Sunday, 27 May 1923
2:38pm
It had been a slow shift. Once in a while a student would trickle in, complaining about this ache or that cut, but in the end, they all left after no more than ten minutes, healed from the minor inconveniences typical for a Sunday. A part of her wished something big would happen, something that’d take her mind of everything for even just a little while. A broken leg, a nasty case of some type of boils, hell she’d even take a first year projectile vomiting all over the wing if it meant her brain was allowed to think of anything other than exams for an hour.
But alas, the ward remained as quiet as it had been upon her arrival.
Maevie blew a long-suffering breath, pulling the last tincture from the back of the cabinet’s depth, checking for the date on the label. April 14th 1923. Automatically, she dropped it into the bin by her feet with a loud clang, piling on top of various other potions no longer usable.
It was one of her least favourite tasks of the Wing — going through every single thing on every single shelf all the time to see if something was expired or needed tidying up. It was mind-numbing, time consuming and boring, especially when she didn’t have anyone to chat to. Today, everyone seemed to be working in different corners and she’d been assigned the least fun of all. The storage room. Ugh.
Picking up the bin by one handle, Maevie half-carried, half-dragged the thing towards the sinks, needing to pour everything down the drain so they could reuse the bottles and jars. With lots of water though!
She had made an accidentally explosive concoction only once.
As she drew close, the sight of Rae also working by the sinks gave her heart a little leap. Maybe she’d have someone to talk to now at least! With a mighty grunt, Maevie heaved the bin onto the counter, beaming at the older girl.
“Hi, Rae! Slow today, isn’t it? Almost makes me wish for tomorrow, so exams would start.” She laughed nervously, not nearly as sincere as she’d intended to, a little wobbly around the edges. Her fingers tapped against the edge of the counter for a moment before she grabbed the first bottle from her bin, fidgeting with the lid. She had wanted a light-hearted conversation, a bit of fun, maybe some gossip, but suddenly something within pushed in a different direction entirely.
Whipping her head around to look at Rae, Maevie spoke before she could change her mind. "Can I— ask you something?"
An entire batch of sleeping draughts had gone bad, and no one seemed to have an explanation for it. When Rae had first been told about it, the healer had asked her to pop down to the hospital wings' apothecary to see if she could figure it out. All she got was a bunch of discordant "It wasn't me" and "I wasn't even here during that shift." Funny how they had so many budding potioneers, but none who could explain the issue with an entire batch. They'd all have to be brewed again, and the Slytherin had put the group on duty to work before heading back up to clean the vials herself.
Call it caution over contamination, call it generosity, or even boredom on such a slow shift, but the girl had decided to take matters into her own hands. It was true what they said: sometimes you really did have to do it yourself.
“Hi, Rae! Slow today, isn’t it? Almost makes me wish for tomorrow, so exams would start.”
She twisted at the sound of her name, half of her turning to face the Hufflepuff while her lower half remained oriented toward the sink. The water continued running, clearing away the suds from the vial while dark eyes lit up at the sight of Not-So-Little Maevie Golding. The girl was growing like a weed. She could still remember her as the bright-eyed first-year with a vase and no plan. A part of her wondered if that was how Elliot and Rocio had seen her. She was their age now, but didn't feel as wise as she'd always imagined them to be.
The girl's comment earned her a small grin.
"You know what? A few years ago, I'd have said you'd lost your mind." Wanting exams? Wishing they'd hurry up? The younger her could never. "But you're onto something. The sooner we get them over with, the sooner summer vacation can start." And while she wasn't looking forward to the journey across the Atlantic, Rae was looking for a break from all the duties she'd found herself with over the course of the school year. "Any big plans?"
Rae noticed the fidgeting but chose to say nothing. Things hadn't been the same for the younger girl since the tower. Rather than pity her like half the castle seemed to, she chose to offer the dignity of treating Maevie like she was stronger than all that and didn't need to be constantly coddled. That was the thing about life, wasn't it?
Very seldom did it offer you a silver spoon and a smooth ride to the end. If Maevie was gonna make it, she was gonna need to realise she was tougher than she sometimes thought.
Rae turned to the sink again, turning off the faucet as she set to wash another set of the vials.
"Can I— ask you something?"
"Hm?"
Rae shot her a glance over her shoulder. "Go for it."
“Uhm so…” Her gaze lowered to the bottle in her hands, twirling it without opening the lid. “How do you…like…how do you do it? I mean—”
Maevie sighed, cringing to herself.
The question felt awkward, her thoughts too jumbled and incohesive to fit into words. How was she supposed to ask something so deeply layered she wasn’t even sure she’d hit the bottom of it? How was she supposed to convey the up and down of two years of feelings she didn’t like looking at but that had been screaming into her face for so long now, she didn’t know how to ignore them any longer?
The urge to ask Rae for advise had emerged out of nowhere, the initial question an impulsive reaction and suddenly she worried she should have thought this through better. What if Rae didn’t want to talk about it at all? What if she got angry and told her to shut up, or even worse, what if she laughed? What if she had been silly and overreactive all this time, what if it wasn’t that big of a deal and the only answer to her question would be to suck it up? Could she?
A clump of anxiety grew inside her throat and Maevie swallowed against it, the lid of the bottle finally coming undone. “I mean,” she tried again, taking a breath, “how is it not affecting you anymore? The tower, and the memories.”
She dared a glance sideways, too afraid of what she’d find should she search Rae’s eyes for too long. Opening the faucet, Maevie poured the expired potion down the drain.
“It was okay for a while,” she continued, voice quiet and apprehensive and yet the words just seemed to flow, oddly enough. It was the first time she’d ever talked about it since the incident and it felt like opening a rusty lock to a heavy chest. Whatever had suddenly made it feel too small to contain it all was beyond her. Maybe it’d just been too long. “But then I visited Ever at St. Mungo’s and…”
The guilt and shame rushed back in, something she had carefully ignored all term long. Still, she continued.
“I gave her a bracelet and it made her have a meltdown. And it’s been bad again after that. I don’t really sleep well.” Her eyes turned to Rae another time. “I don’t know how to turn it off. I feel so bad for Ever and everything seems to reminds me of that day.”
Every time she cast a spell, to be exact, her scarred palm a constant companion.
Maevie pulled another bottle from her bin, shrugging as she opened and overturned it. “I’m just wondering if it’s like that for you too, I guess.”
“How do you…like…how do you do it? I mean—”
Do...it...? Do what? Rae lowered the soapy vial, turning to give her full attention to the Hufflepuff instead. It was then that she noticed how unsettled the younger girl looked. It was different than simple fidgeting, different from the way Maevie sometimes seemed to be transported somewhere else by her thoughts. Had something happened? Was there something in the wing she needed to take care of? Someone? The girl was by no means a Gryffindor (obviously), nor had she taken on the title of 'Defender of the Downtrodden,' but she cared enough to take action when it came to the people she held interest in.
If someone were giving Maevie a hard time, she only needed to say as much, and it would be handled. Then again, she had asked how she did something. It forced Rae down from her sudden need for vengeance, giving her room to consider that the issue might have been of an entirely different nature.
Rather than jump to further unsubstantiated conclusions, she waited for her to explain.
“I mean how is it not affecting you anymore?"
What wasn't affecting her?
"The tower, and the memories.”
Oh.
Rae leaned against the sink, allowing her to continue getting it all out. She was talking about the tower. Rae wanted to say it'd been a while since she'd thought about it...and in some ways, it wasn't true. It wasn't the bogeyman under her bed; it wasn't the terror that usually stalked her at night. But every now and then, it found its way in. If nothing else, it was a boat adrift in a sea of several other sinking ships, all clinging to relevance no matter how much she wished they'd finally sink.
“I’m just wondering if it’s like that for you too, I guess.”
It wasn't.
Rae thought to give a blunt response. Ever was weak. The weak tended not to survive such ordeals. In some ways, Maevie was likely weak, too. Soft enough, sweet enough, innocent enough that something like that could shatter her very understanding of safety while robbing her of the good she'd believed existed in the world. Ever, despite receiving the least torture, had been the first to fold. Her mind had caved in on itself, unable to handle it all. Maevie handled it...somewhat better. There were days she still smiled, days she still enjoyed time with her friends. But there were also times Rae thought she'd caught the girl zoning out or lost in her own world. It spoke to some level of resilience, but not enough to keep the terror away.
And what did she say? Did she tell her all this? Did she tell her the world could be bigger and scarier than a lunatic using the cruciatus curse and that she had to learn to face it?
"It's not the same," Rae said, her tone level. It felt like the best place to start. 'It'll never be the same because we're all so different and we've all seen and experienced different things." The end of the world for the third year may very well have been a mild inconvenience for the girl who'd braved the busy London streets.
"I guess..." she wanted to choose her words carefully. It couldn't have been easy for someone like Maevie to willingly relive that night, and she wanted to treat it with appropriate care for the younger girl's sake. "I guess when you've seen enough ugly things...nothing really frightens you anymore—no more than the things that frightened you before. It just becomes a part of a bigger nightmare that you've already been forced to learn to stare in the eyes without flinching because the moment you do, it wins."
Rae hadn't been so different from Maevie in the beginning, but she'd quickly learned that in life, it was the person who blinked first who got consumed.
She hadn't learned that from a cute storybook but from real horrors that had all left their own mark.
The Slytherin prefect cocked her head, taken by a sudden curiosity. "What happens when you remember? What do you feel?"
"It's not the same."
Despite bracing for the worst, Rae’s answer came like a shove to the chest.
So it was only her.
Her inner self seemed to curl in on itself at that, almost disappointed. Which in turn made her feel only the more guilty, because disappointed for what? That Rae wasn’t suffering, wasn’t having nightmares, wasn’t haunted by feelings of survivor’s guilt, but instead acted like a normal person with a normal brain? It had been a silly question from the start, considering how the older girl held herself, and at once, regret settled heavy in her stomach.
“It'll never be the same because we're all so different and we've all seen and experienced different things."
Maevie kept her eyes averted, pretending to be focused on her work while her insides twisted into knots. Rae’s words sounded a lot like what she’d worried over earlier: she was naïve and soft, Rae wasn’t, and this had been stupid.
"I guess when you've seen enough ugly things...nothing really frightens you anymore—no more than the things that frightened you before. It just becomes a part of a bigger nightmare that you've already been forced to learn to stare in the eyes without flinching because the moment you do, it wins."
Maevie cast a hesitant glance around. What frightening things had Rae seen that the horrors of that tower were too small to compete with? Did she even want to know? Maybe she really was being overreactive. But how did one toughen up? How did one become like Rae? Or would she always be this emotional, affected by the smallest things, a weak, little girl who couldn’t get over it even after two whole years?
And how long would she have to continue staring this nightmare in the eye until it finally gave up and let her win? Shouldn’t she already have won after all this time? Was she doing it wrong?
A quiet sigh escaped her, a sudden exhaustion curving her shoulders. This had been a stupid idea. She should have never brought it up. Maevie hummed in response, hoping that would end this conversation, but Rae had other plans.
"What happens when you remember? What do you feel?"
Oh, this really had been a stupid idea.
The half-empty bottle slipped from her hand, clattering around the sink for a moment before Maevie managed to grab it back up. “I— uhh… uhm…” A frenzied shrug lifted her shoulders, too quick to be casual, eyes stubbornly downcast.
She did not want to think about what she felt, or the images in her head, or the way Rae would probably see her as even weaker than she likely already did. She had thought that maybe opening up to someone — specifically someone who’d been there too — could help, but she’d been stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Maevie shrugged another time, shoving against the panic as hard as she could. “Just…scary, I guess. That someone can be so…” She waved a hand, water spraying, but she didn’t notice. “You know? And I feel bad for Ever. Because she’s doing so much worse, right? And then sometimes I just feel sad, and alone, and it doesn’t make sense why someone would do all…that.”
Her words fizzled out, a feeling of helplessness creeping back in as her hands finally stilled inside the sink. Her gaze turned to Rae once more, grimacing. “You know?”
It wasn't the sort of answer Maevie was looking for. She didn't need to say anything for Rae to recognise the disappointment sprinkled into her expression. She couldn't imagine why. Should there have been another answer? Was there a world where it could have been different? The Slytherin couldn't see it.
The moment the shiver ran up her spine at the mention of the dark tower and the madman who'd taken them there, her own resolve had tightened. It would continue constricting until there was no part of her that still held dread over what had happened. To her, that was the only way to move forward. She didn't want to analyse it and didn't want to understand why Thayer did what he did or what he might have done if Professor Barlowe and the others hadn't stormed in to save them. Why wonder? She knew.
Rae had met men like Thayer before. Different ideologies, true, but the same obsessive compulsions and the same drive to do whatever it took. You couldn't always win, not by overpowering them alone. Winning took a different path. Often, it looked like enduring and outlasting. It looked like refusing to bend, no matter how much pressure was applied. Spine straightened defiantly, eyes never lowering until the threat realised there were some things they would never be able to claim.
Maevie wasn't there yet. That she'd asked the question at all told her as much. It still kept her up. It still made her shake. The younger girl still harboured guilt over things that weren't her fault.
Rae watched the bottle spinning its way around the sink, dark eyes spinning and shifting with each movement until Maevie plucked it back out.
“Just…scary, I guess. That someone can be so… You know?"
She did.
"And I feel bad for Ever. Because she’s doing so much worse, right? And then sometimes I just feel sad, and alone, and it doesn’t make sense why someone would do all…that.”
That final 'you know' nudged Rae into action. Without the Hufflepuff asking, Rae reached across the short distance to pull her into a hug.
"I know."
She did. Even if she wasn't shaking. Even if it wasn't the thing that kept her up at night. The girl had learned to look at survival a little differently but it had taken time. She didn't look at those who hadn't made it and think, 'Why hadn't they?' or that it wasn't fair. Instead, she focused on herself and the fact that she'd survived at all. It fed a loop, over and over. It told her that she could when everything else said she couldn't.
"Sometimes, you'll never understand why some do what they do; there's no changing that. But you know what? You'll have to get to the place where it doesn't matter why, either. It wouldn't make you feel better or your burns hurt less, or Ever less insane, if he'd told you he did it to feed his children or to cure cancer, so don't go chasing reasons. All it'll do is hurt you more."
As it was clearly doing now.
"It's tough that Ever folded; it is." Rae pulled away to look at her, wanting to make sure she was really listening. "She's your friend and you care about her, but pitying her won't make her better and it won't make you feel better. You walked out of that tower shaken, but you walked out. You get up every day, even when it's scary. If you spend all your time worrying over how someone else is recovering, you'll never see that you're not doing so bad for yourself." Comparatively. "You're not alone, Maevie. That's just your head," she tapped the girl lightly atop her fiery curls, "trying to make you think you are. I'm here. Benji's here. Your other friends are still here, and we're happy to help you when you start feeling sad or scared. Make sure you come find me, okay?"
Maevie’s face crumpled, an involuntary breaking as Rae pulled her into a hug, brow scrunched, but she fought against the tears rising hot into her eyes. She didn’t want to cry; she hadn’t in a while. Pushing the emotions away, forcing herself not to think about it and banishing the nightmarish memories had prevented her from any real breakdowns, and she refused to give in now. She didn’t want to. She wanted to be strong, like Rae.
But it all seemed to flow free now, like the wall she had forced it all behind suddenly ceased to exist. The sorrow streamed through her system as though it belonged there, making her limbs feel heavy and her head tired. In a way, it was almost a little comforting. Rae hadn’t laughed at her, or reprimanded her. Though she may not feel the same, knowing that Rae understood what she had tried to say was enough to ease the bottled-up, pressurised ball of emotion for the moment.
It eased the regret of having brought it up in the first place.
"Sometimes, you'll never understand why some do what they do; there's no changing that. But you know what? You'll have to get to the place where it doesn't matter why, either. It wouldn't make you feel better or your burns hurt less, or Ever less insane, if he'd told you he did it to feed his children or to cure cancer, so don't go chasing reasons. All it'll do is hurt you more."
Maevie let the older girl’s words pour into her like a remedy, easing some of the tension in her body.
Maybe it really didn’t matter why Thayer had done what he’d done; maybe trying to understand was more painful than the event itself had been. She understood that even if she knew a reason, nothing of the outcome would change. All of them would still be right where they were now.
And yet, Maevie couldn’t quite let it go. Why? Why her, why them, why had no one noticed sooner? And maybe what she wanted wasn’t an explanation at all. Maybe all she really wanted was for it to go away. To be okay again. Like before. Would she ever be? Could she one day look back and not crunch beneath its weight, stare it in the eye as Rae said and move on?
She hoped she could. She didn’t like feeling like this. She was exhausted.
Rae pulled back then, and Maevie met her gaze.
"It's tough that Ever folded; it is. She's your friend and you care about her, but pitying her won't make her better and it won't make you feel better. You walked out of that tower shaken, but you walked out. You get up every day, even when it's scary. If you spend all your time worrying over how someone else is recovering, you'll never see that you're not doing so bad for yourself."
Her eyes lowered, a despondency settling over her shoulders. Rae’s words should lift her up, but somehow the thought of not feeling guilty made her feel guilty, like some ridiculous, twisted logic. Part of her saw what Rae tried to make her understand, and the other simply couldn't fathom it. It was a loop she was stuck in, and Maevie wasn't sure where to break free.
"You're not alone, Maevie. That's just your head trying to make you think you are. I'm here. Benji's here. Your other friends are still here, and we're happy to help you when you start feeling sad or scared. Make sure you come find me, okay?"
Maevie forced her eyes back up, nodding slightly. “Thanks, Rae,” she said, managing a small smile. “I’ll... I'll try to be better. I still get the nightmares sometimes. Those are the worst.” She paused, fiddling with a loose thread on her uniform. For a brief moment she contemplated bringing up how those banned sweets had helped, but she thought better of it. She didn't feel like being called an addict again.
"Well, I'd better get back to work," she chuckled instead, smoothing the front of her clothes and turning to face the sink again. "It's crazy how much stuff goes bad, isn't it? I actually found one with mould the other day."
"You'll be alright; you'll see," Rae said softly, her hands rubbing gently on the girl's back.
In Rae's experience, affection was sometimes the bridge needed to gap certain pitfalls. It wasn't because she believed that a hug could erase the bad things that had happened or that she was naive enough to think that loving someone was enough. Rather, she had found that it could be a physical reminder. When everything got heavy and doubt started creeping in, it could be an anchor back to the reality that sometimes we weren't as alone as we thought we were. It was why she'd spent so many nights in the beds of her friends instead of her own and had been so willing to accept the affections of her older friends.
It didn't make her problems disappear in a puff of smoke, but it made it easier to stand and face them. Maevie would have to go on her own journey to discover her strength. Who knew, it might be a while before she got to a place where the events of the tower didn't cause her to spiral. Until she got there, Rae only wanted her knowing that there were others she could lean on and someone else who'd been there, who'd refused to break and was willing to help her with that, too.
“Thanks, Rae.”
She smiled, mirroring the girl's smaller one but stretching hers wider. "Anytime."
“I’ll... I'll try to be better. I still get the nightmares sometimes. Those are the worst.”
Rae shrugged a little, not to be dismissive but to assure Maevie that even that didn't mean she was somehow broken. "I get nightmares, too. All the time, actually." It was one of the reasons she roamed the quiet castle until her muscles were no longer capable of carrying her. Utterly exhausted, her mind was less likely to wander back to the things she tried to outrun. "You're right, they are the worst, but you know what?" Rae reached for another vial, emptying its contents into the sink. For a brief moment, she watched the expired liquid sloshing around in spirals before descending into the castle's drainage system.
She rinsed it thoroughly.
"Every morning you wake up means you survived those, too."
Rae wasn't trying to be overly sentimental, but she could see that yelling and tough love weren't the medicine Maevie needed. She'd been her once – though much smaller. She'd been scared, she hadn't understood, and she hadn't known where to turn. The children she'd passed through had more or less all given her the same message. Suck it up. The weak get left behind. And...they had. More often than she cared to remember. A younger Rae might not have seen the use in soft words when she knew that one would still have to grow and get over it. Hogwarts had softened her to the reality that not everyone had to be thrown into the deep end to either sink or swim.
Maevie didn't need to be presented with both options, not when Rae now had her own boat. It was small and didn't have room for most people to get on, but she could make room for the younger girl who'd shared in one of her latest tragedies.
"Well, I'd better get back to work. It's crazy how much stuff goes bad, isn't it? I actually found one with mould the other day."
Rae wrinkled her nose. "Have fun with that." She flashed her hands a few times to remove the excess water that had gotten onto them before easing away from the sink.
"I'm gonna head back out front. It's about time to help the healer with the medicines. You'll be fine, Maevie. You're tougher than you think."
And with that, Rae made her way through the door and back into the main wing.
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