1st November.
It was in the newspapers.
The ‘World-Shake’ as they called it, had indeed happened all over the world and for 15 seconds.
The muggle world had no idea what had caused it and so there was panic here and there, scientists trying to justify the reason for it, talking about something being wrong with the Earth’s core.
On the magical side though, it was realized that it all started from the Ministry of Magic itself. The British one to be precise.
And not only that, but the Department of Mysteries was involved as well.
Rumors were flying all over Hogwarts.
With the World-Shake and Sirius Black, a lot was going on that was keeping the students in a gossipy mood.
Not just gossipy though, but also fearful as well.
Apparently, the shake had concerned the World government, the world magical government to be precise, and the ICW would be going into session come the following week.
No one knew what the talk would be about, but since the ICW were getting involved, then it meant it was very serious.
And it led to the eyes of the world focusing on magical Britain.
For the rest of the week, nothing seemed to change though…
Everyone went for their classes as normal, except the occasion fear of dementors and the chill and sadness they brought.
Sally though began occasionally struggling with her mage sight.
It had activated when she had been a child. Just 8 or 9 during a potions accident.
It ran in her family, from her mother’s side to be precise, but it occasionally skipped.
And just like it skipped her grandma, her mum and possibly her sister… it came to settle in her.
Sally-Anne could see magic.
See it in all it’s gloriousness.
The beauty that could make you stop and shed tears just by watching it twirl or move in the air.
Like golden auroras that moved with the air.
When one cast magic with their wand, it floated out with the spell and it… told stories, of what the spell could do. Like a language only those with mage sights could understand.
Whenever she was in a magical area, magic was ALWAYS in the air at all times… moving beautiful like how music was said to sway in the air.
But just as there were beautiful Magics, there were ugly ones.
Dark magic.
They were sort of twisted and unappealing to watch or understand. Ugly and when focused in a particular area or when in use, it seemed like a festering wound, looking and searching for things to infest.
Sally-Anne had noticed the slight headache she’d developed ever since the night of the World-Shake a few days back.
While she rarely ever used her sight as it seemed to make the green and gold in her eyes shine brighter, it also left her slightly disoriented after as well.
Luna also seemed to be in deep thoughts most of the time as she stared around at nothing, and it concerned the strawberry blonde as it seemed to attract more jeers and side jests from the blonde’s year mates and the occasional student.
Sally-Anne was a quiet girl, everyone knew that.
Her year mates, Padma Patil, Li Su, Lisa Turpin, Mandy Brocklehurst, Isobel MacDougal, Michael Corner, Anthony Goldstein, Terry Boot, Stephen Cornfoot and Michael Entwhistle all knew and never truly bothered her about it.
She kept to herself all the time and was known to associate with ‘Loony’ Lovegood.
It didn’t mean she never talked with her year mates though, just that she was more introverted.
But thankfully that was a Ravenclaw thing too as most preferred their own company to others.
Take Padma for instance, most of the time she spent in the library working on essays, doing some revisions, sleeping in the dormitories, reading romantic novels in what she thought was secret, and then the occasional socializing.
Mandy and Isobel were usually always seen together though. Best friends. Although Isobel sometimes spent time with her twin sister in Hufflepuff, Morag.
Just like Su and Lisa but Padma was occasionally their plus 3.
As for the boys well, they knew how they did.
“Another headache again?”
Padma asked her roommate who was sat at her desk and rubbing at her forehead.
The strawberry blonde turned to her Indian roommate who had a slightly sympathetic look on her face and Sally sighed.
“Yes.”
“You should probably head to Pomfrey tomorrow for a potion or something. You’ve been out of it for the past week now or so.”
She idly commented as she prepared for bed, sliding her latest romance novel between her covers and thinking Sally didn’t see it.
Padma might be brilliant, but she was no sneak.
“Maybe.”
Sally said absentmindedly as she turned back to her letter she was currently writing to her mum.
Her mum had always known about the issue but it had only ever happened once in a rare moon, but now, ever since that Halloween night about 4 days ago, she’d been having a slight headache continuously.
Thankfully it wasn’t enough to render her bed bound, but Sally was scared it would grow, and so she was writing a letter to her mum, informing her about it.
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If her mother thought it a good idea to inform Pomfrey, then she would. She was a healer after all.
Su and Lisa soon enough came out of the bathroom, slightly wet from having a hot shower and smiles on their faces.
“Nice shower?”
Padma absentmindedly asked and the two nodded.
“Yeah. Keep away the chill of those pesky dementors.”
Su said and Lisa nodded.
“I still can’t believe Dumbledore isn’t doing anything about them! They shouldn’t be here!”
She whined as she changed into her sleeping gown and Padma shrugged.
“It’s not like he could do anything, really. It’s the ministry who put them here. Also, have you forgotten about Sirius Black?”
“You mean Stubby Boardman?”
Sally sarcastically said and Padma turned to her.
“What?”
Sally quickly waved her hand.
“Nothing. Just something I remembered.”
She then tuned them out as she hummed a song Luna used to sing as she finished writing her letter, enveloping it and putting it in her bag.
She’d send it out the following day, Friday.
Sally was looking forward to relaxing and just about sleeping in during the weekend.
Even as her remaining roommates trudged in as the curfew was about to kick in, Sally’s mind was still on the World shake more than the whole Sirius Black fiasco, which was crazy seeing as Sirius Black was the one who warranted even more fear and should.
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Binns was a bore.
Everyone knew that.
And so his class was mostly used for sleeping or just about catching up on other things you wanted to while the ghost droned away on and on and on.
Sally was presently using the History of Magic class with Hufflepuff to complete her Ancient Runes homework so she could have her weekend free from it.
Next to her was sat a fellow Hufflepuff she was only just acquaintances with.
Susan Bones.
The redhead was presently gossiping away with the girl behind her, Hannah Abbott about something her aunt had written her that morning.
“—said the department wouldn’t tell them exactly what is going on until the meeting with the ICW. So we shouldn’t worry about Hogwarts collapsing in on us anytime soon.”
Sally’s ears perked at that.
“So there’s really nothing to be worried about?”
Hannah whispered and Sally saw Susan nod with her side eye.
“Yes. I told you, you were being all worried for nothing!”
Susan giggled and Hannah let out a sigh of relief before joining her in her giggle fest and Sally soon enough tuned them out.
So the department of law enforcement didn’t know what was going on??
How very weird. But it was expected too.
No one knows what the Unspeakables did, not even the Minister himself was privy to that information.
They were sort of an independent division from the government with their laws though still under the government nonetheless.
Sally’s table was closest to the wall and a window sat next to her which she suddenly got lost in as she looked out into the greeneries of the castle.
You could definitely get lost in it, savoring the beauty of everything.
Suddenly, the hairs on Sally’s body raised and she shivered involuntarily, feeling at alert as she looked around her but… there was nothing out of the ordinary.
But then, Sally paused as her eyes took in Binns.
He had suddenly stopped droning though no one really noticed, and he seemed more awake than ever as his grey eyes seemed to sweep around the classroom, confusion on his face which turned into fear as he screamed.
“OUT!!”
Everyone jumped, startled, suddenly looking at Binns in a new light.
“I said out!! All of you!! Stay away!!!”
He bellowed loudly, before zooming out of the room like the hounds of hell were on his tail.
And then the whispers began.
“Bloody hell!”
“He’s finally lost his mind!”
“Think the dementors got to him or something?”
But Sally kept staring at the blackboard Binns had just zoomed through.
Something about that sentence… the way he’d spoken… the panic.
Had he been speaking to them or…
“Argh!”
She winced slightly, holding her forehead in a massaging manner.
“Are you okay?”
Susan asked quietly as she packed her things and Sally looked up at her, forcing a smile on her face.
“Yes. I just have a slight headache.”
The redhead nodded before walking off with Hannah Abbott, the two eagerly whispering about Binns’ slow descent into madness even as Sally stood up slowly, walking out the room behind her fellow classmates.
A slight tingle at the back of her neck made her turn slightly as she walked out of the class, and she could have sworn the world seemed to flicker right before her eyes.
It felt like something was going on.
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Sally sat down that evening for dinner, Luna next to her.
The platinum blonde had taken to having a slight frown across her blank face lately and while it worried Sally, she had her own little issues to deal with too.
“I heard Gryffindor’s playing Hufflepuff tomorrow, not Slytherin.”
Anthony Goldstein eagerly whispered amongst his roommates as they are dinner and Terry looked up in surprise, a huge chunk of chicken in his mouth.
“Really? Why not??”
He cried out, making some chicken fly out of his mouth and people around screw their face on disgust.
“Apparently Malfoy’s arms not up to working yet.”
Michael Corner rolled his eyes at that.
“Just a bunch of lies. He probably doesn’t want to face Gryffindor or better yet Potter, tomorrow in the air.”
The boys snickered amongst each other as conversation flowed around them.
Sally looked up at the staff table.
It was the same as usual. The staff all present, except of course for Headmaster Dumbledore who had been away from Hogwarts since the morning after the World shake.
ICW sessions could take weeks on end if the meeting is super important and world concerning.
Since this incident had something to do with the Department of Mysteries, then it probably did.
Hopefully it’d be dealt with soon. It didn’t seem to be trouble anyways…
Nothing bad at happened.
She grimaced slightly as her head seemed to bang slightly and hoped that her mother would send a reply fast.
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That night, as Sally slept, she found herself in her mind scape, this time it was different.
Mist was everywhere and she seemed to be walking in a deep, dark and dank forest.
Dried and dead trees everywhere, and the mist gathered up to her knees, the ground unseen to the eyes.
She felt barefoot as well, even as she walked around, a confused look in her face…
This place… it looked like the forbidden forest. Or at least, what the forbidden forest was described as. The eastern part anyways… where less of the creatures roamed.
What was she doing here?
She pondered as she looked around.
“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”
Sally jumped with a gasp escaping her throat as she looked around, looking for the place the disembodied chirpy voice had come from.
“Who’s there??”
She whispered quietly, fear and a feeling of foreboding building up in her.
“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”
The thirteen year old whimpered as the hairs on her body raised and a shriek escaped her lips, jumping into the air as she felt something cold move past her feet.
She wasted no time as soon as he feet touched the ground, turning and running back towards where she’d been coming from, both bothering to look behind her.
“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”
“Stay away!”
She shouted out to no one in particular, even as she ran towards no destination she knew.
Suddenly, something held onto her foot and with a shriek, she fell to the ground with a slight thud.
Breathing out heavily, she whipped her head backwards in fright but saw nothing behind her.
She sat still for what felt like a minute, breathing in and out harshly, the mist seemingly rising and flowing all around and no exit to be found.
“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”
“Oh no…”
Sally whimpered as her eyes filled with tears but none fell out.
She stumbled to her feet, free once more.
“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”
“Who’s there?!”
She screamed out, looking left and right anxiously.
“Answer me!!”
She screamed.
“Tekali-li! Tekeli-li!”
The disembodied chirpy voice kept resonating around the forest in echoes and for a moment, Sally felt she was being watched.
From where… she had no idea.
But then…
“Tekali-li!”
That one… it sounded pretty close to her.
A feeling of fear filled her as she suddenly shuddered for apparently no reason…
The urge to turn around filled her whole system with dread, especially when a powerful and overpowering smell filled her senses and made her feel feint.
“Don’t turn… don’t turn…”
She whispered to herself even as she clamped her eyes shut and her hands in fists, the air blowing strongly around her.
“Teka…li-li…”
Now, the voice was in a whisper, and she felt the impulse to turn around, her whole body doing so without her telling it to.
When she finally did, her heart banging against her chest, her whole body practically shivering in fear of what she didn’t know, and her eyes still closed.
Slowly but surely, she pried one eye open, and then the second, and she suddenly felt her body go numb as in front of her was some sort of… eldritch being…
A huge, oozing, multi-cellular mass… like an amorphous creature without shape, black in color, with a writhing mass of over hundred eyes that glowed a scaring almost neon green… long, large tentacles that had mouths full of sharp and deadly teeth.
A whimper escaped her as it seemed to shriek at her and the energy that came from it made her feel weak from fear as she fell to the ground.
This was an abomination!!
“No! No!”
She screamed as she struggled to crawl away from it, but the thing rose, like a wave of pus water, spreading in the air along with it’s number of eyes and teeth and Sally knew there was no escaping it.
For as it let out it’s victorious shriek, it dove for her, moving to wrap it’s body around her, and with an horrific howl of terror, Sally woke up to find herself back in her room again, as she scrambled to sit up, turning on her oil lamp as she also heard her roommates jump out of bed in fright and shock.
“What??”
“What happened?!”
“Who screamed?!”
Sally fell off her bed, her whole body weak and sweat pooling around her.
Even her mass of strawberry blonde hair seemed as if she’d fired an aguamenti on herself.
“Are you okay?!”
Padma whose bed was closes to Sally breathed out over where she knelt on her bed, peeking to see the girl now on the floor and Morag and Mandy ran over.
Sally though still felt her whole body shivering as she could answer no question.
“Sally?”
“Sally, are you okay??”
“Get a prefect, Lisa!”
“On it!”
But even with the soft prodding from her roommates, Sally couldn’t stop thinking about the thing that had seemed to haunt her very dreams…
How it had felt so real, so… hungry…
How it’s energy had seemed to sap any strength she had in her.
It had felt so real…
“S-so r-realll…”
She shivered from fright and chill, even as Padma grabbed Sally’s blanket, wrapping it around her.
But it did nothing for her, even as a trail of blood ran down one of her nostrils and she could answer none of their questions.
Even as the female 7th year prefect walked into the room, she couldn’t console the third year who burst into frightened tears.
It had felt so real…
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“Poor thing…”
Pomfrey tutted as the third year Ravenclaw finally calmed enough as to sleep.
But that had not been easy either.
Without a calming potion and a dreamless sleep potion, the girl would still be shivering and crying to herself.
“What could have happened?”
Filius asked, a worried look on his face as he stared at the little Raven in bed, looking paler than should be.
Pomfrey huffed as she moved to cover the girl even more and tuck her in.
“What else but those silly Dementors, Filius?! Those things should not be in the vicinity of children! Why Dumbledore even allows it, I will never know!!”
Filius sighed tiredly, the man wrapped in his sleepwear after having been suddenly awoken by a charm he’d placed in his sleeping quarters in case there ever was an emergency in the Ravenclaw tower.
“It’s not like he has a say in it.”
“He’s the chief warlock! He ought to have a say!”
“You forget Fudge will not accept. This though…”
He looked down at the raven child again.
“This is the first very serious case of the Dementor stigma. Others only talk about the chill, the feeling of hopelessness or fear. But that’s just in passing and chocolate helps them rapidly… she didn’t seem to be in the right state of mind. Perhaps when Dumbledore arrives in a few hours, I should bring it up with him.”
Pomfrey huffed.
“Better do so, Filius. Mark my words, this will not be the only one to come to my halls this way.”
She wished him a goodnight as he walked off, and Filius Flitwick hoped that wouldn’t be the case.
Sirius Black had to be found soon.