Isolation

"And when Jack's not around, jump on it." She nodded vigorously, enough to make her curls bounce all over her face. "Really. It's the most fun thing in the whole, wide world."

"I'm sure." Albus's response was drowned out by the sound of Jack entering, and immediately the atmosphere in the room shifted. It grew tense, the air so thick that all the knives in the world would not have been sufficient to cut it. She murmured something to the child, who then spluttered a few words out at full speed, and ran out. Albus was sorry to see her go. He wasn't confused while talking to her. Old Albus or new, both would talk to her in exactly the same way, he didn't need to think, analyze. And now, the sort-of buffer between him and Jack was gone.

Jack seemed vaguely anxious. She stood for a while, as if unsure of how exactly to behave. She hesitantly sat beside him, worked her mouth for a few seconds. When she spoke, there were words Albus hadn't frankly expected from the straight-forward, somewhat brash young woman, words which didn't seem to come from the same mouth that had called him an ass a few minutes ago and told him rather emphatically that she didn't want to be his friend. Mate was a synonym for friend, he remembered. And now, she was giving him free reign to say anything he liked.

I hate the world. I hate its people and I hate myself and I don't know what to do. I want to tear and scream and shout and destroy everything....but I don't have the strength, or the courage. I want to say things what I want, when I want, but I'm too much of a bloody frickin' coward to do it. Albus could have begun this way. He could have snapped, sneered, or exhibited a whole range of emotions that had been so carefully compartmentalized and hidden in his mind for all of his life. He wanted, with a desire frighteningly desperate in its intensity, for Jack to snap, insult, so he could rage right back, expend all of his emotions and then forget this day had ever happened. He could also have yielded to habit and shut down his feelings, put the mask, and Albus knew that if he summoned the will power to do it now, he would never need to worry about opening up ever again.

One night to breathe.

Bile. His throat burned.

"I ripped open a girl's stomach with a Dark spell I had invented and pulled her guts out."

It was the eye of the storm and Jack hate it. She wanted mediocrity - people who had no secrets, no problems, no ambitions, no intrigue. She wanted to stop working on people, because it proved her wrong every time. She was the girl who had stuck by a poltergeist who had murdered and maimed, because she was so certain that everyone had enough good in them to be saved. But Vito had died an evil man; Ariel had abandoned her; and it had taken her erasing most of Nemo's mind for him to become normal, sedate, sane, safe. And every time someone had a problem, she knew she would tackle it with that same hope. And that hope would die, all over again.

But she could not help who found their way into her life and, try as she might, she could not turn on them, because of that God forsaken hope. Maybe this one. Maybe this one time, you can fix it, you can save them.

But she had felt this before. This was not her first time in the eye of the storm. And she knew what it meant. She was about to have her view of Albus changed. He was going to startle her with some terrifying truth, and her heart would break for him because he could not control what had happened to him, and she would think she could somehow control what would become of him. And then things would get messy.

She could hear him prepare to speak.

And then he spoke.

She stared straight forward, her eyes freezing on the same patch of wall. Because no one had ever said that to her. She was so sure nothing could compare, especially not to Vito. But Vito had been an evil being admitting to feelings of good. Albus, as far as Jack had known, had been normal, good, quiet. Not the sort to turn to dark, to kill, to maim. And here he was, calming admitting to her that he had.

She did not know what to say. Naturally, it did not make her want to turn and assure him all would be okay. But, she was not one to condemn. She could not - with her list of sins, she could not even say he was guiltier than she was.

So she swallowed, and nodded. "Alright." Alright. I understand. I am willing to work with that. "Okay." She didn't move, though she itched for some of that alcohol. But she would wait. She was sure it did not end at that.

Albus knew it was entirely inappropriate for the situation. Hell, it messed with his head more than it did hers. But he couldn't help it.

He laughed.

He threw back his head and laughed, a deep, rich, carefree sound, striking the walls of the threadbare room and rebounding into his ears, resonating within his being. It wasn't black humor, dark mirth, it was a pure light sound that was welling inside and demanded to be released. He took a few seconds to wind down to chuckles, the change in his voice so remarkable that Albus himself was stunned, "Alright? Okay? The bleedin' son of Harry Potter confesses something like that to you, and all you can say is-" Another recklessly liberating laugh, "-alright?"

It was getting too much, he knew it. He was subsiding from wild laughter to an emotion which was making his eyes sting, "Its alright, Jack. You don't have to worry, I'm not going to turn 'dark' or any other cliche you might like to imagine. I assure you that I'm feeling a disproportionate amount of guilt for the crime I have committed. That was why I vomited, you know. Committing the first murder of your life in a particularly gruesome way tends to do that to you."

Albus could almost imagine that the way he put that was careless, nonchalant. And it would have been, if Jack hadn't been able to look at his eyes. Albus looked at the Muggle light bulb illuminating the room, and felt some relief. It seemed to be less bright than the blinding glare of questions unanswered. He made a valiant attempt to return to his casual turn of voice, but the tightly stretched muscle in his jaw, his neck, knew better. "So? Aren't you curious? Aren't you going to ask me why I did it?"

(("It seemed to be less bright than the blinding glare of questions unanswered." I literally said out loud, 'DAYUM THAT'S DEEP.'))

And there was that tense silence. Jack hated silence. It was not natural for her. She was a joke-teller, a story-teller, a goofball, a competitor. Silence put her out of her element. She understood chaos and ruckus, but she could not wrap her mind around silence. But she didn't have to deal with it for long.

He laughed. And relief boiled up within her and she let our a snort, and doubled over, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knee, laughing the pure giggle of someone who knew they shouldn't be laughing, but couldn't help it. She didn't even care why he was laughing - she just wanted to laugh along.

He began to speak, but she continued on with the subdued laughter, so different from her real laughter. She bit her knee to stem the flow of laughter, and was pretty much free of it, until he again laughed, causing another laugh to spill from her throat. She didn't answer him, though, because what could she say? 'It's okay, I'm used to my friends turning out be murderers?'

He continued to speak and she turned her head, so her cheek rested on her knee as she looked up at him. He stared forward, though, and she allowed him the privacy he sought. She turned her head back and released her knees, slowly sitting up to stare at the wall. She reached for the bottles, tapping them both with her wand. The corks shout out and she handed him the bottle of Firewhiskey, taking a swig of her mead.

"I'm not going to ask you anything," Jack said. "It's none of my business and, while I can't say I don't care, I told you that you could say whatever you wanted to. I don't lie. Say whatever you want and, if you want, it will be gone from my mind tomorrow. The offer still stands."

(( What can I say......I'm brilliant that way. ))

Looking back on it, it was a picture-perfect moment. Albus would liked to have had a camera.

Two people, isolated from the flow of the world, from the ebb and flow of the ties and tangles of human relations, laughing. It would have seemed strange to anyone who knew Jack Dyllan, to anyone who knew Albus Potter, to anyone who cared to know the subject of conversation, but it was good anyways. A moment which lightened hearts that had carried loads spanning miles of the road, and now anxious to sleep.

But there was too much left to be said.

And hell, Albus didn't like calling himself a coward either.

So taking in a breath, unnoticeably, he spun around to face his..friend. Yes, friend. He didn't quite meet her eyes, not yet, but he faced her, and that was half the battle won. "What if.....I say whatever I want to and....." The pull was too strong, he had to look at her now. "You don't forget it by tomorrow. You live on with the knowledge that your best friend's brother is a murderer, and I live on with the knowledge that there's someone on earth who knows that I'm not a porcelain figurine." He shifted forward by a bare inch, "That sounds acceptable to you?"

One second. Two.

Then he shifted away, and turned away, and downed a massive gulp of the Firewhisky. The fiery liquid slid down his throat, too cool still to compare to the burn in his chest. But the very action was comforting, and Albus started talking, casual, matter-of-fact, absently wondering when his shields would revive and snap back into place, "Visited my father's grave today. Don't know why I do it, I hate the bloody sight of it, but I still visit it on my birthday every year. Quite the self-destructive habit. Oh, its my birthday, did you know?" One more swig. "Mum certainly didn't. Not James. Not Lily. Not even bloody Rose or Hugo or Grandma Molly. Strange.....I always thought she liked me."

He was going on and on, and really, he should just seal his lips right now. Why wasn't he doing it again? "So I got pissed naturally, and slipped off to the Dean Forest. I go there to practice the spells I invent. Oh, I invent Dark magic too, did you know that?" One more swig. The bottle was more than half empty. "Surprise, surprise, the Ministry found today of all days to detect Dark activity there. Sent an official. Avariella Hudson. Muggle-born. I dated her briefly in fifth-year. My first kiss. She didn't remember it, sadly. Its strange you know, considering how famous I am, that people don't tend to remember me much." This laugh was different from the first. It was curiously mirthless.

He was talking, faster and faster now, the grip on the Firewhisky bottle turning tight, as if it was his life's anchor. His knuckles were turning white, "She was screaming, loads of shit. I don't remember it right now. Crap about how the son of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley was Dark, and how she would hand me over to Azkaban. She spoke about telling Mum, and James, upstanding citizens that they are, and how they'd surely help in handing their son over to prison. I half-believed her, you know."

"We dueled. She was damn good, faster than me. She had me down on the ground, on wandpoint, and she called me a....... worthless coward, I think. Unworthy of bearing my name. I cast the first spell I could think of, and her guts were s-s-....scattered all over the floor. I g-gathered her up, stitched her together, and deposited her in St. Mungo's. Hopefully she's alive."

The bottle of Firewhisky hit the table, well and empty. The last sentence was almost a murmur, "Splattered guts look awful, did you know?"

Jack had been so certain they were going to continue to face the wall, so determined to keep a distance between them that she was thrown off when Albus turned to face her, somehow forcing her to mirror his movement and look right back at him. Jack could not stress how bad she was at emotions, and having to look him right in the eyes was going to be even harder. It forged a connection. Words spoken merely in the presence of another could be forgotten, written off, under-thought. But to look at someone while speaking was to speak right to them, involve them in the affairs you uttered. And while Jack didn't think she was ready to jump back into the world of connecting to people, it looked like it was happening anyway, regardless of her readiness.

He could not quiet meet her gaze, which made it much easier for her to look into his eyes, for they were not staring straight back. She could look and check - no, there was not that glimmer she had always seen in Vito's eyes. There were no shifting shadows. She let out an inaudible breath and began to soak in his words.

The words themselves were harder to take than the idea that she had to look right at him. It would have been so easy to have this one day suspended in time, and then forgotten and erased. But to continue on was to forge a commitment to each other, some sort of familial understanding, one she was not ready for, but the sort of thing she had always wanted. She nodded her head.

He moved away and the same thought struck them at the same time. They lifted their bottles in unison, and Jack allowed refreshing mead to tumble down her throat and give her the relief of a mind buzzed. Jack's alcohol tolerance was higher than she cared to admit - thank you, Nemo - but she could still feel the effects of a nice little buzz that was soon to take full shape.

Jack listened, because that was what she had agreed to do. She said nothing, just lifted her bottle on occasion to drink the miracle liquid that tempted her with temporary relief. She did not know what to say. He said it was his birthday, and she held her bottle towards him so he could clink his against hers. "Cheers."

What could she say? He was talking about potentially murdering someone, she could not just jump in and start singing happy birthday.

He finished speaking and she took a thoughtful drink of mead and then held it out to him, in case the Firewhiskey had not been enough. He added that splattered guts looked horrible, asking if she was aware. She forced her mind to call back images, and told herself just to respond with a noncommittal noise. But she could hear herself from far away respond to him, "Yes, I do know."

((This post was really hard for me, for some reason. I think it shows ))

His head was buzzing. Heavy, more like. Most who poured down an entire bottle of Firewhisky down their throat found themselves inevitably drunk, but he was merely lingering on the cusp of it. The Fates had taken pity on him at least in one aspect. The entire world seemed washed out though, closer to blurry, like a water colour painting which had been left out in the rain.

Jack's voice penetrated his ears from a great distance. Albus blinked, languidly, and wondered where his all-over-the-place emotions had disappeared. There was anger all right, and shame, and a cursed black feeling which twisted in his chest and stung in his eyes, but Albus was simply observing all this as if from a distance, as if the barrier of Firewhisky had dulled senses and prevented these things from rising to the surface. Albus laid back his head, on the couch head-rest, stretching out the tendons of his neck, and tested his voice. "Jack." Hm, that was good, no slurring. He did find it so distasteful.

"This is so stupid." Albus rolled his fingers absently over the couch-material. "You know, I had thought that......that......when I finally broke...when I finally let it out.....something would happen. Something big. The world would change. My world would change. But it just...just...." His eyes clouded over. "Feels the same."

"You took it so easily. Like its something that happens everyday." Of course, he hadn't told her everything. He only gave up the knowledge of one event, not his entire farcical life. "Guess I should've expected it...for someone associated with...what was it again? Ah, murderous poltergeists." A slow, lengthy pause.

"Do you think I should leave it too?"

((It's fine, dearie! It's a good post! Please excuse my terrible muse fail.))

There was a long pause and Jack's eyes searched the room distractedly, a room she did not often visit and was, therefore, fairly unacquainted with it. The walls were cracked in a few place, and a light, lime green, with a bronze-looking trim to accent it. The room was ugly and depressing, which seemed to be fitting for such an ugly and depressing subject as the one she found herself invested into with Albus Potter.

Albus got comfortable and Jack folded her hands, leaning forward so her elbows rested upon her knees. Her eyes ran up the ugly walls, across the old carpeting, and over the old fashioned furniture her landlord had left so he could have his own guests utilize the rooms - though, of course, Jack and Max had been given permission to use it if they needed to.

Jack's attention pricked at her name and she turned her head to look at her friend, her crazy mane of red curls flopping over her eyes. "Yeah?" she grunted back.

He spoke and she mulled over the sentiments he had expressed, slowly turning her head to look forward once again. "It's good to let things out," she said slowly, trying to figure out her angle. "But the only thing it really changes is that you no longer worry about someone knowing... because... well, someone does." It sounded so un-eloquent now that she said it, but it seemed right to say.

Jack smirked to herself at his next words, saying, "I could freak out of you'd like. I'll kick your ass and drag you into the Ministry if it'll make you feel better." She shrugged about the murderous poltergeist comment - it was simply not a place she wanted to take the conversation. Ever.

She looked up at him, knitting her eyebrows together. She echoed him, "Leave it. Leave what?"

(( B-but...b-b-but...I hold our threads to a high standard. Like a really high one. Don't you worry, I WILL retrieve our muses......*starts searching under the sofa* ))

"Mhm." Albus tapped his finger on the couch, once, twice. It just seemed so unreal, like he had been looking forward to the day forever, and it couldn't quite stand up to his expectations. Maybe he was attaching too much importance to the whole thing. Maybe it would finally sink in tomorrow. Whatever it was, it was gone. For the moment.

I wonder if its immoral to hope that she died...........

Then, the same-old faint-ish smile cracked on Albus's face. "It would feel better, in a strange way. At least it would liberate me of this stupid...feeling. The one in which you think something's gonna happen in any second, like Aurors banging on your front door, and the public baying for my blood." The smile made the turn to wryness. "Maybe this is the best headline of all. 'Jack Dyllan throws Albus Potter in jail.' " He smiled wanly at the memory. It seemed eons ago that she had found him crouching behind a trash-can, and him joking about their scandalous affair. And this was only their second meeting. Whoa.

He would have liked to continue, floating in unrealistic memories, till Jack posed a question that made him frown. Rather irritatedly in fact. Merlin, was she thick? "Dark magic you dumbass, what else? I invent it....and after today's escapade am rather disinclined to use it. But it is so very complex..." Albus relived a scientist's joy, a nerd's ecstasy at solving a particularly tricky problem, but remembered mid-way that Jack might not quite appreciate intellectual joy the way he did. So he elaborated, "In other words, its fascinating and dangerous. What shall be your hopefully non-prejudiced opinion? Do you think I should leave it?"

It felt good. Good. Merlin, he had been dying to ask someone that. Casually, like a topic of conversation, like the weather. He half-smiled, and even as he did, an errant lock of red hair, catching the light caught his eye. He stared at it, for perhaps a second too long, then gave his head a gentle shake. Now that was an effect of Firewhisky he hadn't experienced before.

((They will return soon!))

Jack considered doing the polite thing and seizing Albus by the collar and shaking him, as he seemed comforted by the idea of her persecuting him. However, she sincerely doubted that she would be able to do it without laughing. Jack could be intimidating - ask anyone who had ever worked with her, or anyone who had ever lived with her - but not when she was trying to relate, trying to connect to someone. That, in itself, was already hard enough for her.

She laughed at his revised headline. This time, her laugh resumed its normal frequency, - a low, sharp bark of a laugh. "That would actually do wonders for my reputation. Don't tempt me. Maybe I should just stick with beating you up, huh?" She paused, and then reached over, driving her fist into his shoulder. It was not a strong punch, but Jack rarely had to try hard to punch hard. She didn't put much effort into it, but it was still enough that it probably rattled his bones a bit.

Whoops.

Jack snorted as he called her a dumbass. "I'm sorry. I thought you might mean you were leaving show biz. Sorry." She smirked at him, always glad to lighten the mood with some humor.

Humor out the window now, she carefully considered what Albus was saying. She never thought she would have to advise someone whether or not to pursue dark arts. She never thought she would have to actually think about it. Consider it as a viable option. What had happened to Righteous Jack?

It was then Jack realized she was no longer good. She would not saw shew was evil, but she knew she was dark. Very dark. She had seen too many murders, fought too many wars, and felt responsible for too many ruined lives. She simply could not believe in purity and goodness.

She swigged from her bottle and tapped her fingers against her knees. She took a long breath and then began. "Dark magic is bad on the offense, used against innocent people. But researched to discover weakness, manipulated for good, and analyzed to understand... It all depends."