Snapshot written by Elle and Sparky.



The clock in the hospital room ticked softly, letting the hours of the morning slip away unannounced. Aileen gazed into the enchanted window, watching dawn color the sky in streaks of yellow and orange. The bees had returned, and the birds, flitting in the same patterns over rolling fields of flowers. Over and over, caught in an endless loop.

She glanced at the clock. It was almost noon. The discrepancy between the clock and the enchanted window bothered her, made her question even the most basic things. What time was it? When the nurse said good morning and smiled, was it a test to see if she knew?

Aileen already hated this hospital.

She crossed her arms, mildly comforted by the soft, pale pink sleeves of her knit dress.

Before sending a note, before visiting (which she assured her she would later today), her mother had sent her a fresh change of clothes, rolled neatly, the way she knew Aileen packed. She imagined her parents late last night, frantic over Abby, and then scrambling to contend with the news about her. Her mother, ordering the house elf to mail her that old dress she'd left behind. It brought a wry smile to her face. Though she couldn't say she knew herself anymore, her family knew her. They knew where she'd come from, and the expectations surrounding the Reid name. Merlin forbid she be seen traipsing around St. Mungo's like an invalid in a garish hospital gown.

At the footfalls sounding outside her room, Aileen turned, gripping the parchment in her hand. She loosened her hold. Two notes. Two sets of handwriting. She could chuck it into the rubbish bin and claim she'd been too tired to remember anything. There was still time.

The door opened. Aileen recognized Trevelyan first by the slight delay in his footstep. It didn't match the rhythm of the clock or the enchanted window. But it felt real, and she felt relieved to see his face.

He didn't look like he'd slept well. Aileen hesitated, the edge of the parchment digging into her palm.

She held out the two notes to him. Her hand was steady, but she glanced away, unable to meet his eyes.

"If you choose to burn these, I won't blame you. They are only useful as kindling."

Frustration and the barest tinge of shame laced her voice. He'd take one glance at them and have dozens of questions. Questions she'd already asked herself before falling into a deep sleep last night.

She stood stiffly near the window. Her hair waved soft and limp around her pale face. A dull ache pounded in the back of her head, matching the seconds marked by the clock.

"How is Abby?" Aileen studied the Auror's face, listening carefully to his response.

Something flickered across his face -- Concern?  Distrust? -- but an instant later, he was flashing her a quick smile, the note of discomfort smoothed away.  “She’s well,” he said, in his quick, clipped cadence.  “At home with your parents.  We’ve got a man stationed there, just in case anyone gets a thought to drop in uninvited.”

Aileen nodded, relieved. "More than one, I hope," she stated more than asked. If she couldn't be there for Abby, multiple someone else's had better be.

His eyes flicked to the parchment in her hand, and he started across the room to her.  The way that he moved was stiff and tired, too.  His limp was more pronounced than it had been the day before, and he took less care to hide it.

She watched as he moved forward, politely ignoring his limp.

“Thanks for doing that,” he said, giving her a tight smile as he reached for the notes.  He started to glance at the top one, clearly interested, but then hesitated, his gaze shifting back to meet hers as he seemed to push his interest down.  “How are you, now that it’s morning?  Haven’t faded away yet?”

Her eyebrows inched up, surprised and a bit embarrassed by his personable demeanor. Had she said something so tragic?

"I've not disintegrated in the sunlight, no," she accepted his smile with a slight softening of the mouth, her expression a strange mix of guarded and open. "Or what passes for it."

Aileen glanced at the window, then down at the notes in his hand, battling a surge of dread. Her hands felt cold. She curled them in.

"I wish I could explain the difference between those," she gestured at the pages of parchment he held. "The Healers had a look too, but I didn't like any of their theories."

She paused. "Imagine that."

It felt odd, talking to him freely. Trevelyan was an Auror, which was worse than a Healer, but he'd asked after her, like a friend might, if she'd chosen to inform any of her predicament. Aileen pressed her mouth together, crossed her arms, and turned her face to the side, preparing for his confusion and concern and all manner of reasonable reactions to the mad, disjointed scribblings she'd just given him.

The red-headed Auror was already studying the first note[1], with a sudden focus that belied his earlier weariness.  As he got to the bottom, his forehead quirked slightly.  He glanced up at her for a moment, and then moved on to read the second.[2]

“Yeah,” he agreed absently, in a tone that gave no implication that he’d heard anything that she just said.  He frowned for a moment as he got to the end of the second page, looking pensive, and then shuffled back to the first note. 

“What’s this bit mean?” he asked, pointing near the bottom.  “Where you wrote the Ps?”

Aileen studied Trevelyan's face, assuming that the P's had simply caught his attention first.  His expression had quickly become placid, as he patiently waited for her reply.

She barely glanced at the note, as if to put distance between herself and the nonsense she'd written.

"I was trying to remember a word. It seemed important."

Absently, she rubbed at her cold fingers, then resumed crossing her arms.

"Poltergeist?"

She smirked, then frowned. "No, I know that's not it. It had to do with the fog, or mist, or whatever in Merlin's name came out of that house."

The Auror cocked an eyebrow.  “Pentral?” he inquired nonchalantly.

Aileen blinked, and then her eyes narrowed in thought.

Pentral.

It sounded like such a strange thing, like a title for the latest auto-ink-quill, or a creepy, collectible doll. Children, did you pack your pentrals?

She stilled, getting the feeling that her last thought had not been completely her own.

Pentral. The word conjured green, rolling hills, the sun rising brightly above the horizon, and a thick haze, a mist, a...

Fog.

Aileen's gaze cleared, and she focused on Trevelyan. This time, she held her hand out for the note, glancing over her familiar scrawl.

P...

Below it, 'entities'.

P... entities.

Pentrals?

She nodded slowly, giving him a questioning look as she handed the parchment back. "It sounds quite familiar. Where is it from?"

“It came up during the investigation.”  It was probably the most bland, least informative answer that he could have given.  The Auror gave her a friendly smile, though he still seemed to be watching her as he took the paper back again.  “You’ve heard it somewhere before?”

Aileen raised an eyebrow at him and tilted her head. The Auror thought the word was important too. Pentral. It tasted bitter on her tongue.

"It reminds me," she paused for a long moment.

Glass, a meadow, and a cottage rose to her mind, muddling the image of rolling hills and gray skies. She shook her head and flexed her cold fingers at her sides.

"Jonas," Aileen glanced at him, her confusion clearing. "Isn't it from those old, medieval poems?"

Aileen spread out her hands, and took a few steps away from the Auror.

"Pentral."

She turned to face him, her shoulders back, her voice confident. For a moment, her headache retreated.

"Like in the poem The Lady's Locket," she paused, "Or the ballad about the grieving knight. I don't recall the name."

She'd focused, of course, on messages hidden in tapestries, and alchemical texts in strange languages when she'd bothered with the medieval era at all.

"The poems described lovers and families resorting to extreme measures to keep the dead close to them. People thought it romantic to capture a loved one's soul in a locket, or other object."

Her gaze drifted to the window. Apprehension flickered across her face. "They were silly, morbid tales of little substance."

“Sounds like it.” 

The Auror had gingerly eased himself to sit in one of the hard, uncomfortable chairs, stretching his bad leg out in front of him.  He stayed silent for a long moment, first regarding her, and then looking back down to examine the notes again.

“What about this mark?” he asked.  He pointed to a symbol that had been drawn on the same note with the Ps, surrounded by neat, precise handwriting.  It looked as if she had circled something, and then pressed heavily with a well-inked quill to amend whatever had been inside it.  “Does it mean something?”

Aileen remained standing as the Auror sank into the chair, the same one from last night. She moved forward to glance at the first note.

Well, it wasn't a rune.

"A logo, perhaps? It reminds me of wherever I was this past year," she rubbed at the side of her face, which prickled with a chill. Aileen kept her gaze on the note, uncomfortably aware that she was admitting she couldn't remember.

"Here," she pointed at the first few lines. Green hills, green walls.

The memory shifted, yet again, to a rolling meadow similar to the one in the enchanted window.

Aileen blinked, reading the lines above the symbol. Her worried father had asked her to come home.

"Wouldn't my family know?" She searched his face. "If you've spoken to them, surely they would tell you-"

Aileen took a step back, giving them both space.

"You're asking to find out what I know."

The corner of her mouth quirked up and she shook her head. Her thoughts had always been her own. She'd learned long ago how to deal with the thorns and brambles of her own mind, and when she chose to speak, it was with caution or snapped criticism, and rarely some affection or humor. Until now. Until now, when she couldn't trust herself. Her thoughts and emotions churned through a thick cloud that constantly shifted shape, and just when she managed to break through, behind that cloud was another, and another, and another, in an endless, rolling storm.

"The problem is, Auror Trevelyan, every time I think I know something with certainty, another memory comes to mind. Almost opposing it."

She crossed her arms and glanced down, belying her open words.

"Yet apparently I can rattle off obscure facts that I should have long since forgotten from Hogwarts or the Ministry or wherever," she waved her hand in the air stiffly, "That no one cares about or needs to know."

Aileen was going to keep telling herself that.

Trevelyan leaned forward in the chair, hands folded on his knee.  He studied her for a long moment, blue eyes focused on her features.  His forehead creased, as if he were trying to come to some sort of decision.

“I’ve got an idea about what might have happened,” he said quietly at last.  “But it’s just a theory.  I’m not sure that you’ll like it.”

When he finally spoke, she met his earnest eyes, and gave him a similar assessing look. She glanced at the notes in his hand.

The letter 'P' she'd written over and over meant something very important.

Pentral.

The suspicion slowly forming in her mind made her stomach twist in knots and her cold hands turn clammy. She couldn't seem to speak or put a voice to it.

Was it shock, or her pounding head? The headache had dulled, yet the ache in her bones remained.

"It can't be worse than the theories I've already heard," she managed.

Gingerly, she sat on the edge of the hospital bed. Her legs crossed, her back straight, she looked at his tired face. She was listening.

He paused for a moment, as if trying to gather his thoughts, or to figure out how to relay them without upsetting her.

“The couple who lived in the house -- they were trapping these pentrals somehow.  Keeping them prisoner inside the paintings.”  Trevelyan glanced at her again, arching an eyebrow.  “When your sister and Calix began smashing them, they set the pentrals free.”

“Except then the Dementors sensed them and swept in, and the pentrals had to flee.  Like that swirling fog you saw, yeah?”  He was watching her intently.  “And some of them tried to escape by hiding in people.”

The presence stirred in her head, a gentle fluttering of wings. A chill spread through her hands. Aileen laced her fingers together. Absently, she felt for a ring, about to fidget with it, but found none.

"What you're saying is, the couple trapped these pentrals in a gallery," she repeated in a cool, calm voice. "And Abby and... Calix? Let them out."

Aileen repeated his idea the way a professor would in trying to understand a fellow professor or excitable student. She had the sense that she'd repeated the Auror's theories before, in a mocking or cold tone. She'd told him he was wrong, and made it abundantly clear he was imposing on her time.

Her brows drew together, but she had no room to think about it further.

"The pentrals," she paused, "Flew. Escaped the house."

Her hand flitted to her head, rubbed at her aching temple, then dropped. Trees had rustled behind her the day she'd apparated to the lakehouse. She'd stood on the long grass, facing the huge manor. The sodden grass was bright green, and soaked the soles of her shoes. A hill loomed behind her, not woods, and a rolling fog rushed in.

The dementors came. Someone grabbed her arm and pulled her back inside before the wretched creatures could reach her-

No. That wasn't right. Wrong day. Wrong memory.

Aileen shook her head.

"Dementors came, and the pentrals escaped the house," she tried again. "They flew."

Aileen locked gazes with him for a long moment.

The theory that a sentimental concept from centuries ago could somehow explain her feelings and experiences was ludicrous. And yet, Jonas Trevelyan put into words what she'd been unable to voice. He translated what she'd written in her note, and made it real.

One, two, three.

The seconds ticked on the clock on the wall.

"One flew at me."

Four, five, six. The presence expanded in her mind, stretching its wings. Ten, eleven, twelve. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, the seconds ticked.

"I was there for Abby. I thought I could save her." Aileen's shoulders hunched. She looked down at her frozen hands.

Twenty one, twenty two.

"But the dementors were coming and the pentral ran into me." She drew in a shaky breath. "I tried to fight it off. It took over."

Thirty, Thirty one.

"It took over. It's still-" her face turned pale.

"It's still here!"

Thirty eight, thirty nine.

Forty.

The presence flew up, beating against the confines of her mind. Pain spiked. Aileen lurched forward with a gasp, clutching her head.

Get it out!

“Aileen!”

The Auror was at her side an instant later, his hands pressed to her arms, attempting to keep her upright.  His face looked worried.

“Easy,” he said, mustering a calm, reassuring tone.  “It’ll be alright.  You’ll be okay.”

The pentral hit glass. It wailed inside Aileen's mind.

Who was she and why was she here? The essential questions she'd asked in life had not faded behind these hospital walls. They grew stronger, more desperate, more despairing as her memory struggled to put the pieces together. That one piece, the most essential, pushed aside the feeble memories of her husband, her brothers, her parents, her children. It fitted into place and split open like a fresh wound.

Lore. Lore had stood over her, laughing as she pleaded for her life, the bundles of herbs she'd brought scattered on the ground. Behind the laughter hid a warning. A trill of something not right. She'd heard it before, in the laughter of children when she'd been a child, teenagers when she'd been a teenager, their youth seen as innocent and harmless. Parents forgave and excused and teachers had not been able help her. She'd had to help herself by leaving. She tried to leave now.

No one was here to save her now.

Avada Kedavra.

Green light flashed. A flash of pain hit her. No time to think of her children, to remember their faces. Lore's face remained, her skin stretched in a gruesome grin.

She took one final, ragged breath. Then nothing.

Dark.

Silence.

Nothing.

How long? The seconds ticked by. Minutes? Days?

A singing voice pulled her back. Light flickered against the dark.

Lore, triumphant and godlike, gazed into her glass prison, her face the size of the sepia sky. Every flaw, every tremor and twitch of her features, looked monstrous.

She ran from her, but the meadow stretched on, and she beat her fists against an earth that reshaped itself. She searched the rooms of her empty cottage. She wandered her farm, struggling to remember the sound of her children's laughter, impish but never cruel.

Lore returned to taunt her every so often. Then she didn't return at all. Seconds, minutes, years passed, marked by the harsh, distant chimes of the clocks. The hall outside her prison loomed dark.

Dark.

Silence.

Death.

She was dead.

Dead!

The pentral took over. It opened Aileen's mouth. It let out a thin cry of anguish behind Aileen's smooth, soft hands.

Her shoulders shook. She cried as she had in life, without a sound, the darkness of the truth stunning her into silence.

This was not her world anymore. She inhabited a body that hurt. She possessed a mind that raced, sharp and quick, impeded by the thorns she threw at herself and others. Not her body, not her mind.

Slowly, she lowered her hands. She looked into the concerned wizard's face. The kind Auror.

Not Aileen. She opened her mouth, the words almost forming. The clock on the wall ticked. Her gaze darted toward it - one, two, three seconds - then back at the Auror.

What would the Ministry, the Healers, do to someone who was supposed to be dead? To someone who'd died. They couldn't all be good people.

She straightened. The woman wiped at her eyes with the back of her pale hand, and commanded the tears to stop.

Dead. Killed. Murdered. She was dead!

And somehow, alive.

1.	Note 1
2.	Note 2