#24 The Empty Black

The hour following the exams found Saoirse lying face-down on the cold stone floor of the castle, motionless. It was concerning to the point where a few kind individuals questioned if she was alright, and some less kind ones prodded her with a foot to check if she was dead. Saoirse's response was always a muffled, 'Yep,' when asked if she was okay. She just really liked how the cold stone felt against her skin, was all.

The exams had been hard. She knew she'd gotten something right- having just read things the night before, certain sentences were still clear in her mind. But some of the others? She was expecting half of them to have been trick questions. Especially history of magic. What was the point of exams, anyway? It wasn't like adults were expected to remember the Explosive Diarrhea Incident of 1842, or whatever she'd written down.

Eventually she started to feel sore, and she was sure her face had imprints from the floor patterning. Saoirse rolled over onto her back. Then she sat up. Then she stood up, and started walking in no direction in particular. She wanted to go swimming in the Black Lake, but was sure she would just... swim away and never come back. Just return to the ocean.

Maybe she was a selkie and someone had stolen her seal skin. That was the only viable explanation. Maybe her mother wasn't even dead, she'd just found her skin and returned to the ocean where she belonged. Her mum had been Irish, after all. Saoirse would question her grandparents on this topic.

Her aimless wandering led to Saoirse ending up at the spiral tower. She looked up at the vast rows of doors before her. Saoirse rifled through her robes. She still had two keys, and she wasn't sure if she could take them away from Hogwarts. Would they rip a hole through her robes and fly back to her dorm room? Even though she was tired, maybe it was best to use them while she could.

Saoirse stepped up to a door and inserted a bronze key, turning the lock with a heavy clunk.