It was some time past three in the morning, and SinB sat in the common room, cuddled under a thick blanket as she stared into the fire.

She had another nightmare.

Almost an hour ago, SinB had woken up in a cold sweat with a scream stuck in . She couldn’t remember the dream, but she didn’t have to to know what it must’ve been about. Like clockwork, throughout the end of October and most of November, she was plagued by these nightmares. She was usually okay by the time she went home for the holidays, but until then, SinB hardly slept.

When she inevitably woke up, too unsettled to go back to sleep, she’d taken to dragging a blanket down to the common room, so she wouldn’t accidentally wake up Eunha. She’d sit there and watch the fire until the other students started to wake up. If she was lucky, she’d doze off some, but mostly, she just watched the flames flicker through the night.

Tonight was like any other night lately, and SinB just sat there, motionless. Her heartbeat had slowed, and her mind had calmed. Her thoughts wandered aimlessly, drifting like ghosts through a fog.  

Unbiddingly, SinB thought of Yerin. It felt right to think of her in the dead of the night.

Things had been going so well. It almost made sense that disaster had to strike. Still, it didn’t make it hurt any less.

SinB didn’t know how to convince Yerin she was more than the stereotype and reputation forced upon her. She flirted and chatted, showing bits and pieces of her to show Yerin who she was. It backfired. Yerin thought her true self was just some facade SinB put up to trick her into trust. That much was evident when Yerin yelled at her after the quidditch game.

She didn’t even know why she wanted to change Yerin’s mind about her. It shouldn’t matter what she thought of her. When did she become more than the annoying Gryffindor?

Closing her eyes, SinB snuggled deeper into her blanket.

“SinB?”

SinB’s startled, eyes flying open. She had her hand on her wand before she could even process who had called her name. When SinB recognized it was Professor Jung standing in front of her, she relaxed slightly. Her hand wavered over her wand though. She couldn’t bring herself to relax completely because she saw Professor Jung’s face. A look of distress SinB had never seen on her before was there.

“What’s wrong, Professor Jung?” SinB asked carefully.

“Why are you awake?” Professor Jung replied instead of answering.

SinB frowned and said, “I couldn’t sleep. What’s wrong?” She repeated her question, worry crawling into her veins.

“The headmaster is going to give an announcement at dinner,” Professor Jung said softly, taking a seat across from SinB. “However, I trust you to be discreet about this.” She closed her eyes, tears welling up in her eyes. “SinB, we’ve found a student paralyzed.”

“Paralyzed?” SinB repeated, dumbfounded. “Do you mean…”

“In a stasis,” Professor Jung nodded. “Like a coma, if you’re familiar with the term. However, the student must be released from their state by whoever did this to her.”

“Her…” SinB echoed.

Professor Jung. “A Gryffindor girl.”

Inexplicable fear gripped SinB’s chest as she stammered, “G-Gryffindor?”

“A sixth year named Sung Haewon.”

SinB felt terrible about the rush of relief that filled her as soon as she didn’t hear Yerin’s name. She shouldn’t even care about Yerin given their last encounter, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d been terrified at the thought of Yerin being paralyzed. SinB shook her head.

“There’s nothing to help her?” SinB asked.

Professor Jung sighed and said, “The school’s nurse is doing everything she can, but all she can really do right now is make sure she’s not in pain.” She rubbed at her eyes and smiled sadly. “I don’t like to tell you what to do, SinB, but I’d appreciate it if you’d go back to your room. I’d feel better knowing all my students are safe in their beds right now.”

“Of course,” SinB nodded. She couldn’t even imagine what Professor Jung must feel like. She figured it must’ve been something like how she felt for Yerin, but for all of her students. SinB stood up and gathered her blanket. “Good night, Professor Jung.”

“Good night, SinB.”

SinB shuffled back into her room. She dropped the blanket on the floor and crawled into Eunha’s bed.

“SinB?” Eunha said sleepily as she shifted over to make room for the other girl. She blinked a couple of times as she woke up, but her eyebrows remained furrowed. “What’s wrong, SinB?”

“Professor Jung said they found a student paralyzed,” SinB whispered fearfully.

“Paralyzed?” Eunha repeated.

“Doesn’t that sound familiar?” SinB asked. “I remember reading this happening when Harry Potter was in school. Students were paralyzed by Slytherin’s basilisk.”

“Potter killed the basilisk,” Eunha pointed out with a sigh. She slung an arm over SinB’s waist and closed her eyes. “It’s probably nothing, SinB. Go to sleep.”

SinB said nothing as she watched Eunha’s breathing even out again. It didn’t feel like nothing. What were the odds of a student being inflicted with paralysis? Even if it was a prank or something, why choose paralysis? To SinB, paralysis was synonymous with the muggleborn attacks. Sinb froze. Wasn’t Sung Haewoon a muggleborn?

The rest of the night, SinB laid there helplessly, not wanting to move and wake Eunha again. Even if she could’ve moved, she’s not sure what she would have done. So SinB just laid there, a feeling of paranoia overtaking her.

By the time SinB dragged herself to breakfast, Eunha trailing after her with a worried frown, all she wanted was to drown herself with coffee. SinB slumped at the table and drank two cups of coffee before even considering the other food on the table. She was in the middle of shoving a tiny muffin into when Umji wandered over from the Ravenclaw table with a furrow to her brows.

“Are you okay?” Umji asked softly, brushing SinB’s hair away from her face.

SinB scowled and ducked away from the touch. She felt incredibly restless and jumpy, so any sort of touching made her flinch. “I’m fine,” SinB lied. On top of her nightmares, she was now worrying over the paralyzed student. “Just tired.”

“You look worse than usual,” Umji said, unperturbed by SinB’s attitude. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“A couple of hours,” SinB answered reluctantly. She caught Eunha’s eye, and Eunha gave a small shake of her head. Umji could wait until dinner to hear about the student. “It was just a bad night.”

Umji smiled sympathetically and promised to make her some tea later to help with her nerves. SinB felt a wave of gratitude at having Umji as a friend and agreed to meet her in the kitchens later. However, her good mood soon dwindled as she headed to Potions. SinB could barely contain her jitteriness, and the last thing she wanted to do was deal with Yerin.

Yerin was already there when SinB walked in, head down and avoiding SinB’s eyes. SinB sighed and took her seat next to her. She didn’t look at Yerin, and Yerin didn’t look at her. It was the quietest they’d ever been during Potions. SinB didn’t mind. Her mind felt stuffy and overworked as it panicked over the implications of a paralyzed student. She remembered her grandparents telling her about their time at Hogwarts when the basilisk had been attacking students.

“The mudbloods were terrified,” her grandfather had said. “They had no idea who would be next.”

If the basilisk was dead, SinB knew it had to be a person doing this, and the thought made her sick.

“Miss Hwang,” Professor Jung said, and SinB blinked dumbly as she realized she’d spaced out. She looked to her teacher, who was watching her carefully. SinB inwardly grimaced because she didn’t need Professor Jung to worry about her when she had the paralysis to deal with. “What do I get if powdered root of asphodel is added to an infusion of wormwood?”

SinB wanted to scoff. She could’ve answered this in her sleep. “Draught of the Living Dead, ma’am.”

Professor Jung stared at her for a moment longer before nodding and continuing her lecture.

SinB could feel Eunha staring at her, but she ignored her. What she couldn’t ignore was the scrap of paper Yerin slid in front of her. What’s wrong with you? was scrawled in Yerin’s familiar handwriting. SinB angrily wrote Why do you care? and almost threw the paper at Yerin’s face. Instead, she calmly passed it back.

Yerin winced when she read the reply and bit her lip. She wrote something quickly before sliding the paper back over.

Because for some reason I’m worried about you.

SinB couldn’t help but turn to stare at Yerin incredulously while Yerin pretended to be taking notes, the tips of her ears burning red. SinB was half-tempted to just throw her hands up in the middle of class. She was never going to figure out the very confusing puzzle that was Yerin.

Shaking her head, SinB just crumpled up the paper without answering. She didn’t need this right now. She had to focus on school and more importantly what was going on with the paralyzed student. SinB felt guilty though when she saw out of the corner of her eye the way Yerin flushed and looked away, embarrassed. Wait, no. She wasn’t supposed to care! SinB wanted to bang her head against the desk.

Screw Yerin for messing with her mind.

As soon as Potions was over, SinB was out the door and headed to the pitch. She technically had Transfiguration to go to, but she knew she could miss a class and not fall behind or draw too much attention to herself.

SinB aimlessly circled the pitch for hours. She wanted to stay out there until it grew too dark to fly, but after a few hours the Hufflepuff quidditch team came out for their scheduled practice. SinB reluctantly landed and gave them the pitch, ignoring the mixture of fear and awe as she passed the Hufflepuff team. She couldn’t go anywhere without getting looks.

Just before SinB left the pitch, a hand caught her wrist. SinB jumped and whipped around, her free hand going to her wand. She blinked and lowered her hand when she realized it was Yuju. SinB glanced down at Yuju’s hand that was still holding onto her, and Yuju dropped it with a sheepish smile.

“Have you been out here since Potions?” Yuju asked her.

SinB furrowed her brows, confused. “Yeah, why do you care?”

“Well, first off, I thought we were finally getting to friends status,” Yuju huffed, “but I’m really asking for Umji. She was really worried when you didn’t show up for Transfiguration and lunch. You were also supposed to meet her in the kitchens.”

“I completely forgot… I didn’t mean to worry her,” SinB mumbled, guilt rushing over her as she dug her boot into the grass like a little kid. She mustered up a tired half-smile. “I’ll go see her after this, okay?” She tried to leave again, but Yuju stopped her once more with a hand on her shoulder.

“Get some sleep after that,” Yuju told her softly. When SinB wrinkled her nose at her, she smirked. “It’s not really my place to say, but you kind of look like .”

SinB snorted and half-heartedly punched Yuju in the arm. “Have you seen yourself, Puff?”

Yuju grinned. “Yeah, and I look pretty damn good. Now, go away. My captain’s been giving me a dirty look, since we started talking.”

SinB gave her a mock salute and walked off. Maybe she’d take her advice and take a nap.

A/N: If you want to see me ramble about writing my fics, following me on twitter @lostgirl_23