A/N: Revised - 25/03/2020.

AWF

"You're sure that you don't want to go to the Hallowe'en Feast?" questions Sally-Anne, whose French plaits are smattered with tiny, glowing pumpkins that spit seeds at anyone she dislikes when they pass by. She dislikes just about everyone, so people have taken extra care in avoiding her today.

Hem yawns, body on autopilot as she adjusts the strap of her messenger bag on her shoulder and makes her way to the entrance.

"All right, then, suit yourself." Sally-Anne shrugs as they both exit the common room with others following. "I'll bring back something for you. You like candy apples, don't you? Wait, I'll just ask Hermione." She waves as they begin to separate, purposefully ignoring the annoyed hisses of the other snakes that try to get past her. The seeds seem like they'd hurt, but luckily, Sally-Anne likes her. For some reason. "See you later, Hemera! Try not to get lost, yeah?"

Lifting a hand, Hem flutters her fingers for a moment; a weak form of a wave. It's the best she can do.

. . .

. . .

Hem finds herself sitting in one of the dungeon's alcoves, bag beside her ̶ (the strap is still over her shoulder since she's left it behind a few times before) ̶ as she inattentively sketches the Bloody Baron, who, at some point, has sat down beside her in silence. Hem doesn't really take in his features on a conscious level, but the paper is eventually marked harshly with a three-quarter view of his gaunt, silvery face while he stares at nothing in particular.

She doesn't seem to do light lines, it would appear. With how carelessly she draws, one would expect it. But the lines are hard, like she's holding the pencil too tight and putting too much pressure on the paper. Hem doesn't feel any of it, but the writer's callus on her fingers are there as proof.

"I've heard from somewhere that art is a reflection of the artist," Harry commented while watching her sketch. It was probably during DADA. "What do you think your art reflects, Hem?"

(Faces that don't smile and eyes that penetrate the soul. Animals in cages; a goldfish dead inside a fishbowl. A train station, a bench and a boy in black.)

"Rien de bon."

Being near a ghost is curious, she decides. It's hard for her to sense a change in temperature, but she manages to feel the coolness when around the spectres. (The Slytherin ghost is the only one that she apparently spends any time with, though. Why he appears to gravitate towards her; she's uncertain of the answer.) Maybe she's actually freezing, but the ability to feel something for a change is welcomed.

The abrupt smell of something foul, however ̶ (and it must be truly nauseating, if she can smell it so strongly) ̶ is not.

Snapping her head up, Hem feels the rumble of the ground as seemingly giant footsteps vibrate from just a little further down the corridor. The Bloody Baron's wide, black eyes meet hers, silently grounding her while also destabilising her as her mind panics and triggers the process of drowning everything that she is.

"Go," he rasps, his chains rattling loudly ̶ (too loud in her ears, piercing) ̶ when he stands as the creature draws closer. There's the sound of something being dragged along, something large and heavy that scrapes against the floor. "Go!"

Hem jolts, spilling out of the alcove and into the corridor. It takes her a moment to right herself, and a few moments more to fathom the fact that she's not standing alone.

(It's too close. It wasn't supposed to be that close. How did it get that close?)

Dull, tiny eyes upon a small head that's rather disproportionate to the rest of its grotesque, greyish body locate her with a hazy blink and a confused grunt. As though it's taking a while to process the fact that she's in its line of sight when she wasn't only moments before. By its side, her mind identifies a giant, wooden club that could crush her easily.

(She bleeds red, just like any other human. Even if pure-blood elitists think her veins are filled with mud.)

Said giant, wooden club moves, about to lifted so that it can squash her under the force of it. It's then that her head abruptly fills with a bubble of fuzz and snow, her ears ringing and the frequency rapidly rising in volume.

(Dragged down to the depths of the virulent sea of her mindscape, Hem drowns.)

. . .

. . .

Tom frowns at her, frustrated. That's the word. "Why are you like this?" he hisses, hands in her hair. He's pulling her curls so hard. It should hurt, but it doesn't. Weird. "Why don't you answer me when I talk to you? You're not shy, so you can't use that excuse. I know what shy girls are like." His eyes are dark. Too dark. "They don't last long here; those scum like it when they're bashful."

"I don't know," Hem whispers. She stares and stares. He doesn't seem to like it very much. What's the word? Aggressive. Angry. "My brain… doesn't like me. I don't like it." It's terrible. What did she do to get a brain like this? Hermione has a good brain. Why is hers bad?

His face ̶ (Tom's face) ̶ scrunches up. Upset? But he… His eyes are lighter than before. (What a strange boy. Why's he in her dreams?) "You talk as if it is separate from you."

"That works," she replies. She doesn't know how long it took to do just that. His lips thin. "I'm ill; the doctor says so. Men… Mentally. Head isn't right. Doesn't work the way… The way it should."

Her hands are tiny. Theia ̶ (that's the lady's name, right?) ̶ gets sad when she looks at them. Not smooth. Not clean. Hem tries to hide them away. She doesn't want the nice lady to be sad. She doesn't want any of the others to be sad.

(But they are. It's her fault, isn't it?)

Tom talks. He asks things. But she can't reply anymore. Her tiny hands grab his thin wrists and he calms down.

"They say the same about me," he admits. Later. "That I don't work the way I should."

. . .

. . .

Hem gasps ̶ (and it's an odd, odd sensation) ̶ feeling off-balanced and cold and clammy. White fills her vision and static sings in her ears. Where is she? What's happening? She can't breathe; she can't hear. Is she moving? Yes. But why?

A pained roar that vibrates horrifically throughout her entire body rips through the static. It brings the ringing back. Her mind manages to clear enough for her to realises that she's trembling, stumbling through a large corridor of some sort. Something's behind her, making the place rumble as it seems to flail about. Something breaks.

Giant? No, corrects her head. It's a troll.

(Why is it so close? Why is it so close to her?)

Hem nearly trips, but she manages to catch herself with the wall near her. She stops.

It's not until the creature's footsteps sound like they're aggressively advancing, like it's trying to chase after her, that her body breaks into a run. She doesn't know where, and the haze in her mind hasn't completely lifted yet ̶ (does it ever completely lift?) ̶ so a destination never comes to mind.

(Where is she?)

She's not fond of running. The blur of movement boggles up her head more than usual and no one in the Granger family is all that active. They tried tennis once. Hermione swears that Hem was actually rather good at it ̶ ("You have great reflexes, Hem! Even if your stamina is lacking, but that's to be expected." Her sister beams proudly) ̶ until someone in another court accidentally sent a tennis ball flying towards her head.

It didn't hit her, in the end. All Hem remembers is a crater with a burnt ball in it and a tennis net on fire. Theia and Matthias decided that they'd be getting their exercise by walking through secluded parks, instead. That's not as bad.

(She ruins everything, doesn't she? Her lungs are burning. Her legs hurt. Is she on fire?)

. . .

. . .

Maybe it's trying to follow the sound of her footfalls echoing off the walls; or perhaps it has a strong sense of smell that ignores its own stench. As it crashes into the walls as if blinded, debris no doubt littering the corridor, Hem's body comes to an abrupt stop just by a set of stairs. (Where is she?) Panting and attempting to blink away the spots in her vision, she turns towards the giant creature without thought.

(The dungeons, answers her head. Finally.)

The time it takes for her to comprehend the fact that it is, in fact, blinded and without its club ̶ (she thinks there was a club; could be wrong) ̶ is much longer than usual. Granted, she's in a rather precarious situation, no?

Pencils of varying sizes ̶ (it's not normal for pencils to be so long-looking, is it?) ̶ have been jammed under its fingernails and in its eye sockets, Hem notices. (Its blood is murky and weird. Is that what Draco thinks her blood is like?) It moans in agony, trying to claw the foreign objects out but only making the wounds worse by ramming them further into its flesh.

(Where are the pencils from and how did they get embedded into the troll?)

It doesn't stop staggering forward and Hem's frozen while her brain processes the fact that it'll crush her against the wall with its repulsive feet soon enough. If she doesn't move, that is. Which would be a good show of self-preservation.

What would dying be like, though, she absently wonders? Will she go to some sort of afterlife to be judged for her actions in life? (What has she done with her life?) Become a ghost? Being one doesn't sound very pleasant, really. The Bloody Baron looks so very sad all the time, especially when he gazes at another ghost with stab wounds marring her torso.

Being alive isn't all that fun, Hem understands, but she can't imagine being a spirit stuck to one location would be much better.

(Hermione wouldn't have to worry about her anymore if she's gone. Theia and Matthias don't have to waste resources on her dull existence. She'd be dead, and they'd mourn her, but they wouldn't have to worry about how she'll survive in the cruel, cruel world.)

Then again, there might be something about needing to have a strong emotional attachment to the location and/or strongly fearing death. (Maybe.) She probably wouldn't be able to become a ghost in the first place, then.

(Harry and Ron would be shocked and crestfallen, but they'd get over her. They've only known her for a month or two, right? The same goes for Sally-Anne, Fred and George… All of them. They'd move on relatively quick. She's only a mentally ill girl with no importance in the world, after all.)

It's getting closer now, gaining speed as it leaves destruction in its wake. Is her perception of time messing with her again?

"I don't know what will happen if you die, Hem. If I'll still dream of a white King's Cross Station but no curly-haired girl with cold, grey eyes to keep me company. And, since I plan to live for a long time, I'd like it if you would take some precautions so that you can do the same."

Hem's bounding up the stairs before she's fully aware that she's doing such a thing.

There's a terrible crash behind her, but she doesn't look back.

AWF

A/N: Reviews are love. Reviews are life. It's never ogre. Thank you for reading.