alittlemirror | wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure

wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure

To say Jade is displeased would be an understatement. It's not that he cares about this detention tarnishing his record, no. He doesn't really care about his record. What he does care about is how it cuts into his studying time. He had just come across a particularly fascinating snippet on the nature of death and the soul...

(And besides, those Hufflepuffs had started it with their incessant chattering. They're like a less annoying version of Saphir, and nobody had ever really objected when he hexed Saphir. And it's not like he used a serious hex; he just sealed and removed their mouths. Easily reversible, if they knew what they were doing - and knew how to use nonverbal spells.

After all, what kind of first-year doesn't know how to use nonverbal spells?)

But someone had taken offense to his hex, and now he finds himself trudging to Professor Rammsteiner's office, growing increasingly irritated at the loss of his study time. From what he's heard of detentions, they usually entail doing useless, mundane tasks easily accomplished with a little creative wandwork. He's thought about ignoring Professor Rammsteiner's orders more than once, but he's also been told that it would just lead to more detentions and thus a bigger waste of time.

Oh well. He's here now. With one last irritated sigh, he raises his hand to the door and knocks.

"Professor Rammsteiner? This is Jade Curtiss."

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"As a test subject."

Let it not be said that Jade is dishonest.

Almost immediately, as the words register, Heine's expression shuts down. Whatever allowance he'd made to share any information about the curse is gone; his back straightens and he pulls his posture back into habitual tenseness.

"What are you testing?" He asks, but it's likely obvious already that he doesn't want any part of it.

Professor Rammsteiner tone is hardly encouraging, but Jade pushes on regardless.

"Counter-curses. Potions." He wouldn't have put it past Eichel to have drugged his tea. "Things like that."

After a pause, he adds: "I'd like to experiment with breaking Memory Charms as well."

Does Professor Rammsteiner remember what he had done? He had managed to break free of that first Memory Charm placed on him, so perhaps...

"You're not going to test your potions on me," Heine mutters. Hell no. Counter-curses, maybe. And, "You want me to put Memory Charms on you?"

Almost right as he says it, it sounds wrong. But he doesn't like Memory Charms, or anything that fucks with his head like that, so when would he have..?

The corners of his lips twitch up a little at Professor Rammsteiner's muttered declaration. Something like that just makes Jade want to slip a potion into his food, but there will be time for that later.

His smile (if it could be called that), fades away quickly when Professor Rammsteiner brings up Memory Charms.

"No, of course not." He stares at Professor Rammsteiner with a hint of impatience, wondering whether he'll manage to put the pieces together or if he'll actually need to explain.

It takes a second longer, reconciling Jade there and his words, and the faint desire in Heine to not be upset with him again.

"No." He doesn't shake his head, but the look Heine gives Jade is sharp. "You're not practicing on me."

He takes a step forward, slow and sinuous, graceful even as a stab of pain makes a grimace flicker across his expression.

"This will benefit you as well."

He must know. Professor Rammsteiner can't be so wilfully blind, can he?

...No, of course he can.

How is it supposed to be helpful? Heine shifts backwards, away from Jade as he approaches.

"I don't think so." He doesn't raise his hands, but his arms are loose, ready.

"You really don't remember?" He takes another step forwards, expression intent. It seems like there's no other way. He has to make Professor Rammsteiner see. "We're in the same situation, you realize."

The same situation. Heine turns the words over in his mind, remembers the gaps, and—

—Professor Eichel's voice and his strong hands, which had felt so much larger on his then-smaller shoulders and wrists. You're strong, aren't you? Don't fight it. It's better when you don't have to fight it, isn't that right? It feels good. And then, more recent, more fresh: Good boy.

"That was..." His head. Shit. Heine presses his fingertips to his forehead, but he still looks at Jade. "What? That was when I was—"

He has to fight his way through the fog. It's hard and it hurts to pull away the wall that's been built up around memories years old, but it's easier to recover the ones from just the past few weeks.

"You were there." Heine seems like he wants to flinch away, to fold into himself and never look at Jade again, but he holds himself still and watchful, waiting for more.

He nods, not quite looking at Professor Rammsteiner. He's done wrong; he knows that. He just doesn't particularly regret it. He did what he had to.

(No, he didn't have to do what he did. But he was too arrogant, too hungry for knowledge, and now he's in over his head, unsure of how to escape from the situation or if he even really wants to.)

"I was," he says, keeping his distance now that the floodgates have been opened. He doesn't want to force his presence in Professor Rammsteiner, not anymore. "I was the one who erased your memories. How much dso you remember now?"

The words sink into Heine's mind, but a part of them rings slightly... false. Wrong.

"Professor Eichel and you—the pool. Downstairs." Fragments are all he can manage, when there are conflicting events, multiple times, uncertain and wavering in his mind.

"You fu—you and Eichel both." Heine takes in one fast, deep breath, and steps over it. "No. He did it to me, before."

No, I did it to you both times, is what he was about to say, but something about Professor Rammsteiner's words give him pause.

"Before?" He prompts him, although he has an uneasy feeling in his gut that tells him he knows what Professor Rammsteiner is talking about. Before. Before the tournament, years before all this, when Professor Rammsteiner was just another sullen student walking the halls of Durmstrang.

Before, when he was just another of Professor Eichel's good boys.

It must have been a long time ago. Heine goes over the years, from the last to the first. He can't find the exact gap, but there was that year when he'd been taking third-level Curses with Professor Eichel, and they'd spoken far more often. Well, Professor Eichel had spoken. Heine just sat, and listened.

Just how much had he heard? What had Eichel slipped into him bit by bit?

"I don't remember," he lies. Heine doesn't want to think about it. Instead, he focuses on Jade again. He could ask why Jade had done any of it to him—the Memory Charms, the sex, the trip downstairs into the dungeon—but he doesn't want to face the fact that any of it had happened to him in the first place.

"You can break the charm if something starts to trigger your memory." Heine focuses in on the feel of lecturing, of speaking about something that's apart from him. "Follow your movements backwards."

He's lying.

But if Professor Rammsteiner doesn't want to face the reality of the situation, well, that's hardly unexpected. It's not really any of Jade's business. Professor Rammsteiner seems stable, and he's actually trying to be helpful; that's all that matters.

(Still, Jade has to admit, he had been expecting something more. Disbelief, maybe, or anger or censure. Just - something more than Professor Rammsteiner's steadfast refusal to acknowledge anything had happened to him.

But maybe Jade had been expecting too much.)

"I'll try," he says, a small frown furrowing his brow. He tries to retrace his own steps - heading to Professor Rammsteiner's room, setting out from Professor Eichel's quarters, feeling filthy and worn and tired. Come back to me tomorrow night, Professor Eichel had told him - ordered him.

Then, before that, the weight of Professor Eichel's body above his own, pressing him into the bed. Jade remembers that hot mix of anger and lust he had felt, and it kindles something in him even now.

And before that - nothing. A solid wall, a splintering pain shooting through his head.

But it's not entirely a dead end. He can see cracks in the wall, glimpses of steam rising from a teacup, the warmth of Professor Eichel's hand cupping his cheek. He remembers, too, the feeling of not knowing where his own free will ended and where Professor Eichel's authority began.

But those are just the things Professor Eichel wants him to remember, he's sure.

The pain in his head is growing a little too much. Frowning, he withdraws from the mental exercise for now, rubbing absently at his temples.

"He's too powerful." For now. Jade fully intends on besting him someday soon. "I don't know how he has such a strong hold over me."

Heine waits, watching. Looking outwards at someone he's supposed to take care of is easier than considering his own problems, for now.

It looks like Jade is struggling to remember anything at all. The pain is obvious.

"When did it start?"

His shoulders raise in a half-hearted shrug. "I don't know. I think...that might have been one of the memories he removed."

There must have been some reason for their "disagreement" tonight. Some fact he had uncovered, something he had confronted Eichel over. Jade can't remember what it is, though. There's a gaping hole in his mind where that memory was.

Jade is tense; uncomfortable. His mind is his greatest asset. To have it just casually manipulated like that...

"I don't understand how you can just accept this," he mutters.

Heine stiffens, back straightening at the statement.

"You let him do it to me." Though—that might not be fair, if Jade had been controlled. Heine shakes his head a second later, dismissing it. "Have you tried Legilimency?"

"I did it to you," Jade corrects. He shouldn't have done it. But it's too late for regrets now, and he has never been one for useless apologies, so he doesn't say anything more on the matter.

"Legilimency?" He frowns. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Memories and state of mind go hand in hand. At least for Heine. He continues, "I could see what he did, even if you don't remember."

Of course it isn't that simple, and the way Jade is reacting to Professor Eichel's apparent intrusion doesn't encourage him. Heine shrugs again. "But if you don't want to..."

Could it really be that easy? Jade has his doubts, just as he has doubts about letting Professor Rammsteiner — or anyone, really — rummage through his mind. But it's all right if Professor Rammsteiner just looks, he supposes. It's only Professor Eichel's manipulations that Jade objects to.

"I..." He frowns, hesitating. Then he shakes his head. "I don't mind trying."

Professor Rammsteiner had already seen the worst of him.

...Not that he cares about what Professor Rammsteiner thinks of him, of course.

Huh.

Well, it makes things easier.

Heine moves close enough for the space between them to be just right for a normal, if private, conversation, and looks straight at Jade. After a moment he frowns. "Take off your glasses."

There's another moment of pause before Jade does as he's told, taking off his glasses and tucking them securely away. Then he faces Professor Rammsteiner once more, expression composed.

"I didn't think you'd be a legilimens," he says wryly, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

For a second Heine pauses, gauging how much he can say, and then how much he can say to Jade, who seems to just want to know everything there is.

In the end he just doesn't say anything and concentrates.

Legilimency doesn't come easy to Heine, but it's still easier wandless for him. He looks into Jade's eyes. He breathes in. Then out. Then in, and out, and with a push he follows the memory Jade had traced a few minutes ago.

Jade remembers the walls of Durmstrang very differently than he does. It's weird as hell to see them from a different perspective. For a second Heine wanders down his mental map of the school's halls before he returns to the task, finding the place where Jade's attempts to remember had stopped.

He has the feeling that there's something on Professor Rammsteiner's mind, but before he can ask about it, Professor Rammsteiner is looking straight at him and the moment is gone. It's not often that they look straight at each other like this; Jade takes in the paleness of Professor Rammsteiner's face and the redness of his eyes, and tries to relax the barriers around his mind.

He can feel it when Professor Rammsteiner delves into his thoughts: all of a sudden, he finds himself wandering through Durmstrang's dim corridors again, the cold surrounding him, sinking through his robes. Then his feet move of their own accord, and he's a puppet wandering through his own memories, tugged along by Professor Rammsteiner until he's back inside Professor Eichel's rooms.

His memories blur together for a moment, the events of tonight's visit melding with his memories of previous nights. There's Professor Eichel's low voice, smoothly going over theory, speaking of life and death. A hand resting on his thigh, stroking upwards-

No. He recoils mentally and physically, trying to wall off those private memories of sex and loss of control. Exhaling, he tries to direct his thoughts to the wall Professor Eichel had erected around his memories, but that just makes him think of other walls, the walls he had run into during his research...

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