Ten years after I began at Hogwarts, Sebastian Sallow is back. And he's Professor Sallow now. He disappeared after the fall of Ranrok and Rookwood, after I lost Professor Fig, and after Ominis and I couldn't keep him from losing himself. But I never...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
To say my blood is boiling would be an understatement. I am enraged. Shocked. Furious.
And just so confused.
I will have an explanation.
I pound on the potions room door. "SHARP!"
My legs marched on autopilot to bring me here, my mind too distracted to think it through. If my three years as a student here hadn't been enough to sear this school's layout into my memory, then the subsequent years of regular visits to this very spot certainly were.
I pound again. "SHARPIE!"
No response. I feel as if I might explode.
"SHARPS! OPEN THE DOOR." I beat both of my fists wildly on the door, shouting against its rugged wood panels until I hear the hardware begin to jostle.
The moment the door gives way I burst through, forcing Professor Aesop Sharp unsteadily back from the power of my entrance and palpable anger.
He looks at me with his stupid, deep, knowing eyes that have stupidly always reminded me of how my father used to look at me. His stupid graying dark hair and stupid salt-and-pepper scruff frames his stupid face and makes him appear softer and wiser than when I first met him. The invisible, permanent ache that lives just behind his stupid furrowed brow is as visible to me as ever. Ugh, my father had that, too. They are so alike it hurts sometimes, especially in moments like this.
Stupid, stupid stupid.
No words are spoken. I don't even know where to begin. I just stand there, feeling exposed, heart pounding, unable to catch my breath, searching his face for any hint of explanation, desperate for answers. Wanting to be so angry with him, specifically, but not knowing exactly how or why it should or could be justified.
"April–"
"No." I cut him off and raise my hand in an abrupt stopping motion. A part of me knows I may not be ready for this. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the story, there is no possible way I'm going to like any of it and I can't bring myself to meet his eyes.
After another brief moment that feels like a lifetime, Sharp lowers his shoulders and head towards me and calmly suggests, "Would you like to sit down?"
I hate how not stupid he is.
The gentleness he extends to me almost brings me to tears. I nod and we walk into his office off of the main classroom. It looks almost exactly as it did when I was a student. He walks towards the two chartreuse, tufted velvet chairs where we have spent so many late nights sharing rich conversations. The chairs flank an ornate but well loved wooden side table. It displays an inlay of the Rod of Asclepius - a snake twisted around a rod.
The night I first saw this table - this symbol - was Christmas eve of my sixth year. Sharp and I were two of very few that season who spent it at the castle. In a bizarre twist, right on the cusp of the year 1891, we spent Christmas eve together, decorating a small table-top tree upon this very table, and drinking butterbeer which may or may not have been spiked with just enough firewhiskey. Our secret.
