Chapter 10
A sudden weight came upon my chest. I slowly turned my head to where the hand was on my shoulder. The grasp was firm, and didn't seem to be going anywhere.
George, who stood right next to me, glanced between me and the mysterious person behind me. He narrowed his eyes and raised an eyebrow, "Merlin, who are you?"
"Oh, Liam can introduce me. This man's memory was the sharpest out of-" an androgynous voice began.
"Nope," Lee cut in, "I think you've got the wrong guy. Liam's memory has got to be the single most shitty thing that I've witnessed."
I gulped, finally getting the courage to turn around to look at the person that claimed to have known me. It appeared to be a tall man that must've have been Professor Lupin's age. Did I really look that old? That kinda hurt.
I looked at my hands, my fingers blurred. Was this real? Was I real? I turned my hands over. The veins of my hand didn't feel like mine. It wasn't mine. The world felt surreal. Was I in a dream?
I exhaled unevenly. I quickly pried the hand off my shoulder. I blinked slowly, "I don't think I know you."
The guy seemed to be staring at my face, his eyes narrowed. He rotated his head slightly to the left. He glanced from me to George. "Oh," he paused and looked over my group of friends, "oh...okay." He turned around and started to walk away.
Lee, George, and I stayed silent for a few moments after that. We all heard a "whoop!" come from behind us.
Fred put his arm around my shoulder, and handed me a bag. "Some third year gave me this," he handed me a package of jelly beans, "I think you'd like it." He winked in George and Lee's direction, completely missing the fact that their faces were sunken.
George had his eyebrows furrowed. His eyes followed the strange man as he walked out of the joke shop. He breathed in and turned towards me, "Who was that?" he whispered.
I had barely heard him, I was still trying to figure out if this was real or not. I turned to my friends and whispered, "I think I need to go."
Fred's arm fell from my shoulder as I fled out the shop. My breathing spiraled out of control. Why did I leave my friends? Ah, but it was too late to turn back and have to explain to them that I felt as if I was going crazy.
Professor Lupin. I thought to myself. He would surely know what was happening.
"Liam! Where are you going?!" Lee's voice echoed through the air.
In a panic, I turned to the Honeydukes building. I heard the bell from the door ring as I walked into the shop. The shop was noticably empty. Not a single soul in sight.
I slowly walked toward the front of the store, "Uhm, hello?"
A small click sounded behind me. I turned around and saw the same dark haired man from before. His eyes softened slightly as he saw me.
My eyes fell upon the door to the outside. It was locked.
My heart started to pick up and I grabbed the nearest product, which happened to be a dark chocolate bar, and threw it at the man.
"Who the fuck are you and why are you here?!" I shouted, backing myself up. I eventually was forced to stop at the 'employees only' door. I frantically turned the door handle. I ripped it open and hid inside the room.
I surveyed the area and found a staircase leading down to a cellar of some sorts. Surely filled with candy.
I sprinted towards it and ran down the steps. I seemed to not have caught that the stairs were uneven. I tripped and I began to tumble down to the cellar.
I landed with a thump and stared up at the dark ceiling. I heard the man slowly walk down the staircase.
"Still a clutz." The person uttered, holding back a smile. He brushed off his coat from cobwebs that had stuck onto him.
The fuck did this guy think he was talking about? I slowly sat up, which proved to be extremely painful. "You bastard! Why are you following me?!" I snapped at the figure.
"Not important," the person mumbled, heading towards a wall. He narrowed his eyes and pointed towards it, counting under his breath.
After a few seconds, he pushed in one of the bricks. This must've triggered something because the bricks rearranged themselves to reveal a dark tunnel.
The man looked back at me and pointed to the opening, "It leads to Hogwarts." He started to walk towards the stairs, "Have fun!"
The sounds of his footsteps faded away and I was soon left alone with my thoughts. Why did all this shit have to happen to me?
I winced as I stood upright. My legs felt as if they were to buckle at any moment but I still limped over to the strange hallway.
I narrowed my eyes and peered inside.
Well, it was either the tunnel or embarrassment from my friends.
I chose the most reasonable answer and began to walk the mysterious path into Hogwarts. I walked down for a few seconds when I came upon a strange looking slide.
"Well, that doesn't look safe." I muttered to myself, peering at the metal curve of death. The screws barely holding the scraps of metal looked as if they were going to collapse at any moment. I hesitated at the bottom of the slide. I had to climb up it. It was the only way.
I gulped and hesitantly put one of my feet on the structure. My hands clutched the sides of the slide. You can do this, you can do this. I breathed in and put my whole body weight onto it. My glasses were on the edge of my nose, but I didn't dare to push them back up.
I slid my hands further up the slide and began to walk up, thinking to myself 'don't slip don't slip' with each and every step upwards.
I continued to breathe in shaky breaths, my eyes closed tightly. I couldn't bare to look at how far down the drop would be if this god forsaken piece of trash fell apart. I reached my hand up and a sudden pain shot through my palm.
My nervousness quadrupled and I practically ran the rest of the way up the slide. I kept this speed, until something pulled at my foot.
I looked down and saw my shoelace stuck inside of one of the metal panels. But while looking downward, I saw the drop. My heart nearly stopped, and I paused fully in shock.
"Help! Someone please!" I called out, kicking my shoe off of my foot. "Help!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I wished that I hadn't ran away from my friends, I wished-
I stopped moving when I heard something crash behind me. Then I heard another. The slide from underneath me began to shake uncontrollably. My foot began to be pulled downwards, and I was soon pulled with it.
I braced myself for the impact, for bones to be broken. For me to die.
But nothing happened and I felt a sudden warmth surround me.
"Liam?!" a far away voice called out to me.
Holy shit what was happening?
My eyes fluttered open and a blurry mess unfolded around me. Where was I?
"W-what?" I muttered, a piercing headache coming over me.
A person came into view and they ran towards me and gave me a tight embrace. They seemed to be hanging onto me for dear life. Was this death? I awkwardly looked down and saw a boy around my age. He buried his face into my chest.
Who the fuck was this and why were they acting this way?
I opened my mouth to say something but I was interrupted by the guy sobbing.
"I'm sorry--please come back--I don't want to lose you too." this was said inbetween shaky cries. He didn't move an inch and remained wrapped around me.
I remained still for what seemed like an eternity, my arms also wrapped around the other person. I didn't know what this was. But I was 99% sure that it was the afterlife.
"What is this?" I whispered, trying not to alarm the other person too much.
"I've been trying for so long to reach you." he said, sighing.
What kind of answer was that?! Who was this guy? And why were we hugging? Now that I thought about it, this whole thing was really odd-
The person looked up at me for a few seconds, tears still inside of his eyes. The world around of me soon started to blend together and fade away.
Was I going crazy?
The warmth had returned, but accompanied with even more pain inside of my body.
"Liam?!" another voice called out.
I shot upwards and cried out, "NOPE! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE! I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH-"
Somebody soon smacked me on the side of the head, "In all honesty, Liam, you're being one hell of a dick right now."
I blinked quickly and registered my surroundings. I looked down and saw a thin blanket laid on top of me. I looked up and saw Professor Lupin, George, Fred, and Lee staring at me.
"You three! Get out! Let the poor boy get some rest!" a voice I recognized to be Madam Pomfrey's yelled.
"You've got a lot to explain." Lee whispered, both Fred and George nodding at that. George's eyes lingered on me for a moment longer and then he began to head out with the other two.
Pomfrey headed over to me, putting the back of her hand onto my forehead. She gestured to my pillow and whispered, "You best get some rest dear. Lupin says he can help with the nightmares."
I looked down at my hands. Was whatever that had just happened only a dream? How much of it was my imagination? I really hoped that it was dream Liam who had run away from his friends not 30 minutes before.
"I found you passed out in the hallway." Professor Lupin said blankly.
I raised an eyebrow and muttered to myself, "How the fuck did I end up there?"
Lupin continued to look my way, "Where were you last before you were here?"
I rubbed my head, "Like in this foggy blurry mess of a room with someone else in it too."
Lupin clicked his tongue, "And I'm assuming you didn't know who this person was?"
I paused for a moment before asking, "How'd you know that?"
"You yell in your sleep." Lupin said simply.
"Wait what did I yell?!"
"You seemed to be very confused as to what was happening."
I sighed, "Yeah I know that, but what did I say exactly?"
Lupin gestured towards Madam Pomfrey, "If she kicks me out, it's your fault." He paused and waited for her to move away a bit more, "You said, 'Fuckedy fuck fuck fuck'."
I laughed a small bit to myself, then looked over to make sure that Madam Pomfrey hadn't heard. She seemed to be searching for something in a medicine cabinet, unaware of anything.
"Would you mind explaining the dream a bit more for me?" Lupin asked, also looking at the healer to make sure she hadn't heard anything.
I nodded and began to explain the whole thing to him, completely leaving out the part where I had thought that I had died. Then there would be too many questions asked about what I had been doing.
The professor listened as I told the story. At the end he thought for a moment in silence. He breathed in and said, "Do you, perhaps, think that this may be someone that you knew before this whole memory wipe thing?"
I tried to recall what I was feeling during the dream. Sure, it was confusing. But at the same time I felt a sense of home and belonging. The other person most definitely knew who I was by how they had hugged me. I started to nod, "Yeah I think so. But how?"
Lupin looked as if he were arguing with himself inside of his head, "Now," he began, "I'm not saying this is what happened to you but heres something that may help."
I sat up on my bed and leaned closer to Lupin as he began to tell the story.
"While I was in Hogwarts around the time of the Wizarding War, people would occasionally disappear without a trace. There were a vast amount of reasons for that to happen, whether it be getting pulled out of school or even being tortured." Lupin paused for a bit to take a sip of water.
I couldn't stay silent and said, "Sure maybe. But that's still a wide guess as to what-"
"I had a friend who went through torture," Lupin started up again, "He disappeared then reappeared towards the middle of the school year. He looked and acted really different to before."
I looked downward, I wanted to say something but I couldn't think of anything.
"He also had a form of memory loss and couldn't recall the events which had happened while he was gone. He lived on, changed from that experience. He disappeared a few times after that, too."
I breathed out, "What happened to him later on?"
"He-" Lupin interrupted himself with silence, "he ended up working for the Dark Lord. Dumbledore had even reached out to him multiple times to join the army, but he had refused. He died at some point."
I smiled a bit, He's my kind of guy. Wait the rejecting Dumbledore part, not the supporting the Dark Lord part.
Lupin looked down at his hand and sighed, "Sadly, that's how a lot of these kind of stories end. By betrayal and hurt." He then looked up at me and gave me a halfhearted smile, "Get well soon, I've got to go."
He stood up and began to head out, looking as tired as ever. He almost made it to the door when he turned around and muttered, "Be careful around George, it almost always ends up in regret." Professor Lupin then closed the door behind him which echoed in the now empty hall.
What was that?
I sighed, I really had better things to think about right now then the trauma of one of my teachers.
My thoughts turned to the man in the Honeydukes cellar. The same feeling that I had felt while I was in the dream with the boy was there. Maybe I had known him afterall.
I looked over to my bedside table and spotted a card. I reluctantly opened it and read it to myself.
'We hope you get better!
Love,
George, Lee, and Fred ,':-). '
I stared at the signatures. If they had put enough thought into the card, there was a small chance that they didn't hate my ass.
I spotted another card just as I moved the first one. The card fell off of the nightstand just as I was about to grab it.
I reached down to read it, and I nearly fell off of my bed when doing so.
'Room of Requirement, in 2 days at 10 pm
-R.A.B.'
"I better see you there." the strange voice from before echoed in my head.