A/N: It's been what.. Five months? Sorry, I've had this written for a while. I just haven't posted. I'll post the third chapter soon- probably tomorrow- so... Yeah. Now that school's out for me, I'll be was more free to update. Sorry again.

WORD COUNT: 1,309

DISCLAIMER: If I owned Harry Potter, I would not be this young.

This is a gift, it comes with a price

- Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up), by Florence + the Machine

::0123456789::

Voices passed by my ear. I think I recognised some, but I couldn't process who was who.

My eyes fluttered open, and I saw fuzzy images of people rushing around, a white background.

I love you, Sage, was all I could hear. Uncle Pads. And his broken promise.

How could I not have realised he was all gold by then?

"Miss Rosier, glad to see you are awake."

I blinked, wishing things would focus just a smidgen more.

"You seem to have hyperventilated due to your fear."

"I apologise," another voice, deeper, probably a man's, apologised.

"It's not your fault I couldn't face my fear," I quickly told, hoping that the man, presumably Professor Lupin, would not feel too bad for my failure.

"Yes, but I should've asked who was ready and who wasn't," he persisted.

I shrugged.

Professor Lupin left.

"Miss Rosier, is something wrong?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

I nodded. "It seems that the world will not focus."

"Let me run some tests on your eyes," Madam Pomphrey decided.

I nodded, and she led me to a chair by a machine behind a curtain in the back of the room.

After loads of tests, Madam Pomphrey finally told me what.

"You need glasses. I've got your prescription, but you'll have to pick out frames and they'll have to deliver. The next week or two will be hard, as you will not be able to see very well, but you can push through."

I nodded. "When will I pick out the frames? Should I write a letter to my grandparents telling them the situation?"

"This weekend. But I will write your grandparents."

::0123456789::

I was dismissed by Madam Pomphrey later that day.

Life went on as a blur, hazy shapes and colourful blobs marking people and objects. Professor Lupin always glanced at me, guilty.

The night after I was released, I sat in the Common Room, doing homework.

I was glad. I could see the words clearly, just as I could before. Maybe it was the closeness, I had no idea.

Fiona was avoiding me, along with Emma, Elizabeth, and the boys. It was like I was the plague, the way that not only my year, but all years tried to stay as far away as possible. I like it, though. The isolation, the loneliness- of sorts, I guess. All the thoughts in my head kept me occupied.

Uncle Pads' voice echoed in my ears, the only words I could hear. It was like he was back to haunting me. Back for more.

::0123456789::

I was tossing and turning in my toddler bed, unable to sleep. I kept wondering why I was back at Nanna and Papi's house- they had never quite liked me before, lest they should now.

They would glance at me the flick their eyes away. I must have looked awful for them to do so. And not only that, but they would speak monotonously, only ever calling me Sagittaria. I remember Uncle Pads mentioning that to be my name, but Sage was better. It was shorter, prettier. Simpler.

Much like the time before now.

I kept remembering the night Uncle Pads left me at Flower and Prongs' house with Prongsie.

The flashes of green beautiful light and the screaming and crashes.

I started to see Pads there with Wormy, and the street and the ashes and...

My breaths were shallower than ever before. Never had I remembered these things so intensely, as though I was back there again.

Screams tore from my lips, pain and sorrow trapped inside me released.

Nanna and Papi rushed in, berating me for the screams. I just cried, unable to stop. They didn't understand, did they?

::0123456789::

I must have dosed off in my chair, I realised. I woke up with a neck cramp and textbooks and rolls of parchment spread all around me, hair messy and makeup smeared.

The fuzzy shapes beyond the objects closest to me looked like an empty common room, so I must've woken up either early or late. I'm not sure which.

"Sagittaria?" A soft voice whispered from the entrance to the girls' dormitory staircase.

I twisted my head to glance in the direction, squinting my eyes to see the speaker. To make sense of the senseless, shapeless colours.

The anonymous girl approached, gracefully setting herself on the chair arm of my chair.

"What happened? They're all staring at you oddly, and you're squinting, and there are rumours... Sage, what's going on?"

Astoria, I identified. She was a second year, but she and I understood the need to branch out of our inferno, our fiery place, our residence of death.

I turned my head to stare at the words on the page of my textbook. I clenched my hands into fists, perfectly manicured nails digging into my skin.

Did she see all the blood that stained my clothes, and the tears that drenched my face? Did she know that I was a misfit and a traitor? That my family didn't want me? That my worst fear began as a prize?

"Just a Defence lesson," was my plain response, simple words coating the true meaning. Defence Against the Dark Arts was a useless lesson, often complained about, in our Slytherin world. Did those classes matter to us, future murderers and Azkaban convicts?

"Oh. Well. Goodnight, Sage."

She pressed a miss to my forehead and hugged me, the metaphorical little sister she was.

"Goodnight, Story," I reciprocated, hugging her tightly before allowing her to stumble back to the girls dormitory steps.

"You should sleep," a voice whispered in my ear a while later, the voice of a long gone family friend.

"I guess you're right, Flower," I whispered back. She was dead and gone, but she was still there to watch out for me.

She laughed. "As my husband once told me, I'm always right." She grinned cheekily at me, reaching over to brush a few wispy blonde strands away from my face and tuck them behind my ear.

"But he's not," I pointed out, knowing for sure that he wasn't.

"Well, love, sorry. But you outta sleep. I'll tuck you in," Flower bribed.

I immediately caved. Flower was the mother I could never have. I loved acting like a kid, and her like a mom she could never be. Not with the tragic twist fate had taken.

So I cleaned up, and Flower tucked me in. She kissed my forehead and whispered a goodnight.

"I love you, Sage."

"I love you too, Mummy Flower," I whispered back sleepily, calling her the same name I had so long ago. Back before everything had happened.

And Flower walked off, facing as she did so, vanishing before she reached the door.

I miss you, I thought desperately.

::0123456789::

When I awoke in the morning, I felt terrible. My blurry vision bugged me by one belief, and I was remembering Pads... I hate it.

So I pretended I was normal and went about just as every other morning. But they blurry haze that was everything made me feel dizzy and sick. I had only just emerged from the bathroom in clothes when I fell to the floor in a heal, the whirling world and my spinning stomach combining to cause me to throw up.

Fiona promptly went me to the hospital wing, dragging me behind her. We took all secret passageways so as not to be seen, and I was groaning the whole way.

The last thing I remembered was collapsing into a hospital bed, staring up at the stark white ceiling, when, yet again, the world went black.