𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 | 𝐡. 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫

𝟖𝟒 - 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫

"But why aren't you two going to your occulemency lessons anymore?" asked Hermione, frowning. "You better not be skipping to spend more time with one another."

Ophelia and Harry shared a brief look of deep regret before responding to Hermione's persistent nagging, it came from a good place Ophelia knew that but it was beginning to get on her nerves, simply because she didn't want to think about Snape's memory.

She couldn't sleep that night, her mind torturing her with the image of her father standing aside to someone being penalised for absolutely nothing. It stung so much more when she had spent so much of her life resenting people who did the same thing to him, sure it was systematic oppression but the fact her dad stood aside and did nothing was just as bad in her mind as those people who let those cruel laws get put in place or the people who turned him away because of his condition.

She knew Harry felt the same way, he had a built-in sense of pride about his parents from when he started Hogwarts but now his mental image of his parents crumbled by his feet, despite him actually now meeting them... writing them letters once a week... now he couldn't bring himself to reply to his father's letter, merely looking at his dad's handwriting made Harry feel deeply unsettled and repulsed.

To put it simply: the memory was eating them from the inside.

And it didn't help that Snape had gotten so much worse towards them since, he didn't even acknowledge their presence and before they never noticed if he did or not but now it was prodiminently evident.

"I've told you." muttered Harry impatiently, "Snape reckons I can carry on my own since I've got the basics." he explained, avoiding eye-contact with Hermione.

"So you've stopped having bad dreams?" asked Hermione skeptical.

"Yeah, pretty much." said Harry, taking an avoidant sip of his juice as Hermione turned to Ophelia.

"And you, you've learned to conceal the purple colour of your magic?" She pressed, as Ophelia nodded unconvincingly.

"I'm getting there." Said Ophelia, as Hermione gave her a persistent stare, "I am! Really! I practice before I go to bed-!"

"Hmm... is that before or after you sneak up to the dorm after spending forever with Harry in the common room." Said Hermione sharply, her voice as tense as Ophelia's grip on her goblet.

"After." Said Ophelia tersely, "And like Harry said, Snape reckons it's fine— so we'll be fine, look, I've pulled through before I'll pull through again."

Hermione said nothing but shook her head subtly turning to the book in her hands for a reasonable distraction, but Ophelia had noticed it but pretended not to, Hermione had already made her thoughts very clear on what she thought was Harry and Ophelia procrastinating instead of practicing useful skills, and the last thing she wanted to do was get into an argument when Hermione was right about it.

But Ophelia hadn't lied, every night she would sit on the bathroom floor with the door locked and practiced her magic, trying to dile it down to be more subtle, but the furthest she had gotten was frustrating herself when she managed to make it disappear for a hot minute before looking in the mirror to see her eyes beaming in purple.

Something that had once been a source of her pride suddenly became a disadvantage, a target... it put her on edge to think about how it could be used against her. But then she thought back to Turpin, how he had protected her from the creek of dead spirits trying to possess her, and of course—he had been there to stop them— he had been there when she—in the bath— oh stop it Ophelia, you're going to get yourself worked up — she hadn't seen him since.