Rebecca Remembers All

Rebecca moved towards the back of the train, seeking a quiet place to debate the merits of flying to Hogwarts herself. She left Rick in Fortuna’s care, putting a level of trust in the girl that, once again, she couldn’t explain. Her thoughts were caught in a loop. No matter where they strayed, they found their way back to Fortuna.

This left her conflicted. On the one hand, she wanted to be around Fortuna as much as possible so she wouldn’t miss any important information. On the other, the children in that compartment were woefully inadequate and straying dangerously towards intolerable. 

Eventually, the rear end of the train came into view. She flew the last few meters, but before she could reach the door, the driver slammed on the brakes. With lighting-fast reflexes, Rebecca adjusted her momentum so she wouldn’t go crashing through anything important. The train screeched to a halt.

Opening the door, a cursory glance at the surroundings told her there was no castle in the vicinity, only the rolling hills of the Scottish Grampians and a coal-black sky. It didn’t take a child genius to realise something was amiss, but she probably figured it out faster than most.

The air went cold, stabbing at her skin like a thousand tiny knives. Ice gathered on the windows unnaturally fast, until the glass was almost opaque. The torches dimmed, plunging her into near-darkness.

Rebecca spun back to the train’s interior as a shrill wail of pure anguish and primal fear slashed through the quiet and stabbed deep into the core her skull. She grimaced. Her mood had already been soured by children today, and she had no desire to deal with a tantrum because some little runt was afraid of the dark. Turning back to the open door, she prepared herself to jump off, then stopped.

Tilting her head curiously, Rebecca regarded the problem before her. Or problems, plural. Quite a lot of them.

Spectres floated on the wind, circling the train in the hundreds, and, as Rebecca watched, they converged like a flock of vultures on carrion. Clad in ragged, wispy black robes, their faces hidden beneath dark hoods by inky shadow, it was clear they intended to enter the train by the very same door she’d been planning to leave from..

In her childhood, she’d watched a vulgar TV show called ‘Superman.’ At the time, in her innocent ignorance, she’d thought this ‘Superman’ was just like her and thus her calling was to go out and punch bad guys to make them stop being such big meanies. Ultimately the plan had fallen through when she’d gone researching crime statistics and found that beating up criminals wasn’t going to solve anything. At that point she was already well aware she was different to everyone else, so at least she got the idea for maintaining a ‘secret identity’ out of it. Keeping her powers to herself might not have occurred to her, otherwise.

The point was, it gave her some considerable nostalgic delight to throw all her strength into a punch aimed at the first cloaked figure to came within arm’s reach of her.

Her aim struck true. The beast folded around her fist like a crumpled up piece of paper. A fraction of a second later, the laws of momentum got to work, and the force of her strike transferred from her outstretched fist to the beast itself.

In that moment, Rebecca discovered the grim pleasure of punching something so hard it was sent flying beyond the horizon.

A ruckus was building in the train behind her. Fearful shouts, terrified screams, barked spells, all blending together and overlapping until it all sounded like the chirping of countless insects. Minuscule apparitions licked at the edge of her vision, and they got bigger, more numerous, the more she tried to ignore it. She could feel them inside her mouth, pushing down her throat, crawling into her lungs and wedging themselves there. 

She couldn’t breathe. She was so cold. Each shadowed insect drained something from her, until there was no happiness left in the world.

It was only by virtue of her perfect memory that she fought through the panic. Before her eyes, the bugs swarmed her with cruel intelligence, tearing and slashing at her skin as a voice that sounded like her own screamed bloody murder. In her mind’s eye, where memories were sacrosanct, there was nothing. She was floating a foot off the ground, alone in the corridor save for a pair of the hooded creatures that loomed over her.

“Away, dementors!” She heard someone shout. “You won’t find Black here, you foolish beasts!”

The feeling of bugs crawling over her skin was rather visceral, but if her power could be believed, it wasn’t actually there. 

Rebecca took a moment to calm herself. Her breath misted in front of her face, and the little puffs of steam coagulated in the air, forming phantom shapes that turned to blurs in her vision. She could hear the roar of a mighty beast. It spoke with a thousand voices, screaming condemnations and taunts that came across more as emotions than words. Loss. Despair. Crippling ennui. 

It was hard to reconcile what was clearly before her with what her memory screamed wasn’t there, but she did it. She was Rebecca Costa-Brown, prodigy among prodigies, and something as inane as an illusion would not deter her. She focused her mind inward, ignoring the present in favour of moments just passed. With this, she could deal.

She was aware this had dire implications for minds that weren’t as brilliant as hers. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much she could do to help anyone else beyond punching the source. Luckily, it was hardly a leap of logic to link the arrival of these dementors and the pandemonium that had descended upon the train.

Reaching out, she grabbed the nearest dementor by the area where its throat was supposed to be, then squeezed with all her might. The creature made no sound, but it thrashed violently. 

The other rounded on her. The cold encroached with a million tiny pinpricks on her skin, forcing its way into her lungs. The dementor brought its face close to hers, its hood yawning open like a gaping maw. 

This turned out to be a poor decision on its part as she brought her face closer to its rather more violently, and her head was harder. The monster collapsed to the ground, and Rebecca wasted no time in bringing her foot down on the inky darkness beneath its hood.

She had neither intended nor expected to kill the creature with her first stomp, but when it had the audacity to get back up—none the worse for wear, for that matter—she changed her mind and brought her foot down once more. It was the principle of the matter. If one had the privilege of getting their skull crushed under Rebecca’s boot, they should bloody well appreciate it and stay crushed.

Alas, she only got a few more hits in before a construct of pure light and warmth washed through the train. Its brief passing did more damage than all her hits combined, and the dementors fled in droves. The one trapped in her grip thrashed desperately. When she let it go, it zipped off like a popped balloon.

Rebecca watched it fly away, conflicting thoughts and feelings roiling inside her.

She was so cold.

People stared. A scruffy man in shabby clothing took her hand, leading her back to the ground. He gave her chocolate and told her it would make her feel better.

She took a bite. Warmth spread, first to her core, and then outward. Her fingers and toes went from icicles to being wrapped in a cosy blanket. The gaping void in her chest filled with molten warmth until her heart started beating again. Something chased away the mist in the air, parting it like a curtain. 

Soon, the cold was only a memory. Unfortunately for her, that memory would always be there. The screams would never stop echoing, the chill eternally encroaching.

There were so many people looking at her. Eyes wide or narrowed, they were fixed on her like she created a gravity all her own. That wasn’t right. She defied gravity. How could they not understand that?

The shabby man led her back to her compartment, punctuating the trip with soft words and a smile that was supposed to be reassuring but pulled at the scar that slashed down the side of his face, twisting his features. 

Fortuna and the unimportant children were still there, and they looked at her with such concern it made her want to throttle them all. They were the snot-nosed, immature, pea-brained brats here, not her. Their pity was poison, and something dark within her reared its head.

One look at Fortuna crushed that feeling. She seemed haunted, her skin pale. Completely unlike the personification of composure she’d been before. 

“What happened to you guys?” she asked.

It was the door-slamming idiot who replied. “One of those dementors came into our compartment, and Fortuna freaked out.” Her eyes flicked to the shabby man. “Professor Lupin helped her, then we told him you were out there on your own, so he went to look for you.”

He was a professor? She’d thought the magical world might have eased up on the disappointments when she’d found someone so intriguing, but evidently not. She reviewed the rubbish he’d been spouting as he lead her back to the compartment, friends this and life at Hogwarts that, with a few questions about what she was doing to the dementors trickled in. He certainly played the part of a teacher, now that she thought about it.

It was a bit annoying that a professor already knew about her unique ability, but perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing. Hiding her power had always been tiresome, and if there was a place where her power would fit in, the ‘magical world’ was surely it.

“Now that you’re back with your friends, you should be alright. Eat your chocolate, and if you don’t feel better, please tell a prefect or your head of house after the sorting. They’ll take you to Madam Pomfrey.” Professor Lupin smiled down at her, then swept his gaze over her new ‘friends’. “Now, I really do have to see to that other student.”

Lupin swept out of the compartment, striding down the corridor with hasty steps.

“Freaked out?” Rebecca said, turning her attention to Fortuna.

The others settled into their seats, and Fortuna brought her cat up to her chest—Harbinger, she’d said his name was; why did even that stir some faint recognition in her? 

“It’s okay,” Fortuna said, smiling warmly. “I just had a bad reaction, is all. Professor Lupin said that happens to some people. I’m alright now, though.”

Rebecca blinked. There was nothing in Fortuna’s expression or body language to contradict her words. It was like the vulnerability she’d shown earlier had vanished without a trace.

Fortuna Floris became more fascinating by the moment, though it made Rebecca feel bad to think that way. She took a seat, letting Rick hop off from one of the shelves to take his rightful place in her lap.

“What about you?” Fortuna asked. “What happened out there?”

“Nothing much,” Rebecca lied.