Revolution of Magic

Memories of the dead

It had been two days after Christmas and Grantaire still hadn't told Molly what was in that letter, so today was the day he was going to. Grantaire found Molly in the attic talking to herself.

"Molly you really shouldn't talk to yourself, it's the first sign of madness," Grantaire laughed but winced, pain souring up the side of his face.

"I'm not talking to myself, I'm talking to the ghost," Molly answered matter-of-factly.

"Yeah 'cause there's a ghost in the..." Grantaire began but then saw the almost perfect ghost image of himself. "...attic? Why does he look like me?"

"Apparently I am your ancestor and apparently you know Bahorel," the ghost replied.

"He even has the same name as you," Molly stated.

"What and he signs his name-"

"-R, were you going to say?" the ghost smirked.

"Ok, that's not weird. I'm going to ignore you if that's alright," Grantaire murmured and handed the letter to Molly.

"I would prefer to talk, it gets ever so lonely up here on my own, with your father ignoring me," the ghost said mocking sadness.

"Fine, I'll talk," Grantaire huffed and threw himself on the floor hurting every bone in his body and making him yelp in pain.

"Who did that to you?" the ghost asked but Grantaire ignored him.

"What is your name? How do I know we share the same name?" Grantaire asked slowly.

"Grantaire meet Grantaire, it's as simple as that," the ghost murmured.

"Right for this conversation's sake, I'm R and you're Grantaire, ok?" R suggested.

"Ok but you haven't answered my question, who did that to you?" Grantaire asked impatiently.

"No one," R said hassled.

"'No one' can't give you a black eye and a cut lip," Grantaire stated.

"Bahorel can't make it, he said to stay here," Molly murmured to R and Grantaire.

"I'm sorry about that," Grantaire said quietly. "Now, who did that to you?!"

"You're an absolute stranger! I'm not telling you anything!" R shouted.

"Erec did that," Molly told Grantaire.

"Your papa? Mine was called something else, I can't quite remember," Grantaire murmured to himself. "How can family do that to you?"

"Easily, they hate me!" R snarled.

"I know but in the twentieth century, you'd think they'd have cleared that up! Apollo and the others didn't intend to die for nothing!" Grantaire shouted.

"Wait, Apollo?" R said softly.

"Hm, four years younger than me and completely out of my league," Grantaire sighed. "He cared too much, that's what got him killed. Enjolras was his real name."

"Apollo? Younger? Out of my league? Cared too much? Enjolras?" R wondered to himself. "That's just weird."

"My version of Apollo was a muggle, I think that's what you called it," Grantaire stated. "It seems that he had siblings or cousins with the same surname to carry the name on. Seems that I had siblings or cousins as well." Grantaire peered at the children as he spoke.

"How old were you when you died?" R asked shakily.

"Twenty nine, but that's not to say you will, you could live until the ripe old age of sixty," Grantaire said cheerfully.

"Sixty? Sixty isn't old, not for these standards anyway!" R protested. "I swear seventy five is the average."

"Fine, seventy five, my point being you might not live your life as wastefully as I did. You might not become a drunk and you might become a very successful artist." R shifted awkwardly at that but didn't say anything.

"I suppose not," R mumbled.

"The main thing different is the family names, my mama and papa names were different and so was my half-sister, her name was Katherine."

"We have a cousin called Katherine, she'll be in Hogwarts next year, I think."

"So will Gavroche and Regulas," Molly said glumly.

"I can't wait until that little mischief maker is at Hogwarts, as for Regulas, he'll have to deal with some torture and so will Lucius, but his torture will start as soon as we go back to school." R smiled maliciously.

"What did the gits do?" Grantaire asked.

"Regulas got my owl killed by Lucius' father," R said bitterly. "I named him after Vincent van Gough, you know the most unfortunately successful artist?"

"How was he unfortunate?" Grantaire asked.

"Oh, he's from the 1800s but wasn't famous until about sixty years after his death," R said.

"I'm dead and I'm not successful," Grantaire huffed.

"How come you've been up here all this time but you haven't been seen by father?" R asked.

"I stay in the shadows until Molly came along, it was quite eventful actually, she must have known there was some sort of ghost here because she didn't look half nervous," Grantaire laughed.

"R had told me stories about there being a ghost up here," Molly muttered.

"Yeah, stories which evidently may be true," R mumbled. "Do mother and father ever know you're up here?"

"No, no one ever looks for me, I'm the forgotten child, the one nobody likes to speak about or speak too," Molly said glumly.

"That's not a bad thing if it means you avoid ending up like this."

"But completely forgotten?" Grantaire asked, an eyebrow raised.

"I get it," R said. The three looked around the dusty old attic; Molly found things she had never seen before like the old renaissance style mirror, china and chests. Molly got up and explored the attic a bit more. She found a chest without a lock on it and opened it.

Inside were clothes. Men's clothes. Molly looked through them and found that the waistcoats were mostly green, like the tops R normally wears, and one tattered pair of white trousers.

"Grantaire... are these... yours?" Molly asked. The ghost sadly glided towards her and looked into the chest nodding solemnly.

"Yeah, these are mine, the few clothes that I owned," Grantaire sighed and moved to another chest. "Open this one." Molly did as she was told and looked inside.

Inside there were tattered dresses but one white one, a wedding dress. The dress was quite simple and was reasonably shapeless. It had two sleeves on each side; one that was straight and looked like it would be quite tight around the arm and the other draped over that one with a gap and was gathered at the top of the sleeve. There wasn't any detail or embroidery on any part of the dress but the sleeves. But the skirt was fanned out and the material felt like silk.

"This was Katherine's wedding dress, I remember her sat in tears as I watched her look over our bodies, mine and Jehan's that is. If Jehan made it out alive he was going to propose but on the last night he wrote a letter hoping she'd find it with the ring enclosed. I watched as she cried, I watched as she read the letter, I kept my distance, I didn't want to disturb her and I watched her whole life from afar.

"She eventually found love again and married in the dress she'd bought after finding the ring. Katherine had four children called Idette, Guy, Emille and Dominiuqe. Katherine died aged forty from liver poisoning because I had been stupid enough to let her drink. I'm the only one who came back."

If the ghost could cry he would have, if he could show any true emotion he would have but he couldn't. Somebody who he had first hated, then loved, somebody who had survived but had died because of him. Katherine was gone and there was nothing he could do about it.