Gregory Stubornface felt really good about himself as he tip toed down the third floor corridor in search of his target, portraits sleeping left and right in their canvases.
And why would he not feel so, he was popular, a good student and pampered by his parents. At thirteen and in his third year he thought himself invisible, untouchable, his Gryffindor pride getting the better of him.
Getting punched had not dampened his spirits if anything else it made him feel validated and stronger than before. A seventh year had punched him, and now he had gotten it up himself to try and defeat a much larger, much more impressive target. Now he wanted to find Felix Burton, hero of the Viaduct battle and defeat him in a duel. So, he roamed the corridors at night.
One night, the eighth of his search, he heard voices coming from inside a classroom and approached with caution just in case it was a Prefect. Seeing the door opened ajar with Felix coming out of the classroom, he hid behind a column, his heart beating fast he waited for a second fearing discovery then followed Felix through the corridor, waiting for an isolated place and an opportune moment to challenge him to a duel and attack.
Felix turned around a corner, and Gregory jumped up behind him, wand drawn. "Felix Burton! Fight me!" He yelled only to get his tongue caught in his throat as instead of Felix he saw Ethel, a Prefect, standing there, hands crossed on her chest, left foot rhythmically tapping against the floor, annoyed.
"Out of dorms after hours, come with me", Ethel didn't wait for him to reply pivoted and started walking. A white-faced Gregory followed her, face hanging low, hands in his pocket.
Ethel paced slowly, yet with purpose to the second floor and inside one of the classrooms.
"This isn't Professor Jordan's office?" Gregory noted, his hope he wasn't going to get detention raising.
"How perceptive of you. Do you prefer to enter this classroom, or head over to Professor Jordan's office instead?" Ethel held the door open for him, still annoyed.
They entered the class to find both Emerick and Felix waiting for them there.
"What can you possible want at this ungodly hour?" Emerick was asking Felix, in his pajamas "It is past two after midnight! My bed…." Emerick stuttered almost incoherently. Felix like Ethel were wearing their clothes and robes. Gregory envied that Head Boy badge on his right side torso.
"Do you trust me?" Felix asked him back, calmly.
"Need you even ask? With my life", Emerick replied, almost offended at the question.
"Why am I here?" Gregory asked, with no shortage of arrogance and annoyance and an authority unbecoming his place.
"Because a Prefect caught you trying to start an illegal duel after hours and if you don't do as I say I'm sure Professor Jordan as Head of your House will make sure the next time you see either Hogsmeade or the Quidditch pitch will be well within your seventh year. What's it gonna be?" Felix replied, anything but calm.
"Fine…" Gregory lowered his gaze again.
"Thought so. So, for one you will stop taking credit for shit you did not do. You did not fight last year, not only were you in the carriage along with every other first, second and third year, but you also were crawled under one of the seats hiding. How do you think your friends will react when they learn of this? So, you will stop taking credit for things you didn't do, or I'll make sure there won't be a single student left in the school who doesn't learn of what actually happened, yes?"
"Okay…" Gregory replied, feeling defeated.
"Good, for the second thing. Apologize to Emerick and mean it. He is a hero, you are not. He is worthy of respect, you have yet to earn it. He has dignity, you have lost it."
"No", Gregory crossed his hands in front of his chest, unwilling to lose that much face.
"I hoped you'd say that. Emerick, may I?" Felix retrieved his wand aiming it at Emerick's temple.
Emerick gave a tired nod. Felix tapped his wand at Emerick's head before retrieving a bright crimson, pulsating memory string.
"Aren't those supposed to be bluish-silver in colour?" Emerick asked, rubbing his forehead.
"Simple ones, yes. This one also contains everything you felt and thought during that memory", Felix told him and holding Gregory by his shoulder he placed the memory string on his forehead where it vanished.
"Emerick fought, sacrificed and bled. You, a coward don't get to call him a cripple."
Not a moment later Gregory doubled over clutching his leg, pain and suffering visible in his face as tears streaked down his cheeks, wailing silent screams.
"What did you do to him?" Ethel cried, worried.
"They say empathy is the ability to place oneself in another's shoes. I gave him your memory of the battle, along with everything you felt during", Felix told her, his face resolute.
"That's the most painful memory of my life…" Emerick mumbled, his hand instinctively rubbing his artificial, enchanted leg.
"And now he knows what you and others gave up for him to be alive. Anything you want to tell Emerick?" He asked the third year.
"I…how? How do you sacrifice so much for people you don't even know?" Gregory asked Emerick, lifting his head, full of drying tears.
"Because someone had to. Because my friends did, and I could not and would not abandon them in their hour of need. How? With ease."
"Lords…now you even sound like Bellerophon!" Ethel teased him feeling awkward. "And wait a second! That's not in the curriculum!" She turned to Felix who just shrugged.
"I…I am sorry…I was a brat and…I'll do better from now on…I'm sorry", Gregory said in a soft voice, twirling his thumbs together as full recognition of his deeds crushed in on him.
"Ethel, can you please take him back to his common room?" She nodded tapping on Gregory's shoulders.
"Sure thing, come", Gregory missed the change in her mood from annoyed to pleased, as his mind was trying to process what had just happened.
"Thank you. I guess a week's detention is better than what he got", Emerick told his friend.
"I have an idea I'd like you to help me with."
"Of course, but no more battles, I hope", Emerick nodded his head.
"No, no battles for anyone else. I've an idea to help people heal. My family dedicated their resources to causing people harm, I'm going to try and help people heal."
Felix gave his friend a hug before they headed for their common rooms.
Felix entered the Head Boy's room in the dorms, an entire room all to his own, with a single king sized four poster bed and plenty of room with a large wardrobe, a mirror, and a desk up against one of the walls.
"My very own king's sized bed, my own bathroom rivaling the prefects' and all I wish is I could sleep with the others, not alone here", he whispered to himself as he begun to remove his robe and clothes.
A she-wolf came out of the shadows transforming into Claudia. "You couldn't have your girlfriend sleep with you, then", she told him with a sly smile before wrapping her hands around his neck, snogging his breath away.
"Very true…I've something to tell you…after…" he mumbled removing his shirt.
"Very much after, Felifors has left me in a randy mood", she giggled removing her blouse.
"Felifors didn't do that" He chuckled removing his pants.
"You really prefer to discuss that now?" She lay in bed biting her lower lip.
"Not even a little.."
The morning after he found Emerick exiting the Great Hall, talking with Claudia. "You have a moment?"
"sure...?"
"Good, come with me, please", Felix told them nodding for them to follow him. Ten minutes later they were in the abandoned classroom they had used last year as their new Headquarters in their fight against Azrail.
"It looks so empty again…" Claudia remarked sad as she looked about the now again empty classroom.
"Yeah…" Emerick didn't get to finish what he was saying as Felix took hold of his and Claudia's shoulders and in a blink of an eye they stood on a pebbled river shore in front of a cave.
Claudia recognized it as Acherontion, where Achronia had been not so long ago, Oracle of Pluto and the dead.
"You can teleport in and out of Hogwarts?" Claudia asked, astonished.
"Yup, I observed the Headmistress do it, studied the anti-apparition jinx and one and one equals me", Felix shrugged making for the cave's entrance.
"Where even are we?" Emerick asked, he had been in Uganda for the exchange program in their fifth year when Felix had brought the rest of them here when they had been trying to find the Shadeglass, which he had been in possession of unbeknownst to him.
"Acherontion, Gates of Hades, river Acheron, Hellada. I think you two can benefit from drinking Styx, and doing so might help you find some closure and settle some of what's going on inside you", Felix told him, looking around as the battle that had taken place here at the end of his fourth year against Azrail and Bloodfang was still as vivid in his mind as if it had happened yesterday.
"What are we going to see when we drink Styx?" Emerick inquired following him inside.
"I have no idea what you may or will see, I saw Charles, Bellerophon saw his older brother, Socrates saw an ancient Hegemon with an unanswered question. Whoever you see, it'll be a profound experience that may shake you to your core", Felix reached the altar with the five rivers flowing underneath it and retrieved the Shadeglass from his pocket.
"Drink, you each have three times", Felix offered the spell-goblet to his friend.
Emerick scooped up some of the black water flowing from the Veil Gate onto the altar and brought it to his lips. "Here goes nothing", he swallowed.
Felix and Claudia helped him sit with his back against the marble altar as his eyes disappeared inside the back of his head and soft, barely audible moans of bliss elicited from his mouth.
"Your turn", he gave the goblet to Claudia who looked at it apprehensively for a moment in the dim torch light.
"Won't you? You can use the Protection", she asked him stalling while she tried to find the courage to drink.
"Let the dead lie, I've had my three times", Felix shook his head extending his hand holding the Shadeglass to her.
Felix knew from personal experience how long he would have to wait and what he could expect from them, so he sat cross-legged on the cave floor patiently and without disturbing them as he closed his eyes, enjoying the quiet his mind reminiscing of his fourth year and the time he had spent in Hellada and Elision as his friends stirred in their Limbo trance, mumbling and their breathing changing through and from their experience.
Several hours later Emerick and Claudia came to from their final third time, standing up stretching their legs.
Emerick wiped the tears from his face, clearly shaken by the experience while Claudia looked more somber and in deep thought but displaying less of what emotions run through her mind.
Felix stood up and walked back outside in silence sitting on the white pebbles, smoothed out from centuries of running water, observing the river flow by.
"I saw…Bloodfang as a child before…he grew resentful and full of hatred. Why do I feel sorrow for him?" Emerick asked no one, feeling ready to cry again.
"I saw Alice Nott…what a sad existence from childhood to death…to be happy you are dead…" Claudia gazed at the far shore, hands around her knees.
"Empathy, you have empathy even for your enemy, because no one is born evil, not even Azrail or Bloodfang, not even them. Our choices in life define us, they make us into what we are, who we are. They made their choices and we made ours" Felix told them after a moment.
"I have a favour to ask of you. I want you to teach me that memory spell you used to give the Blakes your memory of Charles in Limbo and the spell you used yesterday…Mr. Thorson should know his cousin better…as well as his own failings in life, for faultless he is not in this", Felix nodded his agreement to Emerick's request.
"It is so peaceful here", Emerick sighed gazing at the rolling river before them.
He allowed them time to rest and analyze their experience as the sun set behind the mountains, and no other sound than canyon's residents and the flowing water could be heard, before returning them back to Hogwarts.