Eloquence.

The room was loud, close the point of unbearable but not yet there. I let my eyes roam the clusters of students and former students tiredly. I recognized the faces and knew few of the names, I had no doubt that none of them knew mine. I caught sight of a familiar ginger head of hair and hide my smile behind my hand when Loyd pushed his way through the crowd to the couch I was perched on. My childhood friend grinned at the sight of me and flopped onto the couch in a casual manner that made me want to laugh before he corrected his posture into something more business-like.

“Harris, my fine American friend, the summer has treated you well I see.” He gave me a joking leer before his face broke out into another smile.

“It hasn’t shown you the same kindness, Cartwright.” I prodded him in the side and laughed when he pouted at me, “In need of a hair cut are we?”

Loyd wagged a finger at me, “No making fun of the mane, Lark, it’s a precious thing.”

“Oh of course it is.” I shook my head at him and leaned back into the couch.

“At least try not to look like someones set fire to your broomstick, Alouette. It’s only a party.” A female voice drawled behind us.

I didn’t have to turn to know the owner of the voice was flicking her blond hair over her shoulder and smirking at me. Loyd greeted Samantha easily turning halfway in his seat to talk with her about summer vacation. When she walked around and pulled up a chair our eyes caught and we shared our usual greeting nod. To others it would seem as though we merely dealt with each others presence and in reality it was a sign of close friend ship then either of us would have dreamed of having with the other. The first time I met Sam we very well near killed each other and as first impressions go it wasn’t the best. Since then we’d been thrown together more often then not by her meddling boyfriend and Loyd and somehow after we’d gotten past the required animosity brought on by our houses we became friends. Her brown eyes sparkled easily as Loyd stood up to hug her before motioning to someone on the far edge of the room to join us.

William McKinley came bounding up smiling at Sam like she was the reason the world turned before he kissed her softly on the cheek. I watched their hands lace together and bit my cheek to keep from smiling. The ever unlikely pair of lovers, Sam the Slytherin and Will the Hufflepuff. I don’t think either of them have heard the end of it, Sam’s parents disowned her the month before we left school and Will’s have just started to take a liking to her two months after taking her in. Loyd leaned forward to clap him on the back and the two of them started talking about Quiditch and summer vacation.

I half payed attention to the banter that went on around me, watching them and imagining that the sound has gone off. The people laughed but it was only their mouths moving and their heads tilting and their bodies shaking. Girls at the doorway squealed with delight at the sight of their friends but it was only their hands flailing and their hugs and the jumping that gave the noise away. I watched and watched, letting my eyes travel from one end of the room to the other taking in everything. Then I noticed something else, Loyd wasn’t watching Sam as she talked anymore and if there was one thing that I knew, it was that Loyd gave you every ounce of his attention when you were speaking. I nudged him gently when Sam turned around to jokingly scold her boyfriend and took in the wary look in his eyes.

“Do you see it?” He whispered into my ear eyes trained on a window behind Sam’s head, “Can you feel it?”

“Loyd, is this one of your gut feelings?” I murmured gazing out the window as well.

“Yeah, yeah it is. It’s a bad feeling, Lark, real bad. Somethings going to happen.”

I swallowed. Loyd’s bad feelings usually ended up with someone badly hurt or dead.

“Connected to a person or a place?” I asked him shifting to lean in closer our hair mixing together and letting my eyes roam the slowly darkening world outside the window.

“Both. This place and-” He stopped, turning away from the window for the first time to look at me, “Do you want the truth?”

“Always the truth, Loyd.”

“It’s connected to us. Me, you, Sam, Will. Whatever is going to happen, it’s going to happen to us.”

I closed my eyes and gave a forced laugh, “Maybe I should have asked for the lie.”

“Maybe.”

“Can you tell when?”

“Soon. That’s all I’m getting. You know Seeing doesn’t work on a schedule and I can’t even do it properly.” He rubbed at his face and looked at me tiredly, “I just get feelings.”

I knew, Loyd’s mother always got a kick out of telling the story to me. In the time of the founders, a woman named Eloise Quincy was famous for her ability to See and to control her power. She saved lives, won wars, and had more enemies than anyone to date. She was a one woman army and proud of it. The Elder’s of the time were furious with her for trying to control the Sight and took away her wand, locking away most of her powers before banishing her. It sounded like a fairytale but it wasn’t. Generations later, the Sight had diluted into something akin to instincts, guts feels that kept her descendent's alive and their magic intact. Loyd was the first in six generations to have this version of the Sight and he cursed it everyday.

Something twisted painfully in my stomach, “Everything will be fine.”