indgydar
Regulus glances around before removing the Van Gogh Prints from his leather bag.
“I like them”
He shares in a neutral tone, sliding the paintings towards Pandora.
“When you look at them, what do you see?”
She has to ask because the paintings aren’t just paintings to her. She looks at them and sees a million different things. Each stroke a lifetime, each shade a story. She wonders if Regulus sees the same.
“Well the shoes–” Regulus pauses looking around, eyes growing slightly sad. “They remind me of Sirius and I. It’s the same pair of shoes that came from the same craftsmen, and adorned the feet of the same person. They are the same, yet they are different. One has been flipped over, it’s changed, and the other is still rightside up, but it’s alone now.”
In this moment Pandora decides Regulus too communicate better through art, than words. He sees the world for what it is, not what he wants it to be, which is a gift.
“You can keep it.” Pandora forces the paper into Regulus’s hands, he's being stubborn.
“I couldn't pos-”
“Anyone who can look at this picture and project it onto worldly experiences like you just did deserves to keep it. Plus I can no longer look at it the same.”
Regulus grudgingly accepts it.
“This doesn’t mean you get to keep my book.”
“I’m nearly finished with it, I’ll give it back to you as soon as I finish.”
Regulus nods a dark curl falling into his face.
“I’ve asked Andromeda if she can send me any art. I mentioned Van Gogh. I’ll let you know when I hear back from her.”
Pandora’s chest warms. Regulus is slowly becoming her favorite friend. She feels safe around him. She doesn’t share his secrets, and he doesn’t share hers. They trust each other enough to open up. Today was a big breakthrough. Regulus doesn’t usually talk about his brother.
The warm feeling in Pandora’s heart quickly takes over her judgment, and before she can stop herself the words are already coming out of her mouth.
“Regulus do you ever have dreams?”
The boy pauses, his eyes grow cool.
“I have nightmares”
“But do they–do they ever feel weird?”
“Well I see my family in them, my mother, Sirius.”
There is fear in his voice.
“I guess what I'm asking is, do your dreams ever feel real?”
“Well, yes. That’s what makes them scary.”
Pandora tracks carefully, not wanting her secret to be misunderstood.
“My dreams feel real. When they happen it’s not like a dream. It feels like a memory.”
Regulus freezes, green eyes watching Pandora. Realization spreads across his face.
“Pandora do your dreams come true?”
It’s horrifying, she’s never told anyone about her special dreams before. But Regulus has already figured it out, so it can’t hurt to tell the truth right?
“Yes”
“You’re a seer?”
The word hits her like a splash of cold water. The information isn’t new. Pandora knows this.Yet she doesn’t. She’s spent the past years forcing the fact to the back of her memory, refusing to let it surface. If it saw the light of day, it would be true. It can’t be true, yet Regulus just said it.
“I don’t know?”
Regulus studies her. “Are they bad dreams?”
He’s asking a simple question, yet Pandora can sense something behind it. Fear.
She thinks back to the night Evan went missing, she was too preoccupied thinking about her brother, that she didn’t put much thought into the fact Regulus was in the dream too. It meant something, but what?
“Sometimes they're bad. Sometimes they’re not. But they always feel important.”
Pandora is starting to feel uncomfortable now, Regulus has been watching her very carefully for a long time. She knows what he’s going to ask next. But she can’t answer.
“Are there ever people in your dreams?”
At this moment Pandora feels a twist in her gut. Something is wrong.
“People you know?”
She can’t tell anyone. Before she didn’t want to, but now she can’t. Pandora has this feeling, if she tells anyone bad things will happen. If she tells anyone people will get hurt.
“No. They’re very abstract. I can’t really explain them.” This is half truth. They are strange sometimes, but she can explain them. Down to every last detail. Pandora’s dreams are imprinted in her mind. They are a part of her.
“If they’re abstract how do you know when they come true?”
Pandora thinks about Evan’s scream of pain when his bone broke. She thinks of her mothers tears when her grandfather died. She feels it when dreams become reality. Similar to deja vu, it’s like the completion of a circle.
“I can feel it, when they become real. I know.”
“Have you had any dreams recently?”
Pandora wants him to stop. Her heart thumps in her chest as the foreboding feeling gets stronger and stronger.
Regulus is inching towards something, and she can’t let him find it. Something horrible will happen if he does. She can’t tell him anymore.
“None that are important.”
Pandora feels like she is going to explode, her heart is beating so fast, and her lungs are burning. Her body is shutting down, something horrible will happen.
When she’s just about to de-combust, she’s saved.
Peter Pettirew speed walks his way over to the blond, casting a nervous glance at Regulus. Before speaking.
“I have something to show you.”
It’s instant, just as the short boy starts to speak. The feeling dissolves. She doesn’t feel like she’s going to explode anymore, but Pandora is afraid. Somthings not quite right. Though she won’t know what for a long time.
“Right now?”
He rapidly nods his head, causing Regulus to glare up at him from his book.
“We were in the middle of something Pettigrew, certainly you can wait.” There’s venom in voice, which is strange because Regulus never talks to his friends like that. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Peter is friends with Sirius.
At the Slytherins' words Peter freezes, looking between the two friends at the table nervously.
“Pandora please.”
She does feel bad for the boy. Regulus is bloody scary when he wants to be.
Peter tries to silently communicate something to Pandora with his eyes, which doesn’t really work, but she suspects the ordeal has something to with their Mirthroot business.
“Sorry Regulus”
Pandora waits until they reach the corridor to let out a sigh of relief. Peter walks quickly along the stone floors, shoes making quiet thuds. Pandora is zoning out. Her body is moving but her brain is stuck in the library with Regulus.
He knows about her dreams, but he knows something else too? What was that awful feeling if not a warning? Can she trust Regulus?
It doesn’t matter if she can or not, because she does. Pandora trusts Regulus Black entirely. He saved Evan. And she’s starting to think he’s saving her too.
Her brain is disconnected from her body as she tracks through the Gryffindor common room into Peter's dorm.
A root is ready to be harvested. She wills her consciousness to return, so she can experience this moment. She only gets part of it back.
Peter carefully extracts the little white root from the soil filling the air with the stench of dirt and mead. He passes the root to her, it is no larger than a quill. She knows exactly what to do, and starts quickly, pulling some potion supplies out of her bag. She peels the outer layer of skin around the root off, discarding it. Then grinds the rest of the root into a fine paste. Once that’s done she gets out a little measuring spoon, counting exactly ¼ a teaspoon. She moves the paste to a 5 oz bottle, filling it up the rest of the way with mead. Whichshe still doesn’t understand how Peter acquired.
Once it’s been mixed Peter passes her a cotton swab, and places a vase of flowers in front of her, saying.
“Just in case.”
She’s not fully present, the memories of preparing the root, swirling around and mixing with each other, until she can barely remember the process at all.
The past hour or so of her life seems to fade out of existence, but the one thing she remembers is a lily in the vase of flowers, it’s orange and beautiful, it looks like the one she saw in her garden. The one that exists within her art folder.
Pandora is still distant as Peter pours a small amount of the liquid onto each cotton ball. She doesn’t think as she matches Peter's motion and brings the scent to her nose.
And then Pandora isn’t here at all.