Ten years after I began at Hogwarts, Sebastian Sallow is back. And he's Professor Sallow now. He disappeared after the fall of Ranrok and Rookwood, after I lost Professor Fig, and after Ominis and I couldn't keep him from losing himself. But I never...
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My body is racing with...surging with...completely overtaken with adrenaline.
Fuck. What did I just do?
"April?" I call, wildly. "APRIL!"
Where is she? Where is she?
Somehow in our landing, our bodies were separated and I feel like I've lost a limb. I am frantic. Desperate. To see her threatened was something I could never be prepared for and I'm certain I'll only ever feel confident about her safety when she is squarely in my arms, again. Anything outside of that is a non-guarantee, as far as I'm concerned.
The way her feet kicked above the ground...the way that vile clump of humanoid rubbish looked at her when he twisted the arrow...
He deserved what he got.
He fucking deserved it.
He deserved worse.
I feel my body wretch with an empty attempt to vomit. Where is April? My hands are shaking as my eyes adjust to my surroundings and various dim lights visible through the blanket of night. I can hardly recall where my mind was when I took us from that scene.
"Safety," was my only thought.
Bloody hell.
My shin sends a zing of protest up my leg, having rolled my body to try to stand and inadvertently pressing the front of my leg into the handle of a broom. Pulling them into our whirlwind with an 'accio' as we exited was a hail-Mary that, as I can feel now in my bruised bone, seems to have worked.
Oh, April. You brilliant woman.
I yank her broom towards me, unhooking her leather satchel and digging my arm deep inside to rummage for the medical kit she mentioned earlier...as a joke...in the best evening of my life that has quickly turned upside-down. "APRIL!! Where are you!!!" I call loudly as I search.
The screeching of the thestral catches my attention. I'm glad for whatever part of my mind thought to take it with us, understanding she wouldn't be able to rest if we had left it behind. My eyes dart to the source of the sound. Through the darkness before me I squint to make out the outline of April limping towards the crumpled outline of the animal. I can hear unintelligible sounds of her voice speaking sweetly to the creature in a smooth, sing-songy way.
They're in a field, a crop, some twenty or thirty metres away from me, surrounded by a low stone wall. It's a field of crops and a stone wall that I know. But I'm too desperate, too focused on the intermittent trail of blood I can see ahead of me, clearly marking April's path, to feel the bewildering astonishment of my pure idiocy for apparating us straight to Feldcroft.
With the medical bag finally in my hands, I leap to my feet and register movement in my peripheral vision. The sound of the creaking of my old front door sends chills through my spine – a sound so familiar to me, I hear it in my dreams. A dark figure emerges, jogging towards me on the balls of his feet with a familiar head of loose curls that bounce with his movement and a billowing coat that trails behind him.
