March 10th, during dinner.

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Cy's words - hastily spoken - had sent Tapendra's mind to working; his old hopes and fears revived with one sentence out of his daughter's mouth. His stomach wanted to drop and wanted to do somersaults at the same time and he was barely able to contain the nausea.

He'd dismissed his mother over a decade ago - finally given her up for dead, for lost to the world. No one who had seen her, heard from her or had any clue where she had gone after that day could tell him anything - she hadn't left even him a clue, nor much else. He knew where she had been, that she was alive, though. Who else would have murdered her family, leaving her the only inheritor of her clan's vast fortune? She had the motivation and the means to do so - but since then, Atalana Kanika was famously hard to locate. He'd written her, tried for years to contact her, and the letters always came back or vanished into the desert sand.

But - Ignan's boggart looked like her. It could only be her, in Tapendra's mind. And so he dashed through the halls in search of the older professor, heart in his throat. Even if it was a false lead, he had to know. He finally stumbled across Ignan in the empty classroom on the ground floor; the man had gone to look for another boggart, he'd been told, and that had helped him in locating his colleague - look for places with dark spaces that weren't often used. Something of a major category for Hogwarts, but it had still helped narrow his search.

Slowing to to walk, he quietly opened the door, and the scene before his eyes made him freeze.

Ignan stood - wand half-raised, stance wary, in front of an open cabinent. Standing before him, though, was a tableau; bodies, rather messily dispatched, littered the floor of the classroom. And standing before Ignan was his mother, her sharp blue eyes narrowed in confusion, her jet black clipped hair loose down her back.

Feeling odd - like he wasn't in full control of his body - he walked into the classroom, the door closing behind him, and walked up to just behind Ignan on the right, his eyes transfixed. His mother looked at him, too; the blue eyes that were hers had no real indication of her personality in them.

"Mjwt..." he said, the language a strange one not often heard in the halls of Hogwarts.

Today was one of boggarts. The third years had dispatched of one only that afternoon. It had been contained in a trunk for most of the day - bar a small mishap in the first year lesson where its impatience had finally sprung the lock on the trunk, and it had soared out. The first years had seen a snapshot of bloodied bodies, their heads severed, and of her.

Ignan Storm's boggart was not a conventional hairy spider, or the death of a close family member. In actuality, he had been surprised to find that it wasn't the spitting image of himself when he had faced boggarts in his teaching years. Reasoning and lateral thought on his own conscience had led him to consider the whole scene to be the pinnacle of where his subconscious had awoken his morals for the first time in over a decade.

His boggart was not an event to come or to fear occuring, it was instead an event that had already occurred. An even he forced himself to relieve via pensieve each year, unable to let go of it, unable to move on within himself. Something wasn't right about it, something still deeply troubled him. His conscious couldn't grapple it, his subconscious wouldn't stop trying to.

The three decapitated bodies and his former lover grew into impeccable detail before him with the boggart. He had to admire its homage, grown from his memories. It was a most upsetting sight to bystanders, let alone Ignan and he still had trouble making any humour of the situation or raising a laugh on his own. As the shape shifting being took form, he realised within himself that he was going to have particular trouble. His thoughts were lying with Tapendra's daughter who had claimed outrightly that the escaping boggart reminded her of her grandmother. Knowing the irritation that Cyhirae could be, she'd have tattled that to Tapendra already.

It was not beyond his surprise then that he heard the door open and close, and regarded Tapendra in his periphery vision. All thought of forcing an amusing twist to the scene was crushed. Whatever Tapendra uttered beside him didn't help either. It only confirmed his fears.

Wand still poised as if to cast, Ignan closed his eyes and exhaled unsteadily.

"She told you." He spoke to Tapendra quietly, his voice not at all his usual solemn but assured tone, rather more defeatist instead. "And is it true?"

He somehow broke his gaze and looked to Ignan, and the man's shaky tone and stance made him feel all the worse - the nausea turning to a gnawing, crawling fear.

"Yes," he said, after a pause that seemed to drag on for far too long. "It's true."

The room felt heavy, silent; even the gore at their feet seemed of little consequence before the woman standing in front of them. The boggart was likely feeding off of Ignan and Tapendra's fears just fine in that form, he figured; an odd fear for it to taste, perhaps. Either way, it didn't seem in a hurry to move or try to latch onto any of Tapendra's fears.

He clasped his arms around himself, knowing the answer to his question and hating the answer - but he had to ask. Had to know, at least for sure.

"She's dead, isn't she?" His voice sounded odd even to him.

Ignan swallowed at hearing Tapendra ask, and nodded. His voice failed him entirely a moment, and he had to blink.

It was useless trying to cast riddikulus on the boggart now, with both of them it manifested worse still. Before his eyes, it briefly flickered, Ignan couldn't be sure but it seemed to show Tapendra a moment, and become confused - perhaps indicating his worst fear was swiftly changing to a fear of disclosing all of this to his good friend and colleague.

With a tremendous bang, Ignan's curse hit the boggart in its semi confused state and the mirage faltered, and tumbled backwards into the cabinet. Another bang, and a third the defence teacher's face twisted into an awful grimace of hatred as he forced the shifting monster back from where it had come. Not the most ideal solution, but contained momentarily, nonetheless.

Instead of Ignan's usual confident, shoulders back posture, he leaned to the left a little, shoulders slumped and hand to head, gathering his thoughts. Turning to his right he forced himself to face Tapendra, and realising a little too late, wiped a tear from his left eye, and blinked hard.

"I am not sure how much I can explain, Tapendra, without jeopardising you or my role as a Professor, but, its clear I owe you an explanation of why my boggart is your mother." He spoke shakily, and then broke eye contact to seek out somewhere to sit, as the situation made him feel rather shaky about it all. 

Ignan's little nod froze Tapendra for awhile; he winced slightly at the noise of the boggart being chased off, but otherwise stayed where he stood, as if rooted to the spot. His blue eyes were wide and fixed at some point in the far distance.

It was odd, in a way; he felt relief flood him - an odd, twisted relief. There was sadness in it, of course. And grief. But - he'd felt those already for her, had assumed she was dead -

No; that was both a lie and a truth he had tried to  force himself to accept. The younger, childlike creature that seemed to run his brain had instead decided that she had to be happy somewhere. He'd looked through famous criminals, looking for her 'style'; was sometimes convienced he'd found her. But he's contented himself on that thought; that somewhere, she was happy - possibly even content with herself, for once in her life. He cared little that this involved her murdering people - she was his mother, and she had always had that inclination.

But she was dead - and Ignan's tears sealed that as hard fact. Ignan was not lying about this - there was no way to fool himself into thinking that, no matter how hard he tried. Ignan didn't cry, and in a way the sight of him doing so threw Tapendra even more off kilter.

He echoed Ignan and sat down heavily; having enough sense to lock the door and cast muffling and babbling charms, almost as a reflex. Head in his hands, he rubbed his eyes; when he looked to Ignan his expression was deadly serious.

"Yes. You do," he said. "How did...?" He swallowed, and chose a different phrase; one that would make him feel better. "Did she go down fighting?" He asked. "Take some of them with her?"

"I think, perhaps, it might help if I explained from the beginning." Ignan replied softly, though his heart ached at the thought of having to disclose things to his good friend. He had grown fond of Tapendra in the past few months, sharing laughter with the younger man, something he had once shared with Georg. Tapendra was entitled to hear an explanation that not even Georg had heard yet.

"You must promise me, you will never, ever, utter a word of this to anyone else, especially anybody here at Hogwarts, before I begin. There are very good reasons for this..."

Sighting confirmation from his counterpart, he lowered his head and began.

"It was in 1997. I knew Azorma from before then, we met in Italy, after I had parted ways with Georg. Back then I was not an admirable person Tapendra, at all, and I greatly admired your mother and her craft. We found common ground." He shuffled a foot uncomfortably, not sure how to phrase it. "Of sorts." Ignan added, a little colour tinging his cheeks as he thought of the truth. Partners in crime, both in the eyes of the law, and his lover. His head had been unable to grapple with the thought Azorma was Tapendra's mother at all. 

"The bodies," He gestured with his hand to where the boggart had previously been, "were my doing." Cautiously, he raised his eyes to Tapendra's expression. "Azorma was trying to warn me that I had made a mistake, I was about to be ambushed. It was all my responsibility, my fault Tapendra, I am so, so sorry." His voice broke and he cleared his throat. "She didn't have to warn me, if she hadn't, it would have been me who the Italian Ministry brought down." He inhaled shakily, and raised his eyes to the ceiling of the classroom. The memory resurfacing.

"She swapped our wands, in haste, misguided desperation to help me - she was more than capable of taking them all on had I been able to help, but I froze." He shook his head and lowered his eyes to Tapendra again and inhaled.
"I saw it happen. I let it happen without wanting to." He croaked and despaired. Without realising, tears had once again broken forth from his eyes, settling slowly down his weathered cheeks.

"I was arrested, she was lost. It hardly seemed fair, her punishment for my crime. Tapendra, honestly, I had no idea she was your mother. Had I known, I would never..." He stumbled over his words. "I would never have let you know me. You did not deserve to find out this way... at all."

Silently, he rested his elbows on his knees and his face into his hands, his wand between his palm and thumb of his right hand still.

"Azorma...?" So his hunches had sometimes been right, then. Not that his tiny victory in knowing his mother's habits made him feel any better, at all.

Ignan's blush brought further to mind an inkling of suspicion, but for now, he held it back; the pounding in his ears of his own heart and the subtle cracking of Ignan's voice seemed to consume his whole world. He knew this feeling, very well; his mind wanted to think and he was trying, in desperation, not to.

The way his mother  had - had died - confirmed his suspicions, though, and he fell dead silent as Ignan cried. It was just so damn odd to see Ignan vulnerable; it broke his better instincts, and he rose and knelt next to the older hand, a hand on Ignan's shaking shoulder. His heart felt lighter, somehow, and he privately concluded he must be kind of insane if Ignan's confession made him feel better.

"Ignan," he said, after a long silence. "I won't judge you for your past. And..." he lost his voice for a moment, feeling tears wanting to come - but he'd cried over his mother years ago, and Ignan's revelation had only confirmed what he'd felt.

"If she died to protect you, then..she must have really loved you, Ignan. That's not something she'd do for just anyone. So...if you made her happy, then even if she died...that's...thank you." The words felt odd. "Thank you."

Ignan Storm exhaled deeply. He wasn't the man to sob - and wiped his own cheeks and shook his head, turning to look at Tapendra knelt beside him.
"She didn't die to protect me, Tapendra, she died needlessly. I could have stopped things." He reiterated. "You should not be thanking me for being so emotionally attached to your mother she felt drawn misguidedly to try and save my skin." He shook his head again.

He turned one hand over the other, and looked away.
"I don't know what happened to her body, I'm sorry Tapendra. When I was arrested, they held me for questioning, tore memories from my head by force. I was not in my right mind, I gave information that would compromise." Ignan's speech had change from despair to anger. "They didn't let me attend any funeral, or even return for what we had. I have nothing from that time - nothing from knowing her. So intolerably inhumane of them to do so!" He stood up suddenly and paced away, shoulders tense.

They dropped away suddenly and he lowered his head.
"Then, what did I expect?" He turned back and gestured once more to where the boggart had been. "Those were three of their colleagues, I'd ambushed them and decapitated them. They didn't stop to think whether it was me or Azorma. I am still surprised to today that they didn't cut me down too. It was only what I deserved for what I'd caused." He exhaled and raised his eyes again, arms hanging by his sides.

"Yes, I hope she did love me." He told Tapendra. "I loved her more than anything I have ever loved... and almost certainly ever will. Something magnificent, your mother." A forlorn smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes dropped to his colleague's face, and he landed a hand awkwardly on Tapendra's right shoulder with his left hand.
"I am very honoured again to know you as a friend, a colleague and also her son."

"No," he said, as Ignan's tone changed. "If you two got on that well, then...I do owe you thanks, on her behalf. She..." He smiled oddly; a sad, reminiscent smile. "She didn't get on with many people. But...you probably know her better than I did, to be honest."

They probably hadn't held a at all funeral, honestly; Tapendra suspected they'd simply burnt and dumped her ashes, or that she lay in an unmarked grave somewhere. Still...

He stood when Ignan stomped away, arms crossed loosely. He felt a vague sense of anger, deep inside; like if he wasn't as oddly fond of Ignan as he was, he'd have been angry with the man. Part of him kind of was - the part of him that was angry at her, too, that same selfish 5 year old part of him that raged at Judy for dying. Unfair - that's what it was. Why couldn't it have been Graham who'd caused his mother's death? Someone who might have taken pride in it? He could have ripped them apart then, released his sorrows in that cathartic reverie.

Besides, slaughtering her murderer would have been what his mother wanted. He very much doubted she'd forgive him if he killed Ignan, and come to that, he'd never forgive himself if he killed Ignan.

He was started out of his thoughts when Ignan's hand landed on his shoulder, an echo of his own gesture. After a moment of surprise, his smile turned fully warm, and his own hand landed on Ignan's shoulder in return.

"Same to you," he said softly. "What you two got up to - I can guess at it on my own. When I say I won't judge you, Ignan, I mean it. She...the first thing she did when she left me was to kill her family, Ignan - all of them. I know what my mother was, and if you were the same..."

He trailed off. "I can't approve of that kind of thing. I just can't. But...I can forgive it. I think." He looked at Ignan seriously for a moment, head tilted slightly to the side. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...drag this out of you."

"I wouldn't ask you to approve of it, ever." Ignan replied tersely suddenly, although he appreciated Tapendra's unwavering support. "And your forgiveness I have not earned." He sighed, dropping his arm from Tappy's shoulder, his subconscious twigging the likelihood of it becoming an uncomfortable situation involving too much contact was possible.

"Please, keep it to yourself though." He sighed. "And its been a long time brewing, believe me. Seeing Georg back here has resurfaced a lot I buried in the past decade. The last thing the students and the school needs is to know all of this." He paused, staring at Tapendra's shoulder a moment, and the corners of his mouth twitched, "its hard enough for Declan seeing you dressed in Muggle attire without knowing all I've done in my lifetime. Then again, perhaps it would deliver him some accurate perspective."

Clearing his throat and tucking his wand away, he added.
"I am so very sorry you had to find out from your daughter, but I really had no idea."

"I will - they will know of nothing said in this room, I can swear that to you. I'll have to give Cy some...some explanation, you know how she is - if I dismiss her she'll cause no end of trouble trying to dig it up." He sighed, his hand dropping back to his side as well. He loved his daughter with all of his heart, but damn if she hadn't inherited his own nosy tendencies.

His own smile returned at the thought of Declan finding out...well. Funny indeed, but hardly a scenario he'd like to see played out. A fun mental image of his expression, though.

"It's alright. I expect she didn't tell you much at all - probably was trying to...forget." His smile vanished again at that thought; no wonder his letters had been returned, if that was the case. "Did she ever mention...anything about England?" He asked, looking up at Ignan with a slightly lost expression.

Ignan thought back, raising his eyes automatically as he did.

"No, I don't believe we did. Is it significant?" He asked Tapendra worriedly. "We weren't the most prolific of talkers about our past. The older you get, the more its accepted you come with heavy loads you may not wish to share." Ignan didn't want to disclose quite that they spent time talking about how to undermine some of the wizarding mafia types who were in turn making everyone's lives a misery. Taking them down was sport. If it wasn't that, it was dark magic, or they weren't talking at all. He missed it all, very greatly, the not talking, and the talking that was.

"She did mention having had a child." Ignan thought laterally, "I assumed older than you though, from the fact she was alone. Tapendra, look, just because she may not have mentioned things, doesn't mean they were not far from her mind." He paused. "Merlin, I feel like a thief for knowing her for that time if you knew her so poorly. Though I am sure I knew her no better - she was the cat who walked by herself." He pulled at his jacket sleeve by the cuff.

"As for your daughter, well, it all depends on what she knows of Azorma. Whether you explain it away as me being fearful of her for her wrath after an accident, or that the person is very much alike, you are best to judge. I am afraid I must ask you to lie to her in any case." Ignan's eyes met Tapendra's. 

"Significant? No. Not...really." At least she'd mentioned him in some form. That was enough, coming from her.

"Don't feel that way. I suspect the mother I knew and the...Azorma you knew were fairly differently people," he said with a sigh. Contrary to what Ignan had attempted to reassure him with, he suspected England was something she tried to keep as far from her mind as possible.

"Cyhirae doesn't know much. She's mostly just seen some pictures, heard a few snippets of stories. It won't be difficult to lie," he said, and while he felt a slight twist of guilt over lying to his daughter - he'd lied to Georgiana and Cyhirae plenty before, and this was both something necessary and, well - simple.

He met Ignan's gaze for a just a moment, then sighed. "I'll go and talk to her tonight - get out of the way. I need to...think, for awhile." Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he looked at Ignan again. "Don't suppose you can spare some firewiskey...? I'm almost out." The fact he had a class that night didn't cross his mind. It likely wouldn't, until the students turned up.

"I do not envy you at all for that task." Ignan told Tapendra sincerely. "But be sure to let me know your eventual explanation should she have the audacity to ask me to confirm it."

The Defences Professor left the boggart to the cabinet, he could return for it again later.
"Of course I have firewhiskey." He confirmed to Tapendra, lightly patting the younger man's shoulder as he passed him, heading towards the door to get out of the rapidly suffocating room.
"I think we both need one." He agreed, reaching the door and on touching the handle sensing the wards Tapendra had placed upon it. Releasing them, the door opened itself.

It was also beyond time for him to fill in a few of the blanks at least with Georg. He owed it to his friend to explain, especially given that Tapendra now had some idea. Much as he hated considering speaking to Georg about mass murder, he was the only person in his life who would understand how it had got to that point, and how utterly important it was to keep it both hidden and well away from him around children.

"The boggart can wait." He told Tapendra as they stepped out into the corridor. "Safe where it is anyhow." His expression neutral, tears wiped away and swallowed, he cleared his throat and bound the door behind them should any student wish to try their luck.

"Far more important matters to attend to." Ignan muttered, leading the way to the nearest bottle of firewhiskey in his possession.