#the Server at me and vess | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

not-another-mtg-fanblog · 8 years ago

Text

Why Aren’t There More Women Magic Players?

Finally posting my article! It’s really long and I don’t want to clutter people’s dashboards with the full thing, so please click Keep Reading to read it. Thank you to everyone who responded to my “interview” questions! It was so helpful, and it certainly gave me a good look at what’s going on in the community.

Special thank you to @gaytog and @ally-encampment, who are most heavily featured in the piece. Your responses were phenomenal and I’m grateful for your help on this.

Secondary shout out to @chelsea-beleren-vess and @zoe-of-the-veil, neither of whom I interviewed but who both have been outspoken about this issue and thus who I mention in the article for their public posts.

Again, thank you, and enjoy the article!

Full Text:

It’s a Friday night, and Topp’s Trade Center, in Benton Harbor, Michigan, is, to say the least, packed. At the counter to check out, five or six men and teen boys stand in line to pay to play Magic: The Gathering in the weekly Friday Night Magic (FNM) bracket. All who play will get a small discount later in the evening on packs of cards, and one lucky winner will get a mythic rare card for free.

Meanwhile, in the gaming room, two college-aged men are deep in a heated Magic: The Gathering match, while a half dozen other men look on. Two women of about the same age walk in and sit down by themselves across the room from the others, and begin to play their own match, completely ignored. Of the 30 or so people that have come in for FNM, they are the only women in the store.

“There still is a low percentage of women at FNMs and such I go to—often I’m the only one there, or just one of two,” says Lily Haaron, a woman player from Seattle.

According to Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns Magic: The Gathering, over 12 million people worldwide play Magic. Of that, somewhere between 60 and 90 percent of players are male. The women who do play frequently state that they feel unwelcome in game stores that host Magic events. They cite instances when they were not taken seriously, were the butt of hurtful and often discriminatory jokes, or were even harassed by other players because of their gender. However, many women in the community have started clubs and social media groups specifically for women, in order to create safer spaces for women to play.

“Many male players see the community as of and for primarily other male players,” says a female Magic player going only by the name Joy, who began playing around 2013 but has only been heavily involved in the community in the past year.

Joy says that she initially felt drawn to the complexity and depth of the game’s lore, which follows the story of several different characters that are also printed as playing cards in the game. She says, “I read the entire story of Khans of Tarkir block and loved it, and have been keeping up since,” referring to the story published in once-a-week chapters prior to the release of “blocks” of new cards.

Many players enjoy the social aspect of the game. After all, it is called Magic: The Gathering, which refers to how people must gather together in order to play. “I enjoy that Magic gets me out of the house every day,” Joy says, “On weekdays, my job gets me out of the house. On weekends, Magic does.”

But the social aspect can be rougher for some than for others. Ally Robertson, a trans woman and regional Magic judge from Maine says that, while she has never experienced harassment herself, she has friends who have. “When [one of my good friends] was still new to Magic, [she] had a store owner tell her that if she went out back and gave him oral sex, he would concede to her,” she says. “The local judge at the time just laughed, like most of the store.”

The game was invented in 1993 by a white man, and for many years it appealed only to white men, to the exclusion of women and non-whites alike. “What I have experienced, both at my LGS (local game store) and online, is a male-dominated culture that manifests in subtle and not-so-subtle ways,” says Joy.

The creators of Magic have since attempted to increase the number of woman players, though the demographic statistics vary depending on who you ask. For example, Mark Rosewater, the lead designer for Magic, said on his blog, “market research shows the gender breakdown of male to female is 62% to 38%.”

Jesse Reynolds, a former store owner from Evanston, Illinois has an even more stark view of the demographic differences. He says, “If [other store owners] say that more than 5% of their players are female, they are lying.”

Participation in competitive events, such as the professional tours and even FNM, closely resembles what Mr. Reynolds says, which suggests that while women are attracted to the game itself, there is a significant barrier keeping them from playing competitively.

“I’ve been treated like crap by guys when I go play Magic,” writes a Tumblr user going by the URL chelsea-beleren-vess. “Or ignored when I’m like ‘hi how are you?’ Or asked if I’m here with my boyfriend. They don’t take me seriously.”

Some players say that, although the community as a whole has a long way to go, the company itself is inclusive in a way that its consumers are not. “Wizards of the Coast has demonstrated a commitment to making Magic a more inclusive gaming experience, and so far, I think they’ve done well,” says Joy.

Indeed, Wizards is unlike other media in its representations of women and non-binary individuals. The company has actively remade edited versions of card art that previously objectified female characters, even after having received backlash from male players that saw nothing wrong with the original art. Wizards also wrote new female characters into the story, some of whom are lesbian or bisexual. Two years ago, the company released Alesha, Who Smiles At Death, a card based on the company’s first openly transgender character, and in the past year it introduced an entire race of people, called the Aetherborn (pronounced EE-ther-born), that are non-binary, using they/them pronouns.

“I love that they have characters like Alesha, or the Aetherborn. It definitely adds to mine and my partner’s experience of playing the game and it also makes conversations about inclusivity easier,” says Ms. Robertson. “On the flip side, though, it’s frustrating when people on coverage misgender the Aetherborn or assume their next coverage pair consists of two men. As a whole, Magic is still a ‘boys club’ and any attempts to expend that mentality usually end in backlash.”

So what might improve the gender disparity at Magic events? What might draw more women to Magic? Some say that it is the responsibility of Wizards of the Coast. Others say that the privileged majority in the community need to step up and be more inclusive. Yet others argue that those who have been harassed or discriminated against need to report their experiences. No surefire consensus has been made, though perhaps all suggestions have their merit.

“I feel on a local level stores need to do more to try and get women into the game, and support women communities with it,” says Ms. Haaron.

Ms. Haaron wants to see more groups like the Lady Planeswalkers Society, a women-led group of Magic players that hosts events specifically to draw women into the game and create a more welcoming and inclusive environment for women players. The society has had moderate success, purporting to have over 80 active chapters throughout the world and more than 1600 followers on Facebook. However, 1600 followers out of the 12 million that Wizards claims play is not even a dent in the community.

Some argue that Wizards of the Coast hasn’t done enough to create an inclusive community. “I think Wizards needs to take more direct action against stores that have unwelcoming environments,” says Ms. Robertson. “If a store gets repeatedly reported for an environment where players are degrading women, or making rape jokes, Wizards should step in and tell that store to keep their player base in line or lose DCI sanctioning.”

DCI sanctioning refers to the ability of a store to host official Magic: The Gathering events. Many stores make their money by hosting such events, so being sanctioned is good for both the store and for Wizards. Furthermore, participating in sanctioned events helps competitive players advance to the next level of competition, so it’s good for the players as well.

When players are repeatedly harassed or made uncomfortable during the events, things get a little complicated. Wizards has rules put in place to punish players that make the environment uncomfortable for others, but those rules are just not strict enough for some.

Ms. Robertson says, “I think jokes that promote violence or jokes that use minorities as a…punching bag should warrant an immediate disqualification, or at least match losses.”

For now, many women players are creating their own safe spaces to play. Tumblr user zoe-of-the-veil has created a server on the Discord app, which is a group chat app specifically for gamers. She says, “Basically, this will be a place for women magic players will be able to connect and support one another.”

#women magic players #women in mtg #magic the gathering #mtg #article #writing #lady planeswalker society #women in gaming #gaming #games #mtg fandom #magic fandom #feminism #women

70 notes · View notes

elspethsunschampion · 8 years ago

Text

Fact or Fiction: Epilogue

Rated M for abuse, sexual content, and discussion of rape/non-con. Canon-typical violence.

Summary: It’s Ral Zarek’s sixth year at Hogwarts. And everything would be fine if Jace wasn’t totally occupied with his new girlfriend, to the point where it’s honestly kind of weird, and Ral’s starting to be concerned. Now if only everyone would stop telling Ral he’s just jealous and LISTEN to him…after all, he’s NOT just jealous, right? (Sequel to Send to Sleep.)

Ships: Jace Beleren/Ral Zarek, Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood/Hermione Granger, Nissa Revane/Chandra Nalaar, Elspeth Tirel/Teysa Karlov

A/N: Many, many thanks to @paperclipminimizer for beta-ing and checking my timeline, as well as answering all my questions about Harry Potter. Thanks also to Juri, @dragons-suck, and everyone on Sketchydoodles’ Vorthos server for listening to me rant about this thing as it took shape.

Also available on AO3 and FFnet.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

The cheery music and noise of the Christmas party washed over Hermione like a particularly happy tide, and she snuggled down into the fat armchair by the fire. Her armchair today. Harry and Draco were too busy flirting dangerously near the mistletoe; Professor McGonagall was laughing and actually dancing with Professor Flitwick as bad Christmas music played, and the rest of the teachers were kindly letting Hermione have it, knowing that she’d had a touch of the curse that Liliana Vess had cast mainly on the female students. Luna was curled on the arm of the chair; every so often she would get up, get both of them more eggnog, and circle the room saying Happy Christmas and draping people with sugarplum wreathes to “keep the nargles away.”

There was a rattling noise at the window, and Hermione glanced over to see that Kallist was jiggling up and down impatiently outside, making the latch vibrate up and down. A sudden cold chill went through Hermione, and she got out of the chair to let the little cloud in. He performed a sudden, rapid loop-the-loop, and then spat a slightly damp letter at her. Hermione blinked. How on earth had he been carrying it?

She ripped the top of the envelope and rapidly skimmed the letter’s contents. To her relief, it looked as if it was nothing but a Christmas card; a still photograph fell into her hand. Ral, Jace, Teysa, and Elspeth grinned up at her, all squished together against a generic background. Teysa had an arm around Elspeth’s shoulder, and all three of them were piled around Jace in an almost protective formation. Hermione smiled as she went back to her seat.

And found it occupied. Luna gave her a wide, bright smile from her new position in the armchair.

“That’s my seat,” Hermione objected.

“Oh, well, you know, I thought it still could be?”

“O-Oh!” Hermione felt herself smiling even as she rubbed the back of her neck bashfully. “All right.” She lowered herself carefully into Luna’s lap, then, feeling daring, turned and kissed her girlfriend’s cheek. It wasn’t as if their relationship was a secret, but so far, they’d been very restrained in public. But it was a Christmas party, and it wasn’t as if there were any students around. Luna would likely not even be a teacher here after next semester.

Luna blushed and made a pleased humming noise.

“All right, now I need to read this letter from Jace,” Hermione said, and flattened it out in her lap. “I’ll read it out loud, shall I?”

Dear Professor Granger,

Happy Christmas! Ral says to thank you for the charms you gave him.

Hermione choked on her eggnog, and Luna patted her back.

“What’s wrong?” she asked mildly. “What charms is he talking about?”

“Um.” Hermione felt her face getting hot. “I, well, I, um, found Mr. Zarek in the Restricted Section cursing up a storm—literally—so I gave him some, er, some books of my own. On healing. And protective charms.”

“Ohhhhh.” Luna nodded. “You know, I really feel that sort of thing ought to be covered in class. It’s remarkably annoying how difficult it is to find the information, and it seems like every so often really quite bad things happen. Just because someone doesn’t know.”

Sighing, Hermione leaned back against her. “I mean, I agree, the first time Ron and I—erm—I just used Muggle methods, because I didn’t know where to look for the charms. But I’m not sure this is something I feel capable of bringing up with Professor McGonagall. She already gave Harry and Draco a look the other day, and all Harry’d done was put his hand on Draco’s shoulder.”

“Well, she is a bit old-fashioned, I suppose,” Luna agreed. “But I imagine if we compile some statistics, we could convince her, don’t you think?”

“There’s a load of Muggle statistics on this sort of thing, I wonder if she’d accept that,” Hermione said meditatively. She sighed. “I suppose we can try. But I’m not going to think about this till after Christmas.” She returned her attention determinedly to the letter.

I hope you’re having a good holiday. I’m doing pretty well out here in Muggleland—Ral just hit me for that. I know I sound snarky, but it’s actually great. Mr. and Mrs. Zarek are letting me sleep in Ral’s room and no one’s bothered by the screaming nightmares. I think they’re getting a bit better, slowly, I guess.

“He’s doing better.” Tears rose to Hermione’s eyes, and she brushed them away. Luna took her fingers and kissed the tips very gently.

I wanted to also let you know that I’m going to take my NEWTS at the same time as everybody else. Thanks for offering to let me delay them a term, but I don’t want to graduate later than the rest of my class. I’ll figure out how to catch up if I need to. Ral and I are planning to go on to Uni, not do any of the Auror stuff or anything like that—I’d like to make sure that I can protect people from dark wizards, but I don’t really trust the Ministry anyway, even though I’m sure Mr. Weasley is very nice.

“Well, yes, Ron’s fine,” Luna agreed, “but I think Jace is very wise to want to go to Uni.”

Hermione nodded. “I’ll see if I can look out any schools that have strong Muggle Studies programs,” she murmured. “I know Ral, and he’s going to want somewhere he can do research on applications of Muggle technology. Jace is easier; he just needs somewhere with a good Potions program. I’d say Legilimency, but honestly, from what Harry says, he’s already beyond most people’s capabilities. I’ll see if there’s anyone really highly regarded, but…” She shook her head. “Well, I’m sure he’ll look into it as well.”

Please check on Mirko for me. They tried to come back to Ral’s house on the train because I think they were worried, and it was really sweet, but I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to show up in the Muggle suburbs. Let him know I’m doing okay.

Hermione looked up to where a blurred, grey figure in an approximation of a cloak was swaying back and forth near the punch bowl with Nearly Headless Nick and a floating spoon that was probably Peeves. Mirko appeared to be having a great time, and also possibly to be tipsy, if a boggart was capable of being in such a state. She smiled to herself and made a note to tell him that Jace was doing well later on.

Thanks for everything and I’ll see you at the end of break.

Jace

Carefully, Hermione folded the letter closed. “Well, he certainly seems to be doing better now,” she said. “As well as can be expected, at any rate.”

Fingers slid between hers, and Luna’s lips were pressed into her hair. “People heal,” she said. “Honestly, they do.”

“I know,” Hermione whispered. “But I wish he didn’t have to. Not from this…”

Still. She looked across the room to where Harry had finally maneuvered Draco under the mistletoe and was kissing him energetically, over to where a pink-faced McGonagall was busily transfiguring a Christmas wreath, and then over to where Mirko was now gently drifting down the table, apparently deep in conversation with the Grey Lady, though how they could understand each other, Hermione wasn’t sure. She looked back down at the photo in her lap, at Jace surrounded tightly by three friends who would probably die for him, thought about him talking about starting at Uni soon, about not letting his experiences this semester stop him from graduating on time.

And then she turned back to look at Luna, who was now sniffing her hair in a matter not unlike an enthusiastic puppy. It was a little odd, but adorable. Things had changed since the day she’d found a crying child in the ash-covered shell of a destroyed mansion. And—not for the worse.

#mtg #readmore #fanfiction #my writing #fact or fiction #the end

8 notes · View notes

elspethsunschampion · 8 years ago

Text

Fact or Fiction: Chapter Seventeen

Rated M for abuse, sexual content, and discussion of rape/non-con. Canon-typical violence.

Ships: Jace Beleren/Ral Zarek, Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood/Hermione Granger, Nissa Revane/Chandra Nalaar, Elspeth Tirel/Teysa Karlov

Also available on AO3 and FFnet.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen: Moonlit Wake

The moon was rising above the treetops of the little glade, a thin, silvery-white crescent. Jace looked up at it, took a deep breath, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. His other hand was currently occupied with Ral’s, and the other boy awkwardly tightened his grip as Jace’s breathing changed.

It had turned out to be pretty easy to slip away from the school by night these days—all they’d had to do was ask for permission to sleep on the lawn, and then set up a drowsiness potion that Kallist had blown over towards the prefects. Guiltily, Jace shifted from foot to foot, but it wasn’t really betraying anyone’s trust, because it was for a good cause.

“Okay, we’re all clear!” Chandra called from the other side of the clearing, and Jace took another deep breath. Everybody was here.

“Lumos,” he croaked, and the end of his wand flared with white light. After a moment, there was a murmured chorus of echos, and eleven more lights blossomed in the thick darkness of the Forbidden Forest. Chandra hurried into the clearing, holding onto Nissa’s hand tightly. Jace didn’t think they’d stopped holding onto each other since Nissa woke up, not that he was in any position to judge, he supposed.

“Ouch,” Ral said irritably at his ear. “You’re squeezing too hard.”

“Sorry.” Jace forced himself to relax his hold on his friend’s hand. Okay. Everyone here was a friend. Everyone here would help. He just needed to tell them what he needed. Taking another deep breath, he let go of Ral’s hand for long enough to give a halfhearted wave at everyone assembled in the clearing. Elspeth was closest to him and Ral, standing between Teysa and Ajani. Behind her, Tamiyo and Narset waved their wands at him. Dack’s wand hung down over Narset’s shoulder, but he grinned at Jace from his position slung down over their backs. Gideon and Koth, who had been checking the other side of the clearing, were just coming back, their little lights twinkling as they moved. Above Jace, Kallist created a miniature ball of flickering light, and behind him, he felt Mirko’s cool presence.

“Hi, um. Thanks for coming. We haven’t really had a Sleep Club Meeting for, um, a few semesters now, I guess. And this isn’t exactly Sleep Club stuff, but I—” Breathe in, breathe out, keep talking. “—I trust all of you. This is Teysa Karloff, by the way, I know you guys have all met her, but, um, I guess she’s sort of an honorary member now. Anyway.”

He found himself pacing in front of the lake’s edge. Jace wasn’t quite sure why he’d chosen this particular location, but it was far away from the school, and a part of the forest that wasn’t terribly occupied by much of anything—partly because it was at the edge of Mirko’s hunting range, so anything staying here would have to constantly fight through a lowgrade sense of unease. Which wasn’t currently affecting any of them, but that was because Mirko was specifically protecting them, as Jace had asked them to.

“By now I guess everybody knows what Liliana Vess did to me,” he managed, and it came out almost easily, although there was still a soft, bitter refrain in Jace’s head of, Why didn’t you notice? “So, the thing is. When I stopped her from—when I finally stopped her from cursing Ral—” That came out less easily. Ral’s hand fell from Jace’s shoulder to his waist, and, to his surprise, Ral pulled him quietly against him in a half-embrace. It only lasted for a moment, but the contact was enough to steady him. Ral was all right.

“You saved my ass, in fact,” Ral murmured in Jace’s ear, and Jace glanced at him in surprise. “Nah, you’re not projecting, I just know how you think.”

“I went into her head so that I could stay ahead of her.” Jace locked eyes with Teysa for a moment, and she gave him a discreet nod. “And it worked bloody well, I’d have killed her if Professor Lovegood hadn’t stopped me. I still wish I had.”

“Wish I could’ve killed her,” Ral muttered under his breath.

“But I’ve still got the memories in my head.” Jace pressed a knuckle against his forehead. “Which fucking sucks, frankly, and if that weren’t bad enough, the Ministry tried to get them away from me. I don’t want them to have these, I don’t think they should have these, because I don’t trust a bunch of random strangers who are part of the government that thought it would be a great idea to experiment on me as a child.” His voice was rising, and he had to pause and take a deep breath. “I want these out of my head, but I don’t think I should erase them, because someday it might be really important for someone to have this knowledge.” He managed to crack a faint smile. “I’d just really rather it was someone I trusted.” Okay, he was doing great, everyone was nodding. He just needed to explain the next bit as well. “There’s something else, too. Emmara was—she was a real person.”

He saw it the moment they all realized. Ral had known already, of course, but Jace hadn’t told anyone else. He hadn’t been able to, until now. Elspeth’s mouth opened in a ‘O�� of horror; Teysa’s mouth twisted to the side. Tamiyo and Narset both put their hands to their mouths, Dack staring from behind them with wide eyes. Chandra actually twisted to the side, letting a sudden burst of flame loose from her outstretched hand. She stared at it in consternation for a moment, before Nissa pulled her close and held her.

“She was a good person,” Jace continued. He had to keep going, or he wouldn’t be able to finish saying what he needed to say. The horrified, sympathetic look on Ajani’s face might choke off his ability to speak if he didn’t hurry. “We were going to be really good friends, but I—I only knew her for a few days before she died. Um. She was actually a few years older than us. She’d finished up at Beauxbatons the year before, and she was studying to be a healer.” His face was wet, and his voice was cracking. “And she really liked dolls, so I—I got her this.” He pulled the little blonde doll out of his robes. “I was going to give it to her as a thank-you for putting up with—with the amount I talked about R-Ral for n-no good reason.” Fuck. It was getting hard to talk around the tears.

Ral’s hand tightened around his again. Gideon was nodding encouragingly, one hand shaped into a fist. Jace inhaled deeply. “I never gave it to her, because—well. It didn’t seem right anymore.” Because when you were suddenly dating someone, it seemed strange to give them a thank-you present for listening to you babble about someone you thought you’d had a crush on and now suddenly didn’t. Because his whole relationship with Emmara had changed. Because it wasn’t Emmara anymore. Because—

It was hard to see the little doll through the haze of tears over his eyes. Grinding his teeth together, Jace forced the words out. “I don’t want these memories anymore, I don’t want to see her dying. I don’t want to see her being murdered from the point of view of the person who murdered her. So I’m going to take the memories out and put them in this and obliviate myself.” He held up the little vial of pensieve potion that he, Ral, and Teysa had quietly removed from Professor Malfoy’s locked Potions cupboard. They probably could’ve just asked, and maybe before this semester Jace would have, but right now he felt that the fewer people who knew about this without being directly involved the better. “I feel like the Ministry might’ve been right, though, a little bit. I mean, maybe these will be really important someday. Maybe it’ll become imperative that we have some of this knowledge, to—to protect people. So I want to be able to get them back if I have to. But, um, I don’t really trust a lot of people right now.” Jace ran out of breath, his words tripping over themselves as he went faster and faster because he had too much to say, and it was getting harder and harder to say it.

Staring directly at the silver glow of his wand helped because it narrowed the world around him to that single mote of light. “I trust all of you.” The words came out monotonous and hollow, sounding fake to Jace’s ears, but he meant them as much as he could. “If—if you don’t want to help me, that’s fine, but it’d be good if you could leave now. What I want to do is hide the pensieve with the doll somewhere in the Forbidden Forest and then split up all the memories so that all of you only remembers a bit of where they are. So that if they’re needed, we’ll all have to agree that they’re needed before we can find them. But, um, I—I understand that you might not want me fucking about with your head like that, so—so—of course anybody who wants to can leave.” He thought about mentioning the redundancies he was going to try to build into the spell in case of someone dying or something worse, but he decided not to. A flicker of Teysa in his mind commended him for being appropriately paranoid.

There was a long pause, and Jace shut his eyes, letting only the bright pink-green afterimages dance in front of his retinas. There were a few murmurs, and then Chandra said loudly, “Glad to see you’re still an idiot, idiot. Of course we’re going to help.”

Jace took in a sudden, hasty breath and tried to brush the tears away from his eyes, but they were flowing too fast for that. “Thanks,” he managed to get out through a sobbing hiccup. “Okay. Can all of you come a little closer so I can be sure I have enough light?”

The first step was going to be the hardest, because Jace was going to have to perfectly copy what Professor Malfoy had done to extract Jace’s memories for the Bottled Dreams potion. Jace had really hoped he’d do a proper incantation, but he’d done it wandlessly. Of course. That whole thing had been a horrible exercise in trying to keep secrets while sharing someone else’s mind, but then he’d already kind of been doing that every time he’d gone into Ral’s head lately as well.

Shutting his eyes again, Jace pointed his wand at his temple and focused on the remembered sensation of the memories traveling from a mind to the wand, focused on the strange new tug and coiling and the not-quite-words Draco had used to move them. At first, it felt like his head was going to come apart into two pieces, but he gritted his teeth and yanked harder. There was a moment of unraveling tension, and he felt the memories begin to flow into the wand.

He had to open his eyes to begin the transfer from his wand to the pensieve vial, and he had an unpleasant moment of vertigo when he thought he was going to lose the spell, but though his vision blurred, he managed to hold the wand steady. The memories glistened in the wand-light as he kept unraveling in his mind, pushing them toward the vial. It became a little easier once there was arc from his mind to the vial, the liquid pulling the memories along, almost seeming to make a place for them. Thank god for his Legilimency lessons; Jace was pretty sure he’d never have been able to manage this if he hadn’t already been intimately acquainted with playing around with the inside of his own head.

By the time the last of Liliana’s memories slid sluggishly into the vial, Jace was sweaty and trembling, and the only reason he was still upright was because of Ral’s firm arm around his waist. He leaned backward against his friend, trying to get his breath.

“You okay?”

“Just—give me a minute.”

If you’re lucky, you get to be snogging Ral in a few hours, his tired brain reminded him. Just had to get through this. Pushing himself up against Ral’s arms, he staggered upright again. “Okay. Since no one’s left, I’m just going to stasis it under the lake—”

“Let me do it, Jace.” He didn’t know when Elspeth had gotten so close, but it was a relief to be able to pass the vial to her, especially since he knew he still had to perform an Obliviate spell on himself and a modified version of it on the rest of the students after that.

“Thanks,” he whispered, though he still had a small twinge as he let go of the vial. After a pause, he also handed over the doll. “I guess I was thinking—she could sort of watch over it,” he mumbled. “Kind of silly, but…”

“It’s not silly at all.” Elspeth’s voice was steady as a rock, and her hand pressed his in the sturdy way only she could manage. “You think it’ll be best under the lake?”

Jace nodded, and Nissa stepped forward. “I’ll levitate it,” she offered, and Chandra, who also had her mouth open, shut it embarrassedly. “I’m better at fine control than you are,” Nissa said mildly, and Chandra scowled but nodded.

“Wingardium leviosa.” Elspeth cautiously slid the vial into the doll’s clothes and let go of them as Nissa spoke the incantation. The little doll bobbed outward towards the center of the lake and hovered there.

“Stasis temporis et stasis loci,” Elspeth said clearly in her Scottish lilt. A wavy blue glow formed around the doll, shimmering inchoately and then forming into an oval blob. She and Nissa looked at each, clearly a little unsure of what to do next, and Ral sighed. “Someone get the water out of the way,” he said. “Someone who isn’t me, I’m crap with water.”

Both Narset and Tamiyo stepped forward, and with two neat wandswirls and some murmured words, a magical vortex formed in the center of the lake; then the water seemed to peel away to both sides, leaving the muddy lake bottom stripped and clearly visible in the center. Nissa lowered her wand, and the doll, with its vital cargo, floated slowly downwards into the center and lodged there. A wand movement from Koth drew the mud up to half-cover it and partially hide it from view. Little by little, Narset and Tamiyo let the water trickle back over it until the top of the lake was placid and undisturbed once again, nothing but a cold misty haze hanging over it.

“Goodbye,” Jace whispered, his pocket where the doll had lain feeling light and empty.

He shivered, then raised his wand to point at his own forehead again with a sense of heady relief. “Obliviate,” he whispered, and then he was blinking, and they were gone. Liliana’s memories were gone. He sagged against Ral again.

“Fuck, Jace, warn us, will you!” Ral was trembling. “You were out for almost five minutes.”

Oh. He was sitting on the ground with Ral behind him, and his hair was wet. “Did you get lakewater in my hair, Ra—” He looked up. Ral’s eyes were red, and he swiped at them as he looked away.

“Yeah, I’m fucking incompetent, deal with it, okay?”

“I—um, I still have to do the last spell.”

“That’s great, you can do it sitting in the mud because I’m not catching you if you fall over again.”

“We need to leave the clearing first,” Jace pointed out. “I mean, it’s not going to be much of a secret if we’re all still here when I get rid of the memories.”

“Yeah, well. Shut up.”

“You can do it once we’re all back on the lawn,” Elspeth suggested. “That way, we’ll be back quickly.” And if anything goes wrong, we can shout for the teachers.

“I heard that thought,” Jace muttered giddily, and Elspeth gave him a strange look, but he let her help him to his feet.

Walking through the forest with Kallist hovering overhead, Mirko’s soft footsteps behind, and both his arms slung over Elspeth’s and Ral’s shoulders, Jace felt more himself than he had in days. He wasn’t entirely he sure he wanted the walk to end, ever, but he still had stuff he needed to do tonight. And he wasn’t sleepy, exactly—more exhilarated. He was bloody exhausted, of course, so tired that he could barely move his legs, but his mind was clear. It was like a Butterbeer high but—clearer. As if everything was light and air.

The Sleep Club stumbled back onto the Hogwarts lawn to see that the Drowsiness potions were still slowly exuding smoke, and the sleeping bags were still exactly where they had left them, but it didn’t look the same to Jace. The darkness had seemed vaguely menacing before, and now it was welcoming. The flickering flames of the fires the teachers had lit to keep them warm looked cozy and homey instead of eerie. And as Elspeth and Ral helped him back to his sleeping bag, Jace surged to his feet, took their hands, and twirled them around in a clumsy circle before collapsing to his knees with a giggle that turned into a full-blown laughing fit.

“Oh, great, he’s finally gone bonkers,” Ral said in exasperation, which also seemed hilarious. Jace curled over himself, clutching at Ral’s knees, and Ral went over foreward and collapsed to the ground beside Jace. He ruffled Jace’s hair awkwardly. “So—your other spell?”

After another several seconds, Jace managed to contain the giggles and drag out his wand. “I’ve actually got a good feeling about this,” he said, smiling confusedly at Ral. Ral blinked for a moment, then smiled back, and Elspeth patted his shoulder.

“That’s good, Jace, but you are being a little hard to predict right now,” she said sensibly. “Just be careful, all right?”

He didn’t want to be careful; he wanted to let himself fall into the feeling of being all right for just a little longer, but he knew that Elspeth was right, and he nodded. Taking a deep breath, he looked at everyone around him. “I’ll be careful,” he said. He looked down at his wand, then felt Mirko’s presence at his back, sighed, and laid the wand down carefully.

“I don’t actually need it for this,” he said, not entirely sure who he was talking to, and he reached up and undid the clasp of his cloak.

God, what an evening. Jace laughing was good, but Jace passing out for five minutes definitely wasn’t. At least despite the flashiness of setting his wand down, the second spell he’d done had only taken a few moments, and Jace’s eyes had been open for all of it, glowing a bright, eerie blue. Now, he really should try to get some sleep—and Ral wondered when he’d started fussing like a mother hen—but Jace had run off somewhere else to get something else. Just how many things had he been planning to do tonight?

With a groan, Ral heaved himself upright again, trying to figure out where his friend had gone. Nearby, Elspeth was looking around in confusion as well. “You didn’t see where he went either?” Ral grunted. “Fuck, I mean I’m glad he’s feeling better, but—I dunno how long this is going to last.”

“At least the spell worked.” Beside her, Teysa nodded.

“Mirko went with him,” she added. “Don’t worry, I don’t think Mirko will let anything happen to him.”

Moisture trickled into Ral’s hair, and he glanced up. “Did he tell Kallist to guard me or something? I haven’t seen him leave Jace’s head since—since I woke up.”

“I wouldn’t be surpri—Jace, there you are!”

“Thank god,” Ral muttered under his breath as Jace came cannoning back, somehow having apparently moved from not being able to stand up on his own to running halfway across the school grounds. “You think you can try going to sleep now, Jace?”

“I, uh…” Jace rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I got you a Hanukkah present.”

Ral blinked at him. “What?”

Elspeth colored suddenly and exchanged a look with Teysa that Ral couldn’t read. “We’ll just leave you two alone, shall we?” she said brightly, and Teysa gave an exaggerated yawn.

“I’m so very tired,” she agreed theatrically, and the two girls immediately moved away towards their sleeping bags, giggling together. Ral watched them go suspiciously, then looked back at Jace.

“Well, I mean—it’s the first night of Hanukkah tonight, right?” Jace suddenly looked concerned. “I got that right, didn’t I?”

“Oh, um, yeah, I think so.” Ral waved a hand vaguely. “I haven’t been paying much attention.”

“Anyways, I guess I’ve been waiting all day to give you this. So, um, here.” Jace held out a medium-sized crystal vial filled with dark liquid. “It’s—I finally got the Bottled Dreams potion to work. It’s not a long dream, but—maybe you’d like to try it?”

“Have you been waiting for this all night?” Ral asked. Jace shuffled awkwardly. “Okay, okay, give me the damn potion.” It wasn’t like Ral didn’t stay up half the night working on stuff in his tower anyways.

The potion was dark blue, with a faint silvery sheen. He sniffed at it, but it didn’t have much of a scent. Maybe a faint hint of mothballs. A sip told him it tasted of nothing much either, just a vaguely watery Gatorade.

Ral put his hands behind his head and lay back on the sleeping bag. He felt a little drowsy, but nothing more. There was a momentary feeling of weightlessness. The warm body beside him on the bed shifted, and he blinked, shifting against them as well. For a moment, nothing else happened, and then Jace rolled up onto his elbow and looked down at Ral. His blue eyes widened fractionally, and then he grinned, ducked his head, and kissed Ral on the mouth. It was clumsy and wet, but warm. Ral wanted to hold onto the feeling forever.

When Jace pulled back, it was only to flop sleepily down beside Ral again, and now Ral caught sight of the sky above his head, deep velvet blue and clear—a familiar sky. The sky from the Astronomy Tower. A single little twinkling mote of light hung for an instant and then descended, whipping across the horizon and vanishing in a brief burst of fiery glory.

He blinked and opened his eyes again, to see that Jace was sitting cross-legged on the grass beside him, chewing on his knuckle.

“You asshole,” Ral said, and Jace’s face fell, eyes scrunching together in sudden pain, his breath indrawn in a hiss. Ral’s stomach turned over. “Jesus, not like that! For—acting like you didn’t know that I—uh—you—” he paused. “Jace, you’ve been in and out of my head for the last week. You do know I’m as gay as the stupid halls people will be decking in a week, right?”

“I—I mean, yes, I know you’re gay,” Jace shifted, the expression on his face turning abashed and something halfway between hopeful and still devastated. “But that doesn’t mean that you think about me—I mean I’ve been trying not to check what you feel like about me, I didn’t want to invade your privacy too much—”

“Oh. My. Fucking. God.” Ral rolled up on his knees, grabbed the back of Jace’s stupid neck, and dragged Jace’s stupid mouth down so he could kiss him on his stupid lips. Jace gasped against his mouth, muscles stiffening under Ral’s hand, but before he could kiss back, Ral pulled away long enough to say, “How I feel about you is that you’re my best friend, you’re an idiot, you’re annoyingly sexy, and I’d like to euphemistically sleep with you as well as literally sleeping with you all the time. And if you don’t snog me right now I will hit you with my pillow until you beg for mercy.”

Jace made a noise that was halfway between a gulp and a laugh, and then muttered, “Well, I wouldn’t want you to fuck up your pillow,” before leaning in for another kiss. This time, he had a hand on Ral’s shoulder and one one his cheek; Ral shifted up onto his knees for a better angle and slid his own hands into Jace’s cloak around his waist. Jace moaned into his mouth, and Ral took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, tracing his tongue around Jace’s lips and probing into Jace’s mouth. Jace made another noise, low in his throat, and his hand dropped to Ral’s shoulder.

As Jace pressed closer against his front, Ral took the opportunity to slide backwards and grab Jace’s hips so that they both went over, Jace falling on top of Ral, flush up against him. Gulping out a breathy noise at the contact, Ral let his hands snake up Jace’s back, holding him close, and Jace ducked his head, letting their lips meet again. God, this whole horrible year had been officially so fucking worth it. Ral could take a few more sessions of the Cruciatus Curse if it meant getting to snog Jace senseless later. And the noises Jace was making in his throat—soft little pants and moans—were both adorable and highly arousing.

Rolling to the side, Ral shifted their positions so that Jace was on his back leaning up into him, then dragged his lips down the corner of Jace’s mouth and began to kiss down the line of his jaw and then up under the vulnerable hollow of it.

“Ral,” Jace whispered. “Oh, fuck. Oh, that—mmmn—”

“About damn time.”

Jace gasped and tried to sit up; Ral sighed and lay down on top of him, looking up to find that Chandra and Nissa were standing over them. “I swear to god if you ruin this for me,” he whined.

Chandra grinned. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. “Just needed to make sure you two were finally shagging.”

“We are not shagging!” Jace protested.

“Yeah, even with the fires, it’s a little too chilly out to be having sex.”

Chandra’s grin widened, and Nissa went red. “If you say so,” Chandra responded. “Anyway, carry on, I’m just—glad—that’s all.”

“Chandra,” Jace said. “Uh—you were totally right, by the way. I deserved to be punched in the face.”

“You did what?” Ral scowled at her, and Chandra shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry, Jace,” she said, “I didn’t know about the spell. It was dumb.”

“You were worried about Ral. You get a pass.”

“What the—no, she doesn’t! No one is allowed to punch my boyfriend in the face!”

“I’m really sorry, okay?”

“Ral. Leave it.” Jace’s hand landed on the back of Ral’s neck, and for an instant, every piece of thought processing equipment in Ral’s brain short-circuited. “So I’m your boyfriend?” Jace asked. He sounded like he was trying way too hard to be casual.

“Yeah, sure, as long as you want to be.” Ral tried to match it with his own casualness, but he wasn’t entirely sure if he managed.

“Yep. Yep. Boyfriends, sounds good, great, bye now, Chandra, bye Nissa.” Jace’s cheeks looked faintly red, and Ral didn’t think it was just the firelight.

Nissa waved and started to move back in the direction of what was probably her own sleeping bag, tugging Chandra with her, but the other girl paused for one moment longer. “Pro tip, if you squeeze his ass, he makes the most adorable little squeaking noises.”

Ral bit his lip and grinned, looking back at Jace, who was red to the tips of his ears.

“I do not!” he protested. “Just because we had one snog a year ago, she thinks she knows everything about m—”

Ral pinched his ass. Jace squealed. Nissa and Chandra fled, giggling.

Swatting Ral gently on the arm, Jace surged up and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of Ral’s mouth. “Happy Hanukkah, Ral.”

“Happy New Boyfriend Day, Jace.” Jace stuck out his tongue, and Ral pressed him down into the sleeping bag again.

#mtg #fanfiction #fact or fiction #my writing #readmore

6 notes · View notes

elspethsunschampion · 8 years ago

Text

Fact or Fiction: Chapter Thirteen

Rated M for abuse, sexual content, and discussion of rape/non-con. Canon-typical violence.

Ships: Jace Beleren/Ral Zarek, Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood/Hermione Granger, Nissa Revane/Chandra Nalaar, Elspeth Tirel/Teysa Karlov

Also available on AO3 and FFnet.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen: Seething Anger

Chapter Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, self-loathing, dissociation, discussions of rape. This chapter is really quite dark, please take care.

Draco found Jace sitting, somewhat carelessly, on the edge of the Astronomy Tower with his legs dangling over the edge, the blue curve of his hood hiding his face, and Kallist hovering so close to his hair that he was almost brushing the wild dark locks. A dark blur hanging in the air beside him had to be Mirko.

“Jace.” Draco announced himself softly from the doorway, trying not to startle the boy.

For a moment, he thought Jace hadn’t heard him, and then, the head turned slightly, and Jace spoke, his voice monotonous but tight, as if he were trying to keep something back—tears maybe. “I could erase it,” he said. “All the things she did to me—I could make myself forget. It wouldn’t even be that hard.”

Draco gingerly took several steps closer, one hand resting lightly on his wand, in case he needed to effect an impromptu rescue. The first question was one he needed to ask. Harry or Hermione would have been delicate about it, but Draco wasn’t much good at delicate, and, in any case, he wasn’t certain Jace would appreciate it. “Did she rape you?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” Jace answered, in a low voice. “Not the way you mean it, though. We didn’t have sex, just messed around.” He paused, and Draco was trying to decide whether to prompt him or not, when he spoke again. “Wasn’t this what Professor Potter was supposed to be teaching me to protect myself from?” Jace snarled. “She got into my head. She made me do things. She made me want her. And—and I was cruel to Ral. I don’t even know if I can blame her for that. I could’ve talked to him about some of the stuff, but she made herself more important to me than he was. She—she—” his voice was trembling. “Yeah, she raped me,” he snapped. “And no one even noticed.”

The accusation was painful, but accurate. None of the professors had noticed anything particularly wrong. Jace had acted so very nearly in-character that the only person who had realized something was wrong was the boy that all the staff had written off as “merely jealous.” Although, Draco thought clinically, it was unfortunate that Ral flew off the handle so easily. It might have been easier to believe him if he’d been calmer, more rational. Still. Jace had a point.

“Ral is very important to you.” That hadn’t been what Draco had been going to say, but something tipped the words out of his mouth. Jace nodded fiercely.

“He—he’s the most important thing in the world to me,” he said, with a little wobble in his voice. “He’s the first friend I ever made. Of course there’s Ranna and Elspeth, they’re almost as important, but I haven’t hurt them the way I hurt him. They weren’t—they weren’t t-tortured. And—” Jace bit off whatever he’d been about to say and sighed.

“Yes,” Draco agreed. “I’m afraid many of the professors failed you this year, Jace. There’s little to say in our defense. All I’ll say is that I’m sorry.”

“You could have let me kill her,” Jace muttered angrily.

“Well. Perhaps not.” Draco walked across to the ledge and stood beside him, but didn’t touch him. “When she stunned you, Luna was protecting you, not the witch. I imagine she’d have a justification like you being too young to kill, or it hurting your soul, but putting anything so metaphysical aside, you would have been in a much more difficult situation if you’d killed her. It might even have gone to trial, and although you’d undoubtedly have been cleared of wrongdoing, that’s not something you need to deal with right now.”

Jace muttered something that sounded like, fuck that, but Draco let it slide. “Do you need anything?” he asked gently.

“I need out of my head. I need to forget it.” Jace’s hands twisted in the cloth of his cloak. “I really could make myself forget it, but then I wouldn’t fucking know what had happened, and then I couldn’t even begin to fix this shit with Ral. How do you ask someone to forgive you for—for this?”

“I don’t know,” Draco said. “How can I ask you to forgive us? Jace, this was not your fault.”

“It feels like my fault.” He banged a hand into the stones of the wall, shook it out. “Maybe not my fault that I was—you know, in love with her—I guess—” he made a gagging face, “—but it was my fault I wouldn’t even talk to him. I—there was one day—I think he thought I was gonna break up with her, and I almost did. I tried, and she fed me more fucking love potion and—” He ran a shaking hand through his hair.

“We don’t know all the spells she used on you, Jace, it may have been—and probably was—more than just Amortentia, which is incredibly powerful in its own right. I’ve been analyzing her potions. They aren’t identical to the modern-day versions.”

“Then how can I ever, ever trust my own thoughts again?” He pulled his cloak around himself even more fiercely. “How can I even trust that the way I feel about Ral—” He stuttered to a halt and glared sideways at Draco.

Draco raised his eyebrows. “There’s some basis, isn’t there?” he said. “You didn’t just wake up one morning and find yourself in love with him.”

Jace blanched. “I’m n-not—” he stammered. “I mean, I—uh—” he sighed. “Okay, no, I guess. I guess not. I’ve—he’s—” He swallowed hard. “For a long time. I just didn’t notice. But I can’t—some part of me just doesn’t believe the feelings anymore.”

“I’m so sorry,” Draco said again. “Jace, we really failed you.”

Jace sniffed hard. “Yeah,” he muttered, swinging his legs against the stone. “I’m just scared. I’m just so scared. And—and I want to make it stop. I don’t want to be in my own head r-right now. Everything in here fucking hurts.”

“Of course you’re afraid,” Draco said, putting a hand out and resting it on Jace’s shoulder when the boy didn’t move away. “Of course you are. You’re allowed to be scared, Jace. It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right,” Jace mumbled bleakly. “It was easier before I was me again, and that—kind of scares me, too. ” He stared out over the grounds in a way that made Draco’s stomach twist.

“It scares me as well,” he said quietly. “You’re important to me, Jace. You’re important to all of us. None of this was your fault. You shouldn’t have to feel like this.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t. But it doesn’t change the fact that I do. It doesn’t change the fact that I can’t even trust my own thoughts and feelings anymore. Where does that leave me, the literal Ministry experiment into legilimency?” Jace started laughing, but Draco couldn’t help but think it sounded like crying instead.

“Jace,” he said, softly, as the laughter intensified and Jace buried his face in his hands. “Jace.” The words were useless. So, perhaps—“would a hug help at all?”

“I don’t know,” Jace said, voice muffled and distorted, but he twisted around on the ledge and gingerly put out his arms anyway. Draco leaned forward. This wasn’t exactly something he had much experience in, and he wanted to make sure Jace didn’t feel as if he were being forced into anything at all, but as soon as his hands touched the back of Jace’s head, the boy vaulted forward, burying his face in Draco’s robes. The laughter twisted further into gulping sobs.

“It’s not your fault,” Draco said again, helplessly, stroking Jace’s hair. “Nothing that happened to you this semester, nothing that you did, none of it is your fault. It’s our fault for not seeing what was happening, and it’s Liliana Vess’s fault for doing this to you. There is absolutely no way in which anything that happened is your fault. Anything—anything you need from us we will do our best to make sure you have.”

“But all I need from you is for none of this to have happened!” Jace’s hands balled into Draco’s robe. “All I need is for the memories to be gone and to stop feeling like this.” The words were almost incoherent.

Draco’s hand tightened on Jace’s back. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I can’t offer you a permanent solution that will take it all away, but—if you’re still feeling like this when your head is a little more sound—you can pick someone’s head and stay in there. Temporarily make the memories go away. If you want.”

Jace took a deep, gulping breath in. “Really? I could—get out of my head for a bit?”

“It would have to be temporary,” Draco said. “We love you, and we don’t want to lose you, Jace. But—yes. I’m sure we could work it out.”

“You wouldn’t mind me fucking about in there? You wouldn’t be—scared of what I’d do?”

“I trust you, Jace. I won’t speak for any of your other friends, but I’d bet a lot of money that they’ll say the same if you ask them.”

“Fuck,” Jace breathed, sniffing again. “Yeah. That might—that might help.”

“Would you mind coming down now? People are a little worried about you.”

“Can I at least not be in the Hospital Wing anymore?”

“Where would you like to be?”

Jace shrugged mutely. “I don’t really know,” he said softly. “I kinda want to be alone.”

“Maybe the library? Or out by the pond?”

“I—I guess the library would be okay.”

“All right.”

Keeping a careful arm around Jace’s back, Draco supported him as he slid off the ledge onto the solid floor of the Astronomy tower. Draco’s heartrate slowed slightly as he managed to move Jace to solid ground, but he tried to be non-obvious about it.

“All right, then, you’re safe,” he said softly, half to himself, a vocal tick he hadn’t quite lost from the years following the war.

Jace looked up at him, managing a jerky nod. “Right.”

The sun was setting over the lake. Jace looked up wearily from the book in his lap to stare at it. Although it had been a warm day, he still felt chilled and sick to his stomach. He’d managed to nap for a few minutes at the lakeside, but he’d woken up again feeling dopey and scared. Kallist hovered nervously over his lap; the little cloud hadn’t moved more than a foot away from Jace since he woke up.

Mirko had been checking on him throughout the day, so Jace wasn’t terribly surprised when he felt the chilly cloak of mist settle over his shoulders, and he glanced up to see the shadowy, washed-out face peering down at him. Perspective and Mirko didn’t always make much sense together, and Jace had to blink rapidly to force the features to resolve in a way he could vaguely make sense of.

Mother, Mirko thought at him, along with a sense of warmth approaching, and the flickering vision of a long plait of white hair. “Ranna?” Jace said. “Ranna’s here?”

“Jace!” her voice called a moment later, and he saw her waving at him as she hurried across Hogwarts’ vast lawn.

“Oh, god,” Jace said blankly. The universe seemed suddenly too large, and he huddled in his cloak instead of getting up to greet her.

Despite the sudden apparent inflation of the world, Ranna crossed the lawn quickly, then knelt in the grass in front of him and opened her arms. Jace stared at her, knowing he ought to move, knowing that the correct thing to do in this situation was to let her embrace him, but feeling somehow distant, awkward, and unable to react the way he should.

His mother hesitated. “I’m all right, Jace,” she said softly. “It was just a befuddlement charm—I came to see you as soon as the healers let me out.”

There was a long pause. “Yeah. Right,” Jace replied, because an affirmative response made sense, even if he wasn’t sure what kind of affirmative response. This was infuriating. It was like the way he’d felt calm when there was something wrong inside his head, and he knew it, but he didn’t know what switch to flip this time to make it go away, or to make the emotions come back.

Awkwardly, Ranna folded her hands across her knees. “Are you all right, Jace?” She shook her head. “That’s the stupidest question I’ve asked in a while, of course you’re not all right.”

“I think my emotions broke,” Jace said cautiously. He felt like a puppeteer pulling the strings on his own body, and there was a weird delay between deciding to speak and actually getting the words to come out.

Even through the cloak, he felt the spike of fear that shot through Ranna, clear as a bell. It was gone as suddenly as it had come, and he tried to ignore it, because it was rude to read other people’s emotions without asking. “Is there anything you need from me?” she asked. “Would it be easier for you to stay here, or would you rather come home early? Professor McGonagall said that either was perfectly doable.”

Somebody—not Jace, but somebody—didn’t want to go back to the little flat he shared with Ranna. It would be so empty and alone. Even when he was alone here, he was never very far away from crowds of people, and crowds of people were easy—he could lose himself in their minds, never come back out. If he really wanted to. A sob caught in Jace’s throat, then vanished frustratingly almost as soon as it had surfaced.

“I’ll stay.” Long pause, too long. “Thanks, Mum.”

I really want my emotions back. Jace shivered, moving closer to Ranna and gingerly resting his head on her shoulder. He thought about staring down from the Astronomy Tower and not wanting to exist. Maybe he didn’t want his emotions back. The state he was in right now was chilly and—it seemed to be a lot of effort—but it didn’t hurt, the pinching, terrifying pain in his stomach that made him want everything to just fucking stop forever.

“There’s—something else.” Ranna was looking down at her hands, twisting a loose thread from her robes around a finger. “Your teachers should have told you, but I’m afraid—it got lost in all of the—well.” She paused for a fraction of a second, then pushed the words through her lips in a way that sounded like it took quite a bit of effort. “Emmara Tandris is dead.”

Jace’s first thought was, I didn’t expect the Ministry to let her die that fast. His second thought was, She doesn’t mean Liliana. His third thought was a memory.

The boy’s eyes are dilated, and his breathing is too fast. He’s trembling, one hand clutched around a wand he should already have used. She smiles, keeping her own wand pointed directly at him. The blue cloak he’s wearing stinks of Occlumency. It would tell her everything she needs to know even if she hadn’t been waiting for him.

A pity he arrived so quickly, though. She knew he had made friends with the local girl; the two of them met when he and his mother were pausing in between sightseeing at the local café. A stroke of luck for her, since it gave her an easy way to summon him here. He’s just a bit earlier than she might have liked.

She sighs. “Drink this,” she says, stepping over the still-warm body of the girl on the ground and holding out the flask.

“No,” he whispers, and she’s not sure if he’s trying to tell her he won’t, or if he’s just talking the way people do, sometimes.

“Jace. It’s me.” Casting the glamer spell without her wand is more difficult than she expected, but she thinks she manages to put up a reasonable facsimile of the girl at her feet. “It’s all right,” she says soothingly. “It’s a boggart. I was practicing some cosmetic charms when I found it.” She manages a light laugh and presses the flask into his hand. “I know it looks scary.”

His brow furrows, and she smiles encouragingly. “I’m so sorry I frightened you.” The accent isn’t easy, and she’s probably doing it wrong. Damn him; damn that cloak. If he doesn’t take the potion, she’s going to be in trouble. And if she presses too hard—

“Are you sure it’s a boggart?” he asks. “I’ve got quite a bit of experience with them.” Oh, thank Morrigan. He takes the flask and sips from it as he circles around the girl’s body. “I’m—I’m pretty sure—”

“Jace. Look at me.” She sees the moment the potion catches him, his jaw going slightly slack and the muscles around his eyes relaxing. It’s a higher dose than she might give him normally, but not high enough that it’s likely to be dangerous. “You seem frightened.”

“I—” He presses a hand into his forehead, blinking rapidly. His cheeks flush and his pulse increases as the potion takes effect. “I feel dizzy.”

“Why don’t you sit down?” Putting an arm around his shoulder, she steers him gently away from the girl’s body and towards the door. “I think this really has worried you, has it not?” A kiss on the cheek, and he’s staring at her as if she’s the only thing in the universe. And—she restrains herself from wrinkling her nose—he’s aroused. Lovely. Teenage boys are such trouble. “You are so talented with your Legilimency,” she murmurs. “Why don’t you just erase this little incident from your head? Then you won’t have to worry about it.” Again that little frown. She manages a giggle as she pokes at his forehead. “Oh, frowny-face, I’d love to see you do some of your famous mind magic.”

He couldn’t breathe. He had her memories and not his own. He wanted to carve them out of his head, he wanted them gone, he wanted to rip his own mind apart and scatter the pieces. Well, said a tiny voice in the back of his mind, your emotions are back.

Emmara’d been his friend. He hadn’t known her very well, but they’d giggled together, and she’d asked about Hogwarts. They’d chatted about her life, about Potions, about—about Ral. And he hadn’t even noticed when it had all changed. If he’d just—run—maybe he could have saved her. Maybe he could have done something.

His mind told him that she’d been dead when he got there, but then all he could think was, If she’d never met me, she’d be alive.

There were warm arms encircling him, and Jace pressed his face into Ranna’s chest and sobbed. “I wish I was dead, I wish I’d never been born…”

“Oh, Jace, don’t, please.” Ranna stroked his forehead, as if he was still a little boy waking up from screaming nightmares. “It’s not your fault. None of this was your fault.”

“I hurt everyone.” Every breath he took was terribly shallow, catching in the back of his throat before it could make it down to his lungs. “Ev—everybody would be better off if I didn’t exist, Ral’s still in a fucking coma. What if he never wakes up? And Emmara is dead. Because—because of me. I shouldn’t fucking exist.” He slammed his hand into the ground with enough force to bruise.

“Stop it, Jace.” Ranna’s soft voice grew harder. “Your entire life, people have exploited you. That is not your fault. None of it is your fault.”

“I wish I was dead,” Jace gasped, pressing his hands into his to try and force the tears back in. Ranna had just recovered from a befuddlement charm; falling apart in front of her wasn’t going to help anyone. Wrapping his arms around himself, he tried to get his breathing to calm down. Above him, Kallist was crackling and shooting lightning in every direction. “Can I—can I please just—get out of my fucking head? Please, Mum, just don’t make me think right now—just—”

“Jace—” Ranna sounded shaken, good job, Jace. “Let’s get you back to the castle, okay?”

Somehow, he managed to nod. If he went back to the castle, even if he couldn’t get into someone else’s head, he could sleep. He could put a cauldron full of drowsiness potion above a candle and shut all the windows. Elspeth’d done that. She’d been fine. Right now, Jace wasn’t entirely convinced he wanted to be fine, either.

Ranna helped him to his feet, and he felt Mirko’s only partially solid limbs brush against his back. It was hard to stand, because he was trembling hard, and he was still breathing shallowly and rapidly.

It seemed to take forever to cross the lawn, the world still huge and faraway, although the pinching pain in his stomach was back, and he no longer felt like a puppet—or at least not like a puppet that he was in control of. Professor Granger met them at the front doors.

“Do you need anything?” she said, looking first to Jace and then, when he couldn’t seem to find words, to Ranna.

“I think Jace could use a soporific, if he’s all right with that.”

Miserably, Jace nodded. He couldn’t ask to be in someone else’s head right now, and everything was spinning, and he just wanted to curl up in a corner and wall off the rest of the world. “Potion of Dreamless Sleep?” he asked softly, and Professor Granger nodded. “I’ll get Madam Pomfrey to prepare one,” she said quietly.

#mtg #fanfiction #fact or fiction #readmore #check the warnings #my writing

7 notes · View notes

elspethsunschampion · 8 years ago

Text

Fact or Fiction: Chapter Twelve

Rated M for abuse, sexual content, and discussion of rape/non-con. Canon-typical violence.

Ships: Jace Beleren/Ral Zarek, Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood/Hermione Granger, Nissa Revane/Chandra Nalaar, Elspeth Tirel/Teysa Karlov

Also available on AO3 and FFnet.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve: Awakening

He was floating somewhere in a misty void, and there were voices whispering.

—wake up? Elspeth—

—freak—

—taxed himself to his limits—

—won’t die, Merlin, you’ll see, I’ll awaken however long it takes—

—never seen anyone do anything like it—

There were too many of them. He wanted to block his ears, but he couldn’t feel his hands or his ears, so that was probably not going to work. How could he even find his own thoughts inside all of this mess? Even the little impulse that felt like him—whatever that even meant—felt as if it was about to break up into separate little fragments.

Please be quiet, he tried to say, but he didn’t have any way to say it either. He wasn’t really sure if there was anything he could do except float in the void and try to stop it from pulling him apart, but he was exhausted. He had a muted, fragmented feeling that he wasn’t even sure if his thoughts could be trusted, and if he wasn’t anything but those thoughts anymore, maybe it would just be better for everyone if he gave up and let the voices be everything. It would certainly be a lot more restful.

Jace. Your name is Jace Beleren.

He didn’t recognize that voice, although he felt as if he ought to.

Sleep, child. I’ll keep the others out.

The buzzing voices went suddenly, blissfully silent, and Jace felt as if a cold mist was wrapping around him. Sleep sounded like a wonderful option, and he no longer felt as if it meant surrender to total nothingness.

Thank you, he whispered to the voice that he didn’t recognize, and he slipped back downward into unconsciousness.

When he woke up again, Jace’s mind felt bruised but significantly more normal. He could feel his limbs and the bed beneath him, which he counted as a success. He wasn’t entirely sure he was capable of movement still, because there seemed to be a foggy disconnect between his awareness and his body, but at least he could feel it now. And at least his consciousness seemed to be in one piece.

He had a feeling something bad had happened, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. There was still a chilly touch in the back of his mind, as if someone had—

Get out! Get OUT! Someone was blocking off his access to part of his head, and Jace didn’t know why, but he couldn’t stand the feeling. He sat up, his stomach heaving, and he was vomiting over the side of the bed before he’d even really realized it.

The chilly touch withdrew almost immediately, and there were hands on his back, holding him steady.

“Steady now,” said Professor Granger’s calm voice.

The memories that had been blocked off surged to the forefront of Jace’s mind, and he gagged again, bringing up more stinging bile. Ral screaming. Not being able to think. Emmara—no—Liliana—no—France was mostly a blur, but Jace thought the witch had either figured out pretty quickly what he could do, or she’d gotten him to her cottage specifically because she already knew about it. He had a hazy image of a newspaper article about himself, something about “breaking the bounds of the human mind” which had been a source of rather embarrassed pride for both him and Ranna when it came out, but he wasn’t certain if the memory was connected to Liliana or not.

She’d definitely dosed him early on, because in almost all of his memories of her—in all the memories that must have been Liliana instead of Emmara—there was that same sort of incomprehensible hero worship. It wasn’t that he would have done anything for her, not exactly—he hadn’t been that mind-controlled, Jace thought miserably. No, she’d just—made him think she was beautiful. Gorgeous. Perfect. And then she’d let him do the rest.

Because he’d been afraid to lose her. And she’d made him think that he wasn’t really worthy of her, but she was so kind, and if he just tried hard enough, she wouldn’t leave him. So he’d used his legilimency to trick the Sorting Hat, because she’d clung to him and said she was frightened of something intruding on her thoughts, and he remembered his own Sorting—and then he’d cut class to snog her, and he’d—and Ral had—

Oh, Merlin. Ral.

“Professor—is Ral—is he okay?”

There was a pause, and Jace’s stomach prepared to void itself again.

“He’s still asleep,” Professor Granger said. “The healers are hopeful, but he was quite seriously affected, so they’re keeping him sedated until the nerves are fully healed.”

The Cruciatus curse. Right. And Jace had just—just stood there and fucking watched as Ral—as he screamed—

And there it all was, preserved in perfect sound and color in his memory whenever he felt like going back for it. “But he’s gonna be okay, right?”

“Almost certainly.” Almost. Jace felt sick.

“What about Elspeth? And Nissa? Are—are they—”

“They both woke up yesterday. They’re still a little weak, but nothing worse than a bad flu.” Jace felt his shoulders slump a little, and Professor Granger patted his shoulder reassuringly. “We were more worried about you than about anyone else.”

“Me?” Jace echoed in confusion. “Why?” They shouldn’t have worried about him. This whole mess was his fault, after all. His stomach turned over as he remembered commandeering Teysa’s head. Not that he’d really had much of a choice by that time, but it was still—not the greatest thing he’d ever done.

Professor Granger’s eyebrows went up. “Perhaps you don’t realize this, Jace, but you were in a coma. Again. Ms. Karloff spent three days trying to sort out her memories from yours—” Jace winced, “—and since you’d clearly done some complex legilimency with her and, according to her, with Vess, after throwing off the effects of an extremely complex and powerful love potion, we were afraid you might be—damaged. Possibly irreparably.”

Why hadn’t anyone noticed the potion earlier? Did Jace just normally act the way he’d been acting? He was pretty sure that wasn’t true. Maybe no one cared enough. It had been a few years since he’d felt like that, but the sick feeling was rising in his stomach again, and he scrunched his eyes shut. “Yeah, well, I’m fine,” he said shortly, swallowing down all the other words in a painful lump. Ral had cared. Ral had cared, and now he was—

Jace swiped an arm across his eyes, and then thought of something else. “Where’s Kallist?” he demanded. “What did she do to him?” He couldn’t remember what excuse Liliana had given him, but he knew he hadn’t seen the little cloud in the entire semester.

“Would you like to see him? We just didn’t want him raining all over your hospital bed while you were unconscious.”

“Yeah.”

“I think Mirko would also like to check on you, if you don’t mind.”

Jace’s brain threw up the fuzzy memory of standing still as Mirko was banished, and he gulped in another sudden breath of panic. “Mirko—”

“—helped put your mind back together after this whole mess,” Professor Granger told him firmly.

“They’re okay, too? But weren’t they—b-banished?”

“Teysa and Chandra told us they were, but they reconstituted with what seemed to be all their memories, somehow. I don’t think anyone’s asked them yet.” She cracked a faint smile. “It’s been a bit busy around here.”

“Yeah, I’ll see them,” Jace said, breathing a guilty sigh of relief that he hadn’t just stood there and watched while one of his closest friends had died.

“And I’m sure your mother will want to see you as well. She was up with you all last night, and she’s still asleep.”

Ranna. “Did—Liliana—did she put my mum under—”

Because if anyone should have noticed he was acting oddly, it was his mum.

“She’s fine, Jace,” Professor Granger said evasively, and Jace sat up and reached for the hood of his cloak, but she put her hands over his. “Jace. Don’t.”

“Then tell me.”

Professor Granger frowned. “You have to promise not to use legilimency until the healers say you can.”

Jace’s lips thinned. “No,” he said tautly. “I’m not promising fucking anything. I’m not going to do what someone else says, I don’t care what happens to me, it’s not like you cared enough to notice—” He cut himself off, because he was not going to fucking cry right now. He just wasn’t.

There was a soft intake of breath. “All right,” Professor Granger said. “You don’t have to promise, Jace. But please consider your mother’s feelings before you do something that runs the risk of damaging your mind.”

“…fine,” he muttered into the covers.

“Ranna was under a befuddlement charm, quite a strong one. She did not have a good reaction to it, but she is fine. All right?”

So he’d gotten his mother hurt as well. Of course. Jace wanted to kick and scream and punch. He wanted to bite through the flesh of his hands, rip his cloak off and just let himself dissolve into everyone around him. Some little insistent voice in the back of his head held him back from doing any of that, and instead, he just nodded shortly. “Yeah, okay. Can I see Kallist and Mirko now?”

A pause. Professor Granger sighed. “Yes, Jace.”

And then I’m getting out of here. Kallist and Mirko would help him, Jace was sure, and he suddenly couldn’t stand being in the Hospital Wing any longer. He needed to be somewhere where he didn’t feel as if people were trying to keep him still, were hovering over him and watching—now, now they were, when no one had been there earlier. When no one had seen anything wrong, except—except Ral, and Ral—

He’s going to be okay. He’s got to be okay.

If Ral wasn’t okay, Jace thought bleakly, he was never going to be okay again. Ever.

Hermione put her head into her hands. This was a mess. Everything was a mess. She’d never seen Jace so angry before. He was usually the quiet one. It wasn’t as if he was a model student, but he didn’t usually get angry the way some of the other students—Ral especially—did. He was hurting terribly—no wonder—and she had no idea how to help.

A pair of soft hands landed on her shoulders. “Hermione?”

“Morning.” She leaned backward miserably. “Oh, Luna. I don’t know what to do. They’re all hurt so badly, and we should have protected them. I should have kept them safe.” She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes.

“Me, too,” Luna whispered. “I’m a professor too, Hermione.”

“You don’t know Jace or Ral. I thought it was just the usual teenage drama, and I shouldn’t have. I should have pressed harder when Ral got upset about it, but I thought—oh, I don’t know.” She shut her eyes against the feeling, but it only got worse. “I don’t think Jace will ever trust me again,” she sniffed. “I’ve known him since he was five, Luna, and I—I wanted to adopt him, and he—he’ll never trust me again, and, honestly, I don’t blame him! I wouldn’t trust me again!”

Ron, back when they were dating, would have protested. Would have told Hermione that it wasn’t her fault or some other such nonsense. Luna didn’t say anything. She just leaned forward and pressed her cheek into Hermione’s, and held her, arms crossed over the front of Hermione’s chest. Another sob welled out of Hermione’s throat.

“People don’t trust people because they deserve it,” Luna said slowly. “We just have to help Jace now.”

“But how?” Hermione asked wildly. “Oh, Merlin, if I knew how to help, I would do it! I’d do anything, I really would. But this is…this is so…”

“Maybe we could ask Ginny what helped her?”

“Ginny?”

“Well, you know, she did say to me that the year she was possessed by Voldemort was quite bad, and I know she still has nightmares about it, of course, but she’s doing rather well, all things considered.” Luna pressed her lips into Hermione’s hair.

“Yes, I suppose it couldn’t hurt.” Hermione sniffed again and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “I really must stop feeling so sorry for myself. I just need to figure out what Jace needs right now.”

She firmly pushed away the raw, appalled feeling of guilt and hurt and the prick of he will never trust you again and sat up. “Yes,” she managed briskly. “Let’s owl Ginny. It definitely can’t hurt. And—and we’ll talk to Ranna, now that she’s feeling better and Jace is awake.”

“Hermione—oh, thank goodness.” It was Madam Pomfrey, frowning, worried.

Hermione’s heart leapt into her throat. Everyone had been doing so much better—had Ral taken a turn for the worse? Had— “What is it, Poppy?”

“Mr. Beleren is gone.”

Oh no. Hermione shut her eyes. “All right. Get hold of Harry and Draco—” she was relatively sure she remembered someone telling her they’d gotten back at some point in the past twelve hours, but she’d been too busy checking on the students in the Hospital Wing to interface with them, “—get hold of everyone. We’ve got to find him.”

“We will.” Luna squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll find him.”

Elspeth blinked her eyes open. She’d been drifting in and out of consciousness for several days now, during which time she’d managed to gather a fair bit about what had been going on since she’d collapsed at her Quidditch match. The experience was incredibly frustrating. Every time she started feeling guilty about not listening to Ral when he’d been thoroughly and utterly vindicated, she fell asleep again. She would have been furious with herself if she’d had the energy for it.

This time, although she was still tired enough that she didn’t feel like getting out of the bed, she was at least clearheaded enough to not want to fall back to sleep. For several minutes, she lay and breathed and enjoyed the sensation of being aware of things around her. She could hear cloth shifting somewhere beside her, and after another few minutes, she turned her head to the side.

Teysa was looking back at her, face open with surprise.

“Hello,” Elspeth said weakly.

“H-hi,” her penpal stammered back. “How are you feeling?”

She was perched on one of the ugly hospital chairs, one leg drawn up beneath her and the other not quite reaching the ground. She seemed even smaller in person than she had in her picture, somehow.

“Still tired.” Digging her elbow into the bed, Elspeth slowly started propping herself up. It wasn’t easy, but she managed. “What are you doing here?” No, wait, that was a silly question, she’d heard enough snatches of conversation to know. “You came because you were worried about me.”

Teysa opened her mouth and took in a quick breath. “I—well, yes.”

“I’d say this is unusual, but it’s really not. You already sort of know that, though.” They’d been penpals for long enough that Teysa was privy to quite a number of the more dangerous stunts that Jace and Ral had pulled over the years. Elspeth thought, rather sanctimoniously, that she had at least not instigated any of those, and then thought again about Ral trying to make anyone listen to him, and writhed.

“It is a bit unusual,” Teysa said softly.

Elspeth nodded, turning her face to the side so that the pillow would catch the tears. “How are Ral and Jace?” she asked.

“Ral’s—okay. He’s not awake, but they said that’s mostly because they haven’t let him. His nerves need time to heal, or he would have a very unpleasant few days.”

“And Jace?” Elspeth pressed uneasily.

Teysa shrugged. “Last I heard, he hadn’t woken up yet. He, um, left some bits in my head.”

That didn’t sound good. “What bits?” Elspeth asked nervously.

“Mostly good bits,” Teysa said, with a wave of her hand. “I know how it feels to do magic, now. But…” she chewed on her lip. “Well, I may have added to my stock of really terrible memories. I already had quite a number of those.”

Elspeth pulled a face. “Yeah, I’ve seen a few of Jace’s memories,” she said quietly. “He shouldn’t have to deal with them. Nobody else should, either.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Teysa leaned forward and gingerly patted Elspeth’s hand. “I’m good at taking care of myself. I’ve been doing it for a while.”

“Of course.” Smiling, Elspeth took Teysa’s hand. That much was probably all right, at least.

“Can I hug you?” Definitely all right, then. Elspeth nodded. Grunting, Teysa shifted herself forward so that she could get down from the chair and kneel on the bed.

“I was so worried,” she admitted softly as Elspeth gathered her in her arms. She was so small that Elspeth could rest her chin on Teysa’s head, although partly that was because Teysa was pushing her face into Elspeth’s chest. “You—you are one of my only friends, and I thought I was going to lose you. I would have killed the witch if I could.”

“So would I.” Elspeth looked up. Jace, trembling, his cloak pulled tight around him, stood in the doorway, Kallist hovering directly overhead. A blurred figure hovering behind him had to be Mirko. “But then I guess we both tried to. I’m so sorry, both of you.”

“Jace!” Elspeth exclaimed. “Oh, Merlin! How are you feeling?”

“Oh, um, I’m fine,” Jace said vaguely. “Would you mind if I used your window?”

Elspeth blinked at him. “My…window?” she repeated.

“I, um, I really would like to not be here anymore. In the room. In the hospital wing, I mean.”

“Are you sure…” Elspeth trailed off uncertainly. Jace looked exhausted. There were huge, dark circles beneath his eyes, and his face was pale and gaunt, as if he’d been sick for weeks.

“Yeah, I just. I feel. I feel trapped. Please.”

She was nodding almost before he’d finished the sentence, because Jace should not have that raw, frightened note of pleading in his voice. He hadn’t sounded this small and afraid in years. Teysa slid across the bed and undid the window by hand. “Here. Just be careful, all right?”

“Mmm,” Jace assented, and Elspeth really hoped he’d heard her.

“Jace,” she said quickly.

“Huh?” He turned as he stepped up onto the window ledge, Kallist floating above him and Mirko behind him.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve listened to Ral.”

For an instant, Jace’s face crumpled, tears welling up in his eyes, and he gulped in a sob. Then he shut his eyes and stepped backwards. Elspeth’s stomach jumped into her throat before she heard him say, “Wingardium leviosa,” catching himself before he’d fallen more than a foot or so.

“Where are you going?” Elspeth asked. “I mean, if—can I ask that?” He was so skittish right now.

“Mmm. Astronomy Tower, I think.” Jace sounded distracted. “Uh, I guess you can tell Professor Malfoy if he asks, but don’t tell anyone else, please?”

“I won’t. I promise.”

He nodded jerkily and disappeared from view below the window. Elspeth found herself staring after him. “Oh, damn,” she said suddenly, pressing her hands to her eyes. “Oh, damn, damn, damn.”

“You can cry if you need to,” Teysa said in a small voice. “I cried a lot, actually. Although I’m not exactly sure if I was the one crying the whole time.”

Elspeth sniffed and brushed the tears away, decided she wasn’t quite ready to have a good cry just yet, and rested her head on Teysa’s shoulder. “Everything is awful,” she said. “It’s so awful.”

“Jace is awake,” Teysa pointed out, “Ral is doing better, Jace is out of my head, and I’m here now. I even got to use magic.”

“Still.”

“Yes, it’s not great.” She sighed, and one hand brushed gently against Elspeth’s cheek. “I don’t know your friends, not really. I know you—a bit—but I don’t know you as well as I should. I should have visited you much earlier than this, but, well, I—”

“You can’t do magic, and you didn’t want to feel out of place at Hogwarts. You said, I got it, I never expected you to come out here.” Elspeth reached out, found Teysa’s hand, and interlaced their fingers. “I’m just glad you’re here now.”

“I should have been here earlier.” Teysa was pensive. “Not because I could possibly have known about this—” And Elspeth felt an unpleasant twinge, because she should’ve known. She should’ve listened to Ral. “But because I’ve been living in my own little bubble for too long. Everything you sent me about this summer sounded fantastic.”

“You’d like it.” Elspeth smiled, thinking about Teysa wearing Muggle clothes, going on an outing with her and Ral to the mall. “You’d love it.”

“Maybe we can talk about something like that once things get a bit, well, better.”

“Yeah,” Teysa agreed.

They leaned against one another, and Elspeth was starting to feel drowsy again—so she probably still needed some time to recover—when someone knocked on the door.

Teysa glanced over and waited for Elspeth to nod before calling out, “Come in!”

It was Professor Granger, looking worried. “Have either of you seen Jace?” she asked. Elspeth found herself glancing over at Teysa, but Teysa’s face was smooth and unconcerned. Elspeth herself felt faintly sick and worried, and she wasn’t about to lie to a professor, but she wasn’t going to do anything Jace didn’t want, either.

So she said, “Is Professor Malfoy there?”

#mtg #my writing #fanfiction #fact or fiction #readmore

3 notes · View notes