But nothing comes. She stands in the center of what she doesn't realize is a very large square chamber, waiting. "Hello? Aiya!" She takes a few steps forward, then becomes aware that she is not alone. "You greet me in Quenya! Little Ellie," the soft voice says, "you are such a precious child." She looks all around her but can not see the speaker. "I'm not a child." The Grand Inquisitor laughs and says, "you are to me, and I am considerably older than you." She struggles to see the speaker in the gloom, but just can't find her. "How old are you?" The Grand Inquisitor laughs again, then tells her, "I am older than Brother Perdurabo." Elsbet steps back and looks around the chamber again, feeling humbled. "Much older."
Elsbet sets down right where she is, no longer entertaining the idea of the Balrog rising up from the depths of the mine, nor being swarmed by wide-eyed goblins. "You are bored, perhaps?" The voice asks her, the tone decidedly one of amusement. "No," Elsbet replies, "I just don't feel like standing if I don't have to." There is a soft chuckle, and Elsbet has the distinct impression that the speaker is very close to her. "Ellie, why are you here? Why have you come before me?" She looks out into the gloom and says simply, "to face my fears and my past." She has the impression that the Inquisitor is behind her, then has the sensation of a hand very near her head. When the touch comes, it is gentle, almost tentative, and then it is gone. "Ellie, I do not feel that you are ready." There is a long silence, then the speaker continues. "You cling to your negative self-image and your self-loathing as if your life depends on it. You think that I will show you something that will change everything for you, alter your perspectve of yourself or force you to see. I can not do that."
She cries, she can't help it. "But they all had that experience," she says softly, and the Inquisitor touches her again. "Not...exactly. They were all ready to face themselves, regardless of their reasons for being in the city. I think, little Ellie, that you should go back out to your loved ones, who are very worried for you, and let them take care of you and guide you until you are ready." As good as that sounds to her, Elsbet can't let herself give in to that temptation. "I don't have that kind of time," she says, and the Inquisitor draws away from her. "Why is that, Ellie?" She frowns and looks up, seeing just the hint of the Inquisitor's form nearby. "Because the Dark Lord grows stronger every day, and I don't think we have much longer...before...even Sanctuary City is threatened. And if the Dark Lord isn't stopped now, there will be no stopping him."
After a long silence, the Inquisitor says, "I think you are very brave to want to do this, Ellie, so unprepared. You are correct, of course; if the Dark Lord is not stopped now, the whole of this Earth will fall to him. There will be no Sanctuary, no safety." Elsbet pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around her legs. "The first thing you must do Ellie, is realize that you have a very powerful mind, a very strong mental constitution. If you did not, you would not have survived the mental attack you suffered six years ago. Even so, you were very fortuante that Brother Noctem was able to heal you after all of the damage from the lingering effects, and your own self-punishment. You must stop doing that to yourself, Ellie, punishing yourself for things you have no control over, things that are not your fault. You cause yourself so much unnecessary pain and grief, which you then block out so thoroughly that even good memories surrounding the negative ones are obscured. I realize that this is your defense mechanism, but really Ellie, you have done more harm than good."
Elsbet rests her forehead on her knees. "As it is now, Ellie, you barely know yourself. When was the last time you saw yourself in a mirror?" She closes her eyes. "Today, at Irena's shop, but before today, it was a long time..." she says quietly, then, even more quietly, "I don't like what I see." The Inquisitor sighs deeply and tells her, "you rely on the reflection you see in others' eyes. You must learn to appreciate yourself for who you are." She plays with the laces of her shoes, trying not to cry. "Why did you change your clothes, Ellie? They didn't even get to see your outfit. Even your jewelry...why?" Elsbet shrugs and loses her grip on her tears. "Are you certain you wish to do this now, Ellie? Why do you not confide in Brother Noctem? He very much wants to help you, he wishes you would share with him. He fears you do not trust him fully..." She hugs her legs even tighter to her. "He already has enough to worry about. He doesn't need me to burden him--" she says and the Inquisitor frowns, her brows furled, then sits down in the shadows near Elsbet. "Do you really believe your problems are not important to him?"
She shakes her head slightly. "They're not as important as the ones he has. He has a whole school full of children to protect, and his cover to maintain...and then Harry...he's worried about Harry, he needs to find Harry so he can give him...something...to help him do what he has to do. I think that's far more important than my problems." The Inquisitor did not expect that, and sits for a while deep in thought. Finally she says, "Ellie, if you do not confide in Brother Noctem, you will lose him. The longer you wait to share this part of yourself with him, the further away you push him." Elsbet sighs and shrugs slightly. "He will survive without me...he has Lucius now, and Lucius can help him in ways I can't. Lucius is a wizard..." she shrugs again, "he has magic, he can fight. They have a history together, they went to Hogwarts together and they were Death Eaters together. They've risked their lives for each other. They're beautiful together...they belong together. I'll just get in the way."
It's not the fact that Elsbet says this that bothers the Inquisitor, it's the fact that she says it matter-of-factly and without any bitterness whatsoever. "But, don't you love them?" Elsbet nods. "Yes, I do, very much, but not as much as they love each other." She rubs her eyes and sits up straight. After several minutes, the Inquisitor says, "you have no idea how much they love you." Elsbet rises and tells the Inquisitor, "that's as may be, but this isn't why I came to you, to talk about love." She can't see the Inquisitor clearly, but she gets the impression that the other woman in smirking. "You didn't? But love is one of your fears, and you said you wished to face your fears and your past."
The Inquisitor rises now and tells Elsbet, "you fear love because everyone you have ever loved in your life has left you, usually through death. Yet, you can not help yourself. You love so readily because it is your very nature to do so. You are a nurturer. Love completes you, but a part of you will push it away impulsively out of fear of pain and loss. So you are incomplete, because you are unable to give yourself fully to those you love." Elsbet stares at her and blinks once, then twice, and she whispers, "yeah, I think you were right...I'm not ready for this." She brushes the hair out of her eyes and says quickly, "but as I said, I don't have the time to wait 'til I am."
The Inquisitor gives a slight nod and says, "your perception is key, Elsbet. Tell me, how do you see yourself? Don't say it, just think it." On the wall behind them there appears Elsbet's distorted self-image, and the Inquisitor shakes her head. "You are not this awful thing, Ellie." Elsbet turns to look at it but finds it very difficult, though she forces herself to because she knows she must. The girl in the image has roughly Elsbet's face, but nothing else is even similar. It's a she-demon, the manifestation of her self-loathing and self-blame, and it truly does make the Inquisitor sad.
"This is how the ones who love you see you," she says, and with a wave of her hand the image changes. Same girl, but decidedly different. Elsbet shakes her head, but the Inquisitor tells her, "yes, Ellie. To them, especially Brother Noctem and Lucius, you are light, and sweet, and innocent." She looks away, wiping her eyes. "But I'm not...an angel." The Inquisitor sighs. "Neither are you a demon. Why must the negative image be more true than the positive one? You give them hope, Ellie, and tremendous joy. Do you know how hurt they would be if they knew you see yourself as a wretched thing? You do them all, and your parents as well, a disservice."
Elsbet looks up at the angellic image. "Your parents did not produce a monster, regardless of what you think." The Inquisitor's voice is harsh, like that of a wounded mother to a beautiful daughter who thinks herself hideous. "As long as you perceive yourself as a creature of darkness, Ellie, you will have no power, no self-esteem, no self-confidence, and no magic. You will lose all that you hold dear." Elsbet stands a moment longer, then looks up at the other woman, searching for her face in the gloom. "Magic?" The Inquisitor turns and moves a few steps away.
"Yes, Ellie, magic. But as you have never been trained, you face a great challenge, which will be made greater still if you do not allow your loved ones to assist you. Upon this I will say no more; you must seek the guidence of others, which means you must open yourself fully to them." Elsbet has the distinct feeling that she has offended the Inquisitor some way and she is sorry, but all she can do now is move forward. "I loath this place, though I understand why you chose it. May I make a suggestion?" Elsbet blinks and shrugs. "Of course..."
Even in the gloom she can see the ripple effect and the dimness of Moria changes to a brightly lit forest setting. At last she sees the Grand Inquisitor, and the Lady is beautiful. Strawberry blond hair that would fall well passed her shoulders were it not tied back, and a lovely white dress that appears to be crafted from gossamer makes her seem quite ethereal, and Elsbet is immediately put at ease. Her demeanor changes, and she nearly forgets she's in the Oubliette; she wants to go run through the trees. "Such a difference," the Inquisitor says, then motions for her to follow her up. Elsbet follows and sees the Lady standing beside a stone basin, which sits upon an ornately carved pedistal. As she approaches the basin she notes the runes and figures around the rim, and the Lady pours water into the basin as she nears.
"Do you know what this is, Elsbet?" She looks into the shimmering water, noting her own reflection in its surface. The surface ripples and slightly distorts her reflection as the Lady opens a vial of a silvery liquid and pours it into the basin. "Yes," Elsbet says, a little excited, "it's a penseive! I've never seen one, but I've heard of them," she says, and the Lady smiles. She watches the silvery, smoke-like threads swirl about in the water, then sighs deeply. "My memories, aren't they?" The Lady nods and tells her they are some of the most significant painful memories that she has blocked out, and the good ones obscured along with them.
"Shall you dive in and experience them here and now, or shall I select a few, and allow you to deal with the rest, providing you swear to seek assistance with them?" "I will take a few now and seek assistance with the rest," she tells the Lady, and the Lady gives her a meaningful look. "What you swear to me here is sacred and binding, you realize this," the Lady says and Elsbet nods. "I understand, and I swear." The Lady nods, and reaches down to the surface of the penseive, hooks a silvery memory with a long fingernail and teases it out. She pulls it then shakes it and says, "let us begin with this one."
In the memory, Elsbet is just little, maybe five or six years old, and she's out in the back yard under a tree. She's been watching the horses and is a little sleepy, so she rolls over onto her back. Up in the tree she sees something...something twiggy and round. It's a nest. There are babies up in that nest, she can hear them, hungry babies waiting for their momma to feed them...she wants to see the babies, and she thinks maybe--the day before she discovered she could do something wonderful, she made something float in the air--maybe this day she can make the nest float down to her. She makes the nest come out of the tree, and as it floats down to her, she is so excited. She jumps up and down, as excited children do, and suddenly....she loses control and the nest plummets to the ground.
She can only watch as it does; she's so frightened that it's several moments before she realizes that the two unhatched eggs are now broken, and the two chicks are dead. She doesn't know what to do. She tries so hard to make the nest go back up, but she can't get it to go. Her little heart pounds and she's crying so hard she can barely see through her tears...she runs back to the house, and when her mother sees her and asks what happened, she lies to her mother and tells her she fell down and hurt herself. When her father finds the nest the next day, he figures the wind must have knocked it down. Elsbet is so ashamed she never tells them the truth, and it is quite a while before she tries to do "things" again.
Elsbet sits down on the floor of the Oubliette, crying hard. She remembers the feeling of helplessness and shame, and she tells the Lady that she never went back out to that tree. The Lady tells her, "Ellie, I know it is of little comfort, but it is natural for children to be curious, especially one like you, and it is nearly impossible for children that young to control their magic. Yours must have just manifested itself..." It is of little comfort, though Elsbet knows she is right. The Lady catches up another memory and flicks it out.
Elsbet is nine, it's the summer following Hershey's death. They've just moved into a new home, and she's just getting used to the new neighborhood. The new park looks like so much fun; there's a fountain with ducks, swings, a dog run and a sand box. She's not supposed to, but she leaves their yard and goes down to the park alone. She plays with the hand-fed, tame ducks in the fountain, and plays on the swings for a while. She doesn't notice the man watching her until he's right near her. He asks her what her name is and she tells him to go away. She jumps out of the swing and tries to run away, but he grabs her by the arm, and pulls her away from the swings.
She tells him again to let her go but he won't, and she gets so very, very mad that the tree branch above him snaps and falls, striking him in the head. It's a heavy one....the impact stuns him and he stumbles backward, dragging Elsbet with him, until he trips over an exposed tree root. He can't stop himself from falling and he hits the ground hard, striking the back of his head. Elsbet hesitates; he's not moving, his eyes are closed and he's bleeding profusely. She panics and runs all the way home, and when her father finds her in her bed, sobbing, she lies and tells him her stomach hurts. She never tells him the truth.
The Lady doesn't know what to say to Elsbet to give her any comfort, for words carry very little comfort when faced with a memory like that. Carefully the Lady swirls the silvery memories and after several moments, she picks another memory and shakes it out.
But it is even worse that the previous one.
It's The Big One, when she was 15. The Living Death curse. The Lady is horrified and disgusted, and desperately needs to tell Elsbet that she had every right to defend herself and her parents, but she knows she's been told this already. But what Brother Noctem and Therion do not know is that, not only was it the last time she ever consiously and willingly used magic, it was also the night something in her died. Any desire to ever be with a man. But there was more...less than a week after her mother's death, her attacker died in the hospital. Not of the injuries sustained in her retaliation, but at the hands of a hospital worker who recognized him for the monster he was.
After his death, someone else recognized him, and by the end of the year, there was a full accounting of all the little girls and young women he had brutalized. Or rather, as full as they could get. The Lady wants to tell Elsbet that her actions undoubtedly saved many, many other innocent people from the same fate, but she decides to leave her be. Any input at this point could be counter-productive. As the memory string fades away and her father's death plays out, the Lady has a sense of the total and complete isolation Elsbet had felt up until she arrived in Scotland.
She lets the memories swirl in the penseive, her hand just above the surface, hoping she can find something positive in that silvery mass. But after several minutes, she begins to realize that it seems Elsbet hasn't had much happiness in her young life. But suddenly...there's something...the Lady feels something important, something powerful, something recent that hasn't been totally obscured yet...She plucks it out and flings it up before she realizes what she's found.
When she does, the Grand Inquisitor nearly weeps.
"Ellie," she whispers, "tell me about this dog." She looks over at Elsbet, who will not look up at the memory floating nearby. "Please? Ellie, it's very important." The Lady, from whom very little is secret or hidden, can not believe she had missed this...she has to be able to thread this together, and not just for Elsbet's sake. "Please, Ellie, I know it hurts, but I need you to tell me about him." Elsbet looks up at the wispy thing, and smiles faintly even as the tears come.
"He was so much fun...the first time I saw him, I was having my lunch at Posie's, and I saw this scraggly looking dog at the corner vendor's. He had to be hungry, I knew, because why would a dog steal a loaf of bread? I gave him the other half of my lunch. I felt so bad for him because he looked terrible; skinny and dirty, and I thought he was afraid of me at first, but I think he was more afraid of getting attached to someone." She sighs deeply and the Lady asks her if this was around the same time she met Brother Noctem. "Yes, around the same time. But I didn't realize that--" She shakes her head. "There was a lot I didn't realize at first."
Elsbet goes on to tell her that when the dog would come, he would only stay for a little while, a few hours, and then he would disappear again. But as time passed, he started showing up twice a week, and he would stay all day. They would spend that time usually playing in the park in the village where she worked, and in the White City too, and after Severus saved her from her employer and made her that pretty little house, the dog would visit her there as well, and they would sit on the porch and she would read to him. She never told anyone about him, she knew something was different about him, and she didn't want to cause trouble for him.
"Ellie, what did you call him?" She squeezes her eyes shut. "Padfoot. I'd read somewhere once that padfoot was a slang term for thief, and the first time I saw him he was stealing bread. He seemed to like the name." She chuckles softly and pulls her knees up once again. The Lady looks at her and sees she's crying again. "When did you realize he wasn't really a dog?" She asks her question as kindly as she can, but Elsbet's tears only increase. "One day, he came to see me at lunch, and went to play in the park. I didn't care about Wynter, my employer...my friend was with me, and I just didn't care. We fell asleep under the apple tree in the park, and that's where Wynter found me. He started shouting at me and calling me terrible things, and Padfoot nearly attacked him. If he had reached for me, he would have lost his hand."
She looks up at the happy, scruffy black dog in the memory for a long time in silence. "A witch I knew named Jessel heard Wynter and came out and told him to shut his mouth, told him that he'd best not put a hand to me or he'd pay. I'd never seen him be afraid of a woman before, but I think he knew it was really coming from Padfoot." The Lady moves closer to Elsbet and asks her, "do you remember the last time you saw him?" Elsbet nods, her eyes glistening. "It was one of the best days of my life...we'd spent the whole day in the park. He loved to chase the ducks...he would chase them and they'd chase him, I would laugh so hard that my sides would hurt. He caught one...he didn't hurt it though...he just mouthed it and messed it around. It quacked like blue murder though till he let it go. But he kept catching that same duck, until finally it wouldn't even quack. When it started to get dark, he made sure I got home ok, and I hugged him and told him that I loved him, and I watched him leave...and then he never came back."
Elsbet sits silently for a moment, tears streaming from her eyes, then says, "he never came back, and I knew he was dead." The Lady says, "Ellie, you know who he really was..." She nods and chokes on her tears. "Sirius Black." She looks up at the Lady. "I figured it all out from the old copies of the Daily Prophet I found, and from what people here said, but nobody was afraid of him, nobody said anything bad about him, except for Wynter...Wynter hated him, but...he was so good..he was so good to me..." She breaks down sobbing and pulls up a handful of simulated grass, then throws it angrily. "I've missed him so much," she nearly shouts, and the Lady sits down beside her. "You haven't told them, have you?"
She shakes her head emphatically. "No," she sobs, "and I'm not going to! He was one of the best friends I ever had, one the only decent men I've ever known and I didn't even know him as a man I knew him as a dog...I loved him so much! Between him and Severus...Remus and Tonks and the friends I made here, that was the best year of my whole life, and then he was gone!" She does not normally make physical contact with those who come before her, but this is a very special case. She pulls Elsbet into her harms and holds her while she cries, telling her that Sirius must have loved her too, otherwise he wouldn't have been risking himself to come see her. She tells Elsbet that she must share her memories of Sirius with her loved ones, because these are priceless things, but Elsbet sobs that it hurts too much.
"I know, Ellie, and you've kept all of this bottled up inside for so long, you've been poisoning yourself...but these memories especially are important...there's something in your memories that they need. What if I told you that by sharing them you would be giving another person joy? What if I told you that you would be bringing them peace? Would you do it? What if sharing these particular memories of happiness are the first steps to your own empowerment?" She hugs Elsbet to her until the weeping girl grows silent.
The forest simulation fades slowly along with everything in it, save for the two women. Carefully, the Grand Inquisitor gathers Elsbet up and lifts her as she rises, then carries her down the passage that leads in and out of the Oubliette. The doorway opens. Outside the chamber, the tired wizards rise and eagerly await Elsbet to come out to them, but she doesn't. Roycroft responds to a silent summons from the Grand Inquisitor and enters the darkened hallway, then returns minutes later, carrying Elsbet in his arms.
They all rise immediately; Snape and Therion help Malfoy up and Remus asks fearfully what's happened. "She's alright, just...just sleeping," Roycroft says, and Snape takes Elsbet from him without a word, and Roycroft does not object. "Here, there's an excellent room where Ellie and Lucuis can rest for the night," he says and leads them away from the Oubliette, and out into the Temple center. He leads them down a long hallway of rooms to one with an atmosphere of comfort and a very large bed. Lucius weakly takes off his shoes and drapes his robe over a nearby chair, then lays down on the bed. Once settled in, Snape places Elsbet gently into his arms, and it's not long before Malfoy himself is asleep.
Therion, Roycroft and Remus leave the room, and before he closes the door, Therion tells Snape that if they should need anything, he only needs to let him know.
Elsbet sets down right where she is, no longer entertaining the idea of the Balrog rising up from the depths of the mine, nor being swarmed by wide-eyed goblins. "You are bored, perhaps?" The voice asks her, the tone decidedly one of amusement. "No," Elsbet replies, "I just don't feel like standing if I don't have to." There is a soft chuckle, and Elsbet has the distinct impression that the speaker is very close to her. "Ellie, why are you here? Why have you come before me?" She looks out into the gloom and says simply, "to face my fears and my past." She has the impression that the Inquisitor is behind her, then has the sensation of a hand very near her head. When the touch comes, it is gentle, almost tentative, and then it is gone. "Ellie, I do not feel that you are ready." There is a long silence, then the speaker continues. "You cling to your negative self-image and your self-loathing as if your life depends on it. You think that I will show you something that will change everything for you, alter your perspectve of yourself or force you to see. I can not do that."
She cries, she can't help it. "But they all had that experience," she says softly, and the Inquisitor touches her again. "Not...exactly. They were all ready to face themselves, regardless of their reasons for being in the city. I think, little Ellie, that you should go back out to your loved ones, who are very worried for you, and let them take care of you and guide you until you are ready." As good as that sounds to her, Elsbet can't let herself give in to that temptation. "I don't have that kind of time," she says, and the Inquisitor draws away from her. "Why is that, Ellie?" She frowns and looks up, seeing just the hint of the Inquisitor's form nearby. "Because the Dark Lord grows stronger every day, and I don't think we have much longer...before...even Sanctuary City is threatened. And if the Dark Lord isn't stopped now, there will be no stopping him."
After a long silence, the Inquisitor says, "I think you are very brave to want to do this, Ellie, so unprepared. You are correct, of course; if the Dark Lord is not stopped now, the whole of this Earth will fall to him. There will be no Sanctuary, no safety." Elsbet pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around her legs. "The first thing you must do Ellie, is realize that you have a very powerful mind, a very strong mental constitution. If you did not, you would not have survived the mental attack you suffered six years ago. Even so, you were very fortuante that Brother Noctem was able to heal you after all of the damage from the lingering effects, and your own self-punishment. You must stop doing that to yourself, Ellie, punishing yourself for things you have no control over, things that are not your fault. You cause yourself so much unnecessary pain and grief, which you then block out so thoroughly that even good memories surrounding the negative ones are obscured. I realize that this is your defense mechanism, but really Ellie, you have done more harm than good."
Elsbet rests her forehead on her knees. "As it is now, Ellie, you barely know yourself. When was the last time you saw yourself in a mirror?" She closes her eyes. "Today, at Irena's shop, but before today, it was a long time..." she says quietly, then, even more quietly, "I don't like what I see." The Inquisitor sighs deeply and tells her, "you rely on the reflection you see in others' eyes. You must learn to appreciate yourself for who you are." She plays with the laces of her shoes, trying not to cry. "Why did you change your clothes, Ellie? They didn't even get to see your outfit. Even your jewelry...why?" Elsbet shrugs and loses her grip on her tears. "Are you certain you wish to do this now, Ellie? Why do you not confide in Brother Noctem? He very much wants to help you, he wishes you would share with him. He fears you do not trust him fully..." She hugs her legs even tighter to her. "He already has enough to worry about. He doesn't need me to burden him--" she says and the Inquisitor frowns, her brows furled, then sits down in the shadows near Elsbet. "Do you really believe your problems are not important to him?"
She shakes her head slightly. "They're not as important as the ones he has. He has a whole school full of children to protect, and his cover to maintain...and then Harry...he's worried about Harry, he needs to find Harry so he can give him...something...to help him do what he has to do. I think that's far more important than my problems." The Inquisitor did not expect that, and sits for a while deep in thought. Finally she says, "Ellie, if you do not confide in Brother Noctem, you will lose him. The longer you wait to share this part of yourself with him, the further away you push him." Elsbet sighs and shrugs slightly. "He will survive without me...he has Lucius now, and Lucius can help him in ways I can't. Lucius is a wizard..." she shrugs again, "he has magic, he can fight. They have a history together, they went to Hogwarts together and they were Death Eaters together. They've risked their lives for each other. They're beautiful together...they belong together. I'll just get in the way."
It's not the fact that Elsbet says this that bothers the Inquisitor, it's the fact that she says it matter-of-factly and without any bitterness whatsoever. "But, don't you love them?" Elsbet nods. "Yes, I do, very much, but not as much as they love each other." She rubs her eyes and sits up straight. After several minutes, the Inquisitor says, "you have no idea how much they love you." Elsbet rises and tells the Inquisitor, "that's as may be, but this isn't why I came to you, to talk about love." She can't see the Inquisitor clearly, but she gets the impression that the other woman in smirking. "You didn't? But love is one of your fears, and you said you wished to face your fears and your past."
The Inquisitor rises now and tells Elsbet, "you fear love because everyone you have ever loved in your life has left you, usually through death. Yet, you can not help yourself. You love so readily because it is your very nature to do so. You are a nurturer. Love completes you, but a part of you will push it away impulsively out of fear of pain and loss. So you are incomplete, because you are unable to give yourself fully to those you love." Elsbet stares at her and blinks once, then twice, and she whispers, "yeah, I think you were right...I'm not ready for this." She brushes the hair out of her eyes and says quickly, "but as I said, I don't have the time to wait 'til I am."
The Inquisitor gives a slight nod and says, "your perception is key, Elsbet. Tell me, how do you see yourself? Don't say it, just think it." On the wall behind them there appears Elsbet's distorted self-image, and the Inquisitor shakes her head. "You are not this awful thing, Ellie." Elsbet turns to look at it but finds it very difficult, though she forces herself to because she knows she must. The girl in the image has roughly Elsbet's face, but nothing else is even similar. It's a she-demon, the manifestation of her self-loathing and self-blame, and it truly does make the Inquisitor sad.
"This is how the ones who love you see you," she says, and with a wave of her hand the image changes. Same girl, but decidedly different. Elsbet shakes her head, but the Inquisitor tells her, "yes, Ellie. To them, especially Brother Noctem and Lucius, you are light, and sweet, and innocent." She looks away, wiping her eyes. "But I'm not...an angel." The Inquisitor sighs. "Neither are you a demon. Why must the negative image be more true than the positive one? You give them hope, Ellie, and tremendous joy. Do you know how hurt they would be if they knew you see yourself as a wretched thing? You do them all, and your parents as well, a disservice."
Elsbet looks up at the angellic image. "Your parents did not produce a monster, regardless of what you think." The Inquisitor's voice is harsh, like that of a wounded mother to a beautiful daughter who thinks herself hideous. "As long as you perceive yourself as a creature of darkness, Ellie, you will have no power, no self-esteem, no self-confidence, and no magic. You will lose all that you hold dear." Elsbet stands a moment longer, then looks up at the other woman, searching for her face in the gloom. "Magic?" The Inquisitor turns and moves a few steps away.
"Yes, Ellie, magic. But as you have never been trained, you face a great challenge, which will be made greater still if you do not allow your loved ones to assist you. Upon this I will say no more; you must seek the guidence of others, which means you must open yourself fully to them." Elsbet has the distinct feeling that she has offended the Inquisitor some way and she is sorry, but all she can do now is move forward. "I loath this place, though I understand why you chose it. May I make a suggestion?" Elsbet blinks and shrugs. "Of course..."
Even in the gloom she can see the ripple effect and the dimness of Moria changes to a brightly lit forest setting. At last she sees the Grand Inquisitor, and the Lady is beautiful. Strawberry blond hair that would fall well passed her shoulders were it not tied back, and a lovely white dress that appears to be crafted from gossamer makes her seem quite ethereal, and Elsbet is immediately put at ease. Her demeanor changes, and she nearly forgets she's in the Oubliette; she wants to go run through the trees. "Such a difference," the Inquisitor says, then motions for her to follow her up. Elsbet follows and sees the Lady standing beside a stone basin, which sits upon an ornately carved pedistal. As she approaches the basin she notes the runes and figures around the rim, and the Lady pours water into the basin as she nears.
"Do you know what this is, Elsbet?" She looks into the shimmering water, noting her own reflection in its surface. The surface ripples and slightly distorts her reflection as the Lady opens a vial of a silvery liquid and pours it into the basin. "Yes," Elsbet says, a little excited, "it's a penseive! I've never seen one, but I've heard of them," she says, and the Lady smiles. She watches the silvery, smoke-like threads swirl about in the water, then sighs deeply. "My memories, aren't they?" The Lady nods and tells her they are some of the most significant painful memories that she has blocked out, and the good ones obscured along with them.
"Shall you dive in and experience them here and now, or shall I select a few, and allow you to deal with the rest, providing you swear to seek assistance with them?" "I will take a few now and seek assistance with the rest," she tells the Lady, and the Lady gives her a meaningful look. "What you swear to me here is sacred and binding, you realize this," the Lady says and Elsbet nods. "I understand, and I swear." The Lady nods, and reaches down to the surface of the penseive, hooks a silvery memory with a long fingernail and teases it out. She pulls it then shakes it and says, "let us begin with this one."
In the memory, Elsbet is just little, maybe five or six years old, and she's out in the back yard under a tree. She's been watching the horses and is a little sleepy, so she rolls over onto her back. Up in the tree she sees something...something twiggy and round. It's a nest. There are babies up in that nest, she can hear them, hungry babies waiting for their momma to feed them...she wants to see the babies, and she thinks maybe--the day before she discovered she could do something wonderful, she made something float in the air--maybe this day she can make the nest float down to her. She makes the nest come out of the tree, and as it floats down to her, she is so excited. She jumps up and down, as excited children do, and suddenly....she loses control and the nest plummets to the ground.
She can only watch as it does; she's so frightened that it's several moments before she realizes that the two unhatched eggs are now broken, and the two chicks are dead. She doesn't know what to do. She tries so hard to make the nest go back up, but she can't get it to go. Her little heart pounds and she's crying so hard she can barely see through her tears...she runs back to the house, and when her mother sees her and asks what happened, she lies to her mother and tells her she fell down and hurt herself. When her father finds the nest the next day, he figures the wind must have knocked it down. Elsbet is so ashamed she never tells them the truth, and it is quite a while before she tries to do "things" again.
Elsbet sits down on the floor of the Oubliette, crying hard. She remembers the feeling of helplessness and shame, and she tells the Lady that she never went back out to that tree. The Lady tells her, "Ellie, I know it is of little comfort, but it is natural for children to be curious, especially one like you, and it is nearly impossible for children that young to control their magic. Yours must have just manifested itself..." It is of little comfort, though Elsbet knows she is right. The Lady catches up another memory and flicks it out.
Elsbet is nine, it's the summer following Hershey's death. They've just moved into a new home, and she's just getting used to the new neighborhood. The new park looks like so much fun; there's a fountain with ducks, swings, a dog run and a sand box. She's not supposed to, but she leaves their yard and goes down to the park alone. She plays with the hand-fed, tame ducks in the fountain, and plays on the swings for a while. She doesn't notice the man watching her until he's right near her. He asks her what her name is and she tells him to go away. She jumps out of the swing and tries to run away, but he grabs her by the arm, and pulls her away from the swings.
She tells him again to let her go but he won't, and she gets so very, very mad that the tree branch above him snaps and falls, striking him in the head. It's a heavy one....the impact stuns him and he stumbles backward, dragging Elsbet with him, until he trips over an exposed tree root. He can't stop himself from falling and he hits the ground hard, striking the back of his head. Elsbet hesitates; he's not moving, his eyes are closed and he's bleeding profusely. She panics and runs all the way home, and when her father finds her in her bed, sobbing, she lies and tells him her stomach hurts. She never tells him the truth.
The Lady doesn't know what to say to Elsbet to give her any comfort, for words carry very little comfort when faced with a memory like that. Carefully the Lady swirls the silvery memories and after several moments, she picks another memory and shakes it out.
But it is even worse that the previous one.
It's The Big One, when she was 15. The Living Death curse. The Lady is horrified and disgusted, and desperately needs to tell Elsbet that she had every right to defend herself and her parents, but she knows she's been told this already. But what Brother Noctem and Therion do not know is that, not only was it the last time she ever consiously and willingly used magic, it was also the night something in her died. Any desire to ever be with a man. But there was more...less than a week after her mother's death, her attacker died in the hospital. Not of the injuries sustained in her retaliation, but at the hands of a hospital worker who recognized him for the monster he was.
After his death, someone else recognized him, and by the end of the year, there was a full accounting of all the little girls and young women he had brutalized. Or rather, as full as they could get. The Lady wants to tell Elsbet that her actions undoubtedly saved many, many other innocent people from the same fate, but she decides to leave her be. Any input at this point could be counter-productive. As the memory string fades away and her father's death plays out, the Lady has a sense of the total and complete isolation Elsbet had felt up until she arrived in Scotland.
She lets the memories swirl in the penseive, her hand just above the surface, hoping she can find something positive in that silvery mass. But after several minutes, she begins to realize that it seems Elsbet hasn't had much happiness in her young life. But suddenly...there's something...the Lady feels something important, something powerful, something recent that hasn't been totally obscured yet...She plucks it out and flings it up before she realizes what she's found.
When she does, the Grand Inquisitor nearly weeps.
"Ellie," she whispers, "tell me about this dog." She looks over at Elsbet, who will not look up at the memory floating nearby. "Please? Ellie, it's very important." The Lady, from whom very little is secret or hidden, can not believe she had missed this...she has to be able to thread this together, and not just for Elsbet's sake. "Please, Ellie, I know it hurts, but I need you to tell me about him." Elsbet looks up at the wispy thing, and smiles faintly even as the tears come.
"He was so much fun...the first time I saw him, I was having my lunch at Posie's, and I saw this scraggly looking dog at the corner vendor's. He had to be hungry, I knew, because why would a dog steal a loaf of bread? I gave him the other half of my lunch. I felt so bad for him because he looked terrible; skinny and dirty, and I thought he was afraid of me at first, but I think he was more afraid of getting attached to someone." She sighs deeply and the Lady asks her if this was around the same time she met Brother Noctem. "Yes, around the same time. But I didn't realize that--" She shakes her head. "There was a lot I didn't realize at first."
Elsbet goes on to tell her that when the dog would come, he would only stay for a little while, a few hours, and then he would disappear again. But as time passed, he started showing up twice a week, and he would stay all day. They would spend that time usually playing in the park in the village where she worked, and in the White City too, and after Severus saved her from her employer and made her that pretty little house, the dog would visit her there as well, and they would sit on the porch and she would read to him. She never told anyone about him, she knew something was different about him, and she didn't want to cause trouble for him.
"Ellie, what did you call him?" She squeezes her eyes shut. "Padfoot. I'd read somewhere once that padfoot was a slang term for thief, and the first time I saw him he was stealing bread. He seemed to like the name." She chuckles softly and pulls her knees up once again. The Lady looks at her and sees she's crying again. "When did you realize he wasn't really a dog?" She asks her question as kindly as she can, but Elsbet's tears only increase. "One day, he came to see me at lunch, and went to play in the park. I didn't care about Wynter, my employer...my friend was with me, and I just didn't care. We fell asleep under the apple tree in the park, and that's where Wynter found me. He started shouting at me and calling me terrible things, and Padfoot nearly attacked him. If he had reached for me, he would have lost his hand."
She looks up at the happy, scruffy black dog in the memory for a long time in silence. "A witch I knew named Jessel heard Wynter and came out and told him to shut his mouth, told him that he'd best not put a hand to me or he'd pay. I'd never seen him be afraid of a woman before, but I think he knew it was really coming from Padfoot." The Lady moves closer to Elsbet and asks her, "do you remember the last time you saw him?" Elsbet nods, her eyes glistening. "It was one of the best days of my life...we'd spent the whole day in the park. He loved to chase the ducks...he would chase them and they'd chase him, I would laugh so hard that my sides would hurt. He caught one...he didn't hurt it though...he just mouthed it and messed it around. It quacked like blue murder though till he let it go. But he kept catching that same duck, until finally it wouldn't even quack. When it started to get dark, he made sure I got home ok, and I hugged him and told him that I loved him, and I watched him leave...and then he never came back."
Elsbet sits silently for a moment, tears streaming from her eyes, then says, "he never came back, and I knew he was dead." The Lady says, "Ellie, you know who he really was..." She nods and chokes on her tears. "Sirius Black." She looks up at the Lady. "I figured it all out from the old copies of the Daily Prophet I found, and from what people here said, but nobody was afraid of him, nobody said anything bad about him, except for Wynter...Wynter hated him, but...he was so good..he was so good to me..." She breaks down sobbing and pulls up a handful of simulated grass, then throws it angrily. "I've missed him so much," she nearly shouts, and the Lady sits down beside her. "You haven't told them, have you?"
She shakes her head emphatically. "No," she sobs, "and I'm not going to! He was one of the best friends I ever had, one the only decent men I've ever known and I didn't even know him as a man I knew him as a dog...I loved him so much! Between him and Severus...Remus and Tonks and the friends I made here, that was the best year of my whole life, and then he was gone!" She does not normally make physical contact with those who come before her, but this is a very special case. She pulls Elsbet into her harms and holds her while she cries, telling her that Sirius must have loved her too, otherwise he wouldn't have been risking himself to come see her. She tells Elsbet that she must share her memories of Sirius with her loved ones, because these are priceless things, but Elsbet sobs that it hurts too much.
"I know, Ellie, and you've kept all of this bottled up inside for so long, you've been poisoning yourself...but these memories especially are important...there's something in your memories that they need. What if I told you that by sharing them you would be giving another person joy? What if I told you that you would be bringing them peace? Would you do it? What if sharing these particular memories of happiness are the first steps to your own empowerment?" She hugs Elsbet to her until the weeping girl grows silent.
The forest simulation fades slowly along with everything in it, save for the two women. Carefully, the Grand Inquisitor gathers Elsbet up and lifts her as she rises, then carries her down the passage that leads in and out of the Oubliette. The doorway opens. Outside the chamber, the tired wizards rise and eagerly await Elsbet to come out to them, but she doesn't. Roycroft responds to a silent summons from the Grand Inquisitor and enters the darkened hallway, then returns minutes later, carrying Elsbet in his arms.
They all rise immediately; Snape and Therion help Malfoy up and Remus asks fearfully what's happened. "She's alright, just...just sleeping," Roycroft says, and Snape takes Elsbet from him without a word, and Roycroft does not object. "Here, there's an excellent room where Ellie and Lucuis can rest for the night," he says and leads them away from the Oubliette, and out into the Temple center. He leads them down a long hallway of rooms to one with an atmosphere of comfort and a very large bed. Lucius weakly takes off his shoes and drapes his robe over a nearby chair, then lays down on the bed. Once settled in, Snape places Elsbet gently into his arms, and it's not long before Malfoy himself is asleep.
Therion, Roycroft and Remus leave the room, and before he closes the door, Therion tells Snape that if they should need anything, he only needs to let him know.