Can you dance like a hippogriff?

Somehow Hallie's words had made a lasting impact on Erik for he was soon sat across from her the other side of the booth and the introductory statement of 'You're going to think I'm insane-' told her that she was about to discover exactly what was on the mans mind. 

Hallie resisted the urge to object at whatever she was about to hear was insane, nothing surprised her anymore. She'd been through so much in her life, seen nightmares come to life, met people, people driven by an ambitious craze, that you would only find as the antagonist in a children's fairy tale. Insanity was no longer something far from ordinary. It was mundane. The usual. 

His parents gave him a potion to make him forget his problems. If only life was that easy. Smoke and mirrors, forgetfulness potions, memory charms, they were all illusions, a trick of the magician. Its a fantasy that is just that, a fantasy. Life isn't supposed to be about forgetting your problems it's about facing them, working trhrough them and becoming a better person for them. Hallie had been through enough to know that there was no magic bullet that would solve problems. 


'I don't think it's insane.' Hallie told him, placing her hands on the table as though laying out a map to show him. 'Something similar-ish happened to me not too long ago.' The auror confessed. 

'My Dad died when I was seven, I saw his body and grew up believing he'd died. Well, I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to tell you, but I found out recently that he's alive and his death was staged by the ministry to protect us. He was going to do something dangerous for the ministry and if people thought he was alive they might have used us, his family, as bait.'

She smiled, oddly, given the topic of their conversation. 

'I'm glad I know the truth, I was a little thrown, thought I'd been living a lie for the past thirteen years but I realised it had all happened in an attempt to protect me.'

'It wasn't the best way to protect me, and I'm sure your Parents have done this to protect you and it doesn't make sense now but the only way for it to make sense is by asking the questions. There was no way I could have figured out why I had seen my supposedly deceased Father walking around the ministry if I hadn't demanded answers.'

Hallie paused again, suddenly wondering why she was being so open about her own life. Especially when the pair hardly knew each other on a personal level.

'I sort of, in a weird way, understand how you're feeling right about now, Erik.'

Erik didn't expect Hallie to lay down her story for him. He would never have asked it of her, obviously. But once she did, he definitely felt a bit better for it. He was not always the most allocentric person in the world, but he did try to be. In this case, though, he was struggling to separate the fact that she was saying it to make him feel better and the fact that it had actually happened to her, so he ought to have been more comforting.

Instead, however, he just let out a sigh of relief, his eyes wide as he looked across the table at her. After she finished, he wasn't sure what to say. Not right away, that is. It took him a few moments to gather himself and nod in agreement.

"I suppose it's difficult to see it that way when I know that I'm not what they wanted in their eldest child, nonetheless their only son. I mean, we aren't exactly purebloods, us kids. But my father still has that mindset and it makes things more of a struggle, sometimes." Shaking his head, Erik propped his elbow on the table and let his chin fall into his palm. "It just seems odd to me that they would manage to find someone who made a mistake like that. They left absolutely everything except her name. Surely, if they wanted to help, they would have found someone with the skill to do it properly? I mean, I don't even recall asking for them to do anything like this. How could a potion take those bits away and leave the rest? It seems too... just, weird."

Hallie listened and allowed Erik to unload his thoughts onto her. It seemed a difficult situation to be in, not knowing what the truth was. Having pieces of information but not having enough to complete the puzzle - how Hallie found herself in that position more times than she'd like to at work.

However, what was more painful than seeing Erik struggle his way around the problem, was hearing that he was a disappointment to his parents. Having been married to a Rookwood, being a half blood married to a Rookwood, Hallie had become accustom to seeing Theodore cast aside by his Father. The image of Augustus attempting to cast an unforgivable briefly haunted her mind before she pushed it out before a fire started raging inside of her. Augustus had even gone as far to having Hallie assassinated by Henry Yewbeam.

'You're not a disappointment.' Hallie objected a little more fiery than perhaps necessary, a fist clenching in her lap as she projected what she once told Theodore onto Erik.

Hallie mimicked Erik's sigh.

'Maybe.'

Hallie paused.

'Maybe they didn't want you to forget. I know that sounds rather weird but our experiences make us who we are and clearly meeting this lady helped develop you as a person. I'm guessing that she brought you happiness and perhaps your parents didn't want to take that away from you.'

'I don't know why they only made you forget her name, maybe so you couldn't find her? But there must be a reason as to why they made you believe that she'd died and I think they are the only people who can answer that, as painful as it may be you deserve to know the truth and even if they lie sometimes lying can help lead to the right answer, in a weird way, it's still a clue to the truth because you can eliminate something?'

Hallie shrugged. Although she could sort of emphasise with Erik this wasn't a situation she was familiar with. Sure she had found the truth out about her Father, she'd been tormented for months and now she knew the truth she was on the other side. The only difference between them is that Erik thought his parents would lie, when Hallie asked questions they told her the truth.