Hogwarts School - Elsewhere

She fit into the atmosphere, he thought - arriving with the same tension, the same sort of unfurled potential. As though she had something brewing within her, unresolved and alive and lingering, speaking of storms. It arrived in confirmation that they were on the same page, although they appeared to respond with different moods.

"How long’s it been? Fifteen years? You haven’t changed a bit, Professor."

He felt the corners of his lip tilt upward in response to the flatness of her tone, perhaps a little inappropriately, mildly entertained.

"Oh, I have," he retorted, giving a tap to his left temple to direct her attention to an eye that gave the unmistaken impression of cataract, although that was by no means what it really was. The lifeless, cloudy grey contrasted with the liveliness of the other, blue.

Now, this was just the tip of the iceberg, the surface of the cold waters into which he had imerged himself in - fifteen years ago, indeed. He had spent most of those fifteen years sick with trying to deal with the new surge of magic that he'd unlocked (and the consequences to having lost another part of his soul, resulting in a magic both more raw, and more of a danger to himself and others).

"And you have, too. - Kedding, right?" he said, locking her in his gaze. While he did not remember her first name, he was pretty sure this was a daughter of Aubrey and Charlie Kedding - both of which he'd also taught, once upon a time way back, an attestment to his dedication to the cause, however turbulent the circumstances.

Though his dedication had never been plain and straight forward, he'd always been there wearing his dark shadow, to distract them and plant his ideas in the hope that they - good as they were, most of the time - would not end up blinded by the light.

The world was complicated. He was complicated. They were all complicated.

And the mission he'd been bestowed by the Order for the Return of All Rights had never seized. They could turn mad and light their fires around him, but he'd already burned and come back out of it and burned again.

(At the corner of his eye, the bar caught fire, flames licking bright and yellow from floor to ceiling - Kedding, Real, but fire Unreal, he thought.)

"I take it you're not too impressed with the political situation either, then?" he prodded.

And it was just like him to disappear and then resurface with some new, unexplainable sort of life. It was just like him to resurface when something was about to happen, as though he fed on the suspense of the moment and needed the charge to get pushed out of his inertia, the everlasting apathy that came as a consequence to ripping yourself apart. Now it was running through his veins, thumping through his heart.

Even negative developments held potential for positive renewal.

(It was not the people that were broken, it was the system.)

He needed but a direction, allowing himself to be pulled into the trajectory offered, and he moved quietly but without hesitation, bathed in the gold light of Disgleirio's corridors. Voices let him know they were not alone, but the shadows did too, flickering before him in the dim light, avoiding its penetration.

Like a stream, they spilled into the heart of house and he ended up by the windows, staring out to feel a stir at the foreign landscape. Foreign not because he had not been to Wales or could not find anything like it in his part of England, but because he had grown up in love with the forest surrounding his own family's house.

The great outdoors had always meant a lot to him.

"Make yourself comfortable."

The voice of the other drew him out of his head, and he placed the pack of books on the low table in a break of routine. At this point he would usually have unpacked them with great care, spreading them on a great dining table or desk, then hold them up to the customer for their close inspection. Sitting on their golden chairs, in rooms of great portraits with carved frames, they would have offered their thoughts and snarky comments and demands of discount.

But this was no routine delivery.

Accepting the glass, he remained standing a moment longer, drifting back to the view, as though needing the light. The room was spectacular, and much to his liking, if not for the portraits on the floor above. It reminded of Muspell, if only the part that was open to the public. Most of his place was hidden on the floors underground, most as a means for confining and protecting against the things that he had dragged from the deep recesses of the world.

"Eve won't be joining us today, I'm afraid."

"That's a pity," he said - words that he meant but could not feel. For all that he would love to see Eve, it was enough to be facing one old schoolmate in his haunted manor. He caught the hint of warmth in Cassius' tone, and appreciated it, unconcerned whether it was actually meant for Altair or just spurred by a real love for the former Raven, now Cassius' wife.

"How are you?"

It was at this point that they truly made contact, when Altair turned his gaze from the view to meet and linger on the eyes of Cassius Ellwood-Luxe. It was in the tone of his voice, in the lines of his face, an expression of something real. It touched at something dark, something deep surging in Altair's chest, a ragged edge where he'd torn at the most valuable parts of his being.

And he sat down, placing one leg over the other, dragging a long-fingered hand through dark hair.

His encounters with Eve had always been saturated with his demons and he saw them now, dispersing into dark corners to soak in the secrets of the Ellwood-Luxe Family and House, silently intermingling. They would work to gather information, though not because he'd told them to. It was a long time since the fragmented creature that was Altair had been whole, and over time he'd entered into symbiosis with some of the things that he'd encountered - most often they joined with him and he simply could not get rid of them.

"I don't know," he answered, honestly. The best description that he had of his current state was feeling empty, but it was not necessarily emptiness in a bad sense. Despite the unravelling of late politics, and the fact that his vision sent him on a spin more often than not (just then, for example, he could see one of the manor's walls crumbling and falling to the ground in an eerie silence, books fluttering to the floor like snowflakes*).

"After accomplishing pretty much everything I set out to, it's as though I've finally gained access to things that I should have processed twenty years ago, and more."

His sin had always been Greed, never Pride. But he was proud, now - despite the road to getting there, he'd walked his path. And in this self-forged chaos, there was an unmistaken, if unsettling, peace.

"How about you?"

The blue of his seeing eye remained lively, a portal to the student he'd once been.

---

*Altair suffers from seeing things that are not real - he can sometimes tell, but often not.

This time he'd arrived prodding. He'd arrived interested, wanting to unwrap layers.

He didn't know what it was that made Tigran want to answer, especially considering that he'd expertly demonstrated that he could have conversations about nothing - had he wanted to - but he appreciated it.

It made him think about the things that he had liked about being a professor, even though it had been too weighing on him to be able to do many terms in a row.

He felt that he managed to decipher the boy a little more now. He did not come accross as someone priviledged - as elevated by the resources of rich parents. Tigran came accross as someone used to putting down work to getting where he wanted - or needed - to be.

"And how does mind magic factor into this? To St. Mungo's or the Snake Pit?" Altair asked. But he was smiling now, trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

Of blood comes all.

The words hovered ominously above him and set the tone for the delivery, for the coming night. With a collection of books such as those under his arm now, the reminder was on point.

He glanced at them quickly, as Cassius Ellwood-Luxe was revealed in the doorway, with a smile that could be felt but not returned, if only because he was raged and ravaged by too much else. The past month had been one of turbulence, as though he'd ripped off a bandage to an emotional wound that had never healed. Somehow, it served to propel him forward.

Now he found himself on the threshold of something new.

They were opposites, in the way that Cassius had let himself emerge by the deep pool of expectation, of taking on the duty and living a life that had been carved for him at birth. They were opposites, in the way that Altair had gone for hard rejection, had burnt their house to the ground and come out on the other side, forever changed. The name that he'd taken was his own, never soiled or defiled or superimposed on him by the external.

Now Cassius took it in his mouth for the first time, and Altair felt humble for it, in the upfront respect that he was given for his choices. Most of his schoolmates reverted to Marcus, and he did not stop them, but he also had not put much thought into their doing so. Lukas was his name, but its vocation echoed with dark shadows - it had hardly ever been used by others than the innermost circle of the Supra Mortalitas. Its utterance caused a discrepancy - a paradox - that forced its way through the cracks and crinkels to harden and freeze and cause disruption in its way.

Which was exactly what it was supposed to do.

And in that way they were the same.

Like weed in a bed of flowers, they had refused to give in. No matter the poisons they'd had to defer, they'd remained standing in a position created by their own force, becoming the center to storms of their own creation. They crystallised liked frozen moisture in mortar, building their cracks slowly, invisibly, until the structure crumbled and fell apart.

Stubbornly, the chaos commenced.

Now they stood eye to eye.

Lukas meant light, thought Altair, as he spilled into the heavy shadows of the foyer and felt at the burden of the other's choices. It weighed him down, as he kicked his shoes off and looked at his companion for the night. Already here, the walls appeared to shift, changing, revealing a wallpaper soaked with the silver splatters of blood.

He could not keep his eyes from wandering, from taking it all in.

"Where to?" he asked, absentmindedly.

---

To:
CASSIUS ELLWOOD-LUXE
Thistle Seat, Disgleirio gan-y-môr
Porthcawl, Wales


Ellwood-Luxe,

Excellent.

I like specifics, so let's say the 27th.

I'll try to be there late afternoon/early evening.

Let me know if that doesn't work or if something should turn up.

See you soon.


Altair.

Muspell
Knockturn Alley

Softer, softer.

The surface had thawed, but it was mutual. The words were starting to flow more freely, and the conversation was no longer one with a customer.

"It's not a bad saying," he commented, though with her explanation, he found that he understood it differently.

"I like to use the term perspective rather than subjective and objective," he said. The underlying reason was that it did not hold the same value judgement. "I also do not like to use the term myth about things that are untrue. I've learnt, over time, that sometimes the myths of others appear more true than the things that I call real."

Sometimes, calling the knowledge of others unreal was causing direct damage to understanding the complex workings of the world.

Besides, finding the truth didn't necessarily mean there was an answer.

(On the topic of the British Museum - which was known for hoarding the artefacts of others for what often seemed pure entertainment.)

"But what I like and do not like to do isn't the truth either, it's just me," he said, similing in a strangely introverted way - as though at some stray thought that had suddenly appeared.

"You have an educator's mind. I feel like I should know who you are already."

What happened then was realisation. Realisation about how easy it was for him to slip into a role. Part of it had to do with having taught for years. Another part simply had to do with age. Combined, those made a powerful force. And, her closing inquiry hit him with a certain irony - when slipping into those roles, he could, at times, forget who he was.

"I usually just go by Altair," he said. Leaning forward, he offered his hand for a shake.

Then --

"Actually -," he said, for it pricked within him, and some feelings you'd just have to trust. "I'd be happy to do a discount if you would share your research with me, perhaps help interpret some of the stuff I've got lying around."

His knowledge was from other areas than hers, and he found that joined perspectives were the most useful of all.

Altair raised his head, looking up from the pile of books that he was currently shelfing, in what appeared most like random order. He was hearing voices, and since they spoke a very foreign language he took a moment to stand completely still.

There was one young, child-like, and one older.

Spirits?

He remained, listening for a little longer.

No, they were probably people.

So, he put down his books, and took the shorter way around the shelves of the South-Western corner of the shop to the entrance, changing up one of the shelves as he passed, and caught a glimpse of them.

Not only had the man brought hils child, thus getting through the no-children ward without setting it off, but he was looking (- Altair considered, for a moment, whether he should have put up a please park your child here-sign on the street out to Knockturn, which was stricly unnecessary because the only people to ever bring their children here in the first place were most likely to be --) properly uppish and pureblood.

Now, these were going to be a lot.

"How can I be of help?" he asked, but he was not by the desk. He was standing behind them, a tall man in a heavy black cloak, a furrow between his brows and arms crossed over his chest.

Then he realised he'd been mistaken - this was not the usual black-magic-is-cool kind of uppish.

This was much, much worse.

Gods, the vocabulary - what was it with teens these days.

Ravenclaws, he thought, and rolled his eyes.

But his attention was successfully captured, and he found himself entertained. He was, after all, no less of a Ravenclaw himself.

"You think that's possible?" he asked, rethorically. "Objectivity?"

Not because he disagreed, but because he was interested in Tigran's perspective.

---

To my dear father ~


I see it now, that I found you weak.

I see now, how that made me loathe you. When mamma passed on, and you lost your grasp on everything. But even before that - the way that your brothers looked at you, and grandma and grandpa.

They worked hard, I know this. They worked hard trying to lift the family back into the status it had once had, in the Pureblood sense. It was a struggle for them, the fall from grace, as they saw it.

But I see now, how a mother should never talk about their child, their son, like grandma did. I know that you stepped away from them to follow your dream - you loved your writing. And you did so, knowing that you would disappoint. They wanted you to join the Ministry, be powerful and successful.  But you were a kind spirit, albeit lost, and I know that mamma saw this. She saw you, like she saw all of us.

Grandma did not speak kindly of you, and when she stepped in to take charge when you could not - her words coloured my vulnerable, motherless child-mind. All I did was see you lost, and I felt forced to look strong. I had to step in and be for grandma what you couldn't.

And I looked down on you.

I remember how Cat screamed, and how lost you were, and how I distanced myself from everything. I clung unto her, my grandma, because I could not carry the weight of responsibility as a mere eleven-year-old.

I was such a child.

And you were so broken.

But I am more like you than I thought then.

And I do love you, daddy. I do love you, always.


Always, your son,
Marcus.

---

Something had happened.

He could feel it, a difference of warmth.

And he remembered back, to all his years of teaching at Hogwarts. To all his years of judging his students unfairly.

To wondering whether there were second chances.

Now, the boy managed to draw him in with a single sentence.

Altair hesitated. Stood still a moment. Then appeared to make up his mind, and found himself settling down on a chair.

"You're interested in the intersection between the magical mind and science?"

Perhaps the answer to the question was obvious, but the occurrence was such a rare one that he found himself in need of its confirmation.