"Wake up."
Leo grumbled, trying to drag herself up and out of the heavy water of her dream.
"Wake up. Your roommates broke into your things."
She manage a noise of confusion, blinking slowly at the heavy drapes pulled around her bed.
"Wake up!"
She flinched and pushed herself up on her elbows. "What?" she mumbled, rubbing at her eyes.
"Your roommates broke into your things," Regulus repeated. He was laughing.
"What?" she asked again, staring up at the canopy above her. She could hear something muffled, something high, something very far away.
"Your security hexes worked!" he told her gleefully.
Leo sat up and turned to the edge of the bed, where she dismissed her imperturbable and pulled back the curtain. She could hear the screaming, and now she could see the hair and sardines across the floor. The lid of her chest was unlatched but hadn't been lifted. Instead of rifling through her things, Millicent, Pansy, and even Tracey were yelling in between sardine-producing sneezes as they raked their fingers over their now-bald scalps.
Leo snickered. "You really should stay out of my things."
Millicent turned on her, face flushed red, and thrust one finger in her direction. "You! How dare—" She sneezed, a particularly large sardine sloughing out of her nose. She groaned, clutching at her face.
"You should probably see Madam Pomfrey for that," Leo remarked. Regulus snickered before diving forward to look in the chest. Just to be sure.
Tracey was the first out of the room, in tears, with Pansy close behind. Millicent seemed like she wasn't going to leave at first, but then her nose produced two more sardines, and she took off running.
"This is gross, you know."
Leo looked over to see Daphne standing at the bathroom door, nose wrinkled as she surveyed their dorm room's floor. "Yes." She looked back at the hair and fish and frowned. "I don't know the vanishing spell."
"Great," Daphne said dryly, putting on her hat. She stepped carefully around the mess as she made her way to the door, hoisting up her robes. "Let's just hope you don't lose us more points, then."
Leo yawned and floated her chest over the floor and closer to her bed with a flick of her wand, setting it where it would be easy to get into without getting dirty. Once Daphne was gone, she said, "What time is it?"
"If you hurry, you'll still be on time for breakfast."
"Hmm." She yawned again and rubbed her eyes as she stood up with her robes in hand. "I'm tired."
"It was worth it. You made progress with Relashio."
"I want to make progress with sleeping," she said, waving a hand in his direction.
"Don't forget that tonight is—"
"Yes, I know. Shack, again. How could I forget?"
Breakfast had seemingly just started when she made it down to the Great Hall. Draco squinted at her as she sat down, but it was actually Theodore who spoke. "What did you do?" he asked mildly. As far as she could remember, it was the first thing he'd ever said to her.
"I don't what you're talking about," she said, taking a seat and immediately filling her plate with teacakes. On Draco's other side, Daphne laughed briefly before covering it up with an over-done cough and reaching for the beans.
Theodore's eyes narrowed just a touch. Then he shrugged and started picking at his food. "People were screaming earlier."
"And you assumed I did something?"
Draco snorted. "Millicent is bald, Rex."
"Sounds like she should have stayed out of my things."
"Malfoy."
Regulus hissed, and Leo looked up. "Professor Snape," she greeted, glancing briefly behind him to see if any of her affected dormmates had come with him. "Am I in trouble?"
"Not precisely." His dark eyes bored into hers for a long moment, and she suddenly found herself wondering if Dumbledore wasn't the only legilimens at Hogwarts. "I will not be docking any points. However, I should warn you to be cautious about . . . antagonizing your fellow students."
"They're the ones that decided to get in my things," she defended.
"Yes, Madam Pomfrey and I gathered as much. I'm simply suggesting you be more . . . careful in the future. You've already received punishment for hexing other students before."
She considered that, glancing over at Regulus where he was regarding Snape coolly. "Yes, sir."
She hadn't wanted to go to the Shrieking Shack, but she had. She hadn't wanted to practice Relashio until her arms were sore, but she had. She hadn't wanted to check on the third floor corridor again, but here she was.
And so was Professor Quirrell. Again.
She'd avoided him as much as possible ever since she'd first heard the second voice coming from him. Despite that, she'd spent a couple hours with him in detention, painstakingly powdering silver and wondering—not for the first time—if cold iron would hurt her the way silver hurt werewolves. He hadn't talked much during that time beyond stuttering out some instructions as well as a couple lines of somewhat impressed disapproval as to the actions that had gotten her detention in the first place. But his lack of talking meant she'd been able to avoid—or at least do her best at avoiding—thinking about the second voice.
But here he was, standing quivering in one of the empty rooms of the third floor corridor, choking out apologies and begging for more time my lord as a second voice berated him. Sneered. Broke him down.
It broke Regulus, too.
She turned to him to demand confirmation that she was right, that she was guessing correctly, that it really was— But Regulus was clawing at his ghostly face, wailing.
Well, she'd have to figure it out herself, then.
There was a wall. Leo wasn't sure when it had been built. She hadn't built it, and Regulus had refused to ever truly acknowledge it. But it was there, and Leo didn't like going past it. Luckily, she hadn't had to much. Unluckily, she needed to now, because the only alternative was waiting for Regulus to come back to himself and risking him screaming instead of answering her suspicions.
So here she was, scaling the mossy wall in her mind. She was lighter in her head, though scaling walls had never really been difficult for her in real life. Hauling herself up didn't require effort much different than pulling herself back onto a broom after falling during a flip. Once she'd reached the top, she took a breath and let herself fall forward.
She landed at the dinner table. A copy of the Daily Prophet was spread out in front of Walburga, and she and Orion were deep in discussion. Leo herself was eating, and the food was flavorful even through the memory. The chair across the table from her was empty.
This wasn't helpful. Even though Walburga was apparently singing her praises about Lord Voldemort with Orion's solid support, the man himself wasn't here.
"Does he really want to meet me?" she asked, Regulus's voice coming out of her mouth. The body she was in took up a teacup but didn't drink from it.
"Of course he does," Walburga scoffed. "Why wouldn't he?"
Orion's agreement was lost to Leo as she did her best to look around. It was hard. Regulus wasn't turning his head. Despite them talking about him, Tom wasn't here. She needed somewhere Tom was.
Peeling herself away from Regulus hurt. No more than always having him around did, but it felt like removing a layer of skin. Nevertheless, she leaned forward and out of his body and tumbled down. Down. Down.
Sirius was yelling at her. In between his screams, when it seemed like maybe he was cooling, he would look at the Dark Mark on her forearm, and his anger would surge again. She'd been in this one before, and it felt a little—a lot—like when Regulus would shriek at her. This time, her chest was the thing that hurt the most as she tore herself away. She fell again just as Sirius went to shove her—Regulus—away from himself.
Regulus had a paper cut. His blood had gotten on the book's page, and he had tossed it to the side where she couldn't see it anymore. But that didn't matter because she knew her copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art had a bloodstain on the seventy-eighth page right under the word brume. Kreacher was fretting over the injury, but she knew Regulus was far more worried about where he'd sent the house elf only days before. This wasn't the right memory either. She pulled herself away as Kreacher healed the cut with a snap of his fingers.
"It's an honor."
That was Regulus's voice. Mist layered in the room. Brume, actually, because she'd looked up the definition of that word after finding it in the book. Regulus had gotten upset that she'd allowed herself to be distracted from her horcrux reading, but she didn't mind because she'd also read the definitions for grimalkin, eviscerate, and anathema.
The point was that she wasn't alone here. There were others in the room. Dozens of them, all darkly robed and silver masked. Her own mask was cold against her face, though that might have more to do with it being her than the mask itself. They were all circled around her—no, around Regulus, because she wouldn't have chosen to be here—and the person he was kneeling in front of. His left arm was held in a vice grip, though this person was more pleased about the Mark on it than Sirius had been.
"It is," Tom crooned, neat nails digging into Regulus's skin. "You should be honored. And I have high hopes for you, Black. Do not disappoint."
"I won't."
This time, tearing herself away was more like dragging herself through waist-deep mud: slow, uncomfortable, and heavy. When she did open her eyes, it was to the gouged walls of the Shrieking Shack. The name was apt; that was all Regulus had done since she'd snuck there after curfew.
"It's him," Leo told Regulus. He wouldn't look at her. "I had to be sure because you wouldn't tell me. But it's him. Somehow, Tom's here. At Hogwarts. With Professor Quirrell."