The Collision

Chapter #3; Distant voices, still lives

This sombre song would drain the Sun

But it won't shine until it's sung

No water running in the streams

The saddest place we've ever seen.

Sunshine poured through the open windows on the mild late-summer morning. A soft, warm breeze played with the curtains, bringing the scent of flowers into the infirmary room. Outside, the birds sang their love songs, interrupted only by the soft buzzing of insects. A single glance at the tranquillity of the outside fields could make a smile appear on the grimmest face. However, neither of the two women in the room seemed to notice the beauty and peacefulness of the morning, even though one had her gaze riveted on the outside grounds. The other, occupying the chair near the bed where younger one was lying, seemed intensely interested in a particular point on the opposite wall. Only the slight lack of focus of her eyes and the thin line of her lips betrayed her inner turmoil. An uncomfortable silence cloaked both women like a dark gloom diminishing the glow of golden sunshine. Even the merry birdsong seemed sombre in this room.

«And that's how it's been for the last three weeks.» Minerva thought with exasperation, not allowing herself to feel the despair that was skulking only two paces behind her frustration and would absorb her if she put her defences down even the slightest bit. «From the moment she learned the truth of her past and...possible future if she ever chooses to come out of bed.» Her lips thinned a bit more. «Or ifcide to end this charade, do us both a favour and not return until she asks me.» She moved her gaze from the wall, brushed it slightly over the unmoving figure on the bed and set it on her clenched hands in her lap. «But how could I? I, who failed her so many times, how could I leave? How could I betray her once again?» She cast one more quick glance in girl's direction, on her eyes devoid of any feeling, any life, just...dead. «Oh, I would give anything just to see a single spark of a spirit residing beneath those hollow pools, be it even a glint of fear. Anything but this emptiness.»

The fear that replaced her puzzlement when she opened her eyes for the first time after the potion-induced sleep that allowed her body to heal. For her soul, there was no cure besides time. Minerva suppressed a bitter laugh. «Like time has even eased my pain.» From the moment Poppy entered the room everything had gone terribly wrong. If the girl's memory of the preceding events had been somewhat blurred by the potion and weakness, it was all revived when Madame Pomfrey pulled out her wand to examine her. With the shriek of a wounded animal and a strength no one could possess after such injuries, the girl bolted out of bed and ran toward the infirmary door. Halfway there, her feet could no longer hold her, her knees buckled and she fell on the stone floor, reopening her lacerations. The adrenaline surge prevented her from fainting, giving her the strength to continue crawling toward the door in vain hope of rescue. Finally, overcoming the numbness her unexpected jump caused, Dumbledore, Poppy and Minerva managed to stop the hysteric girl and force a calming potion down her throat.

They had to restrain her with magical bonds to prevent her from harming herself again. At first she refused to believe anything of what Dumbledore was saying. After she was presented with evidence of magic's existence and an explanationas provided half by Minerva and half by Dumbledore, her incredulity and fear gave way to despair, then to anger and hate, until they were finally replaced by emptiness and silence. And silent she remained to this day; not a single word or sob escaped her lips after they finished, not a single tear rolled down her cheeks. A stone gargoyle could not have been more impassive. At least it would move when you said the right words.

* * *

«Nothing. I have nothing left. Nothing. Nothing...»Like a litany these words kept pounding in Skylar's head, followed and amplified by pictures of the most horrible day of her life. Not the day when she came home from the lab and found her father bloodied and tied by invisible bonds, not even the moment when those hooded wizards killed him after they tortured her in front of his eyes. Not those long two days when these same sadists held her and made her suffer through myriad tortures. No, she had banished them from her thoughts, locked them behind thick mental doors and built a wall of oblivion in front of it. If the Death Eaters had taken her innocence, then this people, her so-called-rescuers had stripped her bare of any joy, any hope of ever being able to gather the shattered peaces of her life

She remembered everything from the past few days up to tiniest detail. It was repeated over and over in her head, every word, every gesture like a giant broom sweeping away her life and identity. She was a prisoner in the invisible confinement of her past. That much was obvious from the moment she opened her eyes for the second time unable to move a single muscle although there were no visible bonds. Beleaguered, trapped by some peculiarly dressed strangers with deceivingly compassionate faces ready to take what little remained of her life.

«What do you t from me?» she asked them, futilely attempting to keep her voice from quivering. «Why don't you just kill me and get it over with?!» She strained so hard not to cry; she would not give these people the satisfaction of seeing her defeated. With dismay she felt defiant tears wetting her cheeks.

«Persephone...» The soft voice startled her.

«What? That's not my name! This is a mistake, you have the wrong person!» She opened her mouth to say so but was abruptly hindered as she found herself face to face with the speaker. It was like looking into a scrying mirror at her older self. With different hair colour, fine lines around the eyes and a more angular face shape, she would never have noticed any resemblance were it not for the mesmerising stare of the woman's eyes.

Skylar had never seen her mother who died at childbirth. Her father had discarded all of her pictures when she died and avoided any question Skylar asked about her. After a while she had stopped asking them; it didn't do any good hurting herself and her father with the topic that was obviously too painful for him. But she hasn't banished her mother from her thoughts, although as she got older Skylar's attempts at finding anything of her in the mirror lessened noticeably. After all, there was nothing to be found. Skylar was the perfect picture of her father, from the gaunt figure to the light brown hair, an almost the perfect copy except for her eyes, the only feature she always presumed she had inherited from her mother. And now the same eyes, beady and of the strange, pale colour of a clear, mountain spring returned her gaze.

«I'm afraid there's no mistake.» As if she could read Skylar's mind, the woman spoke and shook her out of her reverie. More words followed, unvarnished words that inexorably teared theric of lies that made the tapestry of her life. And no matter how much evidence she was presented with, no matter how everything fitted perfectly into the gaps her father's lies had left, her brain could not, would not accept it. She was a scientist, for God's sake! Twenty-six years of learning that something can't simply vanish or appear out of nothing couldn't be easily erased. And now these people were trying to persuade her to something she simply knew was preposterous. Yet, it was there; magic really existed and with it a whole secret community of people who called themselves wizards and witches. At any other time, the scientist in her would have been intrigued.

«If this wasn't my life we're talking about I could laugh at the irony of it!» So many years spent in hiding from something that had nevertheless happened. In the end, her father's exile had accomplished nothing, just bought them some time, postponing the inevitable. «It would be better if we had both died that night along with my mother.»

«What next?» Skylar asked, breaking the silence that followed her aunt's confession. «How long do you intend to keep me here?» Even after all the revelations there was still hope, however tiny, lingering in Skylar's soul that she might still find the strength to forget, to recover her strength and go on with her life. But that hope too was shattered as Minerva and old man, who was headmaster of this «school» exchanged worried glances.

«What?» She barely recognised the shrill cry as her voice. The old man, Dumbledore, approached her and took her palm gently between his own. His touch was warm and the startling blue eyes that held her own were filled with compassion.

«It's not that simple,» he began slowly, at which point Skylar's nerves became p strings. «You see, this is a delicate situation. The Ministry of Magic still refuses to acknowledge the rise of Lord Voldemort. The number of his followers, both old and new ones, is rising as we speak, and so is the number of hideous crimes committed by them. And yet, the Ministry is closing its eyes to all evidence of increased Death Eater activity, claiming them to be random attacks by madmen. They consider the very idea of Voldemort acquiring a new body and all of this power preposterous. On the other hand, they did recognise the attack on you and your father as one being committed by a member of the wizarding community. And they don't want questions being asked both by the wizarding and Muggle communities. You see, since the Middle Ages, the very existence of the wizarding world has been kept as a secret, and this is the way the Ministry wants it to remain. They sent a special unit of Aurors to your house to clear up the wreckage and cast a special charm on the neighbours to make them forget what they saw. They haven't found out your father's true identity or anything about your existence. For them, the matter is closed now, and we intend to keep it that way. As long no one knows who or where you are, you're safe.»

«But surely after some time it would be safe for me to return home, wouldn't it?» It was almost a plea. «But..but I have my research, my friends...they would be worried if...» She faltered, feeling something utterly cold forming in her chest as she noticed Dumbledore's eyes lose their spark, and her aunt's averted gaze.

«I'm so sorry, child,» Dumbledore said gravely. «If anyone learned of your existence, it would put both you and that person in grave danger. We...I couldn't allow that. I sent Severus to everyone you ever came in touch with, and--»

Whatever else Dumbledore said was muffled by a loud roar in Skylar's derstanding came to her. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. Her whole life, her very existence and identity were gone, obliterated, as if she never had existed at all. That was the worst of it. The nurse, followed by Minerva and Dumbledore, hurried to her side, afraid of the state of her mind her face revealed. It was not unknown for a person to lose their mind when presented with too much dismay, and for one long second Skylar thought she was really going to lose it; she felt her grip on sanity loosen as she panted for breath and relief that would not come. When that second, which seemed long as an hour, finally passed and the pounding in her ears lessened she pushed them all aside with the last remnants of her strength.

«Don't you touch me!» she cried harshly, a mad gleam in her eye. They obeyed.

Skylar closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, and turned her face away from them. Opening them again, she set her gaze on the open window, seeing none of the beauty outside, feeling only numbness. Oh, how she wished to cry, to mourn her father and the life she had thought she had, but the tears wouldn't come. After a moment she realised that the cold thing in her chest was her heart, chained in ice.

Days passed and she remained impassive and unmoving, eating only when forced, eyes riveted on the horizon yet seeing only those terrible moments repeating over and over again. She wished for death to come, but she was unable to raise a hand at herself. Call it a cowardice, but she had always feared the unknown. Day after day, her aunt, this stranger who had caused her despair came and sat by her bed. At first she talked, opening her soul to Skylar, not asking forgiveness, only understanding. The words couldn't touch Skylar, and in a way she felt a twisted sort of joy at seeing a little more despair creeping into the eyes that werso like hers with each passing day. After a while she finally stopped talking under Skylar's cold, accusing stare and just sat there, avoiding her eyes. A few days later, she asked if Skylar wanted her to leave. She took the ensuing silence as a yes. A few days after that, she left without a word. Always returning in the morning and leaving at midday.

One day, however, she left earlier. Skylar felt a pang of anger. «What is it, you got bored with the show?» she thought, watching the departing figure of her aunt out of the corner of her eye. Strangely, she didn't enjoy solitude as much she had thought she would. «And I want her to pay for what she did!» Casting accusing glances had lost its appeal too, although her darts still hit the target well. One could not ease pain by hurting others. And yet Skylar wanted revenge, wanted someone, anyone to pay back the debt, and no one was as good as the ones near her. After all, Minerva was to blame; the attack on her father and her was not a random one. Skylar hated her for that, was disgusted by her sheer presence and yet felt so alone every time Minerva left.

She wanted to cry after her, call her back, say anything that would make her stay, but every time she failed. Words couldn't force their way out through the wall Skylar had built around herself. And every day she felt more alone, an inch farther from this world, an inch deeper in her self-constructed grave. Buried alive.