Chapter 2 - I sometimes wake up to find myself crying for some reason
His back ached and his lungs burned. The boots on his feet were almost falling apart. He kept walking.
He reached the top of the hill and entered the facility, letting his cargo fall gently to the ground. He put everything on the shelf, and activated the terminal. With a farewell from the client, he stepped outside.
Dark storm clouds gathered in the distance, over the mountains. He stood appreciating the landscape, drinking from his canteen.
"Hehe!"
His hands unlatched the pod from his chest and brought it to his face. Lou smiled at him from inside.
He smiled back.
Slowly, Nathan returned to consciousness, unfocused gaze on the canopy above.
A single tear fell from his eye.
A blink, and he came back to himself, sitting up and hands rubbing his face. Details of the dream still danced clearly in his mind, the soft crunch of grass intermingled with a baby's cries fleeting through his ears. He got up before he could brood on it.
His reflection stared back from the mirror in the bathroom, and he still felt a sense of wrongness from looking at himself. He stepped out before he wasted any more time.
There was a slight ache in his brain, and he hoped it wouldn't get as bad as the previous day.
His feet froze by his nightstand as the gravity of yesterday's events came back to him in full force. The pain increased.
With a sigh, he picked up the calendar and timetable, but was pleasantly surprised when the date marked was a saturday. His pocket watch indicated the time as being too early for a weekend. There was no way he would be able to fall back asleep, so that left plenty of time for him to do something about his situation.
One of the curtains flew open as Nathan was finishing putting his boots on, and a boy with messy and long hair stepped out, grabbing his glasses from his nightstand. The boy's gaze settled on Nathan.
"Good morning…" The boy mumbled sleepily as he got up.
"Morning…" Nathan said awkwardly, before also standing and going to the door. It was going to be hard to interact with people if he didn't remember their names.
In the common room, a familiar scene greets him. The same curly hair -the girl from the previous day- sitting on the sofa, reading a book. And the same boy at the table, writing furiously. Homework? On Saturday morning?! How swamped is he?
A groan escaped him as his own due homework entered his brain. He really hoped there was a solution to his memory problem, or school would be hell.
The sound attracted the girl's attention, bringing her intense gaze to him. The boy didn't even raise his head.
"Um, good morning." He says, while walking towards the exit.
Her reply was accompanied by a small smile, but one that was full of warmth. He forced a smile back, before stepping out of the room. He wished he had woken up with the same energy the girl had.
He sat at the great hall, drinking some tea and munching on toast. All the while his mind thought about his predicament.
With the heavy realization that, yes, this was a real problem, and that he wouldn't be able to solve it himself, he started thinking of who could help him. Unsurprisingly, no one came to mind.
His gaze fixated on the long table of where the faculty sat. There were only a few professors eating, two of which he recognized from the previous day.
He focused on the old man in the middle. He was sitting at a golden throne, wearing clothes that were hard to describe, much less look at. Doesn't he look mighty humble like that.
He was sure that man was the headmaster, it was fairly obvious, but he still couldn't remember his name. Nathan was looking so intently at him he was sure he had noticed. But still the name wouldn't come to him.
He remained frozen for some time, his gaze unwavering, his food forgotten. He could feel the name on the tip of his tongue. It starts with a D, I'm sure! Was it Dig? Diavolo? Dumbo?
Dumbledore. The name whispered its way into his mind, and relief accompanied it. If he could remember this, maybe other things would come back to him, if he focused hard enough.
With hope for another success, he focused on the last person, a woman sitting besides professor McGonagall. Her clothes looked more distinct than the others, more simple, less wizard-like.
Nun. Again the whisper came, this time with a slight chill going down his spine. It sounded, felt, like when he was just thinking to himself. But he was sure he actually heard the words this time. He focused back on the woman.
She was walking down the aisle, close to reaching the door. Nathan focused even harder, trying to look for even a scrap of remembrance of her name. Nothing came,
She was in front of him now, the skirt of her dress dragging across the floor. His eyes followed the cloth on their own. It wasn't the movement that drew his focus, but a symbol on her white apron. A wand and a bone making a cross on top of a shield. As a whole it brought nothing to mind, but the cross seemed familiar.
Medic. The whisper came once more, just as creepy. Nathan didn't feel it, sagging with relief the moment he processed what it meant. He finished his tea and got up, walking out of the room with hope surging in his chest.
He had been wandering the castle for a while, and he still hadn't found the right place. He wasn't frustrated though. The walking allowed him to familiarize himself with the castle he should already know. Some things felt faintly familiar to him, like echoes of a distant memory he could faintly recall.
He kept a calm pace, walking among the students that were around. There still weren't many up, but there were still people around. Either friends talking while leaning on a window, or others walking around like him.
A strange pulling sensation was guiding him, the direction telling him which turns to take. It felt like he knew the path, and had been following it subconsciously.
His body still seemed to remember what to do, knowing where to go now, and also when casting magic like in charms. More hope swelled in his chest.
He was taken out of his thoughts when his feet stopped. Slightly disoriented, he looked around. A large door was by his side, 'Hospital WIng' written on a plaque beside it.
He placed his hands on the door, intent on pushing it, but hesitated, doubt filling his mind. With a shuddering breath, he squared his shoulders, and pushed.
It didn't move.
He tried again, putting more force. It still didn't move.
Desperation flooded him as he kept trying to push it open. Don't do this to me dammit! He let go and reared back to hit the wood, when he stopped mid motion. His posture sagged with realization. Reaching for the handle, he pulled the door.
And it opened with no problem.
His head fell to his hands in shame, a defeated sigh escaping his lips. He wallowed in his stupidity for some moments, before recomposing himself, and walking in.
The room was empty of people, but filled with beds and undrawn curtains. Before Nathan could doubt if he was in the right place, a sound brought his attention to a door opening by the side. Madam Pomfrey came from beyond the door, her gaze instantly fixating on him.
"This is a surprise, I was sure it was going to be mister Potter! How can I help you, dear?" Her tone was warm, but she had a strict posture, making Nathan uneasy.
"um, good morning Madam. I've been, ah, having some problems lately. I was hoping you could help me." His halting speech only made him more nervous.
Probably sensing his anxiety, her posture relaxed, and a slight smile came to her face. "Of course! Why don't we sit and you tell me what has been afflicting you?" She made a gesture towards a table with two chairs by the entrance. Nathan nodded and they made the short walk, his legs shaking a little all the while.
At the table, Poppy grabbed some parchment and a quill, probably to take some notes. "Okay, Mister…"
"Winters. Nathan Winthers"
"Mr. Winters, please tell me what happened. I will make some notes, and then we will do some tests to pinpoint the problem."
With a shaky breath, he started.
"Well, um, yesterday, I had this weird problem with my memory." He paused to gather his thoughts. The healer was looking at him with kind eyes. It didn't help much.
"I woke up feeling strangely disoriented, and it kinda lingered for a while in the morning." His nervousness ebbed away as he kept talking, a slight numbness overtaking him. "I just ignored it and started preparing for the day, it wasn't really that noticeable. Until i went down to the common room."
He wasn't looking at the matron anymore, his gaze at a point a little to her side, eyes unseeing. He recounted the happenings of that morning. How he forgot which house he was a part of. What table he was supposed to sit in the great hall.
"In charms, I couldn't remember the spell the professor had mentioned us learning earlier this week, or how to cast it. In potions, I didn't know what the ingredients looked like." The words flowed from his mouth as the numbness spread. There was a faint ringing in his ears.
"During dinner, I kept looking at the foreign students, trying to remember why they were there. Didn't even know why they were wearing different uniforms. Only remembered when I looked at the cup, and it just, clicked in my mind, and I remembered the tournament." His hand came up to gesture at his head, and he felt some awareness return with the motion.
"I went out to clear my head, and to think. I was then assaulted by this blinding headache." Narrowing of his eyes, slight shake of the head. The fog in his mind was slowly lifting.
"My vision went white, and there was this loud ringing in my ears. When I came to, I was on my knees, and my nose was bleeding."
He could feel control come back to him, and the surroundings came back to focus. Looking at Madam Pomfrey, he saw her writing on the bottom of the full parchment. That worried him more than he cared to admit.
"When I was feeling a little better, I went straight to bed." He finished and waited in anxious silence for the diagnosis.
"And why did you not come to me yesterday?" Her head raised from her notes to look at him, narrowed eyes seeming to judge his stupid actions.
"I was, uh, really tired." Her expression did not change, but he knew she was dissatisfied with the answer. "I was hoping it was a one time thing. It wasn't." He admitted, words heavy but voice soft.
"Did you experience the headache today?"
"No. Just the, um, memory problems."
"Hum…" The healer leaned back in her chair, gaze fixated in her notes. Nathan waited for what she would say next, a part of him fearing her words. "Let us start the tests."
She grabbed another parchment, while also taking out her wand. "Rest assured, none of the procedures are invasive or painful in any way. This will only take a moment."
For some time the matron ran her tests, waving her wand in complicated patterns and writing down whatever she saw in the midst of the lights she conjured. The parchment was now full of notes, the matron glaring at it, but still not saying nothing.
She kept glancing from the two pages she had, mumbling inaudibly to herself. Nathan couldn't handle it anymore, so decided to end his misery himself. "Madam?"
Her head remained bowed for some more moments, before a sigh escaped her, and she raised her head to look at him. Her expression of pity and apology made his stomach churn violently.
"I'm sorry Mr. Winters, but I'm afraid I don't know how to help you presently. There was nothing abnormal in my scans. Your stress level is high, but it is a given in this situation. Other than that, there was nothing."
Fear seized him, clouding his mind once more. His ears started ringing, his vision distorted, like grains of sand were dancing in front of his eyes.
"I will start looking into possible causes and solutions, but I am afraid it will take some time." Her sympathetic expression did nothing to calm him.
"If the symptoms persist, or worse, I want you back here, so I can give you some potions to alleviate your situation."
He nodded and got up from his seat, body numb once more. The healer followed him up, leaning slightly over the table. "I'm sorry for not being able to help immediately, but as soon as there is an update, I will notify you."
A quiet thank you escaped him, before he dazedly walked out of the hospital wing, body numb, ears ringing, and sand floating in his eyes.
He wandered the halls of the castle for a while, still dazed from earlier.
He had been hoping desperately that finding a solution would be easy, had even expected the problem to be some misfired magic spell, something that was probably easy to reverse. A cynical part of him already knew that wasn't going to be the case. But this was way worse than he could have imagined.
His mind raced thinking of the worst case scenarios, and he could do nothing to stop it. He leaned on the wall, feeling overwhelmed all of a sudden. The castle was empty on this part, and the silence seemed to bounce around in this gigantic maze he was trapped in. It was maddening.
"Hihi!"
His eyes snapped open, looking everywhere. No one was around. He felt something in his hand, and retracted it quickly in his panic. It was just the sun warming it up.
He started walking again, pace faster and more panicked than before. Nathan thought it was a good time to start on his homework.
The library was gigantic.
Nathan stood frozen on the entrance, gaze sweeping across the hundreds of books in the room. Someone bumped him from behind stopping his descent into madness, and he moved with slow steps into the domain.
The library had nothing impressive about it, and wasn't even that big if the size of the institution was taken into account. But with his lack of knowledge, writing a simple essay suddenly seemed like a daunting task.
Steeling his resolve, he approached the librarian, where she instructed him on the correct bookshelves.
There were dozens of books in just a single one. And they were all about a single subject. He had no clue which ones would be useful.
With a sigh, he started reading the spines, buckling down for some horrible hours. He could feel his headache already increasing.
*BANG*
His head hit the wood hard enough to rattle the books. Pain radiated from his forehead, but it was a drop in a bucket of water with the killer headache he already had.
So much time spent reading with so little understanding. Concepts he had no clue about were commonly referenced, and he'd have to go get a book that explained that. And then something else would pop up in the words, and there goes Nathan to ask about Golpalott's law and What book do you recommend?
The result was a half written essay that he had no belief in any of the words in it being factually correct. It was very frustrating.
At least it had not all been bad. Something came back to him while reading. Small fragments, like whispers, that didn't help in writing, but made sure he actually remembered the subject this time.
"Are you okay?"
The soft question startled him, his head rising quickly, making his headache even worse. His hand reflexively came up to massage his temple, for the little it would help. Looking at the person, he saw the curly haired girl standing beside his table. Holding a book to her chest, she looked at him with mild concern, but also with amusement dancing in her eyes.
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine. Just some frustrating studying."
Instead of being satisfied and going away, the girl leaned a little forward, some curiosity taking over her expression. "Oh, what are you researching? Is it for homework?"
Nathan wanted her to go away, he was really not in the mood for a talk with a stranger. He didn't want to be rude though, so simply answered cordially. "It's for potions."
The girl's eyes widened slightly, and she started animatedly talking, devolving into rambling. The arm that wasn't holding the book gesticulated wildly, as if she thought her words would be enough. Which she was kind of right, there was no way to understand what she was talking about with how fast the words came out.
She seemed to catch herself after a moment, and sheepishly turned to Nathan. "I'm sorry, sometimes I get a little carried away." An apologetic smile spread on her face after she finished.
Recovering from his daze of trying to accompany her speech, he tried to reassure her. "Nah, it's okay. I would've tried to follow, but my brain is kinda melted right now." The awkward laugh that fell through his lips involuntarily made him cringe internally.
Her smile grew in her face as she nodded in gratitude. "I have to go now. Good luck with the essay!" And she parted with a wave, making Nathan unsure if she heard his own soft farewell..
He watched her go until she vanished around the corner. Still dazed from the conversation, he stood and gathered the mountain of books he'd used, putting them back before leaving, the girl still on his mind. Now he knew she got her energy by draining it from others. At least his headache had lessened.
Dinner was eaten quickly and in a small portion, his appetite diminished with the still lingering headache. It was still early, the grand hall not even halfway full, so there was time left in the day. He had no intention of using it for homework. He stood up after finishing his food, intent on finding a way to relax from the stress of the day.
The trek up the grand staircase was accompanied by silence and the far away voices of the ones still eating. A pang of loneliness hit his chest, but he ignored it.
Entering through the portrait, he saw the room filled with students lounging around and doing various activities. Nathan only lingered for moments, before continuing his slow walk to the stairs.
The curly haired girl was seated in a plush armchair by a window that faced him. Her head raised from her book, eyes falling on him. She offered him a warm smile that didn't make him feel worse. He offered her a small grin and wave in return. Her smile widened, and she went back to her book.
The room was empty, and the moonlight gently entered through a window near his bed. He dropped his bag heavily on the floor and toed of his boots. In no time he was on his bed, in the same position as the morning. Gazing at the canopy with lost eyes. Sleep wouldn't come, even with his exhaustion.
He shifted onto his side, and his gaze fell on the nightstand beyond the curtain. The image of the girl reading her book flitted through his mind, and he stood from his bed, crouching down to open his trunk.
The book was still there, looking old but untouched. Nathan climbed back on the bed, leaving an opening so the light could come in.
He gazed at the cover of the book, trying to see a glimmer of what it was about through it. The action somehow felt familiar, like he had been in this same position countless times.
Gingerly, Nathan opened the book, and settled himself to read.
A blank page greeted him, signaling the end of the book.
He didn't notice at first, still in a daze. But then awareness rushed back to him, as if his soul had come back to its body. He closed the book as slowly as he could, trying to prolong the moment. He closed it and felt something shift within him with the action.
"Man was born for love and revolution. In this I want to believe implicitly.""
The words came out on their own, a whisper barely heard, echoing heavily in the silence. He felt their weight settle in his chest.
He sat in the moment, reveling in the peace he found. Focus came back to him, and he turned to put the book on his desk. The bed across his side had its curtains drawn, where before they had been closed. He checked the watch on his table.
3 hours. He had sat and read for that long, lost to the world.
The moon was at its peak, its light hitting his body. With a relaxed exhale, he laid back on his bed, shutting the curtains, and fell into peaceful slumber.
