-Chapter Four-
The Seventh year Hufflepuff girl's dormitory was chattering with excitement that night. Sylvia propped herself up against some pillows, while her friends and fellow classmates sat on her bed and those closest to hers. They were all giggling and talking about Sylvia and Peter, and the rumors that had already started.
"Well I heard that he's going to ask you to go with him to Hogsmead on the first trip there." Said a short girl with spiky blond hair, who was sitting on the edge of Sylvia's bed, Some of the girls around her giggled and Sylvia threw one of the many yellow and black throw pillows that decorated the dorm, playfully at her.
"Oh hush, no spreading of these rumors until Rose comes back from the showers." Just as she mentioned her, Rose walked in, wearing yellow and black striped pajamas, drying her long reddish brown hair in a towel.
"Spreading rumors, of whom? Not me I hope." She gave Sylvia a clever look as she threw her towel onto her bed, and crawled onto the bed next to Sylvia, clutching a soft black pillow.
It was like telling a story around a campfire. As Sylvia talked about her lunch with peter, the girls giggled and awed in all the right parts, they especially got a little rowdy when she mentioned how he had come up to her before diner and gave her a yellow daisy in front of everyone. Sylvia laughed and looked around, and for once, Sylvia knew what it meant to be a part of this house, what it meant to be a Hufflepuff. After all these years, she had become part of this family that spread out across years and generations. They would always be bonded by the time they had shared together here, and Sylvia would remember this moment more then any other.
Hours had passed and the fireplace in the middle of the seventh year dorm had burned down to embers. All the other girls had wandered to their beds and fallen asleep; the only two who were still awake were Rose and Sylvia. They had both pulled the blankets over them and laid on their sides, facing each other and clutching pillows, whispering between the small spaces between them.
"What do you think I should do about Jacob, Syl?" Rose had been dating a Hufflepuff named Jacob Zeller on and off since their fifth year at Hogwarts. Recently she had been struggling with whether or not she should continue their relationship.
"Don't let him pressure you into something you don't want to do, Rose. I know you don't want to hurt his feelings, but think about all the times he said you were too clingy or he wasn't interested anymore, you don't deserve that sweetie. He's an ass hole." Rose looked at Sylvia with tears welling up in her eyes.
"I hate him, Syl." She whispered before letting the tears come rolling down her cheeks.
"Rose." Sylvia said as she moved the black and yellow gingham pillow away from her chest and wrapped her arms around Rose.
"Why did I ever let him talk me into it in the first place? I feel so stupid." Rose buried her face into the front of Sylvia's pajamas and sobbed, although they did not speak of exactly what had happened, both of them knew what was being said.
During their sixth year at Hogwarts, Rose and Jacob had been dating for longer then usual, and things had started getting serious. Rose was staying out later and later each night and skipping classes. Sylvia didn't think anything was bad about it, her friend was in love, not with the best guy, but who was she to say something to her about it. Until one night after dinner, Rose came into the common room crying, and ran directly into the girls dorms. Sylvia had been doing homework on a desk when Rose ran through, Sylvia abandoned the essay she was working on and went straight away to her friend's aid. Jacob had broken up with her again, she said and Sylvia didn't understand why she was acting this way, he had broken up with her lots of times before this. But as soon as Rose looked up at her, her eyes red and swollen with tears, Sylvia knew what they had done, even before Rose started talking about one evening in particular that her and Jacob had stayed out too late. Rose hadn't told anyone, not even her. She said that she had wanted it to be special between her and Jacob, but Sylvia was hurt. They had been best friends for six years and had talked together about what their first times were going to be like. How they were going to share it with one another. Sylvia involuntarily thought that it wasn't fair. If it had been her in that position, she would have told Rose that very night. Sylvia started crying too, she wanted to yell at Rose for being so selfish, she wanted to blame it on her, that it was all her fault that this happened, that she deserved this. But she didn't, instead Sylvia cried all through the night, holding her Rose until she fell asleep in her arms.
Sylvia remembered that, that night, and as soon as Rose was deep asleep, she went into the bathrooms and spilled vomit and tears into the toilets basin.
"You're not stupid, Rose." Sylvia said this, but her thoughts told the truth. She knew Rose was stupid for always going back. Stupid for letting him touch her, for letting him inside of her. But, no matter how stupid she was, Sylvia loved her as much as a sister.
"Really, you mean it?" Rose looked up at her sniffling, her eyes glossy and bright in the dieing firelight.
"Yes, Rose." Sylvia smiled sadly.
"Thanks Syl, I don't know what I would do without you." Rose hugged Sylvia around her waist, her thin frame pressing against Sylvia's soft, large one. They laid together in one bed, talking about everything from boys to school and clothes. There was a pause of silence; both girls were lying on their backs now, looking up at the earth and stone ceiling.
"Sylvia?" Rose whispered to the ceiling, "Will you tell me something you remember your sister?" Sylvia felt her throat tighten around the air she was breathing, she want prepared for her to ask a question like this.
"Hmm, okay. Well, I wasn't really that young when she died, and I can remember lots of things we used to do, but one thing we used to do a lot is color on the walkway in front of our house. She was a squib remember, so we played a lot of games without magic, things that she had learned in the muggle school she went to. One was playing a game called tic-tac-tow."
"Oh yeah, I used to play when I was little."
"Yeah? Well, Mother used to give us little white pieces of chalk and we would play and draw with them. Janie won most of the times, but sometimes she would let me win. Have I shown you the picture mother took of us playing one summer, here I think its still in my trunk." Sylvia turned over and pulled her trunk out half way from under her bed; she unlatched it and pulled a small black and white, worn photograph of two young girls paying on the sidewalk. The one on the right was Sylvia, and on the left was her sister, Jane.
Jane was killed by death eaters walking to her school one morning, twelve other squibs and muggle blooded children were killed across Europe that morning, the morning that he-who-must-not-be-named was killed. Mother heard about it too late, and called to take Jane home from school, but they said she had never shown up. Random killings had been popping up for years, leaving small traces of the dark mark behind. Rose's mother was also killed by death eaters, but she never knew her mother. Rose's mother was killed when she was only two years old. The authorities told her father at the time, that she had been in a car accident, but when Rose had received her letter from Hogwarts, the Ministry of Magic sent someone to the house to tell them the truth.
She was locking up the office building where she was working when she saw two Death Eaters torturing a man and his wife in the parking lot. She screamed, and turned to run to her car, but they had seen her and shouted the killing curse in her direction. Her body fell silently against the asphalt; her hand was still defensively wrapped around a can of pepper spray when they found her.
Sylvia handed Rose the picture of her and her sister, "Can you tell which one was me? I can't believe what mother made me wear. Janie looks alright, but look at those shoes." Sylvia let out a polite burst of laughter, calming the mood a little. "Yeah this is one of the few muggle photographs that mother has of us. Father is crazy about muggle photography. I still can't believe she gave it to me." Sylvia smiled, scooting closer to Rose so that she could look at the photo as well.
"She's beautiful Syl, you were really lucky to have a sister growing up." Rose handed the photo back to Sylvia.
"I know. I was." Sylvia put the photograph back into her trunk, and lied back down with Rose, who now had her eyes closed and looked very peaceful. Sylvia closed her eyes as well, she was so tired and her eyes stung from a little crying tonight, the blackness began to swim in front of her, she was falling deeper and deeper into sleep. She felt Rose move, but she let herself slip into the darkness before she could react to anything.
Rose let Sylvia lay back down on the bed. When she opened her eyes, she could tell that her friend was falling into a deep sleep. She propped herself up on her forearms and watched Sylvia for a few minuets, then she leaned in very close, letting her warm breath feather on Sylvia's cheek.
"I am very lucky to have someone like you." She whispered into Sylvia's soft cheek, "I love you." Rose leaned farther forward, and kissed Sylvia firmly on the lips, she pulled back, hovering a few centimeters above her, letting their moist lips barely brush against one another before laying back down and cuddling up next to Sylvia, one arm wrapped around her waist, and falling asleep.
--
Sylvia dreamt she was swimming underwater in the black lake that night. She kicked her legs in the cold water; goose bumps tickled her nerve endings and made her hair stand on end. She could feel that she was naked, but it was comfortable under the water knowing that no one could see her. She was holding her breath and suddenly she could feel something wrap around her hand, something that felt warm and dry. She looked down and there was someone holding her hand, her eyes followed up the arms and to the face where she could see her sister looking back at her. Sylvia smiled and relaxed, now breathing in the cold water, letting it fill her lungs. She could feel her body filtering the water like gills out of her pores.
Her sister swam around her, fully clothed in the same thing she wore when she left the house the day she died. Sylvia could see her sister swimming around and calling her to follow with waves of her hands. Sylvia swam towards her sister, awkward in unusual environment. Dark blue green light from the moon shined through the water's surface and lit up large patches of weeds. She could see things moving just barely out of her line of sight. When she would turn to see what had been there, all she could see was mats of shiny green sea weed. They were deep underneath the lake, surrounded by large vine-like plants with long slimy leaves twisting around one another in the water. She could hear her sister laugh eerily echoing in the black-green water. Her sister swam with ease, looking like a pale grey seal in the water, Sylvia struggled to keep up. She watched her sister dart into a thick patch of glossy green weeds. The large leaves obstructed her vision, reaching her arm out; she would push the weeds aside only to find another wall, identical to the one she had just shoved away in every way, behind them. Her arms began to ache, but, just as she was about to turn around and go back, She jutted her arm out into a small clearing. The weed formed a circle around her, swaying from side to side with the rocking of the water. She looked up, where a beam of moonlight was floating down the round opening and encasing her sister like an angel. Jane's arms and legs were treading water; the moonlight illuminating the ripples in a holy aura. Sylvia was in awe of her sister swimming yards above her, but she could see something in the weeds to the left of her. Turning around she looked closely at the black space in-between the twisting vines. A dead grey hand, slowly reached towards her, she swam backwards, but she felt another stone hand grab the back of her hair, she spun around trying to find away out of the slick green cage. More and more hands were coming out of the weeds toward her. She started to panic, her gill-like pores closed, making her lungs heavy with water. She gulped, trying to breathe again, kicking her legs and reaching her arms out trying to grasp her divine sister still treading water above her.
Sylvia looked down to see what creature would be chasing her, but they were now only dead hands on the end of long, boney tentacles reaching for her. She grabbed her sisters foot, still clad in the dark leather shoe that mother had bough them matching pairs for Christmas. Her sister looked down, her face surrounded by the moons halo, and flicked her foot out of Sylvia's grasp, and began swimming for the surface. Sylvia franticly followed her sister up, grasping for her. Sylvia began feeling faint, the pressure around her head was letting go, and she was still reluctantly taking in mouthfuls of water.
Jane was reached the surface. Sylvia could feel her heart break and her body falter as her sisters body disappeared. She began closing her eyes and dropping her arms, when she saw two arms plunge themselves from the shell of water and reach for her. She began kicking harder determined to reach her sisters embrace, but the closer she got the more she began realizing that the arms that were reaching so desperately for her were not her sisters, but Rose's.
She kicked the dead hands away more fiercely, swimming upward, getting closer and closer to Roses pink, freckled arms, but then they changed again. They grew at least three times their size and the hands were still small, but now obviously a man's. Staring up she could see the blue eyes that she had so longingly looked into this afternoon. She was so close to the surface, that she could hear Peter calling for her.
"Sylvia, please Sylvia. I know you can make it. I want you to make it. I want you to be here with me, please Sylvia."
Sylvia closed her eyes. The words she had been waiting for had finally reached her ears. She squeezed her eyes tighter together and forced the water out of her lungs. She could even smell the mixture of cedar and pumpkin spices that she had smelled on him while they were laying on the grass talking. She reached her hand forward, but instead of feeling the soft tan hand she had so longingly wanted to hold, it was cold and thin. It grabbed hers firmly, her eyes shot open and there, where only a few seconds before was the warm, friendly face that Peter called his own, there was now the angry face of her potions professor. She tried to pull her hands away from his; she began screaming and taking water into her lungs again. He reached desperately for her, putting most of his upper body into the lake. She looked down, the hands had already began wrapping themselves around her legs and pulling her down. She looked at her professor, his face no longer stern, but still cold and now longing. She could hear him calling for her as the water took over her lungs and the hands had begun to wrap themselves around her face.
"Sylvia, Sylvia." He called out nothing more then that, just her name over and over into the dark lake bed.
--
Rose was sitting on the edge of Sylvia's bed, holding her hand lightly and stroking her hair. She leaned closer to Sylvia's left ear, whispering as to not wake any of the other girls.
"Sylvia, Sylvia wake up darling." Sylvia's eyes fluttered open; she took a deep breath of air, and stretched her arms above her head while turning over onto her back. She looked at Rose, who was already dressed and was reaching for Sylvia's hairbrush that sat on her bedside table.
"Ugh, what time is it?" She said groggily while squinting from the sunlight filtering in from the small windows above the girl's beds. Sylvia saw that a few of them were empty and already made; some of them still had some occupants loudly snoring the morning away.
"It's like," she looked at her wrist watch, "twenty till nine," Rose saw Sylvia's eyes widen as she sat up, "On Saturday." Rose added. Sylvia sighed and laid back down on to her soft bed.
"Why did you wake me up so darn early, on a Saturday, Rose?" Sylvia grabbed her pillow and snuggled her face into it, smelled like her milk and honey shampoo that her and her mother bought at the end of summer.
"Because I just so happen to know that the Gryffindor quiddich team is practicing today at noon and I thought you would want to take a shower before we walked over to the pitch." Rose smiled, and although she couldn't see it, she knew that Sylvia was smiling into her pillow.
"Thanks Rosie." Was all that Rose could make out from the muffled sounds coming from the pillow. Sylvia jumped out of bed, discarding the pillow so that it flew on the floor and under the bed next to hers, and skipped to the bathrooms, ignoring weird looks she got from other girls on the way there.
--
Rose and Sylvia wore their regular clothes on the weekends, holidays, and trips to Hogsmead. Today was no different. Rose wore a pair of jeans cut off at the ankle with a red and white pinstriped t-shirt her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. The clothes that Sylvia wore were a little different from everyone else who went to Hogwarts. The loved vintage style, and was known by her friends to watch black and white films that Rose's parents owned all night during a sleep over. Her wardrobe was filled with full knee length skirts and cardigans, button-up blouses and oxford shoes along with jeans, tank tops and sneakers. The girls walked into the great hall where some of the students were still eating, and sat down at the Hufflepuff table closest to the door. Both girls reached for the large blueberry muffin that was sitting on top of a pile of breakfast pastries in a basket. Both of them chuckled and Rose snatched it quickly while Sylvia made a face of mock anger.
"I'm just kidding, here, let's share it." Rose grabbed a small butter knife from the table and cut the muffin in half, giving one side to Sylvia.
"I had that weird dream again, Rose" Sylvia said while putting some butter on the warm insides on the muffin.
"You mean the one with the weird tentacle hand things and you're under the lake? Did I save you again?" Sylvia had been having the same dreams every couple of months, and it had always began and ended the same way, until today.
"No, not this time, they got me this time, heh, funny hu?" Sylvia debated whether or not to tell her friend about the new faces that had appeared in the dream. She was afraid about how Rose would react to Sylvia dreaming about these people, and none of them being able to save her, but mostly about how she would have rather been taken by those dead grey arms, then the ones offered to her by their professor.
"Really? Wow, well at least it's a change, you know." Rose ate her half of the muffin and looked around to see what was left of this morning's breakfast. "So, what happened? You just couldn't swim fast enough or something?" She spotted a dish half filled with fried potatoes only a few seats away. Sylvia opened her mouth to talk, but Rose stopped her, "Hold that thought real quick," Rose walked over and grabbed the potatoes and began spooning them onto her plate, "Okay go on."
Sylvia took the dish away from Rose and spooned some of its contents onto her own plate while talking, "Well, yeah it was partially that, and I think I got lost in all those weeds." Sylvia told these half truths to Rose, telling her just enough information for her to be interested, but not so much, that she would want to continue the conversation.
"Ah, neat," Rose grabbed the small ketchup bottle that sat with other condiments every few feet down the table, and squeezed it over her potatoes, "So it wasn't a nightmare or anything? You didn't look scared when you woke up." She forked a few potatoes and put them into her mouth.
"No, it was more relaxing then anything, once they had me it felt almost comforting. " Sylvia began eating her potatoes as well. The two girls sat and talked about dreams and that professor Trelawney was planning a lesson on dream readings within the week. When they had finished both girls left the great hall and walked to the library, they still had a half an hour until the Gryffindor's practice started. They large oak doors were pulled open and a small sign hung on its knob reading, "Study Hall: 11 am to 5 pm". There were a few Ravenclaw's sitting at a row of tables, all looking with furrowed brows into the thick text books that were opened in front of them.
"What did you want to get here?" Rose looked around the large library with its high stained glass windows and long dusty shelves.
"Um, a book maybe, but I was thinking about picking up a penguin too." Sylvia rolled her eyes and walked up to where Mrs. Pince was standing behind a counter looking through what looked like a tin box of cataloged book cards.
"Excuse me; I would like to return these." Sylvia said politely pulling two small novel sized books out of her bag and setting them on the counter. Mrs. Pince snatched the books off the counter and hissed.
"Shhhh, be quiet, this is a library." She put the books in a tall pile and turned back to the tin box. Sylvia widened her eyes and held in a giggle, in risk that she may be scolded again, and made her way towards the muggle fiction section of the library.
She walked up and down the small section of the aisle, looking at random titles that look as if they had never been touched. She ran her finger along the binds, leaving a small dustless trail across the second shelf.
"You know if any of these are really good?" She knelt down to look at the bottom shelf, her friend leaning against it, looking at the intricate ceiling.
"You know I don't like reading, Syl, just pick one with a pretty cover." Sylvia sighed and then pulled a book gently off the shelf.
"Look, this authors name is Sylvia." The book Sylvia was holding was called, The Bell Jar. She opened the cover and looked at the first few words before slipping it under her arm, and bending over to look at another book.
"I think I am going to read, Through the Looking Glass, again." She pulled another book; this one looked much less dusty then any of the others that were sitting on the shelf. She flipped the pages, and a small colorful piece of paper flew out. Sylvia picked it up and smiled, "Hey look! It's my old bookmark! I was wondering where I put that." Sylvia put the bookmark in her pocket and turned to Rose, "Okay that's all I'm going to get right now, let's go, it's almost noon." Sylvia said this, but she continued running her eyes over the shelf. Rose nudged Sylvia in the side pointed at the door of the library which you could see through a gap between some Muggle Studies books.
"Look who it is Sylvie, I can't believe that ass can leave that dungeon during the day without getting sunburn." Rose laughed at her own joke, but Sylvia spun around and saw exactly what she had expected. She grabbed Rose by the sleeve of her t-shirt and pulled her down, hiding behind the shelf and peeking through the open space between, "My life as a Muggle" and "My Muggle Family" written by Rachel Ronwhit.
"What the heck are you doing Syl?" Rose jerked her shirt away from Sylvia's grasp, but Sylvia only shushed her friend.
"Quiet Rose, if he sees us I know he'll take away points." Sylvia lied, she watched him enter the library and walk toward the counter, where Mrs. Pince was still furiously looking through the tin card box, he coughed to get her attention and then spoke up.
"Irma, did the books I ordered come in last night?" Mrs. Pince looked up at the professor and back down at her catalog box, looking even more irritated then she did when Sylvia had spoken to her.
"Yes they did Severus, and as you can see I am very busy right now trying to catalog them, as well as every other book that your fellow professors decided to order at the last minuet." She went back to roughly organizing the cards before her.
"Irma, if you let me see the books now, I will let you get on with your work and I will bring the books back to you in the morning when you will have less to do." Severus tried to persuade with her, but she slammed the lid down on the box she had just finished looking through and looked up at the professor evilly.
"If you would wait for tomorrow, and let me get back to my work, please Professor!" She turned her back towards him and grabbed another tin cataloging box. Professor Snape stood there for a second, before sharply turning and walking angrily out the door. A few of the Ravenclaws who had stopped reading to watch the commotion, opened their books again, and scribbled notes on pieces of parchment.
After a few seconds, Sylvia stood up and walked around the shelf and into the aisle, both books still under her arm. Rose followed.
"Okay, I think he's gone now." Sylvia whispered. They both walked up to the front desk, getting evil glares from Mrs. Pince as she logged the books in ad turning back to her tin box.
"Do you really think that he would take points away from us for no reason?" Rose asked.
"Yeah, I mean did you see what a bad mood he was in? I wouldn't be surprised if he was PMS-ing." Sylvia laughed, but her heart still raced as they made their way out of the castle and towards the quiddich pitch where they could already see quite a few students had showed up to watch.
As Sylvia and Rose walked onto the pitch, they could see students, from every house, standing in groups, staring up at the Gryffindor quiddich team in practice. Sylvia couldn't tell which player was which from this angle, and she didn't know much about Quiddich, even though she had been to most of the Hufflepuff games that Megan had played in.
Just as she and Rose found a seat on a clean piece of grass, the players circled around the pitch and landed in the middle of the field. Some of the students ran towards the players, shaking their hands and complimenting them on their moves. Sylvia and Rose were looking through the people, when Sylvia saw his red hair.
"Look, there he is!" Sylvia motioned towards the group just as a lanky dark skinned boy, also in a quiddich uniform, whispered something to Peter and they both squeezed through the crowd and walked in the girls' direction. Both Sylvia and Rose stood up as they approached.
"Hi Sylvia," as Peter said this, he leaned towards Sylvia unexpectedly, and kissed her on the cheek. Peter continued to introduce them to his friend that had walked over with them, but Sylvia was so blissful, nothing after that moment stuck in her brain.