Too many memories stretch out away from him, just out of reach until they smash into his consciousness. Uncontrolled, violent recollections, blending the past and present into a mess of sensations and hallucinations. One minute Barty can smell that sterile bite of air scrubbed clean and the next a whiff of potions. The burn of the smoky stench of skele-gro hits the back of his throat just like it did following that quidditch match.
But that was years ago, not now. Barty should not be smelling that now. He shouldn't be worried that the next time he opens his eyes, it will be to the sight of the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, its ceiling cavernous compared to the muggle hospital's low roof.
He didn't escape Father's curse just to be lost in the cracks of his mind as it shakes apart. If that was his fate, he should have bled to death in that alleyway, spending the last moments of his life as clear-headed as he's been in years.
The use of the imperius curse is forbidden for a reason. Not only can it make the subject of its casting lose their will completely to the caster, its long-term effects are…undesirable. There's a reason why even the darkest of wizards often use other methods to keep their servants in line. What good is a person whose mind unravels under that pleasant haze? Their memories and thoughts, any talents that they may have possessed, drifting away until nothing is left but a doll just barely capable of falling orders.
Behind closed eyes, Barty envisions walls lined with shelves. Translucent walls and empty shelves that he can peer between and straight into the fog where a good part of himself lies scattered. Constructing occlumency shields requires starting with an empty mind, and his mind is as empty as it can get with most of himself out of reach.
If occlumency shields can keep unwanted guests out, maybe it can work a little differently for Barty, keep his skittish memories in place instead of scattering about like they've been doing when they do appear. All he has to do is visualize it right, bend the magic in his head into walls and ceilings. Twist the contours of his mind into shelves, empty bookshelves oozing with fog that curls over the ledges of translucent wood, solidifying bit by bit beneath Barty's inner gaze.
Chills erupt over his skin, almost dragging Barty's eyes open and breaking the hold he has on the fog that curls up into itself, thickening tighter and tighter onto the bookshelves along the walls in his mind. The effort drains his already bruised magic, but Barty refuses to open his eyes, not until that fog is tightly bound onto those shelves, a roiling mass of dark grey like a thunderstorm.
Like Regulus Black's gaze.
With a sharp intake of air, Barty opens his eyes to the silent hospital room. His heart throbs in his chest as his magic settles back into dormancy. The hospital room looks just as small as when Barty first woke up here. Its ceiling is low and solid instead of warping into something that can't be real.
His efforts worked enough. With his modified occlumency shields in place, Barty probably won't be mistaking any other muggle healers for dead classmates. It doesn't fix the fact that a good chunk of his memory is stuck in that roiling fog, but at least it's stuck in one spot in his head. Right where he can dive right in when he feels like risking what's left of his sanity.
The hospital room is silent as Barty's thoughts grumble. No little beeps come from the cracked box alongside his bed as he stares straight ahead. Apparently his…outburst had broken quite a few of those little boxes throughout this floor of the hospital. Enough of them that one of the muggle healers had come to inform Barty that they couldn't replace his, not when several other patients were more at risk.
The muggle healers are antsy, their agitated voices traveling quickly through the corridor outside of Barty's room as they rush past. Apparently, they've decided to empty the entire floor, and maybe even the building if the…power surge, yes, that's what the muggle called it. If the power surge had caused too much damage, the muggle healer had said that they may have to empty the entire building.
Barty should really be relieved that the muggles assume that it is their own electricity that caused the lights to flicker and their devices to break. Otherwise the Ministry would have taken notice if a bunch of muggle healers had claimed a man sent power scorching through the walls. Father's wand's absent. Maybe dropped in some alley or maybe tucked away in the clothes the muggle healers said they'd give back once Barty left. Either way, if Ministry officials had come to investigate, a desperate bit of wandless magic would have been no match for trained aurors.
It's foolish not to feel relief that no one noticed. Yet, if the Ministry had noticed, maybe the Dark Lord would have to. And if the Dark Lord had noticed, he would have gotten here first.
Of course, what would the Dark Lord have found? An addled servant, loyal but barely capable of holding his own mind together.
"Mr. Evans?"
The muggle healer's voice draws Barty's attention away from the far wall. The same, squat man that talked to him about the broken boxes stands close to the door. His square glasses glint under the ceiling light that occasionally flickers, the damaged little wires feeding it power struggle even now.
Barty spends too long staring as the man shuffles nervously. And he shouldn't be staring in challenge. Barty Evans is a muggle, a bit timid and nervous, his memories in a jumble from hitting his head. He needs to loosen up, not look like he's about to spring off the bed and curse the muggle healer.
"Yes, sir?" Barty's voice still rasps too much for his liking, but he manages a questioning, hesitant tone regardless of the abrasiveness of his neglected voice.
"Um, well, I have some good news for you." The muggle walks closer, his hands tucked into the pockets of his white robes. Well, not robes, the muggles don't call their clothes that, but the way the strange…jacket, coat? The way that the coat travels past the muggle healer's knees is close enough to the design of a robe to be mistaken for one.
"Your friend, the one who called us on the payphone, has agreed to take you in so that you can be discharged earlier." The muggle smiles nervously, one hand darting out of his pocket to adjust his square glasses. At the return of Barty's silent stare, the man's smile slips only to return forcibly in an upturn of stiffness.
"Mickey Smith? He said his name was Mickey Smith? I know that your memory is…well, he said that the two of you were friends. And the hospital really isn't," The light flickers again causing the man to grimace. "functioning well enough right now. So, it's really for the best for us to discharge as many patients as is safe to do so. Not quite enough room at the nearby hospitals for everyone. At least, not without a lot of hassle." The muggle's ramble loses steam as he deflates.
"Mickey Smith?" Barty questions, his raspy tone kept as lightly as it can be, "sounds…familiar." It doesn't. But someone claiming to be his friend…It's not the Ministry. They wouldn't bother with a charade like that. It could be anyone, but Barty isn't going to find out who this is if he doesn't go along with this little game.
"That's good." The muggle's smile loosens, relief slipping out with the tension in the healer's posture. "Familiarity is good, a promising sign that your amnesia is temporary. I'll send him in, a nurse will be here to help you check out very shortly after that." The muggle turns as if to leave before jolting to a stop. "Once everything is settled, we will need to do a check up in a few days just to see how you're healing up. The nurse will be handing out a packet of the symptoms you need to keep an eye on, so don't worry if you have any difficulty in recalling what I mentioned earlier this morning as you can just refer to that."
The muggle hurries away, no doubt being driven by the worry of moving the other patients who can't be discharged so easily.
It takes only a few minutes for the supposed friend to walk in through the door. A dark-skinned man wearing the same black jacket and blue jeans he had been when he threw himself out of the way of a strike of lightning. He doesn't quite meet Barty's stare when he shuffles in, eyes glancing at the corners as if taking measure of them before finally looking Barty's way.
There's a moment of silence before the man's frown quirks into a half-hearted smile that precedes his greeting, "Hello–"
"Are you stupid?" Barty's words strike sharp and quick as the muggle's half-smile disappears. "Why are you here?" And not running for the hills like any sane muggle would have been with a blast of magic tossed their way.
The muggle, Mickey, that's what the healer called him, stares with his nostrils flaring. His posture's stiff with the forced slouch to his shoulders failing to convey a relaxed air.
"Wow, thanks mate." The muggle's voice trembles almost too imperceptibly to pick up.
"What?" Confusion rattles through Barty.
"Thanks, mate, for bringing me to the hospital." The tremble disappears almost as if in spite of the instinctive sneer marring Barty's face.
"But I didn't bring you here?" The words are out before Barty can process them, traveling through this sterile, bland room before he can pull them back. Even with the majority of the effects of the imperius curse constrained to the mental shelves of his occlumency, apparently Barty's grasp on what other people mean is still as shaky as his placement between his own past and present had been.
"No, that's not what I said." Mickey says, offended. His expression twists into a frown.
"But it is," Barty cuts in, quickly covering that he wasn't being sarcastic from the start. "Unless you're saying it's not what you meant. Then you're using the wrong words." The chosen tone's condescending enough to draw a scowl from the muggle.
"Oh, you think you're funny, mate."
"I know I'm funny." Barty simply states. Because it's true, he knows that like he knows the sky is blue outside right now and the world is turning beneath their feet. Even if he can't quite risk pulling up any memories as examples at the moment.
"That," Mickey stutters, "you know what? You're not funny. And you're fine, making jokes and stuff. Don't know why I was worried with you bleeding out over half the street and everything."
And that's the thing, isn't it? There's no explanation for why this strange muggle was worried in the first place.
"I shot lightning at you," Barty says slowly, emphasizing the words since this muggle Mickey doesn't seem to grasp how absurd this situation is.
Or maybe he does, with the way he pales, leaning back as if he wants to leap out of the room.
"Yeah, well," the tremble in Mickey's voice is back, but he shrugs in a nonchalant way, "I've had worse tossed at my head. Besides, you seemed a bit freaked out, so it's cool."
For a muggle, the man's too collected despite the little tells that signify his concealed fear. It doesn't make sense, not at all, unless…
"Are you a squib?" That has to be it. Both squibs and muggles would throw themselves out of the path of a lightning bolt, but only one of them would turn around and head right back, familiar enough with magic to want to investigate.
"What'd you call me?" Mickey puffs up, his lip curling in a confused snarl.
"No, you're a muggle?" One who's too confused at the term, squib, to get what Barty means. But the man's too, too…
Mickey shuffles back, anger deflating into confusion at two unfamiliar words instead of one. "What's that mean, squib and muggle?"
"It means you're non magical, except if you're a squib then your parents…" the explanation trails off as Barty's thoughts realign, "You don't have a clue what I'm talking about." So this Mickey is not a squib. But what would a muggle–
"Just, I have a daughter. She can," the muggle fidgets, his shoe scuffing against the tiled floor, "She can make little sparks come out of her fingers when she's scared." There's a desperation in the muggle's eyes, one that speaks of the plight of many muggleborns' parents as their child does the impossible in front of them. "It's like a little version of what you did–"
"No." Barty growls, viciously satisfied when the muggle startles
"What'd you mean, no?"
"You'll get a letter, when she's eleven." This is ridiculous, of all the muggles he could have apparated by, it had to be one of the few that would cling onto any hint of what's happening to their child.
"A letter?!" Mickey sputters, "What's a letter going to do?!" That's five years from now! How's that going to help anything?!" The muggle father's voice cracks.
"Not my problem, that's simply how it works." Barty sneers at the muggle's panic. "You should just be glad I didn't obliviate you."
"What?" Mickey says, his face twitching, "You mean obliterate me with that lightning?"
"No, I mean wipe your memories," Barty clarifies, "That's the policy with muggles who've seen too much."
Except, Bella would disagree. A thin tendril of grey thought oozes past the shelf it's supposed to be contained upon behind Barty's occlumency. A vision curls and almost solidifies before Barty's eyes. Bella striking curses out at the muggles who used to flee the sight of the Death Eaters' attacks, her delighted laugh lighting up the air as brightly as the flashes of green burning streaks into the night.
Mickey's sputtering slams the memory back into the roiling fog with the rest of them.
"Guess I can make an exception in your case since your daughter's a witch." Barty keeps the tremble out of his own voice. He's better than this muggle at hiding his disquiet under confidence, even if his voice still rasps.
"No, no memory wiping or lightning or anything like that." the muggle pauses, a gleam of something sharpening his eyes, "You need that stick of yours for that, don't you?'
The world stands still, even the breath in Barty's throat refusing to move as he stares at the muggle.
"Give me my wand." It's Barty's. His to break apart, to burn when he finally can afford to. To watch the last remnant of Father smolder into ashes. Not this muggle. The muggle has no right to keep that from him.
"No." Somehow, in spite of the rage contorting Barty's face, the muggle seems steadier than ever. "No, I'm not giving it back. If you want it, then you can explain what's up with my daughter."
Barty growls, the cracked box alongside of him vibrating as his magic seethes from him, rattling the very bed he's sitting on.
"Whoah!" The muggle's hands fly up, a gesture helpless to hold back Barty's magic if it lashes out. "I just want a conversation. I only want to know what's up with my kid. That's it, that's all. Then you can run off and we never have to see each other again." Mickey's voice shakes, not just with fear but the same desperation that shines in his eyes.
They'll never see each other again. Except until the Death Eaters start killing muggleborns again as the Dark Lord commands. Then maybe Barty will be the one staring down at this man and his family past a silver mask.
The magic draws back. The rattling silences and the broken box grows still. Barty swallows as the muggle stares at him with pleading eyes.
"Fine, we'll talk. But if you don't return my wand, I'll do worse than hit you with a little bit of lightning." Exhaustion trembles in Barty's voice, but the muggle fails to comment on it. Instead, he cautiously straightens.
"Fair enough, you got yourself a deal."