✓ | RECKLESS AND BRAVE | Draco Malfoy

45 | SEHNSUCHT

SEHNSUCHT
(n.) "the inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what"; a yearning for a far, familiar, non-earthly land one can identify as one's home

TESSA WAITED FOR THE DOOR TO SWING OPEN BEFORE SHE FOUND DUMBLEDORE, MOODY, AND CORNELIUS FUDGE INSIDE. She shared a very swift look with Harry as they lingered by the threshold.

     "Hello, Potters," Moody grunted. "Come in, then."

     The two walked inside, eyes briefly glancing around Dumbledore's office and the portraits of previous headmasters.

     "Harry! Tessa!" Fudge greeted, moving forward. "How are you?"

     Tessa nodded curtly as Harry lied, "Fine."

     "We were just talking about the night when Mr. Crouch turned up on the grounds. It was you who found him, was it not?" Fudge asked her brother.

     "Yes. I didn't see Madame Maxime anywhere, though, and she'd have a job hiding, wouldn't she?"

     Tessa's lips twitched as Dumbledore smiled at them behind Fudge's back.

     Fudge turned red with embarrassment. "Yes, well, we're about to go for a short walk on the grounds, Harry, if you'll excuse us . . . perhaps if you just go back to your class —"

     "I wanted to talk to you, Professor," Harry said quickly to Dumbledore.

     "It's important, Professor," Tessa threw in as the headmaster surveyed the two of them with a sweeping look.

     "Wait here for me, Harry and Tessa," he said. "Our examination of the grounds will not take long."

     As the professors and Fudge left the office, Tessa plopped down on the seat across where Dumbledore sits as Harry walked around to explore the place. She watched him approach Fawkes the Phoenix for a moment, before going to the Sorting Hat. Just then — Tessa noticed a strange silvery light spilling across the room, and the two of them looked around for the source.

     "Over here," Harry called his sister over as they approached a black cabinet, its door slightly ajar.

     Harry hesitated first a moment, so Tessa walked over and pulled open the cabinet door. A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around the edge. The silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, the surface of swirling smoothly. Harry glanced up, sharing a tentative look with Tessa as he raised an eyebrow for a silent question. She hesitated for a moment but gave him a nod.

Pulling out his wand, Harry prodded the silvery liquid with it, and the surface began to spin very swiftly. The two bent over, their heads close to the substance and realized there was a picture of an enormous room inside the basin. It was as though they were watching a scene unfurl inside the fluid.

The room looked oddly familiar, and strange to Tessa. It was dimly lit with no windows, and an empty chair stood at the center with chains encircling the arms. There were adults sitting inside the room, all facing a certain direction and not talking amongst each other.

With one last shared glance, Tessa and Harry leaned forward again to bring themselves even closer to the silvery liquid. The tip of Harry's nose grazed the top — and Dumbledore's office seemed to lurch the two of them towards the basin, plunging them inside the substance.

The room spun like Tessa was thrown in a whirlwind, vertigo hitting her and threatening the contents of her stomach to rise up her throat — and then it was all gone. She found herself sitting on a bench next to Harry with everyone else in the room.