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.
-----------------------
Professor Collins –
10:00pm.. Hogwarts North Gate.
— Professor Weasley
-----------------------
April –
Can't explain before tonight.
Know I will always do what I can to help you.
– Sharp
-----------------------
The words of the two back-to-back owls I received this afternoon spin like a rusty carousel in my mind, and mock me as the only two very small pieces I have of what I can sense is a much larger puzzle. But I don't know what the other pieces are, who has them, or even what image is on the goddamn puzzle box. And something about it gnaws away at some secret pace within me and makes me feel like the best solution is to burn this whole castle down.
Also, this whole day has been abysmal. Absolute clusterfuck.
The morning came and went. I didn't get to see Sebastian at breakfast like I'd hoped because Deek needed my help with a newborn hippogriff calf before my first class of the day. Deek named him Dustbunny which, to be fair, is adorable. But I haven't seen Sebastian much at all in the last couple days and I have an odd feeling the dull headache I've developed the last seventy two hours is somehow correlated.
The afternoon came and went, too, and I'm certain I missed the chance to speak to Kai while he was on castle grounds today because Imelda asked me to join her for a flying class demonstration that ended in my accompanying sweet fourth year, Barry Eddleswell – the huffliest puffler that ever did Hufflepuff – to the hospital wing after a pretty gnarly tumble.
The evening came and went in a mad dash to get ahead of grading the papers I've promised to return to my oh-so-eager first year Magical Theory students tomorrow (that I didn't get to grade this afternoon thanks to poor Barry). It all culminated in a much-longer-than-anticipated co-supervision of detention alongside Professor Howin, for a group of very unhappy students, in the beasts stables. And while I, too, am very unhappy about the situation, I admit it makes me happy to see the likes of His Royal Asshole Will Guppy and his idiot cronies literally shoveling shit. But they've sure taken their sweet time, and are now threatening my own schedule with their lagging pace.
"Move it along, kiddos, let's go, Go, GO!" I say with claps of my hands. Professor Howin has already given up trying to motivate them, bless her heart. Why anyone would want to drag their feet on chores like this that would, believe it or not, be completely over and done with the faster you do them, I'll never know. "Hustle, grasshoppers!! Curfew is in thirty!! You will be losing house points if you don't beat the clock."
As the reluctant, pre-pubescent boys finish up stashing their brooms, shovels, pails, and gloves, with an unfathomable amount of eye-rolls and oh-so beleaguered sighs, I hear Guppy mutter, "would have been a whole lot more interesting if we'd have actually had some stupid beast to torment." He snickers, and the handful of Slytherins with him join in. I note his lone Ravenclaw lackey at the back of the group looking confused.
