james potter is SUPERBADASSNINJAAWESUM (staghearted) wrote in flippedrpg, @ 2012-09-12 18:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | ch: knap: james potter, ch: knap: lily black, p: annalisa, p: kit |
Who: James & Lily (knap)
What: working on getting Lily's memories back.
When: Wednesday evening
Where: James's dorm
Warnings: emotions~
There was always going to be a reason, around here, to put off doing this. Always a reason to need to keep their wits about them, to concentrate on the present rather than try to retrieve the past. James had been the one to suggest they put it off until after the Yule Ball, so he could surprise her afterward; it was only a surprise because she didn't remember him doing it the first time. But by putting it off that long, they'd ended up in the middle of the tournament, and he didn't want to mess with her head too much before she had to be in danger.
Still, it was a decent time for it. Their teammates were recovering from facing the boggart, and they could work on figuring out the clue to the second task tomorrow. At the very least, James wanted to have a look inside Lily's head and see what he was up against. He was hoping that it would be easier to navigate than Sirius's, so that he could control what she saw. He was doing his very best with Sirius, but his best mate's head was an absolute mess. As good as James was at quickly mastering the magic that was required to get their memories back, there was no instruction manual for how to find the memories that Sirius really wanted. Hopefully they were getting there.
The magic had gotten much easier: making eye contact, giving the incantation. It was different this time because it was Lily, and he didn't know what to expect. But the magic worked, gently entering her mind. With the confidence granted him by practice, James explored carefully, as if mapping out the magical landscape of her mind with intangible fingertips. He took his time, looking for the flaws, the obstacles, the foreign magical energy that was holding her memories at bay.
As he'd hoped, her mind had not been tampered with as much as Sirius's. He could not have explained the differences in words, but he could feel them; the magic used on her had been cleaner, in the surgical sense of the word-- more precise. Sirius's mind had kept fighting, because they'd been unable to erase his distrust of his own family and they hadn't taken away all of his memories of being friends with James; as heartwarming as that loyalty was, Sirius had suffered for it immensely, and James was glad for Lily's sake that he had been easier to erase from her mind.
Either way, she would get him back, and this way she had less torment to relive. Perhaps it was because he was getting better at this through practice, or because her mind was less entangled by the Lestrange's magic, but he felt that he could sense the sentiment of her memories through the magic holding them back. He shied away from the ones that seemed less than happy, hoping to be able to start bringing back her good memories first, although he hadn't managed it for Sirius yet. If this worked, though-- if his instincts were right about which memories were positive-- he would try harder to sense the emotion under the magic with Sirius as well.
For now, still inside Lily's mind, he let his instincts-- or perhaps that was her mind as well, nudging him toward what she most wanted him to uncover-- guide him towards what he hoped was a good memory. Not cold with terror, or hot with anger, but simply warm; at least, that was the best possible way he could have described it. Pressing his magic against the warmth like hands gently pushing against a closed door, he tried to move the barrier out of the way to let her memory free.