocker that there was no such thing as a language that wasn’t used. Things today didn’t just appear out of nowhere; they all evolved from those so-called ‘lost languages,’ just like stuff such as Ancient Runes, right? It always has value for evolution and innovation.”
Although there was no clearly defined inheritance between modern magic and Ancient Runes, Andy had always firmly believed that everything was a form of evolution. That was why, even though she did not have much interest in Ancient Runes itself, she had still insisted on choosing it—not only because it was more difficult, but also because of the references it could provide.
This time, the reply from the other side came faster, and the handwriting was sharper.
“Calling it ‘evolution’ is a terrible way of putting it, as if you think it was eliminated long ago and is only used to help those so-called not……stuff things. In fact, even without innovation and modification, it has enormous value in its own right. Even now, it can serve a huge purpose distinct from modern spells. Even something as simple as the Colour-Changing Charm is often affected by the caster’s own magical precision, but if you learn Ancient Runes and use ‘Chromaverto,’ then even if your magical precision isn’t that good, it is still enough to turn a simple blue into a precise ‘cerulean.’ If you only regard it as some kind of outdated garden fertilizer, then that is……pathetic.”
The notebook was quickly snapped shut. Andy sat there stiffly, her cheeks flushed. She was hardly known for being calm, so she thought that the best thing she could do now was to end all of this and calm herself down. After all, when she had first shared her thoughts, she had never expected it to end like this.
But even though she refused to admit it, a large part of her irritation really did come from the fact that she……had been seen through.
Andy had very little enthusiasm for Ancient Runes itself. She had no way to argue with the “mysterious person,” because before this, she really had regarded Ancient Runes as a subject that was……behind the times, merely one part of the soil in which magical innovation could grow.
She fell asleep in a foul mood, hoping to put the whole thing behind her…………
Of course, she couldn’t. First of all, she was Andy.Sachs. Secondly, she was a teenager of around fifteen who was extremely proud of herself.
…………………………………………
“……Even though I’ve never met them, I can imagine that person’s tone, as if I’d committed some terrible mistake, while they’re the one who, up until now, hasn’t even told me their name. So who’s the rude one now?”
The next day, at the Astronomy Tower, Andy ate her mashed potatoes while angrily waving her spoon around, complaining to her two friends about her “mysterious Ancient Runes study partner.”
Strictly speaking, the Astronomy Tower was usually closed when there were no classes. The key was kept by the caretaker, and considering how close the Astronomy Tower was to Ravenclaw Tower, the caretaker would often entrust the key to the Ravenclaw prefects so that they could patrol more conveniently.
Doug and Lily stood there, eating the food they had each packed to take away, watching Andy move around wildly like an angry Cornish Pixie.
“All right, Andy, seriously. Judging from the way you described that person, Ancient Runes may really be their passion. What you said might indeed have offended them.”
Lily said this as she speared a piece of muscle, the fork gently swaying as she spoke.
“I didn’t mean to insult them!”
Andy immediately argued back, but soon, she became somewhat hesitant.
“All right, I think……I did show some attitude that suggested I didn’t really care about Ancient Runes.”
“Exactly, girl. You can’t expect someone to smile at you after you’ve looked down on the thing they love. And seriously……”
Doug swallowed a mouthful of vegetables, extended a finger, and pointed at Andy with a bright smile.
“You’re still learning this field, and that’s why you found this……let’s assume they’re a master in this area, to ask these questions. So, correct your attitude, friend.”
Andy completely deflated. She sat on the edge of the tower, like a little dog drenched by the rain.
“All right, I suppose I really did behave……not……”
She thought of the word the “mysterious person” had used: “professional.”
She pointed her wand at the plastic container holding the mashed potatoes, murmured a spell, and gave it a light wave. The container disappeared. She raised a hand to cover her cheek, then rubbed her hair upward, messing it up.
“I think I really messed up. I just……”
She sighed.
“Those words were a little too direct.”
“Hey, cheer up.”
Lily walked over and gently touched her shoulder.
“Isn’t this actually a good thing? It keeps you from being so blindly confident. Now you can correct your attitude and apologize to them or something, can’t you?”
“Lily’s right, friend. You’re a Ravenclaw, after all. How could you lose heart over a little difficulty on the road to knowledge?”
Doug playfully winked at her. Andy shrugged and gradually shook off that feeling of dejection.
That night, she spent a long time racking her brain over the notebook. The conversation was still stuck at the sharp but precise words from the previous day. Andy toyed with the fine strands of hair over her forehead with her quill, thinking about how she should begin writing.
She had no idea what to do. She got up and walked out from behind the bed curtains to go on her “night patrol.” She lifted the curtain and watched as her shoes moved onto her feet and tied their own messy shoelaces. Well, her little spells still had a lot of room for improvement. She sighed and bent down, and at that very moment, something in the corner of her eye caught her attention.
On the windowsill that belonged to her sat a beautiful crystal vase she had seen during her previous travels. She had bought it at the time as her back-to-school gift.
And now, her eyes widened as she suddenly realized something. After yesterday evening’s “blow,” Andy had specifically gone to look through books related to colors. She recognized it: the vase she had fallen in love with at first sight and bought was exactly the “cerulean” mentioned by the “mysterious study partner”!
A brilliant idea struck her. She stood up, disposed of the flowers that had withered because they had not been replaced on schedule, cleaned the vase, and added an appropriate amount of fresh water. Then she carefully focused on what she needed in her mind and waved her wand.
Two bunches of purple hyacinths and several small white flowers for decoration appeared. With a smile, she placed the flowers into the vase, cast a spell upon the vase, and linked it to the notebook as a safeguard. As the time for her night patrol drew near, she quickly pulled out her notebook and wrote:
“Orchideon, use it on the empty space above your desk, please.”
Feeling the coin in her pocket, which she used to contact the other prefect, grow hot, Andy put down her quill and hurried away with a satisfied smile.
She completed her duties almost at lightning speed and returned to her dormitory. The magically enchanted clothes hurried after her, trying to change her clothes for her, but Andy was completely focused on the notebook. She didn’t care as her robes struggled to come off her body, and her pajamas practically had to tug at her before she noticed that she had raised her hand so they could be put on.
She quickly picked up the notebook. Before opening it, her heartbeat was no slower than it had been that day when she had first opened it and discovered handwriting inside. And then, there it was—that elegant and sharp handwriting.
“This is a very dramatic apology.”
Andy smiled, threw herself onto the bed, and quickly wrote:
“So, did it work?”
There was no reply from the other side. Just as Andy thought this was yet another typical “end of the conversation” from the other person, something suddenly happened.
A new line of ink appeared on the page. But unlike before, it struggled its way out of the paper, leaping high as if it were alive. Before Andy’s eyes, the ink unfurled and transformed into a line of words in the air.
“Miriam.”
Then, part of the ink fell back onto the paper, transforming once again into the elegant and sharp handwriting she was familiar with, while part of it became several white tulips, symbolizing forgiveness.
Andy blinked. She didn’t have time to look at the flowers and quickly lowered her head to examine the ink on the notebook.
“Miriam.”
She softly spoke the name aloud. Without having to ask, she knew that it was the other person’s name.
“Miriam.”
She said it once more, softly rolling it off the tip of her tongue like a little melody. Andy ignored the ache in her cheeks and smiled brightly.
…………………………………………
“I have to say, Andy, you certainly have quite a few unique insights into Ancient Runes.”
Andy’s Ancient Runes professor, Nigel, was full of praise for her Ancient Runes paper. As he wiped his glasses, his eyes moved over the ideas she had proposed throughout the paper.
And Andy was doing her best not to smile too brightly. Of course, she was proud of herself, but she still retained her modesty, even though she stood there swaying slightly from side to side like a child who had just been given a piece of candy.
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Hmm… six feet of writing, and not a single word of fluff.”
Nigel put his glasses back on and looked at Andy approvingly.
“I think we may have a genius on our hands…”
To be fair, a six-foot-long assignment wasn’t particularly unusual for a fifth-year student. What was unusual was that this one was a paper on Ancient Runes. After all, this was a subject where students would rack their brains trying to pad out even a four-foot-long assignment with meaningless filler. Andy’s six feet of solid, substantial work, with not a word of fluff, naturally drew a great deal of attention.
“To be honest, it wasn’t entirely my work.”
Andy wasn’t going to tell him everything, but she had no intention of erasing someone else’s presence from the process, either.
“I had a friend help me.”
Meeting Nigel’s curious gaze, she gave a small nod and smiled.
Miriam.
She silently repeated the name in her mind, savoring the happiness that welled up inside her, but she didn’t say it aloud. Casually mentioning that she was conducting magical experiments wasn’t exactly a wise choice. After all, this was no small matter, and Andy had no intention of listening to a lecture about how dangerous it was. Instead, she chose to savor that happiness quietly in her own heart.
Her mysterious Ancient Runes study partner finally had a name. Andy thought that was the best symbol of the two of them becoming friends, and it satisfied her immensely.
Andy had Doug and Lily, of course, but honestly, the three of them had found it genuinely difficult to spend time together lately. It had to be said that the situation outside the wizarding world was much better than it had been when she had been forced to evacuate during her third year. After a year of recovery, Hogwarts had almost returned to normal as well. But for them, that wasn’t really the main issue. Most of it came down to their own circumstances.
First of all, as newly appointed Slytherin prefects, Doug and Lily had to deal with all sorts of demands from Slytherin’s seventh-year Head Girl, who was on the verge of graduation. According to the two of them, the Head Girl was a redhead who seemed to be perpetually wound up. One night, they had suddenly been summoned and had to hurry to the common room in their pajamas, only to discover that the prefect merely wanted to tell them how things should continue after she left. It was the fourth time she had done it, as though Slytherin would spontaneously combust the moment she was gone.
As for Andy, she had begun running back and forth between classes and the Quidditch pitch. No matter how much energy she had, it was difficult to withstand that kind of drain. The notes she scribbled during their almost-daily conversations had become increasingly messier as well.
One morning, she was woken by her alarm and discovered that she had somehow fallen asleep with her head on the desk, her notebook lying beside her. Ink had spilled from her quill, leaving a mess of random words across the page, until eventually they stopped even being words at all and became nothing more than a single line. Beneath it, Miriam’s handwriting sat there quietly.
“Get some rest, Andrea. I don’t want to see more scribbled lines like this in my notebook.”
It sounded a little stiff, but after three months of getting to know each other, Andy stared at the sentence and let a slightly smug smile appear on her face. She could recognize Miriam’s way of caring from a mile away.
Before going to wash up, she picked up her pen and hurriedly wrote a reply.
“Good morning. I swear it won’t happen again. It’s just that the match season is almost here, and the combination of intense training and night patrols has made me a little, well… sleepy. Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful day! I have to get to training.”
To be honest, Andy wasn’t all that nervous about the coming season. According to the captain, the next lineup looked pretty good, and those three Houses seemed to be as strong as ever. Apparently, there was a very good chance they would win the season again.
She bit into a piece of toast and hurried toward the pitch with her notebook tucked under her arm. Suddenly, the notebook gave a slight tremor. It was an idea inspired by the sound of a telephone ringing. She barely chewed the toast a few times before swallowing it and quickly flipped open the notebook. There, elegant handwriting quietly waited for her.
“Seeker?”
Andy’s lips curved upward.
She quickly pulled out the pen she kept tucked inside the book for quick notes.
“Tell me where in my room you set the surveillance charm.”
They rarely asked each other for personal information. Although Andy was always happy to share things about herself, she had noticed that Miriam wasn’t particularly interested in sharing, and even tended to avoid answering such questions. So, although Andy was curious, she had never specifically pressed her about anything.
Even so, the two of them had developed a familiarity that belonged uniquely to them.
And Andy thought there was something rather fun about the guessing and the occasional little surprises.
“A reasonable deduction, Andrea…”
A line of writing appeared, conveying an utterly matter-of-fact attitude, and then…
“Even if I told you, I’m confident you wouldn’t be able to break my spell.”
Andy let out a muffled laugh. If someone else had said that to her, she might have been a little skeptical. But when it came to Miriam, Andy genuinely trusted her a great deal.
Still, she picked up her pen and wrote:
“Want to test that?”
“You should be glad we’re not in the same dueling club.”
Dueling club?
Andy stopped writing and frowned slightly. She had vaguely heard of the concept, but there wasn’t actually one at the school. Apparently, it was because dueling clubs could lead to uncontrollable accidents. But… well, she shrugged and quickly wrote on the page:
“Sorry to disappoint you, but Hogwarts doesn’t have a dueling club. Oh, I think there used to be one, but something happened and the school shut it down.”
This time, the reply from the other side was slower. Just as Andy was beginning to wonder whether she would have to leave for training before the next reply arrived, ink appeared on the page.
“Lucky you.”
Andy smiled, even more curious about Miriam now. But at that moment, her captain blew the whistle from a distance, so she had no choice but to put the notebook away and hurry over to join the training.
…………………………………………
“Okay, I have to say, this private bathroom is probably my favorite thing here.”
Relaxing in the warm water, surrounded by a thick layer of white foam, Andy let out a long, contented sigh as she chatted with Miriam through the notebook, which had been treated with a waterproofing charm.
At first, this had been almost impossible. You could tell at a glance that Miriam wasn’t someone who enjoyed small talk. She would occasionally say something when the subject was academic, but she almost never responded to the little things Andy casually wrote down and shared with her. Then one day, after Andy finished her patrol and sent four students back to their dormitories, she couldn’t help telling Miriam about it.
And Miriam actually responded.
She bluntly expressed her disdain for those students who refused to follow instructions, then told Andy that she needed to establish her authority all at once; otherwise, she would keep running into this sort of trouble.
There was something in Miriam’s tone that almost suggested she knew exactly what Andy was going through. It gave Andy a suspicion, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she was simply delighted that Miriam had finally started joining in with her little stories.
After that, their small talk gradually became a normal part of their routine. At first, Miriam would only reply with a word or two. Later, she even began sharing things herself—though most of them came in the form of sharp, sarcastic remarks.
Things like…
“...I still can’t believe people can grow brains as tiny as a troll’s,Considering trolls barely have brains at all…”
“Sometimes I even worry about their futures… assuming they actually have futures.”
“...I feel sorry for whichever employers end up hiring them.”
It was a strange kind of humor, wrapped in a layer of sarcasm, but Andy happened to understand exactly what she meant. The two of them almost never ran out of things to talk about. Of course, Andy’s changing attitude toward Ancient Runes was an important factor too.
Back to the present, Andy rested her folded hands on the marble edge of the bath, gently resting her chin on the back of her hands. A smile lingered on her face as she waited for the words to appear.
“Fair enough.”
That answer made the thought she had been entertaining before almost impossible to suppress.
She remembered searching through the library earlier, trying to find a famous Ancient Runes master named Miriam, but she hadn’t found anyone by that name. Still, judging from the “requirements” that had accompanied their initial contact, and from the way Miriam had demonstrated her expertise in Ancient Runes during their conversations, Andy didn’t doubt that she had the right person.
She simply suspected that she might have somehow contacted an anonymous master from a much earlier era.
There were little things that hinted at it—the casual references Miriam made to things Andy had never heard of, only for Andy to search through books afterward and discover that they had existed seventy or eighty years ago. Things like the dueling club, or Miriam’s complete lack of understanding of some of the new things Andy mentioned.
Andy felt as though she had stumbled upon a mystery that genuinely interested her, and she was almost incapable of stopping herself from getting drawn deeper into it, following the clues one by one.
And by now, she did have quite a few clues.
She thought for a moment, then picked up her pen and finally asked:
“Were you a Hogwarts student too?”
The reply took a long time to appear. When it finally did, it was vague, almost more of an absent-minded acknowledgment than an answer.
“Mm-hmm.”
Okay, that was interesting. But Andy had no intention of pressing further. She could tell Miriam was avoiding the subject, so she changed the topic instead.
“Do you like Quidditch too?”
This time, the reply came quickly.
“No. It was more of an obligation.”
An obligation?
Andy frowned in confusion. Was Miriam somehow involved in Quidditch?
Andy tried to picture it, but she couldn’t connect that image with the person she had been talking to for the past few months. As if she had sensed the question behind Andy’s hesitation, Miriam’s handwriting slowly appeared, almost visibly reluctant to offer an “explanation.”
“Make some contribution. Better chances at getting elected.”
That sounded almost Slytherin-like.
Suddenly, Andy connected the clues.
And then she realized that perhaps Miriam really had been a Slytherin student.
There were an unknown number of years between the two of them, but the thought that they had once belonged to the same House and taken similar classes sent a warm feeling through Andy.
“So, I’m guessing you were a Seeker?”
After all, Miriam was very focused, and her notes reflected the precision with which she approached everything. As a Seeker herself, Andy knew how important that quality was.
“No, Andrea. I have no particular interest in flying around after a tiny ball.”
Andy felt that she ought to politely express her offense, but she found herself more curious than anything else.
“Then what were you?”
“Keeper. Organizing and observing the whole field. It was an acceptable position.”
Okay, now Andy could actually picture it.
The thought of Miriam appearing on a Quidditch pitch made her smile, and without hesitation, she teased her.
“I can imagine you’d be a terrifying opponent.”
The handwriting appeared almost immediately.
“Undoubtedly.”
Well, after several months of talking, Miriam’s polite modesty had certainly worn thin. Though, to be fair, she hadn’t shown much of it to begin with.
Andy enjoyed the way things were between them now, but she didn’t want to stay in the bath for too long. Just as she was about to get out and head back to her dormitory, another line of Miriam’s handwriting suddenly appeared on the page.
“I think you would be a… formidable opponent too.”
If Andy didn’t fall into the bath from smiling too brightly and being far too absorbed in those words, it was only because she was genuinely lucky.
Really, that was practically a high compliment from Miriam.
That night, in Andy’s dream, a blurred figure appeared on the green grass beneath the open sky, sitting elegantly on a broom as though it were a throne, directing the entire field with effortless ease.
…………………………………………
Unfortunately, it seemed that even that good luck was of no use in the matches that followed.
“Bad news.”
One morning after breakfast, Doug nervously pulled her aside into the corridor.
Andy frowned as she looked at her obviously anxious friend, trying to make a joke to lighten the mood.
“Calm down, Doug. Unless the world is about to end, let me finish breakfast first.”
Strangely, after she said that, Andy found Doug staring straight at her. The look on his face was almost… pity.
“Oh, Andy. My poor Andy…”
“Okay, Doug, just tell me. You’re starting to scare me. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re about to come out to me all over again.”
“Listen, Andy. I can only say this once, because I have a feeling she might have put some kind of deadly curse on me that’ll make me drop dead the moment I say it…”
“Then, for the sake of your health and safety, maybe we should—”
“Andy!”
Doug grabbed Andy by the arm and stepped closer. He nervously glanced around before quickly saying,
“Emily is playing Quidditch this term.”
The moment he finished, he immediately stepped back and pressed his lips tightly together, as though he were waiting to suddenly turn into fireworks and explode.
Andy, however, had absolutely no idea what he meant. She merely frowned in confusion.
“Who’s Emily?”
“Oh my God, Andy! The seventh-year prefect we’re always complaining to you about. The red-haired walking bomb…”
Oh.
Understanding dawned on Andy’s face. She did vaguely remember this neurotic woman who had been “tormenting” her friends, but she still couldn’t see what there was to worry about.
“Okay, Doug, thanks for the concern, but unless she suddenly turns into some kind of bird-headed creature and bites me during the match, I don’t think there’s much to worry about…”
“Oh, Andy. You don’t understand.”
Doug shook his head with almost theatrical exaggeration.
“As a Seeker, Emily is absolutely more violent than a Beater. Once, when she was fighting another House’s Seeker for the Golden Snitch, she very cleverly nearly knocked the poor girl right off her broom. And another time, she practically clubbed someone in the head with the end of her broom. Of course, she’s also incredibly good at arguing her way out of trouble, so she’s barely been punished for any of it. She’s clearly extremely unhappy with Slytherin’s results last year. She even declared that this year’s players were completely useless and loudly announced that she wasn’t going to let her final season end in failure, so she decided to play herself.”
Okay, that… did sound a little frightening.
But Andy collected herself.
“Well, that’s fine. I’ll be careful around her. There’s no reason she’d be particularly… angry… with me.”
Under Doug’s look of complete disbelief, Andy’s voice gradually faded. The words she had just said began echoing in her mind.
Yes.
Emily was unhappy with last year’s results.
And last year, Ravenclaw had beaten Slytherin to win the House Cup.
And the deciding points had come from…
Of course.
The Golden Snitch Andy had held high in her hand.
Oh.
Now Andy understood her friend’s dramatic reaction.
Doug stepped forward and grabbed Andy by both arms.
“Oh… Andy. Poor Andy. She’s going to smash you into pieces.”
Andy straightened uncomfortably. She still had quite a bit of confidence in her own abilities.
“I’ll be careful. It’s not a big deal.”
After all, there was a reason Andy had managed to stay a Seeker for so long.
Doug stared at her, then broke into a smile.
“Of course. We know you will. We just wanted to warn you in advance. She… she knows the three of us are close. She’s been keeping a very close eye on Lily and me, practically like we’re prisoners in Azkaban. Now I have to get back and rescue Lily. She practically sacrificed her brunch just to slip away from Emily’s watch and ask her a few questions about Ancient Runes, even though she doesn’t even take the subject.”
Andy immediately caught the key word.
“Emily is interested in Ancient Runes too?”
Doug stared at her as though she had suddenly grown two heads.
“Interested? Andy, she’d probably marry Ancient Runes if she could. Or that silver-haired woman whose posters cover her walls and cabinets, the one she can’t go three sentences without mentioning.”
Andy immediately guessed that he meant Miranda, the Ancient Runes master. But considering the situation, it probably wasn’t the right time to say anything. She simply filed away the fact that Emily might be interested in Ancient Runes and continued reassuring her friend.
“Okay. We just wanted you to be prepared…”
Doug sighed, looked around cautiously, then gave his robes a nervous little shake.
“I have to go. Even Lily can’t hold Emily off forever. I’m afraid if she sees me talking to you, she’ll turn me into a balloon and pop me on the spot.”
“That’s a little dramatic, Doug.”
Andy pointed this out calmly, but Doug merely gave her a nervous smile before turning around and practically sprinting back into the Great Hall.
…………………………………………
“So, I guess I’m going to have to deal with some kind of highly aggressive lunatic.”
Andy brought it up with Miriam in the notebook that evening, her tone still carrying a hint of amusement.
Of course, she hadn’t completely ignored what Lily and Doug had said. She had become somewhat more wary of Emily, but she still couldn’t help thinking that her friends’ nervous reactions were a little exaggerated.
“You know the spell that can calm a troll.”
Miriam’s words brought a knowing smile to Andy’s face.
“I do, but I think casting Stupefy on a classmate during a match might get me banned from playing.”
“You could be more subtle.”
Andy raised an eyebrow and quickly wrote:
“I’m starting to wonder if you’ve actually done something like that before.”
This time, the reply didn’t come as quickly. The ink moved like a lazy snake, taking quite some time to “crawl” its way into Miriam’s sharp handwriting.
“That is slander against my reputation.”
And then:
“I don’t need to.”
Right. That was Miriam’s style—arrogantly sarcastic.
Andy smiled brightly at that.
“Then have a little more faith in me too. Trust me, I’ll win.”
Indeed, no matter how “terrifying” Emily might be, Andy still had confidence in herself.
She glanced at the time beside her bed and decided it was getting late. Just as she was about to say goodnight to Miriam and go to sleep, some… more tightly packed handwriting appeared on the page.
“Andrea, it’s not just about winning. There’s one more thing.”
The ink stopped moving.
Then, once again, it became slow and deliberate.
“I don’t want anything to interrupt our conversations.”
“So be careful.”
And then the notebook fell silent.
Andy stared at those lines for a long, long moment before finally breaking into a smile bright enough to rival the sun.
“Oh my God…”
She lifted the notebook and fell backward onto the bed.
She read over the words again and again.
She really couldn’t keep smiling like this. She was afraid her facial muscles would hurt tomorrow.
But, oh God…
Her chocolate-brown eyes were filled with laughter, reflecting those lines of sharp, elegant handwriting, only slightly more tightly packed than usual.
This was probably the most awkward kind of concern in the world, so stiff that it was almost as though the person who had written it was doing this for the very first time.
Andy quickly wrote goodnight, figuring that Miriam probably wouldn’t respond again tonight, no matter what.
But it didn’t matter.
She imagined the person on the other end of those words, wondered how stiff she must have been, and pictured her forcing herself to write those lines despite her discomfort.
At that moment, Andy genuinely wished she could see the scene with her own eyes.
…………………………………………
But no matter how worried Doug and Lily were, that day eventually came. Ravenclaw versus Slytherin—and it was also Andy’s first time facing the “Emily of the rumors” head-on.
Looking at the red-haired woman standing there and glaring at her, Andy simply gave her a friendly smile.
As expected, the smile received no friendly response. But considering Emily merely rolled her eyes at her, that counted as a response one way or another.
They stared at each other before mounting their brooms and taking to the air. Although the way Emily kept her eyes fixed on her had already made Andy realize that this was going to be a difficult competition, she still hoped it wouldn’t be quite so troublesome.
Of course, that was impossible.
Slytherin’s Quidditch team had always been highly aggressive, but honestly, once Emily was keeping an eye on her, you could practically feel that aggression becoming even more insane. The Bludgers seemed to almost always “accidentally” skim past Andy. Of course, if her skills hadn’t been good enough, perhaps they wouldn’t have merely “skimmed” past her—they would have hit her outright.
She flew a little higher, hoping to shake off Emily, who was clinging tightly to her from behind. But the red-haired woman was like a Niffler. Except the thing she was chasing wasn’t a Galleon. Judging from the current situation, it almost seemed more like Andy herself.
“Holy shit!”
Andy cried out as she dodged Emily’s broomstick as it sharply swept past her. The stands erupted in an uproar, and clearly, the Ravenclaw students were holding their breath for their Seeker.
Andy quickly pulled her broom back up to the height she had been at before the evasive drop. She turned her head, narrowing her eyes as she stared at the obviously more unpleasant woman.
“Come on, Emily. That’s the third damn time you’ve ‘almost’ hit me with your broom this match. Watch where you’re going!”
“Oh—shut up.”
Emily’s response almost made Andy want to fire a nasty curse at her. By comparison, Stupefy definitely counted as friendly.
Andy bit her lower lip and once again pulled her broom higher. She glanced at the scoreboard. Her House was trailing by several points. Clearly, Emily’s aggression and nastiness weren’t just personal traits. Under normal circumstances, Andy would have told herself that it didn’t matter and calmly searched for the Golden Snitch.
But sorry, she had already spent half the match dodging brooms aimed at her head and dealing with Bludgers whizzing past her. She was done with this crap.
She kept pulling her broom higher and higher. The latest model carried her almost straight into the sky, fury blazing in her chest. No matter what, she was going to win today.
When she turned her back to the sun and looked down over the field, that tiny glimmer of gold was so obvious in the sunlight. It flashed past in an instant.
From the moment she saw it, there was nothing left in Andy’s eyes but that streak of gold.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Emily struggling to climb to the same height behind her, and Andy didn’t dare let her guard down.
She lowered her body and held her breath, diving downward like a bolt of lightning. Emily followed close behind. Her speed wasn’t slow either, but the way her broom was shaking violently clearly showed that she wasn’t as good at handling the pressure as Andy was.
All Andy could hear was the roar of the wind rushing past her ears. She could feel her heartbeat pounding like thunder.
Just then, a flash of red rapidly approached from the corner of her vision.
All right, Emily.
Andy waited for her to draw closer without slowing down at all. The instant the red-haired woman came within range, Andy made an almost impossibly sharp turn on the spot. Emily continued charging forward with the momentum, brushing past her with a look of surprise on her face.
Andy smiled triumphantly. She turned around and looked down, unusually tempted to taunt her opponent for once.
But the first thing she saw was that flash of gold beneath Emily.
Then she saw the Bludger hurtling straight toward Emily.
Clearly, after that rapid sprint, Emily had no time to turn or dodge. And Slytherin’s Beater obviously couldn’t get to her in time. Her attention was still fixed on Andy, completely unaware of the danger approaching.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”
There was almost no time to react.
Andy turned and charged straight toward Emily. In her line of sight, the red-haired woman’s eyes suddenly widened. She seemed to think that Andy had finally had enough and was going to get revenge by knocking her off her broom.
Andy only had time to shout one word.
“Watch out!”
She leaned forward and shoved Emily away with all her strength.
Almost at the same moment, the Bludger slammed into Andy.
It felt like she had just been hit by a charging troll. Her body first experienced a strange sensation of weightlessness. Her eyes met Emily’s for the briefest moment, and in those blue-green eyes flashed a look of shock.
Emily seemed to reach out a hand toward Andy.
But before she could, gravity had already gotten its teeth into Andy.
She felt herself plummeting downward. Emily disappeared from her vision. Andy’s outstretched hand found nothing.
Then, suddenly, that flash of gold streaked past her.
Instinctively, she reached out and grabbed it.
Cold.
The metallic texture spread from the skin of her palm. Cheers and screams rose and fell around her, only to be scattered by the howling wind.
The world before her eyes seemed to flicker like a television suffering from a broken signal. A strange buzzing filled her ears.
The last thing she thought of was her notebook.
“Miriam.”
And then, everything disappeared.
…………………………………………
“I simply cannot believe you, Andy.”
Lily sat on a stool to the side, making her voice as sharp as Madam Pomfrey would allow.
“You just charged straight at a Bludger and got up close and personal with it, all for that red-haired bombshell who tried several times to knock you off your broom.”
Andy sat on the hospital bed, her left arm still in a protective brace, but there was an unmistakably amused expression on her face as she watched her friend fume on her behalf.
“Lily, she didn’t see it, and she didn’t react in time. I couldn’t just stand there and watch her get hit in the head.”
“So you sacrificed your left arm? Andy, how sweet. Maybe Emily will consider putting you up on her cabinet too.”
Doug spoke from the other side, mockingly exaggerating his words. In the two hours since Andy had regained consciousness, he had already called her “Miss Knight” at least five times.
“Okay, okay, I know it was reckless.”
Andy raised her uninjured hand, gesturing for her friends to stop judging her.
“Reckless? Andy, even a troll wouldn’t do something like that.”
Clearly, that failed. Lily’s sharp tone continued, making Andy flinch before she muttered quietly,
“But I caught the Snitch in the end.”
“Look at that! Our little Andy, who says friendship comes first. You sound a little like us.”
Doug grinned, tugging at his wizarding robes with their green trim as he smiled at Andy.
Andy rolled her eyes without the slightest attempt to hide it.
“I’m just saying, at least there was a good outcome, right?”
Lily and Doug clearly disagreed. Just as they were about to launch into another round of criticism—
“The patient needs to rest.”
Fortunately, Madam Pomfrey came in at exactly the right moment. Andy breathed a sigh of relief and gave her friends an innocent smile. Doug shook his head helplessly, while Lily’s expression made it clear that this wasn’t over. Apparently, there would be another conversation waiting for her once she got out of here.
But honestly, right now, she really needed to sleep.
“You should be grateful, young lady. If the Headmaster hadn’t caught you in time, you wouldn’t be here smiling sweetly at me.”
Madam Pomfrey looked at her disapprovingly, clearly having heard about Andy’s voluntary act of “heroism.”
Andy smiled sheepishly. As she listened to Madam Pomfrey lecture her about what to watch out for, she gradually succumbed to exhaustion and overexertion, slowly closing her eyes.
If it hadn’t been for a faint rustling sound, Andy might have slept straight through until the next day.
But she opened her eyes, staring blankly ahead, trying to figure out what was happening.
Then she saw Emily, the red-haired girl, standing there stiffly and staring nervously at her.
Andy frowned and spoke sleepily.
“Emily?”
“No.”
The swift denial actually woke Andy up completely. She blinked, taking a proper look at the other girl, then slowly sat up and gave her a friendly smile.
Emily’s eyes immediately dropped to Andy’s left arm, wrapped in its protective brace, as she tried her best to look as though she didn’t care.
“Well then, Miss Emily-who-is-not-‘Emily,’ is there something I can help you with?”
Finally, Emily rolled her eyes and, much more naturally, pulled out the stool and sat down beside Andy’s bed.
“You had an Ancient Runes class today, but you didn’t go. These are your notes.”
As she spoke, she placed a distinctly un-Andy-like green notebook beside her.
Andy picked it up and looked it over, noticing several sparkling gemstones decorating the cover.
She raised an eyebrow.
“How did you know I had an Ancient Runes class today?”
“Because I’m in that class too.”
Now Andy was even more curious. She moved her gaze from the notebook to Emily.
“Why? Aren’t you supposed to be a seventh-year?”
“Oh, you stupid cow.”
Even though Andy had just saved her from having her head smashed by a Bludger, Emily was still very much Emily.
She frowned impatiently, but her tightly folded arms drew even closer against herself, betraying how nervous she actually was.
“You know there’s no rule saying you can’t continue studying Ancient Runes after you’ve already taken it, and your class is taught by Professor Nigel.”
She emphasized the latter reason, then stared at Andy as though she expected her to understand the “mystery” automatically.
Of course, Andy didn’t. She simply stared at her in confusion.
“Oh my God, don’t tell me you don’t know that Professor Nigel is Professor Miranda’s assistant. You…”
She stared at Andy, the nervousness gradually disappearing from her expression. Now she looked much more like she had on the Quidditch pitch—menacingly glaring at Andy, as though she had decided that if Andy gave the wrong answer, she would immediately hit her with some kind of nasty curse.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know Miranda.”
Fortunately, Andy had already learned a little about that before. She nodded, and Emily’s leaning body eased back slightly, as though she were a little more satisfied.
Andy rubbed her thumb over the notebook.
“Well, thank you. I’ll give it back to you after I finish reading it…”
“No!”
Emily sat up straight.
“That, well… you can just keep it.”
Andy looked at her in confusion.
“Why?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
Emily hissed, her face looking almost as red as her hair.
“Why do you have so many questions? It’s just… consider it a thank-you.”
She stumbled over the words. Andy lowered her head and opened the notebook. The pages were filled with a somewhat Gothic-looking handwriting, very much in Emily’s style. But apart from the first few pages, the rest were blank.
Clearly, it had been prepared especially for her.
A gift.
Andy looked up at Emily, who was shifting restlessly in her seat, and smiled.
“Thank you, Emily.”
The red-haired woman said nothing, but a flicker of discomfort crossed her face, as though she had no experience with this kind of friendly conversation.
The two of them quickly fell into silence.
Andy hesitated before asking,
“Then why have I never seen you before?”
There it was again.
Emily rolled her eyes once more.
“A spell. Disillusionment Charm. Like you said, I’m a seventh-year. I can’t exactly stroll openly into a fifth-year classroom.”
Well, that explained it.
“But I’ve seen you.”
Emily spoke first this time, and Andy looked at her in surprise.
The red-haired woman gave a snort and continued,
“You always sit there, asking all sorts of wild questions, constantly staring at that notebook of yours. Sometimes you even smile to yourself like an idiot.”
The detailed description made Andy feel a little embarrassed.
“Those questions aren’t wild.”
She muttered her objection, about to say something else, when her sluggish brain suddenly caught onto the most important part of Emily’s words.
…that notebook of yours.
Notebook!
Miriam!
She remembered that she had spent the entire previous night here without contacting Miriam. Miriam must know what had happened.
She wanted to get out of bed immediately and return to her dormitory to find Miriam, but when she met Emily’s scrutinizing gaze, she had no choice but to settle down again.
“Okay, so those weren’t exactly wild questions…”
First of all, if she ran out like this, Madam Pomfrey might add a few extra ingredients to her potion specifically to make it more bitter.
Second, if she hurried out like this, Emily might think there was something wrong with her mentally.
And finally, she remembered Miriam’s awkward warning before the match. For a moment, she couldn’t think of how she was supposed to explain everything to Miriam.
So she simply leaned back against the soft pillow behind her and began telling Emily about several of the “wild questions” she had already solved.
“…like the fireworks we use, except this one can be released directly from a wand, and it can change the shape of the fireworks and transmit messages.”
This was something Andy had researched together with Miriam.
It had started when Andy noticed younger students playing with those kinds of devices in the dormitory. The two of them had discussed it and wondered whether Ancient Runes could accomplish something similar.
The result had been a success.
“If the circumstances here were different, I could have demonstrated it for you. But there are too many flowers here, and I really don’t want to cause some kind of accident…”
Andy murmured on, but her thoughts inevitably drifted toward Miriam.
When she realized that Emily had been silent for quite some time, she finally stopped talking and looked up at her.
The moment their eyes met, the red-haired woman seemed to have finally reached her limit and blurted out,
“Why did you do that?”
Andy froze for a moment.
“What? The fireworks spell?”
Emily clearly wanted to curse at her again.
In fact, she did.
“No, you stupid cow. I mean you… why did you push me away?”
Oh.
So that was what she meant.
Andy looked at her and smiled kindly, just as she had explained to her friends.
“You didn’t see it. I couldn’t just stand there and watch you get hit in the head. Considering you got into that situation because you were chasing me so enthusiastically, I thought I could at least return the favor somehow.”
If Emily had been a steam train, she would have been running at full power right now.
Andy watched, amused, as Emily suddenly sprang to her feet, calling Andy a stupid cow as she marched toward the door.
But the next morning, when Andy woke up, there was a cup of hot tea and a delicious-looking fried-egg toast sitting on the table.
Beside them lay a piece of dark-green origami.
Andy opened it.
There was only one word written inside:
“Eat.”
Just like the handwriting in her notebook.
She didn’t need to ask who had brought it.
Andy picked up the toast and took a huge bite, a mischievous smile spreading across her face.
………………………………………………
“So, to sum it up, this was really just an accident.”
Andy nervously wrote the words in her notebook, waiting for a response from the other side.
The broken bones in her left arm had finally healed. She just had to stay off her broom for a week and wear a protective brace for three days, which wasn’t a big deal.
She had even thought about whether she should tell Miriam about what had happened. But when she opened the notebook and saw several lines of handwriting quietly resting there, keeping it a secret suddenly didn’t feel quite right.
First came:
“I assume you weren’t taken to another world during your night patrol.”
No matter how busy she was, Andy would always exchange a few brief words with Miriam after finishing her night patrol. But obviously, the day before yesterday, Andy had still been lying unconscious in the Hospital Wing.
Then, Andy didn’t know exactly how much time had passed, but the strokes of the next line were noticeably sharper. Andy couldn’t help but assume that Miriam had probably been waiting for a long time.
“I assume you didn’t manage to do the ‘one more thing.’”
Indeed. After all, falling unconscious hardly seemed to have anything to do with the “safety” Andy had promised at the time.
Just when Andy thought that was the end of it, she turned the page.
At the very top was her name, written with what seemed like considerable force, the ink slightly blurred.
“Andrea.”
“Answer me.”
Andy knew that Miriam was probably waiting for her message. Although she still hadn’t figured out how to explain everything without making it sound quite so bad, she no longer wanted to keep Miriam waiting.
So she simply told Miriam everything exactly as it had happened.
Now, the notebook had fallen “silent,” and Andy waited for Miriam’s response.
“So, you’re telling me that you threw yourself in front of a Bludger to protect your opponent?”
Andy had heard that sentence far too many times over the past two days. She had even written to her parents about it, and the two of them had nearly announced that they were coming to Hogwarts to see her. Only after countless reassurances from Andy had they reluctantly given up, instead insisting that they would have a proper talk with her about this at Christmas.
And now, hearing Miriam say the same thing, Andy could only continue with the explanation she had already repeated more times than she could count.
“Well, I couldn’t just stand there and watch her get her head smashed in.”
“Why?”
Before she could even finish writing, Miriam’s words rapidly appeared.
“You’re opponents.”
Andy frowned, staring at the sentence.
“Maybe we are, but that doesn’t mean I would want to see her get hurt like that.”
“Andrea, according to your account, she had been trying to do exactly that to you the whole time. Good grief, you’re just like those reckless lions.”
Oh, no.
That word.
Andy stared at “reckless” as though it were some filthy thing that had deeply offended her, irritation gradually rising inside her.
“Miriam, it really wasn’t anything. We were competing before, but that could have been a fatal hit. I thought about it! And besides, it only hit my arm. It wasn’t a big deal.”
One of Madam Pomfrey’s potions had been enough to restore Andy completely. In the wizarding world, this really wasn’t considered a serious matter.
But clearly, Miriam didn’t see it that way.
“It was absolutely not nothing.”
Clearly, Miriam was irritated by Andy’s attitude as well. After nearly an entire term of knowing each other, Andy could completely sense Miriam’s emotions through her handwriting.
When Miriam was expressing interest in something, the ends of her letters would often soften slightly. When she was being sarcastic, her handwriting would become sharper.
And now, these words, with the ink almost bleeding across the page, had clearly been written with considerable force, unmistakably expressing her displeasure and anger.
“Miriam, it was just one or two potions! I slept for a night, rested for a while, and that was it.”
Andy genuinely didn’t understand what this was all about. Miriam had once mentioned a Beater on her team who had been too busy mocking an opponent to notice a Bludger hitting her, eventually ending up at St Mungo’s to recover. Miriam had merely called her a “stupid idiot.”
And now Andy had simply spent some time lying in the Hospital Wing, yet Miriam was acting as though she had gone off to war and barely survived.
Then, just when Andy thought the conversation might end there, Miriam’s handwriting became calm, just as it usually was.
But the content made Andy feel, for some reason, as though her heart were being gently squeezed.
“It wasn’t just one or two potions, or one night, Andrea.”
Then, on the next line, stretching across two blank pages, the words quietly remained there, entering Andy’s eyes.
“I don’t like it when you suddenly disappear.”
At that moment, Andy’s heart leapt, its beat louder than when she had been falling through the wind, yet somehow lighter.
She suddenly understood what Miriam meant.
Her friends could be there at the scene. They could see what happened and know exactly what the outcome was.
But Miriam—
They were separated by an unknown number of years, and the only thing maintaining their connection was a notebook, a few lines of handwriting left behind by a quill.
What if Miriam were the one who suddenly disappeared?
What if, one day, Andy suddenly stopped receiving messages from Miriam?
Her heart clenched painfully. She couldn’t say a word, only stare at that line.
Then she did what she wanted to do, what she could do.
She turned to a blank page and, just like Miriam, wrote in large letters stretching across two pages.
“I won’t.”
“I promise.”
The quill, dipped in ink, touched the paper and became a line of silent words.
Words themselves could say nothing, but a promise could.