The Ghosts of His Memories (Open)

Aireon walked silently through the hallways of Hogwarts. It was 5:00 a.m Saturday morning. His destination, the Room of Requirement. He was dressed in his casual clothes which were all white. If one had looked closer, they may have been able to see the haunted look in his eyes. Something was wrong with the Shadow Student, as he had self-dubbed himself.

He found the wall and paced with the one thought prevailing in his mind, I need a place to remember the ghosts of my memories.

The door appeared and opened.

Letti walked down the Seventh Floor corridor, yawning the whole way. She had just finished Astronomy, and was extremely exhausted. It didn't help that her nightmares were disrupting her sleeping patterns, too. Only when she heard the sound of a shutting door did she look up. There was nothing there. She vaguely remembered her mother telling her about secret meetings she had in a disappearing room on the seventh floor. Could this be it?

Think, Letti. Think. What did she say you had to do to get in? she thought. Her mother's words passed through her mind in her half awake state: "walk past it three times and think of your destination."

Easy enough, she thought. I need to find the person inside. I need to find the person inside. I need to find the person inside. As she paced the floor in front of the room three times, a door appeared.

She hesitantly entered, not sure who she would find inside. "Hello?"

Aireon drew his sword at the sound of the voice. He wheeled around in the middle of the open prairie. The blade was pointed at the face of a shocked Slytherin.

"I'm sorry. I thought no one would be up this early on a Saturday," he apologized as he sheathed his sword. "It's Letti, right? I'm Aireon Thiren," he said as he extended his hand to reveal the dragon shaped burn.

Letti was shocked to see the blade in front of her face. She looked at it pointedly, and sighed quietly when he put it down. She laughed nervously and rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah, i just got done with astronomy. You know, you can't take that class if you can't see the stars. That, and the fact that I fell asleep somewhere between here and the classroom."

She noticed the burn on his hand, but didn't say anything, shaking his hand with a guarded smile. "Yeah, I'm Letti. I would ask you how you know, but I'm a little scared to find out. Nice to meet you, Aireon. Even if you nearly took my eye out," she joked, biting her lip nervously.

She looked around the room in wonder. "Why pick this place?" she asked.

"Again, my apologies. I mostly just keep to myself. So I hear alot. That is how I found out your name." he replied. A breeze began to blow and move his white cloak. "I came to... remember a few people I once knew," he said in a pained voice. The memory of that fateful night was still too fresh.

He sat down heavily as he felt the tell tale signs of tears coming.

"i understand. I took astronomy before I came here, so I know what you mean."

"Oh," she muttered. Letti noticed the pain on his face, but didn't ask questions. One, he didn't know her. Two, she didn't like people asking about her memories. "Remembering helps a lot," she said. "It helps accept what happened and put it behind you. But, sometimes," she sighed. "Sometimes it just makes it worse," she muttered, a flash of pain crossing her face before she masked it.

She sat on the floor and looked up, not really seeing. She was lost in her own world, her eyebrows furrowed. "Does talking help?" she asked, never taking her eyes off the ceiling. "My cousin says it helps, but I never really tried it. Does it?" she asked, looking at him now.

"I've heard that it does as well. If you want I could share with you what it is that troubles me," he stated. He had hoped to avoid this, but he then realized that he had never really tried to cope. He looked at his fellow classmate. He could tell she also held a troubled past.

"You are free to share if you would like. I ask for nothing in return if I share my past. But I must warn you. It is not your average bad memory that I hold," he warned.

Letti laughed dryly. "Well, I can't say mine's worse, but it's probably the worst thing I could experience," she said, hugging her knees to her chest. "I was pretty young. Four, maybe five years old at the time. My dad's best friend, I called him Uncle Paul, was supposed to come over and watch a football game with my dad. So, I was sent to my room early. The problem was, I always had trouble sleeping. So, I had gone down to the living room to ask my dad if he could read me a story."

Tears rimmed her eyes as she took a deep shuddering breath, lost in her memory. "I don't know why he did it. When i came down, there was...blood everywhere. My father was on the ground, gasping and spluttering. It was horrible. Uncle Paul was still there, so I hid behind this sofa we had. He had drawn his wand, and had pointed it at my dad's heart. The next thing I remembered was a flashing green light and then total darkness."

She looked down at the floor for a while, forcing back the tears, and cursing the ones that fell. She finally looked back, and with a watery smile asked, "What about you?"

Pity shot through his heart like an arrow. He hugged her as the tears fell. He slowly ran a hand through her hair as she cried.

"I know how it feels, but over 3,000 times worse. I was in the grounds of my old school when it happened. A splinter group of dark wizards attacked us without warning. I fought off as many as I could, but there were too many. As I ran to our safe house, I heard so many agonizing screams. I...tried to save some of them, but...th-they were already gone. I failed all of my friends," by then he was consumed with the grief. The dead faces of his friends, teachers, and, the one that hurt the most, his girlfriend's filled his mind.

Letti hugged him back. She didn't know why she was telling him any of this. She didn't trust people. At all. But, here she was, talking to a complete stranger about her darkest secret.

She listened to his story, and felt a surge of empathy go through her. "It's not your fault," she whispered. "You couldn't do anything. We're just kids. Kids can't fight off a group of Dark Wizards by themselves. It's impossible. Harry Potter himself didn't even do it himself. He had his friends and family. He had Dumbledore. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself," she muttered, trying to get him to understand.

"For a few years after that, I was all....depressed. Until last year, when My cousin, Melanie, she's a ravenclaw here, stormed into my room and slapped me. I was so shocked, i didn't realize what she had done until she was out of my room. Then, i got so angry, i chased her outside and tackled her. We were laughing so hard, I couldn't breathe. It felt so good to laugh, so good to forget my pain," she was smiling now, that day clear in her head. "I don't forget what happened, but I've learned to live with it as best as i could. You should too. It feels great."