MAGIANIMA // Hermione Granger

Dirty Little Mouth

They arrived at Hogwarts, the sky darkened and the air biting, Atlas had changed into her uniform, the trousers a tad too short and her sleeves revealing a large portion of her wrists but she didn't really mind, she knew Minerva would get her a new uniform when she saw the state she was in. So instead of paying it any mind, she unloaded her trunk from the train, doing the same for everyone that she had shared her compartment with. It was something to get her mind off of things, off of the stares -- like spears -- in her back, the whispers that made her hands twitch irritably and the occasional nudges and bumps she was attacked with. Each time the perpetrator would run, laughing with their friends.

With the last of their trunks and cages hauled onto the back of their chosen carriage, Atlas turned to wave down her friends, finding that they'd stayed to wait for Ron and Hermione, the two of them getting their last Prefect duties handed to them on small squares of parchment. They didn't see her, with so many other bodies mingling past and hauling their own trunks over their heads so she gave up for the moment, crossing her arms instead and sitting on the lip of the carriage, waiting, silent, with a glaze over her eyes.

She was tired, her chat with Hermione earlier that day weighing on her mind, dragging down her shoulders. It wasn't something she really wanted to think about so she tried to seek a different distraction, tucking her hands in her pockets, subsequently disturbing her little Agoniser friend from her slumber. The dragon awoke, flying from within her jacket and perching herself on Atlas's shoulder.

"Did you sleep well, little lady?" Atlas asked quietly, holding her palm out to catch the Agoniser as it flew again. It stared up at her, pearlescent eyes happy and content as it nodded and Atlas smiled faintly, "that's good..." 

It circled her palm, padding its paws against her skin before sitting and simply staring. Atlas stared back, tilting her head slightly to look at the figure '4' in its scales, a permanent reminder of the first trial. She blinked, clenching her eyes shut and taking a breath, she opened them again to see the Agoniser staring at her curiously, to which she smiled and shook her head, digging her hand in her pocket again to pull out the picture she'd placed there earlier that morning.

Cedric smiled up at her when she'd unfolded it, a younger, happier version of herself doing the same as Bella scrambled to the floor, screeching something terrible. Atlas's smile faded as she thumbed the moving ink. This is how she should remember him, Bella had said, yet, when Atlas thought of Cedric in that instant, the emotion on the inks face shifted to something fearful.

She folded it closed again. Tucking it quickly into her pocket.

Silent footfalls approached her and Atlas looked up, expecting to see her friends, all ready to go but instead, a long, white beard greeted her, Dumbledore's sparkling gown and his half-moon spectacles a bad omen in Atlas's eyes. He smiled and Atlas frowned, carefully moving her little Agoniser to her pocket once more.

"Atlas."

"Dumbledore."

"Would you be so kind as to join me on a stroll?"

"You'll miss the entrance ceremony...I'll miss dinner," Atlas said, though she stood, inching to the tree line away from any eager ears and the eyes that followed them. It was, of course, strange to see Dumbledore greeting a student personally at the train station, so she didn't entirely blame them for their intrigue.

"I assure you, you'll find your dinner will be just as delicious as always, whether you feast in the Great Hall or your dorm room and I will not miss my speech, Minerva will handle the initial welcoming," Dumbledore spoke calmly, clearly with certainty as he then gestured to a path in the forest, one Atlas knew to lead to the back entrance of the Great Hall. "Now please, let us take a walk."