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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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.

The woman is unrecognizable to him, but Heine almost flinches back all the same. Jade, as he's pulled in, pulls Heine in as well. He struggles for a moment, but then—Jade's reaction is so strong, Heine can't fight it completely.

Shit.

He can't call out to Jade. Instead he tries to push him somewhere else, to more recent memories, trying to bring him back.

He's carried along the tide of his memories, a passive spectator, unable to fight back. He wants to see his teacher again. Come back to me, she says, or is it Professor Eichel speaking?

But there's nothing he can do as the intruder in his mind forces him onwards, to less pleasant scenes. He's a puppet dancing to Professor Eichel's will now, and following his orders feels good, filling him with the same sense of warmth he gets when he sees Professor Nebilim.

And then there's Eichel on top of him, inside him... He remembers why he had been angry, now. Bad enough that Professor Eichel had bound him to his will. But he had twisted Professor Nebilim into a tool to use against him, and that's something Jade can't forgive.

The tide of memories slow, growing sharp and clear again as he and Professor Rammsteiner progress past the wall Professor Eichel had created. Jade remembers himself, now. He remembers what they've been trying to accomplish.

He looks away, breaking eye contact, carefully walling off his mind again. They've found what they needed to. There's no more need to have Professor Rammsteiner intruding where he shouldn't be.

Heine almost feels relief when they're away from Jade's memories of that woman (he'd heard something like Professor, and maybe a bit of her name), but they're not out yet. He keeps focus until they're back in the territory of what they're actually looking for.

So Professor Eichel had cursed Jade too. It doesn't make Heine feel any better, but at least they now know.

The connection breaks easily, and he looks away for a moment as well. Instinctively he wonders who that woman had been, and who she was to Jade, but he fails to ask.

Instead he tries to forget about it, like he always does.

Heine steps back, putting distance between them again. "Now you know, right?"

He puts his glasses back on, the movement a little less steady than it usually is.

"Now I know," he echoes, smoothing his expression back into impassivity. "That's one step closer to figuring out how to solve this, I suppose."

Professor Rammsteiner must have questions. Jade can't tell if he's refraining from asking them out of respect for his privacy, or because he simply doesn't care.

He doesn't ask. Instead, he says, "Do you think he did the same thing to you?"

Heine is about to turn away, discomfort obvious in the line of his shoulders; he doesn't like to be this close to someone.

"Maybe." He can't remember, of course. "Are you done?"

So much for impassivity. Jade is frowning again, feeling that old frustration rise in him once more. That's Professor Rammsteiner's reaction? Even after all they had discovered?

"No." His eyes narrow into a glare. "We're not finished here."

Should he do something about Professor Eichel? Yes. Of course. But if he purses the thought, all Heine can think of is the urge to rip and tear into him, to break bones and muscle. And he can't let those desires take him over again.

So he's trying not to think about it. When Jade pushes, Heine just looks at him.

"What?"

Jade looks back at him, his eyes cold. "You're really going to pretend nothing happened?" He demands.

It's strange to be the emotional one. But there's something about Professor Rammsteiner's behaviour that grates at him.

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