Stardust_And_Syntax
Eleanor Thorne does not have the luxury of being mediocre. As a Muggle-born sorted into the viper's nest of Slytherin House, her daily existence is a brutal war of attrition. To survive, she has built impenetrable mental walls, mastering wandless magic and Occlumency to become the most brilliant, unapproachable witch of her age. She has absolutely no time for nonsense.
She certainly has no time for Sirius Black.
Loud, reckless, and fiercely arrogant, the Gryffindor rebel is used to the world falling at his feet. But Eleanor's complete and utter indifference to his charm sparks a collision between them that Sirius never saw coming. What begins as a bruised ego quickly spirals into a desperate, all-consuming obsession to break through her icy exterior.
But Sirius isn't the only one watching her.
Cassius Nott, the undisputed prince of the Slytherin dungeons, has spent four years hopelessly and silently in love with the one girl his family would kill him for touching. While Sirius rebelled against his pureblood legacy, Cassius wears his like a suffocating crown. Terrifying, quiet, and deeply observant, Cassius plays the perfect pureblood heir to protect the people he cares about-but as the Dark Lord's power grows and the pressure to take the Mark becomes absolute, Cassius's carefully constructed mask begins to crack.
As their seventh year plunges them into the violent beginnings of the First Wizarding War, Eleanor finds herself recruited into the Order of the Phoenix and caught in a devastating triangle. It is a battle of loud collisions and quiet ruins, where loyalties will be shattered, covers will be blown, and a single, tragic night in October will strip Eleanor of almost everything she loves.
A story of surviving the dark, the heavy cost of rebellion, and what happens when the boy you left behind shows up at your door in the middle of a storm, eight years too late.