A Cruce Salus:
Chapter 8
I've been too busy with my memories you made me / I don't think I'll get over it / To be honest / I can't see how this could be fair / I'm so alone / But you seem to be just fine
Don't ask me to think / Good intentions won't change everything
(( Hammers and Hearts by Daphne Loves Derby ))
Ginny removed the wand from her temple and deposited the silvery mass of memories in her engraved Pensieve. It had been a birthday gift from Harry. Not the memories--no, those were a gift of a different kind. The Pensieve had been shrunken enough to fit a self-concealing pocket in her battle robes during that final duel with Parker. Quite handy, to know that trick, especially since an item of this much value was certainly not an easy thing to come by in the 70s.
It bothered her that she couldn't get peace of mind without ridding herself of the thoughts that were now swirling around the stone basin. Placing them in a pensieve didn't help her forget them--she doubted she could ever forget--but it helped her to shove them to the back of her mind for a while. What nagged at her conscience was that she always thought herself stronger than sinking to dealing with her past by ignoring it. It was a form of denial, really.
Ah, well. It was easier to ignore it than to confront it. And who could blame her? Certainly no one who had seen the things she'd seen, felt the things she'd felt, witnessed the things she'd witnessed...
For very few had. The Order had been slowly dwindling down for a long time now--the Weasleys were now survived by merely Charlie, Fred, Ron and herself. The death of George had, of course, taken quite a toll on his twin brother. It was a shame, really, Fred's sobered attitude on life. It was much easier to forget the world for the night with a pair like those two had been.
Because sometimes you did need to forget the world for a few hours. This was generally was why she enjoyed meditation so much. It was nice to slip away and be completely at peace; something she hadn't been able to accomplish normally since before her first year. Alcohol used to have that effect, but meditation was the only thing that worked for her ever since that potion debacle. Remus had taught her how to do it. Unfortunately, they never had many chances to practice it together, as that bastard Wormtail strangled the life force out of him with his silver arm during Remus's hindmost transformation. Ginny always wondered whether or not he was glad to go, his life playing out the way it had. The werewolf had always been cruelly segregated, and the first people who had accepted him were shortly handed fates nearly as miserable. It couldn't have been easy, all those years that he had believed Sirius guilty--the poor wizard had been completely alone with nothing but the thought that his three of his best friends had been murdered by the fourth.
Things like that, Ginny knew from experience, were hard to forget--which was why she used her intricately carved Pensieve so frequently.
And usually, after she wondered if Remus was glad to go, she wondered if she would be as well. The last three years had been far from easy--there mere idea of what she was doing at this very moment was a reminder that not all the scars she attained were physically detrimental. There had been so many instances where she questioned what would happen if she decided to just end it, once and for all. Perhaps she would've if the world didn't need her so much. If it was something that would affect her and only her, it might be more easily approachable. Fortunately for everyone else, she wasn't that selfish.
Jolted out of her thoughts by the arrival of her second year Hufflepuffs, Ginny decided there was no time to move it from her office to her quarters. Taking one last, almost regretful, look at the memories, she strode into the classroom and began another lesson.
"So let me get this straight," said Lily, who was currently lounging on a bed in the seventh year boys' dormitory, "we go down to Professor Davidson's quarters, hope she's not there and find.. what, exactly?"
"Oh, Lily," Sirius sighed, "you make it sound like it would never work."
At Lily's raised eyebrows and Remus's poorly covered up snort, he added, "Look, the professors have a meeting tonight and all of them have to attend. It's foolproof!"
"How exactly did you find this out?" asked James from the bed he was sharing with Lily.
"McGonagall was grumbling about not having any free nights to give me detention with," answered Sirius as though this was a perfectly normal occurence. Which, considering who they were talking about, it probably was.
"Why couldn't she just let another teacher take you some other night?" queried Remus.
"Couldn't. They'd already given me detention for most of them."
"Now, why am I not surprised?" he commented dryly.
"What if she changes the password?" said Peter curiously, " I mean, she seems like the paranoid type to me."
The other four occupants of the dormitory stared at him with similar looks of increduality.
"What?" he asked unsurely.
"Wormtail," breathed James,"You just said something completely relevant!"
"And useful!" added Lily.
"Gee, thanks," Peter said bitterly, rolling his eyes.
"He's not that bad," said Remus, who was usually the only one to defend their somewhat dim companion.
Finally closing his mouth, Sirius continued. "Very good, Wormtail--you have successfully displayed insight. We just might not have been wasting our time with you all these years--but back to the matter at hand. She won't change the password."
"Oh, of course not," said Remus sarcastically.
"Thank you, Moony!
"...Wait."
The annoyed seventh year glared at Lily, who quickly attempted to stop her snickering (attempted being the operative word, here).
"Sirius," she began in a chastising tone, "She's already proven to us that she's a powerful witch whose had Death Eaters on her trail for most of her life. It would be expecting a bit too much to say the password--which she knows we know--would be the same tonight."
"She's got a point."
"Quiet, James. She's got you whipped."
"I am not whipped," he said heatedly.
"Of course you aren't," his best friend answered soothingly.
"I-"
"Once again, back to the matter at hand. Well, if she does change the password, there's only one way to find out."
"By going ahead with your idiotic plan and hoping for the best? Why don't we just save ourselves the trouble? Then you could finish that Potions essay neither of you have started and avoid yet another detention."
"Ah, Lily-flower.. you may have Jamesie here wrapped around your finger, but--"
"I. Am. Not. Whipped!" James made out through gritted teeth.
"Yes, yes, you've already established that you feel this way, Prongs. Now are we in, or am I doing this by myself?"
"What the hell," said Lily, "In."
"In, then, I guess," agreed James, who recieved a look from Sirius as though to say, See?
"In," repeated Remus, watching James chuck his pillow at Sirius's face.
Peter sat up eagerly. "In- wait. I have detention with Filch tonight!"
"For what?" asked Sirius, hurling the pillow back to James, who ducked--sending the flying object spinning towards Peter.
"Oomph," the winded boy grumbled as he picked himself up from the bed, "for that dungbomb that accidentally went off on McGonagall."
"Didn't we all do that?" inquired James.
"Yeah, we did!" said Sirius, laughing, "Remember the look on Minnie's face? ...Why is Peter the only one in detention for that?"
"Because," he started angrily, "you left me in the middle of it when it backfired on us!"
"Oh, right... no hard feelings, then?"
Sirius's face was bombarded with a pillow for a second time.
"I thought all there was a staff meeting tonight," said Remus.
"Ah, but Filch isn't a professor."
"Then why don't you have detention with him as well?"
"Because dear Minnie said she wanted to supervise my punishment herself. I told you she had a thing for me."
Sirius was lucky the pillow was already on his bed, as it probably would've ended up there at that last comment. Just for good measure, he stood up and chucked it at Remus. Remus, whose bed was nearest to the open window, casually threw it out.
"Oi!" yelled James, "I have to sleep on that thing!"
"Well, you'd better go get it then."
James stood up haughtily and stalked out of the room.
"Er.." began Remus uncertainly, "Has he forgotten he's a wizard? We learned Accio in fourth year!"
"Shush, Moony, he'll hear you."
Sighing angrily, Lily jumped up and ran after him. "James!"
"Dissimulo," Ginny whispered impatiently that night to the ghastly woman in the portrait guarding her quarters. Didn't they realize Pensieves were heavy? Apparently, the damn thing was so sensitive to magic that levitating it would cause irreperable damange.
"Now, dear, I could've sworn it was Mortale, or Mortally.. Mortalitis! That's what it was."
Ginny was quickly losing her short temper--she had work to do! All she wanted was to put away the damn Pensieve, get started on it and go to sleep.
"One," she said as patiently as she could, "If it was still Mortalitis, you would've just given it away. And two, I changed it at lunch!"
"Oh, that's right.." the blasted painting responded as though deep in thought, "Well, come in then."
"Thank Merlin," she swore when it finally opened for her, "I need to see Dumbledore about replacing that witch."
"Samara?" came a voice floating in from her classroom. She looked over her shoulder, still attempting to balance the catastrophic weight of the Pensieve, and saw the Charms professor standing in her doorway. "Oh, there you are! There's a staff meeting going on--we just realized you didn't know about it! We set these things up at the beginning of the year; forgot you weren't here to mark them down. Come now, they just sent me to get you--oh my! Is that a Pensieve? Very rare, those are. Where did you happen to get it?"
Ginny smiled grimly at the bad timing. Giving up, she sat the basin back down on her desk. "I'll tell you later. Right now we should get to that meeting."
Four teenagers with practically adult bodies were currently failing rather miserably at huddling under an invisibility cloak together. If anyone had walked by them, they would've been scared witless to see random body parts evidently manifesting and disappearing by themselves. Fortunately, they needn't have worried about being seen--the classroom and office were bare when they arrived. Throwing off the cloak gratefully, Sirius brushed off his shoulders and walked purposefully up to the portrait.
"Mortalitis," he said confidently.
"Sorry, lad," said the portrait apologetically, "I shan't let you in. Should've come a few earlier; only just changed!"
"Thanks, Sirius, really," said Lily sarcastically, "What an informative trip--and the way we got here was even better!"
"Well, would you have preferred to be recognized?" he asked, disappointed that their outing was for nothing.
"By who? All the teachers are gone and Filch is with Peter!"
"Well, excuse me if--"
"Woah," breathed James, "is that a Pensieve?"
The pair ceased talking in favor of spinning on their heals. And, sure enough, there was one sitting innocently on Samara's desk. The memories occupying it merged and twirled, seeming as though they were beckoning the group to have a look. Just one touch and maybe they could find out who knew what...
"Those are really rare," said Remus excitedly, "I wonder how she got one?"
"Only one way to find out, then," said Sirius, his earlier disappointment replaced with a rather satisfied expression.
"What are you going to do?" asked Lily.
"What do you think?" Sirius answered her, "What did we come here to do? Get information! And what's sitting in front of us? We might not be able to get into her rooms, but isn't this even better? I mean, who needs photos and papers when we have answers right in front of us?"
"I don't know," said Remus, "This seems a little..."
"Like an invasion of privacy?" offered Lily.
James and Sirius made eye contact, amused, then turned to Remus and Lily.
"Invasion of privacy?" mimicked James, laughing, "Lily! Think about what you came here to do!"
"Yes," agreed Sirius, "because breaking in and searching her rooms is absolutely morally correct!"
"I didn't think the password was going to work," she said in her defense.
"It didn't!"
And with those sentiments, he plunged himself inside--not even bothering to see if they'd do the same.
"Don't just stand there!" said James excitedly as he followed suit.
Remus and Lily shared a glance of apprehension. "We can't let them go by themselves," she said.
"Sure. That's why we're going."
Both of them smiled atthat.
"Here goes nothing."
Soon all of them felt the sensation of leaving their stomachs behind as they plummeted into their professor's thoughts, opening up doors they probably all knew should have stayed closed.
Author's Note:
Sorry. Long wait for such a terrible chapter. It's a transition chapter, so I promise you, the next one will be better, longer and out sooner. (Lady Saffron of the Daggers - I'm going to have to use your name in that one.) Guesses as to what Dissimulo means? Review, or don't--this horribleupdate probably doesn't deserve it, anyway.