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⸻ SEPTEMBER, 1976 // hogwarts, scotland
The depths behindthose hazel irises held nothing but the void of any emotional temperament. Manya shifted and shuffled on her bed constantly, and beneath her, Harriet laid silently with a mind more awake than it had ever been.
Her eyes glared up toward the under of Manya's bunk, listening to the noises that came with every shuffle she would make. It wouldn't have mattered if she slept in the other bunk — where Pandora slept as if she had been dead — because Harriet had accepted hours ago that resting was unlikely when her mind would not cooperate.
There was a brewing of strangeness and peculiarity within her that hadn't left since she first stepped onto the train — the moment she realised her life was never going to be the same. It was uncanny and even more so, frustrating that Harriet was unable to determine why.
Initially, she had thought it was because of the change. She was in a new place, surrounded by people that, a day and a half ago, she hadn't known existed. The people she met have been nice; most of them. Her dorm mates had been accommodating — what more could she ask for? But at the end of the day, they were still strangers and she was still one to them.
Both Manya Milanova and Pandora Rosier spoke with posh accents that you would probably only hear in the richest parts of London. It was unfamiliar and almost foreign; Harriet expected nothing less when she had practically been locked, up all her life, in a small house somewhere secluded in the highlands of Scotland.
For what seemed like the first time in the last hour, she shifted her body onto the side, staring out through the window and into the empty sky. There was a subtle amber glow that told Harriet that the day was soon to start, yet, even after the exhaustion of last night, she remained awake through since.
The clock that hung on the stone wall had a hand slowly creeping toward five. A deep and frustrated exhale escaped her lips as she pulled her body up — deciding it was far too late to even attempt to get a blink of sleep.
Harriet attempted her best to remain silent as she stepped toward the door; but every time her foot touched the hard wood floors, a squeaky creak would break through. Her face scrunched up into a cringe as the door squealed behind her, a loud click as she gently pulled it closed. Noises were louder when the silence was screaming.
It was a surprise for her to find the main floor of the tower preoccupied in the early morning. The sun was yet to rise high enough for the natural light to spark sight, instead, it was lit by warm lamps decorated around the room.
There was a girl, long brunette hair, seated on a desk by one of the windows. Her head hung low and the quill in her hand moved efficiently as she wrote. Harriet's eyes then moved to the middle of the room, where two boys were seated on the floor by the fireplace. Both had dark brown hair, one of them much curlier; and it was only when they spun their head toward her that she realised the curly-haired one may be a girl. She couldn't be entirely certain though, only certain that they both had been unfamiliar to her.
