February 27th, 1894 - Hatchitt Residence

Sadie had been spending dinner with a friend in Wellingtonshire when the implosion shook the house. The snow outside had been of concern of course, but she had only a street to go and the walk should have been fine. Until it wasn’t. Her friend’s mother had suggested the Floo and though Sadie had only done it a handful of times, she did think it to be the safer option than to try and make the short trek home.

She should have just stayed put.

It would have been terrible of her to inconvenience the family of her friend during such a time and so she had willingly stepped into the fireplace, announced her destination and took a short, winding, whirling trip through the network only to wind up in a very, very unfamiliar parlor.

Her pronunciation of the home had been quite clear, she knew that much, but she did not have the magical prowess of most girls her age and so she thought perhaps she had done something wrong. Sadie looked to the mantle to see if she could borrow some more Floo powder, but could not see a container upon further inspection. Debating on what it was she could do she paced before the fireplace before finally calling out, "Hello? Is anyone home?" The last thing she wanted was for someone to think she was breaking in or something equally shameful!

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Lester Hatchitt

  

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Lester felt trapped. He didn't have a shift at the hospital today, which meant he'd been in the house all day — though he did not feel stuck until he had no option to go outside and be in the cold, after the implosion. He sat on his bed and read penny dreadfuls, looking out the window at the piles of snow and wishing for an escape.

Hello? Is anyone home?

Lester heard her voice and skittered out of his room, having recognized it. He stood in the doorway of the parlor and blinked at her for a second. He was struck dumb. He couldn't call her Sloane. This was Sloane behavior, but he could not call her Sloane.

So instead Lester said something that was probably inappropriate, "Sadie?"

  

In the moments she'd been by herself, waiting, a myriad of worries crossed her mind. She was in an unfamiliar house, with a storm raging outside, the floo had failed her, or was it magic in general? One of her relatives had told her some of the tragedies and disasters that had befallen Hogsmeade over the years and it made Sadie a little leery.

At the sound of her name, Sadie whipped around to find Mr. Hatchitt and visibly relaxed a little. At least she hadn't been dropped off into a complete stranger's house. She realized that now, with a fleeting sense of fear that went as soon as it came. She was too relieved to even notice the informal greeting.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't meant to intrude. I tried to floo home from a friend's house and I wound up here. I don't know if it's the storm or—" she looked out the window and back at Mr. Hatchitt. "But I'm not sure I want to try again just yet. Do you mind if I stay here for a little while?" She raised her eyebrows hopefully, hands clutched before her.

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She was here, and it was an accident. Lester answered her request with, "Of course," before he could even think of it. He wasn't going to turn someone back out into an apparently malfunctioning floo network if he could help it — especially not when he knew the person.

"But do you mind if we sit in my room?" he added, quickly. "My Mum's also home, and she'll worry."

That was the truth, although it was an oversimplification — Lester did not want to worry Beatrice, but he also did not want to make her aware that he had been keeping up an acquaintanceship with a debutante behind her back. Beatrice was worrying about him enough already, since Sloane's death and his stumbling through adult life.

  

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The answer was immediate and for that Sadie was grateful. She didn't want to be an unnecessary burden on anyone, accidental as her presence was. She started to unhook her cloak, thinking she certainly wouldn't need it for a little while, when his request hit her ears. Sadie looked at him curiously, head tilted to the side as she considered the question.

Nobody knew she was here; her friend assumed she gotten home and her family probably assumed she was weathering the storm at her friend's . If he didn't want to worry his mother, she supposed she could go along with that. "Ah, sure. I think that'll be alright." Nothing in her interactions so far with Mr. Hatchitt had said otherwise anyway. It would just be for a little while anyway. How long could a snow storm last anyhow?

Draping her cloak over her arm, she crossed the room to where he stood and waited for him to lead the way. "Thank you, by the way." She added sincerely, smiling up at him.

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When she smiled, she looked just like Sloane. But Sloane knew the layout of the Hatchitt house like the back of her hand; she used to climb into his window when they wanted to drink wine without their mothers knowing.

"Of course," Lester said, leading the way through the crooked hallway and into his bedroom. It was sparse, and relatively tidy — his bed was rumpled from where he'd been sitting on it. Moving photographs of his friends and family were pinned to the wall above his desk. He was glad that his closet door was closed, as it was a mess of hospital robes and scattered clothes.

"Do you want anything?" Lester asked, nudging the door with his foot so it was mostly closed behind him. He didn't know where to sit, but the bed didn't seem like an option — he leaned against his desk.

  

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Sadie followed Mr. Hatchitt through the house, taking in the details, but feeling like this place was not as foreign to her as it should be. She tried to shake the feeling, but as she entered his room, she got an overwhelming sense like she'd been here before. Of course she hadn't, that would be impossible, and ridiculous... right? Of course. Still, she felt like she knew it somehow, where the desk was, the window placement. It was a very strange, unsettling feeling.

She draped her cloak over the footboard of his bed and moved to look out the window. The snow made it hard to see, but she could see a light in the neighbor's house and that too kindled some recognition in her chest. It was all so weird that she didn't even know what to say or to think, but she certainly couldn't say these things aloud; Mr. Hatchitt would think she'd lost her mind.

"Oh, no, we just had tea at my friend's a little while ago." She would be fine for a while yet, assuming the storm would blow through sooner rather than later. Sadie perched herself on the windowsill, still unable to shake the feeling that she knew this place. "This storm seems quite ferocious, do you think it will last?" Sadie was hoping it would be fast and furious and be done.

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   Lester Hatchitt

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Lester followed Miss Sinclair's gaze to the window. He had not been inside the Bixby house since Sloane's death, although he was sure that he could have visited if he wanted to — it just felt utterly impossible to visit the house without her in it. The look of Miss Sinclair perched in the window looked painfully familiar, too. He swallowed. It wasn't her. Sloane would have asked him for something — tea, or wine, or made up a beverage that he would look at her about, disbelieving.

"I hope not," Lester said, "I'm starting to feel a little stuck in here."

And never mind that he'd stayed inside by choice until he had no option to wander.

  

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"I don't like being stuck inside much either," Sadie agreed, looking back out the window at the falling snow. She was stuck in this feeling of recognition and bewilderment battling for her attention, even as she looked back at Mr. Hatchitt, realizing she was being awfully quiet. Sadie searched for something to ask him, to spark a conversation, but she didn't know where to begin.

She should have asked something about siblings, or after his mother, but instead came out with, "Do you ever feel like you know somebody, even though you've only just met?" It sounded ridiculous, even as she said it, but it had been on the tip of her tongue regardless and she didn't know what had possessed her to say it aloud. "Sorry, that sounds strange," she knew how wild it would be, but she just couldn't shake the feeling.

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This was the sort of question that Lester would have asked Miss Sinclair if he was trying to bait her into answering. "Yes," he breathed. "Who does it for you?"

He hoped she answered the way he wanted her to. It was getting late, and every time he saw her she reminded him so much of Sloane that it made his chest hurt.

  

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Sadie toyed with her charm bracelet, watching Mr. Hatchitt carefully. His response seemed so eager that she was almost more confused. He felt the same way and she was baffled at how she had gotten here. "It's happened a few times since I came to town." Sadie admitted, still unsure as to why this was all spilling out now.  She hadn't dared to say anything to anyone at home except her ladies maid and Nettie was likely growing tired of her nonsensical theories. Mr. Hatchitt had just seemed so open and understanding from their first meeting; there was something about the way he looked at her that kindled a spark of recognition in her that she just couldn't place. It refused to catch fire and burn through the memories she only saw in a smokey haze.

"I met a very kind student at the Winter Solstice Ball back in December." Miss Potts had been lovely to converse with. "Then there was this mediwitch after I twisted my ankle." Her encounter with Miss Dawson had been unsettling to say the very least. The details were fuzzy thanks to the headache she'd spent the next couple of days battling, but she hadn't been able to shake the feeling afterward. "You," Sadie added finally. He was her biggest puzzle; familiar and a stranger at the same time. It frustrated her to no end, but there really wasn't anything she could do about it. Sadie dared to glance up at him now, knowing she must sound like a lunatic.

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It was getting late. Lester glanced at his watch, and then back at her — he needed to remind himself that he wasn't imagining this. It was almost midnight, and she was describing his friends as people she felt like she recognized.

"Miss Sinclair," Lester said, "The people you're describing are my friends."

Sloane's friends.

  

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Sadie tried to digest the information that these people she thought she had recognized were his friends. It was an interesting coincidence, surely, but was Hogsmeade all that big? They must have been all around the same age, so they had gone to school together. "Really? That's funny." Perhaps she was purposefully being a little dense here; it was somewhat alarming that she seemed to know all of these people connected to him. These degrees of separation were not all that far off.

"You have some lovely friends." Sadie said finally after her moment of internal struggle. Her fingers worked nervously at the sunflower charm of her bracelet as she eyed Mr. Hatchitt carefully.

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She recognized his friends. She deflected, but Lester leaned forward. He turned towards the wall and plucked a photo of his family from a few years ago off the wall. "Do you recognize anyone here?" he asked, extending the framed photo to her — if she was Sloane, she would have known most of the people in the photo her whole life. If she wasn't Sloane, she would probably think he was a little bit mad — but he suspected that she felt that way already.

  

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Sadie took the offered photo gently, as if she could shatter it just by touching it. Something in the air between them felt so electric, so fragile that she felt like they were teetering on the edge of something big. What that was, she had no idea, but she couldn't ignore it like she had his other comment.

Bringing the photo up closer to look at it carefully, Sadie realized she had that same wave of recognition that she often had around Hogsmeade. She looked at each face carefully, finding Mr. Hatchitt's among his family easily, but those surrounding him were so familiar. Sadie could clearly see Mrs. Hatchitt's smile in her memory, could almost hear her voice asking if she wanted a cookie or something cold to drink. She ran her thumb gently over the glass, looking up at Mr. Hatchitt carefully. Her eyes were wide and brows furrowed, lips pressed together in thought.

"Yes," she breathed out. "I don't understand why, though." Sadie confessed warily. "It doesn't make any sense." As far as she knew, she'd never been to Hogsmeade before, had certainly never met his mother, or anyone else in this photo before, but she knew them, somehow.

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She recognized them. Despite everything, she recognized them.

Lester exhaled. "I don't think you're Sadie Sinclair," he finally said. He looked at her, waiting for the reaction — something that could tell him if he was right or if he'd gone mad. The clocks in the Hatchitt household started chiming midnight.

  

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