Like you could fall and no one would hear | Xena & Oliwia

[Deleted]

May 15 2026

Xena wiped the tears off of her cheeks as she looked into the bathroom mirror and felt like an absolute idiot. He was a 7th year and she was a 4th year. Of course nothing was going to come of them, but that didn’t stop the pain in her chest at the simple thought of him. He was handsome, popular, and charming. And she was 15 and frumpy and in way over her head. She felt like a complete fool. Not to mention the logical part of her brain felt like she was entirely over reacting. It wasn’t as if they were dating and had broken up. He had smiled at her; called her ‘darling’; and that was enough to convince her they were soul mates. “Boys suck.” She groaned and made eye contact with her friend in the mirror before leaning down to splash some cold water on her face.

@oliwia
mentions: Nathaniel David Forrester hehehe

[Deleted]

May 15, 2026

Oliwia knew that she definitely didn't have being a teenager figured out yet, even if it felt like she should have because she had been one for two whole years. The weirdest part was definitely figuring out relationships and boys, especially because she didn't fully know how she felt about it all. Sometimes, it was a little bit awkward to talk about crushes—and Xena, her best friend, had a crush on Nate, a seventh-year boy who didn't like her back.

Still, trying to be supportive of Xena, Oliwia had followed her into the girls' toilets. She didn't like seeing Xena so upset, regardless, but it was even harder because it was over something that she couldn't really fix for her. Maybe she could try to talk to Nate, she thought, but that was a seriously intimidating prospect. She was a fourth-year Hufflepuff, and she knew that a seventh-year Slytherin like Nate would be immediately dismissive of her. That was just Hogwarts politics; different Houses and years typically didn't mix much, with the exception of siblings, and Oliwia couldn't really use that as an excuse because she didn't have any.

Feeling that Xena's proclamation that boys sucked was accurate, Oliwia shifted her bookbag on her shoulder and gave Xena a slight smile in the mirror before the Ravenclaw went to splash some water on her face. She'd been crying, after all, and there was no use in going to dinner looking like that. If they were to run into Nate, for example, that would be even more disastrous for them.

"They do suck, yeah," Oliwia agreed with Xena, giving her another moment to compose herself. On that note, however, she looked towards her apologetically. "I don't think I can do a good enough Hot Air Charm to help you dry your face, though…" she noted. That was still slightly advanced magic, unfortunately.

@xena

[Deleted]

Xena gave a little laugh of understanding at her friend's comment about not being able to perform a good enough hot air charm to dry her face. “That's okay, I can use a towel.” she said, pulling one from a nearby dispenser. She felt entirely pitiful and knew that Oliwia wouldn’t know what to say. To be fair, she herself wouldn’t know what to say either if the roles were reversed and Oliwia was the one who was heartbroken and needed consoling. She sighed after she had dried her face of water and tears. “Sorry to keep you from dinner…” she admitted. “I’m fine… thanks for staying with me, though.” she reported with a half hearted smile. She just needed to forget about him and get over him. At least the term would be over soon enough and Nate would be gone from the castle. Surely he’d be easier to forget about when she wasn’t passing him in the corridor everyday.

@oliwia

[Deleted]

May 15, 2026

After she had gotten a towel for herself and dried her face, Xena thanked her for staying with her instead of just rushing off to dinner, but Oliwia wasn't about to ruin a friendship over food. She knew that Xena would have done the exact same thing for her if she were the one crying. Plus, having the tables divided by House meant that they couldn't easily sit together without getting some weird looks from everyone around them.

"Xena," Oliwia smiled, "it's alright." There was always so much food materializing from the kitchens—although seemingly out of nowhere—that neither of them had to worry about getting a plate full of cold food. Besides, she was in Hufflepuff; as a last resort, they could request something from the elves if they really needed to. "You're my best friend," Oliwia added, wrapping her arms around Xena. "I'm not going to leave you crying in here just because of a boy, like." They had been with each other through everything since their first day at Hogwarts, awful though that had been. Life at school wasn't always easy, but they could make it through anything together, couldn't they?

@xena

[Deleted]

Xena looked at her friend through blurry, tear filled eyes and felt her expression soften. Oliwia was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to her. Xena wouldn’t really say that she had a rough life. She was taken care of. She was safe. She was loved. At least she had no real reason to believe that she wasn’t. But her childhood had also been kind of lonely. She didn’t feel like she fit in with her sister and her mother after her parents divorce, and she didn’t feel like she fit into the new life that her dad had built for himself either. She felt more like a lingering obligation most of the time, rather than a daughter that was wanted around by him and his new wife. And while she knew her father didn’t intend for her to feel that way, the older she got, the more she wondered if maybe Aimee and her son didn’t want her there quite as much as she had originally thought they might.

But Oliwia never made her feel like a burden. Oliwia was kind and always there for her. Xena felt lucky and grateful to have such a good friend. “Thanks.” she said with a little laugh and wiped her eyes again as her friend wrapped her arms around her. “It’s stupid though, I feel like I built up this whole relationship in my head and no I feel like an absolute idiot.” she admitted.

@oliwia

[Deleted]

May 15, 2026

Xena, still teary-eyed, thanked her and wiped at her eyes again. She called it "stupid" that she had built up a relationship in her head with Nate and said that she felt like an idiot for it. Oliwia knew that she had probably gotten her hopes too high, but she didn't want to make her feel worse. Nate wasn't the only boy in the world, but there was something appealing about an older boy. All of the boys in their own year were still so immature.

"You're not an idiot. Do you want to wait in here for a bit?" Oliwia checked with Xena. She didn't want people to start gossiping if they saw that Xena had been crying, and going into the Great Hall late was a great way to ensure that half the school would be looking in their direction and drawing their own conclusions. "The food won't get cold that soon," she reminded her. That was the good thing.

@xena

[Deleted]

While Xena was incredibly thankful to have her best friend be so willing to wait here with her while she cried her eyes out over someone she never should have tried to get involved with in the first place, she couldn’t help but feel sorry, not only for Oliwia, but for herself that instead of at dinner with everyone else, the two of them were in a drafty bathroom, listening to the ancient plumbing shift around them. It seemed like the pipes were being particularly active that evening. Xena often noticed the soft sounds of old metal settling and the sounds of water rushing through, but this sounded different. More like a cracking? Like crumbling? Her eyes darted to her friend, suddenly every thought of Nate fled from her head and she tried to stop her own breath to get a better listen. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

@oliwia

[Deleted]

May 15, 2026

Oliwia was more focused on Xena than on the noises that were coming from the school's plumbing. She had never thought of the infrastructure at Hogwarts as being particularly good, granted, so that might have had something to do with it. It was only once Xena asked her if she heard something that Oliwia began to realize that the noises coming from around them were unusual. Even for Hogwarts, where their time at school had been marked by murders and kidnappings and all sorts of chaos that would have gotten any Muggle school shut down by Ofsted (or so Oliwia hoped), the whooshing that was clearly audible was more than a normal problem with the pipes.

"Erm… Yeah?" Oliwia answered Xena warily. She had never actually heard the sound of a burst pipe in real life, but she imagined that that was what they were hearing. It would have made a lot more sense if it were, say, December or January and not May, but it was a sure sign that something was happening. For once, thought Oliwia, it would have been nice to fit the stereotype of being Polish and having something to do with being a plumber. Unfortunately, all she could do was remain quiet for another second and listen. A burst pipe, she guessed, would have been different—maybe a pop or something and then the whoosh of water rushing out—but this didn't sound like that. It sounded almost like a rumble, like the walls might cave in if they were to keep standing there. "…Do you think the school's collapsing?"

The realization that they were in danger for the millionth time in only four years didn't hit her all at once, but she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Oliwia didn't know where they needed to go, but they did need to leave. They needed to leave, but they had no idea what was happening to know where would be safe. If the walls were going to cave in, that meant that the ceiling would eventually come with them—and everything that was above them, potentially.

@xena

[Deleted]

Oliwia didn’t seem quite as concerned as Xena and she began to think that maybe she was just exaggerating the sounds in her head. However, it started getting worse, and louder, and… closer? Oliwia asked if she thought that the school was collapsing and Xena couldn’t bring herself to admit that yes, maybe it was. How could that be? Hogwarts had been standing for centuries. The castle had it’s problems, but none of them, to Xena’s knowledge, were structural. She was sure some sort of enchantment had been placed on the foundation that would keep the castle upright even in the worst storms imaginable. But the crashing sounds were getting worse and she began to feel a rumbling in the floor. “I think we should get out…” Xena finally found her voice and grabbed her friend by the hand. She didn’t want to stick out long to find out what was happening and even if they were just being dramatic, they could at least find a professor and report the plumbing problem. But it didn’t seem like they were being dramatic. As soon as Xena pulled Oliwia out of the bathroom screams of other students hit her ears. Something was happening. Something bad.

@oliwia

[Deleted]

May 15, 2026

Xena told her that they should get out of there, and Oliwia held tight to her friend's hand. If the castle wasn't falling apart around them, it definitely sounded like it—and even more so when they left the girls' bathroom to be met with the sound of other students' screams. There wasn't time to look for a member of school staff to explain what they had just heard. They needed to get out of the castle before they second-guessed themselves.

Grabbing Xena's hand even tighter at the audible screaming, Oliwia looked to her with wide eyes. It shouldn't have been surprising anymore, Oliwia tried to tell herself. She should have been numb to it all, but she wasn't. Even a fraction of what they had been through at Hogwarts wouldn't have been acceptable in the Muggle world. They had no way to gauge if the quickest route outside was also the safest, but they were only on the first floor. They could make it to the ground floor and then out to the grounds. Oliwia wasn't sure where, but they could make it somewhere. Maybe even the Forbidden Forest—provided that they didn't go too far in. So that they wouldn't be slowed down by deciding what to do, Oliwia glanced down the corridor and then back at Xena. "Don't let go of my hand," she breathed cautiously, not sure if something was on the attack. "But… run." How far could they get from the school in a short length of time? Maybe out to the Quidditch pitch, depending on which way they went.

@xena