𝐀𝐈𝐌 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐘┊ᴴᵃʳʳʸ ᴾᵒᵗᵗᵉʳ

47 ✥ 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑

࿔₊° ࿔₊° ࿔₊°

❝ Why is it a tonic and not a poison? ❞

࿔₊° ࿔₊° ࿔₊°

𝕬FTER 𝕿HE 𝕿URN 𝕺F 𝕰VENTS that took place in a normal lesson to ward off the dementors, Harry stood blankly stunned for a few moments witnessing Crystal's strange behaviour and the peculiar boggart.

Crystal basically ran out of the classroom, though her gait resembled a drunk on a run. Snapping out of his thoughts, Harry decided to go after her as her condition didn't look great. He passed minutes and minutes searching for Crystal along the corridor and around every corner or classroom near him to no result.

"She couldn't have run so fast in that condition!" Harry muttered in between his heavy breaths because of the run. He ran his fingers through his messy hair, pushing them back in frustration as he abruptly came to a halt realizing that he has no directions left to search.

"Where could she have gone in such a state? Is she okay now-no, that's not possible. Either someone helped or someone took her sensing her vulnerability," All kinds of unfathomable thoughts were running through his mind when he couldn't find her. He had a fair amount of idea how many enemies Crystal had raised just by occupying the Calisto seat. If someone really did take her, he needs to report it to Dumbledore but. . .

"But I don't have any evidence!" He groaned and sank on the plinth a suit of armour and messed his hair before clutching his head. He had a faint intuition for Crystal's behaviour earlier. She had some trauma. The wound of the trauma was still alive and festering deep inside the depths of her mind.

Harry thought about all the possible places he could check then decided to check the common room first in the hope that maybe, by a small chance, she managed to make it there.

His eyes started to frantically look around for any sign of the girl as soon as he entered the Portrait hole. There were a lot of heads to look through, he was losing all his hope when his eyes landed on the back of a familiar black-haired girl, walking towards the stairs of the girls' dormitory. He couldn't mistake that back, it was her.

"Crystal! Wait!" Harry called running to her at the foot of the stairs. He tried to hold her wrist but retracted his hand. Crystal turned around in a swift way covering her head with her hoodie's hood.

"Harry?" Crystal looked up at him with her nonchalant expression as usual but something was strange.

Even though Crystal was acting normal like nothing ever happened and what he saw earlier was an illusion, even though her face looked freshly washed, Harry could still tell that something big happened to her and she was trying to hide it from everyone, even him. Her red eyes and the face she tried to hide with the hood, nothing was hidden from him. It pained him to see her in that state and it hurt him even more when she tried to keep things between them.

"Are you okay?" He asked cautiously looking at her face, searching for any sign of fear or discomfort she had before.

"Oh, that? I'm absolutely and perfectly fine, Harry. Sorry, I was taken by surprise,"

She is not fine. Harry concluded. He knows Crystal enough to understand her speech. If she was really fine, she'd just utter a simple 'yes' but her emphasizing on it, is out of character to do so.

To add on top of that, her voice sounded hoarse even though she cleared her throat enough to sound normal, her eyes looked red, and the face-side of her cheek had a red patch and looked a bit swollen. At first, Harry decided not to ask but he couldn't rest his mind knowing the kind of shape of the mark on her face. It look like someone had slapped her hard enough to leave that mark.