Black Hole

"Time in a Bottle"

Seventh Year, 1977-1978

Her mind was a frenzied, wild sea.

Sometimes it was eerily calm and settled; almost too much, to the point wear it was too quiet and too tamed to be normal. During the moments when the sea was calm, those around her would disappear and she would be as still and as tame as the salt sea in her head, and she would sit in bed all day long, so, so very still, and stare at the wall and think of nothing at all.

Sometimes the current would pick up, and at times like that the water would be not still, but the waves wouldn't be disastrously big. At times like that, she was okay. She was dancing and she was swaying in the sea, not too fast and not too slow.

But, many times, the current would pick up too fast, and the sky above the sea would turn dark blue and grey and then Black, and the waves would taunt her hundreds of feet in the air and sweep out her footing from underneath her and drag her under. And then, up, up, up, and then down, down, down. Her thoughts would crash together like enemies with swords and vendettas, and the hungry sharks would nip at her feet and suck her blood. You could see the inner sea storm in her eyes when you looked into them. Grey, grey, grey...

Sometimes, when there was a storm, she had a boat. But, eventually, the storm would sink the boat as water filled in and she would scream "mayday, mayday!" into the radio, but the radio was broken and now she was utterly, completely alone, the only living ones around her the fish and octopi and dolphins and hungry, hungry sharks, and the only sounds the pouring rain and the thundering wild, crashing waves. She would cling to the boat for dear life, clinging to it like her life depended on it, which it did, but soon, that would sink too, and so would she, and then she would get tossed back and forth until she had no more life in her body and she would become part of the ocean again, and when it finally calmed, as it always would, she would wash up on shore and sit in the sand and watch as the still water became her violent sea once again.

And sometimes, she craved the storm, and she would never quite understand why the water was too still and she prayed for a bad forecast.

But there was no sea, just her mind. And there were no waves, but thoughts. And there was no storm or thunder and lightening, those were just bad things and bad thoughts and sorrow and grief and regret and utter despair. And there was never a boat, but a person, whoever they may be.

Sometimes, she would make it through the storm on the boat.

It was him, before it wasn't, before he sunk.

He kept her afloat when she just was begging to sink.

He was beautiful and wonderful and he was her little baby boy, until he wasn't.

The sharks had gotten to him.

It was cold outside the first time she caught a glimpse of the ink marking his skin. They had been sitting outside on a bench together, just the two of them, watching the snow fall. She knew, deep down inside, she knew it was there the moment she saw him on the first of September earlier that year. She had reached over and shoved up his sleeve, cause, fuck, she couldn't take not seeing it anymore. She didn't know why she needed to see what she already knew was there, maybe morbid curiosity, but she did, and he had yelped out and batted her hands away. And, her little baby brother, her baby boy, who had the softest voice and the kindest touch, had yelled at her and stormed off. "Why'd you fucking do that?!" He had screamed at her, anger in his eyes, a sneer, so foreign, on his mouth. "What the fuck, Lyra-Jade?"

Earlier in the year, just as she was starting her seventh year and he his sixth, she had been tucked into a corner of the Slytherin common room when she heard a familiar name amongst the gossip of some loud third years.