"You were never the first to speak of the past — or of the future."
A woman and a man in their mid-thirties sat opposite each other at a massive wooden table. Folders lay scattered across it, alongside an uneven stack of books and one large, ancient volume set apart from the rest. The woman had shoulder-length curly brown hair, light eyes, and a slightly pointed nose. The fair-haired man, pale and aristocratic in appearance, sat slightly hunched, as though the weight of memory pressed physically on his shoulders. Behind her stretched a wall completely covered with portraits — mostly elderly faces — all seeming to listen closely to his account. A little apart from him sat another woman in a high-backed armchair. Despite her age, the sharpness of her features and the severity of her gaze remained intact.
"I was always amazed at how you could draw a subject out of thin air — from the grass, the bed of a stream, behind the clouds, beneath fallen leaves, from birdsong, from half-heard words. You used to tell me your dreams — funny, frightening, absurd. I never understood how you remembered them in such detail… Most of it was talk about nothing, really. And yet it was nearly impossible to speak of anything that mattered. The future — that would have been tempting fate. The past — I already had too much of it, even then. Only after the trial was over, after we were cleared, did I begin to speak of it myself. Once, I promised to show you the lights on the forest lake. At last, the night came when they appeared."
"It happens every year on the eve of the summer solstice — the stream carries wreaths down to the lake. But only in clear weather, when the moon rises above the peaks, do the lights appear. There won't be much moonlight tonight, but we may still be lucky."
The young couple sat on the crumbling arcade that spanned the lake. They faced the cascade, waiting, senses sharpened for the miracle. A warm wind drifted up from the gorge. Its whistle between the stones, mingling with the stirred leaves, sounded like distant voices singing — men's and women's together. Soon, among the bright threads of falling water, coloured sparks began to flicker and vanish. When their fragile vessels reached the open surface of the lake — laid bare beneath the thin crescent high above — the flames steadied, though they burned faintly. More and more wreaths appeared. Now and then a small whirlpool would catch one and draw it slowly towards the bank, carrying it beneath the arches. As they drifted closer, the voices seemed to grow louder.
"It's beautiful. Do you come here every year?"
"Almost."
"And you never wanted to know who sets them afloat?"
"I always wanted to — and to know who gathers them afterwards. But I was afraid to disturb the ritual. My father always said it was dangerous to interfere with such things."
The girl lowered herself onto her stomach against the stone and peered down at the strange floating shapes.
"It's a fern!"
She reached towards one of the passing wreaths, but the young man caught her hand.
"You shouldn't. You don't know who it's meant for."
"They say whoever sees a fern in bloom will be happy. And if you pluck its flower, every hidden cache in the place will be revealed. I saw a dried wreath like this in your room."
"Yes…" The lad did not grow more animated. "Once I caught one. That night the moon was already past first quarter and shone far brighter than tonight. The flames burned more fiercely — I couldn't resist. I was completely taken by them. The moment the moonlight slipped off the leaves, the lights went out. I knew they would, but I still wanted to keep one. For myself. 'One will be happy,'" he repeated quietly. "That was the year I met you."
"I'm sorry," the girl said, guilt in her voice. "And I'm sorry to say this, but I warned you I wouldn't bring you happiness."
"That isn't true!" the young man burst out. It was as if his chest could not contain the feelings rushing through it, unable to decide how they could exist together. "I am happy — absurdly happy. Because you understood me, accepted me, chose me, and didn't turn away. I'll never forget that conversation at Christmas — it was the first time in years I actually wanted to be with someone. And I will always regret that I didn't answer your call two years later. I seized the moment and pulled you across to the other side of the platform, and you — in return — didn't let me fall in my father's eyes. You kept up the appearance that we were friends. You never put yourself between me and… the Boy, even though you were really on his side. In the chamber. On the train. I never understood why. I was angry — but deep down I was grateful. You didn't stop trying to teach me, simply by talking to me. And I was too stupid to see it. I only understood what you were asking about the chosen ones — chosen by whom, and for what — when it was already too late. When I had already been chosen. By your father, for…"
He drew breath.
"But even then you didn't turn your back on me. You said that even if you couldn't help me, you would stay — and you did. I remember your hand over mine under the table after my first failure. How you pulled me out of that cold, clinging dread. How you stood beside me on the tower before the Headmaster and said you were leaving with me. How you found a way around your father's order — to tell you about the books in your room so we could still speak. I was so happy then. And now… now I'm happier than ever — that you're here with me, that you forgive me."
"Then why is the face so sad?"
"Because I'm afraid you'll leave me. Because I know you will. Not because I failed to complete the rite. Because I violated your will — put you in a desperate position because I wanted to possess what wasn't mine to claim."
"If you had the chance to change it, would you act differently?"
"No," he said after a long pause. "Because then you wouldn't be sitting beside me now, and I wouldn't be this blissful — and miserable — at the same time. In fact, I already had such a chance, and I brought you back from the other side anyway. Because I want you alive," he said, looking straight at her. "So you can know — so you can feel — what it means to be needed that much before you choose." He paused again and looked away. "It's a weakness, I know. I can't fight it. Your father was right — it would be easier without it. But I don't want to be without it. And the worst part is — I've given you the same weakness. When you most needed strength."
"Silly." She said it without tenderness, but without malice either. "My father was wrong. He didn't understand what he was talking about. It's a weakness for the weak — and strength for the strong." Her expression softened. "And it was the other way round, remember? You were the one who understood, accepted, and chose me — before I ever chose you."
The young man frowned, trying to make sense of what she meant.
"Why did you sit with me in my compartment for three years if I kept arguing with you and driving you to the edge? Why didn't you come to me in the fourth year, when I couldn't bear the sight of you? When you confessed your feelings, I couldn't believe it. I thought it was some kind of plot. I left you hanging — then rejected you in front of everyone — and what did you do? You went against your father's wishes for my sake. You kept coming back to me — despite the difference in our views, the refusals, the betrayals…"
"You didn't betray me!" The young man shook his head. "It wasn't a betrayal. And I…"
"What are you saying? Everything I did was a betrayal. You just don't want to admit it."
She knew what he was thinking of — her sudden disappearance from school at the beginning of that ill-fated summer, and the company he saw her in at its end. She herself did not see it that way. She remembered how many people had been in the Headmaster's office that day — and who they were. She should have fought. She could have. The Headmaster had been ready for it. The fact that she did not act then led to a real betrayal: when she chose someone else over him.
Of course, he could not know any of this. But what he did know should have been enough.
"For three months after what happened at the station, I avoided you completely. Even after the article accusing your father came out, I didn't say a word to you. Yes, I apologised later — but only to keep it up. I ran out of the atelier without explaining what you saw. I didn't warn you about the uninvited passenger in our compartment." Even if she had done nothing to make it easier for the Boy to stay — and left them to settle it themselves on arrival. "So you knew I'd noticed him." Now it was her turn to look away. "I didn't tell you I knew what your assignment was."
At some point, though, she realised that he knew she knew. She believed it happened during one of the extra lessons with the Head. She couldn't concentrate — couldn't even retreat into herself — because of his words.
"A tall cliff covered with grass… 'You shouldn't' Damn. The ocean crashing in furious waves… 'You shouldn't' Damn. Damn! A tall cliff covered with grass. The wind tearing through the air above… 'You shouldn't'"
The memory broke off in a long, bitter cry of helplessness. Sound — the only thing strong enough to drown it out.
"Not anger! Calmness. Only calmness will help."
The professor sounded disappointed; his patience was wearing thin. They had been at it for hours. Each time the exercise began smoothly — and each time her attention failed at the same point. She tried blocking the thought, but even that no longer worked. She was close to collapse — and she had no right to fail.
"I know. I'm sorry. I know," she said, exhausted and ashamed.
"Let's take a break."
The Head returned to his desk and sat down, leaning on it, fingers laced together. She sank into the chair opposite. The office stayed silent for several minutes. From time to time she felt his gaze resting on her.
"Are you helping him?" he asked at last.
"No. He doesn't even know that I'm aware of his assignment."
The Head's lips and chin tightened.
"I was under the impression you and he were… close."
They didn't behave like a couple, and she wasn't even sure they were one. They didn't hold hands, didn't sit entwined — they were simply beside each other. Whenever she entered a lounge, a hall, a library, or a lecture room for a subject they both attended, she would look for him and sit down next to him. He did the same. Neither of them hesitated to ask someone to shift or to say that the seat was taken. In time, an empty place beside one of them began to appear of its own accord. There were plenty of rumours about what bound them together. None of them were quite right.
"Still, he didn't want to tell me. He must have thought I would try to dissuade him."
"But you don't dissuade…"
"And you don't help…" She turned to him. She knew everything.
"He refuses my help." The Head fixed an irritated stare on the rows of flasks, as though he might shatter them by will alone.
"My support as well. Though there is very little of it, admittedly… You see, after what you witnessed, he cut ties with me. That was back in early March. There was something uneasy in his words and actions — as if he were answering a question that had never been asked."
She replayed that moment again.
His breathing and heartbeat echoed through her body. The fear receded, further and further, until it hid somewhere deep within his soul. "So it's all to save his soul," she thought. "Well — is it saved? Here it stands before me: wounded, aware of the consequences of its mistakes — those already made and those yet to come. He hasn't killed anyone, yet that in itself leads to death." Anger rose within her. "Is there really such a difference between killing and causing a death — actively or passively? Anything can be justified. I have been the first and the second. There is no point in saving my soul. Perhaps I should do it? The old man won't live long anyway…"
At that thought, the anger faded. In its place came a strange sensation — a light, almost pleasant trembling in her chest, an anticipation that something decisive was about to happen, something that would make her free. "And he accepted it — chose only to teach the boy a lesson, putting others at risk. The fact that no one has died so far is pure chance. I can do it. I know the spell, I know how it works — what to do, what to will. I have access to him." The anticipation flared like a star, dazzling her judgement. "And I hate him. For believing he knows how everything should be. For the way he treats people. I can do it because I want to — with all my heart… What? What am I thinking?!"
"Did I frighten you?"
Her eyes were wide with terror. He might have thought she was looking at him — but she was looking at herself. "How can I want to kill someone — with all my heart — after I learned what it means? This has never happened before."
"No… not you…" she said aloud — while thinking: "if I do it, they will both be spared…"
"You shouldn't." His embrace was firm yet careful, as though he feared breaking her.
There were many rumours about them, yet she herself did not understand what had gone wrong. His behaviour could only be explained by one thing: he had heard her.
But there was something he did not know. Another betrayal.
One evening, in a deserted corridor, she came face to face with the Headmaster. "I've never seen him here before." They stood in silence, looking at one another. Is this my chance? Wrath gathered in her chest again. She repeated the words and motions of the incantation in her mind, waiting for the necessary state to form. It never did. Her opinion of the wizard had not softened — yet the hatred required for the act would not arise. The Headmaster gave a mild nod and walked past without a word. She remained where she was, trying in vain to understand what was missing. "What was different that night?" Awareness of her own ineffectiveness turned into disgust directed at herself. "What sort of person am I? Someone who refuses to act out of unwillingness to harm — or someone who excuses inaction with that claim? I blamed the old sorcerer for letting things drift, and I did exactly the same — only with different justifications. Why is he so worried about me? I'm not worth it."
"I deserved it," the young man said with unshakeable certainty. "Whatever was done to me — I deserved it."
"Not from me." She tried to catch his eye. "You did dreadful things to almost everyone — but not to me."
"No. I did them to you as well. Remember at least in third year. I said awful things to you then!"
"Such as what? The truth? That I came to your House to betray it? That the Head had once been my father's devoted servant — things like that? Besides, I insulted you first — simply because I was upset that your foolishness in class had ruined my potential chance to fly the creature. How's that for a start? And those attacks that followed — I know neither you nor your friends took part. One of them admitted as much when he thanked me for my help." She drew a breath as she counted on her fingers. "After the ball, you were defending your reputation; you pushed me away only to protect me. And when the Head and I found you half-dead, it was just anger at losing face in front of the others."
At the time, their housemates had said that even the ghost was more useful than she was. Perhaps, for once, they had been right.
"These are all trifles."
"I didn't help you on that first night in the dormitory, when that brute started on you." Even he seemed to hear how weak the accusation sounded.
"You didn't have to. But you came running to save me from the prison guards."
"But I didn't."
"I didn't need anyone's help then."
"When you did need it, I was useless."
"That's not true. You helped me a great deal." It was so — and to make him believe it, she took his hands in hers and looked at him with all the warmth and steadiness she could offer. "You have no idea how much you helped me."
"You saved my life."
"You saved it yourself."
"You saved my parents."
"They saved themselves too — especially your mother. Whatever my father claimed, it was love that saved you. Yours, and your mother's. And without yours, mine wouldn't exist. Tell me — did you think I stayed with you out of pity? Do you still think so?"
He lowered his eyes in shame. He did.
"But why me? Why not the one who stood by you all along and didn't do any of these 'trifles' — the one who protected you that evening?"
Why not him indeed — the one who stepped between her and the bully and said, 'Put your wand down. Can't you see — she's one of us.' The one who explained away the cruelty of their housemates' words, insisting they were only lying to themselves. The one in whose presence she always wanted to seem a little more composed than she truly was. The one who asked whether she would go to the ball if he invited her, then hurried to clarify that his interest was purely academic: 'And still — you're a mystery. A riddle I'd like to solve. Pity you won't let me.'
"It's very simple. He doesn't love me, and I don't love him. You do love me. Eventually, I got it."
She looked at him in silence for a while, then lowered her eyes as well.
"Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for me… And that is my weakness."
She had thought about it in the clearing — while he was trying to steady his shaking body enough to lift her — and later, as she followed him through the woods back to the castle.
'I could return and make him happy… Could I really do that? If I come back, I will no longer belong to his world, even if I'm physically in it. I am outside the magical world now, and he will not follow me into another — I won't allow it. Such a sacrifice from him would be too heavy a burden for me. But is that other world truly mine? I left it seven years ago. Suppose he says he doesn't care, that he will accept me as I am — as he always has. Will I accept myself? Who am I now? What would I even do? Take the caretaker's place? Could I be happy behind walls, playing house-elf or mother hen? That isn't my path, even if I wouldn't be alone on it. Don't tell me you can succeed by any means whatsoever — I want mine. What do I have now? Only an irrelevant past? That would never be enough. You can get your life back, but not your soul. You can't be happy without a soul. You can't make someone happy if you are not happy yourself… I have nothing to give him.'
"I don't want to live by someone else's rules, but I'm not able to set my own. I didn't want you to see what that contradiction might lead to. I don't know myself."
"So I've made you unhappy too."
"Not yet. That is still to come. For now — you make me happy." The pause was brief. "We're well matched, aren't we?"
Clouds drifted over the crescent moon. The singing stopped, the lights on the water went out, and darkness settled over the forest. A few seconds later the clouds passed and the moon shone again — but the singing did not return, nor did the lights. Even the wreaths had vanished from the surface of the lake.
They said nothing on the way back, but quiet smiles lingered on their faces. Her forefinger hooked firmly around his little finger; their shoulders brushed as they walked. No words were needed in the house either — they parted with a long kiss.
"What were they doing out so late?"
"Watching the ferns bloom."
Two figures stood at the window, watching the couple emerge from the forest.
"What if it's real? What if she won't…"
"If it were real, she wouldn't…"
"Be here. Yes. You're right."
The next morning, just after leaving the bathroom, the girl heard a pop in the next room. Still in her dressing gown, she opened the door and found the young man standing there, hand raised to knock.
"Has something happened?" she asked anxiously.
"No, everything's fine. I just… wanted to say good morning."
He looked at her as if she were a painting — a small, domestic scene — which made her slightly self-conscious.
"Well… good morning."
He bent and kissed her — simply, gently — and did not hurry to draw away. Eyes closed, he breathed in the moment, as if letting it settle not just in his memory but in his body. Then he smiled, met her gaze, and said softly, "Good morning."
A few seconds passed before warmth spread through her and she returned the kiss. "Good morning."
It took a deep breath to contain such happiness.
"See you soon."
"See you."
Another pop.
The morning was overcast, yet her face seemed lit from within. Holding her breath so as not to disturb the feeling, she looked toward a distant point where all the lines of the room converged. From far away came the long cry of a seagull and the sound of water.
***
"Peace finally returned to the manor. Once the serious charges were lifted, the surveillance was removed and the house felt like ours again," the blond man continued his story. "The surrounding grounds were open to us — the garden, the meadow, the near edge of the forest. We still kept away from the exposed stretch of the old road, to avoid unwanted encounters. The ban on long-distance shifting was lifted as well, and from time to time we used it to change the scene. Life felt like paradise. We walked, played, read, talked, kissed. The past was no longer forbidden, and though we did not share many happy memories, once everything had been clarified we could at least revisit them and speak openly. As for the future — you don't think about the future in paradise, do you? Still, at times you wanted direct contact with the outside world. Then our elf would take out a lock of hair from an old acquaintance of hers who lived in another part of the country, and you went shopping with her."
It was not the first time the girl changed her physical form.
(The professor pointed his wand at her, and the world altered at once: colour drained away, edges blurred, and everything shrank to a narrow circle no wider than a foot. The man loomed like a mountain. Her arms and legs withered into thin stalks, and from her abdomen — horribly, impossibly — four more grew. Her body dropped onto the cold floor. It was dark there. She could barely make out shapes, and her pulse almost slowed to nothing. Not just out of fear.
Then she was lifted — higher and higher — until something warm and furry came under her feet. She clung to it. The professor repeated the spell. From the direction and strength of the tremors running through the hairs beneath her paws, she sensed that his mouth was very near. A large object hovered beside them. They moved — dipping, rising — and the dimness gave way to bright light as they passed beyond the school walls.
The brightness shifted into layers of grey, shimmering against one another, as they wound through the maze. At last they stopped, and the cup that had floated behind them all the way settled atop something like a pole. The moment the professor began to turn back, she darted down his arm, reached the edge of his sleeve, and dropped to the ground. Forcing her way through the grass, she made for the pole and climbed halfway up.
All was still. Grey shadows — the only forms now available to her sight — stood motionless. The sounds she could not hear but felt through her body came from every direction and became her way of seeing: the wind threading through the green walls; the sphinx purring a song in a woman's voice, tapping the rhythm with its tail; a giant spider, poised yet restless, shifting its legs and clacking its jaws; some unknown creature moving along a path, emitting bursts like an engine trying to turn over.
Then came footsteps — hesitant and confused, measured and cautious, firm and heavy, quick and nervous. Voices followed: muttering, then spells shouted aloud. A woman's cry and a blast. Silence — then motion again. Footsteps drew nearer. The engine-like bursts stopped. A struggle, another blast — closer still. A riddle. An answer. They had arrived.)
It was not the first time the girl changed her body and looked at the world through another creature's eyes.
(The air that rushed into her lungs was far colder than it had been a moment before. The inhale felt endless, her diaphragm powerful enough to make running as effortless as flight. Pollen prickled in her nose and throat. She released a sharp breath, ending in a low, rattling growl.
She opened her eyes. The world had never seemed so small. She could take in almost all of it at a glance. A bright but narrow tunnel, as if lined with living foliage instead of wallpaper, the patterns shifting and breathing. The colour was strangely unreal — mostly a marshy yellow.
There was no time to linger. She slipped out of the bushes and onto the meadow — a wider tunnel — and paused. Her ears mapped a far larger world, catching its faintest signals, twitching sharply as they traced each source: the swish of leaves, the chime of running water, the scratch of mice, the drone of bees, the needle-thin cry of a falcon, and a hoarse, wounded roar from somewhere deeper in the woods.
Strong, swift legs carried her forward past blurred flashes of pale greenery and dark hollows, through sharp scents and hushed forest sounds. Her wide eyes, pupils drawn inward, never lost the fresh tracks pressed into the loose soil.)
It was not the first time — but it was the worst. For the first time she had done it by choice, not to save herself or gather information, but for the sake of usefulness — and to feel, however briefly, part of society again. To manage that, she had to alter herself inwardly as well: not to feel, but to accept herself as small, as secondary — a being publicly placed below others and required to acknowledge it. A second-class being with no less power than a first-class one, yet burdened with accepted inferiority. How had they ever allowed this to happen to them? Had they lacked the werewolves' rage, the centaurs' ferocity, the giants' detachment, the wizards' arrogance, or the goblins' pride?
"Once, one of those outings nearly ended in disaster. You were both gone a long time. When we finally realised how late it was, the potion should already have worn off. We searched every market and shop. We didn't know what to think anymore — we were even bracing for Ministry officials to arrive — when suddenly you appeared on the terrace from the garden. Alone. Barefoot. Wearing someone else's robe.
You said that near the end of your shopping you ran into one of the maid's friends. She was in a panic and immediately began telling her something — impossible to interrupt — and before long they had both vanished. Time was running out, so you decided to hide in the first tavern you saw. It was crowded and noisy. You quietly took an unattended robe and slipped into the lavatory. It was too dangerous to walk through the village like that, and too foolish to wait and hope we would find you. You remembered you had parted on the main street — the old road — which meant you were in the oldest tavern, the one with a passage into the forest. That was your way out. Luckily, my father's markers were still there.
The vixen did not return at once. We thought she had fled in fear. You were certain the silly creature was simply frightened and trying to find you on her own — and you were right. You argued that she should not be punished. The fear she had felt was punishment enough.
After that, you didn't stop going out — you only took more precautions: extra potion, a bag of clothes. You know… when you truly want something, you'll do whatever it takes. When you truly want it…" The man repeated it softly, sadly. "That's who you are. You have always been yourself. Nothing could have changed that. Nothing. Not even lost memory."