Emerson Wilmore was an exemplary Ravenclaw student, known for her unwavering dedication to academics and an unyielding moral compass. However, things took a twisted and deviated turn in her life after her boyfriend, Cedric Diggory, was murdered by L...
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♫ Hearts Don't Break Around Here – Ed Sheeran
Emerson felt the room dissolve at the edges before the second student even reached the chair.
She registered pieces of it distantly, like sound underwater. Padma this time, she thought, though she couldn't be certain of which twin sister it was through the ringing that started somewhere behind her ears the moment the trunk door slammed shut on the last Boggart.
Olivia's hand was still locked around hers, fingers laced so tightly Emerson could feel her own pulse hammering against Olivia's palm.
Her Boggart was gone and Mattheo was not standing at the front of the classroom anymore with empty eyes, his father's cruelty carved into his face and his wand pointed directly at her chest.
But her mind somehow did not understand that. It accepted the illusion as truth. The image replayed relentlessly behind her eyes, each time lasting a fraction longer than before.
Breathe, she reminded herself.
She couldn't though. Her breath went shallow and quick sometime during Amycus's interrogation, and she hadn't noticed until now. The adrenaline that carried her through the lie about her father and Cedric began to ebb and leave something worse in its place.
Her fingers unconsciously tightened around Olivia's until she realised she was probably hurting her.
Olivia looked across immediately. "Em?" She questioned in a hushed voice.
"I'm fine," She lied automatically. She wasn't.
The Boggart in front of the room shifted into a shape Emerson couldn't focus on. Voices rose faintly. Amycus's laugh cracked through the air like a whip. None of it mattered. Her mind kept circling back, helplessly and uselessly, to the thing that wanted his face and made itself hollow.
You should have known better.
Her stomach turned. She swallowed hard against the nausea building, and pressed her free hand flat against her thigh beneath the desk. She dug half-moons into her own skin with her nails, desperate to stay tethered to a body that suddenly felt like it belonged to someone else.
Mattheo recognised every warning sign. Long before either of them admitted what existed between them, he memorised the way panic announced itself inside of her that day when Harry used Sectumsempra on Draco.
The bell rang. Emerson flinched so hard at the sound that Olivia turned to look at her properly for the first time since they'd sat back down.
Students immediately pushed back chairs and gathered their belongings, grateful to escape. Emerson moved before anyone else could stop her. She yanked her bag over one shoulder with clumsy fingers.
