Post by Julian Winslow on Mar 10, 2013 19:57:02 GMT -8
Begins Sept 14, 2010 and the last paragraph happens Jan 6, 2012 - 7:25pm
He spends the night at the safe house for the first time in ten years.
The meeting itself wasn’t anything spectacular. Why was he here, they asked. How did he get to this time? He tells them; not the truth per se, but not all lies either. They don’t need to know he’s here to put an end to their little order; they don’t need to know he just wants to kill them all and stop his hell of a future from happening. He tries to remain impassive, though he doubts he’s really succeeding. They look at him the entire time with a sort of pity – in the cases of a few, open hostility. Julian just shrugs it all off as if it’s nothing. He doesn’t owe them anything.
He doesn’t sleep very long that night. It’s not like the safe-house was a bad place – it’s clean, you get three square meals a day and a roof over your head. But it was a reminder of times best forgotten. When they leave him in a room alone with Delilah, Julian sits on the edge of a beat up looking couch, feeling the cushions sink comfortably under his weight. He remains that way for a good long while, even after Del has told him to go to sleep and turned in for the night. He notices the blinds are half closed, so he marks the passing of time as shadows shift across the floor with the hours.
Julian doesn’t know when, but eventually he flops back on the couch. Sleep doesn’t come. Instead, blue-grey eyes travel the length of the ceiling until it meets the wall. They follow the wall down, taking in every small crack and imperfection along the way, the faded floral wall paper a reminder of happier days. They drift over the desk, the wardrobe; the end table that looks more familiar than it should. And then it hits him. This was his room. His room before he ran. Talk about irony.
As the seconds tick into minutes, and the minutes to hours he finally gives up on sleep. He goes to the bathroom that is thankfully attached to the small room and turns on the shower – a luxury he doesn’t get to indulge in very often back in his time. He strips down, tossing clothes haphazardly on the floor and steps in, letting the warm water cascade over his head and shoulders. It feels like years’ worth of dust and grime are being washed away. He doesn’t ‘t know how long he’s been in there but he knows the water is ice cold -- the way he prefers it – by the time he gets out. Julian doesn’t bother with clean clothes. He just puts his dirty ones back on and heads back out toward the couch.
He flops down onto it without a second thought and stares at the ceiling, dark eyes considering, lost in a sea of memories. Everything about this place seems wrong.
And it is so quiet.
By morning, Julian is sleeping on the floor.And it’s a little like a deaf shot
It feels odd to walk through the streets of Knockturn Alley. It’s been so long since he’s felt whole cobblestone beneath his feet, even and hard and it throws his stride off – it only takes a block or two before he’s back to normal but it makes Julian cringe.
The old rusty hinges creak as he pushes the door open to what in his time had been his favorite book shop, at least until the war turned it to a pile of rubble. The inside is dark, yet homey. Shelves and shelves of books line the walls; the familiarity of it startles him. He walks over to the section on Runes, letting finger tips ghost over the dusty covers until he absently pulls one from its home and gently flips through its pages. He takes a deep breath and breathes in the scent of leather and ink, a bit of familiarity in the unfamiliar. He doesn’t remember the cheeriness of the bookkeeper. To Julian, it’s as if he was the stranger here. Perhaps he was, and that hurts a little.That one you never heard before it hit
His mirror is fogged over when he steps out of the shower, a white towel wrapped around his waist. The floor is cold beneath his feet. Julian wavers there for a minute, his eyes blankly seeking something in the porcelain white sink. Then, catching his own gaze in the mirror, he frowns.
He can see the dark lines under his eyes, a sure sign of lack of sleep. There is an unnatural drawn weariness resting on his shoulders that makes the listless glitter of his eyes seem unhealthy. No wonder he had taken to getting drunk lately. Firewhiskey. The only way to keep his dreams at bay. Julian frowns further.
Through the streaks of precipitation still clinging to the glass pane in front of him, he seems like a distorted, broken picture of his former self. Something shattered and put back together. Fragmented. Broken. His stomach lurches violently, and he quickly uses one hand to wipe away the remaining areas of the mist hiding his face from view. When it still looks the same, he slumps to the floor and cradles his head in his hands for a long, long time.That sent you flying back with the impact
“We need to go see Trevor,” Del tells him matter of factly. A glimmer of hope flits across his eyes and the thought of seeing the man he has grown to call dad free of whatever curse holds him has Julian agreeing with Del, and against his better judgment, he apperates them to Trevor’s flat.
The greeting they received was on par with what he had been expecting. What he hadn’t expected though, was to be stunned and tied to a chair. He supposed the story about being form the future was a little hard to swallow. There were many things he could have said, but they find themselves caught in his throat, along the lines of his esophagus, tucked neatly between the screams and cries of worry and fear that had plagued him since the Trevor of the future went crazy.
He matches the man’s cold hard stare with his own as he tries to fight back a sigh of relief and a stupid grin. This was how he remembered Trevor. The man they would help. The man that meant everything to him. The man he would do anything for.
When Trevor asked who he was and why he was here, Julian spilled everything.Of all the things you could never forget
Why she chose now to re-enter his life he’ll never know. All he knows is that he hates her for it. Del says they can use this to their advantage. That she’s planning something, and they need to know what. He agreed to meet her even though he really didn’t want anything to do with her. So he goes. Across the Atlantic to some place in USA he’s never heard of.
The encounter goes about as well as could be expected, which in his opinion, wasn’t well at all. She wants to know about him, his life, but there is no give and take. She gives only small pieces and Julian has a hard time keeping all the stories straight. Casey. Evie. Trevor. He’s more inclined to believe Trevor though he’s sure Casey was telling at least a bit of the truth. He frowns. Either way she had never come back for him.
Surprise flits across his face at the casual mention that he has a brother. He had been replaced. Honestly Julian doesn’t feel anything at first, though that feeling of emptiness doesn’t take long to be replaced with, loathing, abandonment, and eventually, anger. She was doing to his brother what she had done to him. Passed the kid off on some other family. His mood darkens further when he wonders if Casey knows. The meeting takes a rapid downward spiral. She was right, perhaps he has a tainted view of her, but he does have two eyes, two ears, a brain and a heart buried somewhere under the hurt, and he could form his own opinions and thoughts on the matter. She wanted revenge and she wanted to keep him out of it. “I don’t know you,” she says. All he hears is, “I don’t want to know you.” He gets up and storms out, his emotions all over the map. Del’s threats don’t even register.
His mum wants nothing to do with him.And if you’re still bleeding your life out, well
He’s taken to drinking firewhiskey almost nightly now. It doesn’t matter where, so long as it’s not at the safe house. Sometimes he talks to other people but most of the time he keeps to himself, drinking the amber liquid until his throat is raw and Del has to come and get him.
It’s been five long months and they’re no closer to helping Trevor than when they first arrived. No leads, no plans, no nothing. He won’t admit it to anyone but he feels helpless. One night things change. Julian’s not sure why, but he knows he’s done just sitting around. He leaves the half-full bottle on the counter and leaves. Things for once in his life are going to go his way.You’re still bleeding your life out
He reads runes books with a fervor not seen since Trevor first got him interested in the subject. He has been doing so as soon as he was hangover free and feeling well enough that the words no longer danced across the page – there are notes and various runes scribbled in the margins.
He rereads the basic principles repeatedly. Base. Trigger. Focus. Everything he needs to make a single rune. It relaxes him and leaves his mind free to think of other things.
Because it’s hard when, sometimes in the middle of the night, he wakes up gasping, sweat-drenched and tangled in blankets, wondering where he is, why he isn’t huddled in the back of an alley, trying to drive back the resistance that is slowly beginning to win.
Slowly, he’s putting all the pieces together.But if you turn around you’ll find
Julian’s determined to talk to Trevor today. He needs to alter his paperwork and get inside Hogwarts. He figures going in as the Ancient Runes Professor would make things easier, though he’s not sure he can handle the students without killing them. Actually, he’s not sure he could handle the other professors either.
The last time he had set foot in the school was way back in his first year, when things were good. Back when his life was normal and before things decided to go to hell. The irony that both his parents had been professors was not lost on him and he can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. He decides that is another good reason he should drag Delilah along, or at least get her the ability to come and go as she pleased. She was the only person in this time that he could trust.
After weeks of searching he’s learned that it’s supposed to be in the Room of Requirement. Maybe Potter put it there after the Battle of Hogwarts to protect it. All Julian knew was if it was there, if he could find it, and it was going to tip the scale in this war in Trevor’s favor. He was sure of it.You’ll find that you pulled your own trigger