Chapter 23 – Lizzie's Secrets
The quidditch game was approaching, Ron was all nerves, and Lizzie had to keep swatting his nose with parchment to get him to stop second guessing his abilities.
"Ron, it's the Slytherin game, they will no doubt shout 'Weasley is our King' and put you down, but you are a BLOODY GOOD Keeper, just keep your damn head up and stop putting yourself down. I'm not saying that as your best friend who would literally die for you, but as your captain who is quite frankly tired of hearing you bitch, got it?" she ordered. He nodded and she went back to writing her essay.
"Dumbledore thing tonight, right?" He asked. Lizzie rubbed her face.
"Yeah," she said shortly.
"You going to be alright?" He asked nervously, Lizzie nodded and shrugged.
"Lizzie, good to see you, we have a lot on the syllabus tonight," he said encouragingly.
Lizzie didn't say much but sat down apprehensively. "Slughorn is very impressed by you, keep up that reputation with him, it will serve us well," Dumbledore said.
"I also heard you and Mr. Finnegan?" He asked with a slight smile. Lizzie wobbled her head evasively but smirked back. "Proving me wrong about quidditch players," he chuckled.
"Alright, so we have a memory, my memory, from when I first met Tom," he explained. "I think you should see it."
Lizzie stood up warily and approached the pensive, dipping her face in and following a much younger Dumbledore through the gates of an orphanage in London. It was familiar from her dreams years prior.
The woman who answered the door mentioned to Dumbledore that Tom had never had a visitor and whispered about strange interactions with the other children. Dumbledore entered the room Tom slept in and they stared at the dark haired little boy with cold eyes who Lizzie vaguely recalled from those dreams.
Dumbledore explained to Tom what he was while Lizzie looked around the cold, dark little room, noticing the same types of small and utterly worthless keepsakes she kept in the cupboard. Rocks, ratty postcards, broken bells, and the like.
"She wants me looked at, you're a doctor, she thinks I'm mad," Tom said abrasively.
"No, no you're not... I'm not a doctor," the younger Dumbledore said.
"You're not a priest though, I'm not possessed," he said in a snide tone.
"No, you're not. You're.. well I'm like you Tom. Tell me what types of things can you do?" Dumbledore asked.
"I can move things without touching them, I can appear in different places... I can make bad things happen to people who are mean to me, I can make them do what I want," he said reprehensibly.
"I can teach you how to control it," Dumbledore said, and set the wardrobe on fire to prove to him he wasn't a doctor, but the wardrobe was untarnished.
When Dumbledore retreated into the hall, Lizzie looked over at the doorway and saw a redheaded little girl looking into his room. "Tom," she said. He stared back coldly. "I'm leaving tomorrow, the Wilson's adopted me, in case I don't see you," she said sweetly. His face went feral and he frowned. "Good riddance," he hissed, but when she ran away his face then looked not quite sad but rather slighted and hurt.
When Dumbledore returned to tell him what they would do in terms of getting his things and going to school, Tom said "I can speak to snakes, too. They find me. They whisper things," he admitted and Dumbledore looked extremely apprehensive at the admission.
The memory faded and Lizzie stumbled to sit back down.
"Lizzie?" Dumbledore asked.
"Who was that girl?" She asked, but he looked confused. "Do you remember the dreams of gave you a couple of years ago? There was one of him, standing under a hanging little girl. I think that was her. But here she said she was adopted..." Lizzie was racking her brain to recall the dream.
"Too late, It's gone, it won't come back," she muttered. Dumbledore was having trouble following her erratic demeanor.
She closed her eyes and tried to hone in but none too soon slipped into his headspace instead. She gripped the edge of the sofa with her eyes shut in pain while Dumbledore waited.
"They didn't come," the little girl said sadly. Tom stared at her. "They're never going to, we aren't wanted," he said.
"I want my mum..." she cried, and he said, "too late, she's gone, she won't come back... but you can go to her," and looked intently into her eyes. The little girl ran off crying. the memory jumped forward and he stared up at the banister she hung from with a smirk. Someone called out from the hall, "Leah?" Because the Wilson's had arrived late, Tom looked back almost guilty, and the caregiver at the orphanage fainted at the sight.
Lizzie gasped for air when her mind resurfaced. "I didn't - but I didn't do that," she said breathlessly, sinking to the floor with her head in her hands.
"Her name... her name was Leah, she was going to be adopted and he made her think they weren't coming. So she hung herself. She looked like... me... in the chamber Riddle said I reminded him of someone... that Ginny reminded him of someone... her..." Lizzie muttered slowly and mostly to herself.
"But surely we can't have that bit in common. I didn't... I never... with Melody..." Lizzie said.
"What happened to Melody, Lizzie?" Dumbledore asked calmly.
"She... she hung herself during the choir ensemble," Lizzie said quietly.
"Why?" He asked.
"Because the Chaplain... he raped her. I saw it, I ran after her to console her. I got worried and then..." she whispered. Dumbledore nodded slowly. "Are you sure that's what happened though?" He asked.
Lizzie frowned back at him but nodded. "Lizzie, this one I think you protected yourself from. It's no coincidence you share that event with him," he said sadly. "I can pull what happened if you want to know," he said. Lizzie froze in contemplation but reluctantly agreed.
"Close your eyes, think about waves on the shore or rain on a window pane, something to stop wandering thoughts. Just for a moment," he instructed, and pulled a long strand of memory from her temple.
Lizzie got up slowly and moved toward the pensive with trepidation.
She dipped her face in and was taken back to the hallway of Sacred Heart, where she stopped in front of a double door. She stood there for a moment, fist clenched to knock but it shook in place.
There was a loud thud and Lizzie pushed on the door to open it slightly, she saw Melody bent over the desk. Her face was red and covered in tears. The Chaplain was fixing his pants and Lizzie pushed the door open as he fixed her skirt harshly. Melody looked back at Lizzie and cried harder.
"Mel?" Lizzie asked, reaching for her but the girl ran off out of the office and down the hall crying. "Melly!" Lizzie yelled and tried to bolt after her, but the Chaplain grabbed her wrist and held her back. He snacked her hard but the memory faded into Lizzie limping slightly out to the school grounds.
She sat down next Melody who was still crying. "Mel?" She said, sadly, but Melody just cried and fell inconsolably into Lizzie's lap.
Lizzie shook with anger, arms wrapped around her. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered, and kissed her head.
"They're all... horrible... and they just set us up with someone who will just..." she said.
"Can we run away?" Melody asked.
"We won't get very far," Lizzie said, rubbing her eyes.
"We could go where they can't get us; where they'll never find us," Lizzie said absently, staring into a bank of trees.
"What do you mean?" Melody asked, and Lizzie pointed up.
"But we'd go to hell for that," Melody whispered.
"I don't think, no matter what they preach, that God would be fine with... they'll go to hell... if there is one," Lizzie said.
"Maybe we just don't show up for choir tomorrow? Maybe we drop in after?" Lizzie said, but there was something different about her face and demeanor entirely. Pervasive.
Melody said nothing but froze in thought.
"There's never going to be another way out," Lizzie said bitterly.
The memory changed and choir was assembling. Lizzie and Melody were sitting at the top balcony with their backs to the banister. "I'm scared," she said, but Lizzie just looked back at her. Next, they were sitting on the ledge listening to Down the River echoing from the two large closed double doors to the performance hall. Lizzie looked at Melody with tears rolling down her cheeks and watched her jump. The crack of the neck and internal screaming to help her sounded harshly through her eardrums..
"What are you doing!? Help her! Cut her down!" She could hear her younger self screaming but her mouth was silent, her face emotionless, she was just watching.
Lizzie got down from the ledge and looked up at her dangling body. Her suddenly legs collapsed from under her, and she wailed like a banshee in grief as people filed out of the performance hall and shrieked at the sight. The chaplain said a prayer but noticed the second rope. He looked at Lizzie, realizing she wasn't at the performance and gestured for the nuns to take her to his office.
He strode into the office and slammed the door behind him. The nun had already fixed Lizzie's skirt for a caning, and he wasted no time, she was still purple from the day before. The nun left him to it and Lizzie was quickly begging him to stop, crying profusely.
"What happened?" He roared at the top of his lungs. Lizzie cried harder and he smacked her. "AZALEA!" He screamed, but she shook and stuttered violently.
"You planned that with her didn't you!?" He yelled. Lizzie shook her head. "You couldn't do it?" He scoffed, "That what happened?" he interrogated, but Lizzie said nothing.
"You are spending the rest of your time here with me, you understand? I know you want out of here, you act up at every opportunity, I'm not am idiot! I'm suspending you so your uncle can see to you at home, when you return, your lessons are here!" He shouted, pointing to the desk in the corner. "You are forbidden from talking, much less befriending, anyone here! Do you understand me?" He roared.
Lizzie cried harder. "I didn't," she said with a harsh break in her voice.
Her face went cold and menacing for a moment and he frowned at her with disdain. "It was your fault!" She shouted.
"She wouldn't have done that if you didn't-" but he smacked her again.
"Don't you dare finish that sentence," he hissed, but his face contorted in pain and he clutched his shoulder.
"You... go get help..." he muttered in obvious distress. Lizzie rushed to the door but stopped. "Azalea," he said breathlessly.
"Maybe... you should let God decide," she said slowly and watched him fall to the ground. She shook and her heart hammered violently, but it didn't stop her from kicking him repeatedly in the groin in a sudden rage.
He was dead and she looked around in a panic not knowing what to do. Lizzie crawled out of the window and ran through the tree embankment, stopping when the pain from the beating was too much. Down at the clearing cut in half by the railroad tracks, she heard the horn of a freight train roar steadily in her direction.
Lizzie was shaking and pacing, crying and screaming, holding her head in pure pain. She stepped onto the tracks and stared at the train. 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'll see you soon, I'll see you soon. I didn't mean to,' she muttered.
She sunk to the ground and faced away from the train. 'Forgive my sins, o my God forgive my sins, the sins of my soul, the sins of my body, my deliberate and grievous sins, the sins I know, the sins I do not know, the sins I have labored so long to hide from others...' She whispered with her hands clapped over her ears as the train horn grew louder. 'That now are hidden from my own memory; let me be absolved from all these iniquities and delivered from the bond of these evils...'
The train was inches from her and her eyes opened only to watch it fly by. She closed her eyes again, hoping they would stay shut forever, but opened them confused. When the train passed, she looked up and stared back at herself with milky white eyes across from the track. The girl smiled and walked away in the other direction.
"NO!" Lizzie screamed as the sound of the train dissipated into the distance. She leaned forward and cried into the grass, succumbing to helpless and hopeless agony.
Lizzie fell out of the pensive, Dumbledore's theory confirmed.
"Lizzie? Lizzie are you alright?" Dumbledore said, holding her absent and shaken face in his hands.
"I killed her," she whispered, and her face scrunched in pain. "How? I was screaming, did you hear? I was screaming at myself to get her down and - and - she - I - just - stared... I did nothing," Lizzie coiled herself up as tight as she could, unable to escape the reality.
"Lizzie, honey, that was not you..." Dumbledore said sadly. "You would... you wouldn't ever stand by much less encourage that," he insisted. "That was not you..."
Dumbledore wrapped arms around her shoulders as she completely unraveled.
"She -was -my- only -friend," she sobbed. "How - could - I - have - done - that?"
"YOU didn't. Lizzie, look at me, the girl staring back across those tracks was not you. You broke her off from you in that moment because it made you do something too unfathomable for you to live with. That was not you. You changed that memory because the guilt was too much for you to cope with. But now you're able to understand that you have never been alone in your mind. You cannot fight that presence for as long as you have and never lose a battle..." he said.
"Even if it was him, I still killed her," Lizzie whispered, Dumbledore pulled her close, understanding the guilt. He left briefly to retrieve something, and handed her a potion for a dreamless sleep and rubbed the side of her face.
Lizzie hardly noticed an auror follow her back to the common room but once she entered the portrait hole, her swollen eyes spoke all the volumes they needed to.
Hermione followed her up to the dormitory and watched her crawl into bed. "Did something happen?" She asked. Lizzie looked at her with absolute pain in her eyes but couldn't say anything. She drank the potion and curled up, desperately wishing to return that memory back to where to the deep dark pit it came from.