Restoration

42

Something wasn't right.
It was the way the footsteps echoed with a slight time difference, almost like watching poorly dubbed foreign films. The laughter didn't seem real either, it was too loud or too quiet, brittle or completely numbed out. Elara had blamed it on sleep deprivation, then anxiety, sometimes on the undiagnosed curse she had triggered that day on the Tower, or simply on an undigested piece of food.

Even her friends' actions seemed orchestrated, and Elara stopped counting the amount of deja-vu's she had had in the last few weeks. What was even worse was the fact that every time she tried to confront one of them about it, they all denied it or said it was in her head. And every time they pushed her away, she felt like she was being drawn into the arms of someone much, much darker.

"Do you want to go to the Three Broomsticks later today?" Daphne interrupted her daydreams. 
Elara twitched, feeling as if someone had brooded through her thoughts and stopped her from overthinking the matter any further. Daphne's question had come at the perfect time for it to be a coincidence.

Elara shook her head, too tired of it to even make up an excuse. She slowed her pace, waiting for Daphne to take over and get lost in the crowd before she took a turn to the courtyard, which felt more like a poor reconstruction of it. 
Gliding her fingers across the centuries-old stones, she closed her eyes, trying to remember what they felt like before. Before when? Elara couldn't pinpoint this odd feeling to an exact moment, nor a day. Something just snapped inside of her, as if the veil that had been cast in front of her eyes had become so feeble that she could chuck it away with ease.

"Skipping class again?" Anthony smirked at her.

It was only a matter of time until one of them noticed her absence and sought her out. Elara tried to eavesdrop on them, to see if they had a secret plan, she had raided their rooms, too, all for nothing. Either they were painfully good at hiding things from her, or she had become too obsessed with it, bored living with paranoia.

"I really don't want to talk to you right now," Elara moved away from him.

"Oh, you'll miss me," Anthony chuckled.

"What?" Elara froze for a moment, sensing a sort of a...promise in his words. One that had nothing to do with his clown-like personality.

"I'm just saying, if you skip all these classes, you'll eventually get kicked out. And then you won't be getting any free entertainment," he gently nudged her arm.

"Why aren't you worried then?" Elara stared into his eyes. She could've sworn they used to be strikingly blue, now only a shadow of it.

"Worried? About you? I mean, who isn't," he crossed his arms.

"No...no. You wouldn't let me just do as I pleased. The Anthony I knew would somehow trick me into going to those classes," Elara studied his expression.

His face became blank for a second.

"Anthony?" Elara narrowed her eyes.
His eyes, previously empty, had some sort of light reflection swiveling around his iris. To Elara, it looked like there was a tiny person standing behind them, waving with their wand. But that couldn't have been it, she was just tired. Or was she?

"Why are you doing this?" Elara reached for his face, making sure he was still there, not just an illusion. His eyes became sad. Almost too sad to look at, just as a tear rolled down his cheek.

"You'll be fine-"

"I get that it's our final year, but come on, we can't take the piss now," Blaise popped out of nowhere, walking right in between them. Just in time to hide Anthony's reaction.