(Hogsmeade) Rememberings

[Helia Ollivander]

Helia had finally finished unpacking all of her things from her trip, and was now ready for some fresh air. It was quite late, the half moon overhead glowing brightly, and the stars glittering right along with them. She breathed deeply... The muggy July night smelled of candy and butterbeer. That was definatly one of the perks of living in Hogsmeade; it was like living in every childs dream world. Chocolate frogs and pumpkin pasties and soda pop as far as the eye could see!

She smiled and sat down on a bench beneath a street lamp. The gentle luminescence was very calming. She looked up and down the street; this place held so many memories! Her and Kim wreeking havoc, hanging out with Bog and the guild... What had ever happened to Bog anyways? For that matter... what had happened to a lot of her old school friends? It felt like it had been forever since she'd heard from him or Novella or Thom... She thought she remembered hearing something about Thom disappearing and becoming part of the Ministry of Magic... but she couldn't imagine that he would actually have joined such a corrupt organization.

Then again, he had always been power hungry... Power, Thom... her thoughts began drifting back towards Hogwarts; it had been during her fifth year that she and Thom actually started being friends. That was also when all sorts of other things had exploded; the lethifolds, Professor Freundschaft, Professor Eriksson... Aubry.
She shuddered at this last thought. She never had completly figured out his mystery... part of her was still scared to delve back into it. She still had the strange little decoupage biography book, and the year book... but they were buried deep in her old school trunks, and pushed to the far back of her closet in the back of 'Wanderful'.

She sighed... what had began as a lovely stroll was now a slideshow of haunting memories in her mind.
She closed her eyes; not that it helped. But she thought maybe if she focused... maybe Occlumency could help her push the thoughts back where they belonged...
'Might've helped if my Occlumency Professor hadn't disappeared after the first semester,' she thought bitterly, scuffing the cobblestone street with her shoe.

[Erich Aubry]

"I wouldnft worry your poor head about that, Ms. Ollivander" Erich is walking beside her, has been for some time. "Therefs nothing he could teach you that I can't." His smile keeps the moon in his teeth, Erich raises an eyebrow. I take it you're feeling nostalgic. Even I must admit that Ifve been homesick for this place and now, he savors the feel of cobblestones beneath his feet. He is solid and the humidity clings to him without joining his body. Well, now I come back to you all. Erich is walking them toward the main thoroughfare of the town, admiring the shoppers and late dinner diners, sneaking students out after curfew. There are charmed lights in the window. Looking at things this way, one would never know anything had changed but Erich is listening for fear and he hears it in minute reverberations. He speaks with his human mouth,

"I really do like the name of your shop, meanwhile. Just wanderful. You've come up in the world, Helia," he pauses here, looking meaningfully at her with eyes made of water. "But, I'm sad to say that the same can't be said for our dear friend Thom Moen." Closing out the sound of the small crowd, Erich whistles Thom's last living thoughts straight in to her head. I' d say that I we have lots to talk about, Helia. The moon follows above, looking like it could burst from feeling. Tons.

[Helia Ollivander]

Her gaze drifts up from the path in front of her as an all too familiar voice reaches her ears. Her heart skips a beat and her breath catches in her throat as her eyes finally settle on the haunting figure that holds so many terrifying memories for her. She purses her lips, turning her gaze slowly forward once again. She took slow, deep breaths as they continued walking side-by-side down the street. "And would you want to teach me?" she didn't know what, exactly, had made her ask such a question, but being around Erich had always brought out her less rational side.

'I don't know that you've been wrong yet when predicting how people feel; being inside their heads helps with that I'm sure, though...' she thought, a bitter edge lacing the words.

She turns and looks at him when the man stops walking. What did her shop have to do with anything? What was he playing at? "Thom?" she asked quietly, her misty grey eyes narrowing as she studied the mans features. "What do you mean?"
I'd say that we have lots to talk about Helia... Tons
Another voice sprang into her mind; a frantic one, wailing in a distantly familiar way...
She gasped. Her eyes flew wide open. She could feel her stomach lurch and, though she didn't know exactly why, tears gently began stinging her eyes. "What... happened...?" was all she could manage to say, trying to keep her bearings about her as she watched Aubry casting his unusual form of magic over the little village.

[Erich Aubry]

Eyes closed he leans out in to the light of that moon. "Murdered. The Red Rose League is responsible and one Nicholas McNiven in particular," he answers, withdrawing slightly from Helia's mind, her shocked grief a physical sensation. "The Ministry brought Thom, along with all the others, to bale the garbage from the sinking wreckage of their government. In these affairs, there are no honest people left I'm afraid." He takes a few selective steps forward, avoiding cracks in the pavement.

"I just thought you should know," Erich begins again sadly. "With this much you can make your own choices and so will I. That's more than I can say for the rest of the students still in the school," he collects a chocolate galleon from the snack cart of a nearby witch and swallows solemnly, a yellow lantern winking above them. "Who's to say theyfll get so far as all that?" Erich turns away from Helia, who has stood so still and so silently in the middle of the crowded street. Passersby avoid them without meaning to, without thinking at all, like water slipping past two rocks in a stream. Erich closes his eyes again.

It begins very slowly at first. A mother of two drops her groceries, small oranges rolling toward Helia. "I - I'm International Magical Cooperation, not an Auror!" she cries suddenly, wiping at her eyes, shaking. Another man, a bartender leaving the Three Broomsticks stops in his tracks. "---not an Auror! I'm not trained to do this!" he bellows, and the men behind him pick up the speech: "We know who you are now, McNevin." An elderly witch, the one selling candy, grabs Helia's elbow and shakes it urgently. "You could've just stood downcI probably would've let you go." And soon they're all speaking Thom's part for him, the whole town dashing through the streets with their wands out.

Erich locks eyes with Helia. I want everyone to know. I want everyone to know they're going to have bigger problems on their hands, very soon.

The crowd swells around them both, a chorus of frenzied cries and everyone in different places in the script. Silence sweeps them just as quickly and for a moment it seems to pass before they combine their voices in one terrible, thundering scream. "Run now and you'll be a wanted man! I have friends in high places - I'll make it happen! I'll make it happen!" They don't even speak the spell but the fire comes anyway, leaping from their wands to meet in a flaming burst in the open space above their heads, touching nothing. Now there is more fire than air and McNevin's name is loud in their tender mouths. Erich lets the memory of the green light leave him, lets it rush through each citizen to burn an afterimage in their minds. There is a great sigh, a collapsing; they repeat their cries.

Turning slowly to Helia again, Erich tears his gaze away from the impassioned, sobbing village. What do you think happens to us when we die? he asks, shuddering with the scale of their intensely simulated experience. I hope he can hear us, he adds as an afterthought, meaning McNevin, though some small part of him wonders if it was Thom he spoke for. Quickly, Erich brushes the idea aside.

[Helia Ollivander]

She nodded; Gabriella had been right. She had been a bit wary of the woman's intentions, having not known herself if the Red Rose League was as corrupted as De Conti so fervently decalred it was... but this cleared all doubts in her mind. They killed her friend. They would pay.

As angry as this new information made her, she still remained glued to the spot where she was standing; eyes downcast, tears winding silent trails down her face. She hadn't ever been very close to Thom, but he had been one of the few people who could sympathize with her fear of the man who was now being so, surprisingly, considerate to her. "Thank you..." she says softly; appreciative not only for the information, but for the fact that as... unique as her and Erichs relationship [or lack there of] was, he still thought to tell her about what had happened to Moen.

She's caught off guard as the people in the town begin speaking; not to her, but at her. And not even that, it was as if a movie was playing in each of their minds; all of them growing louder by the moment.
She was suddenly and inexplicably frightened once more.
As she started to turn to move out of the ever groing crowd around her, the elderly witch selling candy grabs her arm tightly, pinching Helia's arm...
"You could've just stood down, I probably would've let you go."
Helia's gaze immediatly turned to Aubry, searchingly. What was going on? When his voice drifted into her mind once more, her vision became blurry. When it cleared again she was no longer in Hogsmeade, but in the Forbidden Forest. There were people everywhere, but she couldn't make out who all of them were.
She saw a tall, stately man making his way towards her; she didn't know how it was she could tell, but she knew this was McNevin.

Thom's memory played out in her mind, as it did with the rest of the Hogsmeade townspeople. When the vision of the Forest subsided, the silent tears from earlier had become heavy sobs. Her knees felt like they were going to give out on her, every limb of her body wanted to collapse along with the other villagers, but something kept her upright. She breathed hard and heavy, trying to regain some control over her emotions...
What do you think happens to us when we die?
The chance to puzzle something out brought Helia firmly back into reality. She tilted her head--the remaining tears on her face sliding off her cheek as a result.
It wasn't an unusual question... not really anyhow, but she had never thought about it seriously before. Sure, she'd wondered about death, but it had never seemed like anything very real to her until just now.
I think there must be something better... she shook her head sadly, At least for Thom.
What a horrible way to die! Scared, blind, and all alone accept for the voice of the man who would kill you. Despite the warm evening's air a chill ran down her spine, leaving her feeling cold and empty.

[Erich Aubry]

"And it's true." Erich responds, fires going out with a breath as they cross him, picking up where Helia trails off. "Alone with that voice. I expect you understand I know something of that.' They watch the mob struggle to their feet, surge forward uncertainly. Erich isn't sure if hefs the one driving them anymore, and he can't always be sure, even when he does.

"Still. Sometimes when you go very far away from a place, or if you lie very still in the heart of your home, you might begin to feel as if there was something else out there. I suspect, on a rare occasion, there's been something larger than me all along." Erich laughs here. "You'll brush up against it, like sonar from another world. How do you qualify something like that? Truthfully, I have looked very hard outside this world and life is exceedingly rare. I don't understand this. Hospitable conditions are plentiful and exist almost everywhere." Some of the villagers seem to be coming to their senses, pulling away from the crowd. They collect their children, their belongings. Erich is smiling a little in the low light, despite himself. "One has to conclude that something else causes our consciousness to swell over in to physical life. Maybe this is our soul, or our magic, or our desire if thatfs something else entirely. I don't know what's kept me alive but I don't think we'll need to worry about Thom." He puts away fire; he puts away the memory of McNevin and the unforgettably vibrant green and takes back the sharpest point of trauma in each of them. Erich's will speaks and in him it glows brighter than the threat of an eventual, human death.


Rainer is beginning to remember and I don't think I'll be able to stop him. The lights go low in a cool hush.


"Helia, you'll have to live in this world. Who are you going to be?"

[Helia Ollivander]

She gives Erich a sidelong glance, just how much does he know she knows about him? Probably everything, but she is not concerned with that right now. She shifts uneasily none the less, she never liked people thinking they could read her like an open book. Much less so when they actually had the ability… She turns her gaze back towards the villagers who are slowly regaining their senses; putting overturned carts back in their places, restocking items which have fallen in the mix of things, picking up packages and children and other misplaced items…

As Aubry begins speaking again, this time back on the subject of philosophy, she can’t help but smile slightly, “So you believe in a higher power?” she asks amusedly. The idea of predestination and all-powerful beings and things of the sort has defiantly crossed her mind in the past, but never seriously. There has always been too much going on around her to truly decide on what she believes in that category. The fact that Erich, whom she to some extent has thought was an all-powerful being of sorts, believes that there is something perhaps even greater out in the universe… there was a thought to mull over.

“You think Thom is… alright then?” it feels like a stupid question even as she says it. How can one truly know if a spirit is living happily or not… is happiness even relevant to them? Of all people, Erich probably knows, but knowing him he’ll probably give a vague and indefinable answer.

She tilts her head slightly at the next thought she finds projected into her head. ’Do you really want him not to know?’ she asks meekly. If someone she claimed to love had forgotten as big a part of him or herself as Rainer seems to have, some part of her would want them to have it back. Or at least… she hopes she would want them to. Hypothetical situations always put a person in a better light than the reality of it would.

Her gaze falls back to the cobblestone street, a half-hearted trill of a laugh escapes her lips, “I thought I knew…” since her fifth year at Hogwarts she’d always been so sure of her life. She’d have her family train her in wand making and she’d carry on the Ollivander legacy… but so much has changed since those days. Now the Ministry was invading her school, one of her friends has died in the crossfire, not to mention the teacher’s who have been killed, resurrected, thrown in jail, or simply disappeared. She wants so badly to help, but doesn’t know how… except to work with the Rogues. Her eyes slowly meet Erich’s again, “I don’t know that it’s my place to say what I will be, but I want to help the people I care about. I just wish I knew how to.”

[Erich Aubry]

A History of Magic:

"I get this feeling sometimes, that I've done something wrong. The only thing is I can't seem to figure it out. I can't seem to place the moment when I cross that line, whatever it was. I get so afraid sometimes that I'll do it again and I won't have known. There are so many things I'm not proud of," Rainer puts his face in his hands. They sit on a high window casement. Gargoyles wink when Erich puts his arm around him, lets him shake in the cold. He monitors the film tape, these memories that aren't theirs. Erich recoils, privately, from other voices that billow out of Rainer. Little voices from underneath staircases, from pipes in the walls, from the living dead and still furious. Each night Erich has journeyed to that secret place, when his friend sleeps, is beginning to puzzle out a story. When they sit in class, Rainer ahead of him and with one graceful arm raised to attention, Erich is staring at the back of his head. Together they dream the same cloaked dream wherever they are. These are English voices and Erich is learning the language in his sleep. Rainer hallucinates snakes in his bed when he isn't careful.

"I am very proud of you." Erich answers soothingly, holding him tighter, insistently. In his mind they are standing in a cold place, subterranean, a deep stone hollow. Before them looms the great head of a snake, a basilisk king with poison for blood and teeth the length of their arms. Even though Rainer isn't Rainer here, Erich has not loosened his grip. Go away, he seethes. The snake, the scene, dwindles and dies.

***

Erich stares out at each of them, watches them slip back in to their homes, intact and grateful for it despite dreams of Thom, the forest floor soft beneath them. They will live past something to live for-- Erich had. How could he have not felt them all along, even when he was still young, this impossible swell of the living like a net across the Earth? He speaks to her. "I'm not sure believe is the right word for me. It's only that I've seen in to too many people, gone too far in to an invisible world not to wonder. But it won't matter," and here he looks again to the castle, towers lit above the whole display. "If I have my way, Rainer and I will make our own story. We'll live on that. But for Thom?" Erich's face is very close to Helia's now, Thom's eyes in his face, and staring in to her. "That you knew him will have to be enough, that you'd act in his name. Some cultures believe in feeding the dead. I don't believe in anything but my own wanting."

He gathers himself up, Erich holding the body together with a sweeping a call that turns the order of matter in to his own. From where they are he tries to reach out further, imagines himself beside Thom on that forest bed and looks in McNevin's eyes and waits to connect. Once or twice, it's Rainer standing over him in that picture.

"I shouldn't have let you hear that. Rainer will be fine if I am diligent. We were chosen people and I was chosen to keep it from him as much as he was made to hold them. If you're not one for predestination, then know this is my decision. I've always taken care of him." Erich knows, maybe for the first time, that he has convinced no one. He aches to erase her memory of his faltering, but only sighs. Erich feels ancient, like he's been awake for every moment of the last century. I don't think he'll ever come back, once they do. I donft know where people go when they die and I'm not sure I'd follow someone there but, more than that, I donft want a reason to go back to it. Erich has been awake for every moment of the last century, he realizes again. The mind's eye turns to her.

"So I'm going to tell your fortune," Erich begins, hearing her whole. "You could choose to hide from the people behind these things, from the dreams of more powerful people, from the fantasies and absolutes of politicians and long gone teenage wizards, their dark lords behind them. You could live your whole life to the very last breath. You could get away with anything, for now. But, in the end I think, for a lack of better words, you're going to be true to yourself and to these people you loved. You'll find another way to live." He doesn't know he's slipping, body turning to mist on its edges. "This is the trouble and the real test, right? But you," Erich looks at her again, with the human eyes he had had in the beginning of it all, "have already made up your mind, I believe." One wry laugh set in the air like a sign from almost no one.

***

"Let's go to bed now. I'm feeling so much better." Erich agrees and they walk through walls to be there.

[Helia Ollivander]

She nods solemnly, contemplating Erich’s words, passively wondering why everything he says makes so much sense. Very rarely is it ever in-depth or unfathomable by any means, simply understandable. Rational. Sagacious. And yet, somehow, entirely infuriating to the once-Ravenclaw who thinks she knows so much…

Her breath catches in her throat, her eyes meeting those of her deceased friend. She swallows heavily, forcing her throat to work again, making herself breathe. Despite her own wanting to stay there, staring one last time into eyes which are no more, she takes a staggered step back, knowing Thom is not there and that it is nearly impossible for him to come back ’But I’ve thought that before…’ she reminds herself of Professor Addis, and now Everitt. Dead, alive, dead, alive. Forever resurrecting himself, it seems... But would Thom do that? Does he have the ability, or even the desire to return from wherever in the Great Beyond people go when they die? Even if he did... would she ever know?

She watches with a strange fascination as Erich speaks of his destiny; a protector. Someone whose goal in life was to save someone he loves from himself. Her eyes sting with leftover tears, her heart flutters at the thought. He is doing exactly that which she hopes to do; defending the innocent... those who are unable to save themselves. She bites gently on her own lip before gingerly reaching out and placing a hand on Aubry’s shoulder. “Choosing something like that is a more honorable deed than most would even think to do…” she pauses. Does she really want to finish this thought? Does she really want to step so far away from her comfort zone? “If there’s anything I can do to help…” Yes. “Please, let me know. I doubt my efforts would be very beneficial, but… one can never be certain.”

The thought of forever losing something, someone so precious… it breaks her heart watching Erich in such turmoil. It would’ve broken her heart to see anyone struggling with something like this… but the fact that it was Aubry… the fact that she had been a distant observer of his life for so long, and that he was here now, standing in front of her and sharing this problem of historical proportions… that made it so much more difficult to see.

Her hand falls limply to her side as she listens to him examining her future prospects. Her own minds gears spin rapidly as his words press their way into her head. She stands there, watching him unblinkingly as he faces her once more, his laugh shattering the silence which had fallen over the street. She smiles slightly, “Had anyone else said that I probably would’ve slapped them for thinking they knew me so well, then proceeded into a lifetime of hermitage like the rest of my family…” she pauses, her eyes searching his cautiously, “But I don’t think that’s entirely a possibility anymore.” She is surprised to realize that, as much as she once would’ve been perfectly happy, hiding in her shop being a famous, reclusive wand maker like so many Ollivander’s before her, over the course of this outing her resolve had firmly changed. She still wasn’t entirely sure what she would be in the future, but she was certain it would involve action, not timidity. She would seek justice where others had turned blind eyes… Starting with McNevin.

[Erich Aubry]

So you have a choice, now. Erich imagines alongside Helia, let's them see the professor crawl from out of shallow graves a hundred times and Rainer close the lightning bolt scar just the once. He communicates his own age in this fog, shows her the shoes he wore as a child, the delicate lady seers in Munich who calibrate their gold computers to find his ultimate future. There is a long time before this, Voldemort's up turned palm like the smooth belly of a snake and his maniac's eyes glowing like cold burning ember, charmed. Older ones, sorcerers trapped in bottles, isinglass time space dimensions. The spanish vowels of pious fauns. A thorough winter. Cursed and long lived, the winged men whistling their jolly and undulating songs between the trees. So much light in so many leaves. The only thing is, Helia, how do you know you're not already part of the plan? Novella with blood in her little mouth. The look Kim Rivers has, possessed and in a stranger's howl, when they blow the wall down behind her. Boy blonde in the forest, the thought of power making his mouth strong and adult. I'm letting you know. A nervous laugh from Algernon, standing in front of his students with sober, adoring eyes. Lit like a saint and dressed in lace, Cashew with all her faith in good intentions. Rainer on the highway, desert flat and purple on all sides of him. The others, the grateful and sarcastic educators who welcome you, who lead you in. I'm telling you that your effort is everything. If you want to help them-- Grinning haughtily, Thom with a secret and his head ed to the side. She hears them closeby, as if they all only stood scattered in the crowd and waiting for Helia to open her eyes again.


















"You'll help them." Erich is gone long before it fades.