? POV
I attempted to find a sense of normalcy in this new life. Hiding in plain sight they called it. Pick a boring town, boring people, small enough for everyone to know you but big enough for the townspeople to be welcoming to newcomers instead of distrusting. The recipe for starting over was simple.
So simple in fact that it was maddening. I found myself circling back to the recipe and asking why this town, these people, this country. Following the formula we could've landed anywhere in the world. But we didn't. We landed here. In Forks.
BPOV
Imagine all you've ever known to be true. Now remove the most important person in your existence from these truths. What's left? Ghosts, haunting and hinting that there is something missing, you're surrounded by reminders- of what you'll never know but they are there and you know you're missing something.
It was a sick joke the universe unleashed the day I caught a remeberball. It played out very well the first I touched that cursed ball, youngest seeker in ages and all that; but, as it was a secret how Gryffindor came to possess the youngest seeker in ages, so naturally the whole school knew that it involved a game of cat and mouse with a rememberball thrown in for measure. Now, any young enterprising first year brought a rememberball to the first lesson and chose their opponent wisely, there is a smarmy git in every firsty class and one a bit less smarmy and a bit less gittish, both always fall to indignation when handed detention instead of a trial on their House Team 'Harry got on the team!' was heard quite frequently those first weeks of school. This was so commonplace that new prefects were told to confiscate these useless little trinkets until the first flying lesson was over.
Madame Hooch had come trotting inside with a small and slightly pudgy first year and in her brusque manner quickly identified me as a prefect, sent me outside to watch the first years, and put an end to my protests that I had to return to Professor Binns's lecture on the Goblin Wars. As I quickly rerouted my course towards the Pitch I heard the distinct cadence of Professor McGonagall's boots behind me. She was moving quickly and we fell in stride. I had always admired my head of house. She was severe and terrifying, but her presence comforted me. Her face rarely changed besides the thinning of lips and a quirk of an eyebrow here and there, but something in her eyes spoke to me. I often thought of her with a thick bushy mustache that would twitch ever so slightly as she held back reactions from the more amusing students in her classes. As we fell in step I filled her in on the goings on and noticed the light in her eyes as she described a new transfiguration technique she developed over the summer.
Shortly we arrived at the Pitch and she hauled the gobsmacked young Potter wannabe away and tossed me the rememberball. I was in charge of the first years until Madame Hooch returned and McGonagall instructed me to teach the basics of broom control. As a fairly good flyer I was happy to do so, and was impressed with several of the first years confidence, maybe the showmanship demonstrated by a few of their number bolstered their little hearts.
The red smoke swirling inside finally gave name to this feeling I'd had so many times before. The irritating and ever present feeling of unease- I've forgotten something very important. There had been other instances, where I was reminded of something so strongly but I just couldn't put my finger on what that something was. But this one… there was something so visceral about that red smoke; like it was taunting me. I dropped the rememberball quickly, while holding it I'd had visions of red eyes set in gleaming skin. Eyes with malevolent intent, of that the only thing I was sure. I remembered searing pain, worse than what I imagined the Cruciatus to be and my scar ran ice cold.