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SCHOOL BEGINS AGAIN IN JANUARY and it's like exchanging one set of manacles for another. This time, there's the imminent threat of an execution date looming over Sawyer's head, an unignorable menace in May that thunderstorms in every corner of periphery, choking down her every breath.
Despite Quidditch season kicking into full-throttle once the snow melted and left the pitch in what Jeremy dubbed 'prime conditions' once again, the onslaught of homework only accumulated until the avalanche threatened to bury all the fifth year students. If Sawyer wasn't in class, at Quidditch practice, or in her dorm sleeping, she was in the library with Jeremy, Rio and Marcus, struggling through their mountain of work. Sometimes, she'd sit with Quinn in the back of the library where there would be less students, and they'd listen to music on her Walkman during study breaks. Sometimes, she would catch glimpses of her brother striding past her table with Oliver and the rest of their rowdy Gryffindor entourage in tow.
Neither her nor Oliver acknowledge each other's presence anymore. They've gone full circle now. Everything that's ever been traded between them gone stale. Nothing has always been nothing.
Herbology on Tuesday afternoon reeks of manure and freshly cut plants. A miasma that plugs Sawyer's nostrils, perfumed so thick she almost chokes on it. Rum-coloured sunlight soaks Professor Sprout's well-manicured greenhouse, bright sun ray's burning through the glass, a heat that might've melted her skin off in the summer. An unfathomable menagerie of potted plants of a stifling diversity (both magical and mundane; ugly and beautiful; poisonous and with healing properties) line the walls, sitting in neat rows and racks, gathered on tables dusted with filth and soil and loose pebbles. Gathered around a large table in the middle of the greenhouse, the fifth year Slytherins and Hufflepuffs eye the brown pots of Fanged Germaniums sitting atop their stations with equal parts palpable mistrust and curiosity.
"This," Professor Sprout had introduced, puffing her chest and beaming with pride at the magical flower displaying its impressive, razor-sharp teeth like a peacock with its array of feathers, "is one of the most lethal plants we will be handling for your OWLs. "
"Looks a bit like you, Rio," Marcus snickers, nudging Rio with his elbow.
Rio sends his boyfriend a scathing look. "What does that say about your taste in boys, then?"
Pulling on his gardening gloves, Jeremy laughs, silent and breathy. As Rio and Marcus argue over their pot of Fanged Germanium, Sawyer drums her fingers against the edge of her table, wondering how she was going to pass this class. Professor Sprout was going through the properties of Fanged Germanium, but Sawyer was only half-listening. Half her brain lay in the future, where her darkest monsters lurked. Her mother had always told her that effort would get her somewhere. That with her eidetic memory, she would be able to achieve something. Sawyer would almost believe her mother then. Up until she'd turn on her with accusing eyes and say something along the lines of, if only you were willing to try as hard as Wyatt; if only you weren't so lazy; if only you weren't so caught up fighting everyone around you; why do you have to be so difficult all the time?
