Silver Tongue - A Hogwarts Legacy Fanfiction

Chapter 1: Permafrost

It was early morning. The sun had not yet risen over the horizon, and even the songbirds that usually welcomed the day were still deep in slumber. A sharp chill filled the room, even with the windows shut, and Maia bitterly regretted allowing the fire in the hearth to go out during the night. She pulled the covers tighter around her shivering frame for only a brief moment before resigning with a sigh, and throwing them off entirely.

Goosebumps sprouted across her skin, and she shuddered before quickly swinging her legs off the side of the huge canopy bed, feeling for her slippers in the dark with her toes. She was unwilling to touch the cold stone floor without them. Once she had slipped the warm, soft protection onto her feet, she next reached out feeling for her robe in the space near her side table. Her fingertips brushed the fluffy fabric, and she snatched it up, pulling it on quickly, and tying it tight at her waist. The enchanted robe felt warm as if it had been resting by a roaring fire seconds before she donned it.

No longer in danger of freezing to death, she stood up to find her wand lying on the floor where it had fallen sometime in the past few hours. The wood was polished smooth and felt heavier than its size allowed. It almost buzzed with power as it came to life in her hand. "Lumos," she muttered, her voice still rough with sleep. The tip of her wand lit brightly, as did the room around her, cast in a pale light as cool as the air outside. Shuffling her way to the fireplace, she poked her wand tip at the wood left there and cleared her throat before speaking. "Incendio."

The fire roared back to life, immediately chasing away some of the bitter cold, and making her feel marginally better. She always hated when the room was dark now. It was difficult to ground herself in reality again if she couldn't see. The nightmares that had plagued her since last year were worsening. They no longer released her right away upon awakening, instead lingering before her eyes for a few moments, taunting her and leaving her deeply unsettled. They were always full of the same things. Dark wizards, goblins, giant spiders, ogres clad with wrought armor, dugbogs and mongrels, all with one goal in mind. Killing her. Red flashes of light that left her writhing in agony begging to be killed.

She felt her eyes prick with emotion before shoving the feelings carefully into the box in her mind that was their prison. She had carefully curated it. Tended it. The box that kept all of the horrors in her past contained where they couldn't hurt anyone. Including her. Practicing Occlumency was never on her list of plans until the nightmares began. Now it was like a drug she needed with every waking breath. The pin holding her fragile mind together against all odds. She felt certain at times she was on the precipice of unraveling. Perhaps she even deserved it after all she had done.

The nightmares were why she was now awake before even the sky. She could now see the faintest tint of pink at the top of the trees that her large arched window faced. She rarely slept until dawn these days. It was just one of the many ways her life had changed in a little over a year. The ways it had shattered. Standing alone in the unfamiliar bedchamber she now called her own, it had never been more clear how different things were going to be. Last year on this day, she had lost both of her parents in "the incident." The incident she couldn't, and didn't want to remember.

It was her birthday.

She lit a few beeswax candles that drifted lazily around the room, and busied herself with preparing for the day. Her clothing had already been chosen for her, laid out neatly on a claw foot chair by the lavatory door. She eyed them with disgust. They were too formal. Too uncomfortable. But it was expected, nay required of her to don them, so she did. The green silk blouse with the poet sleeves and a ribbon that tied at her throat was decent enough, but the restrictive corset she was forced to wear under it was awful and it pinched as she pulled it tight using her magic. The petticoat and charcoal grey skirt were heavy and long. She was sure to trip when walking. The shoes were dreadful and made her feet hurt, but she dutifully laced them regardless. Each stitch she pulled on felt like it weighed down her soul as much as her body. A large brooch, silver with a green jade background and a raised ivory carving of some distant ancestor she'd already forgotten the name of, was fastened into the middle of the bow on her shirt neck. The reflection in the tall standing mirror looked like an entirely different person than herself, even with the messy hair and puffy eyes that showed her lack of decent sleep.