Brom was starting to feel Ithera might be the single most unnerving person he had ever met. Or perhaps the fact that she was barely seven years old and his daughter — silly him, he'd been under the impression that was a secret — simply made it far harder to cope with.

It was a few weeks after the day the baffling girl had shredded all his carefully laid plans with a few casual sentences. They were sitting before the fire in his home, both laden with tea Brom had had shipped special from the South. (He'd admit he could get fussy about his tea.) Ostensibly, to check how she was recovering from her bout of insomnia, which he of course would, but mostly so Brom would have another chance to try to figure her out.

By how she seemed to be flatly watching back, wide eyes fixed on him with unnatural steadiness, she'd probably come with a similar intent. That was what bothered him, mostly, on a second-to-second level. Ithera was too damn quiet for a child her age. She was still, calm, with the confidence and self-possession of a woman three times her age, staring back at him with eyes far too even, far too intelligent. She looked like a child, but she didn't hold herself like one. It was unnatural, hit him like ants crawling across his skin.

Long moments passed, both silently staring at each other, and it slowly became clear Ithera wasn't planning on saying something. She was just sitting there, calmly sipping her tea, staring back at him. He cleared his throat, internally shook himself. Might as well get the first awkward issues out of the way. "I assume you have questions."

Ithera tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing. "I guess. Never had a father before. Dunno what I should be asking." She took another slow sip, still calmly examining him, as though he were a puzzle she was working at solving.

Yes. Very unsettling.

After some seconds, she finally spoke. "You didn't tell me."

He blinked. "Hmm?"

"You didn't tell me you're my father."

And that would be the awkward issue he was thinking of, getting right to the point. Scrambling one last second to decide how best to explain, he asked, "And how did you find out, anyway?"

She shrugged. "No one told me, if that's what you're asking. I just knew. You act all..." Ithera trailed off, frowning to herself. "Uh, suspect?"

Somehow, he managed not to wince. "Suspicious."

"Yeah, suspicious. You act all suspicious, following me all the time. And we look alike, so I guessed."

Brom frowned at that. They didn't look that alike, he didn't think. She took after her mother. If he hadn't a basic understanding of genetics, he might have doubted she was really his — light hair was far less common in the south. (Not to mention how the dates worked out, not the point.) But he hadn't thought he'd been acting that obviously. He'd been careful. He couldn't help observing her when he had opportunity, he was just too curious, but he'd tried not to draw too much attention to just how much she interested him. He'd never gotten that close. He'd seen enough to know her recent behavior was unusual, and he still wasn't entirely convinced something very strange hadn't happened to her to make her...well, like this. But he hadn't thought it'd been that obvious.

If Ithera could figure it out so easily, he had to wonder if anyone else had. The thought was quite worrying.

But anyway, to the question she'd asked, yes. "It... It's complicated, Ithera. I wanted to—" He broke off, lifted one hand from his mug to rub at his eyes. Why did this have to be so uncomfortable? It would have been so much easier if she'd just never figured it out. "It's too dangerous, you see. I would have raised you myself if I could, I hate not being able to... But, it's complicated. I have a lot of enemies, Ithera, and if they knew you were mine, they might hurt you to get to me. I can't bear the thought of— Well," he finished, rather lamely in his own opinion, but he really didn't know what else to say.

Come to think of it, he'd probably said too much already. Children talk, they have no ability to properly keep secrets, he couldn't let her know too much. If word got back to the wrong ears about who he was, what he'd done, where he could be found, it would mean disaster for all of Carvahall.

Galbatorix would kill every last one of them for even the slightest chance of getting Brom. He knew that.

"That's silly." Brom jumped, frowning at the tone on the two short words. She spoke with a child's voice, of course, all high and thin, but that flat derision sounded far too mature for someone her age, it clashed. "What kind of enemies do Storytellers get, anyway? Couldn't you just magic them away?"

He sighed, his eyes falling closed. "I'm sorry, I really can't tell you. It's too dangerous."

"That's silly too. You can't read my mind. Could other magic people?"

He found himself frowning again. He'd almost forgotten about that. Before he'd even managed to pick up the tiniest sliver of thought, Ithera's mind had shut down tight, the boundary of her essence reinforced in a way Brom had never seen before. Power had been threaded through the walls isolating her, as though the world itself had risen to defend her at her call. He'd never seen such a thing before. He hadn't even tried breaking through it, but he didn't think he'd be able to. He had the weird thought Galbatorix or even Giderien would have trouble with it. The thought was absurd, but wreathing someone's mind with magic like that was entirely unprecedented, he couldn't help it.

So, yes, it was probable nobody would be able to get whatever he told her straight out of her mind. But that still didn't mean telling her anything would be wise. "With a couple particular exceptions, probably not, no. But my secrets are secret for a reason. If they got out, everyone in Carvahall would be in danger. And I'm not exaggerating."

"I can keep a secret."

"I didn't make it this long relying on the espionage abilities of children."

"I can." He cracked his eyes open to see she was glaring at him, eyes hard and angry. "I don't know all the words you just said, but I know you think I can't. But I can."

'When have you ever kept a secret of any significance?"

Her glare only got hotter. "Oh, I don't know. How about my magic? My family still doesn't know I have magic, and I practice every day."

That...was a good point, actually. And, well, he found her so unnerving in the first place because she spoke and acted with maturity disproportionate to her age. And she was quiet... Maybe he could... "Where exactly did you learn so much magic anyway?"

"Nuh-uh. Your secrets first."

Brom snorted — naturally. "Nobody can know." He turned to stare back into her eyes, his voice hard and stern. "Nobody. Not your family, not anyone. Understand?"

Her expression appropriately grave, she nodded.

Oh, this was a terrible idea. "I assume you've heard of the Vahdit."

"Yeah." Then Ithera's eyes went wide, the last hints of her earlier anger washed away with surprise. "Oh."

"Oh," he agreed with a nod. "I had a long career with the Vahdit, and I was very good at my job. There are very few things the King wouldn't be willing to sacrifice to get his hands on me. That is why I kept my distance. If he knew you existed, the King would kidnap you to get me out in the open. He might even just kill you to hurt me. It was safer for you, to not know who I am, to not get too close to me."

Somewhat to his confusion, Ithera, face half-hidden by her cup of tea, seemed to be smiling. "It was safer, cause now that I know, there's no point in staying away."

Brom glared at her, but it seemed to have no effect on her whatsoever, her smile only widening slightly. Which was slightly irritating — he'd gotten soldiers and kings and nobles of all three races to blanch with but a look, but Ithera seemed more amused than anything. Evidently, she really did take after her mother. Considering she'd managed to discover magic apparently on her own, that was another worrying thought.

"Was my mother in the Vahdit?"

He blinked at the question for a second, unbalanced by the change in subject, then hesitated a moment more. How much to tell her? She may be unnaturally mature for her age, but she was still a child... "Ah, not officially, no. She turned spy for us near the end, but she fought for the King."

"Oh." Ithera paused for a second, blinking into the fire. Then her smirk burst into existence again, and she turned to him to say, "Did you meet cause you were trying to kill each other? That'd be funny."

"Well, yes, actually." He'd had the Black Hand tracking him more than once, though he'd managed to stay enough ahead he'd never seen her. They hadn't been in the same room at the same time until he'd learned the infamous assassin was, in fact, Morzan's latest wife, and he'd snuck into his country estate, intending to confirm their intelligence and kill them both if at all possible.

He really didn't see what was so funny about that.

"She was married to someone very powerful, just under the King, and I was at their home. Spying, pretending to be a gardener. I really didn't mean for it to happen, we just..." Brom shrugged. "She turned spy for us, informing on places and people close to the King we didn't have access to. She died a few months later. I settled my affairs with the Vahdit, and I came here."

"Mm." Ithera was silent for a short while, gazing into the fire. "How big are you in the Vahdit, anyway?"

Brom frowned. "Does that matter?"

Narrow shoulders rising in a shrug, she said, "I don't care, really. Just... If the King knows about my magic what would he do?"

A shiver ran down his spine, a pulse of unease he was certain he failed to keep from his face. "Nothing good, that's for certain."

"He'd send people, to get me."

"A company of soldiers, at least." Along with the Raazac, but maybe not. Ithera had shown no particular allegiance yet, and if she still hadn't by then, he might be aiming to recruit, not eliminate her. One of his pet magicians, then, with escort. But if he found out who she was, he'd almost certainly come himself, and that could get very ugly very quickly.

Ithera nodded. She said, evenly and calmly, "We will need to leave, when my magic gets out. Before my family gets hurt. The Vahdit might take us, if they like you enough."

Once again, a cold shiver, sliding like icy water down his spine. This child was far too unnerving sometimes. A little girl, talking so calmly about the most dangerous, most deadly individual in all of Allagøsin coming for her. That she would need to run, or her family might be killed because of her. That she would need to run, and hope an organization fomenting violent revolt against the kingdom would take her in.

She didn't say if her magic was discovered. She said when. A young child, and she knew enough to realize, like he had, that it was inevitable, her days here were numbered. The day would come something happened, she would slip, and she would have to flee, to leave everything she had ever known behind.

Brom had to delay, with an over-long sip of his tea, before he was certain his voice would be level. "They would take us. If we showed up, I'm certain they would take us."

"And you know how to find them." It wasn't a question, really, Ithera's voice even and supremely confident. Confident in him, the father she'd hardly even spoken to. He wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that.

So he decided to not dwell on it. "Yes, I can find them. If not the Vahdit, I have other friends we could go to."

Ithera nodded. "Good, then." That apparently settled, she turned back to the fire, and calmly sipped at her tea.

Yes. She was a very unsettling child. And he'd thought elven children were bad. "Was that it?"

"Should there be something else? I mean, there might be things, but if I don't know what they are, I can't know to ask about them. If it matters, it'll come up later. I'm good for now."

Brom could only hope that, eventually, he would get used to her. Because this was extremely unsettling, and he couldn't even exactly put words to why. She was just...

It was unsettling, that was all.

"How are you doing this?"

Ithera blinked, glanced over her shoulder at Brom. "It's not hard. A pretty simple charm, really," she said, nodding at the balls of snow, compressed to an icy sheen, orbiting her head.

"But you're not—" Brom let out an odd choking noise, a hand burying itself in his hair. He looked far too...what was the word? Anyway, he clearly wasn't happy, just a second from panic, really, pointy face pulled into a grimace, breath abnormally thick. "Just, magic isn't a toy, Ithera. You shouldn't play around with it like this, you, you could seriously hurt yourself."

Ithera frowned, glanced at the floating ice. She wasn't really sure how this was so dangerous. She hadn't done anything that bad yet. Well, okay, the fire, could burn herself, and her efforts to recreate cutting and blasting charms could blow up in her face. But just this? "I don't know what's so dangerous about playing with snow, really."

"It's not about the—" He abruptly cut off, covering his face with both hands. He was silent for a long moment. Or, mostly silent, but for deep breaths forcing his shoulders up and down, up and down. Finally, he dropped his hands, his lined, pointy face pulled into a calm mask. And it was a mask, Heather could tell he was barely holding himself from a full-blown panic. "Ithera, magic is very dangerous. Every spell you do takes energy from you, makes you weaker."

She blinked. "Huh?"

"This power doesn't come from nothing, and there is always a price. Every spell you do takes as much out of you as it would if you did it physically, with your own hands. Something like this..." He waved at the balls of gleaming snow floating around her, a twitch of a finger revealing the casual motion for a lie. "...this doesn't take too much out of you, it won't hurt you. But you won't always know what will. This is not a game, Ithera. Do something too big, and you could die."

Ithera stared at the man for a long moment, calmly taking in every inch of him. His features, so similar to her by now familiar face, twisted into a serious, severe sort of frown. He had a pretty good severe frown, actually. Helped along by now naturally sharp his face was, it might even be better than Snape's — since she was pretty sure he wouldn't hurt her, though, it was hard to take it entirely seriously. Every bit of how he was holding himself, how he had modulated his voice, everything about him exuding a sort of...concerned intensity. Which was honestly a bit...

Not that she was taking what he'd just said seriously, of course. She'd decided the very first time they'd met that her magic worked differently from his magic, which would imply her magic worked differently from everyone else. Which made an odd sort of sense — Heather had come from a different world, and she'd taken her magic with her. She did think it was a bit...odd, that her magic would still work the way it used to, even though magic here was completely different. That shouldn't happen, but it made perfect sense if you squinted a little.

But it was just...

She turned half away, absently looking out over the river to her back. There were arguments either way. She meant, if she were being perfectly cautious, she probably shouldn't let Brom know just what her abilities were. Especially if they were that unusual here. Especially since he just thought of her as a helpless six-year-old girl. Moody would certainly tell her to keep it to herself, there was no telling how important that advantage could be later. And it might be a bit unwise, it might make this very new relationship of theirs far more complicated than was really necessary. But the thought of lying, just going along with his expectations, she wasn't entirely comfortable with it. She couldn't really say why.

She was kidding herself, she knew why. Heather could count on the fingers of one hand the people who had ever shown legitimate, selfless concern for her.

That was cheating, really.

She took in a long breath through her nose, gave herself a little nod. "No."

"I'm sorry?"

"No, that's not how my magic works." Before he could say anything — and he did look like he was about to say something, face going severe enough it was even angry, hands already moving for her shoulders — she took a quick step away. It took only the barest thought to pull back on herself, draw a small portion of the magic of the world into the tip of her finger. It came out again as softly shimmering light, white and orange and purple, trailing along as she drew a few quick runes in the air. Once the spell was set, she funnelled a small portion of her own power through, the ambient magic around her following in its wake.

There was a sharp flash of white light, a rush of wind whipping at her hair and the hems of her rough clothes, the sudden warmth almost painful against her chilled skin, so thick with magic it tingled. There was a moment of noise and warmth and chaos as the snow at their feet instantly burst into steam, snow further away flung into the air, dancing in the sunlight like fireflies, barren branches snapping and cracking.

But it only lasted for a couple seconds. When it was done, a circle of unseasonal warmth had been carved into the heart of winter. The air was pleasantly cool, thick and sweet like the nicest spring morning. The dirt at her feet was soft, the pressed and browned grasses open to the air. To her back, she heard the river, the babbling of its rush over the bedrock suddenly much louder, the nearest ice melted away. All along the perimeter was a low fence of fire a piercing white, hard and hot, but holding its place with unnatural steadiness, shielding against the cold.

While Brom sat there, staring at the results of her spell in dumbfounded silence, Heather cast another runic spell — though this one took several more words than the last, and much more power from both her and the natural magic that supplemented any runic spell, but it wasn't even close to more than what she could handle. Gradually, from the bottom up, the dead brown color of the grasses and weeds around them was chased away, replaced with a vibrant green. The revived plants straightened, stretching up toward the harsh winter sun, leaves sprouting on empty branches, tears and breaks patching over, a few stalks along the river edge even sprouted blue-white blossoms.

While her magic did its work, Ithera simply stared up at Brom. When it was done, she crossed her arms, ticked a single eyebrow up a little. What she'd just done wasn't that impressive — doing it that quickly, cheating as she had with runic spells, would be a bit unusual, but any Hogwarts student past fifth year or so should be able to manage it, given a little more time. By what Brom had been trying to say about how magic was supposed to work around here, by the incredulous expression on his face as he stared at the gently bobbing flowers, she had the feeling—

"This is impossible."

Yeah. That.

He finally managed to wrench his eyes away from the unnatural spring she'd made, turned to stare at her. It was hard to read his expression exactly, but if she had to guess she'd put it somewhere halfway between awestruck and suspicious. "What are you?"

She felt a smirk twitch at her lips. "Ithera Manisdaughter. I thought we'd done this."

"No, I mean—" He broke off with a hard puff of air, not quite a sigh but not exactly not one either. Waving a hand vaguely around them, he said, "This shouldn't even..." He trailed off again, shaking his head. "And you don't— You don't feel human. I've been trying to ignore it, but, but it's very odd."

This was supposed to be a serious conversation she was trying to have with the man who was apparently her father. And that sort of conversation was something she was not at all used to — the closest thing Heather had ever had to a father was Sirius, who was entirely unfamiliar with the concept, and Ithera simply hadn't been old enough to have had any with Garrow yet. It was a distraction, only tangential to the topic at hand, but she was far too curious to not ask. "What do I feel like?"

"Well, not a human, certainly, but not really an elf either. It's almost..." Brom went quiet for a moment, frowning at her. "I would say you feel, well, more like a dragon than anything, but that doesn't..."

Ithera blinked. "A dragon? How do you know what a dragon feels like? Aren't they all dead?"

The hesitation was so short Ithera almost missed it entirely. "Not from personal experience, of course, but I have spoken to elves and even men who had been around back then. Being in the presence of a dragon is apparently not something one forgets."

And she frowned at him, hard enough almost to be called a pout. That explanation was mostly reasonable — while Brom hadn't mentioned meeting any elves yet, he had said he'd been part of the Vahdit, and everyone knew they were allies. The problem was he was lying. "Is that really what you want to do?"

He frowned back at her, but his fingers twitched a little, guilty. "What do you mean?"

"This is all new. Us. I just thought you wouldn't want to start lying to me so soon."

"I'm not—"

"Stop it. I'm not stupid. Don't talk to me like I am."

Brom winced, even cringed away from Ithera, almost seeming to be in pain. For long moments he just stood there fidgeting — very low-key fidgeting, just shifting his weight a little, fingers twitching, occasionally reaching to pull at his beard before stopping himself and lowering his hand again, but still fidgeting. His eyes would slip from the rocky, weedy soil at their feet, to the river behind her, to her eyes, to the snow a couple feet away, and back again.

He took a slow breath in and out, eyes closed. "There may be a couple things I haven't come clean about."

No shit, really?

"So will you answer my question now?"

Ithera had been lost in her thoughts, far too deeply, with a stillness that still struck him as unseemly in a child her age, eyes staring unfocused into the white flames she had conjured. That had been her only reaction to everything he had just told her: considering silence. Which was just another thing to be unnerved about. He had absolutely no idea how he would have reacted to the revelation his father was a multicentarian former Dragon Rider — diplomat, revolutionary, assassin. And their situations were even almost comparable, his own father had died when he'd been very young. He hadn't had any secrets with quite that sort of weight, but Brom thought... Well, there would have been something.

Perhaps Ithera simply didn't understand the significance of what he'd tried to explain. She was yet very young, after all. She might be unnaturally intelligent and composed for her age, but in their previous conversations she had demonstrated an entirely appropriate ignorance of the greater world.

Not that he wasn't somewhat relieved she was taking all this so easily. If she'd reacted badly, or perhaps even too well, he wouldn't have had any idea how to handle that. He really hadn't much experience dealing with children. She was just...

He was really starting to hope he'd get used to her eventually. Feeling this unsettled around her all the time would get very old very fast.

But his voice startled her out of he thoughts, jerking back up to face him. "Ah, what question?"

"You said earlier, my secrets first. You have mine now. All the pertinent ones, anyway," he said, sensing her fomenting objection. After a second, he realized she probably didn't know what pertinent meant — that scrunching of her nose was probably a confused frown. "Of course there are things I haven't told you. I have lived a very long time. To explain everything about my life would keep us standing out here for days. But I am not holding back any more big surprises. Nothing of me you don't know will make any difference."

Even as he said it, he realized that wasn't strictly true. He hadn't, for example, told her who exactly it was her mother had been married to. He hadn't mentioned Morzan at all, had said nothing about their rather complicated history. It was certainly possible that would have some meaning to her — if not right this second, perhaps when she was older, knew more about the people and events involved. But she didn't really need to know that. Especially not now, it would only muddy the waters further.

Was how he rationalized it to himself, he knew. Honestly, he simply didn't want to talk about Morzan. Brom avoided even thinking about him if at all possible. In an odd sort of way, getting out the little he'd said about Safir had been easier than talking about Morzan would be — the loss was indeed so much greater, but all these decades later she was impossible to leave unacknowledged, even for an instant.

He'd long since come to the conclusion he would never stop grieving. In a way, he'd been almost relieved. As long as it kept hurting, he knew he would never forget her. That meant something. It wasn't enough, but it would do.

But anyway, Ithera was giving him an intensely hesitant look, one corner of her lips yanked back in a grimace. Avoiding his eyes, she muttered, "I did say that, didn't I."

"You did."

"And I guess you're never gonna be okay with my magic if I don't tell you what happened."

He felt like... Well, he felt like doing, saying something. He'd known something must have happened to her, recently. He'd never gotten close, of course, but even from a distance he'd known Ithera hadn't always been...well, like this. He'd known something had happened, but Ithera had flatly denied his suspicions. This was the first time she'd admitted something had happened, there was something out of the ordinary with her. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to yell, he wanted to cry, he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake an explanation out of her.

But he forced himself to do nothing. To stand, and to wait, in silence. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached, but he managed it.

Ithera was giving him a queer, narrow-eyed look, but she didn't address his tension he realized had to be obvious. Slowly, each syllable even and carefully enunciated, she said, "I'm Ithera Manisdaughter."

And now he felt like screaming. But he swallowed it, forced his voice as calm as humanly possible. "That isn't an answer, Ithera."

"I know, I don't—" She sighed, her arms coming up to clench about her own waist, eyes darting away. "I'm just saying. I'm still Ithera. Even if..." For a few short seconds, silence, her tongue running over her lips. "It's weird. I know it's weird. And it might not sound like I'm Ithera, not really. But I am. I'm still me. I just... Don't forget that. Okay?"

Suddenly, despite the impossible circle of warmth Ithera had created in the midst of winter, Brom felt uncomfortably chilled. He just knew he was going to hate this.

Ithera had to wonder how much of that stuff it would take for Brom to get drunk. She had no idea how much alcohol was in there, but he couldn't be entirely sober anymore.

It hadn't taken very long for Brom to decide that he needed a drink to deal with this. (Right around when she mentioned the half of her from another world had been violently murdered when she was seventeen. She could imagine how a father-type person might take that badly.) Ithera had undone her magic, grabbed him by the hand, and apparated them straight into his disorganized little house at the edge of the village. (Seriously, it was a mess, books and scrolls and loose sheets of both paper and parchment and little doodads she couldn't identify scattered all over the place.) Brom had made tea for her — at least, he called it tea, Heather was certain it wasn't the same tea they had on Earth — but he'd poured himself a mug of something out of a thick glass bottle.

He'd gone through a few more mugs, as she did her best to tell the story of Heather. Which wasn't exactly easy. She might have the intelligence of a seventeen-year-old, but she was still stuck with the language skills of a six-year-old. (In Brodhrish, at least, she could speak English perfectly fine, not that it would do any good.) Well, probably better than a six-year-old by now, she was paying attention and trying to learn as quickly as she could, but her vocabulary was still a bit limited. It was very difficult, trying to get Brom to understand what Earth things were, when she didn't know the proper words in Brodhrish, maybe there weren't proper words in Brodhrish at all, it was hard to even find the words to come up with something close enough.

It was frustrating, for both of them. Hell, it'd taken her far too bloody long just trying to get the idea of a train across. They didn't have them here, after all.

But, as her story had gone along, Brom clearly hadn't been taking it very well. He'd been fascinated by the whole idea of Earth, the magic and technology there, asking all kinds of questions Ithera really didn't have the words to answer — after she'd convinced him she hadn't gone completely mad, of course, but grabbing a sheet of paper and a quill and writing a bit in English had gone a fair way. His curiosity had gradually gone away, though, overpowered by everything else. There'd been bits of anger and horror as appropriate, but even those had slowly deadened, until he'd gone quiet, glass held tight in his hands, staring unseeing at the wood of the table.

Which, honestly, Ithera was somewhat... She meant, she hadn't even told him the worst stuff. She hadn't exactly lied about the Dursleys, though she'd patched over a lot of it, made it seem not quite as bad as it really had been. She'd failed to mention the nearly dying from basilisk venom bit. He didn't need to hear how she was pretty sure Pettigrew had seen her naked at least once, when she'd been staying at the Weasleys' before second year. She'd said the Dementor's Kiss just killed people, no reason to bring soul sucking into this. She hadn't bothered with any of the random hexing in the corridors from fourth year. She might have made the cruciatus and the imperius sound far less scary than they actually were. It was possible she'd failed to mention...almost anything that had happened in fifth year — she was worried he might break something if she said a professor had basically tortured her, or an older boy had nearly raped her. (The latter didn't even really bother her, she'd fought him off without too much trouble, though she was sickeningly grateful Snape had deigned to teach her occlumency that year. She just doubted Brom would see it the same way.) She'd intentionally made it sound like she just knew all these people were dead, not that she'd personally witnessed them be killed. Dumbledore, Moody, Hestia, Katie, Tracey, Susan, Sirius, Tonks, Snape...Luna...

Yeah, she tried to avoid remembering it all herself. No reason to burden Brom with it too.

Though, it wasn't all bad stuff she'd left out. There was no way they had time to talk about everything that had happened to Heather, so naturally some stuff both bad and good would be missed. But even some very good things she chose not to talk about on purpose. Most particularly, Luna. She'd mentioned they'd been friends, of course, she'd actually talked quite a lot about Luna. She'd just, uh, left out some of the...details, about their relationship.

She had absolutely no idea how people here felt about homosexuality. Ithera hadn't even known it was a thing people did until Heather had gotten dropped into her head. There was really no reason to complicate things by talking about it. Besides, chances were it would never be an issue. It was most likely Ithera — she meant, her body, her physical Ithera-ness — would be straight anyway, so. If it did become a thing, she might come clean about it then, but until that happened, well, she was six years old, really now.

The Hat would be so pleased, she thought. Here she was, finally thinking like a Slytherin for once. Crazy, she knew.

Of course, that she was willing to tell him as much as she did, or even anything at all, might have something to do with why she'd actually ended up in Hufflepuff instead. So not the point.

Why was she even thinking about that? Hogwarts was in an entirely separate universe. (Uh, maybe? She thought that's what was going on...) Honestly, she was being so silly.

"I..."

Ithera blinked, looked back to Brom. It had been some time since he'd spoken, she didn't know how long exactly. His voice had come out thin and harsh, as wind gently brushing at sand, so weak he'd broken off after a single syllable. He didn't look entirely well, slumped over the table, one hand buried in his flyaway hair to the wrist, face mostly hidden by a sleeve. And he struggled to find his voice for a short while, throat working, throwing back a little more of whatever that was in his mug.

Finally, he rasped, "I'm sorry, I don't know what to do about this."

"You don't do anything."

He started in his chair a little. His hand dropped, thudding rather harder than necessary against the table, so he could peer at her over his long, curving nose. (It vaguely reminded her of Snape whenever she saw it, it was even crooked, as though broken long ago and ineptly set.) There was a bit of red in his eyes, she somehow hadn't expected that. "What?"

She shrugged. "You don't do anything about it. What is there to do? Things are as they are. There is nothing to do but be. In time, the nightmares will go away, and it will stay in the past. So don't be sorry, there's nothing to do."

"I just..." Brom let out a long sigh, hands lifting to rub at his face. Somewhat muffled by his own fingers, "I never wanted any of this. I just— It was supposed to be in the south. When the time comes, the elves will move too fast for him, the war will be in the south. It wasn't supposed to— You were supposed to be safe."

His hands fell again to thump against the table, and he smiled over at her. Not a pleasant one, looking far too old, and sad, and tired. The look Dumbledore would have sometimes, the weight of far too many years, far too many tragedies, piling down atop him, so heavy his lips could barely lift themselves. "But here you've already lived through a war, seen horrors no child should be forced to endure alone. And there was nothing I could do about it.

"That damn demon is never wrong," he muttered, voice broken with a dark chuckle. "Through no fault of my own, indeed."

Even assuming she'd correctly understood what he'd said through the missing words she didn't know, Ithera still had absolutely no idea how in hell she was supposed to respond to that.

[That damn demon is never wrong.] — In case anyone was wondering, yes, that is supposed to be a reference to Angela.

Yes, I still exist.

I recently lost my job for medical reasons, so I've had more time to write lately. I've been too scatterbrained to focus on any particular one, but I thought I'd share what I do have for my poor, neglected readers. A few other fics were posted at the same time as this one. All of them will be updated randomly, as I finish chapters.

For this fic specifically, I was stumbling badly on how to handle the last scene of the fourth chapter, but I think I have it now. Should only take one or two writing sessions, actually. So we'll see.

~Wings