holding on {t.r.}

f o u r

"What have you done to her?" Melissa asked, angrily approaching Tom in the corridor as she left the Great Hall and he entered.

"I'm unsure of what exactly you're referring to," Tom stated calmly.

"Alexandra leaves to meet you, and then Theodore comes to tell me he saw you carrying her to the hospital wing, and that she wasn't conscious!"

"I do not need to explain myself to you," Tom glared, turning on his heel but stopping when Melissa landed in front of him once again.

"I don't trust you," Melissa admitted daringly. "Alexandra is my best friend, so I'll happily pretend everything is alright, but if you ever intentionally hurt her, I won't be so nice."

"How threatening," Tom scoffed, walking around the girl as smoke practically came out of her ears. Huffing, Melissa turned around and marched to the hospital wing.

"You're doing homework?" Melissa asked, noticing Alexandra quickly writing in a journal.

"Madame Lilith has me writing down everything out of the ordinary that I dream, see or hear," Alexandra sighed, dipping her quill in ink and continuing to write. "She thinks there might be some symbol or message hidden within everything happening."

"What if you're a seer?" Melissa asked. "It makes sense, if you think about it. You could be seeing the future, and that's why you're not recognizing anything."

"I find that hard to believe," Alexandra stated. "They feel more like memories than prophecies, and those two things aren't easy to mix up."

The doors opened, and the girls turned their heads to see Dumbledore entering the room. He smiled at the students, approaching the end of Alexandra's hospital bed.

"May I?" He asked, getting straight to the point and reaching for Alexandra's journal. Alexandra, almost reluctantly, handed the professor the journal.

His eyes jotted between the small doodles and quick scribbles of words as he tried to piece together every detail of what the girl still knew.

Doodles of different constellations filled the page, surrounded by small thoughts such as 'red haired boy', 'lightning' and 'torture'. She obviously didn't know a lot, but it was still too much. He knew a memory charm wouldn't work at this point, and he was beginning to worry.

Dumbledore is a very powerful wizard, capable of preserving memories that have even been erased from time itself, yet he could not figure out how those memories remained in Alexandra. It made him wonder if the memories remained in anyone else now or in the future.

"Is this yours?" A twelve-year-old Draco Malfoy asked Crabbe and Goyle in 1992, unaware that they were really Harry and Ron. They shook their heads, allowing Draco to curiously open the small box he had found on a nearby desk. He saw a silver chain, hooking it on his finger as he lifted it out of the box. He examined the necklace, focusing specifically on the anchor charm. Harry and Ron noticed the charm as well, as it seemed to hold an unknown significance to the three of them. "I reckon there's no harm if I hold on to it, yeah?"

"Can I have my journal back?" Alexandra asked back in 1943. Dumbledore handed it to her, watching as she quickly doodled another picture.

"An anchor?" Melissa asked quietly. Alexandra shrugged, closing the journal and falling back onto her pillow.

"This is definitely a curious matter," Dumbledore pointed out, slightly annoying Alexandra. She didn't exactly enjoy his recent lingering presence. She was beginning to understand how Tom felt about the man.

"I'd like to go to bed, Professor. If you don't mind," Alexandra stated, attempting to get him out of the room.

"Of course," he smiled. "I hope you rest well. I will be in touch with you within the upcoming week. I'd like to further examine your journal."

"I'm looking forward to it," Alexandra smiled, fooling Dumbledore just as easily as Tom has been for years. As soon as the doors closed behind him, her smile faded into a look of pure agitation. "Brilliant."

"I think it's very polite of him to offer help," Melissa defended. Alexandra scoffed.

"Help? All he said is that he was going to examine my journal. He's a transfiguration professor, what can he do? Turn me into a cauldron?"

"He's a brilliant wizard, Alexandra."

"You said this morning that the school would be doomed if he became Headmaster," Alexandra argued.

"That was before he offered to help my friend who is obviously hurting," Melissa frowned. "Give it a chance, will you? I hate seeing you like this."

"I don't trust him," Alexandra stated stubbornly, turning away from her friend.

"Fine, do what you will. I'll be sure to keep to myself from now on, since my concerns obviously mean nothing to you," Melissa huffed. "Enjoy your supper."

Alexandra stayed silent, her heart hurting as her friend left the room, but her mind telling her to ignore it like everything else. The longer this went on, the more empty she felt, and the unfilled hole inside her grew larger.

What she didn't know, and what Dumbledore would struggle to discover, is that it was love keeping her memories alive. The love between Alexandra and her friends has been proven to be extremely powerful, and their memories cannot truly fade as long as that love still lives inside each of them.

That is unless that love is replaced by a love much more powerful than they've ever felt before; a feeling of love charged by magic not yet known to witch or wizard.

A feeling of love charged by the simple sense of touch.