Ophelia awoke September 1st to the feeling of a freezing winters rain. The problem: it wasn't winter and nor was she outside.
"Peeves!" she snapped, jerking, damp and displeased, back into consciousness. After months and months with the persistent poltergeist, she had no doubt that it was he who was behind this most recent attack, even before she opened her eyes. It was a deep-rooted knowledge, an irritation buried down to the bone. "You know what the Headmaster said about infesting the library!"
"Peevsie should tell the Headmaster li'l 'Phelia is in the restricted section." He bobbed his head with saintly sincerity, his whole floating form bouncing up in down in time with the movement. "Against the rules, it is. Wouldn't want li'l 'Phelia to be breaking rules."
"Then I can't wait to tell him about you bringing a bucket of water into the library where it could damage the books," she threatened, pulling out her wand and running it along her form to dry off. "You can bet the librarian will exorcise you herself if she catches wind."
In an act of mind blowing maturity, Peeves stuck out his tongue and blew a long series of raspberries as he floated backwards towards the door. Ophelia breathed a sigh of relief when he finally disappeared, until the book on various aspects of Dark Magic— including details on Horcruxes— that she'd swiped from Restricted Section shelves began dancing away, seemingly of its own accord.
"Accio," she sighed, resigned to his antics by then.
The book didn't come. Indeed, it kept floating dandily towards the open doorway, seemingly giggling at her wasted effort. Ophelia knew many of the books on Dark Magic contained bizarre curses and spells meant to protect them; did someone place one that repelled the summoning charm?
She couldn't let that book get away, and not just because she was loathe to let Peeves win.
Just because the Poltergeist was invisible didn't mean he was impenetrable. Holding onto the book meant he needed to maintain a physical form, so Ophelia could very well have just tried to stun him. Unfortunately, the last time she'd tried that was still fresh in her mind and sent her into a cold sweat. She practically had to evacuate the castle to avoid his renewed, vigorous taunting after he'd recovered from her spell. She still wasn't quite sure, exactly, how Peeves had made his way into Slughorn's locked cupboards to swipe all manner of foul potions to terrorise her with, dropping them overhead like a Zepplin bomber. Worst yet was when he'd acquired a vicious pair of rust-covered pruning shears and chased her from classroom to classroom for nearly a week before she'd managed to disarm him. "Let's take a little of the top!" He'd cackle, and she was never sure whether he meant to cut off all her hair or go straight for the head. The ambiguity was just enough to keep her from wanting an encore.
Instead, she aimed her wand at the long uninterrupted stone floor outside the library doors and made the rough surface about as gripping as ice. With a running leap, she slid across the corridor in nearly a third of the time it would have taken to sprint it. Ophelia made a mental note to come back and undue the spell before she accidentally murdered the librarian.
"When I catch you," she huffed, pushing off the opposite wall and propelling herself after him, "I'm going use your intestines as a scarf."
"So scaaaaarrrry," he cackled. Ophelia reached the moving staircase at an open sprint, him mere seconds before her. Standing in midair just beyond the railing that prevented Ophelia from tumbling down multiple floors, Peeves spun around like a top to face her and waved a taunting hand. "Bye-bye!"
Still twiddling his long, gray fingers, he gradually began his descent, as if from within a dumbwaiter. Ophelia briefly eyed the stairs, calculating the odds of catching up to him by conventional methods. Frankly, the numbers didn't look good.
With the book getting farther and farther out of her reach— not to mention the way Peeves licked his forefinger and thumb with relish before flipping to a random page to read— Ophelia came to a rash decision. It could not become common knowledge that she was reading that type of book. At least she had plausible deniability if she had it hidden when Peeves began to broadcast the information around, but first she needed the book in her hands.
She swung first one leg and then the other over the bannister, and before she could reconsider— or come to her senses— she let her feet drop out from underneath her. The friction with the polished wood bars supporting the banister burned the pads of her hands as she fell, only at the last possible moment letting go to swing down onto the next level.
The second time she tried the same, still in pursuit of the poltergeist, didn't work nearly as well. Peeves, although still three floors below her nearly to the ground, stopped lowering to watch her progress with a childlike interest that made Ophelia more nervous than anything else.
That time, her foot slammed into the next floor's rail as she attempted propel herself over it. Peeves clapped enthusiastically as she pushed her face out of the carpet and nursed her strained wrist begotten from awkwardly catching herself.
She hadn't avoided countless governments, Aurors, and her uncle for months when she was just twelve to be defeated by one particularly pesky poltergeist.
With that thought jabbing at the forefront of her mind, she clambered over yet another banister and leapt— except she hadn't factored in the damage to her wrist. When it came time to swing herself down, the muscles connecting her forearm to her arm screamed.
And then released prematurely.
Instead of landing within the relative safety of the next floor, Ophelia plummeted.
The first floor rose up, readying for a tight embrace, while Ophelia frantically grappled with her fluttering povkets for her wand. By the time she dislodged it, however, the floor was already right there, leaving no time to so much as think of a spell.
Ophelia felt a sharp, jerking tug behind the shoulders, but definitely not the type of splattering impact she was expecting. Only after Peeves blew another slew of raspberries directly into her ear— hardly a pleasant sensation, but arguably better than falling three floors— and let her go a couple handspans from the ground, did the impossible occur to her.
Peeves had, for once in his amortal life, been... helpful?
The only explanation she could imagine was that he'd grown so fond of tormenting her over the summer he didn't want his torturous "fun" to end prematurely.
Heart still pounding from adrenaline, she made a swipe for the book before Peeves could pull away again.
Peeves tutted in disapproval. "No, no, no! Pesky little witchy. Pesky, pesky, pesky!"
Swatting her atop the head with the book with each successive "pesky," Peeves continued zooming down the corridors, towards the entrance hall.
"There has got to be an easier way to do this," she groaned, legs stretching back into a hard sprint.
As Peeves began to jovially sing out the contents of chapter one, Ophelia decided his wrath would be worth it to shut him up and began firing spells indiscriminately. He lifted the book in his defense, a paper shield against the onslaught.
Dumbledore caught her by surprise by appearing outside the doors of the entrance hall, and she in turn caught him by surprise by accidentally singeing his beard with a small fireball she'd been aiming at Peeves' head.
"I seem to recall a rule about flinging curses down the corridors," the professor said mildly, patting the residual sparks from his beard.
"Sorry, sir," she called over her shoulder as she whipped past him. "Peeves and I are just... bonding."
If "bonding" was a synonym for "trying to drive each other it insanity."
An arm came out of nowhere, wrapping around her waste in a feeling not unlike being clotheslined, and for one wild moment she thought it was the poltergeist.
"I knew I heard your dulcet tones," Rabastan exclaimed, pulling her sideways from the corridor into the Great Hall. "I thought I might go mad from loneliness at not having seen your transcendent face these last few months, your beautific smile, your..." he waved an arm through the air, searching vainly for words, then noticed Ophelia's appalled expression and laughed. "You should have joined us in our carriage. It was oh-so-boring teasing Fenella and Tom without you there." Leaning in, as though to whisper some great secret directly into her ear, he said, "I don't know if you've noticed, but those two kids don't have much in terms of a sense of humor."
Her surprise at seeing a familiar face so soon temporarily drove the current matter at hand far from her mind. It couldn't already be time for the welcoming feast, could it? She'd only just woken up! Granted, her circadian rhythm had synched up with the a few of the owls perched up in the Owlery...
"Wait! Where's Peeves?" She pulled herself out of his grasp, frantically searching out her prey. "I need to find him now."
"After this?" A cool voice intoned, and she spun around to get a good look at the speaker, ignoring the way her stomach clenched at the sound.
It wasn't his increased height that stood out most. It was the way Tom carried himself. The way he seemed so steal the oxygen from the room and, with it, her train of thought with it. He simply commanded attention. Even the light seemed to bend more kindly upon his face than it did any other.
"Hey," she said dumbly, before remembering herself and reaching for the book.
She really needed to pull herself together.
Tom didn't let go immediately. Ophelia tugged harder, but his eyes held her for the longest, heart stopping moment, before sliding to the cover and absorbing the title, recognition registering there.
Releasing it at last, he commented, "I hope it was informative."
Translation: So, you're still trying to find a way to reverse the Horcrux.
Ophelia blinked the confusion from her eyes and hugged the book to her chest. "What? Oh. Oh, yeah. It was." She was so busted, and based on the knowing smile forming on his lips, he knew it as well as she. "How did you get it?"
"I think the better question is how did Peeves?"
She really didn't want to rehash the last half hour. She wasn't sure her pride could take the blow.
"From the library," she replied evasively, hoping he wouldn't ask for more detail than that. "How did you manage to steal it back?"
"You keep your secrets, and I'll keep mine," he stated slyly, obviously seeing right through her too-offhand affectation. "Dumbledore's about to bring out the first years. Let's take a seat."
Tom took her hand and pulled her past the other students towards the Slytherin long table.
"Hey, Tom. You never hold my hand," Rabastan whined, trailing after them.
Ophelia would have killed him herself, had Fenella not jabbed him in the side with her wand first.
All of a sudden, Ophelia looked up, an eerie feeling curling across her skin. Right in front of her, staring clear into her soul, stood the impossible. He couldn't actually be there. She should know.
She'd been the one to kill him, after all.
All the blood drained from her face and she must have stopped walking, because Tom's hand slipped out of hers. Like an apparition, Julius vanished, but the visions of that day, of raising her wand to protect her uncle from his treachery, remained.
Ophelia didn't hear Tom speaking until her heart ceased pounding in her ears.
"What—what did you say?" she asked breathlessly.
He certainly didn't act like he'd seen anything outside of the normal. Eyebrow raised, he leaned down and scooped up the book to hand it back to her again. Evidently, it had slid out of her grasp in her limp-limbed shock.
"I would say you look like you've seen a ghost, but, well..." He nodded meaningfully towards the Grey Lady, only a few feet away. "I don't think you'd be that surprised, at this point."
Ophelia attempted a smile, and probably failed, for that's when her attention caught on his ring, plain, were it not for the deliberate scratches along a small stone where one would usually expect a diamond.
The doors opened behind them as Dumbledore ushered in the new students, reminding Ophelia what they were doing. Quickly, she snatched back the book, careful to avoid brushing Tom's skin again, and hurried to find a seat.
It had to be a coincidence, or she hadn't seen the symbol correctly. That was it. But what explained Julius? He'd seemed so real, like she could have reached out and touched him if only she tried.
Like she could have murdered him all over again.
She hadn't remembered him being so young, with her child's eyes. He'd always seemed much older in memory. He couldn't have brushed past thirty. Far too young to die.
Tom and Rabastan sat across from her, and Fenella beside. Her thoughts were too otherwise diverted to acknowledge the strange reality where Fen chose, without a wand aimed threateningly at her head, to willingly be within Ophelia's orbit, though it was certainly as mind boggling as phantoms from the past appearing to haunt her waking dreams.
Rabastan cocked his head curiously at the strange turn of events but, for once, didn't comment.
The rest of the usual crowd took their seats around them, casually orchestrating ways to be closest to Tom.
Ophelia was grateful when the Sorting Ceremony finally began, since it gave an excuse for her stunned silence.
It wasn't real. It wasn't real. It wasn't real. Right?
That ring. Where had it come from? Why did it have the symbol of the Hallows, of all things?
As, one by one, the first years trickled down to their respective new Houses, Ophelia squinted at the ring from across the table, visible as Tom leisurely tapped his fingers on the hardwood.
Noticing her staring, he fluidly slipped the ring from his finger and held it out in the center of his palm. "Do you like it?"
She met his gaze, before quickly looking away. "Do you mind if I..."
"By all means."
It fell softly into her hand, surprisingly solid in its weight. If Tom thought the way she immediately let it drop onto her napkin, as though burned, was unusual, he didn't comment.
But she was certain he noticed.
As much as she wanted to be casual about her inspection, it was difficult, since she wasn't quite ready to touch the thing again, in case her suspicions were correct. Which they weren't. They couldn't be. Even if the Deathstick was real, since her Uncle claimed to have it and she didn't imagine he was foolish enough to be taken in by a fake, the others couldn't possibly. A wand could be forged by any proficient wand-maker, but the stone? What could bring forth the dead?
And yet, did she simply imagine Julius a second ago? Did she misread the markings? Was it a coincidence? Or was Peeves trying to get even on some elaborate joke?
The last one, admittedly, didn't seem likely.
"It's not going to bite, you know," Tom said amusedly when she started trying to use a fork to flip it into a better angle.
She forced a laugh, though it probably sounded less charming and more psychotic. "Of course. What was I thinking?"
With nervous fingers, she plucked the ring off the napkin and held it by the ridge furthest from the stone. The scratches were unmistakable, if not a bit sloppy. Mouth dry, she forced herself to run a hand over the stone, and breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened, feeling exceedingly foolish for getting so worked up.
Then Ophelia's heart jumped into her throat at the soft whisper of a sound over her shoulder.
"It's been awhile, Lae."
A/N
Not important to the plot (I might not even explain it later tbh, since I never actually intended to put in Ophelia's birth name) but any guesses as to what Lae is short for? I thought I could get away with never revealing it, but Julius wouldn't have known her by anything else, unfortunately. Hint: it's not actually a girl name.
Also, not that it matters, I've conferred with my foremost advisor (i.e. my best friend) and decided to change the ending a bit, which might cut the book down like 5 chapters. Little bummed since those two final chapters that I now won't be using were actually the first I ever wrote for this story :( Oh well, it must be done.