𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨-𝙧.𝙖.𝙗

𝟯𝟮-𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀

PETER GETS JO HOOKED ON CIGARETTES.

He always has a pack of them whenever he comes over, and he's over a lot now. Jo thinks he appreciates her company, lousy as it may be. Pete can ramble on for hours about whatever's making him feel like shite-girls, work, James, war. He can go on and on and on and all Jo has to do is offer up supportive remarks every now and then, ("that's shite, Pete," "no, you're right," "yeah, I get it,"), in between long inhalations of smoke. She's gotten better at it, hardly any coughing now, and she's developed a taste for Golds. Eventually, Pete just started to bring Jo her own packs. She has two stashed up in her room.

They help with anxieties that have seem to become a permanent fixture in Jo's chest, constantly worming around in her gut like they have always been there. Whenever it gets too much, Jo breathes in the smoke and lets it get to her head, clouding it up and smoothing over the wrinkled thoughts that keep her up at night.

She smokes one every night as she reads Regulus's passages in their shared journal. He's writing more, like he said he would, but it's like he's grappling for innocuous details-the fruits Kreacher cuts up every morning, the studying he's managing to get done, the anticipation for the rest of their final year. Regulus is careful to exclude certain details and he makes no reference to his wellbeing. Jo wants to be mad but mostly it just makes her nauseous.

Jo is pliable now, her anxieties have melted her and now she is wet clay-sitting and waiting for the next harrowing event to mold her into whatever shape she's needed as. She is useless, waiting, willing the time by.

Her dreams get worse. She has them every night now and wakes up with a scream rising in her throat, feeling like there is still water sloshing in her lungs. All Jo can see when she closes her eyes is a muted, sickly yellow. And there's always this throbbing pain in her head, in her temples. It's a rhythmic, pulsing pain that makes her eyes twitch.

A lot of her time is spent dwelling. On Regulus, Crouch, her dreams, they all sort of blend together in her mind, details dripping into one another, Regulus's skin tinted yellow and Crouch's smirk leaking drops of blood and the corridors of Hogwarts castle flooded with icy, stabbing ocean water.

It's snowing Christmas Eve morning, white powdery snow settling on the pane of her window, when Jo wakes up with that same throbbing in her head and horror creeping and tightening around her chest, and she decides that it's enough. And after twenty minutes of rummaging around her mother's belongings stored up in the freezing cold attic, Jo settles by her bedroom window with a dusty crystal ball balancing on her lap. She flings open her window, and lets thick snowflakes flutter onto her cheek, onto her arm, onto her carpet as smoke from her freshly lit cigarette drifts out the window. Juniper sits on the end of her bed and shoots Jo long, dissatisfied looks.

And Jo's really not quite sure what she's doing with it. Her time in Divination years earlier was spent drifting off and bribing Dorcas to write her essays for her. For a moment, she just stares, blinking rapidly as if doing so would make some sort of image or message or something appear. But the only thing that accomplishes is worsening her already pounding headache.

Cold wind blows in from her window and Jo shudders. She's in a rough state, staring down at that stupid thing. The bags under her eyes are so heavy she can almost feel them dragging down her face, her cheeks are hollow and her skin sallow. Jo narrows her eyes as the clouds in the ball drift closer and closer. biting down on her lip and holding her cigarette neatly between two fingers. Blinking, she leans in. The clouds are knotting and twisting around each other, and Jo is holding her breath.

"Oi!"

Jo nearly jumps out of her skin. Her fright knocks the crystal ball out of her lap, and it slams against her carpet with a thud. Jo looks up to give Remus an unimpressed look.