❝ The Other Side Of The Coin ❞

            The stars were shining like diamonds in the sky. I couldn't sleep, so I strolled to the common room. The common room's night sky-painted ceiling was stunning. Pity that many people fail to notice the beauty of the stars.

I sat down in the armchair near the telescope. I adjusted the telescope and started to gaze through the vast universe. I spotted the souls of fallen heroes in the constellations. I could communicate with them. Not by speaking but I imagined that every single twinkle meant something and sometimes I even understood it.

"We have an herbology test tomorrow, not astronomy and you are neither studying nor sleeping," Alan stated.

"You can't just let me be at peace, right?" I asked, pulling away my eyes from the telescope. I'm tired of putting up with these people, the night is the only time I'm at peace and humans are here to ruin everything.

"That's not the answer to my question. Whatever, herbology is hard and I have to study don't talk or disturb me, okay?" he said in a mocking tone, a hint of laughter.

I rolled my eyes. Seriously?

"Everyone knows who's disturbing who." I snapped. I'm the quietest person in the world and he's telling me not to talk.

"Just kidding,"

Alan was studying herbology. I continued eyeing the constellations Peruses, Orion, and Andromeda it was interesting to hear how their lives were Orion's was serious and funny at the same time. It was epic to hear about their messed-up life and their timeline.

I glanced at Alan he seemed to be struggling with studying I rolled my eyes again, he literally couldn't do anything without bothering me. I walked up to him and he was trying to read something in Latin

"That's not how you read it,"

"Geez, Alice, it doesn't have to be perfect!" he expressed. Alice? Did he nickname me or what? I may be insane like Alice in Wonderland but he can't call me something very different from my name.

"Alice?" I asked. He immediately shut his down as if he regretted what he said.

"Oh, nothing I just got confused and..." he trailed off. I raised an eyebrow.

"Confused? My name is nowhere near as Alice except for the fact it starts with A," I pointed out.

"It's not the name," he said. Silence continued. I waited for him to say something.

"You remind me of someone," he finally said.

"Who?" I questioned.

"My twin sister,"

"You have a twin sister named Alice?"

"I had a twin sister," he said. Had? Well, for one I too once had a younger brother until the person who gave birth to me disowned me. But this had sounded different.

"Your sister must be a witch too, right? Didn't she come to Hogwarts?"

Alan looked like he was searching for words. His face turned grim and completely void of the cheeriness he had all the time. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. I only stared at him.

"She's dead."

Oh. That was unexpected. I didn't know what to say, I wasn't the best at comforting people.

"I'm sorry," I said. "That must've been hard on you,"

"It's alright," he said quickly not wanting any pity, I understood that.

"Um, wanna talk about it?" He looked hesitant but began narrating.

"Three years ago we went for a vacation to Miami. We were playing on the beach, dad was sunbathing. Such a perfect afternoon, you know? but that evening was the worst ever of my life. She was right beside me, teasing me that I didn't know how to build a sand castle, I destroyed her castle for that,"  He laughed but his laugh had no humor.

"She was furious with me, she went towards the water to build another one, and I stayed behind. That was the last time I saw her alive. I didn't know what happened, I soon found that she was nowhere in sight, I told Dad. We searched in vain, dad informed the lifeguard,"

 He looked me straight in the eyes. His voice dropped a couple of octaves.

"They found her about an hour later after it was too very late."

 I was dumbfounded, I had no appropriate reply other than 'I'm sorry' which I had already said. I chose not to speak.

"Alice was just like you," He continued, not bothered by my lack of reaction. I didn't mean to appear indifferent, but neither Alan nor Alice were close to me. I felt genuine pity for two unfortunate souls, one to die a child and the other deprived of his other half. 

"She was smart and sarcastic, she was easily annoyed. You give me her vibes, I would have mistaken you for her reincarnation if we all weren't more or less the same age."

"Losing a loved one can be very painful," I said. I didn't necessarily lose anyone to death, but I imagined a world with my dad and siblings gone. It would be a nightmare. They were immortals but then again nothing was guaranteed.

"Yeah, what can we do? it's fate, but we have to move on and look forward to the future" he said.

Silence settled in the vast common room, the enchanted night sky painting on the ceiling twinkled with stars. Sometimes fate was inevitable, but I knew that there had to be a way to solve anything no matter how impossible it might seem.

Alan stared at his herbology book, his eyes weren't focused on anything particular. At last, he clicked his tongue.

"Maybe you need to tutor me on Latin," he admitted, frowning slightly at the page.

"There you go," I gave a small smirk, though I didn't feel smug. "Of course you need an older sister to boss around you, right?"

"Yeah, Yeah, totally," he said and laughed.

After a few days, McGonagall gave Harry a new Nimbus two thousand it's pretty great and Hermione's been having study sessions with me. Lisa and I were now good friends.

On the eighth of September, two pericular-looking owls rushed into my dorm. One with two letters and the other with a box wrapped up in violet and black.

I gave them some treats to eat and settled on my bed to read the letters. One was an elegant black envelope with a silver letter A sealed on it. I was puzzled, but then my confusion was clear when I saw the handwriting.

𝐶𝑎𝑟𝑎 𝐴𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑎,

𝐹𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑥 𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑎 𝑚𝑖, 𝑄𝑢𝑖𝑑 𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑠? 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑛𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑠 𝑞𝑢𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑜 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑎 𝑒𝑜 𝑒𝑠𝑡? 𝑒𝑡 𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑡 𝑣𝑜𝑠 𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑖 𝑛𝑜𝑣𝑖? 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑜 𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑥. 𝑑𝑢𝑙𝑐𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑎 𝑚𝑒𝑎, 𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑏𝑖 𝑏𝑜𝑛𝑢𝑚 𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑚 ℎ𝑎𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑠!

𝐴𝑚𝑜𝑟, 𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟.

(Dear Aquila,

Happy Birthday my daughter, how are you doing? Hope you are doing well, how is school? Did you make new friends? Hope to see you soon. Bless you, my sweet daughter, have a good day!

Love, Dad)

The letter was written in Latin, Dad wasn't used to writing letters unless he had a pen pal across the universe that I was unheard of. I opened the other letter which had the same envelope, but was sealed with the letter 'V'

I didn't need to open the letter to know who this was. It could be none other than my sister.

Dear Aquila,

Happy Birthday, my lovely sister, I have no idea how to write a letter, Deimos is too lazy to send his own so he said to add his wishes to my letter, and how's Hogwarts? Do they all have green skin and ride on broomsticks? Where do you live there? Is it safe? Are they monsters? Where is Hogwarts located? When are you coming back to Astrelaia? How are you? I have so many questions to ask but I can't write more. Waiting for your reply.

Love, Vega, and Deimos.

All I did was laugh. I figured that this envelope should be Vega's idea and the fact Deimos got to sign without doing any actual work.

I have a lot of explanations to do there. I opened the box which consisted of a beautiful pendant necklace that had a little note tied to it. I was almost sure it was Vega's gift until.

This necklace allows you to night travel when you are in Hogwarts hope it's useful to you. Read Dad's handwriting. Night travel at Hogwarts? That gotta be such an advantage to me.

And then a dagger of astrean silver, from Deimos, and lastly a pretty hair clip shaped like a crescent moon from Vega.

Alan gifted me some candies and Lisa a book from her collection. She was a muggle-born and was a bookworm. Lisa had a great taste in books.

But later that night Malfoy challenged Harry to a duel and again they somehow managed to escape from his trap. Harry and Ron were becoming quite close to me, they shared their family stories which had more drama than an average soap opera.

Harry was initially absued by his aunt and uncle who literally kept him in a cupboard under the stairs. I didn't have a warm childhood neither but hearing these things, I was grateful for what I had and what I have now.

Ron was complaing about financial tights his family faced and assumed I lived like a princess since I was a Scott. Little did he knew, money wasn't worth anything. And precious were the little things that he looked past.