Chapter Text
In the back of your mind was something fuzzy. All you could do was lay in the black vastness of your sleepy brain, comforted by a warm blanket of nothingness that held on gingerly to your tired self.
But that sound in the back of your mind… deep, cold. It was unsettling and accompanied by running water. It felt like you would drown in a dark, unfamiliar space, hearing nothing else but that shrewd mumble in another room.
You don’t know what’s going on, but slowly, that comforting blanket of sleep was being eaten away by that distressing rumble. It grew nearer, made your heart race faster, until you jolted awake with a dry throat.
Less than black, your vision saw nothing. But you felt more than cramped, overwhelmed by whatever boxed in your shoulders and held you upright.
There was no time to think or panic—heat, uncomfortable and heavy—swallowed up every thought; it kept your complete attention before you hit this side and that side and suddenly there was something you could see in front of you.
Fire.
Blue, small, alive. Two small, twin flames that flickered and—
Your mouth moved to scream but nothing came out. Like magic, balls of fire came towards you, so all you could do was scramble away.
Even running from your place at the foot of a coffin—your coffin, the coffin you had just been in for who knows how long—was too painful for your throat. It stung, made your whole chest ache and burned your heart from its core. The absolute, sticky, disgusting feeling of fear strangled you and left you parched. Clawing at your chest did nothing. You began to feel much too aware of your own skin, and suddenly you wanted to claw that off from your body too.
It felt so strong and vile it was terrifying. The air was too crisp. Your eyes were too dry. And your ears rang so much you felt like your head would explode.
Even in front of this inhuman, unblinking man your body was too frightened to move. He scolded you and sneered at your—what? Your lack of, what? Remorse? Shame? For what? You don’t know.
Everything he said and did was processed a bit too late. Every other second it was like you were breaking the surface of water, becoming completely born anew to realise what had just happened the second prior, and what might be happening in the second present but—you were always just a little too late. The feeling had to repeat so that you could understand what was happening now.
And suddenly he was mad at you.
He was waiting for you to move, he himself had turned gently to leave with that thing at his side but he couldn’t without you. Why? Oh right.
Move, he kept telling you.
You couldn’t.
It was simply something your mind refused to believe you could do.
He could run, walk, and move. But that was never an option for you. In this very moment of time, you simply weren’t real.
You were much too terrified of his eyes.
It was only when he stepped forward to move closer did your body react in any way. You teared up, inhaled too deeply and felt all the fear well up at the base of your throat. You’re speechless once again and god he could kill you or hurt you and you wouldn’t know what to do. He was so angry, you stumbled and stepped back.
He paused.
Move.
It took a second, but suddenly you could move more than your eyes. Tears still held on gingerly to your lashes, but he spoke about everything so easily he never seemed to notice. At the very least, that helped you calm down.
Again, you became so suddenly aware of everything once more—aware of yourself and how you could move, even just a little bit—right as he led you through the arch of the doorway you ran from prior and through a sea of faceless, terrifying people.
There was no feeling in your hands, and your throat constricted so so painfully. You wanted to burst into flames where you stood.
You wanted to burst into flames where you stood.
You wanted to burst into flames where you stood.
You so desperately wanted to die, to disappear, to explode and cease to exist with every fiber of your being.
Clothing that wasn’t yours. You never had any clothes so well-made. Nothing that felt so much like real, quality silk. You're not even sure this even is silk, but it felt smooth, soft and your fingertips glided off it so easily there was nothing you knew to compare it to. Wrinkly, cheap fabric that tore too easily at the edges—you had that. Nothing like this. Never a robe with a hood that felt so light or a length that reached just there by your calf like that. You don’t know what you're wearing. It’s embroidered and all-consuming. You noticed it the most at your knees. You needed to rip this off of you, it felt too awkward at your hips, and at your knees, it felt too constricting. Like it was made to deter you from anything, from––from living. It was made to kill you.
Your shoes were too heavy at your feet.
It was made to trip you, so you stopped walking.
But this time, the man who never left your side gave a shove at your shoulder to make sure you moved.
As you, somehow, made it up the stairs to some… framed whatever your feelings began to numb until the thing spoke.
It was so unreal you simply lost your fear.
“I sense not a spark of magic from this one… Colourless, shapeless, all non-existent.”
Anger swirled at the bottom of your stomach. Magic, he said. You felt a little stupid, what did he mean by magic?
“Therefore,” the thing that looked like a mirror paused, “This one is not suited for any dormitory.”
Conversation, loud and unrestrained, boomed from behind you. There were prickles at your spine from being watched so intently, but honestly, you were too angry to be scared. After all, where were you? The fact you couldn’t remember arriving made you angry. The people shouting and jeering and gasping made you angry. But that stupid man wearing that stupid mask and feathers in his cape of all things made you most angry.
“An ebony carriage would never welcome someone who can’t use magic!” He cried, stepping forward to stand directly in front of you. He gave you his back to plead desperately to the mirror—as if it were sentient. “In the past 100 years, there has not once been a mistake in the student selection. Why in the world…”
“Mghmgh…” The thing he had dangling at his side writhed and wiggled until it fell with a plop! and scurried back. “Puha! I’ll take their place!”
The man in front of you—the headmaster, you think they called him—was startled in action by the… the creature? The animatronic? …Sure it was uncannily realistic and sure there were books on strings in the library but magic wasn’t seriously real or anything. Obviously. Obviously. Obviously.
The headmaster acted with it. He stepped forward, whipped raised, and yelled out: “Stay right there! Tanuki!”
The… tanuki ran off on four legs like a cat (super good job to whoever made it) and stopped before the dense hooded crowd. People pointed and laughed (for some reason?) as they answered it in turns of taunts and boos. The tanuki, yelling above the noise of the headmaster and the body of people, exclaimed… an insult to you.
“Unlike that dumb human,” it walked a few steps and rose to cross their arms smugly, “I can do magic! The Great Grim will take their spot! If ya need proof, I’ll show you right now!”
One boy in the front moved to sweep his arm out almost acutely. His tone of genuine command was surprising to nearly everyone in front of him. They heeded when he yelled out: “Everyone get down!”
At first, you were too confused to properly face all the questions in your head and to acknowledge the dread in your heart. But when Grim, who already seemed like an insane feat of technology, began to spew fire from their little body he had done that earlier to you, but if you ignored it, you hoped to have convinced yourself it never happened you began to drown in dread. The fire, scarier than usual because it was blue, spouted from him in long strands and caught onto anything it came in contact with. People. Clothing. Curtains. From your spot, seemingly safe, you began to crumble from the inside at the sight of it all. Real fire. Real people. So many of them gave out haunting yells of pain and shock. Even if none of this was real, those screams will never leave you.
The headmaster acted so comically. He frowned and placed his hands on his hips as if he merely received a wrong order. “At this rate, the school will be a sea of flames! Someone! Catch that tanuki!”
You were rendered frozen and useless. But he wasn’t. And yet, as he followed the tanuki with his head and walked forward, he made no actual move to stop it. He paused next to another small body of people who just… talked. They spoke between themselves as if nothing was wrong. You couldn’t hear them, but from their body language not one seemed to care about the state of the room very much. He scolded them, but did not move from their side.
“I’m not a tanuki!” Grim responded to something they had said. Then, he shot out flames in their general direction.
You think he was aiming for them. You really do. But he hardly looked at them when he tried and so it shot wildly off course.
It went straight to you.
Your psyche has rid you of everything. A wall ornament. You are not real. There was no thought to move or run or brace yourself. If it hit you, it would feel worse than death. You would wish you were dead. The feeling of the heat as it passed you and shattered against the cold stone was painful, but you were in so much shock your body couldn’t even flinch. Stupid. Senseless. Pathetic. It missed by a hair, but not from any of your own endeavour. It was simply luck. Luck that your pitiful self remained unharmed. Perhaps you should have died instead.
…Yeah. You wished you would have died yesterday before any of the oddities that is now would never have happened.
Your heart lurched. Your throat constricted. The innards of your stomach tingled with fervent aversion to the situation at hand that felt so similar to the fire that burned from all directions. Every part of your being was desperately wishing for this all to end. And, as if answering your prayer, a boy with dyed, silver hair walked up much too calmly to a person shorter than them. Together, they headed directly to The Great Grim, who once again stopped to voice how amazing and talented they were.
Running from this place to there, so immersed in showing off, it took The Great Grim a moment to realize it was being chased. By the time it had seemingly considered the two a sincere threat, it had been cornered some ways away.
“OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!”
Despite that, you had no problem hearing something so loud.
In a blink you had missed it. You’re not sure where it came from, but all of the sudden, The Great Grim had a sturdy, pretty collar around its small neck. It seemed… sincerely heavy. Sincerely real. Like it was made of real metal or something.
“Nygah!” The Great Grim almost fell over. It stopped spewing fire to assess itself. “The heck is this!?”
The rest of the world remained in blistering flames. While the tanuki huffed and puffed alongside those that caught him, none of the fires had been dealt with. Mercifully, the intensity of the fires seemed to dwindle all of their own now that their master no longer fed them with so much abandon.
It was enough that you could now, finally, hear everyone since the large group of people below had also calmed down abreast of the firestorm that occupied the room.
“I’m not some pet!” It yelled with a pout.
“Don’t worry,” a smooth, assured voice reached you for the first time from one of the two boys who had hunted the tanuki, “I’d never wish for a pet like you.” The tension of his back relaxed almost immediately, and his arms fell to his side. As you, slowly, began to move again with creaks in your bones, the shorter boy continued to speak to the thing. “I'll take off the collar once you’re thrown out of the grounds.”
“Wow,” the other nearly sang. His head turned to fully view his co-conspirator, but you were unable to see the smile he wore even as you neared the ground from the curved staircase. “Your magic is as wonderful as ever, Riddle-san! Any and all magic is sealed away so easily by your Unique Magic. I want it… Dear me! I mean, I absolutely wouldn’t want it to be cast on me.”
The Headmaster swiped the thing from the floor and turned rapidly to reach you. He stepped a foot away from someone else who had, for whatever reason, approached you. Tall and muscular, all you could make out from under their hood was a wobbly, tense expression from their lips as they offered you their hand. Grasping their hand, more out of necessity due to your weak knees than out of courtesy, allowed you to finally become leveled with the maze of frightening, faceless populace that felt too surreal to be people. But being levelled with them also meant that you were now forced to be under the Headmage’s inhuman, glaring gaze.
“Please do something about your familiar!” He huffed. Despite his rather playful tone, his eyes never stopped smoldering you.
With a low chortle of bemusement, you laughed at his audacity. All of this was just too freakish to be real, and so your lips curled sweetly—as if nothing had gone wrong at all. As if this were any other day for you. Your eyes showed nothing but kindhearted mirth, as if the headmaster was a child much too excited about nothing at all.
“He’s not mine,” you whispered silently to Crowley with a playful lit.
“He isn’t?”
“No,” you mouthed, as if to keep his reputation at bay, “I told you.”
“Y-You did?”
You had not, technically. You had merely shaken your head when the headmaster was talking about his school, the rules, and how familiars aren’t really allowed or something and—yeah, you simply shook your head no as if to answer him, but you understand why he didn’t get it immediately. All the same, that was too much for you to ever say given the fact you still could not speak properly.
With a rather soft clearing of his throat, he moved to stand a little straighter. “Then I think it’s only right to get the tanuki off school grounds. I won’t make a strew of you, for I am ever so gracious.”
“Nyooo! Let me go—!” The tanuki struggled rather intensely, becoming even more angry as he was merely handed off to the person who had helped you earlier. The room became much quieter as soon as his yelling was cut off by the slam of the door.
“Well,” the headmaster started anew, now ignoring you to address the room, “We had a bit of difficulty, but with this the entrance ceremony shall now draw to a close. Dormitory Heads, please lead your new students back to the dormitories… hm? Now that I think about it, I don’t see Diasomnia’s Head, Draconia-kun at all…”
The headmaster, having fully forgotten you in the face of so many students, glided away from you once again. Now left alone, murmurs circled around you; despite what had just happened, you weren’t really hearing anything about anyone asking about injuries or voicing concern, they were just complaining. Really, you should have felt relieved that the fires had ended and the headmaster hadn’t blamed you, all the same, being left alone meant the place at your side felt empty and something began to gnaw at your chest. If only this day weren’t real, you could feel at peace with the nasty, heavy feelings weighing you down.
“What? Did nobody tell him…”
Surprisingly, the students began to get louder, and all scoffs or jeers you heard were now replaced with dread.
“By Draconia… Do they mean Malleus Draconia?”
“He’s really attending? He’s actually here?”
“Wasn’t that just a rumor…? This sucks! I can’t do this…!”
Having your attention on picking apart everyone’s unnerving comments meant you missed the new addition to the lineup of dorm leaders.
“It seems the invitation never arrived again.” You glanced out of instinct, but jumped at the eyes peering back at you. Inhuman, daunting, aggressive. Magenta and slitted black stared back at you, and a true, unparalleled chill swept through you. You had never seen eyes so truly animalistic before in your life.
But the man crinkled his eyes into a big smile, and waved at you as if he knew his effect on you. He turned away as if you meant nothing when someone else began to speak.
“My deepest apologies, I promise we didn’t mean to exclude you.”
You heard the steady voice of another chime in, but the short man who could hardly be human waved them off and raised his voice. “Diasomnia Dormitory students can follow me.” His rumbling tone was hard to miss when he murmured, “I hope he doesn’t sulk about this…”
And, not quite quietly, the room began to fill out. Your heart sank further and further the more empty the room became, sure, you didn’t belong here, but at least in this ceremony you weren’t alone. Some of the new students would outright stare at you, but none of the dormitory heads nor the headmaster—the people with some actual authority—spared you a glance. If you weren’t being watched so closely by those leaving, you’re certain you would have scowled at this awful day. The headmaster only began to strut your way when the final group filed out.
“Now, child, I’m terribly sorry about this…” He paused some ways away, much too far for your own preference, but you dared not move. “I must now ask you to also leave the campus premises. Those without any magical talent may not be admitted.”
The headmaster never quite seemed like someone trustworthy or conscious of his environment, but now he was speaking to you with some kindness; you had to blink away tears of relief. You’re god-knows-where with god-knows-who, your hands are shaking so badly you know you won’t be able to hold your phone to call for help. Not that you have it, you know you don’t have it, you already checked. Perhaps you were wrong about him, even if he was motioning away from the door and instead, to the very stage you nearly caught fire on.
“There is no need to worry,” he motioned again for you to join him away from the doors, “The Dark Mirror will send you back from whence you came.”
But again, you couldn’t move. Not when a coffin came to stand besides the mirror, beckoning you in like something worse than death awaits you.
“Enter the Gate.”
You could not.
“What are you doing?” He chided lightly, and with the extent of his arm, he offered his hand. It was odd. So, so odd. At that moment, you had deja vu.
The headmaster himself snapped you out of that moment of recollection when he approached you, but, terrified to anger him, you shuffled to meet him part way.
“Come quickly so I can finally head—head to start my report of today, of course!” Rushing to continue, he ushered you inside the coffin and cleared his throat loudly. “Picture you home clearly…”
Remaining quiet but pensive seemed good enough for him, so he turned eagerly to the mirror and cried out, as if summoning something: “Oh Dark Mirror! Guide this one to the place they belong!”
It was hard to focus on home when that word was hardly one you used yourself, but you found it even harder to focus on that home when everything remained quiet, with nothing happening, for a little too long.
“O-Once more, then.” The headmaster lost his bravo when you made eye contact with him, but he had full trust in whatever process this was, so you remained in place and continued to believe in him, too. “Oh Dark Mirror! Guide–”
“It is nowhere.”