May 18, 2001 Muggle London

"And that's a wrap"

Tangled bodies moved slowly apart. Fit men and women relaxed and rose. Leah was the last one off the floor. Two of her friends and coworkers had her at the wrist and elbow and she was launched towards the sky. The camera lights were shutting down.

She caught her breath and landed on her feet. She was ready to dance as this was the last scene on the schedule. Everything after this would be the responsibility of the director. She would approach the experienced director after her shower as she needed to know what happened behind the camera. Her looks would guarantee her a job for at least a decade but if she wanted this to be her career, she would need to understand the entire business. It was the difference between being a professional and being merely a pretty face.

"Hey Leah, you planning to come to Munich with us this weekend?" Annabeth yelled across the set. She had her robe on and was sipping a bottle of water and eating a banana. Annabeth had helped Leah enter the industry a few years ago. A year ago, she had started to work with Leah on freelance gigs on the Continent. Those weekends tended to be exhaustingly lucrative.

"No plans, going to keep Warlock on my lap and put my feet up." Some of the girls had been talking about a gig in Amsterdam and if this was any other week, that sounded like a good time. The more experienced and better paid thespians had reservations for Munich. The beer was good but the work was harder there. A pair of shows and rent would be paid for a month.

"You sure? We can always fit you in…." Annabeth looked at the young woman who she had unintentionally but retrospectively quite happily taken in as a mentee. She saw herself a decade earlier. Then, a few older women who looked out for a naive young girl who was finding a way to make a living and a name for herself in a brutal industry. Somehow they had kept her safe, sane and working as often as she wanted to work. Some years that was almost every week and other years she built in time. Now the mother of two had a third, unofficial child who was trying to find her way in the world. At least Leah would allow Annabeth to experience raising teenagers early enough so that she had the energy to keep up.

"Nah, I'm good, I need a quiet weekend… next time you're putting together a crew, I'll go… I promise, pinky swear" Leah offered her little finger to the older woman. She matched and the two women squeezed each other tight. Leah went to the showers and half an hour later, she left the building after a brief discussion with the director. She needed to show up tomorrow morning at nine and promise to only ask questions and bring tea during the initial editing sessions.

The sun was trying to poke through the clouds in the early afternoon. A snappy tune from some American pop band filled the air around her without any thought. She bounced down the sidewalk and created a space from all of the people hurrying between offices for the last few hours of work before the weekend. Eleven blocks later, a mirror came out of her bag. She brushed a few stray blue hairs back into place, re-applied brilliant black lipstick and caught her breath. She walked up the steps of the brownstone and went to a small third floor office.

The receptionist smiled as Leah signed in. This was a comfortable spot, it was warm, bright red window treatments framed floor to ceiling openings while blue and green abstract art hung on the walls. The pieces were well done, not expensive but simply well executed dances of life. Leah bonelessly melted into a chair and waited.

Seven minutes later, the receptionist looked over her desk. The young woman was in a deep trance. Her lips were moving slowly. Her red painted fingernails clenched the hem of her skirt. Her calf high boots tapped the ground lightly. A bead of sweat hung on her forehead. The receptionist had seen her like this for several years, far less frequently now than when she first started to come to the office. The older woman's stomach always tightened when she saw a young girl trying to be brave in the face of a public that did not know her.

"Leah, Dr. Renford is ready to see you" She was not sure where her voice came from, clear, clean and strong. Leah took one more deep breath and stilled herself. Deliberately she rose, brushed her skirt pleats down and went back to her therapist's office. She soon made herself comfortable and took out a small notebook from her purse. Her fingers brushed against a thin oak wand, eight and three quarters with a thestral tail at the core. It tingled with power and purpose even as she seldom if ever used it.

She had escaped Hogwarts with her wand and the clothes on her back. During that hideous the first year, she lacked the ability to control her magic plus she still had the Trace. Even after she lost the Trace, she had become adept at living in the Muggle world and the allure of magic faded like the bruises on her shoulders and back from her first lover. It still spoke to her, as the wand chose the witch as much as the witch chose the wand, but the magic that once gleefully flowed through the strong wood was quieter and less bubbly now. It was a cool, pragmatic magic. She fingered the wand quickly before pulling her hand out of her purse and entered her therapist's office.

Dr. Renford looked at Leah. The middle aged man with a sharply trimmed goatee smiled as his regular patient sat down. He was very proud of her as this appointment was not a regular appointment. Instead, Leah had called on Monday evening and asked for an urgent but not an emergency appointment. She had said that she felt a flashback closing in on her and needed to be ready for it. A year ago, she would have just shown up at either the office that evening and waited until someone showed up in the morning, or she would have gone on a three day bender. Now, she had called and she waited. Yes, she sent a long e-mail on Wednesday night but when he called her the first thing on Thursday morning, she told him about the calming and centering exercises she had done that morning.

"Good afternoon Leah, take a seat, and do you want a glass of water or a cup of tea? I'm planning to have a cuppa"

"Yes, please, one sugar, no milk"

She made herself comfortable. The small talk was helpful as it reminded her of the normalness. She was seeing a therapist just like her Muggle parents would see an accountant or their solicitor. Her father had passed from a brain tumor during her second year at Hogwarts. Her mother had gone underground during the war to avoid Death Eaters who were rotting in Azkaban for attacking other Muggles like her. She had emerged from hiding in America estranged from her eldest daughter and overly protective of her nine year old son. Leah had tried and failed to connect with her scared mother. She could not yet accept that the war would never come back even if it seemed like there was peace and a place for her and her daughter in this world.

"So can you tell me why you wanted this appointment, Leah." His voice was quiet, calm and like a grandfather asking a granddaughter whether she wanted biscuits or cake for dessert with the hint that this was an "and" question instead of an "or" question. He leaned back and waited. The silence was comfortable for them both as she finished her sip of tea.

"I ran into Ginny Weasley on Monday at lunch. And all of a sudden I was back in school and everything was happening again. I was shaking by the time I was back on set. Thankfully, the afternoon shoot was not my scene. I could just watch and I had enough time to get a run in. That cleared my head but I couldn't eat anything on Monday night, not even double fudge chocolate cake. I called you just because I felt like if I did not call, I was going to be going back to a place I don't want to be in."

"Why did you only ask for an urgent appointment? We would have found a way to get you in on Tuesday." He smiled and again he waited.

"I know. I know you have gotten me in on Tuesday before and that helped me then. But I thought that I could handle everything as long as I knew I had an anchor at the end of the week. I could focus on coming here, having a cup of tea and talking when my heart started to race faster than a Formula 1 car, I focused on the plan and deep breaths and all of a sudden, I was back in the moment. I needed to know that I could do this… and I did." She smiled in pride at herself. She would have laughed at herself four years ago for being proud of not blindly heading to a mind healer in a rush, but that young girl was a different person than the young woman she had become.

"How do you feel right now? What do you want to do about running into Ginny Weasley?" His job was not to tell Leah how to act, but to give her the tools and the ability to choose her action. He waited as he saw the young woman bite her lip. Usually she tried to act mature beyond her years in front of any audience, but now she was still the same child stumped on a quick question from her favorite teacher because she did not realize that the suggested reading really was not suggested for any but either the most advanced or the most indifferent of students.

"I don't know. She looked good, damn, she looked stunning and her eyes were warm and welcoming. But I don't know, I barely knew her in school. She tried to protect me and she helped me after I was assaulted the first time and her and Neville and Luna got me out of the gang rape and to the hospital, but I did not know her. She was just someone bigger than life, her brothers had dominated the school for over a decade, she was dating Harry who was the school hero that every girl in my year, myself included, had a crush on, and she was just so sure of herself. She was never real to me. Now if I ran into Marie or Luann or any of the other girls from my year or my dorm, they might feel real to me, but Ginny was never part of my life except at the worst moments. "

They talked for half an hour. Mainly Dr. Renford listened for a while and asked a question here and there. Leah was mostly talking, occasionally disjointed as memories came back but a deep breath and a recentering were short breaks in the conversation. At the end of the session, the young witch smiled at her Muggle therapist as she getting up.

"Thanks doc, I'll see you next week. I think I'll take Ginny up for a cup of tea or if we're really adventurous, coffee!"

"See you next week, you're doing good for yourself Leah. We're always here if you need anything." Dr. Renford escorted his patient to the door and waited for her to leave the office. After every session with Leah, his mind always felt a little mushy as if he had heard everything, thought hard about everything but a few elements were now being jumbled and locked away. He took a deep breath before writing up his notes on the visit.