𝘝𝘖𝘐𝘊𝘌𝘚. harry potter world ¹

𝘷𝘪𝘪. 𝘵𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯

     RORY WAS GREETING THE TERM AS AN OLD FRIEND. As if she had known all along, but it was just another lost memory in the sea that was her brain. Nevertheless, it wasn't a friend she was particularly fond of. It was a friend that was forgotten for a reason, but as much as it hurts, the friend was back, and the friend was now inked in her brain, there, forever. Hovering over her like a dark cloud full of rain, ready to rain all over her and make her feel miserable for the rest of her life.

     Her body was having a better time with it than she was, apparently. There was no knot in her chest ready to contradict her, no headaches, no aching extremities until they felt numb, or the tireless feeling of being poked by a hundred needles. (Her body was way more accepting than she was, her mind wasn't).

     Or maybe she had just been laying down for way too long to feel anything, maybe with some luck her body had forgotten how to work. It didn't. Hermione approached her that night and accidentally sat on her foot and made her jerk her whole body up.

     ''I mean, it is very possible,'' replies Hermione when Rory is done telling her all her suspicions. Hermione suddenly stands up and goes back to her nightstand to search for something that Rory really doesn't catch, because she has her face buried in her pillow.

     Rory sits up, tossing the pillow from the bed, her hair probably falling down her back like a bird's nest. She's frowning as she watches Hermione sort books and put them into piles. ''Maybe I just have a good sixth sense, maybe that's my gift!'' she says, less enthusiastically and convincing than anticipated.  ''Look, I want to say that I'm not feeling this banshee thing, that I am not one.  But every time I do my mouth feels as if I had just licked a lemon.''

     Hermione just hums, still looking from book to book.

     ''My father used to make us lick a lemon as a punishment when we lied,'' she explains, but Hermione was still sorting her books out. ''Are you even listening to me?''

     Couldn't Hermione see the problem here? Once a banshee, always a half-breed. The moment it gets out, everyone is going to know that she's a wailing woman, that Dementors and her basically go hand in hand, that she takes trips to visit Hades and the poor departed souls that he takes and she announces.

     But social validation wasn't what made Rory's stomach lurk as she stared at Hermione. It was the fact that she had, and probably was going to see people die. Not only people, but she would also probably watch in front of her eyes how her friends die at some point (because she hopes they have a long-lasting life without any kind of altercations — funny, isn't it?), and she'll be useless, trying to grasp for them. 

     But the only thing she will be able to do is to scream in agonizing pain, as they slowly take their last breaths in front of her. 

     She does not want that.

     How were they missing the whole point of a Banshee? How was Hermione so calm at the whole situation? Acting as if she was still Rory, as if she was not a monster that would probably announce her death in many years' time. 

     ''Long hair —'' starts Hermione, the book she had finally chosen laying open in front of her. (It was Lockhart's — that time he got rid of a banshee or whatever). 

     Rory plays along, knowing what Hermione is doing, like that time in the Leaky Cauldron, when she wasn't aware that she was something that many feared. ''Impossible to cut it off I may add, as it grows back just as the scissors snap,'' she says slowly. ''My dad hated it.''

     ''Constant voices in your head—''

     ''You get used to them after all.''

     ''The scream—''