Spiraling

Vivianna Varnes had never been the type of girl to thank people. Sure, she would say the words whenever a Professor handed her back an assignment, or when her aunt complemented her marks. Rarely did the witch really mean it, however. It was a lot harder to thank someone when one was truly thankful, the redhead had found. To her, honesty and truthfulness was hard work.
Whenever Vivianna was really thankful, she wouldn’t say the words. They didn’t seem like enough, to her. “Thank you” was insignificant, thrown around all the time and rarely meant. So instead, she would do something to show the person she was thankful. The Slytherin wasn’t always in agreement with the age-old saying that actions spoke louder than words, but when it came to things like this, she was.

And she was thankful, so thankful, because Bertie was safe and alive and well, something the redhead thought she’d never see again. Vivianna was planning upon doing something for Erika. Perhaps she’d show her a hidden room or two, so that the girl had somewhere to go if she really wanted to be alone. Or maybe she’d brew her something; some of that healing paste that Erika had asked her about all of those months ago. But Erika wasn’t the only Dixon she needed to thank.

Reid had been harder. Vivianna had known that she definitely wanted to give him something potions related, but beyond that was stumped. Brewing was her life, her passion, and nothing less would be enough for how thankful she was. The Slytherin had sat for hours upon hours, trying to come up with something she could give to the wizard. Her first thought had been to return Barbara to him, but even magic could not bring back the dead.

In the early hours of that morning, a thought had struck her. Reid wasn’t happy with his life, not truly happy, and neither was Erika. But Reid clearly cared for Barbra more than words could explain. Even in death, he would be wishing for his sibling’s happiness. After all, Vivianna had found herself hoping that Bertie would have all the books and paper he could desire in the afterlife. It was a funny thought, considering that the redhead had never believed in a place after death. At that time her personal beliefs hadn’t even mattered, her love for Bertie overriding them all.

The witch knew what she would do. There was a potion that could mentally show someone an image, a snapshot from the memory of the brewer. With a little bit of modification and a trip to the apothecary, Vivianna knew that she’d be able to plant an image of anything she wanted inside the brew. Thirteen hours, eleven sugar quills, ten scrolls of notes, eight unsuccessful batches of potion, two destroyed stirring rods, and one apothecary trip later; Vivianna was done. Well aware that she was very covered in goop, the teenager ran to her dorms to take a shower and change before tracking down the male Dixon.

So here she was, attempting to find Reid. Wand lying flat on her palm, Vivianna traipsed through the halls. She’d been walking for almost half an hour, the Point Me spell not being all that useful since there were a multitude of floors in the castle. Having been paying little attention to her wand, the female looked down at it, only to see the wood pointed almost directly at the wall to her right. Taking a few slow steps backwards, the girl found her wand pointing straight at the door of the music room. Canceling the spell with a whisper, the Slytherin slipped it away and twisted the door handle.

“Hello Reid,” the girl said, closing the door behind her and taking a few steps forwards. Slinging her bag off of her back and onto her arm in a practiced movement, Vivianna stuck her hand in and extracted a vial of silvery-blue potion. The vial was too big to fit in her pockets, since she wasn’t wearing her Hogwarts robes. Tossing the potion to the wizard, the Slytherin settled in to watch for his reaction. Vivianna was rarely nervous when it came to her potions, but Reid needed to drink this, needed to see this, needed to believe this. It was vital.

Ghost: Spectre, wraith, imprint of a departed soul left on the earth.

Can see. Can hear. Can speak. Cannot feel.

His unfeeling finger slid over the page, creasing the corner. The texture of the hundred year old parchment, almost crumbling but for the Stasis Charm, felt grainy, coarse under his skin. The fingers of his left hand were wrapped around the stem of a goblet, stone, a shimmering translucent gold of freshly-brewed rakia steaming from its depths.

They are the disembodied spirits of a once-living witch or wizard, though Squibs and families with magical blood/tendencies also sometimes produce ghosts. These fleshless spirits linger on in our world, unable to pass on through the Veil, either because they were afraid of death or because they have an extraordinarily strong connection to the places they haunt.

He flipped the page. The crackle was exceedingly loud in the muted air of the room. All the instruments, dusty, unpolished....unused for what seemed like ages littered its corners like ornaments, rather than the wells of sound they were- silenced.

On certain occasions, ghosts have been known to haunt people as well- dogging their every step, their every living and dying breath. This most frequently happens in case of murderers or tormentors, the ghosts avenging the crimes and vindicating grudges acquired during their erstwhile lifetime (refer to Case 10227: Olive Hornby filing restraining orders against ‘Moaning Myrtle’), or more rarely, clinging to their loved ones in their lifetime. Ghosts can turn invisible, can float through solid objects, cause disturbances in fire, water and air, cause an icy sensation when someone passes through them-

Something kicked him, very, very hard across the shin.

Breath hissed out through closed teeth, and slate eyes shifted upward, across the grand piano on whose worn, wooden surface parchments of all sizes and shades were scattered, and his current book propped. A black head of hair popped above the piano level, face pale, mouth pursed, small fingers curled around and upholding a sheaf of papers just below her chin, covered with ant-like font and a large word scrawled over the header: DONE

Temptation flickered for a second, the throb pervading through his knee deluding his common sense to prolong the spell a little while longer- but he’d be a dimwit of the highest order to keep this lumbering, insane fool within ten metres of him for any further duration of time. The familiar shaft of yew resting in his hand, eyes back to the library tome, his wrist flicked. “Finite.”

The girl cracked her jaw open, audibly, and let out a test croak. Reid’s eyes flitted across the handwritten words on the book, unerringly scrambling them up and turning them over and over in his mind, even as the idiot occupying the same pocket of air as him proceeded to travel the musical scale, up and down, with her less-than stellar voice, evidently checking if hour-long Silencing Spells had any adverse impact on ability to carry a tune. Any other considerate person, with useless, free time on their hands, would have considered the Hufflepuff’s musical talents a lost case long before Silencing Spells even entered the equation.

“My mouth feels dry.” She proclaimed, after damaging the eardrums of all those unwitting enough to wander onto this floor without earmuffs. The bunched up parchments in her hand, twenty inches on the history and usage of magical artifacts in the Goblin Rebellion, deposited itself on the little crook of space on the piano not covered by papers.

“I should gag you the next time then.” A wave of the wand, and the parchments vanished into thin air before they could even settle properly onto the wood, converted to non-being. He set down the goblet on the newly liberated space, condensation steaming his fingertips.

There should have been a gasp hitting the air right now, an indignant noise, an annoyed, half-cut off mutter at his blase Vanishing of the work he himself had assigned, the work that took her over two hours to complete. But it seemed that over a month of forced tutoring had enlightened Alisha Merchant already, for there was only a brief sigh before an elbow knocked into the vicinity of the goblet, dark hair and cheeky dimple intruding into his vision. “Oh, would you?”

Reid blinked at her, a number of times. At certain momentous occasions, patience gives out, even anger throws up its hands in defeat and one is only left to wonder how a few people manage to even reach their sixteenth birthdays, without plunging the world into war, setting fire to entire cities, and getting killed within five minutes of their waking up in the morning.

There wasn’t a drop of mocking in his intonation, not a single one. Serious wasn’t enough to covered it, he was almost bewildered. “How suicidal are you, exactly?”

The smile on her face didn’t falter one bit. Small shoulders lifted up and down in a shrug, “I was going more for recklessly audacious, but- aw, crap!” She’d apparently kicked up her ankle over the other at the last word, but only succeeded in hitting the heel of her shoe against the nearby stool, knocking off a book in the process, which she immediately dived under the piano to retrieve. Reid glared at the wobbling goblet on the piano, almost precariously overturned by the sudden movement, directed a last testy look at the girl currently scrubbing on her hands and knees under the instrument, straining for the tome, and returned to his own book; consciously relaxing his jaw, exhaling. Du Hunt would regret this to the last, miserable second of her life.

Apart from the sound of scrabbling on the stone slabs somewhere near his feet, silence reigned in the room. Enough for his gaze to flit over the first paragraph again and again, retracing the words with an almost tangible touch, echoing in the confines of his head. Ghost. Spectre. Wraith. Can see, can hear, can speak, cannot feel. Can see, can hear, can speak, cannot feel. Can see, can hear, can speak, cannot....

If he were literary. If he talked in metaphors and similes like authors....like Rika.....he’d call himself a living ghost. .. feel.

He missed the sound of the door opening, of footsteps resounding through the stone, of a voice calling his name. Just registered the abrupt sensation of something knocking against his foot, and his head turned: seeing Merchant brushing off the dust on the knees of her jeans, something narrow and shiny clasped in her right palm, rising to her feet- and three feet across, standing tall and only a little pale- Vivianna.

“Sorry.” Merchant voiced apologetically, then placing the -vial, it was a vial- on the little tray that generally held the sheet music. “Reserve ‘Puff keeper, can’t quite keep my hands to myself when things fling themselves through the air.” She darted two quick glances between the two of them, seated, raven-haired boy, standing redhead girl, both storm and cerulean glassy and fixated in surprise, and the corner of her pucker lifted a little in amusement. “Anyway, places to be, work to do, opera competitions to win, can’t keep either of you, so bye!”

She weaved her way through the narrow gap between Vi-Varnes and the door, and gave a last spirited wave back at him, hand almost blurring in the rapid movement. “See ya next week, Reid! I’ll be back with an axe!” And her ponytail whipped through the air, footsteps bounding past the corridor, and the words muttered in her wake were indistinguishable enough to be ignored. “-to saw through all the sexual tension.”

Several seconds of motionless silence preceded the creak of the wooden stool as he shifted forward, hand outstretched to pluck the vial off the stand. The glass rolled, back and forth on his open palm, thick potion that could conceal life, death, and dreams- the three most toxic things within its murky drops cradled, held captive in his grasp.

“While I do appreciate the honesty......” The vial rolled. Back and forth, back and forth. The glass felt feverishly warm to the touch. Can see, can hear, can speak, cannot... “You’d have been more successful in poisoning me if you snuck it into my food.”

"It's not poison, you idiot," Vivianna responded immediately, sounding almost fond. No, the potion was something else entirely, and pretty much far as one could get from a poison when it came to the ingredients. Really, it would be easier to kill someone with the ingredients in a pepperup potion than those in her little concoction.

Besides, she'd never poison Reid. Hurt him, sure. Maybe even give him something that would toss him into coma for a while if he ever truly got in her way. But poison, no, she didn't have it in her to do that. Not to the Dixon male.

Vivianna blinked once, and then again, before her posture slumped and her arms folded across her chest. "I think I'm a little offended," the redhead admitted slowly. "If I was trying to poison you, you certainly wouldn't know about it. No matter what you say about my intelligence, I'm not quite thick enough to toss something poisonous at you and hope that you'll drink it."

The Slytherin hesitated for a moment, before inhaling and stretching up onto her tiptoes. She wobbled a little, imbalanced, and then straightened herself out. Raising her arms up and then backwards in a movement reminiscent of a ballerina, the girl smiled slightly as she heard her back crack. Relaxing her calf muscles so that her heels hit the floor with a thud, the redhead rolled her shoulders backwards before going still once more. As much as Vivianna adored laboring over a cauldron, her back wasn't always so fond of the brewing process.

"I'm not even gonna ask about that one," the witch added after a moment of mildly awkward silence, gesturing towards the door that a certain Hufflepuff had recently stepped through. Why Reid could possibly be associating with a younger, bubbly, Hufflepuff girl was a little beyond her. Vivianna hadn't been kidding upon saying that she didn't want to know. She didn't, really. Well, perhaps she was a bit curious, but only a little. There were more important topics of discussion hand.

"The thing is, the other day with Bertie, I-," the Slytherin pursed her lips. She'd never been very good at thanking people.

"The potion is for you," Vivianna settled on saying a moment later. "When I thought Bertie was gone, I wanted nothing more than to see him one more time, know he was happy. I don't believe in heaven or any of that, but I believe in someplace." The redhead paused for a moment, as if unsure if she should continue, if her words would be welcome. "You gave me back my sibling, so I want to give you back yours, if only for a little while. The potion will temporarily alter your brain, bring your mind to Barbara. Well, to her soul, her consciousness. She'll probably just look like a solid ghost, but-" the Slytherin trailed off, not sure what she'd been intending to say.

It was all a lie, of course. The potion would show Reid his dead sister, but not in the way he'd think. The potion was brilliant, one of her best pieces of work, if Vivianna was being honest. It would tap into Reid's own mind, his thoughts and feelings, and summon up an image of his sister. Reid's mind would be tricked into thinking he was somewhere scenic, and would be able to feel and smell his surroundings. There he'd find Barbara, brought to life his own memories. The good ones, not the bad. Vivianna had been very careful about that.

As long as Reid never figured out that the potion was all a lie, an elaborate hoax, things would go well. Hopefully, it would give the wizard some closure. And maybe, just maybe, Reid's eyes would fill with something other than emptiness.

It was like a million years had passed since that day on the tree.

They’d committed so many cruelties against each other since the second he’d heard that branch creak and decide that he didn’t wish to be disturbed; so many barbaric words tossed back and forth. Insults were too meagre a word- they were hunting knives, fashioned out of blood and bone and vulnerability, unerringly aimed at the most tender of spots. Nothing was sacred. Nothing was below the belt. Dead siblings, blackmail- they’d literally, physically maimed each other.

And they were to be married.

It itched at him, that word. Made the unease in his veins build into an almost fever pitch, switching on and off at abrupt intervals, turning even the ghosts in his reading into something relatively unimportant. While big parts of him were loathe to: it was uncharacteristic of Reid to pull away from any kind of truth, and he could acknowledge, like a bitter pill nestled on his tongue- that a part of it was due to his parents. The only married couple he’d truly ever known. A married couple that…..loved, and respected the other.

Startlingly enough, marriage wasn’t one of the institutions that had given Reid a chance to scoff at it. Not yet.

Didn’t stop it from making difficult as all hell to acknowledge.

So yes, something stirred uneasily in his chest at the thought of…marrying the girl currently doing back stretches not five feet away from him. Of course, he eliminated the errant feeling the second it emerged…..but not effortlessly.

Then she started pausing on her words, a little, and a thought fleeted past his head, idiotic and wasteful but a thought nonetheless- that maybe this feeling wouldn’t be so easy to dispose of.

She was halfway through her speech when it struck him, rather belatedly, that she was trying to thank him. She wasn’t used to it. It showed. She also wasn’t quite as inept at it as his late realisation might have one believe. It was just….

When something has crouched in the shade for too long, it becomes accustomed to the gloom. Its skin turns pale and papery, its eyes shrivelled and squinting. When light finally seeps in through the keyhole, peers its way through the canopy- it shields its eyes. Frowns, winces, looks away. It doesn’t uncurl and stretch and bloom towards the source, relishing in the warmth. It wonders at light’s necessity. If only because it has lived, devoid, for so long.

Reid Dixon couldn’t remember the last time someone had directed a scrap of positivity in his direction, that wasn’t motivated by politeness or common courtesy (beside insane idiots like Merchant, but she beamed at everyone). Couldn’t recall a shred of a smile from his current life that was meant only for him, and no one else. So he couldn’t welcome the light. It burned his eyes, and he wanted to look away, and he almost hated it for inspiring that reaction in him.

He almost wished it was poison.

They were almost of a kind, in this way. Even till now, Vivi-Varnes probably didn’t see that he wasn’t blackmailing her out of malice, or spite. He had no time for such futile emotions. He just didn’t care to see potential die out. (Or Vivianna’s ragged pupils, or her vacant smile.) They had learned to expect worse from the world. So they expected the worst out of each other.

And he definitely wasn’t the only one with the odd reactions. Varnes seemed almost hurt that he’d think she’d resort to such a simplistic means of poisoning him- rather than resenting the implication of poison at all. It was absurd. And somehow calling out her absurdness inside his head sounded just as……it had the same tone as when she called him an idiot. They weren’t insults. They weren’t even trying.

What the f*ck was going on here?

Right now, his mind wasn’t even engaging with the idea of speaking to……Barbara. He didn’t shy away from anything- but the turmoil in his head in the last couple of minutes alone proved that if there was anything to this potion at all (there wasn’t. There couldn’t be. He wouldn’t even be angry at Varnes for it)…….then the last person he needed to test this in front of, was the girl standing before him. He’d already….strayed once, in the Room of Requirement. She had flung it in his face several times after. He didn’t need to gift her more ammunition.

“Thank you, but I’m sure that you, least of all people, won’t judge me for ascertaining that this isn’t, in fact, belladonna- for myself.” It was uncalled for. Even as his fingers slipped over the warm glass, dropping the vial into his pocket- Reid couldn’t give less of a damn.

Or maybe he could- because the next words, no matter how flat and impassive their delivery, still exited his lips. “You’d have found out eventually- from someone else, if not from me. I didn’t bring him back from the dead.”

And that, could have been that. Vi- Varnes wouldn’t hang around in a place where she was unwanted. But his empty fingers, once clasped around feverish, cloudy glass now flexed in hollow air, then grasped for the steaming goblet of rakia he’d initially let go of-

“Drink?”

F*ck. He wasn’t always stone cold deliberate, but he’d never been so rashly impulsive either. But then they were to marry; or maybe not, if the rumblings about the law falling through sooner than later were actually true….

And hell. He’d never backed down in his life.