GREY WINGS || A Hogwarts Story

Chapter Seven

The picture at the top is Grey's wand. 

TW - self-harm and bullying

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The Christmas holidays were fast approaching. Grey had been pouring all his attention into his friends and studies, more devotedly than ever before. This year, he was feeling particularly disheartened that both his friends were going home for Christmas. Even though the extra time he'd been spending with them was partly a distraction technique, Grey genuinely relished it. His relationship with Richard was different this year like they were somehow closer. 

As for his predicament, he'd begun to stack up several ways to banish potential visions. They weren't necessarily healthy strategies though. So far the most useful technique that Grey had found was burning himself subtly with his wand. When a headache began, he'd use a sparks spell as sporadically as possible on his skin, then if the wound was noticed he'd claim it to be an accident. The burning somehow dispelled the migraine. His discovery of the aid was quite accidental however it wasn't always easy to play off. Nurse Sullivan was definitely getting suspicious as to why Grey came into the hospital wing with burns every week and he could only feign clumsiness or other accidental happenings so many times. Thankfully he was an excellent liar. But the scars were getting irritating. If the situation was too crowded to use this trick he'd go with the next best available injury to cause that could look unintentional. 

Grey had also been making special efforts to avoid Dumbledore. Obviously, he couldn't skip transfiguration but he had been practicing keeping his mind as blank as possible during the lessons. He'd even found a book in the library on Occlumency. Grey knew if Dumbledore found out about his coping strategies, there would be a world of trouble. 

However, despite all this, Grey could not stop the dreams. There now wasn't a single night when he didn't remember them and they were mostly about Credence or Grindelwald and that dark castle. Sometimes he had one about school or someone he knew. Those ones all came true a day or so later. But thankfully, they were mostly uneventful and brief - manageable was the term Grey used. Besides, he liked to reason that they were all just pointless coincidences. 

Two weeks before the Christmas holidays were due to start, Grey and his friends wandered down the drafty corridors as more snow fell in freezing sheets outside. The trio was desperately trying to waste their Saturday afternoon and the library was far too cold to sit in for hours. Usually, at this time of year, students flooded to Hogsmeade on weekends but since Grindelwald was still at large, all the trips had been canceled. Grey hardly minded. Hogsmeade was an easier place to get beat up without the presence of teachers. However, it was clear that Derric was disappointed. 

So instead, the three boys paced the many lengths of the castle, bundled in their cloaks and constantly moving to keep warm. The upside is they spent hours talking. Grey felt he had really gotten to know his two friends whilst expertly avoiding giving them any truthful information about his own life. Obviously, he was honest about regular things like what he enjoyed, etc. It was just topics like childhood, home life, and health that he falsified his answers about. Grey often felt relieved that neither of the boys were legilimens. 

That afternoon, the conversation swayed, as it often did, to quidditch. Slytherin had beaten Hufflepuff in the most recent game and his friends were discussing the finer details of the match. 

"I'm not supporting the action," Richard was reasoning, "I'm just saying that hitting a bludger directly into someone's face isn't technically against the rules."

Derric scoffed. "Fine, but you can agree that it was a horrid move."

"Oh, absolutely." Richard chuckled.