milliways_bar | (no subject)

Current Mood: pensive

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Official entrance...

There's a newly-arrived Death Eater sitting in the bar, nursing a bottle of Ogden's Old—when he's not staring off into space that is.

Clearly, from the looks of him he's got a lot on his mind, thanks to him having run into someone he knows, if only in a cursory way.

You can approach if you like.

He might not be talkative but he won't bite you.

Even if you ask nicely.

[Slowtime after 11pm say thank you...]

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[ooc: well, seeing as I live on slowtime...]

At the observation window, there is a table. And at the table, there sits a teenage girl. Long black hair, too-dreamy grey eyes and an old-fashioned green velvet dress, she's sitting so that her folded arms are on the table and her head resting on her arms.

She's six months pregnant, but that could be hard to tell.

She is also watching Rabastan. Closely, intently (as much as her concentration can be intent, given her psychosis), as if she knows him from somewhere.

[I think I re-invented slowtime... *egotistical moment*]

Well if your abdomen is below the table, and you're leaning onto it, it is hard to tell.

If you can't see it, you can't remark upon it.

Then again, he's currently uninclined to remark upon physical conditions, given that he's got problems of his own.

He looks up, seeing that he's no longer alone...

Friend or foe? he thinks, hand instinctively moving to his wand. If it's an Auror he's not going quietly.

"Neither, at the moment." The fey-looking girl replies, her voice soft and lilting with a Cornish accent 1500 years in his past.

"Just a stranger, but I know who you are, I think. A bit older now, though."

"How did you...?"

She heard me...

"How did you hear what I thought? And how do you know me?"

If you're an Auror I'm not going peacefully...

A little smile lights up her rather pretty-face.

"I'm a witch, but not like you. Can hear thoughts, you see. Think in words, I hear as if you spoke. And...well, saw your trial, sir. From a memory."

He pales considerably.

"You are one of those psychics? You can hear every word I think?

And how did you see my trial? I'd remember if you were there..."

She lifts her head, and then shakes it.

"No. Get distracted with everyone and everything else, thoughts aren't always clear."

She bites her bottom lip then.

"I wasn't there. Not exactly. The silver dish...pensive?"

He hopes that means she hasn't heard his thoughts about what his nephew Draco said about the Dark Lord and his followers. If she did she'd know that he's being torn into two worrying over what he's been taught to do, and whether Draco is speaking the truth: the Dark Lord will simply do away with his loyal subjects once their inherent value is used up.

"Pensieve? You know about those things?"

Then he remembers.

"Who's pensieve did you see? Only those at the trial would remember it and be able to let others see it as well."

An oddly protective look passes over her face, and then is gone.

"Barty Crouch's."

"Barty? Barty Crouch? But how? That's impossible! A Dementor took his soul; he can't show you the memory let alone speak long enough to give you permission to see it!"

He shakes his head. It's not logical. Barty's worse than dead - everyone knows that.

A long-suffering sigh.

"He's twenty."

"Oh. He's twenty. That makes more sen-"

There's a long pause not unlike that of a dial tone.

"Twenty? I'm thirty-eight! That can't be right?"

He gives her a strange look.

"You have a time-turner don't you? That's how he's twenty and I'm sitting here a thirty-eight-year-old man.

It's the only logical conclusion."

But only if time turner technology has improved within the last few years.

"...you haven't been here long, have?" Morgan asks, almost kindly.

Has he been here very long?

Does she mean physically? Because I could've sworn I've seen this place in my nightmares, back in Azkaban...

"In this place? You mean in this place?"

"Well...I guess that bit doesn't matter, if your mind can travel. It's just that...has no one explained to you what this place is and what it means?"

She's doing it again...

"My mind can—what?"

What in the name of Circe does that mean?

"No, no one's ever explained this place because I've never told anyone I've seen this place in my dreams."

Or hallucinations.

Morgan? Really can't help it - thoughts sound like speech, most of the time.

"I meant here...they've been terribly lax, then. Well, this place is called Milliways. It's a bar at the end of the universe and time." Her soft voice is slow, gentle, trying not to pile this on too fast.

"Lots of times, and lots of different world and versions of the same reality can come here. Barty is from your past."

He scratches his head, clearly not understanding very much of this.

First the girl can read minds.

She must know Legilimency.

Then she tells him Barty Crouch is here.

There must be some kind of time-turner in this place.

Now this place has a name and location: Milliways. At the end of the universe.

No, none of this is making any real degree of sense.

"You say I'm in this place that exists at the end of the universe, and Barty, who is now eighteen years younger than me, is in this place, and you've seen my trial because Barty still has a soul and can let you see into his pensieve which I didn't even know he had?

I'm understanding you right?"

"Um...yes. Pretty much." Morgan says, blithely.

Poor Rabastan. He's having one of those moments where your mind and your mouth want to say two completely different things.

Which means nothing comes out. Nothing coherant that is.

"And how did I get here?" is the only thing that he can say, and actually have it understood by anyone. "How did I get into this place? I've only seen it before in my mind, but never have I been here bodily."

She purses her lips.

"I do not know. I've never heard of anyone dreaming and coming here, but I don't see why that can't have happened. Did you walk anywhere, open a door, turn a corner?"

How did he come here? He doesn't remember, not at first.

"A ... headache... I get those a lot," he begins slowly. "When I see things, there are always headaches.

And then I see the bar.

And it's real this time."

He pales.

"Is this the final phase of madness? Interractive visions? Have I finally gone round the twist as others believe I was doomed to do?"

Morgan sighs.

"This place is real. I am crazy, and I know that this is real, though many things in it are not."

It's real? I am not imagining things? I'm here, in this place? This is not an illusion brought about by being confined in a small space with no one but Dementors and the screams of prisoners to give you company?

But then, the Dark Lord enters his mind.

He will want to know where I go. He will want to know my secret and I can't let him find out about this. He will punish me if he finds out I'm keeping secrets...

"If this place is real I can't let anyone know about this. They can't know. They... They..."

...he can see Voldemort, standing before him, wand pointing towards his face, speaking something, something about treason and incompetence. And worse, for witholding from him something that could play a pivotal role in the defeat of Harry Potter...

"He will have to know," he says, voice resigned. "If I do not tell him about this place he will be angry."

"How will your Dark Lord know?"

"He, he just looks into your eyes, and he knows. You don't have to say a word; he just knows."

Legilimency they call it. He's heard the word before but he doesn't really understand it or what it does, specifically.

"That's all he does. He looks into your eyes and every memory you have comes rushing forth. And unless you know how, you're powerless to stop him from doing it."

"Then maybe you should learn to stop it."

"I don't know. I... My mind is not as strong as it once was. I see things. I hear things. I've been too long in Azkaban, and that place does things to your mind."

He thinks a moment.

"They call it 'Occulmency'. It's the only way you can block someone from seeing into your mind, but I don't have the mental strength to do it."

And if he catches me using it I'm as good as dead.

And no one will care.

Quietly,

"Oh. I understand. I can't learn how to shield, either."

Then we're both in the same boat. Neither of us can keep others out of our minds.

It relaxes him a bit. Not the knowing he can't keep the Dark Lord out of his mind, but that he's not the only one with this problem.

"A pity I'm not as strong as I should be. Learning the ability to keep him from peeking about my brain would make my life a lot easier."

"Aye, I can imagine...maybe ask someone here? Different types of magic, and all that."

"Yes, there are people who could tell me about mental shielding. People from my world.

But I don't know who to ask, and I am afraid to ask, given that word might reach the wrong ears."

He'll kill me if he thinks I'm trying to block him out! He'll think I'm a traitor if I do!

"Nearly all here either hate, or don't like, your Dark Lord. He doesn't come here, though Tom Riddle does. So, you are fairly safe."

"But if I return, I will have to face him. And when I do, he'll know all about this place."

He sighs.

"I'm not a man who has any right to ask favours of any divine being, but if there is one, and they are of the forgiving sort, it would serve me best if I remained here forever, and let those back home think whatever they want to think regarding my fate."

Simply,

"Then don't walk out the door. That's what I did."

"Walk out ... the door? What do you mean? There's a door that leads to my world?"

He thinks a little.

"There's a door for everyone that comes here, to be opened by them if they want to go home?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes, the door vanishes, and you are Bound. Can't leave."

"And if I am lucky, I will be Bound, and I will not have to go home."

If fate and the gods permit...

"It's easier, that way," she agrees. "I stayed here for a while, and then I've found that I'm Bound."

He nods, hoping he too will share in such good fortune.

Let them believe whatever they want to believe. Here I can be alone at last...

[It's that magical time of night when I have to request slowtime, or ask if this is as good an ending as we can get out of this thread.

...it's just until June, and then I can go back to my old hours...]

[ooc: seems as good a place as any to let them fade.]

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