Who: Gray and Bloody What: Seeing each other and moving in When: Thursday morning Rating/Status: Low / Complete
Helena was spending much of her time in the library trying to read up on the histories of the wizarding world from where she had left it. It was fascinating, all of it. The wars, the Dark Wizards, the people and the way some beliefs within the pureblood families had changed or stayed the same. Helena was slowly learning all that she could about the world she had been taken from some nine hundred years ago. Being that she worked in the library on the Island, it wasn’t that hard to lose track of the time some nights and stay until the room became too dark to read anymore. She still hadn’t figured out how to operate the electricity, and she planned never to do so. There were some things in life that should remain mysterious and special. She had decided electricity was one of those things.
This day, however, Helena desired to leave the library at a decent hour. She had begun to feel like she was losing touch with the world she was so desperately trying to learn about. Yes, books were good, but also living the life was just as, if not more, rewarding. Besides, there was something nice about walking through the town on the Island at mid-day. There were people around, whom she wanted to watch live their lives. It was all very fascinating, the way people were dealing with this predicament.
Her dress floating around her ankles, Helena made her way back to the Bungalow, preparing to make herself comfortable outside of it and just watch. She liked to participate on some days, but others, such as today, seemed much more of a lazing about sort of day. Though, when the form of someone very familiar to her appeared, Helena’s mouth dropped in a very unlady like way. “Anton Bartholin?” She said it low, under her breath, before jumping up from her spot and, looking more and more like a fool, looked for a way to disappear without him seeing her. As much as she wanted people here from her own time, he was the one exception.
What a strange place, thought Anton, as he was led along sandy pathways by his luggage - his luggage! - baggage that he couldn’t open but that was clearly magical despite his very sudden and very glaring lack of it. The offending instrument that had proven this fact, his wand, was now tucked haphazardly into the hidden pocket of his vest. He felt naked without his robes or jacket. Then again, there was also a sense of palpable and relieved pleasure. Because it was ungodly hot here in this bright, overly-colored world.
Where was he, again? He hadn’t apparated or touched a portkey and yet one moment he was out riding his new charger, a birthday gift from his father, and the next? He was here. In all his travels, Anton had never seen such a place so filled with sunlight. Granted, his parents tended to prefer destinations in the northern hemisphere, where the days were shorter and the light had a watered appearance except in the highest mountains.
This place had begun to seem equally as remote as those, however. Since his arrival a mere half hour ago, Anton had seen no signs of life. That was, until his luggage had begun pushing at his legs more and more violently. There were the clear outlines of buildings in the distance, but no people. The walk had given him time. Time to pass through the unsettling stages of shock, anger, reluctant acceptance at the fact that he had no magic and no way of getting home. There was still a lingering curiosity - was he dead? Had his stallion thrown him, or had he perhaps missed some low-hanging branch across the trail? It didn’t seem likely, though there was a raised line stretching from one side of his forehead to the other. The area was tender enough that he’d only tried touching it once.
Lethargy threatened to rob him of all desire for forward motion, but then he saw her. She was familiar and welcome as a cool drink of wine, but what was she doing here? And if she was here, did that not mean that he was still alive?
She spoke something into the air between them. The look on her face was one of revulsion or dread or something equally unpleasant and Anton had the fortitude to wonder why she should look at him in that way. He’d never been anything other than kind to her. Everything was so confusing. Nevertheless, he smiled and bowed graciously, only fumbling once as he moved to sweep a nonexistent cap from his head.
“My lady Helena. How fare you?”
"A-Anton," she tripped over his name, giving the impression of just how scared she really was of his arrival. It took a second before her manners came back to her and she remembered to bow. She didn't take her eyes off of him while doing so though, not sure if she could trust him enough. He had killed her, after all. Much to her dismay, she had found this out while looking up information on the school and her family. He had then killed himself. So maybe this place was hell. It had taken her weeks to come to the conclusion that this was just some place she had been whisked off to on the whim of some absurd person with a strange sense of humor, but now, she was questioning that logic again.
She couldn't run anymore, now that he was there and staring her down. She had no where to run even if she could. "What are you.. How did you get here?" It was a question she wanted answered of her own self as well, and one that she didn't really expect him to answer.
Helena's mind was racing a million miles a minute. The last she had seen of him, he was beating her down with his fists. Now it looked as if he had taken just as bad a beating himself. "What happened to your head, Baron?" Sticking to titles was best, it was less confusing and better for sticking to her role. Her hand reached out to brush against the wound, the part of her that had taken an interest in Healing was yearning to get a better look and to take care of him. The more logical part of her mind, the part that remembered the life she had been living, acted in pulling back her arm from his face after just barely touching him. "I am sorry. Forgive me for acting out of turn." She lowered her head in apology, though still didn't take her eyes off of him.
Helena was certainly behaving oddly, given their recent engagement. Anton’s brow furrowed at her questions and her reticence. It wasn’t like the girl to be so and he worried silently. Regardless, he had no clear answers for her. Or at least none that would make sense to either of them. The only explanation could be magic, though he’d never heard of it behaving in such a manner as to suddenly whisk a person out of space and time. He only entertained that thought very briefly. Yes, it might have seemed like the perfect way to atone for his surroundings, but it wasn’t possible.
Was it?
And there she was, calling him Baron, a title she’d not used since she was much younger. Had something else happened that he couldn’t remember? Was he afflicted by some awful memory charm? Anton went to shake his head to clear it, but then he felt the cool touch of Helena’s fingers on the now-throbbing wound and sighed at the fleeting relief it brought. Without the self control he prided himself upon having, Anton would surely have snatched up her wrist and held Helena’s slender palm against his forehead. He allowed himself to imagine it - her sweet skin combating the pain and making the world right.
As it was, he had enough to do to ignore the trunks and bags that were knocking themselves rather insistently about his calves and threatening his already-unstable balance.
“I haven’t the faintest idea of how I got here or what this place is,” he replied, wishing his muddled thoughts would let him a moment’s peace. “Indeed, I was just this hour riding in the forests of my father’s estate. I remember nothing more until waking here.”
"You were... At your fathers? The last I saw you.." Helena trailed off. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe he was from her past, or her future, but he obviously wasn't taken from the same time she had been. The question was, how much did he know of what he had done to her? Did he know any of it? Was she silently terrified of him for no reason? He had been a perfect gentleman before she had run off to Albania. For a short time, she had been able to fool herself into believing that they could live a happy life together. It was why she had accepted his proposal. That, and her mother thought it was for the best.
Helena bit her lip, unsure of what to say. It took a minute before she remembered why she had snatched her hand back in the first place. "Oh, Anton. I am terribly sorry. We must get you inside. The luggage will not stop until you are in your Bungalow. I would also like to tend to that nasty bump on your forehead."
If she put herself into the role she knew she was supposed to play with him, it was easier to not seem so scared. She could push his beatings to the back of her mind and focus on the present. "I do not believe that there is anyone here who is really trained to be a healer, though I could be wrong on that."
Anton was quickly deciding he didn’t like this place at all. Helena, normally calm and something resembling a lady, was nothing like herself. She’d never acted this way before and he didn’t like that either. There was a distance and an awkwardness between them suddenly. To be sure, he’d never been the most suave of suitors after her hand, but he was sure she cared for him a little. After all, they’d been friends (or something like it) since they were children. In any other situation, he’d have held out his arm to her. Something stopped him this time, whether it was the luggage knocking about his legs or the revulsion she was trying so bravely to hide.
“What is this bungalow of which you speak? And why are there no healers? What is this place, Helena?” he asked, his frown returning. “How long have you been here?”
He thought of the wand inside his vest and felt a trickle of cold fear. Magic was his life. It was all he knew, being a pureblood. Not having it was beginning to feel a little like not having one of his arms. It was uncomfortable to think that he could not defend himself against whatever oddities he might find here.
Perhaps he really was dead after all and this was some strange hell in which nothing was as it should be. Surely he hadn’t been so terrible in life to deserve such a fate.
Helena inclined her head towards Anton, and gave him a smile. He hadn't tried to touch her and for that, she wasn't sure if she was worried due to the wound on his head, or if she were grateful, due to her time in Albania. It was all so very confusing. For the longest time, she had wanted someone who was like her to show up and be different in this place with her. Now that one had, she felt he was different. Maybe she was adapting to her surroundings, maybe not. Maybe, it was possible, that she didn't want anyone else from her time here. It would take away from her being... her. People here were starting to like Helena, not the Ravenclaw daughter. Helena was her own self and with no one else here who knew the rules that she lived by her whole life, she was able to break those rules more frequently and not be punished for the outcome. There were so few scandalous things here, in this time.
"The bungalow is the place in which you will reside. I dare say, you wont like it a bit. It's small and dingy, much like the whole Island. You are much more refined and use to more precious and grandiose things." Helena was trying to flatter him, trying to fall back into her old habits. She didn't want him to think anything was wrong with her, though she could tell that he was worried, that she was acting off from what he remembered her being.
"I do not know what, or where this place is. All I know, is that you and I, we are the only ones from our time. Everyone else here comes from at least 800 years after our time. Most of them, more. We have all come in, have been beaten up by our luggage, which I would not open if I were you, and have all been assigned homes and careers." She didn't look terribly happy. She knew he would not be pleased. As a Baron, work was not necessarily in his future. He was given everything he had ever wanted for, including Helena.
"I have been here for a few weeks now. Perhaps a month, if not more."
By this point, Anton’s countenance was positively stormy. His brows were so close together that they formed one jagged line, his dark eyes roiling and full. Confusion, frustration and perhaps a little fear warred there and he turned his face away to hide it from Helena. She was clearly coming into her element in this place - that much he could tell without much effort. The things she was telling him were unpleasant and made no sense whatsoever.
It wasn’t that Anton was afraid of hard work or getting dirty. On the contrary, he rather enjoyed putting his hands to a task and seeing something come of his labor. However, he was stuck in a place with people he didn’t know. People from different eras and lifestyles. More people to look at him and whisper how strange he was. How withdrawn and unapproachable. It had been that way from the beginning, when he first began his schooling at Hogwarts. Back then, years or centuries ago, Anton had spoken very little English. His Latin was fluent, so his lessons were a breeze. Making friends was an entirely different story. Life in the Nordic region was completely alien to medieval England. The customs and mannerisms were worlds apart and he had a hard time learning to fit in.
Then Helena had come along and brightened his wintry world. Perhaps she could do the same here. And, if she could become someone else entirely, why couldn’t he? A reinvention of self, as it were, no magic spells required.
After all, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d shared residence with others. Ach. There was time to figure all that out later. For now, his head had begun to throb and all he wanted was peace and quiet. To lie down, even. He withdrew the small piece of parchment on which was written his bungalow number and showed it to Helena. It took some effort to calm his facial features and he was almost smiling when he looked back at her.
“Would you mind helping me find this?”
Helena was starting to like the Island, much more now that she had found out should would be dead within minutes of going back to her natural home. The only thing she would have been happy with was a more structurally sound town. In all reality, she liked the spartan ways of the town. Everyone there, no matter where they had come from or done in their previous lives had a fresh start and something new to do with themselves here. There was something nice about that, if not completely scary at the same time.
But with that whole mind wave going forward now, Helena knew she needed to be fair with it. Anton deserved her respect, as a friend and a fellow inhabitant of the Island. Though to her, he was still no longer her fiance. She couldn't trust him. He had seemed nice enough before Albania, but that had all changed.
"Yes, of course. Let me take a look." Helena took the piece of paper, reading it over quickly and moving in the direction of where the bungalow was located. "Follow me. Just this way. It is not too far."
She went quiet for a moment, unsure if she should continue talking or if it would have been out of place. She wasn't sure, after being here for so long and being encouraged to be herself and free, she wasn't sure she could not speak out of turn, or wait for him to say something first. "How old am I? The time you come from?" She wanted to know how far behind he was. A week? Five years? It would all depend on how he would act around her and what he would know.
Now that he was moving forward again, Anton realized that his luggage wasn’t quite so insistent about damaging his legs. The respite allowed him time to think. Helena had said not to open the trunks. What was in them, that she should say such a thing? Did she have something similar, tucked away in her own bungalow? Such an interesting word! But one thing was for certain - his manner of dress was going to have to change. The heavy cloaks and tunics that he wore in his homeland would not do. If they were even here, which he was beginning to doubt.
So lost in thought was he that Anton nearly missed Helena’s questions. He didn’t mind them so much. She’d always been a curious one, much like her mother, but much less cautious. Granted, it didn’t exactly help him in making sense of his current situation.
“You’ve just turned fifteen. The year is 1125. Summer holidays are just starting and I’d returned to my home for a few weeks.” To tell his family the news. That Helena Ravenclaw was to be his wife after she finished school. There would be much celebration. If he ever got back. “I’d intended to invite you for a visit, but I suppose that will have to wait.” Who knew how long?
“You said there are jobs here. What sort of jobs are they?”
Fifteen? That was ages ago! She had been sixteen for almost three months now. A lot had happened in fifteen months to change her completely. Even before coming to the Island, she had been a different person. She had started to make herself known, that she didn't want to marry him, that she barely even liked him anymore as even a friend. He had changed as well. Enough to make her go against her mother's wishes and to go against him and claim that she didn't want him. She had embarrassed both him and her family, and then she had promptly run away, stealing her mother's most valuable possession.
"I am sixteen and some months now." And she did feel older. "So, you are from very recently after our engagement? I am sure your parents were thrilled when they found out." Her voice was dryer then she meant for it to come out, but there really was nothing she could do about that now. She wasn't incredibly happy. Helena wanted to go back to the library and hide herself in the stacks of the books, with her nose pressed between the pages, never to come out again. How else was she going to avoid Anton, living in such a place as this?
"Yes," she forced a chuckle, "I suppose it will have to wait." She had gone to his homeland that summer. She had been the perfect girl she was raised to be, posing as the proper wife that anyone would have been proud to call their own. Helena knew how to impress, at least she had that going for her.
"I am working as an assistant in the library, though I do believe I am assisting because of my young age. There is but one other here younger then me and she is fourteen. Others have such responsibilities as collecting trash, working at the bank and the grocery and a number of other things. Everything you would possibly think of is being done here and there is not as much complaining as you would think." Though that wasn't to say that there was no complaining.
The fact that Anton didn’t comment on her tone of voice meant little. It was just another tidbit that he filed away for consideration later, when he was alone. Or at least as alone as this island and its accommodations would allow him to be. That was a question he should have asked first, to determine just how many people he’d be sharing space with. If he ended up in a bungalow with a number of younger people who happened to be less than pure, things could very well get interesting. Not that magic matters here, he reminded himself quickly. The voice that spoke the words in his head was as bitter as he’d been outwardly at Hogwarts his last year, when he was done pretending to be friendly or charming.
He barely registered what he was saying as he answered Helena’s next question. “Yes, very recent. I have not told them yet. I was waiting until dinner.”
Again, the strangeness of the entire situation struck him mute and left him thinking so much that it seemed to make his headache worse. Yes, he must have fallen from his horse, though clearly, this place was no figment of his imagination. Anton didn’t possess the creative talent to invent such an environment. And any dreamworld of his wouldn’t require him to be living with those of inferior birth or blood in hovels the size of servants’ quarters.
At least the jobs would give him something to do, provided he wasn’t assigned some mundane occupation. While it was true he didn’t mind work, it was necessary that it keep his interest or there wasn’t much likelihood of his continuing in the field. Though perhaps there were rules here that rewarded good behavior? Bah. If someone was going to create such a place, there should have been explanations or hints or even whispers of what the hell it was all about. There should have been something to help him understand why Helena was so different. She was not the same girl he remembered and she was all too obviously out of sorts at being in his company. He hadn’t been sorted into Slytherin’s noble house without a shrewd mind, after all.
Now to find out what had changed and while he very much doubted she would answer, he decided to try a direct approach.
“Would you care to tell me what the next year is like, since I seem about to miss it?”
No, Helena did not want to answer that question. It was the last thing in the world she wanted to answer. He would not like the answer and she didn't want to upset him to the point of becoming distraught and hurting her. She had gotten so used to her freedom here that she didn't want it taken away by this man who thought that he would be in charge of her life again. "Far too much to tell you in just one sitting. Perhaps you could stop by the library and read up on it. That is how I learned," of our deaths, including my aunt and uncles and everyone else who had a name for themselves in our time. Helena didn't mention any of that last part, but she certainly wasn't going to be the one to tell him that he had killed her and himself. Maybe Mr. Harry could do it. Or Fred. Fred seemed so willing to jump in front of her when anything bad threatened.
Although, one mention that Anton was here and Fred would probably never leave her side again. She liked him well enough, but wasn't sure how that would fare for their friendship. And Helena desperately wanted that friendship, relied upon it sometimes.
"I am sorry you did not get the chance to speak to your parents. I am sure they would have been very happy for you. You know how happy my mother was." Helena sighed, though instantly regretted it. It was a sad sigh, even a bit nervous and she knew with that sound, that she was going to have to explain what it meant. "We never marry." She looked away, avoiding all contact with him, even taking a few small steps backwards, glad that she hadn't worn any of her new shorter dresses that she was beginning to like so much.
Helena’s words and actions stopped Anton in his tracks. His eyes narrowed and his mouth opened, as though he were going to say something in response. But really, what could he say to that? Was she lying? There was every possibility, though she’d never had reason to be false in the past...or so he believed. Then again, Ravenclaws were as capable as Slytherins when it came to lying. They were even better, perhaps, at telling outright untruths since they were smart enough to prove their case. Slytherins used manipulation and diversion. Even so, he was left without a reason and left with the understanding that she wasn’t going to tell him what he wanted to know.
A visit to the library was in order, then. Despite his better judgment, he was curious as to how his life turned out in the end. Given Helena’s reaction to his appearance and her most recent revelation, things likely hadn’t gone the way he intended. No matter. Could he really look and accept whatever he found, though? The temptation was great, surely, but if fate had dealt too cruel a hand, was this the place to change it? Was that the island’s purpose?
For now, he would be a gentleman and plead fatigue as an excuse to leave her. If his bow was a little stiff, he hoped she wouldn’t notice through the years of practice.
“Lady, I beg your leave to go and settle my things. I meant not to take up so much of your time and I believe I can find my way from here,” he said evenly. “I hope we are able to see more of one another soon, once I’ve rested and rid myself of this vile headache.”
With that, he spun as crisply as possible on his heel and followed his luggage down the path toward whichever bungalow was meant for him. Before coming here and seeing this new Helena, he might have risked a glance over his shoulder at her. Somehow he thought it might be a foolish thing to do now. He was going to have to be careful, here.