A Fragile Lucidity :: OPEN

Ravenclaw Common Room
5 October 1921
3:00am


It was late into the evening, or morning. Depending on how you looked at it. The sky outside was dark, while the clock read 3:00am. Everleigh had woken up from another nightmare fueled night. Green lights, pain, screaming, lightning hitting trees and the sweet oblivion of nothingness, to only be brought back into existence with a sharp jab of reality.

None of it made sense, but not much did anymore.

When the nightmares came knocking, Ever didn’t linger in the dorm. Trying to go back to sleep was a waste of time. It would only result in another screaming alarm call for her friends in the dorm. Not that she would call them friends at this point. Wake someone up a few dozen times to screaming, thrashing and fighting… well, those ‘friends’ got tired of the abuse pretty quickly.

On some nights she didn’t even bother retiring to her bed. The common room couch was a fair substitute and thankfully, the walls were thick enough to muffle her screams.

It happened almost nightly now. Exhaustion didn’t help her state of mind. Participation in classes was at an all time low. Ask Ever a question and your answers were a blank stare, a shake or nod of her head, a mumbled incoherent response or, in rare, brief periods of lucidity she might actually string a few words together. Those times were becoming few and far between.

As the time ticked on, Ever sat on the plush couch, wrapped up in a fluffy blue blanket staring into the fireplace blankly. It was soothing in a way, how the flames danced. The wood crackled, almost talking to her. So engrossed in her solitude, she didn’t hear the footsteps coming down the stairs until they were nearly in front of her.

Another night of little sleep.

It was becoming ridiculous. As exhausted as the woman felt, she just couldn't get comfortable. Every time she drifted off, something new ached and grew uncomfortable and off she was tossing and turning again. It didn't help on the nights Kate needed a little extra comfort, taking up more of the bed that Julia already couldn't get comfortable on, finding the little girl made her blankets and sheets unbearably hot, even in the cold stone walls of the castle.

She needed to get this under control.

A walk would do her some good. Laying in bed certainly wasn't getting her the sleep she coveted, and there was no use trying. Pulling her professor robes on over her nightgown, Julia was careful not to wake her daughter, and tucked the blankets back in around her. Out the door she slipped, closing it softly behind her and made her way down the stairs.

Perhaps she'd stop by the kitchens for a cup of tea. She had some in her apartments of course, but the tea whistle would only disturb Kate and she wasn't lucid enough to manage the silent questions in her little girl's eyes as to why she wasn't in bed.

At times, it felt like the girl was raising her rather than the other way around.

Her eyes fell on the figure of someone sitting silently by the fireplace. Everleigh. Julia sighed quietly, wrapping the robe around her a little tighter. So much for the tea or the walk.

Everleigh had been dealing with nightmares since the previous term, in no great thanks to Thayer, the woman imagined and had been waking her dormmates pretty regularly with her screams. Julia didn't blame her or think she was at fault for it, but the woman was of the mind that her family needed to get her some help, someway or somehow. Leaving her to her own devices at the school that traumatized her certainly was doing the girl no favors.

"Everleigh," Julia called softly, making her way towards the younger Ravenstone, "Why are you out of bed again?"

The fire danced in the fireplace. Everleigh’s eyes were bright orange with the flame’s reflection. She didn’t see, didn’t hear, lost in the fire’s hypnotic pull.

"Everleigh," Julia’s soft voice pulled her out of the trance, but even her softened voice made her jump. "Why are you out of bed again?"

Heart beating fast, breaths coming in pants, Ever sat and stared at her Head of House. She didn’t have words for why. She didn’t have words for anything.

Shaking her head, an automatic response, Ever pulled the blanket up around her and tried to hide from the woman. Julia wasn’t mean, but having a conversation was out of the question.

Sitting next to her on the couch was Everleigh’s journal. The first half filled with words, strung together with poise and finesse. The work of a gifted linguist. The second half was a stark difference, filled with chicken scratched words, scribbled drawings and in some cases jagged lines and ripped pages.

The page was open to a simple lined picture, one Ever wouldn’t remember drawing. Most were done in a state of unconscious memory. It was clearly a fireplace, all in black lines. Above the fireplace was an old broom used for flying and what appeared to be a family picture. Four people, two adults and two children, but the picture was scribbled over obscuring the faces.

Ever wouldn’t be able to articulate the scene, but anyone who had been in her father’s office at their home would see similarities.

Flipping through the pages would show the broken window of the dark tower, a carnival tent covered in smoke, a young girls hand being burned by a flame and her newest drawing, the same dark tower window with a bright green light very reminiscent of the killing curse. Alice had given her colored pencils. Ever liked the colors.

---

Feel free to flip through the pages

She watched as the girl pulled her blanket up and around her - trying to put a barrier between herself and Julia it seemed. The woman moved closer, noticing the journal beside Everleigh, but choosing not to pay it much mind for the moment. Julia didn't make it a habit of rifling through her students' belongings, and certainly wouldn't start now.

Everleigh didn't have to talk, but she certainly needed to get back to bed.

Julia knew it was easier said than done.

She nudged the journal closed, barely registering the scribbles and what looked like an old fireplace, before placing it on the coffee table nearby. She took a seat next to the girl, but didn't touch her, preferring to let things take their own course.

Years ago, when Ruth was going through a hard time and needed someone to talk to, Julia could barely get the girl through her door. They'd both sat on the floor, talking about nothing in particular while Julia enticed her with chocolate - not unlike a feral animal. Eventually, Ruth had moved closer and opened up. From then on, establishing a relationship with the girl had been easy.

But Everleigh was different. She wasn't Rae, or traumatized by the same things.

"Sometimes it helps to talk things through when something scares us," she said gently as the girl sat beneath her blanket. "Better than keeping it all inside where it festers."

"Sometimes it helps to talk things through when something scares us," Julia said. "Better than keeping it all inside where it festers."

Talk. A lot of people used that word. Trying to coax the words out. It didn’t work, the words didn’t work. There were times where the words in her head came together in coherent thoughts, those were the hardest. Words she wanted to say but never actually were spoken. There was a disconnect between that part of her brain, where thoughts were generated and words were spoken.

Did something scare her? Festers was a good word. Fancy.

Snapshots of images ran through her mind like a flip book. It was impossible to pick out an individual one, they all ran together. But unlike a flip book, when you flipped the pages of the images in her brain, it didn’t make a coherent moving image. It was just a rapidly moving mess.

That didn’t stop her from thinking though. Her brain took the prompt of things that scare Ever and ran wild. Dark spaces, shadows, being transported places, green lights, pain, watching Rae and Maevie scream, the dark eyes of Thayer. Like a subliminal message, there were quick flashes that her brain couldn’t hold onto. She couldn’t decipher if they were memories, but the face was clear. Her father in various stages of anger.

While her brain kept focusing on the dark tower and the tortures they endured, her hand started sketching blindly. The two halves of her brain working independently from each other. Her left hand started scribbling furiously in her journal. The picture was barely recognizable. Her eyes barely seeing the lines take shape. Her dominate right hand stayed lifeless on her lap, while her left hand drew her memories.

Once her hand was done, Ever looked down, vision unfocused at the black lines that took over the page. There was no recognition, no knowledge of ever drawing the image. Ever ripped it out of her book, held it up and handed it to Julia. Clear as day her vacant eyes stared at her Head of House and said. “Daddy makes brooms.”

Those three words strung together was more than she had said in months.

“Daddy makes brooms.”

That he did.

She'd sat quietly as Everleigh had retrieved her notebook and began her errant scribbling again, no recognition or acknowledgement of the words Julia had spoken. Over the past month, it had been much of the same in classes. Everleigh would have an outburst, or sit silently, or scribble away the images that must have been rumbling through her mind. Lessons held no seeming interest for the third year, and there was no getting her to participate. Instead, she'd cling to either her sister or cousin and mumble.

Hogwarts was the last place the child needed to be.

Her eyes drifted to the page, before taking it from Everleigh's hands and setting it aside again, paying the scribbles little mind. Indulging whatever this was certainly couldn't help the girl and Julia wasn't exactly equipped to help her in the way she thought was necessary. That all required parental permission.

She could owl them of course. Ask them if they understood how dire their daughter's situation seemed to be, but there was little else she could do. Laws were stringent around children - and if her parents didn't think it necessary to afford Everleigh the sort of help she so obviously needed, then Julia's hands were tied.

"Everleigh," she said quietly, drawing for her wand. "Sitting out here and drawing isn't doing you any favors. It's three in the morning and you need to be in bed." It was non-negotiable even for the girl who was so obviously troubled.

Julia flicked her wand slightly, and within a moment, Everleigh would have felt a soft, gentle calm wash over her, not unlike the sensation of crawling into a warm bed. When the girl's body visibly relaxed, the woman reached out, taking Everleigh by the hand and tugging her gently from the sofa to stand. "Come darling," she said gently, leading her back towards the stairs.

"You must be absolutely exhausted."

Tomorrow, she'd attempt to send the owl off, but she had a sneaking suspicion it wouldn't go far for the poor Ravenstone girl.

---

*Permission to charm given by Sarah.

"Everleigh. Sitting out here and drawing isn't doing you any favors. It's three in the morning and you need to be in bed."

In one ear and out the other. Ever’s hand kept moving. The memory of papers, files, a desk, yelling coming out through her hand and onto the page. To the average observer it wouldn’t look like much, but for Ever it was the start of a troubling scene.

The wave of calm that came over Ever was sudden and unwelcome. She didn’t want to sleep. Sleep made the memories come back.

A yawn escaped her mouth without her consent. Rude.

She was up off the couch, moving towards the dorm room, Julia’s soft voice saying things, none of which made sense to Ever. It was all a wash of warmth and exhaustion. Before she knew it the covers were around her, her head was on the pillow and her eyes were shut. Maybe, just maybe, for once she wouldn’t wake up screaming.