Chapter Six: Starfall

"Let me see." Jace shoved at Ral's shoulder, trying to get to the telescope in front of him.

"You don't need to," Ral said smugly. "Just take off your cloak."

Jace glanced around nervously. They were in astronomy class, on the top of the astronomy tower, and there were more students around than there usually were when he tried to get into Ral's head. "I don't know," he said slowly. "Ral, just let me look through the telescope."

"You need to practice," Ral said, stubbornly keeping his eye pressed to the telescope. "Ooh," he breathed.

"What? Oh, come on. Fine." Irritably, Jace unfastened his cloak and shrugged it off, hearing the buzz of voices rise in his head. It was surprisingly easy to pick out Ral's mind and focus on it, though, so maybe the practice they had been doing was starting to pay off. Shutting his eyes, he tried to follow that voice, the thread of sanity that wound its way into his nightmares and pulled him from his bed to the safety of the green-curtained four-poster in the Slytherin dungeons. The thoughts that kept him safe from the monsters he always felt in the darkness. Jace shook his head, focused, and opened it.

The first thing he saw was a bright, zipping light, fuzzily overlaid onto a night sky brilliant with stars. So, is it working? Ral's voice, sounding almost as if he were whispering into Jace's ears.

Yeah, Jace thought back, awed. Was that a shooting star?

I saw that a minute ago. Try to focus on what I'm looking at now.

The physical sensation of himself pressed close to Ral's back was a weird kind of double-vision, since he could now feel it from both sides, as if he had his arms wrapped around himself. Distracting. Jace pushed at his own impressions, trying to will them to be less obvious, and Ral's became clearer.

It's a constellation. I don't know which one.

I think it's Pegasus, but we'd have to check our worksheet. Jace could feel the paper brushing Ral's fingers loosely. There was something very—safe—about being welcomed into somebody's mind like this. It was like what Jace imagined having a room of your own might feel like. Or a room you shared with a close friend. Regretfully, he started to pull back as he felt a headache beginning to blossom behind his eyes.

Getting a headache. I'm going to have to stop.

All right. I'll let you have a turn on the telescope. If I have to.

"Mr. Beleren!" Jace cried out as the mental connection snapped at the rough touch of a hand against his shoulder. It was like the stinging sensation of a rubber band breaking on his fingers, except beneath the bridge of his nose and worse. He put a hand to his head, trying to focus on the words being spoken to him, but all the voices were rising up at once, a crescendo of mental sound, and so much of it—too much of it—focused on him.

-what is he thinking?—

-could be dangerous—

-what a freak—

-legilimency—

-Voldemort used it—

Jace was huddled back against the parapet of the astronomy tower, legs trembling, one hand in his mouth. Professor Sinistra was bending over him, and Elspeth was helping her fasten his cloak around him. "Mr. Beleren," Sinistra said, sternly. "What were you doing?"

What could he say? What was the right answer? "Nothing," he whispered.

"You can't just take your cloak off anywhere. Even if you were too hot, you should know better. You could hurt yourself or somebody else."

Freak. Jace pressed a trembling hand to his eyes, suddenly overwhelmed by a desperate desire to be somewhere else—anywhere else. No. He couldn't leave. He had to stay here and finish the astronomy lesson.

"Did you understand me, Mr. Beleren?" Sinistra's voice was impatient. Freak. He could hear it pounding behind her words. Useless, dangerous freak. He could hear the voices, and they weren't just thoughts in his memories, some of them were words. We don't want him. Can't the Ministry find somewhere else for him to stay?

"I'll go," Jace whispered.

"Continue with the lesson and—"

"I'll go." The cold night air felt even colder against the wet tears on his cheeks as he ran for the door in the top of the astronomy tower. At first he was walking, but he heard her call after him, and then he was running—they wouldn't stop him by magic here, no full body bind, no stupefy, just voices calling. His feet slipping and sliding down the worn old stairs of the tower, Jace nearly fell, but caught himself on the railing, scraping the palms of his hands against the rough stone wall. Somewhere behind him, somebody called his name again, but he wasn't going to stop now.

He needed a place where nobody could find him, Jace thought, scrubbing desperately at his eyes, trying to stop the tears. Nobody but Ral and Elspeth, anyway, he supposed. If they still wanted to be around him.

He must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. He'd been trying to get back to the Hufflepuff basement, but he was pretty sure he wasn't anywhere near it, and he didn't know where to go. He could hear footsteps moving toward him, and he just—needed to not be here anymore. Not be anywhere. The sudden sense that he sometimes had in the middle of the night—of something following, hunting, stalking him—flared up, and he flung himself forward in terror.

Moving frantically across the wall, his hand found a doorknob—he turned it and stumbled inside, letting it shut behind him and collapsing back against it. Sobs rose to his throat, and he tried to choke them down, but couldn't manage it. He should get out his wand, try to figure out where he was, how long he could stay—but as he stumbled forward, his foot struck something soft. He went down onto his knees and felt something soft. Like an old pillow, but bigger.

Another wave of desperate sadness washed over him, and he curled up on it, buried his face in its soft surface, and cried.

The click of the door opening woke him instantly, and he clutched for his wand. "—you really think we'll find him he—Jace!"

It was Elspeth and Ral. Floating above their heads, Kallist flickered with internal light. He surged forward immediately, dropped down almost to the level of Jace's head, and began to rain. Jace sighed.

Ral dove down beside him and pulled him into a rough hug. "Where have you been?" he demanded.

Jace blinked at him and looked around. "Here?" he ventured. The brief sensation of Ral's arms around him made him sniffle for some reason. "I guess I'm in a lot of trouble," he mumbled, pulling his knees into his chest. "Do I have detention?"

"Yes, unfortunately," Elspeth answered, kneeling beside them. "Kallist, stop that." She waved a hand upward, and the cloud bobbed upward. The rain slowed to a trickle and then stopped. "You also missed dinner, so I brought you sandwiches. Here." She pushed two large, lumpy loaves into his lap. "I didn't know how hungry you'd be."

"It's okay, I have detention as well," Ral said, heaving a sigh as he swung himself over into a sitting position next to Jace. In the flickering light from Kallist, Jace could see that Ral's face was bruised, and he had a small cut on his upper lip.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Sarkhan said something dumb," Ral replied. "So I hit him."

"You were overreacting," Elspeth said. "Eat your dinner, Jace."

Although he wasn't usually a fan of cheese sandwiches, Jace was hungry enough that the two Elspeth had brought tasted surprisingly good. "What did Sarkhan say?" he asked between bites.

There was an uncomfortable pause before Elspeth said, "Just that you have kind of—I mean that the stuff you can do is a bit—"

"He called me a freak, didn't he?" Jace asked miserably.

"No!" Elspeth protested, just as Ral said, "Yeah, so I punched him."

At his statement, Elspeth smacked Ral in the back of the head. "He did not say Jace was anything. He didn't use the word 'freak', either."

"He was thinking it," Jace said, his throat tightening suddenly so that it was hard to get the words out. "Everybody thinks I'm a f-freak, and they're probably going to send me away. I am a freak. And I feel like something's hunting me, so I'm probably crazy, too." The words tumbled over each other, and Jace shut his mouth, trying to make himself shut up. They'd hate him, too, and he couldn't stand the thought of hearing 'freak' from Ral's mind, or Elspeth's.

"They do not think you're a freak," Elspeth said angrily. "You're not. You're perfectly normal."

Rubbing at his eyes, Jace gave her a disbelieving look. "You know I can read people's minds," he said. "I don't think they think I'm a freak. I know they do."

Before Elspeth could respond, Ral butted in, one hand reaching out to ruffle Jace's hair rather roughly. "So you're a freak. So what? I am, too. I'm the only Muggle-born in Slytherin, and I'm the only Slytherin first-year. Fuck them. If anyone else is mean to you, I'll fight them, too."

"You probably shouldn't fight so many people, Ral," Elspeth said. "You'll just get in trouble."

"I haven't fought that many people this year," Ral protested uncomfortably. "It's only happened a few times."

"Sometimes I want to punch people, too," Elspeth said reprovingly. "I just don't think it's very constructive to actually do it."

"Yeah, yeah." Ral slumped back into a sitting position, then hit Jace's shoulder lightly. "What were you doing here anyway, Jace?"

"Sleeping," said Jace. A combination of Ral's speech and the food was starting to make him feel a little better, but he still had a slight sensation of wobbliness. He looked around. "Where is here?"

"I don't know," Ral said. "Kallist found you." The little cloud bobbed up and down, flickering brighter for a moment and then back to dimness.

"Lumos," Elspeth said, taking out her wand, and it flared to bright light as they watched. Jace winced and shielded his eyes, and they looked around at a small room whose pale stone walls were blackened with scorch marks. There was nothing in it but the pallet that Jace was sitting on.

"Where are we?" Elspeth asked, and the other two shrugged. "Oh, well." She sighed. "We'd better get back to our dorm rooms before I get a detention as well."

She got to her feet and put out a hand for Jace to take, helping him to his feet. "Jace," she said slowly, as the three of them walked out of the little room with Kallist bobbing above their heads. "What did you mean, you feel like you're being hunted?"

He frowned. "I don't know," he said. "It's probably just too many nightmares, but a lot of times when Kallist and I are going to the Slytherin dorm, I feel like there's something in the darkness with me. I'm—I'm fine most of the time, but earlier, when I was coming down from the astronomy tower—I felt it again."

Elspeth put her hand on his shoulder. "I feel like that, too, sometimes," she said. "More trapped, I guess, but it's the same idea."

Jace wasn't entirely sure it was, but he didn't say anything else. Instead, he glanced back at the room they'd come out of, and his breath hitched fearfully. The door was gone.

Fidgeting uncomfortably, Jace tried to get himself to knock on the door. It seemed to take him longer every time he had one of these meetings. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with Professor Potter, he thought uneasily, it was just that—he always felt like he was being judged, and he didn't like it. Besides, Professor Sinistra had probably told Professor Potter about his latest detention, and he didn't want to talk about it.

Finally, he managed to force himself to rap softly on the door, twice, promising himself that if there was no response he'd just leave. It took a minute or two, and he was just starting to get his hopes up, when there was the sound of shuffling footsteps, and the door opened.

Professor Potter looked almost as tired as Jace felt. There were huge, hollow circles beneath his eyes, and his hair was wild. He smiled quite kindly, and said, "Good evening, Jace." Jace wished he would go back to calling him 'Mr. Beleren', since everyone else did, but the professor seemed determined for them to be on first-name terms, even though they had said almost nothing to one another the entire time they had been meeting. Jace wasn't even entirely sure why they were having meetings, unless it was another way to check up on him.

An old superstition of Jace's had resurfaced lately, no matter how much he tried to tell himself it was stupid. He couldn't remember anything before the day Hermione had found him in the wreckage of the old manor, but he knew that he had nightmares about it, and he knew that everyone else in the house had been dead. What if—what if that had been his fault? What if that was why they wouldn't let him take off the cloak? As Professor Potter ushered him into the cozy little room, Jace licked dry lips and almost hoped that he had just done something—really awful. It would explain why he was never allowed to take off the cloak, wouldn't it? If they were afraid that he'd—that he'd—

"Have a cup of tea." But he wouldn't. He wouldn't hurt his friends. He wouldn't have hurt—the memory danced tantalizingly in front of his mind, bringing with it a blurry female face, but it slipped away before he could grasp it. "Jace?"

Shaking his head and blinking, he realized Professor Potter was still holding out the cup of tea. "Oh! Sorry." He took it rapidly, wincing as he splattered some of the scalding liquid on his hand.

Professor Potter sat back thoughtfully, reached for the sugar and added three cubes to his cup of tea, tried it, pulled a face, and added another few cubes. "Jace," he said after a moment. "Is anything worrying you?"

Jace's heart gave a guilty thump, and he hastily put his tea to his lips so that he'd have a moment to think before he answered. Professor Potter didn't say anything else for a moment, just sipped at his tea and looked questioningly at him. He could just ask him, couldn't he? Knowing why they had him wear the cloak would be better than wondering, surely?

"You can tell me," the professor said, very gently, almost as gentle as Professor Granger had been the times she'd visited when he was younger. He'd never told her then, except for once—the time he'd shown her the bruises. They had sent him to a different family after that. And it had been better there. They hadn't hit him.

"Um," Jace began, setting his tea-cup down. His hand trembled, and the cup made a soft chinking noise against the saucer. And Professor Malfoy had been so nice about the time he'd actually peered into his head without asking—they must want to help. "It's—it's about—"

Something fluttered in Jace's peripheral vision. A stab of pain shot through his head, and he had a sudden flash of a hooded figure standing in front of him, wand raised. He blinked, and it was gone. He started to relax—blinked again—and it was back. The warm, brightly-lit study seemed to peel away, leaving behind crumbling darkness and embers and ashes swirling in the air, suspended in a moment of time that seemed almost frozen.

Wand arm raised, mouth open, all he could do was stare around at the moment of time unfolding around him, as the sickly green light blossomed in front of him. Fear and pain flared like a Roman candle in his head as the light tore slowly through the white-robed figure in front of him. His heart shuddered slowly in his chest, and then he was falling to his knees, pink afterimages glowing in the air in front of him, and the robed figure stood over him, looking down impassively. Through it all, someone was screaming.

Hands on his shoulders, hands over his ears. The screaming was too loud, and his chest was burning. "Jace, can you hear me?"

He needed to breathe. Gulping in air, he coughed, and the screaming stopped abruptly. "Here, take this." Something was pressed into his hand, warm and slightly sticky. "Eat it. It'll make you feel better."

Automatically, he guided his hand to his mouth, and the strong, bittersweet taste of chocolate burst over his tongue. Slowly, the room reasserted itself around him. He was crouching beneath Professor Potter's table, one hand still pressed hard against his ear, the other at his mouth. The professor was squatting under the table with him, hands tentatively touching his shoulders.

Jace stared at him, words rattling around his head, but none of them making it to his lips. I killed them, I don't know how, but I killed them. They were afraid of him, weren't they? Tears pressed at the backs of eyes, and he sniffed hard, trying to push them back.

"We'd better cut this meeting short," Professor Potter said. "Do you want to go back to your dorm? D'you have a friend who can walk you there? I'll get one of the house-elves to fetch them."

Pulling his hood more tightly down over his head, Jace managed to nod. "I guess…Ral or Elspeth would come," he said miserably into the familiar blue cloth.

"All right." Professor Potter got to his feet. "Er, if you're more comfortable under the table, you can wait there. I've—had flashbacks myself."

Gratefully, Jace pulled his knees into his chest. He did feel better in the smaller space formed by the table and the nearby armchair, and the chocolate was warming him up a bit. But he couldn't entirely shake the image of the faceless figure in its grey cloak staring at him with hidden eyes. Had it been a memory? It had been a lot clearer than most of the memories he'd managed to tap into before.

I should have died, Jace thought miserably. I'm a freak, and I should have died.