Reraizure 1 Exactly when does the truth stop and the lies start?
Some days are made for reflection. Everything one has lost and gained and lost again all pass slowly behind one’s eyes. Mr. Lucius Malfoy sat in his dank cell at Azkaban Prison. He was bored of this place already. Take a nap, he thought.
When he arrived in the Dream World, he saw a beautiful two-story house. It looked like a small mansion. He walked toward the front door and entered. Inside, the place was in ruins. Everything; the furniture, the photographs, the drapery, the cabinets, all of it was set to ash. He journeyed up the stairs to see if there was anything left at all. The eleventh step creaked so loudly, it felt like his ears would bleed.
Walking down the hall, toward the master bedroom, he saw a figure. He stopped dead in his tracks as the small shadowy figure jumped back a few steps in surprise. Then, it spoke to him in a strange tongue that sounded like a choir of voices. Some terrifying, some elegant. “If you hover here, you’ll find her amidst the dust and the silence.” It threw an amulet at him and he caught it, swiftly. “This will help you find her. Break free from your servitude, Lucius, and break her free from the spell.”
“Elora?”
And in an instant, everything was gone, and Mr. Malfoy was no longer in the Dream World. As wakefulness took hold, a single stray piece of dream seemed to remain at the foot of his bed. It was the small shadowy figure.
Confused thoughts struggled in his sleepy mind to explain what he was seeing, even though he knew. It wasn’t until he had the light on that he realized he was alone. It was just the slumber left in his head. But he felt something in his palm. Something that didn’t disappear with the darkness. He didn’t sleep again that entire evening.~~~ “I know I lost
Please let me suffer in silence.
I’ve said enough
Please help me hide from the ghosts
From my past
For a while.”
~Apoptygma Berserk, Suffer in SilenceThe student called Lola Banini set a box onto his desk. “Happy birthday, Professor Snape,” she whispered. He shot her a withering gaze with his cold eyes as she began to walk away.
“Who told you it was my birthday?” He asked the orphan child. No one had told her. She just... knew. She was pretty skilled with guessing games.
“Well, it was kind of obvious,” she said, still walking toward the door. She loved using that phrase. She got simple amusement out of freaking people out in small ways.
She walked faster. There was a faint smell in his office that made her think of the orphanage. She fled quickly because of it. Lola had tried so hard to forget that terrible place, unlike how she’d forgotten how she ended up there in the first place. She had no memory of how she’d gotten there, but knew only what they told her. Which wasn’t much.
Snape opened the tiny box as the door swung closed after Lola. Inside was a golden pocket watch. It was something he really needed. Really wanted. “Thank you, Miss Banini,” he said, even though he knew she was already gone.
He loved the watch. It reminded him of home. His real home. His wife loved collecting time. His beautiful Daisy.
It’d been ten years since the fire when he lost everything, including his beloved wife and daughter. Oh, how he wished every year that he would awaken to find a macaroni birthday card resting on his pillow, and smell the wondrous aroma of his special birthday breakfast. The loss was also incredibly hard on the Malfoys. Draco was too young to remember much of Elora these days and Lucius and Daisy and had been the best of friends since their first year at Hogwarts. It is what drove Lucius and himself to stay with the Dark Lord in hopes to learn some of his evil magic and one day destroy the unstoppable demon who set the fire. And what better way to learn such a strong magic than from the one who summoned the beast in the first place?
Daisy, my love, he thought. My only love... why did you leave me so soon? Must you have taken our daughter with you? Is this the price I must pay for my sins?
Snape didn’t see Lola the rest of the day. He wanted to thank her in person for the watch. He roamed the halls, keeping a casual eye out for her. Turning a corner, he spotted Dumbledor heading his way. He, too, inquired about Lola. It turned out that she shared Harry’s and Neville’s birthday, which meant that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named could strike her, too. He asked Snape to teach her Occulmency, just like he taught Harry. Just to be safe.
Snape agreed without thought.~~~ “Just relax,” said Snape. “Clear all emotion from your mind... One, two, three, Legilimens...”
Lola didn’t really know what to do. She just tried pushing Severus out of her head. It wasn’t working.
Severus was seeing images of the orphanage. A tall, dark building that would give anyone with warm blood the chills. The kind of building one would find in a little borough outside a city with all the big mansions and trees. The kind that was most talked about in the whole neighborhood. Not the fancy marble-columned older mansion, nor the famous one where a former president once dined in the sixties. The kind of building that is well known in scary campfire tales, or tales you tell bad children to scare them into behaving.
He saw Lola’s hands putting the wrong ingredients into an anonymous mixture. A puff of black smoke later, and her hair was orange.
Another image... Lola’s tear stricken reflection, instantly shattered with her own fist. There was a flash of light, and she was suddenly laying on the lavatory floor, bleeding from the wrists and surrounded by nurses. “We cannot have it this way,” he heard one say.
Severus then saw a door. Every time he looked at it, he heard crying. When he walked toward it, everything went away, and he was back in his office, huddled on the floor and clutching at his belly.
“Oh, God,” he cried. He had not experienced so much physical pain in years. “What have you done? Please, make it stop!”
Lola quickly kneeled in front of him and touching her wand to his back, made the pain return to her. At first, all he could do was sit and catch his breath.
“Sorry, Professor,” she began. “I gave you my pain.”
“What pain?” he asked, sharply.
She looked left and right quickly with her eyes, blushed, and explained, “My...” her voice dropped to a whisper. “pain.”
It took all but three seconds for Snape to figure out what the pain was and then he said, “Good God, child. How do females do it?”
Lola smiled and apologized, explaining that it was a “spur of the moment” action. How embarrassing.~~~ Harry, Ron and Hermione sat in the dining hall planning to discuss their latest herbology assignment. But they became sidetracked by the Dream World.
“I had this really strange dream last night,” announced Harry. “It had some fire demon in it.”
“A fire demon?” inquired Ron, who spoke with a mouth full of chocolate frogs.
“And the really weird part was... my scar. It burned when I woke up.”
Hermione and Ron looked at each other knowingly.
“I had a dream with fire in it a couple nights ago.” said Ron.
Hermione didn’t want to admit it, for fear of what she already knew was happening, but after some hesitation, she said, “So did I.” The boys looked at her. “It’s Him again, isn’t it?”
Harry’s face grew very dismayed. He bashed his head on the table and kept it there. “I don’t want to do this again,” he complained. Hermione put a hand on his shoulder. “How much more pain, Hermione?”
A good change of subject passed by moments later as Malfoy and his cohorts walked along, talking about Lola. “She’s pretty,” said one. “Please,” said another. “She has orange hair. And who transfers into Hogwarts their sixth year?”
Then Malfoy said something Hermione took special note of. “She reminds me of... when my father was happier.” And then their voices faded away.
Hermione looked at Ron and Harry, wondering if they heard that, too. They did.
“Mr. Malfoy is capable of happiness?” asked Ron with humor.
“I’ve read about the orphanage Lola Banini came from,” informed Hermione. “Dreadful place. If you’re bad, they lock you into a tiny room with leaky pipes and rusty nails sticking out the walls.”
“That can’t be true,” exclaimed Ron. “That’s got to be... illegal, or something.”
“I can relate,” thought Harry out loud. The other two looked his way. “But I agree. Even in the muggle world, that’s far too brutal.”
“Well, anyway,” she continued. “The place has burned down. That’s why she was sent here. They taught magic there, but she was the only one that hadn’t been adopted before the fire.”
“So she lives here now?”
“I heard they were glad to get rid of her.”~~~ “Clear your head, now, Miss Banini.” said Snape. “I want you to really try today.”
Lola steadied herself. “I’m not entirely sure of what you want me to do, Sir.”
“Just do what’s in your heart, Miss Banini,” he said. Lola bit her tongue. She hated that phrase. It’s such a lie that you should do what’s in your heart, she thought. If everyone did that, the world would grind to a halt. “But please,” he said abruptly. “No more bodily pains of yours.”
“One, two, three...” she didn’t even hear the last word.
The very first thing Severus saw today was the door. The crying was so loud and saddening. He wanted to stay away, but something drew him to it like a moth to a flame.
He took the first step toward it and instead of drawing back into the office, he saw a flash of memory... a coffin? So small, fit for a child. It was a funeral. There were nurses and only a small handful of children in the pews. One was Lola. He recognized the orange hair.
He took another step and there was only a slight change in the memory, and there was one less child in the pews.
Severus continued to step and step until it was only Lola sitting in the pews, crying, and looking a few years older.
And then he stepped backwards and saw Lola talking to her reflection. “Everyone I make friends with dies unnaturally... I’m cursed... I can’t go on, I’ll only hurt more people I care about...” There was another flash as she punched the mirror. He was in a new memory. But he still heard crying.
He stepped toward the door again and Malfoy gave Lola a “Welcome-to-Hogwarts” rose while no one was looking, and then ran.
There were chains on the door. He tried to get it to budge, but to no avail. The crying was louder than ever, yet he could almost make out the sound of leaky pipes coming from within. He leaned down to a keyhole and caught a glimpse of what was inside just as Lola pulled him back.
Snape’s lips were blue and his eyebrows and split ends were slightly frostbitten. Lola was lying face-up on the floor, lounging, for the most part, but also catching her breath while quietly chanting a warmth spell to thaw her professor, who still envisioned the white glow of a person engulfed in flames.
“That looked... like...” he was still shivering and not entirely sure what he’d actually seen.
Lola sat up and stared blankly for a moment. “What?”
“Who is locked in that chamber?” he asked, ice melting from his locks.
“What are you talking about, Sir?” Lola asked. “What chamber?”
“The one on fire, girl!”
“But, I didn’t see anything like that, Sir,” she said, nervously. “I- I only saw... funerals...” she looked down and tried holding back tears at the thought of her dead friends. “Honestly.”
It was clear to Snape by the fear in her eyes that she really had no idea what he had seen.
“I see,” he said, calmly, trying to keep collected. “And what do you have against mirrors, Miss Banini?”
“Everything,” she said with a bit of an attitude. “I can’t bring myself to look into mirrors anymore.”
Snape stared at her for a short moment and decided that this was not the time to get into it. It was getting very late.
“Thank you, Miss Banini, that will be all for today. You may leave.” Lola looked at him for a moment with frightened eyes. Then she put her wand away and walked toward the door. “I will see you tomorrow evening.”~~~