"… Ignan wants to knock you out and hex you to the bed. I want to help you push that image back in your mind and rest. Naturally." There was a quick glance from Mira to Ignan in the doorway, and he shuffled his feet, ebony wand clearly visible in his hand.

Mira's work of course was going to win - nobody would ever willingly choose to have Ignan curse them, not even his students who wanted to test their defences. He was none the wiser as to what Johann meant about November, only that he was pretty sure he was referring to his stay in St Mungo's. It was a waste of a good mind to down potion, and he didn't understand it.

Slipping his wand away, he glanced to Gerda and folded his arms, observing Mira. Despite his irritation at Johann's behaviour and pickle he'd got himself into, and for Mira telling him off in the kitchen (rightly), there was something oddly touching about the way she dealt with matters. For someone so abrupt at times, she had a surprisingly kind bedside manner.

He supposed it was down to being a mother, though he'd not met Miranda's daughter or the mentioned granddaughter. It was probably best he didn't, He didn't want to sabotage what they had by being himself around them.

As expected, Johann was more inclined to go with the kinder, less violent option and Miranda prepared herself to set to work. The small, kind smile formed on her lips and she nodded.
"How?"
“You need to let me in your mind.”  She pulled her wand down from behind her ear and watched the wizard carefully. He didn’t look convinced. Lips pursed as she considered what she could tell him. Johann would outright deny any thoughts of antelopes. Any person would.
“I want to give you a potion to help you. Hence the nosehairs,” it didn’t click with Miranda that most people wouldn’t put extraction of nose hairs and sleeping potion together. “Before I am willing to do that I need to check for something.” Her gaze and attention was only on him. They could forget about the older wizard looming in the doorway ready to hex his relative when he had the chance.
“I can only help you if you let me do this. No other thoughts messed with, nothing being moved. No other thoughts meddled with. I need to look for something. Can you allow that?” Or Ignan would no doubt force him.

Johann's eyes widened a little at the prospect of Mira in his head, and he withdrew physically from her a little. It was an incredibly private place, and his deep fear of obliviation meant he preferred people stayed out. He'd been unable to grasp the basics of occlumency ahead of the Tetrawizard Tournament, when his Department had encouraged employees to study, too much noise in his head.

He had no idea Mira was skilled at legilimens, but healers did study it for healing purposes, he had seen it done from assisting hospitals in his twenties but had never been on the receiving end.

"I want to give you a potion to help you. Hence the nosehairs." Johann's other hand went to his nose instinctively, wondering what had gone on there, but the fact Mira was willing to give him potion gave him some hope. This would not be November and withdrawal, unlike Torret and Arcturus Mira would oblige his addiction.

"No other thoughts meddled with… I need to look for something…"

"What do you need?" Johann asked, forgetting for a moment that Ignan and Gerda were in the doorway. The Head Healer of St Mungo's was offering and he was desperate. It appeared that Mira couldn't let him know, because it would risk him hiding it - not that he knew how to do such a thing.

"Alright." Johann spoke eventually, though his voice trembled as much as his hands. He drew his legs up onto the bed to sit cross-legged. "What do I do?"

"What do I do?"
“Think of antelope.” Her wand was lifted to point at his temple and the healer closed her eyes. “Legilimens.”

The world around her vanished, plunging her into darkness, thought clearing emptiness that relaxed her mind.
All of a sudden things began to spin uncontrollably. Miranda gripped the bed to steady her body as her mind struggled to control the sickening plunging and spinning as she was in freefall through the unorganised and dizzy mind of Johann Storm.
She could focus. She needed to focus. Focus. Calm. Organise.
Focus. Calm. Organise.
Focus. Calm.
Focus. Focus.
Focus.

The spinning started to ease. It slowed. It nearly stopped.
Focus. Calm. Organise.
“Calm, Johann…” Her voice was disconnected, unfocused and heavily accented. Her entire focus was in Johann’s mind.

With the spinning ceasing images started to appear, fuzzy and incomplete. When one image nearly came into focus another superseded it. Johann’s thought processes were fast, incomplete, stressed.

Focus. Calm. Organise.
It took what felt like forever to seek out the present thoughts. Antelopes. They were dark and misted, peppered with Johann’s fear. He wasn’t accustomed to having someone in his mind.

Content to have found nothing of any concern, Miranda started to pull out, rising, lifting into the air. She pulled her wand back from his head and eyes snapped open. She blinked, dizzy, slightly worn out. His mind was a mess. A nauseous mess.

Think of antelope?!

There was panic, plenty of panic. He could no longer see Mira or the room, and he gripped her leg and robes without realising as he gasped at the feeling of someone inside his head.

Suddenly everything was very loud in his head, and he tried desperately to focus on antelope, not on werewolf teeth, blood, swimming pool tiles, Adelia's flat, the aurors sat across the table from him, his father's glee, Lawrence's rage…

Focus. Calm. Organise.

Calm Johann

Trying

Merlin, trying

His mind reached for calm things - a glimpse of Arcturus, his cat, Rustle, Elixa laughing, Colin's flat and them cooking together, hugging Addie, holding Arcturus - blood, all over his ha-

Antelopes

It felt like a monumental effort to think about them, but suddenly the image in his head came clear, a text book diagram of an antelope,

antelop, anthalopus, anthólop

Like many things, Johann's knowledge came firstly from books, and rather than anything cute and fluffy about them, he was more preoccupied with the etymology.

Then she was out, and the room came back into focus. Johann took a gulp of air, feeling seasick. He looked to Mira, mouth slightly agape and realised his hand was gripping her leg and let go in alarm.

"Did you…" he began to ask and had to swallow down the feeling that he was going to vomit, "Did you get what you needed?" His lips silently formed Antelopes? though he didn't feel like asking. Perhaps it had been a test to get him to focus - antelopes was near the top of the alphabet after all.

"Please, just knock me out."
"She won't let me." Ignan retorted darkly from the doorway, and Johann jumped slightly on remembering he was there, but looked to Mira pleadingly.

"Did you get what you needed?"
Despite now feeling somewhat unstable, Miranda nodded. She had tried to ignore the hand on her leg. Worse had happened with worse people. She stood and began to fiddle in her pockets, pulling out the vial and the parchment. Each were placed on the bedside table.

"She won't let me." That sentence said so much about how their relationship had already developed. He respected her opinion, her brief but difficult request for him. Miranda knew Ignan’s wand was twitching to be done with it all but she also knew that knocking Johann out like that would make matters far worse when he woke up.
“You’re as impatient as one another.” The stopper was pulled from the vial, “Lie down, Johann. Head back.” As her patient did this, Miranda held the tip of her wand over the vial. She began to mutter an incantation, allowing the liquid to seep up into the tip, causing the wood to glow bright purple.

With the wand full of the perfect quantity, Mira moved closer to the bed and Johann. She placed the wand at the edge of her left nostril.
“Sniff hard.”

Well it only took a moment or two for the younger wizard to lose consciousness. When he did, Miranda looked up to her own German wizard and smiled knowingly.
“Patience.”

"Patience."

Ignan raised his eyebrows, surprised at how quickly it had worked, and finally stepped inside the room. His long legs brought him to Mira's side in a couple of strides, and his blue eyes examined the figure fast asleep on the bed, and then Mira's wand and the bottle.

"Patience." He agreed, marvelling at her work. Even if it was just sleeping solution. A hand went gently to her arm, and he leaned in to kiss her, touched at her mercy with his younger cousin.

"Thank you," he spoke softly and withdrew. He grasped the sheets and tugged them up  over the sleeping form in the spare bed, glad when the occupant didn't stir.

Together they left the room, Gerda attending to the curtains.
"Messy, isn't it?" Ignan asked, gesturing beside his own head with his left hand. His right was pointing at the foot of the door as it came to, laying a minor ward, just enough to trigger if anyone crossed the threshold. He still didn't entirely trust his relative.

"Do you have to search inside people's heads often?" He asked, pausing in the upstairs hallway, anticipating Mira would want to go and change down the hallway, and perhaps take a shower. Legilimency was a subject neither had touched, though he'd always assumed Mira knew of his skills in terms of teaching the students. He'd had no real indication of hers, though she was obviously more proficient than he was to enter that churning mind.

Miranda experienced rather considerable satisfaction at Ignan’s surprise and agreement that patience had worked. She always enjoyed the fact that she could get one over on people, especially those she respected. Although Miranda wouldn’t mention it to the wizard, he was fairly high on that list.

"Messy, isn't it?"
“Mmm.” Miranda’s eyes widened as she thought back to the nausea trying to work her way through his brain. “He’s an over thinker. Too many incomplete thoughts can be nauseating. No wonder he couldn’t sleep.”

Another question came and Miranda realised she hadn’t mentioned to Ignan that she was a legilimens. She didn’t disclose it to a lot of people.

“Daily.” Her response was primarily curt, short and with little information. But Miranda was slowly starting to let Ignan in a little more. “Before I left for Durmstrang I was the Healer in Charge of Spell Damage,” Miranda made her way into the bedroom, continuing to talk. If he didn’t follow her he didn’t find out what she wanted to share. It was his choice.

“I’ve always wanted to develop methods for improving those with permanent damage to their minds. During my years on the floor there were huge improvements. But people feel nervous around a legilimens.” While she spoke, Miranda started to undress, “People lose their thoughts. I hear them when I’m not trying.”

The healer turned to see if Ignan was still there. “You’re quiet.” Her tone was accusatory but her eyes glistened with affection.

He trailed her more slowly from hallway to bedroom, listening to her explain.
"People lose their thoughts. I hear them when I'm not trying."

He paused again just outside their bedroom door, looking back to the almost closed doorway to the spare bedroom. Mira had dealt with that so easily, as if it were as simple as asking a few questions. Ignan had done that in decades past, to unwilling subjects, and he'd been trying to regain the ability on more willing subjects in the past year while helping to teach Tapendra and Casey O'Doherty.

"You're quiet."

His hand found the doorframe, thoughtful.
"Verbally, or mentally?" He asked, examining her reaction. "Because if you're so attune to hear passing thoughts of leaky minds, mine must seem so."

His eyes were narrowed, more out of thinking than anything else. There were times he'd been with Mira that he suspected occlumency was not at all forefront in his mind. Had she heard things from him then? Perhaps when they had shared...

His gaze had slid to the bed, and he pushed that thought aside with haste.

"I had no idea you were quite so proficient, my dear." He resolved, deciding not to let his concerns linger on his face too long. He gently helped her with her robes, just content to be close to her.

"I don't, you see, it's more of a conscious effort, but I've been in there so I know exactly as you mean." He gestured with his head down the hallway in the direction they had came.

"You've never... heard anything from me though, have you?" He asked, a little apprehensive.

One didn’t need to be a legilimens to work out what Ignan was thinking at this moment.

"I had no idea you were quite so proficient, my dear." And he probably still didn’t know how proficient she was. With Ignan so close and Miranda’s heels now lying by the side of the bed on the floor, Miranda felt short. It wasn’t far off a foot that the wizard had over her, not normally noticeable since she lived in stilettos.

She’d had her back to him while unpinning her hair but turned back to the Deputy Headmaster when his trepidation showed. Her brow furrowed for a mere second as she considered his words and his manner. Did Storm have something to hide? Was that why he was worried about her skill? Did she care? Miranda had her secrets, he could have his. They weren’t tied to one another or married, after all.

“Well…” Miranda wrapped her arms around his neck, stepping in closely. She started to speak slowly, letting her words linger in the air. Her expression was quite serious as she reached up onto tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “How else do you think I know you like your toes nibbled.”

The healer pulled away with a grin, her expression full of amusement as she laughed at the wizard.
“I’ve heard nothing. I like it.”

Now focusing on unzipping her trousers, Miranda thought over his mental silence. It was one of the things that made her feel relaxed around him. She stepped out of the trousers and threw them in the direction of the wash basket.
“It must take a lot on concentration.” A dark eyed gaze once more landed on Storm. “To be so quiet.”

"How else do you think I know you like your toes nibbled?"

Alone with Mira, he allowed himself a brief laugh of amusement, hands finding her waist as her arms found his neck. Being out of her high heels, her hands pulled a little more than usual on his shoulders, though she had wonderful balance.
"I didn't even know that myself…" He replied, enjoying her grin.

"I've heard nothing. I like it." He mirrored her smile a little less broadly, letting her go so she could continue to get changed. He was glad she enjoyed the lack of stray thoughts from him. If she were surprised or irritated by it, then that would have been a far greater problem.

"It must take a lot of concentration to be so quiet." Her eyes were upon him again.
"It's been nearly forty years since I learned how to, so it's become reflex." He admitted, and blinked slowly, considering how it was part of his waking routine. "It's rare anyone tries to have a look in." He narrowed his eyes to Mira as if to say 'don't be tempted'.

"Legilimency is different, I don't hear, like you describe. I have to consciously tune in and that does take effort. In honesty, I couldn't care less what other people think most of my life." he gave a little shrug. "Mostly use it for teaching the older students to defend against it." His wand had found his hand again and Mira's discarded clothes were sliding into the wash basket for Gerda to attend to later.

"I thought you were going to say the silence unnerved you." He admitted, glancing back to her as he lowered his wand.

Years of hearing snippets of people’s thoughts, of delving into alert or damaged brains had caused Miranda Elliot to appreciate a quiet mind when she was near it. While the healer’s time leading the spell damage floor at St Mungo’s had come with its rewards, Miranda had felt overwhelmed by stray thoughts her patients had let wonder from their minds. Her fascination with the wizarding mind and the effects of spells had driven her to focus her mind into becoming a skilled legilimens, but it also led her to distance herself from people.

But Ignan was different. She’d been primarily drawn to his nature. Having spent a decade with a wizard who’d worn his heart on his sleeve like a trophy and had made it his life’s aim for her to understand every thought and feeling he had, Miranda had been drawn to Ignan’s controlled manner.

As she watched him stood before her, far more at ease in private, Miranda knew he had things to hide. She knew his occlumency was for a reason. Yet that made her even more drawn to him. Along with being the wizard who could freeze her thoughts in one piercing stare, he was a mystery.  From that first evening stood in the cool Scottish air in the lane leading to the school, Miranda had been drawn to him. There had been few people in Miranda’s life to give her butterflies. But the way he’d held her, looked at her and spoken to her that night had unnerved her.

She’d wanted more.

“I thought you were going to say the silence unnerved you.”

Mira looked at him carefully. Her blouse had now been discarded in the wash basket and she shrugged her shoulders.
“It does. You do.”

Ignan wasn't at all what to say in return to that observation. How did she mean he unnerved her? It clearly was not such a problem that she felt unable to move into his house, share his bed and her life for a month or more now.

He leaned back ever so slightly and gave her a thoughtful, considered look, his wand still in his right hand from where it had sent her clothes into the basket moments before.

"You're not implying it's part of my appeal, are you?" He asked suddenly, thinking that would be rather odd.

Then again, he was never quite sure what Mira did see in him that she liked so much. She could have had any younger wizard rather than him, not only due to their age gap, but because of her beauty.

Her continued presence and interest in him remained a pleasant, and fortunate surprise. Her practical, straight-forward ways appealed to him as much as her mind and her figure. Up until a few minutes ago he'd been unaware she was ever listening out for the traffic in his mind, let alone was happy to find silence in return.

"I'm not sure how I would feel about knowing you could hear my passing thoughts, Mira." He admitted, tucking away his wand again, and turning away from her a little, not entirely sure he liked where this conversation was heading.

"You're not implying it's part of my appeal, are you?" The wizard practically blurted out after a considered silence. Miranda hadn’t been studying his thoughtful expression. Instead she’d pulled her bathrobe on and tied it around her waist, concentrating on preparing to freshen up. Her wand was thrown discarded on the bed as she considered a response. Ignan had commented before his surprise at her being interested in him. It was a comment she avoided responding to. It shouldn’t have been necessary to have a reason for being attracted to a person; furthermore, one shouldn’t have to explain such reasons.

“That and the sex.” Her words came out plainly as the edges to her lips twitched to form a very small smirk. Her eyes didn’t divert from Ignan’s gaze, testing to see if he’d look away.

Her wizard was however, quite perturbed by his new found knowledge about the witch he’d started to share his house and bed with. He mentioned his worry and turned slightly away from her, schooling his expression. His manner only served to spike Miranda’s curiosity and she folded her arms over her chest, studying him in her dark eyed analytical gaze. The temptation to pry and ask questions was subdued by her respect for the wizard.

That respect, however, didn’t subdue her wish to torture him ever so slightly.
“Why?” A concerned expression replaced the critical gaze. “Do you have something to hide, Professor?”

Before she let him worry too much about a possible invasion of his privacy, the healer shook her head.
“Relax, Ignan. I’ve got no wish to study your thoughts. I imagine they would be quite dull.” A joke of serious, it wasn’t clear, but Miranda turned on her heel and entered the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

"Why, do you have something to hide, Professor?" He focused clearly as he could on his classroom back at Hogwarts, a reflex reaction to try to stop his mind from throwing forward a dozen things he would never like to disclose to Mira, his eyes shifted to stare at the wall on purpose as another defence.

"Relax, Ignan. I've got no wish to study your thoughts. I imagine they would be quite dull."

He didn't look back until the bathroom door was closed, and there was no amusement in his expression. The fact Mira had been listening in some sense put him on edge, however much she said she hadn't listened, or enjoyed the fact she couldn't hear him.

His thoughts were his own, and so were his memories. Nobody was permitted in, not even the woman he had fallen in love with, especially the woman he had fallen in love with. In there were memories of things that would lose her, lose his job and lose everything he had.

The creak of floorboards in the hallway made him look round sharply, at wizard head height, expecting someone else.

"Master?" Gerda ventured from the doorway, hands clasped before herself, tentative, keen to ask him about the time they would prefer to eat dinner.



End