To Remember

Lara

The Ancient Runes classroom was small room, with white walls and two rows of desks. Large windows covered two sides of the room, letting in the fresh light of Scotland. The view was beautiful, the mountains picturesque, the lake sparkling and the clear, pure blue of the sky surrounding us. There were about twenty chairs, though Lily had told me there were only sixteen students. Our professor was a small witch with thick black hair and dark chocolaty skin. Her name was Professor Lisha Gueye and, according to Lily, she was a very straightforward teacher who was very relaxed with the rules. However I soon came to realise that her conditions to this was that she expected you to be just as enthusiastic as herself e.g. exceedingly curious and perpetually passionate which was pretty hard anyway.

I was sitting next to Lily, idly flicking through my book looking at all the things this class had covered. It was pretty much the same, though I noted I was several chapters ahead and would have to wait for them to catch up. I was studying a page when I felt Remus' conscience come towards the room. It was strange how quickly I had begun to recognise people's thoughts. I already knew Lily and the Marauders, though Peter was still fuzzy, and the other girls in my room were becoming clearer. In my old school it had taken years to develop a proper sense for the people I called my friends; something which had taken less than a day to initiate with this group.

It was like the castle wanted me to know the people here. Either that or they were like no one else I had ever met.

Remus came through the door and after quickly analysing the room he started walking toward our table.

"Hi Remus. Good summer?" Lily asked him as he slid into the seat next to me.

"It was alright. I spent most of it at James'. They were trying to make me play Quidditch but I think I failed" he said and my jaw dropped.

"You don't like Quidditch?" I said, my voice coming out hurt, he, however, simply looked amused.

"It's not that I don't like it. I just don't like flying very much. I'm guessing you do?"

I merely nodded (of course!) my eyes probably glassy.

"Bordering on obsession. Alex thinks I'm mad, he runs in fear when he sees a broom" I smirked, his phobia greatly amused me.

"Are you going to try out?" Lily asked, though she didn't seem that bothered.

"Probably, I played Chaser at the last school I was at"

"So does James, he's captain of the Gryffindor team" Remus added, I would have said more but at that moment Professor Gueye started speaking and I was forced to listen.

The lesson passed uneventfully and I soon grew bored from the repeated subject. I took notes anyway – of course – but a lot of the time I jumped into Alex's lesson down the corridor. Arithmancy wasn't particularly interesting, looking at a bunch of numbers and finding out their properties (whippy), but it was new information and my brain soaked it up. When the bell rang we got up and walked towards defence against the dark arts, Lily was talking animatedly to Remus and I listened lazily to their conversation.

"I hope our teacher is better than last years, Vitto was such a bore" Lily said.

"Yeah I know, better than Gamiro from third year though, I swear he never even let us even take out our wands. Professor Nye wasn't too bad."

"Nor was Tulley, she was really interesting, though she acted as if we were nine"

I was getting really confused.

"What the hell are you two talking about?" I asked.

They both laughed and Lily linked my arm with hers, as if realising I was standing next to her. The casual gesture warmed me and my thoughts were again led to my old friends...

"Sorry. That must have sounded so weird from the outside. We were talking about all our different DADA teachers, we've never had one for longer than one year" she said as we walked down a stair way. Half way down she stopped me and jumped over a particular step, I follow suit, slightly confused.

"Everyone thinks there's a curse on the job" Remus said also jumping over the mystery step as if it were the most natural thing in the world "oh, and you don't want to step on that because you'll fall through it" he added seeing my bemused look.

"Oh... ok." This school was just weird.

Alex

After Arithmancy (which I enjoyed, finding it much better taught here) I had DADA. I sat with Lara, Lily and Alice and we were learning about the effects of the Cruciatus Curse.

It was one of the tensest classes I had ever been in and Lara and I had to fight the desire to run from the room. We really did not have to know the technicalities of the curse. We didn't want to know how it could turn a person mad when prolonged. We just didn't, we knew what the curse did quite well already thanks.

I'd found myself clenching my chair for most of the lesson, fighting the memories fighting to the surface. Lara had already snapped one of her quills.

"As you should all be very much aware (and if you didn't you need a reality check), the Crusiatus curse causes intense pain to the victim. The caster, to perform it, must have a strong will and must mean it or the spell will not have the intended result. The strength of the spell is determined by the casters desire to cause pain and their magical power and ability." Professor Somnia told the class.

She was a tall woman, with a proud face and long mahogany hair. Her mind was tightly closed, not even a whisper of her emotions reaching me or Lara. She reminded me of my aunt Marilyn; they had the same demand for attention, the same sophisticated way of speaking and moving and they both had fire in their eyes. She was alert, prepared and detected everything.

"Fighting or breaking the curse becomes almost impossible once under it, as the pain is all consuming. No spell with stop it, only the caster may remove the spell. However, the caster must be concentrating on the spell for it to remain in effect, so if they were to be distracted, the spell would be broken."

Almost daily word would come of people being put under this curse by the DE's. I could feel the emotions in the room and they we all grim, grieved or scared. I remembered the day I found out my cousin (the one father refused to speak about) had been tortured and killed; it hadn't been a good day.

I shuddered internally, trying to push memories best left alone away determinedly. Unwittingly, I saw in my mind's eye a long room, the floor made of pale tiles of ceramic. All down the room tall windows rose from the floor and stripes of light and shadow patterned the floor. There was no artificial light, the crystal chandelier hung in the gloom, unlit. Everything was black and white and grey. Apart from one, vivid, splash of colour.

I pulled myself away.

Lily was staring at me, her thoughts worried and confused. I shrugged and unwillingly continued to listen to Gueye's lecture.

Lara

After the disaster that was second lesson we had History of Magic. History was so, so boring. It was beyond boring in fact! It was... the most pointless, mind-numbing, hour of my life. The ghost teacher droned on and on in the same tone about the same goblins and the same wizard who did the same thing over and over and over and over...

I was going to fall asleep at this rate.

I stared, with my head on my arms, at the grains of wood. Alex was in the same lesson as me so I didn't even have his thoughts for escape.

I had enjoyed this lesson at my last school and I'd decided to take it as a NEWT. Now I wasn't so sure. I mentally took note that I needed to see McGonagall (I'd been told she was head of Gryffindor) about ditching this subject. What was one less subject? Seven NEWT's weren't too bad, the ministry here required five passes so I would be fine.

There were only eleven people in the class: Alex and I, Lily, Remus and seven others (three Ravenclaws, two Hufflepuffs and two Slytherins).

Soon there will only be nine, Alex said, you can count me in on the ditching idea, this is so boring.

I nodded sluggishly.

My thoughts were drifting and were pulled, unsurprisingly, to our last lesson. Memories I had shut away in tightly closed boxes into the furthest reached of my mind had begun to beat at the locks holding them. There were several times, terrifying moments in which I clung to the present day, when I thought I would succumb then and there to the recollections.

Even Alex had slipped momentarily before slamming them back into the recesses of the brain. I had always been worse with the memories and I always carried, in a small leather case, several phials of calming potion.

The lesson dragged on and I found myself staring at the back of Remus' head, who sat just in front of me; fine, pale blond hair which was carelessly hanging around his face. He pushed in back now and then and I saw the hidden muscles in his arms and back sliding over each other. He had scars too.

Scars crossed his arms and there was a long jagged one at the back of his neck, pearly white now. He had known pain.

How had he got them? What had happened for him to have scares like that?

Once again that mystery tugged at my thoughts.

Alex

I could feel Lara was on the verge of breaking. I could feel the way she was pushing it down and how it kept springing back up ruthlessly. I could only watch and hope that she would get away before it released. No amount of calming potion would prevent the recollections, we both knew, it only helped with the side effects and delayed it.

The lesson dragged on and once the fifty minutes were gone we gratefully left the room.

It was lunch time and after that we had a free lesson, then Herbology.

"I'm going to the dorm" she muttered and I was about to follow when James ambushed me.

"Alex. I think it's time we initiated our newest friend to the world of pranks. What do you the Pads?" He was smiling broadly and had slung he arm over my shoulder. I shifted uneasily.

"Most defiantly. Ahh... Mr Grey you have so much to learn..." Sirius replied, patting my shoulder elder brotherly.

I looked at Lara and she sent me a feeling of acceptance. I didn't want to leave her though.

I'll be fine. Go.

I sighed.

"Are you coming Moony?" James asked the quieter boy.

"No I've got to go to the library quick"

"WHAT! How can you go to the library on the first day?" Exclaimed James and I laughed with Sirius.

Remus simply smirked and waved goodbye to the group.

"Come on then. Let's find Wormy. See you in Herbology Lara"

The two boys led me off and my sister watched us go. I regretfully followed without protest.

Lara

I ran into the common room. It was empty. I could feel the flashbacks coming, they were pounding at me. I could see the room. That long stone, monochrome, room. I fell to the floor.

I wasn't going to get to my room, I just wasn't.

Everything was red – the carpet, the sofas, my thoughts.

I dragged myself to the widow seat and pulled myself up.

The room was empty, the chandelier above glinted. In the windows the sun was hidden behind clouds. It was so cold. I was shivering, mother never got the elves to light fire in this room because it was where father like to 'entertain guests' as he said.

I curled into a ball, resisting the pain but yielding to the memories.

Remus

I climbed through the portrait hole and began to walk to my dorm, I'd come to collect some forgotten books before going to the library.

I'd nearly reached the staircase when I heard a noise from behind me. I span around and searched the room, resting on the coiled form of –

"Lara?"

She was shaking heavily but her face was hidden in her knees. Silver hair covered her back and legs. She didn't look up.

I ran forward, pushing her shoulders back and sweeping the hair from her face. Her eyes were red rimmed and glassy. Her face was set into a mask of terror and her lips were quivering. She couldn't see me.

"Lara!" I didn't know what to do! Something was wrong with her and I had no idea what to do!

She was whispering something, so quietly that I had to lean in to hear her.

"No – stop it! Just leave him alone, use me instead! No, I swear I didn't! He didn't either! Stop it. Please. No!" She was begging somebody. Her whole body was twitching and shaking and I felt and shiver run up my spine.

Lara

Memories hurt.

I never thought they would, but they do, almost as badly as the actual event.

I had locked mine behind cages. I'd buried them deep in my brain but they always got out eventually. They hurt me. I would feel the dancing fire on my skin.

They were like a disease. They reached out their sickly red tentacles; they wormed their way down my spine, my arms and legs and they latched onto my nerves and twisted them to their will. The pain would come crashing down on me. I wanted to twist and lash out. I wanted to scream till my voice burnt out. I didn't though. I wouldn't.

It wasn't always my pain either and somehow that made it even worse. I could feel the knives and flames still but I also had my guilt, my horror, my denial.

The real world ceased to exist to me because I was somewhere else all together, here where the curse found its way.