you're too young & eager to love

This is total nonsense and not the best prose, but it was fun!

Wasteland/Albtraum Harry Potter AU! Set many, many, many years after the whole main HP story line because I wanted new professors.


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I wish that we were magic
So we wouldn’t be so young and tragic
- Dead Man’s Bones


Augusta wears a key around her neck, tiny and rusted and not at all like her other jewelry she favors - the expensive gems that decorate her ears and fingers. The Vries have as much money as they have family history; theirs is a pure-blooded lineage that can be traced back to the 1600s, so most of the other Slytherins like to think the key is linked to that past, a relic from some archaic time.

Arletta stretches herself across the brunette’s neatly made bed, using two of the plush pillows to prop herself up. “Auggie, really, what is the deal with that ugly necklace? What’s it open? A chest of Merlin’s?”

“Don’t call me that.” As the eldest of the Vries, Augusta has worked hard to live up to the expectations set by her father and her family - she is a serious girl, beguiling when necessary, but she doesn’t smile often, and she certainly doesn’t have the time for nicknames. She turns another page of her Potions textbook and tries to ignore her roommate.

“So serious,” Arletta complains with a huff and a roll of her eyes. Although not as famous or long-reaching as the Vries, Arlette’s family history is one of impressive fortune, so she’s never understood Augusta’s need to turn her nose up at her.

“Just because you’re snogging my brother and cohabitating with me this year, doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“Obviously,” Arletta frowns, scooting off the brunette’s bed. Not for the first time, Arletta wishes she had been paired with another of her housemates; the dungeons are cold enough without Augusta’s added presence.

“What time is it?” Augusta asks after a few minutes, scribbling the last of her notes onto her parchment and closing her textbook.

“Almost lockdown.”

“I’ll be back before then.”

“But -” Arletta watches as the 7th year grabs a cloak from the back of the door and a small purple bag that she loops around her wrist before ducking out of the room, as chilly as an October wind.







“Professor?” It’s a formality, really, this title of his that she says so quietly, slipping through the wet earth beneath the whomping willow. Augusta has her wand out in front of her, the tip glowing bright, and her necklace clutched in the other hand.

Some years back, it had been considered a threat to the student body to have a werewolf on the staff, and attitudes haven’t changed much at Hogwarts or even other wizarding academies. But Radomir hadn’t always been cursed; he’s only been suffering lycanthropy for the last two years. Augusta was the first to discover his secret, and somehow that had ended them both here.

At the end of the earthen tunnel, there’s the foundation of what once had been a haunted, ramshackle cottage, with only the basement remaining. The Committee for Historical Preservation had kept the shrieking shack as a monument of sorts, but it had been closed to the public for years. Hogwarts, however, has a history of leaving pathways open for curious students, or at least those clever enough to research the old Dark Arts and First and Second Wizarding Wars. A few hours in the library and some time practicing her hedge enchantments, and Augusta knew just how to handle her professor’s secret.

The Vries are always opportunistic.

She unlocks the cage door he’d built himself with her key; her eyes flick to all the teeth trapped in his tired smile then down to the fresh line of cuts across his abdomen. More than his clothes are shredded, but a quick flourish from her wand has his skin stitch itself together before their eyes. He grunts his gratitude.

Augusta hands him his effects, all his personal items kept safe in a purple bottomless bag the size of a coin purse. “You’ve missed a week of your Ancient Studies course. We’re covering Egyptian spells. It’s difficult because of the prononciation. The Headmaster seems to think you’re suffering from a congenital blood disease.”

“How do you know that?” Radomir asks, pulling a shirt over his broad frame, working the buttons nimbly. With his frame, he looks as though he should be teaching the Dark Arts or how to care for dangerous creatures, like dragons or the giant squid in the Great Lake, but he’s more scholar than brute.

Augusta shrugs. “I have my ways.” There’s a hint of her beguiling nature there, a serpentine kind of slyness to the cut of her eyes.

Radomir flashes a half grin at her. “I’m not surprised.” He touches the dark fall of her hair when he passes, his fingers hesitating at the curve of her jaw. She’s severely beautiful, wrapped up in the uniform of her house, the green and silver stripes of her tie and skirt complimenting the sharp angles of her face, the small expanse of her waist that he can bridge between his giant hands, the slope of her nose that he’s found himself memorizing.

Augusta smiles, the turn of her lips feeling foreign.



--



There’s a dead woman in the North Tower. Some of the students leaving their Divination class catch the occasional glimpse of her - a pale, shivering shroud of silver - but they leave her to her sadness, thinking that Ravenclaw’s ghost prefers solitude.

Lene mentions her, the Silver Lady, during Care of Magical Creatures, hauling a bucket of cream-sweetened apples and fresh wheat from the stables. The students have been split into small groups and assigned some sort of fantastical beast to groom; she may be the first student alive to ever be disappointed in handling a unicorn, but she can’t help enviably eyeing Roman and Kim who have been assigned to a thestral. Lene can’t actually see the winged horse that Roman is feeding a bloodied rabbit to, but she knows it’s there.

Palmer sees Lene’s interest and rolls his eyes. “You can’t be serious. You can only see those things if you’ve really seen death. Up close and personal. Plus, Professor Waters must be insane to have students around them. They’re illegal to breed by the Ministry, ridiculously dangerous, predatory animals with a level four classification …” he pauses, and a familiar glint, like light on onyx, brightens his eyes. “How much do you think one would go for? There’s always a market for the rare and the dangerous.”

Sunniva smacks his arm, a quick, sharp gesture. “If you paid attention to the lecture, you’d know that Hogwarts’ thestrals are properly fed and well trained. They would only attack if seriously threatened.” She’s perched carefully on the top railing of fencing in the yarded area, and Palmer shuffles to her side with a frown, rubbing his shoulder.

“I think she’s lonely,” Eda says quietly, running a brush down the side of the unicorn’s coat, drawing all of their attention back to the original topic at hand. “The Silver Lady.”

The unicorn is brighter and purer than snow, its hooves gold, it’s attitude one of easy, entitled serenity. It seems content to be momentarily bridled, content to be push its velvet nose into Lene’s hand when she offers it one of her apples. “Why?”

Eda shrugs, the gesture soft and somehow delicate beneath the fabric of her prim school blouse. “People don’t usually choose solitude. Not permanently. They just become accustomed to it, and then they forget how to be social again. It’s probably the same with ghosts.”

Palmer raises an eyebrow. “You shock me with your ability to be insightful.”

“That’s because you’re sidetracked by her breasts. You forget she has a brain,” Lene says, feeding the unicorn another apple.

Eda blushes and ducks her eyes, but there’s a coy smile on her lips anyway. Sunniva smirks knowingly, elbowing Palmer’s side when he frowns like a petulant child.




Chason Waters became a professor at Hogwarts only six years ago, but he builds an easy rapport with his students as a dark-eyed, sly grinning, attentive teacher. His calloused hands handle everything from flobberworms to fire crabs with the same easy, practiced skill. When he huffs his hair out of his eyes and demonstrates the proper handling of a bowtruckle for Tuesday’s class, the stick-like figure winding its sharp fingers around his right knuckles like vines, a good portion of the female students sigh dreamily.

“They’re slipperier than slug spawn,” Chason reminds the class, using his left hand as a safety net beneath his right.

“So’s half the class,” Roman quips, earning a snicker from Palmer beside him. They’re in the third row and they knock elbows, jabbing each other like first-years instead of seniors.

Chason sends the boys a disapproving glance. “And very sensitive creatures. They can be prone to biting when their feelings are hurt, so be delicate.”

“Not really my speciality, Professor,” Lene says with a noticeably wrinkled brow. She had accidentally cracked three of her five fairy eggs within the first ten minutes of last week’s class, much to Eda’s dismay.

“Tell me about it,” Roman murmurs, absentmindedly rubbing his bruised side from where Lene had slammed into him during Quidditch practice.

“Mind your fingers then, Lene.” Chason unceremoniously lets the bowtruckle slip from his hand onto Lene’s desk where the tree-dweller promptly loops its curved fingers around her wrist and crawls up her arm, chittering in a friendly manner.



-



Roman shoves an entire fried sausage into his mouth during breakfast in the Great Hall, following it up with two slices of bacon before guzzling a glass of orange juice. Lene’s expression is horrified.

“You know,” she says, spreading butter daintily on a biscuit, “you don’t have to eat like a lion to establish yourself as a Gryffindor.”

“I still don’t understand your sorting, honestly,” Palmer chimes in, swinging a leg over the bench seat, his silver and green tie looking shockingly out of place amidst all the gold and red around him. “You should have been with me and Sun.”

“Yeah,” Lene scoffs, looking at Palmer as though he’s insane, “you and Sun and the Vries.”

“I like the Vries,” Roman says with a casual shrug.

Lene aims her expression of incredulity at Roman. “And I like the cruciatus curse.”

“Seriously. They’re cool, and associating with them boosts my own popularity thanks to proximity alone. That’s an elite crowd.”

“See? Wrong sorting.” Palmer reaches over Lene for a cup of hot coffee, narrowly avoiding a sharp jab to his side.

“Well, I still think you have a moral compass somewhere inside of that dead heart of yours,” she mumbles, taking a bite of her biscuit. “Maybe you’re just waiting to prove yourself.”

Palmer doesn’t catch it, but Roman winks at Lene before attacking another fried sausage.




-



“You know father expects Baldric to propose by the end of the school year,” Harrow tells his sister. He stares at her porridge as though it’s gruel and opts for a slice of cured ham, cutting into it with a knife sharp enough to gleam. They’re three tables over from the Gryffindors.

It should have been difficult to look elite amongst a house primarily full of arrogant, if not ambitious, students, but the Vries manage it well with a section of the Slytherin table to themselves and their inner circle. Their isolation is a coveted thing. Arletta sits beside Harrow, her red hair a burning halo around her face, and pretends to ignore the siblings’ conversation.

Augusta tucks a piece of her dark hair behind her ear, her amber eyes turning to shoot a sideways glance of annoyance at Harrow. “Does he expect the same of you and Arletta here?” She adds a few raspberries and a pour of vanilla-flavored cream into her porridge.

As if on cue, Arletta perks up. “I’d be happy to be your sister, Auggie.”

Neither Harrow or Augusta favor Arletta with a response.

“There’s been some gossip,” Harrow says after a moment, leaning more comfortably against the edge of the table. Arletta winds her arm around his, her fingers stroking the inside of his wrist playfully with her nails.

Augusta raises an eyebrow. “I wonder from who.” She stares at Arletta like the girl’s a leech.

“What are you up to? And why do I think it has something to do with that Ancient Studies professor?”

Harrow is one year younger than Augusta, but he has the look of a predatory shark. His grin could rival Roman’s. Augusta takes a bite of her porridge, the raspberry tart on her tongue, and smiles around her spoon with a shrug.