RYTHM • 𝐇𝐨𝐠𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐜𝐲

𝔼𝕕𝕘𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕟

She couldn't hear anything besides that same ringing in her ears.

She opened her eyes.

Her surroundings had shifted. She was in a room with accents of crimson red and golden sunlight streaming in through the windows. But that wasn't what caught her attention. It was the three students who stared down at her with mouths agape, in awe of her presence.

Two of them, a boy with raven hair and circular glasses and another with violently red hair and a dusting of freckles on his pale skin, tried desperately to say something to her.

But Piper couldn't hear them and she was so frantic that she couldn't focus enough to read their lips. She must have looked terrified. She cowered on the floor, her hands over her ears, desperately trying to adjust her hearing aids so that she could hear them.

The third, a girl with extremely bushy hair and knowing brown eyes realized Piper's frantic motions. And Piper couldn't believe it when the girl began to use sign language to speak to her.

Are you deaf?

The girl signed by bringing her right finger up to her ear, then her chin, and then pointing at Piper. She nodded and the girl turned to the two boys, speaking to them and explaining to them that Piper couldn't hear them. Finally, Piper got her hearing aids adjusted, the ringing was gone, and the normal buzz of sound filled her ears.

The girl continued to sign to her.

Hearing aids?

She signed and Piper nodded.

"I can hear you now." She said. "My hearing aids got knocked out for a moment there but I fixed them. I can hear you now." "Hearing aids?" The redhead asked. "They're little devices that help you hear, right?" The boy with the round glasses asked and Piper nodded.

"Well, if you ask me I'm more concerned on how you came through the bloody wall and left that nasty mark." Piper turned and there behind her, on a wall laden with sand stone, was that same dastardly green crack.

"I came through that?"

She asked slowly and they all nodded.

"Where am I?"

"Hogwarts."

"Still?"

The three did not seem to understand her frustration.