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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"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...

That's not what he was looking for. Heine lets Jade close that door in his memories, but makes a note of the location. He goes around it. But in trying to follow the path of frustration, he finds something else.

Older memories. Heine hesitates over them, not wanting to look into ones that aren't relevant, but in that hesitation bits and pieces wash over him. It's too hard to make sense of them without context, but he gets a feeling of it before he steps away again and reminds both himself and Jade, Professor Eichel.

As Professor Rammsteiner continues to root through his mind, Jade experiences all those years of frustration once more, remembers running into dead end after dead end, the futility of it all amplified into a darkness that shrouds his mind. He had been getting nowhere on his own. That's why he had turned to Professor Eichel for help.

If this is the price he has to pay for that help...

For a moment, he wavers. The landscape of his mind turns dark and ugly, trying to ward off the intruder.

Then he holds himself in check. No, that's not a price worth paying. He'll accept Professor Rammsteiner's help. Again, he tries to retrace the path he had taken that night, stopping at the wall once more.

I've been losing time lately, he hears himself saying, his voice distorted through the layers of his subconsciousness. And I can never remember going to sleep. Did you have anything to do with that?

For all the parts he shares, the memories of Durmstrang dark with stress and unhappiness, frustration is not an emotion Heine associates with it. He keeps himself at arm's length.

When they return to the memory block he pays attention. In Jade's recall of the event, Professor Eichel pauses, smiles, and answers. His voice is deep and resonates strongly with something within Jade.

Why would you think that?

Because, answers the version of himself in his memories, locked away and buried, I've seen the same thing happen to Professor Rammsteiner. I know what the results of your methods look like.

I just don't understand why you felt the need to do this sort of thing to me.

On some level, Jade still doesn't understand. But mostly, he just regrets having ever brought up that topic, although he can't tell if that regret is something he actually feels or something artificial, imposed on him by Professor Eichel.

Edited 2016-05-16 04:55 (UTC)

You don't question me, Jade. Professor Eichel is gentle, but firm. There's no hint of wheedling in his tone.

Heine watches from a distance. It's strange enough knowing that this is probably the kind of thing he's also forgotten. Knowing that Jade had helped Professor Eichel wipe his memories is nearly enough to make him pull out of the entire thing.

But no. He said he would help, if only to keep Professor Eichel from doing any more. Heine keeps pushing, going through the event to figure out exactly what Eichel had cast to make Jade forget.

I...

His head hurts. Past and present, memory and reality, they all seem to blur together. In his memory (or is it reality?) he tries to curl his fingers--

He can't move. His body won't respond. Wide-eyed, he looks at Professor Eichel. What did you do?

His teacher only smiles. A variation of the Imperius Curse. It's effective, no? Tell me, is your mind still your own?

I...

And the memory repeats, in a maze of dream-like images and snatches of conversation, darkened by uncertainty. He doesn't know which thoughts are his any more. He doesn't know how far Professor Eichel's influence spreads.

He's biting down on his lower lip, hard enough to draw blood. And still he can't get rid of the intruder in his own mind, whoever it is, Professor Eichel or Professor Rammsteiner, they're blurring together--

His magic lashes out of its own accord, raw, uncontrolled power striking at whatever it can find.

Heine is already wary, sensing that Jade's discomfort at this entire procedure is growing. As a result he's on guard enough to avoid much of the blow. Still, a part of it lands, and he reels before pushing onwards.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And it's not the worst he's ever suffered.

In Jade's memories Professor Eichel elaborates on the spell he'd placed. It's simple. Whatever you want the most... it'll feel like that—and it's hard to listen when Heine can feel everything Jade had, then.

His power continues to slash and churn, like the sea just before a storm, but then the next memory flows into his head and he remembers just what he wants. With it comes a sense of calm.

He sees Professor Nebilim, now, returned to him after all his years of research. She smiles at him, forgiving.

Interesting, a voice says. Who? A sense of alarm twitches at the back of Jade's mind, but he doesn't pay it any heed, too busy drinking in the sight of Professor Nebilim's face. Without thinking about it, he releases his grip on reality, losing himself in his memories.

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