[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Meridian. Two months had passed with Odhrán barely stepping a foot inside the place. It was saddening how quickly everything he had worked for could fall apart. His patients had transferred out to other healers, his receptionist, Penny or Peggy or something had quit again and his magic was still not working properly. He struggled with his legillimency and even simple spagyric aspiration spells were not working reliably anymore. How could he help anybody, when he could no longer perform the magic that formed the core of his treatment style? There really was only one conclusion to draw from it all, and he didn't like it one little bit.

It was time to pack up and do something else. He didn't believe in making a full recovery anymore. Helene and Séverin had said things would take time, and he had waited patiently; but the hoped for improvement had not arrived. Instead, he was still struggling to cast spells and he was worried that if he started working again he would cause his patients harm. What if he lost control during a treatment and one of his spells backfired. The mere thought of it was enough to make him panic. He couldn't be responsible for hurting another person in such a way.

It was with a heavy heart he apparated to Knockturn Alley. His hand was unsteady as he put his key into the lock. Just go inside, he tried to convince himself. It didn't help. He stood on the steps in front of the entrance door and hesitated. Odhrán didn't feel ready to ho inside. Also, if he went, he'd be admitting defeat. He'd come to pack things up and clean out his belongings. Then he could look into selling the building, or maybe renting it out? He didn't know yet.

He was caught in limbo for a small eternity. Eventually, the voice of a young girl talking with her father snapped him out of his stupor. "What's wrong with him?" the girl asked her dad pointing in Odhrán's general direction. "Does he need help?" Oh, he most certainly did. Of course, this was not what happened in Knockturn Alley. The horrified father rushed his daughter along and finally Odhrán turned the key and stepped inside.

Barely through the door, the smell of rotting rosemary overpowered everything. Oh yeah, he'd forgotten about his supplies downstairs in the lab. Ugh. He left the door open and hurried to his workbench to start dealing with the source of the stink. Odhrán felt annoyed. He was here for all of a few seconds and already there was yet more that was going wrong. He was so done with this place.

[Deitha Albron]

It had been a surprisingly dull couple of months since she'd actually set eyes upon one Mr Ó Dálaigh and his rather lovely girlfriend. There had been the business with Spaulding, vaguely unsettling but she'd done what she had been tasked with doing and that was that. The other jobs were very much the run of the mill, nothing even resembling a challenge - but then again, that compassion had been showing again, and there was something about it that was rather endearing, cloyingly sweet even. It made truly haunting people a shade difficult if you had an ounce of remorse for it after the fact.

But she hadn't had the nightmares, so that was something, though she knew she needed to talk to Odhrán.

When she and Aoibheann had found him that night, they hadn't known what to do, whatever had gone down was serious enough that it was beyond her rudimentary healing skills - scaring folk rarely needed physical healing after - and they'd shipped him off, against her conscience at the very least, to St Mangled's. She hadn't known how long healing would take, but she turned up a week on to find Meridian locked, dark and grim. If buildings had a look, Meridian had a look that resounded as a melancholic haunted emptiness.

Whatever had befallen Mr Ó Dálaigh, it had begun here and somehow lived on in spite of its owner's absence.

She'd come back a few times hoping not to find the door locked, and the place disturbingly quiet. Not run-down, it hadn't been long enough for that, but the haunted emptiness lurked. Lurked, like the airy lightness of the place had seeped out of every orifice.

It must have been a fortnight or more since her last trek to that part of London, and every time she came it felt like the world was just one shade more grim. Hope dies last, but it does eventually give out, and she didn't know how many more times she could visit. Inwardly she laughed; it was ridiculous - she'd been as a patient, what, twice? Then as a friend, what, twice? He was little more than a stranger to her - and yet... the two of them seemed connected somehow. That day in Azkaban felt like more than coincidence even though that was all it was.

But the door was open ajar. Deitha scrunched up her nose. That didn't seem like a good sign. Switching Bonehead to her off-hand, drawing her wand with her wand hand, she pushed the door open with a boot-tip.

"Odhrán? Are you here?"

But there was only a faint echo through the reception area. Then a scuffle and a shuffle and a noise from downstairs.

Closing the door behind her, telling Bonehead to stay at the door, she edged towards the stairs. Phew, what the... what was that stench? What did he keep... no... what had he kept that had now died a putrid death? She'd have to remember this stench, though, bad smells tended to set off her punters more than nasty images.

Descending the stairs, she found Odhrán pottering about with what looked like a stern expression on his face.

"Ah, so there you are. Sorry for barging in and all, but the door was open and I didn't want to think about if burglars had gotten in or something. Anything I can do to help?"

She held the sleeve of her dress over her nose. Whatever he had previously stored down here, it stank in its unmaintained form.

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

"Deitha!" Now there was a face he hadn't expected. But she was welcome, very welcome even. Emerging from behind the counter he lifted up his hands, now stained in a greenish brown after dealing with the rosemary situation. "I'd hug, but you don't want this goop on you." He awkwardly leaned forward to press a hasty kiss against her left cheek. "And you brought your hellhound too!" A soft laugh. "Afraid I don't have any treats on me for you, Miss Bonehead. But you can have a cuddle later. Once I've cleaned up in here."

Odhrán tried to hastily fire off a charm to deal with the smell. Despite performing the wand movement perfectly, the spell didn't form and fizzled out with an awkward hiss. If he felt embarrassed, it didn't show in his features. The last few weeks had been humbling with how many times his magic had failed him and how often he had messed up in front of others. Incompetence was slowly becoming his new normal. He didn't like it, of course, but what could he really do?

He made another attempt at the spell, this time more successfully. "I just need to vanish a few more of these herbs," he explained to Deitha, indicating one of his storage cabinets. "I had a whole raft of fresh produce in here to use for spagyric work that I unfortunately had forgotten all about. And I guess nobody thought I would be away for this long. Anyway, the stasis charm I normally keep those under seems to have worn off and everything rotted away. Ruined... and gotten into the wood on the shelving..."

Looking at Deitha awkwardly he tried to wrangle his emotions back into a manageable state. Having a mess on his hands was more than he'd felt ready to deal with. "I'll never find a buyer for this place now if it smells like this." Pushing his hands directly into a pile of rotting herbs he managed to vanish it. "If you give me a couple of minutes, we can have a tea upstairs where it's a bit less pungent."

Odhrán slinked past Deitha and Bonehead elegantly to wash his hands in the nearby sink. "Anyway, how have you been and how are the nightmares? Is everything still holding?" A bit of worry coloured his tone now. Hopefully, she hadn't come for treatment. He didn't think he could offer that anymore. His mind fired off along multiple vectors trying to work out who to refer her too if she was indeed here for help. Deitha, well, he unexpectedly found himself caring deeply. He barely knew the woman, but their lives were somehow connected now. It felt so palpable that he couldn't just deny the reality of it.

[Deitha Albron]

"Waitwaitwait... before we talk about me, we need to talk about you. You're selling this place?"

She paused, tried not to take a breath because the pungent... it was hardly aromatic... was getting everywhere. It would take a charm, a number of charms, to fix that smell. But if anyone could manage it, she figured it would be him.

There was a moment where she ran through everything she knew since finding Odhrán in that moment, realising what a state he was in and shipping him off to St Mangled's. She hadn't liked it - and neither had Aoibheann! - but what else could either of them have done differently? But whatever had happened then had done a real number on him. It was unsettling because in the time she'd been under him as a patient, he'd been so controlled in his reactions, even if his internal emotions weren't in agreement, and now clearly something was wrong.

"Are you selling the place because your magic's busted?"

Deitha didn't quite know where that came from but the fact he was asking after her - with a face devoid of colour - meant he was unsure if he could help. Combine that with the spryagic herbs going rotten when he'd had a spell on them, and it wasn't a deduction worthy of a detective of a generation to put it together. Even some of the more thick-headed of the Auror's Office could put that together, as she'd had occasion to discover along her travels. A thought wandered to Mr Rynne, he was sharper than the others.

"OK, so I'm going to let you clean this up a little bit more so the smell doesn't get any worse. Then I'm going to make us both tea and you and me need to have a chat. We're overdue one - we need to talk about what happened in Azkaban, and this time your ladyfriend isn't going to distract us."

She went upstairs to the kitchen, with Bonehead just sat placidly in the reception area, minding her own business, and had a rummage in the cabinet for tea preparations. She thought back, to what they'd had the last time she'd been here. She'd had something peachy, she remembered making a joke about it, and he... he'd had jasmine.

Holding a cup in each hand, she waited in the reception area for Odhrán to be done with some clean-up. She didn't know where he'd want to sit, but it was going to be where he felt comfortable.

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Odhrán winced painfully. Hearing Deitha verbalise his thoughts gave them a soul-crushing air of reality. Having them mirrored back at him as statements was heartbreaking and it took effort not to crumble in front of Deitha. His magic was busted. He'd not have put it quite so crassly himself, but that didn't mean he didn't recognise his truth in her words. He bit his lower lip to force his reaction to what she had said on the inside, but his big blue eyes betrayed just how much hearing these words out loud hurt. It seemed that in lieu of losing his magic, his ability to lie was failing him as well. Of course, he hadn't been given time to put on his healer persona nor had he expected that he might be needing it. It was too late anyway, Deitha knew just how human, flawed and vulnerable he was underneath the makeup and when he was not putting on a show for his patients.

"Yes we need to talk," he agreed. There was the small matter that Deitha was now privy to knowing some things about him he didn't want to become public knowledge. If she was observant, and he credited her with being that, there was also a chance she had worked out some of his intentions and perhaps next steps. He couldn't imagine her having any moral objections to his vague plans, but perhaps there were some helpful pointers to be had. Deitha was good at putting people back into their place and reminding them not to stray from what was virtuous and lawful.

As she slinked upstairs with Bonehead in tow, Odhrán attacked his scent and rotten herb problem with new vigour. Having a bit of a spring in his step seemed to help with making short work of the vanishing. Checking the shelf again he was sure that anything perishable had been removed. Of course, with the lab having little ventilation it would probably take some time for the stink to fully dissipate. He threw another couple of charms at it to somewhat lessen the impact and hoped that time and open windows and doors everywhere would help with airing this out. He cleaned his hands again before following her upstairs.

Standing in the reception area he sniffed critically. "Let's have the tea upstairs," he suggested. "I'm still smelling the rosemary." He wasn't sure if that was imagined or real. His nose felt a little oversensitive after the assault it had been subjected to in his lab. It didn't take long to climb stairs to the very top floor and he let them both into his office. The room looked a little more cluttered than was his usual style. There were a few folded up jumpers on his desk and a bunch of personal affects sat in a little box waiting to be taken home at some point.

He settled in one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace and waited for Deitha to take the other. "I was thinking about if I should have written to you," he admitted quietly. "But then, I never ask for those kind of personal details on admission. Clearly a mistake." He tried to give a small smile, but now that he was coming to rest again, the expression in his eyes erred more towards listless. He probably looked just as broken as he felt.

[Deitha Albron]

She followed him to the chairs and handed him the cup of jasmine, before settling herself in the other chair. Before saying anything, she allowed herself to simply inhale the scent of the tea.

"So..." she began, "I think it might be best if I start with what I was doing in Azkaban that day and what's happened with me since then. Just to get it out the way, since you asked, your charm work is holding just fine, that's not why I'm here."

It had to be said, needing a little air-clearing, but that wasn't what she wanted to focus on. "I was there that day with a Ministry escort doing some recon work. There's a few folks suspected of dark magic, and one wretch in Azkaban for no crime he actually committed, but there because he was paid to take the fall for someone else. That someone else is connected to one Vincent Spaulding, who is a thoroughly odious pudding of a man who pretends to the muggles and magical alike that he's somehow one of them."

She took a sip of tea, wondering which strand of the tangled skein she wanted to follow next. Perhaps chronologically.

"I get hired sometimes to find things, not just to scare people back onto the straight and narrow, since some of my ... clients ... don't pay because because they think they can tough it out and simply hide the money, so finding people, things, information, it's a particular set of skills that's worth having when a simple Accio won't do the job. And that day I was there to interrogate someone because the Ministry thought I was either more effective - or more likely cheaper - than their other alternatives, which as I said, led me to Spaulding."

She stared into her tea for a moment, watching it swirl. She could only put off this next part of the conversation for so long and perhaps like a bandage on a wound, opening it to the elements was what was needed.

"I'd just finished doing what I do when I heard a bang - your blasting spell - and went to see what was going on, because any commotion in Azkaban doesn't tend to end well. The emotions get all fired up, the Dementors think it's party time."

And that was where it got extremely awkward.

She looked down into her tea again, not wanting to make eye contact. "That was about the time we bumped into each other. I didn't pay attention to most of what the two of you said, I was a little distracted, but the reality is that I did hear a list of names. Names that don't mean much to me, but clearly they did to you. I didn't have you down as the vengeful type exactly, but on reflection, when we talked about good but not necessarily pleasant deeds and, I don't know, maybe something clicked that day. Time to right an old wrong perhaps. I... know some of the signs, I see it sometimes."

A deep breath, and an inhalation of the scent of tea. The peach was still stronger than the vanilla, just as she'd remembered about his choice of tea blends. She also considered that there was a lot to say, a lot of gaps to fill in, and that perhaps she should have made herself two cups.

"I don't know how much you remember about that day in Azkaban. I'm sure you must remember every word you and your father exchanged, but what happened after, I'm not so sure about." She peered at him as if trying to squint through into his brain. Inwardly she hoped it might provoke a smile, her being very much not a legilimens.

"I'd pulled a few tricks out of my sleeve to keep the Dementors at bay but when it came down to it, you were the one who came through with that moosive moose. Or is it an elk? I don't know enough to tell the difference, but it was massive." She giggled, "The Dementors didn't know what to make of it at all!"

"Now, I'd have preferred to come back with you rather than with my Ministry minder, but he positively insisted. And that, was that."

A quick swig of tea. Not too much, mind. There was more to the story yet.

"I didn't know at that point what sort of shape you were in - I'd figured you'd have been Dementor-proof in there, if anyone could keep them out it had to be you, but whatever you and your father talked about, whatever you did changed that balance."

She sighed. "I was sent home and I cuddled with Bonehead for a bit until I felt a little more in touch with the world but I can only imagine how you must have been ruminating over everything that happened... you seem the type. It's in your eyes, they're very intense. I don't know exactly what happened next, but I came by the next day because you and I needed to talk about what had happened."

She drained her cup, and smiled ruefully to herself. "You might have the deep dark backstory but I'm not sure you're quite cut out for vengeance. It's not for everyone. But what I can tell you about what happened next... I came by looking for you because experiences like that change people and while I might not be a therapist, I knew both of us would at least need to say something about it, and ideally not to anyone else."

She set the cup down, set her hands together on her lap in absence of anything else to do with them. "But when I got here, you weren't here - and the door was open. But Aoibheann was here and we got talking - we were both worried about you and we didn't know where you were, but we found you and you were pretty out of it. Trouble is, neither of us are healers and when we found you, we really weren't sure what to do with you - so the best thing we could think of was to get you to St. Mangled's because, well, you weren't around to consult."

"After that, your ladyfriend snuck into St. Mangled's, kept an eye on you, and by all accounts got some people from the continent involved. I don't know much about that, and frankly... that's your business. She's nice, I like her, and she deserves good things to happen - both of you do. But we both know the world isn't like that."

She picked up the tea cup, hoping it would have more peach tea in it but knowing it wouldn't, and set it back down again with a very slight pout. She decided against mentioning her trip to the Auror's Office for now. There was enough going on without worrying Odhrán more.

"So, you think your magic is busted, and you're selling up and you're going to... retire to a cottage in the country and have lots of little Ó Dálaighs? They'd probably be way cute. Or are you planning on putting aside that and going out for revenge, because after all this time it's not vengeance, it is revenge, and that I'm really not sure you have the stomach for."

She looked out the window. "I didn't have the stomach for it either, not really, and it was me they hurt. I told myself I was better than them, that I wasn't going to stoop to their level, but when I had found those who did... what they did... I couldn't say the words out loud. My vocal cords just wouldn't say them."

She let out a breath. "Well, that's all I have to say for now." She cleared her throat and with a smile and every bit of fake sincerity in her voice that she could manage - on purpose - she said, "So, how have you been?"

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Odhrán sipped on his tea taking in what she had to say. There was a lot to digest. She seemed worried that he was one to take revenge when his temper was running hot, and he couldn't help and awkward look at that. She wasn't wrong, but she wasn't right about him either. His discipline was important to him and he could control himself in most situations.

Spaulding. That name was eerily familiar though he couldn't quite place it yet. There was somewhere he had heard it before. His mind was searching for it, but for now coming up with very little while he was trying to figure out at the same time just how much he trusted Deitha. I'm the end, the answer was easy. He was all in.

"I've been, well, as good as I can be. Aoibheann and you did all the right things. I'm grateful. St Mangled's was the best choice out of a bunch of bad options. My mother, thankfully, knew what to do and whom to call."

He looked into Deitha's eyes lost in his own thoughts. Darkness was encroaching from all sides and he just seemed tired and exhausted again. It was still clinging to him even after his long recovery period.

"I suppose I do owe you some answers." An uncomfortable admission, but he pressed on."You have a few things right about me, but not everything Deitha."

Odhrán let out a deep sigh.

"Azkaban didn't break me. I was broken long before we ever went there. My magic has been unreliable for a long time. It's just that I've now reached the point where I'd be doing my patients harm if I continued. So it's my time to stop, even if..."

He found himself choking up. This was so hard to say out loud. He hated having to admit that he had failed in such a spectacular way and had let himself and everyone around him down. Even more daunting was the prospect of where to go from here.

"And I don't know what I'll do. Yes to the little Ó Dálaighs if my girlfriend will have me. Perhaps, I'll start composing for the harp again, focus on music or I'll find some work that doesn't require much magic. Honestly, I don't know. I've been trying to figure it out, but I never really made a backup plan what I'd do if not this. It was like a calling for me."

He sounded like a corny idiot. He never spoke this honestly about his work. Sure, he'd started many years ago with wanting to help his sister, but it had become so much more. It was part of who he was and how he defined himself. There was no denying it now.

"I can fill you in on my deep, dark backstory and my list of names. Your Spaulding, let's just say we have him in common. But I think you want to know what happened to me after Azkaban, so let me explain."

He took another sip of tea.

"I became a healer and legillimens for personal reasons at first. There was a case in my family, I wanted to help. The combination of mind magic and healing is a fairly underrepresented discipline. There aren't many who practise, it's got a pretty high entry barrier on magical skill to be any good at it.

Anyway, I took a lot of cases like yours Deitha, many much worse. And usually I see the victims much, much sooner. Sexual assault, violence, unforgivable curses and of course obliviation. They're so gruesome I don't have words to even tell you. A lot of the times healing these patients, if you can even call it that, is a very grim process. Obliviation can often only be broken by inflicting pain. I started to have issues holding spells after a sequence of pretty harrowing cases. My mind would know what was needed, but my body wouldn't let me cast the spells anymore.

It's been getting worse and worse progressively. I had a fair idea what it was, but I tried to ignore it. I tried taking fewer patients, did less spell work which is actually the opposite of what you should be doing in that situation, but I was exhausted. In the lingo we call this obscurial pathology. Where the imbalance of mind and suppression of magical talent leads to a volatile magical force that becomes explosive.

Anyway, the week before I saw you in Azkaban I took yet another case. A sexual assault and systematic abuse victim. One of the most gruesome and harrowing cases I've ever had. You wouldn't believe. It was so bad.

I panicked, I didn't even know where to start. It took hours to unpick and my magic kept failing on me. It's when I realised that well, total burnout was close. See, when an obscurial pathology reaches critical mass the result is a magical explosion, often leaving the wizard magically broken afterwards. Knowing what was coming my way, well, I knew I had to do Azkaban sooner rather than later. And so I did.

When I got back... I didn't go for revenge. I was in no state. I won't lie, I wanted to - but I went for a drink instead. I had a fight with someone at the bar and my magic burned out and laid waste to everything around me. The state you found me in, I did that to myself."

He shrugged awkwardly.

"So, I'm healing, but of course it's slow progress and you saw. Helene, my healer, thinks I'm fine physically, but that my mind has been compromised. So here I am packing my life into boxes. I'm struggling a bit if I'm honest."

"So, still want that sad and dark back story?"

[Deitha Albron]

Deitha listened attentively to everything Odhrán had to say. Part of her wished she had more tea with which to digest everything, because he had a lot to say, and she'd misjudged him a little in terms of the darkness of the clouds hanging over him of late. She supposed that it was inevitable, that someone who had such a radical outlook on treatment as to go directly into a patient's mind and just disconnect something there had to have some sense of shifted morality. And it explained how tired he'd looked the last time she'd been here as a patient.

When he'd finished, he'd left it hanging with asking if she wanted the sad and dark backstory.

She tilted her head to one side just until it gave a slight popping sound. "Oh, Odhrán. Where do we even begin?" There was the merest hint of a sigh in there somewhere.

"First things first. Where I come from, obscurials are not pathologies. They're weak people. People who don't step up and own who they are and what they can do. All the time you run from who you are, you're pulling on a piece of elastic. Pulling it tighter and tighter until it snaps back. Where I come from, obscurials are the weak-hearted, the weak-minded, the weak-willed. You didn't strike me as that." It came out a little more brusquely than she had intended.

"Then again, Durmstrang teaches the Dark Arts, and no-one can safely step into the darkness, not even in service of the light, with a weak heart or a weak mind. It taught me that what happened to me was a sign of weakness on my part, and I learned not to be weak again." She found her voice hardening, knowing that here, in this space, it wasn't... entirely... true. But true enough.

Moreover, whatever sense Deitha tapped into to get to peoples' fears - legilimancy it was not - was working overtime.

"You're afraid of your potential. Who wouldn't be in your position? You go into peoples' minds and the slightest wrong move leaves people with the potential to be the meatsack equivalent of a potato, planted in the ground and growing out of the dirt."

She sighed. "The only question is what you want to do about it. By all means, pack up this place, run away to wherever you live, have all the little Ó Dálaighs with your cute ladyfriend. But that won't solve your problem. That'll just guarantee you bury it, until you can't any more - isn't that something you tell your patients not to do, ultimately? You just make it easier for them by being able to see inside their head."

"Run away, Mr Odhrán Ó Dálaigh, pull that elastic tighter and tighter, but when it snaps, I will be there, just so I can say I told you so."

There it was, just the least subtle hint of twisting the knife. She waited to see how he reacted to that before twisting it any further, but her mind was quite clear on the subject: this was running away, not facing the problem head on. She knew she was goading him, because for once, less was definitely not more.

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

NSFW. Dark Magic, Violence.

Deitha's reaction was not what he expected. Odhrán had been banking on some understanding and sympathy. Seeing what he had seen, dealing with what he had dealt with he felt very well entitled to some patience and kindness. Hadn't he done enough? Hadn't he sacrificed enough of his soul yet for the sake of his patients?

"Let me explain," he tried to interject, but she kept going on calling him weak and afraid. He was gritting his teeth as she spoke of her education and how she had learned not to be weak. She knew nothing. She was just a stupid and naive girl. Did she really think her little parlour tricks impressed him.

"That is not true and you know it," he seethed angrily. "Take it back."

And yet she still wasn't done provoking him. He felt something inside of him give way to violent emotion.

"You forget whom you are speaking to," Odhrán hissed angrily. "I'm not weak-hearted. I'm not weak-minded. And you will only hear me say this once, I am far, far more powerful than people think, you included."

He flexed his fingers, trying to release some of the tension he felt.

"People always assume I am kind," he gave her an intense stare, "I think it's the accent. Makes me sound like I'm a kindly uncle who tells nice fairy tales. The truth is I am frightening. I learned the Dark Arts same as you, Deitha. I might not have gone to Durmstrang, but I'm a graduate of Collège & Lycée von Aspermont. I can curse in three languages and I can promise you that I have done darker things than scaring a few punters into paying their bills."

"Do you want the truth of me? Do you?"

He snapped.

"Legillimens."

His blue eyes flashed in anger and buried himself into her thoughts with brutal force.

"Let me show you what it takes to undo obliviation."

The thoughts poured from his mind and into Deitha's with angry intensity. The scenery around them shifted. They were no longer in Meridian but somewhere in Old Quebec. From the window of the room they were in there was a beautiful view of the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac. In front of them was a numb looking young woman with a younger Odhrán. His past self was pouring two potions into a bowl before the girl, chanting over the bowl in German language. One potion was red as blood, the other one a nasty black sludge.

Schwarz und Rot. Bald bist du tot.

Past Odhrán pushed his hand into the potion and dark tendrils started to grow from the bowl beginning to choke the patient before him. The woman screamed.

"Oh, so you can make a sound," came his voice in a cold and callous manner. "Let's try this again then, my dear. Who did this to you? Do you remember?"

The patient shook her head. Past Odhrán balled his fist inside the bowl of potion. The patient gasped for air painfully, writhing in agony.

"Say it," he demanded of the patient. His blue eyes flashed dangerously while his free hand moved through the air casting one incantation after the other. The girl's hands flew to her head as she started screaming. Legillimency had entered the picture hitting into the girl's mind like a blunt hammer. "Yes, good, remember. Remember it all." The patient started seizing and thrashing about violently. Eventually her body stopped convulsing. She'd passed out from the pain.

Past Odhrán stopped casting and swept the girl up in his arms, holding her for long time. His eyes were teary, his look exhausted. He pressed his hand against her forehead murmuring memory and healing charms under his breath.

The images faded. Present Odhrán relinquished Deitha from the forceful link he had initiated.

"That patient came to see me for help. Help! Not for me to brutalise her. And yet this is the only way. Multiple sexual assaults covered with a shoddily done obliviation. She couldn't remember how to speak, how to use the bathroom how to take care of herself. What you saw is one of many treatments she had."

Odhrán looked down at his hands to notice they were shaking. Magical energy was sizzling under his skin, close to breaking through to the surface.

"All magic comes with a price. I can't anymore. I'm done. The people who perpetrate these crimes, put these patients into these states always get way with it." He gesticulated towards the pensive behind them. "The last young woman through here... years of systematic abuse involving sexual degradation and human transfiguration. You can see the punter who did it in the memories in the bowl and his glib little smile. He's positively giddy about what he did. The little shit even knows I am powerless against him. Evidence obtained through legillimency is not admissible in court."

He was so angry his voice was getting considerably louder with each sentence spoken.

"Deitha, it's too damn much for anyone to take. The more cases I see, the more I want to hunt these punters down and make sure they never hurt another person again. And at that point, what would make me any different from them?"

[Deitha Albron]

NSFW: Dark magic, violence, mentions of traumatic incidents.

Deitha listened to him getting angry. What she'd said and done so far was clearly not enough to goad him into retaliating, but that was clearly what was needed: bottling it up until it exploded was only guaranteed to explode.

She figured some of what he was saying, she'd anticipated some of it. He hadn't been that phased when he'd looked into her mind on her first session here. That told her that he'd seen that sort of thing before, because it didn't shock him. Her evasiveness hadn't swayed him either, it was why she'd trusted him, precisely because he was telling her something of himself in the process.

She hadn't been wrong about him after all, as he gave her one or two of the more harrowing stories. But it was clear that in order to help him, she had no choice but to twist the knife some more.

And inwardly as she listened to the stories, she kept her expression as carefully calm as she could but she too was getting angry. People being hurt, like she was. Abused. Violated. The kind of monsters that had created her were creating more, from people who didn't or couldn't fight back.

She sighed, angrily, almost at a snort. "You must think I'm some stupid little girl who turns party tricks to frighten the odd punter into paying up a few Galleons. The reality is a little more complicated. That day at Azkaban, I was there to interrogate a prisoner, as I said. An innocent man who willingly went to Azkaban. A man rightly terrified of the Dementors and their gradual erosion of his soul. And yet, five minutes with me and he'd lost control of his bowels - out of fear. And all I did was talk to him." She paused. "Five minutes and I showed him his deepest, darkest fears, and he spilled his guts, in all the ways. And I'm not even a legilimens. I don't have your fancy tricks to push images into other peoples' minds."

"And then," she continued, "little old me, this five foot nothing pipsquick of a stupid naive little girl caused a Dementor to know fear, probably for the first time in its disgusting shambling existence. Do not take me for a naive little girl - or a conjuror of party tricks."

She sneered. "But now we're getting to the heart of the problem. And it is as I thought. You're a coward. Worse, you're a coward hiding behind a thin veneer of morality, out of shame."

If he was angry before, this was going to set him off. Which was exactly what she was counting on. The magic was itching under his skin where he'd been bottling it up. Better he let it out here. Fewer casualties.

Before he could react, she stood up, drew her wand, and twirled it in her fingers while muttering something. The room grew darker, more foreboding, more intense, the light from the window less able to pierce the gloom as if the room itself were afraid and trying to close its eyes.

Her eyes darkened, until they were little more than pale blue glows in black eye sockets, her feet - and the rest of her - levitating a few inches off the ground by way of a careful levitation charm on her boots, and a faint hint of azure outlined her, crackling in the gloom. She was quite proud of the set of charms she had assembled, it was very good for making sure people focus on her and disarm any immediate retaliation out of a sense of 'what the...?'

And when she spoke, her voice had taken on that unnaturally deep register that Odhrán might have heard in Azkaban.

"YOU FEAR YOUR POTENTIAL. YOU ARE AFRAID OF THE MONSTER YOU THINK YOU'D BECOME."

The crackling in the air was palpable. It tugged at Deitha's dress, her hair.

"TOO LATE. YOU ARE ALREADY A MONSTER - YOU KNOW WHO IS RESPONSIBLE AND OUT OF YOUR OWN PATHETIC FEAR YOU DO NOTHING. GIVE YOURSELF TO THE DARKNESS TO SERVE THE LIGHT - YOU KNOW WHAT MUST BE DONE. IF ONLY YOU HAD THE CONVICTION."

With a snap of her fingers, as if someone had cut the strings of a puppet, Deitha collapsed back into the chair, everything returned to normality as it had before, though her wand was still in her hand.

"If you had an ounce of strength in your heart, you'd stop these people hurting others. But since you're clearly incapable of doing so, I guess I'll stop by your pensieve, learn who did this and deal with them for you. Free of charge."

She got up. "You don't have it in you to deal with this. You don't have the stomach for vengeance. Don't get up, I'll see myself out after going to the Pensieve. Enjoy your tea."

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Everything she said kept fanning his flames. Odhrán balled his fists. His magic was throbbing in his veins and pulsing violently, begging him to hurl a spell at the woman in front of him. He had to bite down on his lip to keep his temper in check. She would not get the better of him. There was no way Deitha was winning this argument. And just what was it to her anyway? Why did it matter to her if he kept healing or if he walked away? Who was she to tell him anything? He'd teach her a lesson in humility if he had to.

He was about to hurl an insult at her when the room darkened and she clothed herself in a blue aura. Odhrán blinked. Hadn't she just lectured him that she didn't resort to cheap tricks. He watched her as she floated and a part of him twisted in amusement. He couldn't help an exasperated scoff. Really? Now? When they were having a serious conversation? Well, if one could call it that.

Her magically amplified voice levelled a pretty bold accusation at him. Did doing nothing really make him a monster? He certainly had this thought before, not that he was keen on admitting to it. His moral objections weren't shallow excuses. There were good reasons for him never crossing certain lines. How dare she belittle his concerns and struggles? He felt his anger flaring again, this time even stronger than before. He'd gone through so many sleepless nights over. He'd battled with himself. He'd tried so damn hard to make sense of it all.

Her magical light show faded and she made a play for his pensieve.

"DEITHA," he roared angrily. "Don't you dare do things in my name. Just because I don't share your convictions doesn't mean you get to ride roughshod over me."

The look in her eyes was enough to make him snap. His magic leaked from his hands and into the room. A stream of green light flooded the room, blinding them both momentarily. He stood up. His nostrils flared, his shoulders straightened. He hadn't aimed for anything consciously. His magic was doing whatever it wanted. His eyes had gone completely black and his figure became superimposed with a silver outline. Mist swirled around his head and coalesced into a pair the massive ghostly antlers, rather resembling his Irish elk patronus.

A flick of his hand and he was holding a ball of green fire. The flame lapped coolly against his skin, but didn't seem to bother him in any way.

"Listen to me," he growled at her as he hurled a ball of magical flame in her direction. As soon as it was gone, another seemed to spawn inside his hand. "You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing here without my permission. My patients, my worries and if it must be that way, my vengeance." He illustrated his point by hurling more fire in her general direction. Fortunately for Deitha, his aim was tragic. "And my rules, my morals and my convictions." His green fire flared with roaring intensity.

However, he'd run out of things to say. Standing there, an awkward silence filled the room and his burst of anger dissipated just as quickly as it had come. What now? His magic ebbed, the light faded, his fires extinguished and he felt rather silly standing where he was, watching a lingering lick of green flame burn a hole in the upholstery of his armchair. 

[Deitha Albron]

Deitha looked at him with an expression of new-found respect and the slightest hint of admiration. It even crept into her voice, not that it was actually new to her. But she needed him to think it was new - for now.

"Well, well... how was it for you?" She was aware it was a phrase some used after... private and intimate events, and if anything qualified, this did, with him grandstanding the way she did. She'd seen his magic at work, both as a patient and as an observer, and it was subtle, understated, reserved. Nothing like hers that almost always veered immediately into the theatrical because it worked better for her needs.

"You see, there's nothing wrong with your magic, there never was. Only the fire within you to actually use what was given to you, and, well, you do have a fire in you after all."

A curious glance at the armchair - it really was smoldering quite nicely under his green flame. "Maybe you should put that out."

There was a rather awkward pause. "I knew you had it in you all along. But the only way for you to actually realise it was for you to actually push through your own barriers and use some magic with just feeling it, not thinking about it. I was counting on making you angry enough to actually do something."

She sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't really want to, but looking around this place tells me how much you put into it and you were about to leave it all behind. I couldn't - with this compassion I now have - at least try to do something. And why should I care whether you have your magic or not? Simple, my card says it all: 'custodian of incomplete obligations'. You, Mr Odhrán Ó Dálaigh, are a very incomplete obligation and I felt compelled to come here and see how you were - and clearly, knock some sense into you."

She paused, head tilted to one side. "We should have some more tea and I promise I'll be nice now. You've seen that your magic does work. If the things that happened were as bad as you said, you and I have work to do where we're going to need both our magic."

She swallowed, serious voice on. "You said these people were untouchable. They're only untouchable if you play by the rules. They don't - so why should you? You even said yourself last time I was here as a patient, about the possible benefits of..." She paused, trying to remember how he'd said it exactly. "...a few good, but not necessarily pleasant, deeds. And we talked, you and me, about making choices, and about what we can live with."

"That's the choice you have here. That's the choice you don't think you had, and the one I'm giving you back: you can walk away from all this, and let your inner fire consume you, or you can do something about all this, and if you're even half the man I know you are, you will probably find that living with yourself afterwards is less troublesome than you think right now."

She hurried away, in the direction of the kitchen. She had been so sure when this had kicked off that pushing his buttons was the way to go. Now she was doubting herself, but she wasn't going to let him see it. Not like this. But she was shaking with the adrenaline, with the fear, she had made a pretty large bet about what he would, and would not, be capable of. She was, seemingly, right this time. Hell of a bet to take, though.

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

How had it been for him?

"Strange," he admitted honestly. "I'm not usually one for flashy outbursts."

Deitha was quick to cut him off and burst into a bit of a monologue. Oh, so she'd been trying to provoke him? He supposed that made sense. But he rather wished that she hadn't. And the way she talked about his magic grated on his nerves. Just because she'd seen him cast two and half spells didn't mean that he was cured or okay. She hadn't seen his issues first hand. Just how dare she?!

Part of him recognised that some of what she said was matching up with what both Séverin and Helene had been trying to tell him. He needed to connect with his emotions and allow them break through to the surface on occasion. The way he was bottling things up and trying to hold himself back wasn't helping him or anybody really. Still, finding a way to allow his anger and frustration to leave his system was easier said than done. He didn't like losing control, he didn't like letting go and he most certainly wasn't okay with exposing his vulnerability to others.

A deep sigh escaped him and he looked at Deitha with a weary expression.

"It's not that easy," Odhrán objected to her words. "Even if you're right about me in some ways." He looked down at the floor. "I probably have more blood on my hands than you, definitely more than people think I do, but the truth is that I don't sleep easy with making such decisions."

She was traipsing away towards the kitchen and he had to get up and follow her. "I guess on some level, yes, something needs to be done. But revenge or vengeance or whatever is not right either. There are laws and governments for a reason, even if they fail us at times." He awkwardly shifted his weight from one leg to another and wrung his hands together. "They do need our help though, don't they? Just a helping hand here and there to make the system work as intended."

He was resting against the doorframe now. "I don't know if you can really count on my magic though. I've ... bursts like you've just seen aren't new. I... I think I've had quite a few of them recently when getting emotional. I think it's how I managed that elk at Azkaban. I'd never actually cast a Patronus charm before. In that moment I just ended up channelling more power than I can safely control. Anger and grief got the better of me. It was lucky neither of us got hurt."

He had such mixed feelings on all of this. "Anyway, you seem like you have half a thing in mind. Tell me then, what is it you propose we do?"

[Deitha Albron]

She was at the teapot, boiling more water for them both.

Of course, she was now getting the deep sigh and the 'you're not entirely right about me' and Deitha just about managed not to roll her eyes. Of course she wasn't - but despite whatever the Irishman had to say, she knew provoking him had been the right approach. But it didn't change that this all felt like it was on a knife-edge.

Deitha turned to face him. "I don't know if you have more blood on your hands than mine - and I'm not here to get into a competition. And no, people of good spirit don't rest easy taking the law into their own hands. No-one of good conscience should. But the people we're talking about don't adhere to the law, and all the time we do nothing, they win."

She poured them some more tea.

"Something must be done - and the only things that really matter are these..." She began to count them off on her fingers. "One, what a person can do. Two, what a person can't do. Three, what a person won't do. Laws only enter into it if you want ... those people ... to be punished by the proper authorities."

She led the way back upstairs, hoping Odhrán was close behind - she'd hoped to leave him behind for the few minutes to make the tea and think over what she'd said, but here he was asking what plan she had.

"So here's what I propose. I've already had other dealings with one of the names off your list - Spaulding - and frankly the odious pudding of a man can wait; there are worse miscreants that need dealing with. Let's take the one who you mentioned carrying out... those things. I propose we use my contacts to get us close to him, and you pour some of what you've seen into his head. Let him live out what he put people through. Let it claim his sanity for a while. The muggles call it 'getting biblical' with phrases like 'an eye for an eye', but it sounds to me like being made to understand the consequences of what he did."

She sipped at the tea. It was still a little too warm but the aroma was soothing.

"I'm not proposing we break any laws. I'm proposing we use our combined skills to do bad things for a good cause. That people we know will never see legal justice will get some just desserts. And if you want to insist on the strong arm of the law being involved, maybe give them a year of being trapped inside their own heads, living out what they did to others, and that after that time, they can make it stop with a full confession."

She smirked. "Besides, I'd love to learn a few more skills to scare people into doing the right thing."

"I reckon we should do this one person - someone I think we can both agree deserves this happening to them - and see how we feel afterwards, especially with how your magic is working. But if it works out, I believe you have an entire list of people who have what's coming to them?"

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Deitha's line of argumentation was problematic. He could relate, part of him even agreed, but he still thought that her understanding of the matter was rather simplistic. There were rules and laws for a reason. He wanted to believe that, perhaps, even needed to believe that. There was no denying though that the system had failed him and his family on a personal level and that it was now failing his patients.

"I understand your frustration with people acting like the rules don't apply to them," he whispered to her. "I'm not okay with that either. Abuse of power is fundamentally wrong."

 They were making their way back upstairs. She wanted him to do what?! Something inside him crumbled. "Deitha," he breathed. "I'm scared of what you're proposing I turn into."

Her words came with strange and bitter thoughts. He had the power. He could do what she suggested. It would be easy to fry the minds of those responsible for so much horror in the world. But what would be the price? She was probably not wrong about him because he felt partially in agreement and could see himself following that proposed path. Maybe, he could live with it. Was his dignity and conscience enough of reason to bow out. Was that just him making things easy for himself?

"But I can't agree that the solution to that problem is that we make ourselves guilty of the same crime. We can't be judge and execution. That's wrong. You must see that. We can't become what we hate, Deitha."

A chill went down his spine. He didn't usually talk like this and he wasn't sure whose better nature he was appealing to, his or hers. Taking his tea he looked into her eyes and focused sharply. His thoughts pressed into her head. Where was she coming from? Was sadism a factor in this? Was malice? He let out a sigh. This was complicated.

His thoughts were swimming as he considered the Dark Lord and his followers, the danger the wizarding world and society found itself in. "History has shown that you can't discuss matters with Dark Wizards. We can't trust the ministry and politics to handle the situation when they're complicit and have created part of these corrupt structures. Our government is filled with those of questionable believes and allegiance. There's a saying in my family. If you can't fight violence peacefully, the only remaining option is militancy. Maybe that is right."

He didn't want it to be right. Yet here he was, somehow convincing himself.

"We need rules and boundaries for this. Clear limits. Say I'm in, say I agree that we do something where do we draw the line? I won't be the architect of people's lifelong torture. That's not me. It can't be me. We scare them, okay, five days to make up their mind if they will surrender to the law or if we force their hand. If I look into their minds... I'm sure we can produce enough evidence to condemn anybody."

He still sounded unsure, but his voice was getting a little firmer. "That man... who hurt my patient... take a look in the pensieve. I'm not sure where we'd find him, but if that is a problem you can solve I think we can make him turn himself in. Maybe."