Clearing up the mess I made (tag Hexenmeisters) on Crotalus Commons

Selina Skies

February 05, 2021 7:07 PM

Clearing up the mess I made (tag Hexenmeisters) by Selina Skies

Selina sat awkwardly off centre at her desk, so that there was room for Professor Schmitt’s portrait to stand on the desk without blocking her from view from the two Hexenmeisters opposite her.

It had started with a single question. Do you recognise these people?

Giselle’s Seeings had not come to much, other than a blank-faced Johana Leonie when Selina showed her a still image of the people featured in the memory. Although, to be fair to Giselle, her “Sight” had only had the feeling of a girl, which had proven to be true. The guess at it being Johana Leonie had been detective work based off her student list, which Selina supposed she couldn’t really fault. It wasn’t like she was going to pick a fight with her over it anyway. She had never had much faith in reading that sort of thing to start with – it was something of a downfall of it as an art that it usually only made sense after the fact. She had hired Giselle to teach other people that it was fallible, or to pass whatever kind of test they gave a subject like that at CATS and RATS level, not to be their personal Clairvoyant Guide.

Continuing on Giselle’s hunch, Selina had sent for Hilda. It was evident that she did recognise the figures.

Selina had followed up with We need to talk about it. To check you’re okay. Do you want Heinrich to come?

Hilda did, and so once he was there, she did her best to explain the situation, speaking slowly, and giving them chances to interrupt and ask for clarification or translation if they were uncertain what was going on.

“We have discovered that the strange figures people have been seeing around school are people’s memories,” she stated. A fact, she supposed, that Hilda might have worked out herself at this point. “This was due to a faulty penseive being brought onto campus,” she continued, trying to keep herself from flinching. She felt like a coward, hiding behind the passive tense but Tarquin had been insistent. She would never have let any of the rest of them take individual responsibility. It would have been ‘the school deeply regrets’ and ‘a staff member unknowingly…’. Children could be ruthless, and there were certain among them who would use this to needle her and get under her skin for the rest of their time at school. She hadn’t thrown Jozua Sparks to the hippogriffs when he’d brought in a magical plague, and she was damn well not going to do it to herself either.

“On the whole, we are not looking into the memories. They are private, and it was an accident that we had them. However, Professor Duell already saw this one, and she was worried about it. It looked like a battle,” she added to Heinrich. “I can show you the people involved if needed,” she stated, though she suspected that was not necessary. She hoped, anyway, that her students had not witnessed enough battles that she needed to narrow it down. She suspected that information, or even just the looks on all their faces, had been enough to give him some good clues about what the vial on her desk contained.

“I know that this may have been a long time ago, and there might not be much we can do to help, but we wanted to check whether you want to talk about this. That can look however you want it to. It can be to me, or to someone else. Professor Schmitt can help us. You can talk to me by yourselves or together. You also don’t have to, not if you don’t want to.

“I’m sorry this happened,” she finished softly.

13 Selina Skies Clearing up the mess I made (tag Hexenmeisters) 26 1 5

Hilda Hexenmeister

February 06, 2021 9:21 AM

Ugh. Mess. by Hilda Hexenmeister

Hilda had not really known what to expect when she'd gotten called into Professor Skies' office, but seeing Professor Schmidt on her desk and a serious look on her face immediately set Hilda to wondering what it was she had done wrong. She did not have a particularly guilty conscience so she wasn't coming up with anything except maybe she had said something in English that did not mean what she thought it had meant and someone got offended, though she couldn't recall any occasions where even something like that might have happened.

But then there had been pictures, and that made it so much worse. Hilda had gone white at the sight of them.

Two of them were bad enough. Two of them would have been cause for concern and careful words and begging for Heinrich to be able to field this discussion instead of her.

The others . . . well the others meant careful words were no longer necessary because this would be what the careful words were meant to conceal. She still wanted Heinrich to field this discussion instead of her.

She nodded like she'd been given an lifeline when Professor Skies offered to send for him.

She said nothing while they waited for him. She'd said nothing except "Hello?" since she'd walked into the room. She didn't want to talk about this, and she didn't trust herself right now to talk about anything else either. So she just sat there in apprehensive anxiety and met neither professors' eyes.

When Heinrich did arrive, Professor Skies began explaining and if she hadn't been this upset, she might have understood more than she did, but it was easier to just listen to Professor Schmidt explain it all in German so that was what she did.

Once he had finished his translations, she spoke for the first time since her greeting. "Thank you. Please go." She didn't need any more witnesses for this than was absolutely necessary to stay enrolled at Sonora.

Heinrich nodded his thanks as well. "I will take it from here."

Professor Schmidt looked between them, nodded, extended his good byes and left the portrait frame, leaving the two siblings with only one Professor in the room.

Hilda spoke to her brother in German, "It was our parents and the people who arrested them," she explained, carefully choosing her words to be ones that did not have an easy English equivalent that might let Professor Skies guess at what she was saying. Not that there was really any point. There was no question that Professor Skies must have noticed that Heinrich and their father had an obvious resemblance. Hilda was a better mix of both parents, but that was almost more incriminating.

"You saw a battle?" Heinrich asked, sounding confused at first, but then she saw his eyes widen as he understood exactly what it was that Professor Skies had revealed. "You went down to where they were fighting?" His voice raised with belated incredulity, worry, and rebuke. "I told you to stay with me and Hans! You could have been hurt! They told us to hide!"

"I wanted to help!" Hilda snapped, "I didn't know what was happening!" Her anger crumpled almost as fast as it had come and her shoulders slumped. She waved toward Professor Skies. "You should probably see it."

"What?" Heinrich's surprise was expressed in English.

Hilda scowled at him. "You should see it," she repeated tersely. "I'm not going to talk about it until you know what happened." And she, sure as Honest Eckehart's feet, was not going to be the one to tell him that it was her fault Mom and Dad hadn't been able to escape. She crossed her arms and looked stubborn at him.

Heinrich looked between her and Professor Skies then asked cautiously, aware that they'd just been very rudely and very intentionally excluding her from their discussion. "She says I should watch it. May I? I was watching our baby brother when it happened. I was supposed," he shot Hilda a dirty look, "to be watching her, too, but she ran off and I was trying to calm down the crying toddler so I could not chase her and keep the baby safe. She was nine and I was ten. I thought Hans needed me more." Hilda felt a twinge of guilt that Heinrich clearly felt he needed to explain why he hadn't been protecting her, that he obviously thought he'd been derelict in his duty as her big brother. "I do not know what happened and she won't tell me."

1 Hilda Hexenmeister Ugh. Mess. 1433 0 7

Selina Skies

February 06, 2021 5:06 PM

Yes, sorry about that by Selina Skies

When Hilda chose for Heinrich to be her translator, it seemed natural at first that a conversation would pass between them that Selina didn't understand. As carefully and quietly as she could, she moved Professor Schmitt's now empty frame off the desk and adjusted her seat. She was a little worried though, when the conversation appeared to descend into an argument. Heinrich wasn't someone she thought of as liable to use those kinds of tones, though she could understand that whatever this was about, it must be serious. She wasn't sure whether or not to interrupt. She was fairly sure that arguing was not productive, but without knowing what was being argued, it was hard to say for certain, or to identify a good point at which to jump in.

Before she could make a decision on that point, the conversation switched back to English, with a very surprising request. Or perhaps, not so surprising. If they were to discuss it, it would help if everyone was on the same page. And a picture was worth a thousand words.

"I'm not looking to find blame," she assured Heinrich when he seemed worried about why Hilda had a memory like this at all - or rather, seemed to worry that he needed to justify why she did. "It would be very hard to look after both of them," she assured him, the question running anxiously through her mind of just where their parents had been.

"Certainly. If that's what you want," she double confirmed with Hilda, just to be sure, before unstoppering the vial and giving it a little swirl with her wrist to stir up the ghosts of the past once again.

She found herself unsure where to look, whether to watch the figures themselves, to look to Hilda to make sure she was alright, or to politely examine the ceiling pretending she wasn't here. She realised abruptly that she had not confirmed whether she was invited to view the memory also. Perhaps she ought to have stepped out, or at least offered to... Still, she kept an eye on it, trying to puzzle out as much as she could, unless she received any clear indicators that she ought not to look. A lot of the actions spoke louder than words, and she had a rough idea of what had happened when she put the stopper back in the bottle. Mostly the 'what' - the 'who' and 'why' remained a mystery.

If needed, she would nudge them along with a reminder that it was up to them what happened next, or by asking whether they had anything they wanted to say. But given the number of words that had passed between them before, and the effect that just the still image had had on Hilda, she didn't think she would need to do much prompting - at least not for them to talk to each other.

13 Selina Skies Yes, sorry about that 26 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

February 08, 2021 6:45 PM

We do not blame you. by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich was not quite sure what to expect when he was called to the Deputy Headmistress' office only a few weeks before he was done with Sonora entirely. There were any number of things it could be about from a paperwork snag with his transcript for college to an Aladren needing a prefect escort somewhere to something about those mist things turning up around the school. As it turned out, it was the later, and Hilda was already in the room, which immediately put him on edge.

As Professor Skies explained that the mist figures were in fact memories that had been caught and spread around by a faulty penseive, and followed that up with that one had been witnessed by Professor Duell and seemed to entail a battle, Heinrich couldn't help but remembering what Ellie had said. What she'd said both her and Professor Duell had seen. Ghosts who were not ghosts. They were having a fight. They spoke German. It had been scary.

It had to be the same thing. It had to be . . .

Our parents and the people who arrested them.

Oh no.

For a moment he just closed his eyes and wished this wasn't happening. Suddenly it made so much more sense that Hilda had sent Professor Schmidt away. Fewer people who knew. He let out a breath and then looked at his sister in dismay. There were only a few weeks left. He had almost gotten through his entire seven years without this coming out in any public way.

But how could there have been a memory floating around the school of his parents fighting it out with the aurors unless . . . oh gosh. Unless Hilda had seen. He asked her directly, still perplexed about how because they'd been hiding. They'd been up in the attic, underneath the sheets and the furniture that hadn't been used in over a decade. Except Hilda had left.

Hilda had left and come back some time later, giving away their hiding spot to the aurors.

As he watched some of what had happened during part of that time, he was also acutely aware of Professor Skies being there, seeing it too. At first it was just Mom and Dad, but that in itself had given him a jolt. It had been just about seven years since he'd last seen them, and they hadn't kept any pictures, and . . . well, he hadn't forgotten what they looked like, but . . . it was clearest image of them that he'd had in a long time.

"Mutter!" he cried out when he saw her get hit with one of the curses, his hand coming up, with his wand in it, pointing as if to protect her from those who were fighting against them, and everyone turned toward him, reacting exactly like if they'd heard him, which he knew wasn't supposed to happen.

Except they weren't. Hilda must have done almost the same thing, seven years ago, because Vater was calling for a ceasefire. There was a child. They were surrendering. They were being arrested and they weren't resisting anymore.

Heinrich stared at Hilda. She wasn't meeting his eyes, looking guilty and shamefaced.

No wonder she had refused to accept that they were guilty for so long.

"Hilda," he said gently. She wouldn't look. He moved to her side, tucking his wand away. The memory was fading around them and it wasn't needed. "Hilda," he said again. "Hug?" the word came out in English because he usually addressed that question to Evelyn.

She threw herself into his arms with a wretched sob. "It was my fault," she cried in German.

"It wasn't," he promised her, using English because she wasn't listening anyway and it was only his tone that mattered. German would always be his first language, but English was his habit now. He held her while his sister bawled like she hadn't even when it happened. "It wasn't your fault. It was their fault." He looked over Hilda's head at the Crotalus Head of House, not sure if he was allowed to ask her to vacate her own office. "Can we have a minute?" he asked anyway.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister We do not blame you. 1414 0 7

Selina Skies

February 10, 2021 4:58 AM

That's overly generous of you by Selina Skies

Babies were good at the ‘m’ sound. It was easy. And nearly every language in the world had latched onto that fact, and decided that the first noises their babies made should refer to the people who had brought them into the world. The German was not as close and distinct as some other languages. But the way the word was uttered, the way it called Selina’s attention to the figures… She examined them, finding that the man looked an awful lot like Heinrich. A lot more than the uncle that they lived with, for reasons she’d never pried into or needed to know.

The scene faded, but the feelings it had brought with it did not. She tried to read the expression on Hilda’s face but it didn’t make sense to her, unless she felt bad for bringing their past out into the open. It felt unfair to let Heinrich be the one to cross the divide but he was clearly more qualified to reach out to Hilda than she was. Selina did not smile at their interaction, but there was a little patch of warmth and light in the darkness looking at how very good Heinrich was at that, even if she hated that he had to be.

She didn’t understand Hilda’s exclamation, but Heinrich more or less translated.

“Of course,” she stated, standing up when Heinrich asked for a minute. She stepped away from her desk, wondering what she could say - whether she ought to say anything. She wasn’t fully sure of the situation, at what Hilda was even blaming herself for. Though she was fairly certain of one thing. “For what it’s worth, I agree with your brother,” she told her softly, “I don’t see anything here that you could possibly be blamed for.” Her eyes flicked to Heinrich, feeling like she should be doing more to be the adult here but it was a private grief, and she was just intruding. “I’ll be outside if you need me, or when you’re done. And I’m sorry.” She didn’t stay long enough to force him to deal with accepting that or not, but slipped quietly into the corridor, closing the door behind her, and allowing herself to slump against the wall and shake for a moment.

13 Selina Skies That's overly generous of you 26 0 5