15.
Severus felt a physical relief as his mind was reunited; he had sent a significant amount of his psychic energy into Calista's mind, and when it all returned, it was like settling into a familiar, comfortable bed after a long and exhausting journey.
He kept just one tendril in her mind, hooked it onto the bubble at the forefront of her mind, where he had enclosed all of the memories that were tied to the scars on her back, and how Bellatrix had exploited them.
He didn't know now what would become of happier memories that referenced this memory in some way, memories where he comforted her after her nightmares. At best, they would become fuzzy, half-remembered; she might know that he had comforted her, but wouldn't recall what dream she'd had. Or, those memories might disintegrate entirely, once they were released into a mental landscape that no longer contained the original reference memory. In removing the worst of her memories, it was almost a given that he had also altered some of her happier memories, some of the ones that had finally allowed her to trust him.
Of course, all of this was only applicable if she chose the way he thought she would, if he had been correct in his opinion that she was rather a lot like him. There was a very real chance that he was wrong, that she would choose to stay cocooned with her best memories, and choose that comfort over the ability to make new ones. Severus didn't know what he could possibly do from here, if that was what she chose. He had gotten used to caring for her, interacting with her; he wanted to know what sort of person she would grow up to be, free of Bellatrix's influence. More than that, he liked her, plain and simple. He liked the bedraggled little family they had become.
But he'd offered her a choice, once, and then he'd balked from letting her make it; so now he had done that, and he hoped he didn't come to regret it.
When Severus was fully returned to himself, he looked around the room. The curtains had been drawn up around Calista's bed; he didn't know if there were other students in the hospital wing, now. He could see no one at first, besides Calista, who appeared to be in a deep sleep.
As if he had summoned her, Poppy appeared, breezing through the curtains. "Severus?" she queried. Severus looked up, nodded at her.
She tskd. "You look exhausted, my dear. But you've finished, with…?" she trailed off; she didn't know precisely what he'd finished with.
Severus nodded. "Yes."
"I'll go and send for Dumbledore then, yes? He was here for several hours, but he had to leave a little while ago. He said to call him when you were finished."
"How long have I been here?"
Poppy glanced down at her wrist. "Nearly eight hours. You've missed dinner, but I'm sure something can be sent up."
"I'll send for something to my quarters later, after I speak with the Headmaster."
Poppy nodded, and left the curtained area. She returned a moment later, and passed Severus a goblet of ice water. "Here, have this at least, dear."
Severus accepted the goblet, took a deep drink. Momentarily, Dumbledore arrived, stepped into the curtained area.
"Is it done, Severus?"
Severus nodded, again. "It is, except for one piece."
"Ah, and that is?"
Severus took another sip from the goblet, then set it down on the tiny table between the bed and the chair he sat in.
"Bel-," he paused, cocked his head. "Are there any other students in the wing?"
"There was a broken leg earlier," Poppy said, "Quidditch injury. But he's just left, so Calista is the only one again."
Severus nodded, but still didn't continue. Poppy offered Severus another gobletful of water, but when he refused, and cast a rather pointed look at the curtain, she excused herself and bustled away.
Severus returned his attention to Dumbledore. "Bellatrix's presence is gone, but it's possible she may attempt to return. Calista is… I had to shield her, before Bellatrix destroyed her mind utterly. She's still shielded, until she decides to break free of it. She'll… she'll more or less be like this until that happens."
"You said she may attempt to return. Were you able to determine how she was able to infiltrate young Calista's mind, all the way from Azkaban?"
Severus considered his words. He had never told Dumbledore about the scars on her back, had wanted to respect Calista's privacy. But telling Dumbledore something seemed a necessity, now.
"She took advantage of a shared memory that made Calista particularly vulnerable," he said quietly, "An incident of… ritualistic abuse. I'm not certain how she managed to connect to Calista in the first place, but she was able to take control of her mind by forcing her to relive the memory over and over again in her dreams."
"And you believe she may try the same tactic again?"
"It worked once," Severus said baldly, "I would be surprised if she did not."
"Then you are proposing that we remove the memory of this incident?"
"I think we will have to, to prevent it from happening again. I've already gathered the original memory, and all of the mirrored memories of it from the dreams she forced Calista to have, to the forefront of her mind. When you're ready to extract them, I can ensure the right memories come out."
"How critical is this memory, to Calista's development?" Albus asked.
"I'm not sure how many other memories will need to alter their shape because of its removal," Severus admitted, "But a byproduct of the way that Bellatrix had been systematically breaking down Calista's mind is that it was easy for me to gather the memory, and all of its dependent memories, cleanly. It… it might change the way she recalls her past, but it shouldn't damage her mind."
Severus paused, hesitating.
"Is there something else, Severus?"
"I want to destroy the memories," he said, with some difficulty, "But… the nature of the abuse… there's power in what Bellatrix did, and it's something she could use against Calista, if she were ever to escape from Azkaban and find herself in possession of a wand again. If Calista lost those memories permanently, she would be utterly unprepared to defend herself."
"Then you think the memories should be saved, so she can reacquire them in the future."
"I don't like it," Severus said, "But I think it may be necessary."
Albus nodded. "I can keep them safely in my office, if you wish," he said, "Until you feel that it is time to return them to her."
Severus hesitated again, then nodded. Dumbledore produced two delicate glass vials from a pocket of his periwinkle robes; how had he known they would be needed?
"I make a habit of carrying several of these on my person at all times," the Headmaster said, "One never knows when it will be necessary to remember something for later, hm? Will two vials suffice?"
"I think so," Severus said.
Dumbledore lifted his wand, looked to Severus for confirmation. Severus nodded. Dumbledore stepped closer to the hospital bed, and set his wand lightly against the sleeping child's temple. Severus tugged at the little tendril of his mind that he had kept connected to the memories in question in Calista's mind, and he saw the tip of Dumbledore's wand glow silvery-blue.
Dumbledore drew the wand back, and a cluster of hair-like, glowing filaments came with it. He touched the tip of the wand to the lip of the first vial, and the memories slipped into it. He stoppered the vial carefully.
"Those were the secondary memories," Severus murmured, "The original one is still there; are you ready to take it?"
Dumbledore nodded, and set his wand to the child's temple again; again, Severus tugged at the remaining memory that he had earmarked, and it manifested as a wisp of silver-blue. Dumbledore deposited the memory in the second vial, and stoppered it. Severus withdrew the tendril of thought, back into his own mind.
Dumbledore touched his wand to the glass side of each of the vials in turn, and a laser-thin bolt of silver light played across the surface of each vial for a second; when it had disappeared, both vials had engraving on the surface. Dumbledore held one out to Severus, so he could see.
C. Snape, coll. 1987
Severus nodded, marvelling at how such a dark thing could appear so deceptively pretty; behind the delicate engraving, the memories glimmered, not unlike the witchfire nightlight that Severus had bought for Calista one Christmas.
"I give you my word that I will keep them safe until it is time to return them," Dumbledore told him, again.
"Thank you."
There was a short silence, and then Dumbledore slipped the vials into his pocket. "Now, I must confirm, for the safety of all the students and staff. Without these memories, you believe that Bellatrix will be unable to take control of Calista's mind again?"
"It would be extremely unlikely," Severus said, "But I have an idea to make certain it doesn't occur again… Calista has something of a natural affinity for Occlumency; I want to teach her to develop the talent. I believe that she can become sufficiently skilled to block any attempts at intrusion, from Bellatrix or anyone else, given enough time and practise."
"Ah, I think that is an excellent idea, Severus. Perhaps such lessons will also give you the chance to monitor her mind for any… unusual influences?"
Severus nodded, turned his head to look at Calista; she still appeared to sleep deeply, dark hair spread across the pillow.
"Assuming she… agrees to the lessons."
And assuming she decides to wake up again, he thought, to himself.
(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)
Inside her mind, Calista was curled up, safe in a familiar golden shield. She remembered a wall just like it, inside her mind, although she couldn't remember why she had needed it. She had been scared, perhaps… although of what, she couldn't say.
She felt strange, just now. Hollowed out, like she had been drained and wrung out and twisted all up. She tried to remember what had happened to make her feel this way, but she found that she couldn't.
In fact, when she tried, she found that there were a whole lot of things that she couldn't remember. She wrinkled her nose, tried harder. Still nothing. Well, what could she remember? Maybe if she retraced the last few things she had done, she would stumble into the memory of what had made her feel so strange.
Well. She had been watching her father make a sleeping draught a few days ago. She wasn't allowed to help much with complicated potions, but she had fetched ingredients for him, watched him carefully. She remembered that he'd shown her how to crush a sopophorous bean with the flat of a blade. He'd told her that it was a more effective way to get the juice from inside the bean than cutting it.
And then, the same day, after they ate dinner, she had listened to him read from a book called Advanced Magical Theory. She'd begged and begged him to read it to her, even though he'd told her it was far too advanced for her to hope to understand. It just sounded so interesting, and besides, she liked the fact that it said 'advanced' right in the title;requesting it made her feel clever. As it turned out, her father had been absolutely right: she could barely understand a word - now that she thought of it, had they all been real words, or had he made some of them up to try and prove his point? She considered whether or not he would actually do that, and decided that he probably would. She would have to remember to sneak a look at the book when he wasn't around, and see if she could see any of the ones he'd said that she suspected of not being real.
But none of that would explain the way she felt now. She felt like something really scary had happened, only… when she reached back, there was nothing scary, nothing bad. But that didn't make sense, did it? She knew she had felt bad, lots of times. Why couldn't she remember any of it, now?
She dug back further in her mind. She could remember waking up, and she had been afraid. The nightlight in her room had gone out. Her heart had been pounding, and then her father had come into the room, he'd tried to hug her… but she'd pushed him away. Why had she done that? Why had he been there in the first place? She strained her mind, thought as hard as she could, but still came up with nothing more than a fuzzy, half-there impression of fear, a few flashes of images. Dark curtains… why did she think those had frightened her?
Well, there was no sense trying to remember any more. It wasn't coming to her, and it made her tired to keep trying. She decided to try and read a book. Maybe she could get her cat book out, and try to copy one of the pictures. She could give it to her father; she liked when he made that face, the one she had made when she'd accidentally tasted a vomit-flavoured bean. It was funny. Especially when Calista asked him if he was going to hang it up, and then he usually did, just so she wouldn't feel bad. She wondered if he sat in his office, just making faces at all of the cat pictures, when she wasn't there. She giggled when she imagined it. She wished she could make them meow at him, too.
But now, when Calista tried to leave the embrace of her memories, she found that she couldn't - she stumbled into that familiar golden shield, and then she realised that she must be asleep, because nothing she tried to make her body do was happening. When she tried to tell her eyes to open, her legs to swing over the edge of her bed, she found that it was rather like reaching for the memory of whatever had frightened her; she couldn't quite get there.
Well, this was boring. Did this mean that she couldn't read any new books, couldn't draw any more pictures? and what about school? She was supposed to get her Hogwarts letter very soon, it was nearly her birthday again. That was another thing; ever since she'd discovered that she got to have a birthday every year, with presents and fun things to do, she found that she always got excited when it was near. What if she kept on sleeping, right through her birthday? Would she miss the chance to get presents? That wouldn't be fair… not that that argument would work on her father, but still.
She combed through the memories she did have, felt a little pool of happiness well up inside her chest. There she was, making a potion with her father; and then, she had managed to light a fire beneath the cauldron, using just her magic. And there she was, drawing a picture, writing in her journal. She thought about her journal, tried to remember what was written in it. She could picture some of it; she remembered writing about the day that her father had come to rescue her from the orphanage, only at the time she hadn't known that he was her father, or that she was being rescued. But when she tried to picture other pages, she found that the writing blurred before her eyes; she couldn't read the words, but she felt a vague sense of misgiving in the pit of her stomach. It said something bad then, something scary. She stopped trying, frustrated. Why were so many things so hard to think of? Where had all her memories gone?
She went back to the happy ones, spent some time replaying them, trying to feel them again, but it was like reading a book where she didn't understand all the words. She just had this feeling that something was missing, that she was getting an incomplete picture, and almost none of them felt as happy as they should have. She had a lot of memories of her father coming to her when she had woken up from a bad dream, but she couldn't remember what any of the dreams were about, so it just seemed strange to her that he was being so nice, that she looked so frightened. She watched herself, almost scornfully. What on earth had she been so afraid of, that she couldn't even remember now? Surely it can't have been all that bad.
She prowled through the memories again, looking for something new, something different, something that would give her some clue as to why so much of her mind seemed to have been erased. There was nothing, and now she was very bored. Besides, she hated the hollow, uneasy feeling she had, like something bad had happened, or was about to happen, but since she couldn't remember anything bad, she had no idea which it was, and it made her feel on edge. She wanted to wake up very badly, to go and do something.
She pushed against the golden shield, hoping that it would help her wake up. It was solid, and it didn't seem to want to let her out. But wait… there was something, a window of sorts. She peered through it eagerly.
It was dark. She saw things floating by, more memories, but they looked scary. She couldn't tell what they were, but she could tell they were bad. When she tried to focus on one through the window in the shield, she felt it tug at the hollow place inside of her, and she realised that what she was looking at were her missing pieces, the memories that she was now unable to recall. If she could only get out there, she thought she could fill all the empty spaces in, and then maybe she would know why she felt so odd, and whether or not she still needed to be afraid. But his could she get out there?
She puzzled at it a little longer, and then realised there was a kind of psychic latch on the window. She reached out for it, and when she touched it, she found that a bubble of emotions burst, flooded her mind. But they weren't her feelings; they belonged to someone she knew very well, someone she felt safe with. They were from her father, she realised, and when they washed over her, she felt even stranger. She felt safe and scared at the same time, because what was encapsulated in that little bubble was something that was far bigger and more complicated than anything else in this little golden cocoon. It was something very powerful, and it filled her with a buzzing sense of energy. It made her want to climb right out of this cocoon and go find her father and give him a big hug, even if it was light out and she felt a little silly, and even if she did think he'd been making up words to tease her.
She reached out, ready to pull the latch open, but then she stopped, noticing that there had been something else inside the little bubble. It was a big knot, made of multi colored strands of thought. She recognised these as her own, and she tugged, unravelling them. Words exploded into her mind, spoken in all different voices, and accompanied by a stream of images.
"Stupid freak. No one will ever come adopt you." A mousy-haired girl, taller than Calista, stood facing her with her hands on her hips, her face contorted into a mean glare. Calista tried to crawl backwards, but she bumped into a solid wall. She had to pretend that she wasn't scared, or the girl might smell her fear, like an animal. She might hit Calista again, or steal her book. She wished this stupid girl would go away, go be adopted like everyone else, and just leave her alone.
Calista frowned, and she felt a little tiny part of the hollow space inside her get filled. That was one of the bad things, then, that waited for her outside of this little shield. It didn't seem so bad to remember that, especially because Calista knew that she was the one who had finally been adopted, and she never had to see that Muggle girl or her mean friend again.
She stood in her room at the orphanage, the one she shared with Jessica and Allison. A tall man was standing in there too, next to stupid Emma, and he was looking at her intently. He had very dark eyes, and he looked scary. Why was he looking at her? Why wouldn't he go away, and ignore her like everyone else did? And then Emma left, and she was all alone with him, and what if he had come here to take her back to… and here the memory was blurry; she had been afraid of someone, but it was part of that hollow place inside her… she looked up at him, trying her best to look like she wasn't afraid, hoping she could scare him away. And then he spoke to her. "Chloe," he said, and she wanted to laugh at him. That wasn't her name. But then he'd kept talking. "No. I don't think that name suits you. I think you're more of a...Calista." She'd been startled; how could he have known that? No one called her by her real name, anymore.
The next thread of memory reverberated, and it filled in the missing spot in the previous one.
"Give mama the wand. Pick it up - Give Mama her wand, now!" and she was staring at her mother, and as soon as Calista saw this memory, she knew at once who she had been afraid of, her eyes flashing dangerously. The wand was near Calista's foot, but she wasn't stupid. She knew what would happen, once her mother had it in her hand again. She'd aim it right at Calista, and it would hurt, it would hurt very badly… or, if she left Calista alone, she'd turn the wand on someone else, make them hurt, or kill them, right in front of her. And Calista was so tired of being hurt, of watching other people be hurt, and she wanted to kick her mother's face as hard as she could, let her see what it felt like to hurt… but her mother was too far away, and too scary besides, so Calista did the next best thing, and kicked the wand away, as far as she could.
Calista shivered, as the memory of her mother slid back under her skin, settled underneath her heart like a cold, venomous snake. It felt slippery, scary, bad to have that memory back, but now some other things made sense. Suddenly, she could understand too well what might have frightened her so many times, why she had been glad for her father's comfort, why she'd felt relief to see him standing in the doorway to her room, wand lit, chasing the shadows to the edges of the room, where they couldn't reach her.
"Come here, little one," a man was saying, and he held his hand out to her. He was tall, with black hair and the same colour eyes as her mother. "I'll take you somewhere safe, away from her," and he tipped his chin towards her mother, who he had just cast a spell on, a spell that stopped her from moving. He had knocked her mother to the ground, only a moment ago, threatened to kill her, and now he wanted Calista to go with him? Did he think she was stupid? It had to be a trick… he wanted to get her away from her mother so that he could kill her, just as her mother had always said would happen. Or… perhaps it was even worse than that. Perhaps he wanted to take her to the very bad man, Dumbledore. The one that her mother always said would give her to filthy Muggles so they could steal her magic and then cut her up with sharp knives, bigger and sharper than the one her mother had. The man was saying something else to her, but she was too scared to hear him properly. He reached for her, took her wrist, pulled her along with him. Where were they going? She felt her eyes widen with fear; he and the others with him had seemed to be helping the Muggles - maybe he was going to give Calista to them to apologise for what her mother had done, let them kill her for the ones that she had killed of theirs…
And now more and more of the colours were echoing their words, and vivid images revealed themselves, rushed into her to fill empty spaces.
"Something's wrong with her," a pretty, red-haired lady said, sitting next to her at a wooden table. There were other faces around it, too: the black-haired man that had taken her, another black-haired man with spectacles, a sad-eyed man in a worn coat. Calista didn't know any of these people. They weren't Muggles, because they all had wands, but were they going to take her to Muggles? And then one of them said 'Dumbledore', and Calista stared hard at the table top, and wondered how she was going to escape before he came to hurt her, to steal her, just as her mother had warned.
"Hello, there," a kindly-looking old man said, as he stepped into the kitchen of the house where the black-haired man had taken her, "I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes. My name is Albus Dumbledore…" and Calista hadn't heard what he said after that. She had focused all of her energy on avoiding his gaze, on stilling the rapid pounding of her heart, so he wouldn't see how afraid she was. Maybe if she wished hard enough, she could simply disappear, before he had the chance to hand her over to a mob of angry, vicious Muggles. He kept speaking, but she only caught the end of it, when he asked her if there was anything she wanted them to know, like her name. She shook her head; did he really think she was that stupid? She wasn't going to say a word to him, or to any of them; it worked with her mother, sometimes, made her forget Calista was there, which made Calista overall safer, and she'd decided it was the best course with these people, too, with everyone.
"It's time," The man Dumbledore was at the house again, and he seemed agitated; everyone seemed agitated. Then Dumbledore told her that Sirius, that was the man that had taken her, was going to bring her somewhere else, and Sirius picked her up and carried her out of the house, and she could feel terror eating away at her insides, because she knew that this, at last, was it. This was what her mother had warned her about. Sirius was taking her to the Muggles, and worse, he was bringing her on some scary, loud flying thing, and she kept thinking that the floor would fall out of the seat she was in, and she would just fall down, down, all the way to the ground. It was very far below. Then, they had landed, and her worst fears were confirmed; they were on a Muggle street, and Sirius was trying to carry her inside; she clawed at him, kicked at him, tried to make him drop her so she could run away, but he was much bigger and stronger than she was, and soon she was inside the building, and there were a whole lot of Muggles in there, but they didn't cut her up; they only yelled at her and pulled her hair and called her names, the little ones. The big ones, the grown-ups, they pulled her hair too, when they were trying to comb it, and they told her to play with the Muggle children, and she didn't want to, because they were mean.
When Calista reached the end of the stream of words and pictures, the end of the little knot of memories that had been bundled together at the window latch, she felt different. She still felt all twisted up and strange inside, but maybe a little bit less hollow than before. She was sure, now, that the hollow feeling came from having memories that were missing, now that she had a few of them back. They weren't happy memories, but they were her memories, and now that she had them, she could make a little more sense of the memories that were happy. It was like reading a book with half the pages missing, otherwise, like knowing how the characters had resolved the problem without knowing what the problem was. It was… well, it was boring. And it felt incomplete.
But still… seeing these new memories didn't feel very comfortable. It made her squirm and shiver and, sometimes, it made her want to cry. She reflected that it had been easier before she had seen them, although a good deal less interesting, less real. She could see snatches of more memories through the little window, knew that if she opened the window, she'd see all those memories, too, and they probably were not good ones. Did she want them all, now that she had seen what they might be like?
She considered. Some of the things that had scared her in her memories weren't very scary anymore. Her mother… she was still scary, but some of the other things? Her father wasn't really scary, except when he was angry, but it wasn't real scary, because she knew by now that he would never hurt her, or curse her, like her mother did. She thought it was a little bit funny, now, that she had been so afraid of him when he had first shown up at the orphanage. If only she had known what it would be like, living with him… if she could have seen how they would read together, and go on walks, and make potions… and she had birthdays now, and sweets, and a cat.
She had met that Dumbledore man several times now too, and he just didn't seem as scary as her mother had said. Her father was friends with him, which had unnerved her at first, but maybe he had a good reason. Maybe the bit about giving her to Muggles so they could steal her magic hadn't been altogether true, because he'd had plenty of chance to take her, if he wanted to, and bring her to them. So she guessed she could count that memory as one that wasn't so scary anymore, too.
The other girls at the orphanage had been mean to her, but she had gotten adopted before them, and she had all the things they'd said she never would, now. She had a family, and it was even better than just plain being adopted, because she had her real family. And besides, her father had told her that Muggles don't get to go to Hogwarts, so she would probably never have to see those girls again, so that wasn't very scary, either.
She supposed there were things that were still bad; now that she had been reminded of her mother, she knew there must be more memories of her, memories where she actually had done the things that Calista could remember being afraid of, memories where she'd hit her or cursed her, or worse, and that was where Calista hesitated. Maybe… maybe it was safer to stay away from those memories, to just stay here in this little bubble with the things that she did already have. Even though some things didn't scare her much anymore, she knew there were bound to be plenty of things out there, in that dark landscape beyond her shelter, that did.
Well, she didn't have to decide right now, did she? She could look through all of the memories she already had, a few more times, before she made her choice… and that was what she did, she viewed them all again, the good ones and the newly remembered not-so-good ones. And then she came across a recent one, one that she had not been able to see before; maybe taking all those new, scary ones in had somehow unlocked this one, because she was sure it hadn't been there, inside her mind, when she'd looked through them all earlier.
She was frightened, she was very frightened, and she felt weak and empty. Her mother was here, was hurting her, was trying to… to take away her magic, the very thing that she had warned Calista that others would try to do. But she wasn't alone; her father was here too, and he was going to help her. "I'm going to come back," he had promised, but he had given her something in the meantime, something that made her feel stronger. He'd whispered something in her ear, something that made Calista feel braver. "I love you, Calista," he had said, and she had nearly cried; no one had ever said such a thing to her in her whole life, and she had almost thought that no one ever would. And then he'd said something else; he'd called her "my strong, clever daughter," and the words had lit her up like a star.
She smiled a little, even though the context of that memory wasn't particularly happy. Strong, and clever… she wanted very much to be both of those things, and when he'd said that she was, she had felt like she was. She had never considered herself strong before; clever, perhaps, at least compared to other children her age at the orphanage, but strong? She, who was afraid of so many things, so many people? Who had, evidently, gotten so frightened by her dreams so regularly? But he knew her better than anyone else did, so if he said she was strong, could it possibly be the truth?
She looked through the window again; she caught a glimpse of her mother's long fingers, reaching for her, in a scrap of memory. She shivered, and retreated further into the shield… but no, she thought, suddenly. If she stayed here, and hid from her fears and all of the bad things that had happened, she wouldn't be acting strong at all, would she?
And, suddenly, another memory came to her, or maybe it had been with her all along, but she hadn't been ready to see it. She realised that he had once offered to let her forget the bad things, the things that haunted her sleep. She had asked him what he would do, if he were in her place, faced with the same memories and the same decision.
"I would choose to remember," he had said, "Because knowledge, no matter how awful it is, is power...and there is a kind of strength you can gain only by overcoming terrible things. Some people are lucky, and they never need that strength, nor do they have cause to find it, but I have never been a lucky man, so I would want it, just in case."
Was she lucky? She knew that, when she was younger, she had not been, knew that even without seeing the majority of her memories from that time… but now, as she'd already marvelled at, she had a father who was (most of the time) kind to her, a safe place to live, lots of books, birthdays, a cat. That seemed pretty lucky to Calista. But luck was a thing that could come and go, as she knew all too well. Strength… she thought that a person either had strength or they didn't, and if you had it then you could depend on it, on yourself, again and again, no matter what bad things happened to you.
When she thought about it, being strong seemed like a very good thing, even if it had to be learned. She didn't know, truly, if she was strong or not, but she knew that her father thought she was… and she knew that staying here, and hiding, would not be strong of her at all. She didn't want him to second-guess his opinion of her, but more importantly, now that it had occurred to her that strength was a choice that she could make, she didn't see how she could possibly live with herself knowing that she'd decided against it just because it seemed easier.
Calista pushed out, pushed all of her willpower against the window. For a moment, it strained against her, but then, all at once, it shattered, and when it did, the golden shield broke apart too, melted into wisps and faded away.
There was a jarring, alarming moment when all of the memories around her flooded towards her at once, and she thought she would drown in them; they filled her and filled her and she'd thought, at first, that it was too much, too many, but then she realised that, as they came, image after image and sound after sound, that they were gradually filling in all of the hollow space inside of her.
When she had regained all of the memories, she paused to consider how she felt, now. She felt different, fuller, like she had been only a very good painting of herself before, but now she was whole, real. She did feel a little sadder; and there were a lot of her memories that were very, very frightening, more so even than she had imagined. She had known, from the first memory of her, that her mother was cruel and terrifying, but she hadn't realised how many times her mother had hurt her, how often she had made Calista wish fervently for someone, anyone, to come and rescue her.
But, eventually, someone had. She wondered now if all of those times, when she had wished for it, it had all gotten saved up somehow and then cashed in all at once, because she couldn't think of anyone that would be better. She had gained some more memories of her father, too, when they'd all come flooding back.
She remembered when he first told her that her mother was in wizard prison, in Azkaban. She hadn't believed him, until, frustrated, he'd found the article in the Daily Prophet, had practically thrown it at her. Well, then, of course, she'd believed him, and it hadn't been all about the printed column, either. She'd mostly believed him because he'd seemed so real when he'd thrust the paper at her. He had been visibly irritated, just as she would have been if she was trying to make someone believe something that was true and they just wouldn't, no matter what she said.
She felt a wave of amusement then, as she remembered what else he had said that night. She'd been wondering, only the night before, what he did all day, when he was out of the flat. She had considered, wildly, the possibility that he used potions to torture and murder people, the way her mother used her wand. And he must have known, because he'd growled at her, "By the way, I'm a professor. That's what I do all day. I teach children to brew potions… and, curiously, none of them are as frightened of me as you are, even though I have far less patience for them than I have for you. And if I wanted to poison you, don't you think I would have done so by now?"
And when he said it, of course it made sense, but more importantly, he had seemed so genuine, and that was when Calista had finally begun to relax around him a little bit. It was just… when he'd been so patient and kind, all the time, until then, it had seemed so strange and forced, and she'd wondered what he was really hiding. And then, when he was frustrated, he'd finally seemed like he was being himself, and that put Calista at ease.
Of course she liked it when he was kind, but, well, she also liked it when he was snappish and sarcastic, as long as he wasn't truly angry with her (and she could always tell the difference, now). She liked their back-and-forth half-serious bickering, because even though it was annoying, sometimes, it was also almost always funny. She couldn't remember ever laughing before she'd met him, but she supposed she must have, sometime… but he made her laugh all the time, and it was even better when he wasn't even trying to, like when she'd asked him to read from her cat book and he'd made that face. She liked that memory so much, found it so amusing, that she seriously considered asking him to read it again, tonight…
And look at that; even though she had absorbed the rest of her memories, even though a lot of them were scary and sad, what was she doing now? She was looking forward to something, to making more memories. Of course she was afraid of a lot of things, but she'd been afraid many times before, and she'd always gotten through it, somehow. Not always alone, that was true; but she didn't have to be alone. She had someone who cared about her, who loved her even, who thought that she was clever and strong. Someone who had promised her, once, that he would protect her if Bellatrix ever came back for her… and now that she had her memories back, she knew that he had been as good as his word.
She pulled herself from her thoughts to look around the landscape of her mind, and she was surprised to see that, in the time she had been absorbed in recollecting and analysing her memories, it had changed. Where before there had been gaping holes and grasping shadows, now there were bright, strong threads, reweaving themselves into the pattern of her mind, repairing the damage that had seemed so unsurmountable before. Even now, she could see the loose ends of her thoughts working themselves in and out of her memories, reshaping what had been lost.
She cast about, for any memories that might still be lost to her; she felt, somewhere deep in her core, a tiny pinhole, a place where something had been lost, but when she searched, there was nothing to fill in the gap, no memories that came rushing in, no thread of recollection that neatly filled the gap. It felt, for a moment, uncomfortable, hollow. But then, it was a very small hole, and the rest of her felt solid and real. And bored. And she knew then that she had waited long enough, that she had allowed herself enough time.
She concentrated, very hard. It was time to wake up now, time to begin a new day, to weave new memories. And it was time to give her father a big, huge hug, even if it made her feel embarrassed and silly.
With great effort, Calista concentrated on freeing herself from the web of her thoughts, the burden of contemplating her memories. She focused on waking up.
In the hospital wing of Hogwarts, on her bed nestled between two crisp white curtains, Calista opened her eyes.
(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)
On the first day after he had successfully evacuated Bellatrix from his daughter's mind, Severus had gone to sleep, to recover; his energy had been drained, for a second time, but he knew that he'd done the best he could, for Calista.
On the second day and the third day, he had stayed by her side almost obsessively; Dumbledore had found a substitute for his classes, and he'd sat with her, mentally willing her to wake up, to make the same decision he'd once told her he would have made. Logically, he knew that she had a lot of repair to see to in her mind, even if she did choose the way he thought she would, that she couldn't wake up until she had done so; but still, it was difficult, to wait. With each passing hour, he thought it was less and less likely that she'd decided to face the pain of her memories, that she'd chosen to remember, even though he knew that they still hadn't passed the critical mark. If it got to a week, and she still hadn't surfaced, then he would know that the odds weren't good; if her psychic core was disconnected from the mainframe of her mind for that long, it would begin to deteriorate irreparably, and she might never be able to come back, even if she wanted to.
He spent days two and three reading to her from books they'd enjoyed together from before, and talking to her about things they'd done together, conversations they'd had. He didn't think she could hear him, but it made him feel better to talk to her, anyway. He told her that he'd fed her cat, even though he hadn't wanted to; if she was in there somewhere, if she could hear him, surely that would entice her to return, wouldn't it? She loved that mangy furball nearly as much as he despised it, and he'd been sorely tempted to let it 'accidentally' escape from the castle while she was in the hospital wing, but he hadn't.
On the fourth day, he thought he would go mad, but he didn't quite have the presence of mind to return to teaching, not when she was in such a precarious limbo. He went home that day, to Spinner's End.
He didn't spend much time there; usually only a few hours here or there, since he had taken custody of Calista. He didn't want to bring her there, not when the place held so many difficult memories for him. His own childhood there had been, if not quite as traumatic as Calista's, certainly dismal. He couldn't quite look at his own living room rug, for instance, without seeing the dark stain of spilled whiskey on it, without feeling his own father's fingers coming round his throat, without hearing the drunken rasp of breath that meant an argument was coming… but he wasn't going to think about that, not now, when his own child was in a hospital bed. He was afraid that thinking negative thoughts would jink her somehow, even though that didn't really make sense. She would decide to break free from the shield, or she wouldn't. Nothing he did now would make a difference.
Still, there were things to attend to, at the house. He cleaned, removed a dust bunny colony, considered, not for the first time, the possibility of upgrading the plumbing. He sorted through some old books and papers, scrubbed all of the surfaces he could see, just to keep busy.
He knew that Dumbledore wanted Calista to leave Hogwarts for the summer, to provide a notion of separation between her early childhood and the beginning of her wizarding schooling, but he was loathe to bring her here. This place had dark memories, and a feeling that was just shy of dismal; he knew that the two of them would continue to create new memories, to grow closer (if she woke up), but somehow, he didn't want to do it here. He wanted to give them a fresh start; one with more windows, and fewer ghosts. He decided that he would look for a new flat for them to live in, somewhere she could heal, somewhere neither of them would feel haunted. If she woke up.
He returned to Hogwarts, exhausted from his day of cleaning and sorting. It wasn't purely physical; there was an emotional fatigue that came with facing the memories he had in that place, and it was taking its toll on him. He thought, as he walked through the front gates and towards the castle entrance, that perhaps he would go straight to bed when he got in. And that was when he was met in the entrance hall, by a very cheerful-looking mediwitch.
"Severus!" Poppy said, brightly, "Albus thought I'd find you here. Calista's awake, and she's asking for you."
He barely remembered to thank her, as he raced towards the hospital wing, exhaustion all but forgotten. He took the stairs three at a time, and by the time he arrived, was out of breath; and even if he hadn't been, he had it nearly knocked out of him, as soon as he opened the door.
A not-so-small dark-haired blur raced at him, collided with him. She wrapped skinny arms around his middle.
"I love you too," Calista said, looking up at him with dark eyes that were still, startlingly, like looking into a mirror. "Please, can we read my cat book tonight?"
"You miserable little wretch," he choked out, affectionately, "Of course we can."
« First « Prev Ch 16 of 17 Next »
Review