PRAETERITUS - 𝕊𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕦𝕤 𝔹𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕤 𝔻𝕒𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕖𝕣

13 - Love and Hate

꧁•⊹٭𝟷𝟹 𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙷𝚊𝚝𝚎٭⊹•꧂

Twirling memories and familiar faces shifted into fairytales, which evaporated into darkness before reforming anew. Half formed thoughts flittered through her conscious at their own will. A hard, unyielding surface pressed back at her, unforgiving and cool against her skin. Voices skittered around her mind, weaving in and out of her consciousness. The darkness had turned into light, which prickled at her vision in blinding shards.

Half-lucid, her eyes fluttered open to the onslaught. Light flooded her vision, causing them to snap back closed as a wince shuddered through her body. Coming to, she gently urged them open into a squint, pushing herself up into a sitting position as she took in her surroundings.

Where was she? With a window directly to her left, she seemed to be lying on a thick, wooden windowsill. To her right, quite a way below her, was an ascending staircase. The staircase leading to the Gryffindor dorms. Her hand knocked into something as she shifted her weight. Who's sunglasses were these?

Fragments of memories rushed back to her as she groaned, putting on the mysterious sunglasses to block out the light. Hopefully it would block some of the memories too. A headache had begun to creep between her eyes, inflamed by a grating cluster of voices coming from the common room.

With an unceremonious jump from the ledge, she followed the noise to shout at the people who were making her day worse. Apart from the few voices, the area seemed deserted. Finally reaching the end of the stone steps, she rounded to corner to accost her adversaries.

"Olivia?"

"Ugh, it's you." She groaned, spinning around and leaning on the wall as if putting him out of sight would make him disappear.

As if her day couldn't get any worse, none other than Harry Potter stood in front of her, his gaze shocked but undoubtedly delighted at the opportunity to win her over. His entourage flanked him, peering at her curiously.

"I take it you were at the party then?" Hermione asked.

Olivia grunted an affirmative, face still pressed against the wall, her hungover brain unable to come up with a solution to escape the trio.

"It's 6 in the morning. Why are you awake so early?" Ron was horrified.

Olivia muttered something unintelligible about a "stupid window" and some other obscenities the third years didn't wish to repeat. But then something snagged her mind and she turned around to them, delayed curiosity piqued.

"Wait, if it's 6am what are you all doing here in the common room?" She asked, suspicion filtering through her mind.

"Nothing!" Ron almost cut her off with how quickly he replied, "We were just - uh - checking the fireplace."

Hermione shook her head, exasperated.

"Seriously, Ron. You're a worse liar than my grandma's cat," She turned to face Olivia, "We were doing a task for James and Sirius."

At this, her suspicion roared to the surface.

"And what exactly were you doing?" She questioned, eyes narrowed.

There was a beat of silence as the three looked at each other, unsure if they should disclose the information.

"We were in Snape's office!" Harry burst out, unable to hold the secret from her, "They wanted us to look around for anything suspicious, but then Snape came in and we had to hide out there all night."

She blinked at them in utter bewilderment as the three shifted on their feet sheepishly. Then the anger started. It began with a single drop, and then another, until it came pouring in a torrential storm.