"Roy.."

Elleyne came over to pick up the book and put it back on the shelf. Gilderoy didn't move as she bent down next to him, and for a minute she was intensely afraid she had caused him to "snap" in some way. What would they think back…?

But it was a false thought.

You know you never intended to go back.

She should've known, the thought shouldn't have come as such a surprise to her. But perhaps the real thoughts she was—had been—entertaining up to this moment were under lock and key for a reason. The word "ridiculous" came to mind, but she pushed it aside. Shafts of light were slipping through the blinds, and Elleyne knew that it was nearing six o' clock. What it would mean for her now she didn't know. Gilderoy was standing with an odd expression on his almost boyish features, looking lost in thought or memory, or something in between. At the sound of his name, he looked around dazedly, scared.

"It was bad…I've done something awful…"

Elleyne didn't want to entertain the thought that he had remembered exactly who he had been, though by how he was acting, she felt it was a hollow hope. Reaching a hand out to his shoulder, she tried to calm him, but Gilderoy looked beyond agitated now.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" he said suddenly, uncharacteristically harsh. "I took from all those people…I took from them to feed the emptiness, to feed the ego…"

"It wasn't time yet," Elleyne said softly but firmly. She was sure Gilderoy remembered a lot more about the self-serving ways of his past than she had ever known. There was something in the way he looked now that made him seem more whole, a complete man. A man with a past behind him. Catching herself, she realized it was the first time she had consciously thought of Gilderoy, with his childish temperament of before, as a man. It was oddly stirring.

Gilderoy's mind was teeming with the lost memories of years past, finally coming back to him, a light coming at him somewhere like a cave, feeling confused and lost, yet careless and exuberant.

The face of a white bearded old man staring him through with a gaze so strong, that even in his memory he could not turn away.

"Impaled upon your own sword, Gilderoy?"

"Yes…" Gilderoy whispered in a choked voice. His face looked drained, and white. When he looked back at the concerned Elleyne, she opened her mouth to say something, but he smiled, shaking the grimness away.

"The girl, Vanessa," he said factually, dulled feeling behind every word. "I loved…you know. I loved her, I suppose."

Elleyne stared at him strangely, painfully across an atmosphere of dust charging the long-abandoned air. She waited for him to go on.

"I know."

"That was a long time ago."

There was a very pregnant pause, before Gilderoy continued.

"My mother committed suicide when I was four years old. My father used to hurt her, and he hurt me too. She threw herself down the cellar stairs. My father never told anyone, he couldn't have them examine her body. It wasn't all that bad all the time. He gave me a lot of stuff after that, material comforts that didn't mean anything, but he still wouldn't let me draw. And then when I went to school, I was sorted into Slytherin. Not Ravenclaw like my mother, Slytherin like him. I used to wonder what it meant, but now I know it just means I'm a coward. There was a girl, and I loved her, and she's gone now. Self preservation. I'll never know what that might have been like…." He trailed off, staring into space, wrestling with what he had said.

Elleyne had never felt more like an intruder on the life of someone else than she did now. She was reminded of Vanessa's strange death as described in the Daily Prophet, how she had ended up outside in midwinter at the bottom of her apartment steps, dressed for bed. She had cracked her head on the cement, that much had been obvious…but why? Had there been some unknown component, some waking dream that had caused her to stumble to the door and out into what she thought were the arms of someone lost to her? Or was Elleyne full of crazy imaginings, brought on by her uncomfortable situation? She couldn't help but wonder…

She cast around for something to focus on, to tear her out of her thoughts, and her eyes met Gilderoy's.

"It's okay if you need more time," she told him. "It's going to take time to get over this."

Gilderoy looked at her strangely, and his eyes hardened with determination.

"No," he said. "I'm not going to need more time. I had time to think it over before, and look what happened to me then. What's important is the present. None of that matters now, no matter if it hurts or not. And besides, we're out of time."

Reaching into his robes (or rather, Elleyne's robes), Gilderoy pulled out a silver pocket watch she quickly recognized as her own, and held it by the chain in front of her.

6:43 a.m.

Elleyne was shot through with a jolt of panic, and swayed where she was standing. How could it have been so much later than she had thought? Trying desperately to quell her rush of fear, Elleyne noticed Gilderoy was still looking intently at her. She decided she had might as well confess.

"Roy….I can't…."

But she stopped. His eyes were suddenly alight with a defiance and strange sort of excitement she had never seen before.

"Of course," he said musingly, as if he had caught an idea on her earlier and was just now giving his opinion to her. Their eyes connected and there was an understanding between them so intense that both of them felt a bit frightened by it.

Elleyne's eyes widened. Where?

A pause. And then, "I know."

Gilderoy stared Elleyne in the eyes unflinchingly. And then she understood.

"Oh…"

He smiled an unsuitably rakish grin for the situation, and they clasped hands in the center of the room. Elleyne's face twisted into deep concentration as she closed her eyes…remembering.

The next minute they were gone.

The dust motes filtered through the still, now lit up old bedroom that had belonged to Vanessa Reid. The sound of a loud crack reverberated silently around the room, stirring the air. And the portrait of the pretty young girl over the bed curved her mouth into a mysterious smile.