TMB: comin up on hour 7

TMB: the natives have accepted me #runninglowonfood

PM: Hour seven? Get your time straight. Hour fourteen.

PM: Or at least it is where I'm bloody standing.

TMB: you aint standing get real you are in motion

PM: Recline that sass.

TMB: RECLINE

TMB: THAT

PM: No you don't! Stop this instant!

I have been awake for close to a day now, trying to coach Tumblr through her reanimation God Up Level...thing. She told me everything. Every last detail of what happened to her. I don't mind staying up over nights, I don't mind listening to her and giving the age-old cliché of revenge-only-hurts-you-so-be-happy. My head is pounding, and my eyes are completely blown out, and I've been hiking through snow with tea and Jammie Dodgers and coached and coached and coached her against revenge.

Because that's what friends do. I think.

Figment's wading through the snow behind me, crunching loudly, and is enjoying swiping snow off of trees. Primatesprite's tunneling through the snow like a weasel, a small tunnel of snow bumping up over him.

My eyelids stick when I blink. Figment raises her head, gold scales digging through snow. Her nostrils dilate. Has she smelled something?

TMB: you okay

PM: I'm alright. I'll be alright.

TMB: dont lie to me

PM: I am so bloody exhausted and sort of cold. Sorry!

PM: Plus Figment's smelled something so there's that.

TMB: its probably nothing just dragon stuff #areptiledysfunction

PM: I am so done with all your puns Tumblr I swear to God.

Figment picks me up between her teeth and places me on the back of her neck. I slump forwards against a spike. The porous bone feels rough against my face. Figment huffs a few times, egg-smelling dragon breath clouding before she takes off.

Halfway between sleep and awake, I focus on the edge of my left shoe. My sweater's soaked and stretched with snowmelt, but it still nearly fits. Actually, it's a little bit looser, I think. Maybe I've lost a little weight? I don't think I'm such a ballast as I used to be, which is nice.

Dreamily, slowly, I type out something new to Tumblr.

PM: Hey you. Guess what?

PM: Y'know Youtube? I think she's cute.

TMB: do you like like her

PM: Wha?

TMB: DO YOU LIKE LIKE HER THIS IS IMPORTANT

PM: Uh...yeah I believe so. I mean, I've only met her...not at all.

PM: Apologies.

TMB: this is bad

TMB: this is very bad

PM: What? Why?

Figment's started to circle, but I don't care enough to look over.

TMB: shit shit shit

TMB: look youtube and mspaf have really hit it off

TMB: dont know what their relationship is like but ill try to find out for you

PM: Oh.

PM: She never mentioned that guy.

Why hasn't she mentioned him? Granted, she's been quiet since she tiered up, but still, he can't be that important if she never talked about this bloke!

Fig growls, and dives. My hands scrabble on for a hold as Fig plummets. I run a hand back and forth on her neck. We've let down right next to something that looks like either a big grey boat or a spaceship.

It's probably a spaceship. I knuckle at my eyes. Oh, my, look at that thing. Huge. Could fit Figment in there. Or maybe two Figments?

I slide off Fig's neck, falling ankle-deep in fresh-fallen snow. Figment's still agitated, purple eyes rolling. "What's wrong?" I ask. I've never seen her like this.

I tromp around, because maybe what's angering her so much is on the other side.

There's a shape, maybe a fallen log that's half-buried under fresh snow. The area around it is pink. Could just be a deer or something, or some other fresh kill that got poor Fig riled up.

But the pink is quite a lot. There is a lot of pink.

I grip tighter on my coatrack staff and walk forwards.

"Hello! I am Pottermore? I am human and good!" I call, in case there's something over there that can understand.

At first, I don't recognize what I'm seeing. Half-curled, long digits, painted at the end.

Fingers those are people fingers

I press the staff into the side of it. The surface of the...whatever it is, it's cold and hard and does not want to move. The poke dislodges more snow, revealing more arm leading from the hand.

Oh.

I wrap my arms tight around the You Shall Not Staff. The snow creaks around it as I put my full weight on it. The snow around my feet is very pink.

My wrist buzzes with messages from Tumblr, but I don't answer them. I've been consoling her for fourteen fucking hours, she can let me have five minutes. Kneeling down in the snow, I grab onto the shoulder and turn.

Her hair is now strawberry blonde with blood. And hey, now, my mother looks a little like me.

My wrist vibrates so violently that my fingers are numb.

"Mum?" I ask, and press my hand to the side of her face. "Mum, wake up."

I check for a pulse, but she is so cold and her wrists and throat are silent.

I straighten up, get up, turn away from Mum and shout to Fig. "We are leaving!"

Fig jumps, purple eyes rolling over to my Mum. She whuffs, gusts of dragon breath rolling over me.

"We are going! Now!" Louder now, and Primatesprite's started howling. "Shut it! Now! God, just shut up!" I turn on him, and he shrinks back. I can't do this, I've had no sleep, this is too much, please, please, let me be passed out.

Figment takes me back to the apartment block, which sits slanted in the snow, broken on the bottom.

My mother's room is still exactly the same as it was before. The air has gotten stale, and the bedsheets have permanent folds in them. Heels lie on the floor of the wardrobe. Not even an earthquake will pick those up.

Mum will pick those up. She will pick those up when she comes home, because she is still alive and alright because I haven't fucked up irretrievably.

My room is dark, everything still in place. My hands raise out to steady me, sliding against a poster for the Goblet of Fire.

It falls first. I tear it one-handed from the wall, rip it in half, quarters, ball it up. Philosopher's Stone is next, and meets the same fate.

Everything, every last inch of it must go.

The books come down from their shelves, and I tear at the pages, ripping out words that I already know by heart.

When all's done, I collapse in the middle of the wreckage and have a good cry, because fuck me, fuck everything, useless fat idiot, this is all my fault.

TMB: can i come over

TMB: pls

TMB: we should talk this out in person

I ignore her, falling over sideways, tears thickening up my throat. This is all my fault. I should've stayed home. Some people are never built for adventure, and I am one of them. I should have stayed home and written about all of this, just stayed alone and hating my life, because loneliness is not the worst of things. It wasn't.

The floorboards by the door creak. Through my stuffy nose, I can smell something, like steak, like seared steak and diesel fumes.

My mum has come home.

The footfalls move through my apartment, pause at my mum's room, and then continue forwards, towards my room.

Nails scratch along the door as she pushes it open.

Surprise surprise, it's not my mum. It's still a girl, though. A girl with shaggy blue hair and really big glasses and a dark outfit. She's not wearing pants.

There's a silence between the two of us.

"I don't really know what to say," she says.

Then please don't say anything.

She scuffs a stocking-clad foot along the floor.

"Um. There wasn't any magic, y'know. Sorry, Pomo. But mostly everything just functioned on belief. Um. Please don't kill yourself or anything."

This must be Tumblr.

She bites her lip and drops eye contact.

"Sorry about...everything. It's gonna be okay, okay?" Tumblr takes a step over and sits next to me. Puts a hand on my shoulder, followed by a forehead.

"You looked really, like, suicidal or something, I don't know, please don't be mad, I'm sorry, shouldn't have been all B and E on you."

God, shut up, girl. I put a hand on her hand, and we sit amongst the ruins of J.K. Rowling.