Eye of the Beholder

Author’s Notes

Chapter 18. Light and Dark
 
Sasha walked away from the lab as quickly as possible. By the time she reached his office, she was running. Something deep inside her recognized the danger surrounding Lucius, and she wanted to put as much distance between the two of them as she could. It was not until she was up in her dorm room with the door shut and locked, that she finally felt safe. She threw herself on the bed, and hugged the pillo her her.
 
What the hell was that all about, she thought. Why would Lucius Malfoy want to talk with Snape? More importantly, why was she so frightened of him? It was not like he had ever done anything to her. However, she could not dismiss the feeling of sheer terror that had passed through her under his scrutiny. What was it, she thought, that’s bothering me about him? She thought about it for a while. His hair. It was his distinctive, white-blond hair. Just the sight of it caused her to shake in fear down in the lab. Why?
 
She rolled over and tucked the pillow behind her head. Where had she seen that hair before? Not Hogwarts for sure, as she would have remembered it. Before that. The hospital perhaps, after her accident? No, she felt safe there, and she had a fairly good association with pla place. It had to be before that. Her mother’s home.
 
Sasha took a deep breath. Don’t go there, she thought. It took you a long time to forget all that. She closed her eyes. She really did not want to do this, but she had to figure out why just the sight of Lucius was scaring her. OK, let’s try starting from the beginning. What is the very first thing you can remember?
 
The Closet. Of being locked in the closet when she had done something ‘bad’. Sasha snorted. ‘Bad’ was any time she had used her capabilities as a witch. Her mother thought she was a minion of the Devil and that she was doing the Devil’s work, so she had to be punished. But Sasha wasn’t. She knew that now, being surrounded by much more powerful wizards and witches. But at the time, Sasha had no explanation for why strange things occurred around her. At one point she had begun to believe her mother, and thought that maybe she was some sort of evil demon.
 
It wasn’t that often that she made things happened. Only when she really needed something, or was feeling a very strong emotion. She remembered laying out in the sun in her playpen, and feeling the warm sunshine on her face. It felt so good, she had started to laugh. She wanted to hear the sound of the wind chimes, because they also made her happy. She made them play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. That was fir first time she remembered actually causing something to happen. It was also the first time her mother locked her in the closet, because she was so frightened of Sasha.
 
Or the time she was in bed at night, and was freezing cold. She was shivering, and really wanted her favourite warm blanket. She concentrated hard, and made it come to her because she was so cold. Once her mother found it on her bed the next day, she was punished, and locked in the closet again. Sasha remembered that day with humiliation. That was the first time she was put in there for a whole day. Her Mother would not let her out and she had to pee so badly. She remembered with shame holding on until she was about to burst. She finally let go, feeling it run down her leg. And then afterwards, the lingering smell of urine mixed with the earthen floor of the closet. That was not the last time she would have to pee in the closet out of sheer necessity.
 
Then there was the time of the accident. Truthfully, she really did not remember the details of what actually happened. She rememb mor more of what happened after, when she crawled home. Sasha concentrated. That day. What happened the day of the incident?
 
It started with her puppy, Minsc. She was playing with him, and had chased him into a back field behind the house. He was always just a few feet in front of her, no matter how hard she tried to catch him. He would stop and wait for her, wagging his tail, and just before she could grab him, he would up up and run ahead again. She finally caught him in a tall patch of grass, and was leaning over him, laughing and tickling his belly, when... Nothing.
 
Sasha’s heart was racing. She was breathing hard, and she had broken out into a sweat at the memory. She could never remember much after that. Everything was so vague. Men. More than one. Talking. She was grabbed by one of them and she was very, very frightened. She was being squeezed so tightly she could not breathe. There were angry voices, and then laughter. She could not see who it was that was holding her, as her back was to him. She remembered being terrified, and seeing both light and dark men. Light and dark. Light and dark.... There was something on the edge of her consciousness that was just out of reach. She remembered being dropped to the ground, and of hurting her leg. She felt frightened, and angry at the men around her, and lashed out the only way she knew how.
 
She tried to make the rocks hit them. She wanted to make the men hurt as much as she was hurting. Then she remembered a bright red, snake-flame thing being flung from the hand of one of the men. Then the pain across her face. And looking up at a man for help. The light man, not the one who threw the flame-thing. And he just stood there, staring at her, not helping her. And that was it. How she made it home, she was not too sure.
 
Her strongest and clearest memories were of after that, when she got home, anr mor mother locked her into the closet. The pain in her face, her thirst and the hot fever. She may have received the physical wound from her attackers, but it was the emotional wounds caused by her mother that she had the greatest impact on her young mind. It was those wounds that took the longest to heal.
 
She realized now, with the distance and perspective of an adult, educated witch, that her assailant had cast a spell. She had no idea why she was attacked, or why they did not kill her that day. The only thing she could remember was the fear, pain and anger of that day. And the light and dark men. She had no better recollection of these people, who they were, or what they looked like. It was more the first impressions of a panicked little girl.
 
Sasha gave up trying to rationalize her fear earlier on in the lab. Maybe it was the sight of Lucius’s long blond hair that she somehow associated with her ordeal. That could explain why she was so frightened of him. It was not Lucius himself, just his appearance that triggered her emotional reaction.
 
Sasha sighed. She felt sticky and gross after reliving those painful moments. There was one thing she desperately wanted right now. A long bath filled with lavender bubbles. She rolled off the bed and headed for the bathroom.