mini-gryphon to Molly Michon, though the writer doesn't quite know her by that name

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Molly Achievski. That's the name of the little girl Camilla met.

When I wake up, I'm going to remember you. I'm sure of it.

And Camilla does remember, just as she said she would. She remembers everything from that day. She wants to know if Molly remembers it too.

She wonders who Molly really is. Maybe she's not really a little girl anymore. She could have been anyone.

I hope you feel better when you wake up, Molly said, swinging down from the branch. And I hope your brother says he's sorry. If you still don't feel good, come find me, okay? This place is magic; I bet someone can tell you where I am.

Camilla wants to find her. So she writes a simple little message, in the maroon ink she always uses:

Molly,

My name is Camilla. Do you remember climbing the tree with me? Are you at Hogwarts still?

I'm in Gryffindor.

She sends it off, not with a school owl, but with the little gryphon that Adam Young gave to her a long time ago, when she'd only just arrived at Hogwarts. It's a very magical gryphon. She's sure it will be able to find Molly if she's here. If Molly exists.

No, she has to exist. Camilla has the cards she took from Charles's deck, proof it all really did happen. And she has the cards Charles sent back to her, proof Charles knows it happened too, even if they won't ever acknowledge it in words. Therefore everything was real, Molly included.

She can't talk to Henry about it. He knows something's wrong; he came to see her, the headaches notwithstanding, the day after it all happened. That strange sense he has, the way he's attuned to her (and maybe that's how he found Hogwarts, after all), something told him she needed him. But she couldn't explain to him what had happened, not without risking his anger, and that she was not willing to do. So she shivered, and fidgeted, and Henry said It's your brother, isn't it, not asking so much as telling, and Camilla wouldn't say anything at all. And Henry did a surprising thing, then. He kissed her, full on the mouth, the way he hadn't done since before he died.

Camilla thinks she knows what that means. So she can't talk to Henry about it. Not any of it, not even just Molly and the tree, because if any of it comes out, it'll all come out. He'll be angry at Charles, something she presently doesn't like to contemplate, and that's bad enough. That she would have guessed anyway. What the kiss has told her is that Henry will also be angry at her.

She's not sure she could endure that.

If you still don't feel good, come find me, okay? Molly said.

And maybe Molly isn't feeling so good herself, if she wasn't really a little girl either. If she'd been enchanted the way Camilla was enchanted.

They can compare notes.

She hopes the little gryphon brings back an answer.

Comments

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Camilla,

Yep, I'm here, and I do remember you. Did everything work out okay, after I left? I had...not such a fun time, once the spell wore off. I'm in Gryffindor, too--we should meet in the common room.

--Molly

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Molly,

I'd like that. I should warn you, I'm not seven years old anymore. Actually, I'm twenty-eight. I'll bring something so you'll know who I am -- a white tulip. I'll be the one holding the white tulip.

Camilla

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Camilla,

That's okay, I'm forty-three again, unfortunately. White tulip, gotcha--I'll meet you downstairs once I find both my shoes.

--Molly

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

To see Camilla enter the common room, you'd never guess at her trepidation. She's wearing an old white sweater, too long for her at the sleeve-ends and the hem, and a pair of slacks made from some smooth loose-woven taupe fabric, that look profoundly comfortable. From one hand dangles the promised white tulip.

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Molly, for her part, was equally nervous. She actually been wholly sane, when she met Camilla--though she had been taking the potion (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1280340.html) Dr. Maturin had given her, she hadn't been on it long enough for it to fully boot the Narrator. Fortunately it seemed to be mostly free of side-effects; the only noticeable one was a hand tremor, and that was only obvious if she was holding something or trying to write.

She'd found both her shoes, fortunately--Converse high-tops--and for the rest wore jeans and a flannel shirt that had been Theo's before she snagged it. Coming downstairs, she spotted the woman with the tulip, and somehow managed to avoid doing a double-take. She could see echoes of the child in Camilla's face, but without the tulip Molly likely would not have recognized her.

"Hi," she said, realizing that the difference in her own appearance must be much more startling.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla looks up from her casual study of the floorboards. "Hello. You're Molly?" The faintest hesitation in her voice -- it's too good to be true.

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Molly smiled. "Yeah," she said. "You must be Camilla." She'd figured Camilla had to have been real--everything from her one-day childhood had seemed much more clear and real than most of her adult life. "Did yours only last a day, too? Your childhood, I mean?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Less than a day," says Camilla, a little sadly. "I did what I told you I would. I went back to bed. When I woke up, I'd been returned to my present state."

She toys with the tulip stem. "Is it wrong to wish I hadn't changed back?"

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Molly sat in one of the big squashy armchairs, pulling her knees up under her chin. "Not at all," she said, a little wistful herself. "I did, too. For a lot of reasons." She was working hard to get back at least some of that, without having to be a child forever, but it was still...unpleasant, having to let go of that.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

There's a cluster of armchairs all together, grouped around a little low table. Camilla takes the one adjacent to Molly's. "Can we --" She takes out her wand and performs a quick warding charm. God forbid anything gets back to Henry. Or Charles. Or Henry. (Did we mention Henry?)

That done, she settles into the chair, which makes her look small indeed, waifish in her oversized sweater against the overstuffed cushions, though she's not a short woman. "What happened after I left?" she wants to know.

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

"I went and wandered for a while, and wound up in...I've got a sorta-kinda adopted son, and I went to see him. I...came back while I was there, and it...well, it wasn't fun." It had made her cry, which was a fairly rare occurrence. "But I'm trying to get back some of what I had then, without having to go back to being eight."

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

The sadness is palpable. "You were awake when it happened, then. That must have been so strange," Camilla muses.

What Molly says about trying to get back some of what I had then strikes a chord with her. "What are you trying to get back? What did you lose?" she asks, unabashedly curious.

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

"I was...sort of awake. I went to sleep for maybe five minutes, and when I came to I was grown up again." And not happy about it in the slightest, either.

"I...I'm schizophrenic, and when I went back to being a child it went away. I'd forgotten what it was like, to be free of it, and when it all came back...." Molly shook her head. "Dr. Maturin's been working on a potion for me--it regresses parts of me, without making me have to stay a child. It seems to be working, though I haven't been taking it long enough to really tell."

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Oh..." Julian taught her that 'psychology is only another word for what the ancients called fate,' so she's never paid it much heed, and the word schizophrenia isn't much more than that -- a word. It's clear it was something terrible, though.

"So it hurt for you, too."

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Molly nodded. "Oh God, did it hurt."

She'd caught the 'too', and wondered if she ought to ask. Ah, the hell with it. "What happened to you, when you...came back?"

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Eyes downcast, Camilla says quietly: "I grew up."

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Molly blinked. Well, of course she'd grown up--wait....

"You mean like...mentally?" Narrator aside, coming back to her own adult mind...hadn't been pleasant. Childhood had been almost unbelievably carefree.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

"Yes. When I was in college, something terrible happened, and in the shock of it, afterward I lost my voice. I couldn't speak for days, and when I could, first I spoke in French before I even got back my English. I'd only started to study French in high school -- it's not as though it's my native language ... Anyhow, this was a little like that. You know, I think the memories started coming back when I was in the tree with you," Camilla muses. "It was all incomplete and jumbled at first. I suppose I panicked, a little. Then I went to sleep, sure I'd wake up and things would be fine. Instead I woke up remembering everything. Everything I'd done. Everything I'd lost."

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Molly winced. Her memories had all come walloping back when she'd woken, and that had been bad enougn on its own...the thought of them creeping back while you were still more or less a child was an unpleasant one. As for remembering everything you'd lost...that one hit home. Hard.

"It says something pretty horrible, doesn't it," she said quietly, "that we can be said to lose things by growing up. Everybody says you're supposed to gain things with adulthood, but it seems like you lose most of the good, and what you get can be--and often is--awful." She shivered.

[c-macaulay.livejournal.com]

Camilla nodded quietly. "I would almost be willing to induce that state again -- induce childhood. But then, I'd lose things too." Forgetting everything after age seven meant forgetting Julian, and worse, forgetting Henry. She gave a low bitter laugh, scarcely audible. "I suppose I won't ever outgrow wanting to have my cake and eat it too. What about you, though? Is this potion Maturin's making you going to let you really do that? Have your cake and eat it too?"