The Persistence of Memory (Brooke)

Ceyal waited anxiously after his apology, unsure if he’d insulted Brooke by pointing out her scars. He wasn't usually concerned about what people thought but in the few minutes that they’d conversed, he felt that they’d formed an odd bond of sorts fused from an unexpected understanding of the other person and he found himself not wanting to offend her. She was the only person in the whole school with whom he’d spoken more than a few words with and revealed the most of himself to. Nobody got close enough to him to know even the name of his dog, much less take a glimpse into his past.

But her answer left him at it. She had made peace with her scars and so didn't want to hide it. Except for the one running down from the corner of his right eye to the middle of his cheek, the rest of his scars were hidden beneath his clothes. Underneath his hoodie lay faint puckered lines, reminders of the cruelty man was capable of. He couldn't help the one on his face, but the rest he hid it with clothes as best as he could. Showing them only invited people to ask what had happened and he wasn't keen on sharing.

But Brooke wasn't done. Two precise cuts at the veins. That meant...she tried to kill herself. Ceyal's gaze jumped from her wrists to her eyes, searching the beautiful depths to see if she was speaking the truth. Suicide was no laughing matter and more than once, he'd come across ignorant people who thought it was something to joke around about.

But all he could see in her eyes were honesty. She was the exact opposite him. Where he was a closed book, unwilling to share the broken pieces of himself to anyone, she was open. It wasn't everyday that he met someone willing to share that they had attempted suicide. It just wasn't something you told someone when you first met them.

"That's a lot of luck," he commented dryly, then paused as he thought of what to say next. He wouldn't apologise and say that he was sorry to hear that. She'd gone through tragic things and apologising was what everyone did to seem polite. She'd walked down the road and come out alive, victorious. There was nothing to be sorry in that. Her scars told a story, one of strength and triumph.

"You're blessed to have such caring parents," he said instead. He wouldn't ask what made her suicidal. She could share if she wanted to but he wasn't going to pry.

At her reply to him sharing about Elouise, he raised a cynical eyebrow. "You have a sister somewhere in the world who you're trying to find?" he scoffed lightly. Of course, he knew that she identified with the feeling and not with his particular situation but he doubted that she could truly understand how devastating it was to know that someone you loved was somewhere out in the world and you could never find them because you didn't even know what they looked like.

The next sentence out of her mouth put his guard up. This was why he didn't like sharing things with others. They always tried to make it their business, meddling in things that they had no clue about. Either that or they tried to dig for more information to gossip about. Which was what Brooke was doing.

He was just about to get up and walk away when she went on. And on and on. It became pretty obvious that she meant no harm. In fact, her word vomit amused him and a smile twitched at the corner of his lips which he allowed to grow into a small grin as he shook his head lightly.

He remained silent for a while after she finished speaking, turning his eyes back to the water. "We'll never find her," he finally said. "She was three months old. She'd be six now." A baby changed a lot and the only thing that would be recognisable was her eyes. There was also the necklace on which Loveen had carved her name, but items could be easily lost or stolen. "And she was last in New York. I've tried calling all the orphanages and hospitals but nothing turned up." He paused for a while, taking a deep breath to rein in his emotions. "A girl changes a lot from three months to six years."

Her words brought another smile to his lips. This was a strange feeling, smiling at someone other than Esther. The whole thing was strange. He never spoke more than two or three words to anyone in school and here he was having a whole conversation with Brooke. she had a good sense of humour and he supposed that was what got her through the tough times.

He was the complete opposite. Not that he didn't have a sense of humour, but it wasn't his coping mechanism. His was music and silence. It was a paradox, but in music, he could express his emotions and thoughts; it was an outlet for him. And in silence he could sort through his thoughts, make sense of his life and the mess that it was.

He wouldn't call himself lucky. He was alive yes, but he hadn't attributed that to luck. It was more of a dogged determination to stay alive. He could still recall the instances where his mother had to nurse his wounds as he lay bleeding and bruised on the bed. That hadn't been luck.

There were times when he wished he was dead instead of alive, when he wished that his father had killed him off instead of leaving him floating between life and death. But his will to live for his mother was greater than his need of relief from the hell he'd lived through. He wouldn't let her live with Arnold on her own. He had to be there for her and that was what kept him fighting to stay alive.

A half chuckle escaped his mouth. It wasn't laughter but more of a throaty sound that hinted at laughter. "Your theparist sounds like an amazing person," he said. He'd never been to a therapist but in his head, they were always the kinds of people who tried to identify with you and understand what you were going through, but never could really do that because they'd never walked in your shoes. They'd sprout advice that they thought would help but in reality, didn't do much at all. Brooke's therapist, however, sounded quite the opposite. "That's good advice," he continued. "I'll keep that in mind when s*** happens."

He wasn't surprised that she'd managed to perceive he'd been wondering why she was telling him all of this. He was quiet for a moment, unsure of how to phrase his next words. "It just surprised me, that's all," he finally said, shrugging his shoulders, "that you're so open and honest with someone you barely know." He'd never shared anything about himself before Brooke, but she made it easy for him to talk and it helped that she understood as well.

"A caring person with a big heart for people that's what they got," he said matter-of-factly. Then it hit him the way she'd phrased her words. "Chose you?" Was she adopted? That had to be the only explanation for it.

He nodded, acknowledging her words. She understood more than he gave her credit for and that impressed him as well as told him that there was way more to her story than she'd shared. It was exactly the way he felt towards Elouise and Esther. He never wanted them to experience what he had. Elouise he could not help, but Esther he could protect and cherish. He wanted her to be a kid without a care in the world, without having to look over her shoulder wondering if she was going to get beaten that night. And he'd do anything to give her the childhood she deserved.

"Not many people get that," he replied. "I live for my mum and my siblings and Mr. and Mrs. Brown." He would not let his mother die in vain. She'd suffered for him; it was only fair that he lived for her. Mr. and Mrs. Brown took him and Esther in when no one would and was going to live his life in gratitude of that. He couldn't repay them monetarily, but he could be the best person he could for them.

"I'm not going to say no to help," he began slowly, "but I wouldn't get my hopes up. She could be anywhere in the world. She's got nothing that identifies her." He took a deep breath. He had to tell Brooke to help her see how impossible this was going to be. "Arnold dumped her in an alleyway without a birth certificate or anything else that identifies her. Knowing her name wouldn't help. It could've been easily changed. What would you tell your 'people'? That you're looking for a six year old girl and you don't know her name or what she looks like?"

He'd gotten rather angry by this point, his voice raised and harsh, not at Brooke because he knew she was trying to help, but at the injustice of the world. A little girl did not deserve to be thrown out of the streets like that.

She grinned. "Yea, Cassie's great. Saved my life, quite literally, I think." Brooke let out a soft chuckle. "I was refusing to eat, and all the therapists they had come see me were full of the same bullcrap -- I'm sure you know what I mean. Cassie came in, told me the truth without mincing words. I liked her from the start. I only need to see her once a month, now."

The statement made her smile. "What's the point of hiding?" she asked. It was a genuine question, too, not a rhetorical one. "I mean, this is who I was, not who I am. It shaped me, perhaps for the worse, perhaps for the better -- who really knows, right? -- but it's not who I am anymore. I am... me. And that's a definition only I can give. So, why should I hide? Why should I lie and make up stories? So others don't see me as broken?" She scoffed. "Why the hell not? There's nothing wrong with being broken, or having been put back together by people who loved you too much to let you stay that way. My scars aren't hidden, visible or not. I'm not gonna hide. That doesn't work. Trust me, I've tried."

The compliment made her raise an eyebrow. He was being serious, she could tell, but she'd never dealt well with those, and she hid it behind a somewhat awkward 'eh'. Luckily, his next question gave her something else to focus on, and she nodded, glad for the change of subject, even if at the expence of her wrong word choice.

"I was adopted," she explained. "I was seven. It's... a long story, really." She left it at that. If he wanted to know, she'd tell, but not many people did.

His statement made her curious, and after debating it inwardly for a couple of seconds, she asked, "Mr. and Mrs. Brown?"

Then, to give him an out should he not wish to talk about that, she said, "I live for my parents, my brother, myself, and..." She faltered, here. Only her closest friends knew about Carissa; it was something that was close to her heart, the memories still too raw and painful for her to openly share about like she did with the other things. But he'd been so raw and honest with her, she couldn't not be the same. So, with a deep breath, she said, "...and my daughter. Carissa. She's only a few months old, and the light of my life."

She took in the words, the name given, and swallowed. She understood what it was like to not dare hope, because sometimes hope hurt more than admitting defeat, but he was wrong. He was so very wrong, and Brooke had to say something.

"I would say exactly that, actually. A three month year old girl dumed in an alleyway five and a half years ago. If you have the exact date, that helps, too, cos it can be narrowed down to a timeframe -- that's what I'm told, anyway. If you know her eye colour or hair colour, that could also help," she replied, matter-of-fact despite his angry tone. She'd learnt a long time ago to distinguish between the type of anger directed at her and not, memories of a life that was no longer her own. That, more than anything, was why she had hope for his search -- because she'd lived it.

And while this part of her life was usually deeply private -- there were some things one didn't share at all -- she found a need to. Not because she wanted pity or to show off her survival skills, but because she needed him to know it wasn't hopeless. "It's not hard to trace, suprisingly enough. I mean, if you trace back my adoption, you'll find the foster homes I was in, and if you trace that back, you'll learn the name of the cop that found me on the street, and if you trace that back, you'll find the names of the drug addicts that rasied me, and that all leads to which alley I was found in." She smiled. "Extremely difficult, perhaps, but not impossible."

"With your permission, of course, I'd like to write to them. There's no harm in trying, after all. The worse that can happen is a 'I'm sorry, we found nothing'. The best? Her," she added.

A corner of his mouth quirked up in a half-smile. Yes, it could be amusing the things that they came up with. He remembered how the other students had gossiped when Brooke disappeared. He never believed any of their words, because it was gossip. He didn't have any problem with people talking about him. Countless time he heard whispers whenever he'd walk pass a group of students. They'd be comtemplating why he never talked, why he always had such a thunderous or sullen expression on his face and on and on. If they kept their speculation to him, he couldn't careless. But it was when they started talking about his family that he cared.

More than once, he'd had to rein himself in because he heared his mother labelled 'whore', 'drug addict', or 'insane'. He'd chosen to walk away instead of engaging in a fist fight; he would not turn into his father. That didn't mean that he let it go unpunished. Instead of getting physical, he used his brains and came up with different ways to 'punish' them. He'd take pieces of their clothes, shoes - or makeup, for girls - and hide them somewhere around the castle. If they could find it, kudos to them. If not, they'd forever wonder where their possesssions had gone.

He snorted. "And apparently, I'm mute and mentally insane." He paused for a moment then continued. "I don't mind so much what they say about me. I mind when they begin to slander my family. I will not tolerate that." He knew that he could not stop everyone from talking bad about his family, there there would always be ignorant jerks in the world, but he'd do what he could.

Brooke had a point. Those people did care. They wanted to keep in the loop, they didn't want to miss out on knowing everything about everything. He hadn't thought of it like that but her point was valid and shifted his perspective a little. Of course, this didn't mean that he'd tell them everything just to satisfy their need of not missing out, but it helped him understand better.

And she had a good sense of humour. It was almost impossible to keep the grin off his face at the way she said things. He knew that deep down, buried somewhere beneath the hurt and anger he had humour too. It just needed some coaxing and the right person to bring it out to the light of day. "Spot on there," he agreed with her. She'd perfectly captured the reactions of people.

Her wrists aren't the only part to have scars? What does she mean by that? he wondered, but decided to forgo asking about it. She'd already shared a lot with him, more than he ever expected anyone to. The rest of her story could wait. Perhaps somewhere in the future, he'd find out eventually. In the most unexpected - but perhaps fitting - way, they'd become friends. Acquaintance wasn't the word for it. Acquaintances didn't understand each other on such a deep level. They were friends, Ceyal decided. In all his years, he never thought he could call someone a friend and it gave him some hope, a reason to keep on living.

His lips turned into a wry smile as Brooke turned the tables on him, sort of - but not quite - indirectly asking for his story. And he could remember it well. Arnold had, yet again, gambled away a large sum of money and came home in a black and drunken mood. Of course, nothing was to his satisfaction and he'd taken it out on Ceyal in the form of a glass bottle across his face. It had taken him a few days to recover from that, not that Arnold cared.

Lost in his memories, Ceyal picked up a flat pebble from the ground, sending it skipping over the surface of the lake. If only life could be as idyllic as this, as serene as the wind in the trees and the clouds floating across the sky. But then there would be no depth, no purpose beyond existing. He just had to learn how to take the good with the bad and turn the bad into good. Somehow.

"That it does," he said slowly, breaking the silence and returning to the topic at hand. "That it does," he murmurred softly to himself. "This tells the story of a man who does not deserve to be called a father, and how he decided that his son's face would make a good target for smashing glass bottles," he continued, touching his fingers to the scar lightly before sending another pebble across the water. "And the story of how the son did his damnest not to let the man hurt his mother." He would not boast of the many times he'd taken his mother's place. There was no joy or pride to be found in that, merely terror and anguish.

She spoke two words, words which coming from anyone else, he would've resented. Hers wasn't said with pity or with the false politeness that other people were so prone to using. This stemmed from something deeper, an understanding between two people who had been through hell and lived to tell their story, and he appreciated it.

He nodded at her explanation. "That's important," he commented. Names meant a lot, he would know. It was the whole reason he went by his middle name instead of his first name. There was just too much pain associated with his first name. Starting at Hogwarts gave him a new start and with that, he wanted a new identity.

"It is!" he replied with a small smile. "She's learning how to negotiate to get what she wants and is quite the talker. She started crawling at around six months and walking not long after that." He and his mother had to baby-proof their tiny apartment, making sure that there were no sharp corners Esther could hurt herself on. She had been a curious baby, touching and opening everything she could get her hands on.


"November sixteen, twenty fifteen," he said. He remembered the exact day vividly; he'd probably never forget it. It had been his seventh birthday when Arnold came back after a year long absence. Without his abuse, Loveen had managed to carry Elouise to term, but Arnold had insisted that she had an affair. He'd taken the infant out and dumped her somewhere. It was one of the reasons why he hated his birthday. Bad things just seemed to happen.

"Then I'm glad I'm not a Pureblood," he responded lightly.

TW: Abuse, scars, religion(?)

His snort made her smile; making others laugh was something she enjoyed doing. There was already so much hatred and anger in the world already. His continuation, however, made her nod. That she understood. So far, not many had said anything nasty about her or her family -- Colby was, after all, in the same school as her, and people knew who he was -- but she could imagine it. Instead of saying anything, though, she nodded. "I'd probably hex them," she admitted with a shrug. "I don't condone violence, but I will hex you if you diss those I love." Pausing, she tilted her head. "At least, I think I will. Knowing me, I would probably just tell them off." Then, with a grin, she added, "You're surprisingly talkative and coherent for a mute psycho."

She returned his grin. Now that she was thinking about it, Brooke realised she never really seen him smiling before. It wasn't that she was constantly looking out for him, of course, so it was entirely possible she just missed each time he did smile or laugh, and she didn't spend much time speculating on it. She was the opposite; she hardly ever didn't smile at something, even if it was nothing much at all. There was just something about being alive that she (now) treasured.

At first, Ceyal didn't answer her question, and she wondered if she pushed too far, asked for too much. He didn't seem upset, though, and for just a moment longer she held off apologising. If it became more evident later that she'd offended him, she'd apologise and make amends. For now, she simply waited, watching as he skipped the stone. That was something she'd never managed to do, despite Colby trying to teach her multiple times.

Finally, he started speaking, and she turned towards him, taking her eyes off the lake and the ever-expanding ripples from his stone. Her heart sank. She hadn't once imagined it had a nice story, nor that it was caused by anything unintentional -- he was too much a survivor for it to be that case -- but it still horrified her. It wasn't that a parent could do that sort of thing; she'd been abandoned at birth, so she knew that not all parents were good or nice or kind. It wasn't that abuse took place; that had happened enough times to her for her to be shocked by the mention of it happening. It was simply that it happened.

She let her eyes take in the scar, wondering how they managed to explain that away. Abuse victims hardly ever spoke out against the abuser, for different reasons, and lies to cover hurt was something she knew all too well. His last sentence made even more sense. He'd taken the beatings and whatnot in place of his mother. That had never happened to her -- she'd always been the brunt of it -- but she understood. She'd go through it all again if it meant someone she cared about didn't have to.

For a moment after he finished, she sat in silence. There were no words; all she could do was show she understood. Instead, after contemplating it a little, she turned, shifting position so her back was towards him. Then, carefully, she lifted her shirt up to show him her skin. She knew what he would see; lining her back were multitudes of scars, the reason she always wore a one-piece modest swimsuit at the beach or at the pool. They were of different sizes and width, some round and some long, obviously from a whip. She let her shirt remain up for a few seconds, then tugged it back down and returned her gaze to him.

"I was in the muggle system for a long while. I was a young witch in and out of homes of religious people while my abilities were just starting to present themselves." She gave him a sad sort of look. "Witches, it seems, are not treated well by those sort of people. If you need advice on how to exorcise demons from children, though, I know almost all the ways." Then, her eyes lit up a little as she slipped out her wand and aimed it at a rock the size of her fist nearby. "However, I can't attest to their success. Avifors." There was a bright blue light and then the rock exploded into a flock of birds. They took to the sky, flying away at once, and Brooke grinned as she watched them, stowing her wand as she did. "I'd like to see them see that. They'd have a heart attack, probably."

She nodded at his explanation. "Six months, huh? That gives me another couple or so with her before the chaos begins." Grinning to show she was actually looking forward to 'chaos', Brooke let her mind go to Carissa for just a while longer. How nice it would be when she could talk and walk! It was something to look forward to, a rainbow out of a storm, flowers in the dull pavement of life. And it was a reason to keep going.

Typing down the date, she nodded, then hesitated before holding her phone out to him. "Do you have a phone? I mean, I could text you if there's any update if we're not in school. It would be faster than owl, in any case." There was nothing wrong, in her eyes, with asking someone she'd just met for their number.

She grinned at his reply. "I don't actually know what I am. The whole abandoned at birth, don't know my parents thing, after all. For all we know, I am a Pureblood! Wouldn't that be odd?"

[[OOC: She pulled up only the back of her shirt, so the front remained down, and to just below her bra strap, so he'd only have seen the skin on her back and a little of her side and the scars there.]]

Ceyal gave Brooke a glance over when she mentioned hexing. He didn't think that she was the type to retaliate in that manner but kudos to her for that. "And you'd probably do a good job of putting them in their place," he responded.

"You're surprisingly talkative and coherent for a mute psycho."

Ceyal was actually rather surprised that he'd revealed so much to Brooke, someone he barely knew before. In his three years at Hogwarts, he'd kept his lips sealed about both his past and his family; nobody knew anything about him. But Brooke was different, he supposed, in the sense that she'd been through so much and understood much more than anybody else in this school could. He had willing shared all that he had and did not have any regrets about it.

When Brooke remained silent after he finished talking, Ceyal thought for a moment that perhaps he'd scared her off somehow. But that didn't make sense. She'd both been raped and suicidal and he didn't think that she scared easily. But then movement caught his eye and he turned his gaze from the lake to the woman beside him, eyebrows rising in slight surprise as she lifted her shirt.

There, across her back were scars, scars that were definitely from a whip. He would know; he had the same across his own back. Was that what she meant when she said that her wrists weren't the only place to have scars? And how in the world did she get these?

Without thinking, he'd reached out, mindlessly tracing one of the longer scars with his finger. This woman had been through so much, so much more than he could ever imagine. He knew what it felt like to have a whip slicing his flesh open, to have the stinging pain last for days, so bad that he could not sleep on his back. He knew the pain she must have felt, but coupled together with everything else she'd been through, he could only respect and admire her for having come out a survivor.

She pulled her shirt back down, but his gaze still remained on her back as he tried to process what he'd seen. What in the world could explain that? Then Brooke began talking and he lifed his eyes to hers. Her words made sense to him; he knew that not many people took kindly to magic or witches and wizards. He could only thank Merlin that his mother had been accepting of him, though not fully understanding what was really going on. "I'm sorry," he repeated her words. No one should have to go through any of that. But the both of them did.

"Probably," he grinned, eyes following the flight of the birds. "And I don't think I would call the doctors or healers either."

"Oh, yes. Chaos," he said, smirking a little. "But it's probably the best time of their life." He couldn't wait for the holidays to come when he could go back to the Browns' home and see Esther. He received letters from them twice a week - since they didn't quite know how to operate technology - but there was nothing like seeing Esther in person. He still remembered the time when she'd been an infant and the way she would grab onto his finger with her tiny fist, eyes staring up at his as she giggled and squirmed. Babies grew so fast.

At the question, he nodded, rattling off his phone number. He had a feeling that they would become good friends, perhaps his only friend in the school.

"Well, if that ever happens, you'd be the first Pureblood I like," he responded. "And the most Muggle-fied one too!"