Forget-Me-Not → Regulus Black

Past Recollections and Ghost Conversations

The Grey Lady fixated Aurelia with a deep stare. Sybill started whispering excitedly, "I told you that someone would be waiting for you. I did try to warn you—"

"Not now," Aurelia whispered back, her heart beating rapidly and her hands starting to shake with nerves.

This was not good.

Helena Ravenclaw remained silent, not uttering a single word — the suffocating silence somehow making the situation worse.

Sybill Trelawney was clueless; she didn't know what the letter that the ghost was holding, but Aurelia did, because it was the same letter that Marlene had given her.

The same letter that Regulus had written.

The same letter he admitted to being a Death Eater.

"Trelawney, may you give us a few seconds?" The Ravenclaw ghost asked warmly as she made sure the room was deserted and no one was listening. Sybill nodded her head skeptically, shooting Aurelia a sympathetic glance before hurriedly making her way up to their shared room.

All of a sudden death didn't seem so bad after all.

"Dear Aurelia," the Grey Lady began in a hushed tone, "I know this may come as a bit of a surprise..."

"No shit Sherlock," Aurelia mumbled, having already read the letter and was aware with what she was about to say next.

"... but I feel like I should be honest with you. After having recieved a fair share of advice from McKinnon, I decided that you are more in the right to know something that happened over the summer..."

"Oh goody."

"... the Dark Lord gave me the Dark Mark..."

"Straight to the point, I see."

"... R.A.B." Helena carefully folded the letter, giving her a 'I told you' look. Aurelia returned it with a 'well, it certainly was a plot twist that I hadn't been expecting' look.

"You shouldn't have been hanging out with him in the first place," the ghost said quietly. "This just proves that Slytherins are nothing but evil and troublesome—"

"You shouldn't have been snooping through my stuff," Aurelia interrupted cooly. "You aren't my mum, you aren't my parent— heck, you aren't even related to me, so it's not in your place to tell me who I can and can't spend time with. And maybe you were right; maybe Regulus wasn't someone I should have spent my time with, someone I should have trusted, but you know what? It's not up to you to decide what's best for me."

And with that Aurelia hurried up the stairs to where Sybill was waiting patiently, leaving a dumbfounded Helena Ravenclaw behind.

Aurelia didn't say anything for the rest of the night. She simply stared out of the arched window, her Alice in Wonderland book in her lap that Peter had given her. All of a sudden she got the desire to leave the room, and so that's what she did — saying the password and entering the familiar Prefect's bathroom.

Myrtle seemed to be talking to herself, but in closer inspection Aurelia could tell that she was having a discussion with Ophelia. Her aunt.

Her mum's sister.

The one who knew all of the answers.

"Hello," Aurelia timidly said, so the two were aware of her presence. Both ghosts looked at her, and Myrtle was quick to answer in her shrill voice, "Oh hello, Aurelia! I missed you!"

"I missed you too." It wasn't completely untrue, Aurelia never minded Myrtle and they used to have deep, psychological discussions in her second year whenever she felt lonely or lost. Aurelia would consider her a friend — maybe not her best friend, that was reserved for the Marauders, but her friend nonetheless.

"How is my favorite niece doing?" Ophelia questioned, her blonde hair tumbling in waves and framing her face.

"Alright," Aurelia answered. "Could be worse, I guess." She paused, trying to find a way to word her question; the question that made her want to come here in the first place. "I was wondering if, well— if you ever had something... weird happen to you. A near death experience that would have surely killed you but instead you left without a scratch."

Myrtle didn't seem too fond with the use of the 'near death experience', but she didn't comment on it; she too was interested with what Ophelia had to say.

Ophelia nodded slowly, a large grin plastered across her face. "Can you give me an example?"

"Oh, well— alright," Aurelia said, starting to recount her story with Snape. "And then he said 'sectumsempra', and I felt this pain, like knives were stabbing me. My father taught me Latin when I was very young — having thought that would be useful, so I have a gist with what the spell or curse's purpose is, and it aligns to how I felt. Sectum means 'to cut', and sempra means 'always'. The thing is that it kept healing and then cutting me again and again, so it was never ending. And then I remember waking up in the Hospital Wing. I haven't told anyone about it though."

"No one?" Ophelia asked.

"No one," Aurelia repeated. "No one I remember telling, anyways. I'm going to be honest, I sort of forgot what happened right after I woke up..."

"Interesting." She seemed about ready to say something, but she stopped herself, before asking, "Are there any other times that something like that happened?"

"Actually, there are a few times." Aurelia thought back to the time in her fourth year. She had fallen over with a hard slam after bumping into Regulus on the train, but the pain seemed to disappear — as if it hadn't even happened.

There was also another time; when she and the other Marauders turned into their animagus form and Snape was there, in the Shrieking Shack. Remus, in his werewolf form, had bitten her — but later she had not felt an ounce of pain, even though she could have gotten seriously hurt.

Not to mention all the times when she was young and got scratches all across her arms. Now that she thought about it, they were abnormally quick to disappear.

And as she remembered all of this she could see Ophelia beaming excessively and Myrtle listening wide-eyed.

Aurelia Livierre was certainly no ordinary witch.