Sharlen Down stood at the main gate to the Hogwarts castle grounds, one gloved hand holding the wrought rail, hesitating to push it open and walk inside. She was going over her Master's instructions in her head, overthinking them. It was maybe the first instruction he'd ever given her that was in any way unclear.

"Is this really it?" she'd asked two hours before, after they Apparated at the gates. Her eyes raced to devour every detail of the massive grounds set before her, as though at any second it would be taken from her. The sun still stood in the sky when they arrived.

"Yes. You are to wait here." That part she understood.

"I'm not going with you?" she asked, turning wide eyes to him.

"Of course not. What have I told you about being inconspicuous?"

Her gaze returned to the castle then, as it did now. She was actually grateful for some more time alone here, to prepare. "What… should I do?"

Her Master had opened the gate then and walked inside alone, closing them behind him with a wave of his wand. "Enter with the other students. Act like you belong."

She watched him walk away across the vast grounds, watched him enter the castle doors. I'm all the time since, she remained at the gates, taking in every detail greedily as the sun set and the castle windows lit with candlelight. But as time went on and the darkness settled, her anxiety grew. Where would the students enter? She looked down the road to the train platform. Wouldn't it be odd if a swarm of new and returning students saw her waiting there by the gate?

Sharlen turned back to the castle, looking at the glassy reflection of the moon on the big, black lake. The wind picked up around her and she realized with a bright stir in her chest that she would be able to fly around these grounds.

Inconspicuous, she thought, shaking her head. With a breath, she transformed into a snowy owl, flying up to settle atop the stone pillar of the entrance. It's so simple.

From about a mile out, she could see smoke down the tracks as the Hogwarts Express arrived. She ruffled her feathers with excitement-partially because she had never seen something with an engine, but mostly because this was the closest she'd been to him in six years.

She sat completely still at the idea, watching the train get closer. Students were hanging outside the train windows, looking excitedly at the castle. The energy around the train crescendoed as it came to a stop at the platform, students immediately filing out in droves. Sharlen's eyes widened, rapidly losing count of them, the color bands of their auras merging and melding as the crowd coming toward her grew.

How could so many people exist in one place?

She realized—heart in her throat, pulse devastatingly alive—that she wasn't ready for this.

"Firs' years!" came a booming voice across the platform, swinging a lantern. "Firs' years, this way!" The voice belonged to a humongous man, more than twice as tall as the tallest students coming off the train. Sharlen watched as the smallest of the crowd separated out toward the giant man, staring straight up at him in awe. The older students made their way through the main gate, past Sharlen. She watched the man take the first year students out of sight, toward the lake.

Steeling herself, Sharlen flew down inside the gates, against the rock wall, and walked nonchalantly into the crowd of students. Immediately her head began to swim once she was back in her body. She slowed her pace to fall back closer to the end of the crowd where it thinned out. Squeezing her eyes shut, she forced her legs to walk forward and focused on her breathing. I can do this, I can do this, she recited, I have to do this. I have to be ready.

She looked up and glanced over, alerted by her classmates' sudden lack of enthusiasm and more obviously by their screams. The warmth of the September evening cracked in the sudden chill, iced over by the penetrating sensation of death and despair looming all around her, seeping into the core of her. She looked up from the cobblestone walkway, the cold threatening to bring with it moments of complete misery. Sharlen looked back, her pale, hollow eyes merely looking, merely observing, yet the second her intense gaze was upon the Dementors they jerked back in fear and confusion.

The first time she'd seen them was two years ago, when her father returned and began his recruiting. What could they be doing in here… she thought, watching them curiously. The students around her were rushing away, terrified.

Their dark forms swerved in the air, torn cloaks billowing in the winds caused by one another in their distress. They extended their splintering, rotting arms toward her, their long, boney fingers extending and retracting as though to beckon her. She held out a hand at them once, twice, gesturing them to turn back. Sharlen turned away from the Dementors and continued down the steps through the school entrance, boots clicking away, and yet no one followed her, not even the floating and now motionless beasts. With each step she took, the normal end-of-summer night air washed over her, like settling into a warm bath. It made her shiver against the previous chill.

"What… what just happened?" voices around her began chorusing. Sharlen pressed forward, focusing on the fleet of carriages before her. She realized, stomach churning, that it may have been more normal to have acted afraid.

She continued toward the carriages, feeling as though her body were defrosting. She knew the Dementors had remained stationed at the entrance to the school at the Ministry's insistence, either by force or sudden lack of interest in the other Hogwarts students. She swept into an empty carriage, vaguely making sure she was ready for someone to join her, although no one did.

The carriage began to move and Sharlen sank into the seat cushions, absently clutching her little black book. For whatever reason the Dementors seemed to have a lessened effect on her. To all others an experience with a Dementor, even if minor, was often worse than the horrible memories they fed off. Perhaps it was because she had little left to fear, and she lived in a world of other people's memories.

She didn't have much of a family; all she had was herself, her Master, and her father, now that he had returned. It had been many years since she'd actively had someone to care about. But even still, what held her together all these years was hope and longing, the two entwined, brimming over the edges of her day in and day out. Despite absence, it persisted. Who was to say that the feeling she thought thinking about him, the feeling that her chest was collapsing and that every breath sucked her deeper in, was all in her mind?

And now she was going to the castle, closer than she'd been in so many years. She had no idea what to expect, and the anticipation made her shaky and lightheaded. For months, she had tried to fight any expectations; any time her mind had begun to play out a scenario, she'd force herself to shut it down.

Her carriage stopped, not abruptly, but still with enough force to knock her from her thoughts and to the floor. She stood absently, clutching her book and her cloak close to her body as the door opened to allow her escape. She paused to look at the creatures that had been pulling the carriage. She hadn't noticed them before, having been too preoccupied by the Dementors. The decrepit beasts, black and decayed as though death themselves, whinnied and reared their legs at her, tossing their heads and snorting as she passed. Judging by the other students' reactions, it was clear that the beasts didn't typically make any noise or fuss whatsoever—and that they were invisible to most, if not all, of them.

Tentatively, expression unchanging, she reached a hand toward the nearest one and ran her fingers along its boney side, feeling the velvet of its thin black pelt, counting its ribs. He stilled, turning pearly white, pupil-less eyes back to her. The others followed suit. She was exhilarated the second her fingertips made contact with it, her skin peppering with goosebumps.

Sharlen kept walking and they watched her go, whinnying again. She heard a voice cut through the noise—some boy trying to calm them, him and some girl with a distant voice. At first she thought there was something familiar in the boy's voice, but she was too distracted to focus on it or turn back; she was nearing the entrance of the castle and students were everywhere, milling about, proceeding to the Great Hall and greeting their friends after a summer away from the castle. She realized dizzily that there were more people near her than she had ever collectively met in her life, and the energy was closing in on her rapidly.

"Didn't you hear them?"

"Hear what?"

"Horses! It sounded like there were horses pulling the carriages; they were going crazy!"

"Wonder what caused it?"

Sharlen felt their energy surging and looked back over her shoulder to see one student pointing at her. Sharlen's magical abilities were akin to telekinesis and Divination. She practiced Tarot and could see people's auras around them, and got contact visions of their pasts and futures when in skin-to-skin contact. "It was her," the other voice whispered, the one pointing. "She walked past and they just went crazy. Like a bunch of horses just completely lost it."

Stopping slowly, Sharlen turned to face them. The girl who'd been pointing jumped, throwing her arm down by her side, and the one accompanying her glanced between the two. Sharlen's arms disappeared under her cloak for a second as she approached. Both girls backed away a little, no doubt fearing she was reaching for a wand. They were orange tinged with red, the auras reminding Sharlen of fire; uneasy, nervous.

Stopping right before the pointer, Sharlen's expression never changed from her stony resilience, with her eyes narrowed as though carefully considering the girl. Slowly she reached up and stuck a little rainbow sticker to the girl's chest and walked away. She glanced the change in auras the instant she'd turned around. Pale blue. She smirked to herself—she'd perplexed them.

It was much easier to absorb secondary emotions like confusion and indifference than it was to handle joy, fear, or rage. She'd read about the stickers in a book about children who had difficulty expressing themselves to others, that tools similar to this could be a good way to break the ice, or be used as a form of expression if the child is too anxious to communicate verbally. While adjusting from never speaking to anyone to being around hundreds of students, she thought it seemed as a good a trick to try as any.

She did not feel up for dealing with the masses this first night. As the swarm of her peers headed for the Great Hall of the castle, Sharlen kept walking; her Master had told her where his office was in the dungeons, and she figured that was the best place for her at first. He hadn't given her any further instructions after he'd gone ahead to join the other teachers. She let her feet guide her, absently hoping she didn't run into anyone.

She had no such luck. "And just where do you think you're going, Miss Down?"

She froze at that voice. "The Great Hall's the other way," another voice added. She turned to find a familiar face, the face of Severus Snape, had joined the first speaker, who she recognized as Remus Lupin. Her father had made her memorize the key players in the Order of the Phoenix.

"So you've returned," she said quietly. Both men strained to hear her. She was looking up at Lupin with eyes only, her face forward so her expression was cold. "I thought they chucked you out of here three years ago."

"Not quite," he said cheerfully, gripping his wand in his pocket although the smile on his face reached his ears. He was acting playful, but she could see he was bracing himself. "I actually left of my own accord, but, I saw fit to come back this year. Nostalgia, you know how it goes."

"Your aura's as auburn as your hair used to be, Lupin. You can't lie to me," Sharlen muttered. "You insisted on coming back this year to keep an eye on me. You should have a little more faith, wolf."

He sighed calmly, but inside his confidence shook. "You're to call me 'Professor.'"

"What do you two want?"

"That's to be discussed at another time," Snape muttered in a bored tone. "For now you're to join the rest of the students in the Great Hall. You still need to be sorted."

"Dumbledore knows where to put me. I'd rather not sit there and be stared at. I'm feeling rather normal, at the moment," Sharlen muttered through gritted teeth, feigning pleasantness.

"'Professor Dumbledore,' Sharlen," Lupin corrected. Sharlen looked at him blankly. He started off toward the Great Hall, choosing not to engage, and Snape, perfectly calm on the inside and out, beckoned her with a hand and swept off too. Sharlen just stared.

"I came here for one reason, and that's to get him back," she told Snape. "I am prepared to do whatever it takes. It's important you both know that to be true." Lupin faltered at these words but didn't turn or say anything.

"They're all waiting. Come along." Snape continued toward the Hall, ignoring her words. Sharlen Down followed, wary but exhilarated.

What was worse, Snape made a big deal about her coming. Not only did he burst through the doors loudly and gesture her in before him, immediately halting whatever ceremony was going on, but he also announced to the whole hall, "We have one more to be sorted, Professor McGonagall." Sharlen kicked him and he turned quickly toward her in utter disbelief. She stuck a sticker to his right cheekbone before he knew what had happened and left him angry and confused as she strode toward the older witch clutching the Sorting Hat.

The Gryffindors way over to her right howled with laughter, some in disbelief, their auras grinning colors of dark blue for playfulness and jubilance, brown with an anxious energy devoid of fear. She also sensed a lot of suspicion and unease around her. She briefly touched a finger to her temple. Too much positive or negative energy drained her very easily.

The Sorting Hat, dangling from McGonagall's hand, watched her approach curiously, arching a brow and pursing the brim of its mouth. Sharlen stared back, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to recall what she'd read about the hat years ago in Hogwarts, A History.

"Slytherin," it called out before she even reached the stage, so sure, so confident in its unquestioned answer that it shouted a house at her when she was still more than ten feet away.

Sharlen stopped in her tracks. A collective gasp was heard amongst a lot of muttering and whispering. Even the teachers up at the top table were glancing at each other and at Dumbledore.

Albus Dumbledore. Sharlen looked at him when she'd stopped advancing toward the hat. He just looked at her with a smile and, in sync with Professor McGonagall, jabbed his head in the direction of Slytherin table. Jeers met her as she gave a very slight nod and changed her direction.

Whispers met her ears. "She wasn't even close to it!"

"She's gotta have some serious Dark Magic in her."

"Well yeah, just look at her!"

"Look at her!"

Sharlen flinched and glanced around the watching faces, a cold sweat running down her back and her head beginning to swim again. She had no concept of how she should look. Did she look like a dark wizard? She glanced down at herself, trying to focus on her breathing. In truth, she wanted to freeze everyone around her so she could take it all in. She wanted to absorb every detail of the hall, count the candles. Memorize the scents and hues, look at every face one by one. Settling over her mounting anxiety from all the emotions surrounding her was a flood of pure awe. The world was so much bigger than she'd ever imagined.

The whispers continued. "Why's she coming so late? She's old, definitely not a first year…"

"She's the one who sent the Dementors away, and made those invisible horse things go crazy!"

"I'll believe it. Just look at her!"

"Look at her!"

"Look—"

Sharlen faltered slightly but kept walking as though nothing was wrong. There was too much energy here. She needed to be secluded, to take this exposure in smaller steps and adjust. After years of insisting she would not attend school, her Master had been forced to try and persuade her not to come to the castle, because the transition of being surrounded by so many would be too hard on her. But once she finally had permission from her father, there was nothing her Master could do to stop her. She had insisted on coming.

She took a seat on the side of Slytherin table that would allow her to observe the Gryffindors, who were no longer cheering or smiling. Some stared, and actually a lot of them glared. So, now that she had been sorted into the rival house, she was the enemy? He won't turn me away, she assured herself. Once he sees me again...

Sharlen spent the entire feast staring at Snape. She didn't touch her food and whoever tried to talk to her, maybe one or two students, just succeeded in getting one of her infamous stickers stuck to them; one on the ear, one on the cheek. Finally Snape looked her way, rolled his eyes, and nodded. She looked to Lupin, to Dumbledore, but they just stared back. Her eyes narrowed slightly at their lack of explanation and decided she liked Snape's answer best anyway. She got up from the table and swept from the Hall, careful not to catch anyone's eyes.

With a thought and a quick wave of her hand, she closed the doors behind her and fell to the ground in the entrance hall of the castle, breathing hard. Would every day be this bad? She knew it would be a problem for her, coming to a place as highly populated as Hogwarts, but it was something she'd been willing to risk. For her it was easy to 'drown' in emotion when the feelings of those around her were strong enough and in a certain quantity, one of many reasons she had been secluded her entire life.

The energy of the other students had been easier to manage when she was still an owl at the main gates, when her powers weren't as strong. She should probably talk to Snape, or maybe even Dumbledore, if it came to it, to try to get permission to transform between classes. Yes. She decided as she slowly stood back up that she would have to talk to them.

Sharlen gasped as the doors of the Great Hall reopened just before she set off again. Before her was a boy of about 16, probably in the same year as she would be, with white-blond hair and brilliant gray eyes. A lopsided smile was plastered to his shiny complexion and, not to her surprise, he came to her willingly. She turned back around, away from him. "Hey," he called as she started back off. He reached for her shoulder but she whipped around again and hissed at him.

"What do you want?"

His smirk was smug and proud. "Rather a cold reunion, Sharlen. I'm the Slytherin Prefect. I noticed you left early, so I just thought I'd show you to our dormitory. I assume that's where you're going?"

The gel that slicked back his hair was nauseating her, and his intent and confidence wasn't helping her mounting headache. "I know perfectly well what you are, Draco. I can find it alone," she informed him, starting off again. "Go help the first years and leave me be."

"Hey, hold on—" he started, reaching for her. Sharlen glared at the floor before her, stopping in her tracks and stopping him as well.

"Seriously, Draco. Don't touch me." She transformed before his eyes and flew off to go find the Owlery instead, knowing it would be the only place she'd find solitude for now.

Malfoy watched her go, ran his fingers through his hair smugly, and turned to return to the Hall. "Let it begin," he muttered to himself as he tucked in to dessert.

Sharlen greeted midnight in the Owlery, perched by the window and watching the Hogwarts grounds, observing how they looked at the darkest hour of night. The Dementors were restless at their posts. The Ministry of Magic had gotten to them before Voldemort could, so they were still on 'their' side, though she knew Dumbledore would send them away after tonight. He'd allowed them to continue guarding the grounds, but under no circumstances were they to enter them. Such were the rules, so she'd heard, three years previous. He's in this castle somewhere, she knew as a breeze ruffled her feathers. He's here somewhere, sleeping, unprepared. Unless he saw me earlier... She wouldn't think that. She couldn't be sure. Tomorrow, she would search him out.

She heard someone enter and swiveled her head in the direction of the door. Lupin and Snape were there, the pair of them, wands at the ready and looking straight at her. "Here, the rules are students need to stay in their dormitories all night, Miss Down," Lupin informed her.

She hooted sharply, snapping her beak at them a few times before swooping down to the ground and transforming. She crossed her arms over her black book as she normally did, as though it was a part of her. "How did you know I'd be here?" She was asking Snape. She took no interest in Lupin.

"Draco Malfoy," he muttered in his deep, slurring voice. She knew it would have been his first guess regardless, but he needed to put up a show for Lupin.

"Do you have him tailing me?"

"Professor Dumbledore has requested you have an escort for the most part of your stay here," he explained in a bored tone, his grip on his wand relaxed.

Instinctively, Sharlen folded her arms even tighter. "I thought I'd passed his test," she hissed, the wind carrying her words to them and her hair billowing about her angrily. "What do I have to do to convince him I mean no one any harm?"

"Dumbledore let you in because he does trust you," Lupin tried to reason, "You have proven that. He just doesn't trust you to always follow the rules."

And he shouldn't, she thought, averting her eyes from the men in the doorway. "Lower your wand, Professor," she added as an afterthought. "I'm not here to cause trouble." He frowned at her a little but he did, indeed, lower his wand.

"To bed with you, Sharlen," Snape ordered, pointing her out the door. Sharlen sighed.

"Yes, Mast-" she began, but he narrowed his eyes at her and she hung her head and walked past the men. "Yes, professors," she muttered through clenched teeth and made her way to the Slytherin Common room, silently followed by Snape. Once she had entered the common room, he retreated to his office.

Malfoy was still waiting for her. "What do you want?" she asked him in her best bored drone after entering the Common Room. He gestured her over, patting the seat beside him on the couch. She refused it with her eyes and her stance, how she thrust out a hip at the mere wordless suggestion.

"Oh please," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"I just want to have a little chat with you," he said innocently. "This is the first time we've gone to school together since we were ten."

"I hardly think you can call being tucked away together unsupervised with books 'going to school together,' but to each their own," she said sarcastically.

"Okay, so it's the first time we've ever gone to school together," he said with a grin. "You're finally out of the house."

"You say it as if it's my fault," she muttered, examining the Common Room. It had three basic colors; green, silver, and black. It was partially beneath the lake, which contributed to its greenish glow. The silver was used as an accent; translucent silver drapes, silver talons on the clawed black tables and chairs, silver instruments and decorations scattered about the room, contrasting with the black furniture and deep green bricks. Were all the dorms like this? "You know damn well that I would have come here sooner if I could have. Years ago."

"God Sharlen, don't put words in my mouth," Draco sighed huffily, narrowing his eyes at her slightly. "I know Severus wouldn't let you come. It was all part of the plan, you know that. And you shouldn't blow this chance." He stood and walked toward her. She stayed very still, like a rabbit planning its best chance at escape. "You've been given a chance to be among others like yourself. Don't throw this opportunity away."

He stopped right in front of her and whispered into her ear, "Leave the bastard alone. You'll only hurt him. You've always only hurt him." He gave her a slow kiss on the neck and walked past her, waving a goodnight over his shoulder.

Sharlen hadn't seen the wave. When his lips touched her flesh she'd frozen, eyes wide, her book falling to the floor with a soft clang as the metal corners hit the bricks. Her pupils shrank rapidly and clouded over as the irises faded even paler, the whites of her eyes taking over completely. Her vision was blocked of the Common Room and replaced by a scene, a scene of Dumbledore and Draco alone in a tower, Dumbledore completely vulnerable and unarmed. Malfoy looked frightened, hesitant, his aura a mixture of orange and brown to show anxiousness and energy. She saw Snape storm in after a series of Death Eaters and stand before Dumbledore. There was a hidden presence in the vision. A familiar presence.

She covered her ears against Dumbledore's calm plea and turned from the images. She glared as Malfoy continued to walk away from her up the stairs. "Is that your mission?" she screamed at him. "Is that the mission he gave you?"

"Ahh," he muttered smugly, turning around. "So you saw me in my moment of triumph against Dumbledore?"

Sharlen braced herself and took a step back. She didn't want to tell him that he'd failed, that her Master stepped between them. To tell him that would make him all the more anxious to succeed, and she needed the old man. "Why are you so anxious… Why do you need to please my father so much?"

"Your father has threatened myself and my family. I don't have a choice. And besides…" He twirled his wand around with a hard expression on his face, like he was going insane. "Besides… I'm a Death Eater now. I live only to serve your father." He bid her goodnight and disappeared up the spiral staircase to the dormitories. Sharlen chucked a silver picture frame concealing a portrait of Salazar Slytherin at a window and broke it.