𝕰𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖑ₕ.ₚ

𝕱𝖔𝖚𝖗

❝ᴡᴇ'ʟʟ ᴛᴇʟʟ ᴏᴜʀ ꜱᴛᴏʀɪᴇꜱ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇꜱᴇ ᴡᴀʟʟꜱᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ʏᴇᴀʀ, ᴍᴇᴀꜱᴜʀᴇ ʜᴏᴡ ᴛᴀʟʟ❞

⚯͛

Mother nature decided to throw one of her temper tantrums just as Cora was about to make her way to the carriages. By the time she got near them, she was soaked from head to toe. The rain made her very aware of the fact that she had completely forgotten to put on some shoes from her trunk. She absolutely despised the feeling of having wet socks on, but she supposed that the shock of finding herself in a fictional world was a valid enough reason for her forgetfulness. God knows why or how she isn't spiraling yet.

The supposedly horseless carriages were lined up a little away from the train platform, awaiting the students. When Dumbledore mentioned the carriages in the letter, Cora assumed that she'd see them the same way Harry did in his third and fourth years –horseless.

Instead, she stood before large, scaly, horse-like creatures with large wings that were resting comfortably at their sides. Thesterals. The sight of them confused her greatly. They were only supposed to be seen by people who've seen death, and as far as she knew, she has never seen anyone die. Has she?

She was pulled out of her thoughts when someone bumped into her as they passed by, making her realize that she was blocking the way. She quickly made her way to the nearest empty carriage and climbed in, while her eyes found their way to the thestrals once again.

It didn't make any sense. She shouldn't be able to see them. She didn't want to be able to see them.

Cora always believed that there was beauty in death, in the end of an adventure, no matter how big or small that adventure was. She thought that thesterals were beautiful, but she wished that people could see them without having to experience such a great amount of pain.

The thought of the possibility of her experiencing such trauma and not remembering it unsettled her. It might be possible that she had seen an old, distant relative die when she was a baby, but that wouldn't explain why she's able to see the thestrals. Harry wasn't able to see them until he saw Cedric die, even though Lily Potter was murdered right in front of his eyes. A person should be old enough to comprehend the idea of death in order to see thestrals. None of it made any sense.

"Excuse me, all the other carriages are full. Would it be alright if we joined you?" a voice asked timidly from the carriage door.

Cora turned her head and her eyes met with the same pair of bright green ones from the platform. It was him. The boy she had only ever read books about. The boy who had his father's messy black hair, and his mother's eyes. The boy who had to experience so much pain. The boy who carried the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, and yet remained standing.

"Yeah, of course."

Harry gave her a grateful smile, then climbed into the carriage. A red haired, freckled boy hopped in after him, and finally a girl with bushy brown hair took her seat next to Cora. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

If death had decided to approach Cora at this very moment, she would take his hand with a smile on her face. She was breathing the same air as the golden trio. She was sharing a carriage with them.

They were sitting around her in the flesh, they weren't figments of her imagination anymore. They weren't the ghosts of her comfort characters that she used to conjure up back in her bedroom just to help her cope with the world. They were all real, and they were right in front of her.

"I hope the first years don't end up drowning," Ron said, "I wouldn't fancy sailing across the lake in these conditions."

"They won't, Hagrid's with them," Hermione replied nervously. "That did not sound as reassuring as I thought it would be."