[title]

There was something wild about the icy wind that howled through the trees tonight. Something painfully untamed, and familiar, and - Sybil thought - quite beautiful. The Ravenclaw had always preferred the cold. She didn't like uncomfortably hot summers, sweating a lot made her squirm, and her pale skin burned under the hot sun. It was fitting, then, that on a night so monumental as tonight, that it was pitch black and freezing cold. Fitting that strands of her pale hair whipped about her face in the icy wind. Fitting that there was no moon. There was something about it that simply felt right; like she wouldn't want to visit her old family home in any other way; like the planets and the stars and fate had all come together to make it all happen.

Of course, it wasn't the stars, it was Basil. Basil, who she'd met all of two brief times in her entire life, in the company of her older cousin who she honestly wasn't much better acquainted with. Basil, who was already out of school. Her cousin's Slytherin friend had been kind to her though; he'd told her to write to him any time. Not knowing that people often said such things simply as displays of politeness, she'd taken him up on it. Perhaps if things had been different - if he'd been a different person - a clandestine venture like this might be a dangerous one. Sybil sort of registered this this, somewhere in the back of her mind, but she also felt that Basil would never hurt her. His writing was so sincere. And she was so trusting.

As someone who journaled incessantly, Sybil was no stranger to pouring all of the most important parts of her into her parchment. Her hand and quill were simply conduits for translating her feelings into written words. She had a way with words, too; the English language had always been a personal playground for the small blonde. Subsequently, their letters - hers in particular - had been especially eloquent and frankly quite personal. By now, Basil knew her better than most people she interacted with. In certain ways, he knew her better than her closest friends at school. I have a secret, she'd written once, and her name is Sybil Sinnoway. As one of few people who knew and acknowledged her true name (she'd been introduced to him with it, after all), he was one of the few people with whom she felt she could share some of the trouble it brought her to live with a false one.

A part of her felt thrilled that he'd probably call her by her real name tonight.

Sybil stood dutifully on the front porch of her aunt's tall house holding her cloak around her tightly for warmth. The lantern beside the door was magically lit; it never went out. She was backlit; a lone silhouette on a porch in the dark. While waiting, the girl watched the wind turn the leaves on the trees surrounding her aunt's house into the swirling surface of an ocean. It was pretty. Sybil hadn't been waiting too long before her sea green eyes caught sight of his shadowy figure approaching down the long path to the front door. The girl swallowed. He was punctual, but she never had liked waiting. It still made her anxious. Seeing him now was a relief, but it also solidified tonight's plans in a way that hadn't quite happened until this point. She tried not to fidget as she waited for him. Her heart was already beating quickly.

"Hello Basil," she said softly when he was close enough, testing the name out loud for the first time in quite a while. "It's good to see you." The blonde offered him a small smile as he ascended the steps up to the front door. Sybil hadn't remembered how tall he was. She tried not to stare. "Aunt Ethel is asleep upstairs," she told him. Ethelinda took her sleeping potion at the same time every night and she didn't wake for anything or anyone. Sybil went to bed at the same time every night too, usually to read in bed before sleeping. Tonight was an exception, though. Being rebellious wasn't in her nature, and the secrecy of it all made her stomach flutter uncomfortably. There were stronger powers at work here though; Sybil hadn't seen her family home in almost four years. When Basil had offered to take her there the idea had become a call that sang to her. Rules and expectations had suddenly become immaterial. She couldn't say no.



sorry dyl i just kept tweaking this and changing the title
and felt like i needed to post it fresh haha. <<

The night was black as pitch, damp and frigid, yet Basil felt alive under his heavy wool coat. His heart was pumping adrenaline to his fingertips. He looked forward to this moment, as simple of one as it may be, it felt strangely profound. This poor girl, her parents both stolen away by a corrupt society, forced to live a lie out of fear of who she was being revealed. Basil would never hear of it, and would do anything in his power to ensure Sybil didn't forget where she came from, that she refused to be ashamed of who she was, that she remembered.

Basil could relate more to 'living a lie' than one might think. As a Stringfellow, there were many things expected of them, and being the perfect son was one of them. It was vital that he not stand out too much, that he fit in. Of course, he had never been the 'fitting in' type. He had always been odd, with strange interest and strange ability. He could talk to snakes, a trait passed down though his line that the patriarch detested, and thus forced him to remain silent about. Only a few people knew of his gift, a few of his closest friends. Sybil, too. He had confessed it to her in return for the secret of her identity, something to make her feel less alone. Everyone had secrets, some worse than others. Basil had a few secrets that he couldn't even tell her, not because he feared her judgment but because he feared uttering the words aloud.

The most pressing of those was his occlumency ability. For something he worked so strongly on and for so long, Basil was exceedingly quiet about his skill, going so far as to often not use it out of fear that he may be discovered. It was a secret that could lead to his death, should Yarrow discover it before his eventual demise. Perhaps, when Valerian took over, he would welcome the gift. Until then, he held it close to his chest, even as he continued to grow it. He knew what it was like to house something dangerous inside. Even so, he wasn't going to tell the girl to parade herself around and be open, damn the consequences. As much as he wished things could be that way, he knew better than to ell her to defy the person taking care of her. The important thing, to Basil, was that she not let her new identity usurp her old one. She needed to remember it was for protection, but it wasn't who she really was. She was still Sybil, and she always would be. She should be proud of who she is, instead of being forced into a box because someone didn't like her for who she really was.

If it had been him, he would have never changed her name. He would have let her wear it proudly, and then watched her carefully. There were plenty of people with names that were infamous, plenty of them still stood by who they were. It had been cruel and selfish for her caretaker to confuse her so much, to strip her of her identity and forced a new on onto her. He, who had been stripped of some of his originality by his family, felt this to be unforgivable. He actively sought to find all the pieces of him that he had lost, now that he was old enough to get away it with, and had found a lot of baggage along the way. She was being set up to be hurt, and it made him angry to think about.

That was why it was important to do things like this, to relive her past to visit her estate. She needed to be reminded, at her impressionable age, that Sybil Sinnoway exists, existed, and is a real person with her own feelings and values, not just a mirror, reflecting whatever her caretaker believed that she should. He made his way up to the porch in the dark, excited. He smiled when he saw her standing there.

Basil couldn't quite explain it, but he felt drawn to her. He always gravitated towards the same kinds of girls—sweet, innocent, shy. All of his girlfriends fell into that same category. There was something about purity and innocent that he found completely enthralling. While he wasn't interested in Sybil in quite the same was as he'd been his girlfriends—the poor girl was only fourteen, after all—he found himself drawn to her the same way. They barely knew each other, yet he already adored her. He had come to love the person she showed him in her letters, and care for her much like a younger sister.

“Hello Sybil.” He greeted, extending his hand to her. “Are you ready?”

Sybil. For a fleeting moment, the small blonde felt like she was floating; she felt like she was taking a slow breath through her nose and then continuing to breathe in more than her lungs could take until her whole body was made of cold air. The wind around her swept her messy curls to one side. "I don't think you realise how nice it is to hear that name," she said in a small voice. My name. Sybil could feel the weight of her mother's white aspen wand sat neatly in the inside pocket of her robes, and for once she didn't feel like she needed to keep it hidden. Nellwyn Sinnoway's wand was pale and inlaid with bright silver detailing; to Sybil it looked like small flowery vines. She knew her wand had performed all kinds of horrible, destructive magic. She knew why her mother was in Azkaban. But when she'd been eight and she'd found her mother's wand kept safely amongst her father's things, it had called to her. She'd once been told that the wand chooses the wizard. Or the witch, in this case. She knew it to be true.

Sybil - not Billie - gave him another smile, a little less hesitant this time.

She didn't really know how apparation worked. She had limited experience with side-long apparation; most of it had occurred in the past four years. But the blonde had given him the location of the place that they needed to apparate to. If he misstepped they'd end up in the middle of the ocean somewhere. Sybil had to trust that he'd take her to the right place, and that he'd be able to use magic to keep her safe even if he made a mistake. He was an adult, and Sybil had always had a deeply rooted trust in those older than her. Aside from the location problem, there was also another small risk that she'd shared with him; the island they were apparating to was guarded by some old magic. Sybil didn't know how it worked; Kendrick had gained access four years ago without much apparent struggle, but Sybil didn't know if that had anything to do with the fact that her father had just died or not. Her blood should allow the place to admit their entry. Hopefully. There wasn't a lot that the teenager had been able to do to research this particular aspect without alerting her aunt to her plan. The memory made her nervous again. She hesitated.

"Yes," she breathed, reaching out with one small hand to place in his. Immediately, she felt a little safer. It felt a bit like a fairytale. Basil was a living, breathing person who'd previously only been ink on parchment. The way he wrote was so sweeping and poetic; through the pages, he'd spoken to her of stories from his life and gently asked for details about hers. She looked at him now the same way she answered his letters; with openness and earnestness. Sybil knew that Basil didn't want her to forget who she was, as he'd put it. That was why they were going to her old home tonight. He didn't think that she should lose that part of herself. Sometimes the blonde knew and acknowledged that there were things about her family that she didn't want to be a part of, but the feeling was one of conflict. After all, how much of the past was she supposed to destroy? Sometimes she forgot. Sometimes she signed herself as Sybil and had to cross the name out and draw the shapes of other throwaway words over the top so no one would be able to make it out. The echoes of Sybil Sinnoway, accidentally imprinted onto the paper underneath with too-high quill pressure, were scrunched up and thrown away. A few weeks ago, a friend asked her what her favourite flower was and she almost said moly because the black-stemmed plants with white flowers had grown all over the island her death eater father had raised her on. She'd said primroses instead because they were her birth flowers.

Her birth, at least, was not something she had to lie about having happened.

Sybil stepped in a little closer and squeezed his hand tightly as they disappeared with a pop! She felt herself fold inwards, then twist outwards and then suddenly she was all back together again. Immediately, the gentle sounds of wind-rustled trees was replaced with the churning waves crashing against rocks. The cold wind was replaced with an even colder salty ocean gale. The air was thick with the hum of old magic. She felt it pass over her like rain running down her body. Sybil stumbled a little, leaning towards him instinctively as she caught her breath. Her sea-green eyes were wide and staring as she took in the view. It was dark tonight, but she could make out the long path ahead, grassy and fenced by short grey stone walls. The place had a damp sort of feel, like it had recently rained or a recently been brushed by a particularly giant wave. The island was long; she couldn't see any of the buildings from here. They had some way to walk.

Sybil didn't let go of Basil's hand. "I can't believe we're here," she said, barely audible over the sounds of the ocean. Suddenly, she was remembering coral and silver seals and a large cave beside the bay on the east side of the island. She was remembering puffins and dolphins and black-stemmed white flowers. "I want to show you everything," she said breathlessly.

Basil had never apparated to a place based on location alone. He had attempted to practice and hadn't been sure that he gotten to the right spot, but this time, with Sybil, he seemed to arrive exactly where he meant to. He was a little queasy, apparation generally made him a bit sickly, but he quickly got his feet under him. The ocean's roar behind him set the perfect stage for the sight he was seeing, a long path ahead of him, no doubt leading to the estate in disrepair. He wondered if it would look like Rowan's home,--his home, now. If there would be holes in the roofing, bare walls, peeling wallpaper and chipping paint. He wondered what he would see, and the more somber his mental image of the home began, the more he loved the idea of it. There was something about a ruin that was eerily beautiful. It was the reason he found abandoned buildings so romantic. If Sybil was a bit older, perhaps this would have been a date.

He smiled at her, feeling the same wet feeling there that she did and not knowing how to describe it either. The air felt heavy there, and everything seemed to glisten ethereally. He kept a hold of her hand while they started their way down the long pathway. “I want to see everything.” He promised. “Tell me what you remember.” He directed, turning to look at her even as they walked. Surely every part of the island held memories for her, and he wanted to know them all. He was so invested in this, in her. He wanted to know everything she would show him, every tiny fact., He wanted to suck it all in until he knew every inch of her. It was the way he always was. There was no such thing as a casual interest for Basil, it jumped straight to obsession and infatuation. While not necessarily true in the romantic sense, Basil was infatuated with Sybil. He felt oddly, strangely passionate towards her with the intensity of his feelings and desires. He found her interesting. Unique. Strange, odd, and beautiful inside. This was what drew Basil to everything he came to love and everything he showed interest in. A unique quality would always capture his mind.

Part of this was because of her age and part of it was despite that. Being so young and impressionable made her particularly intriguing to him. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but Basil loved control. He loved knowing people were doing what he wanted them to. He loved guiding others, and he loved putting things together in his own way. While the interest in Sybil reclaiming his past was not entirely just because he wished it, the fact that he wanted her to and she was filled him with a deep sort of satisfaction. He loved coming out on top, and hoped that she would continue to listen to him and take his advice. He hoped she would let him shape her into the woman he wanted her to become, as had failed with some of the other people he spoke with. People would bend, always, but at some point they broke. Basil didn't want someone made of rigid plastic. He wanted someone made of rubber or clay. Someone mouldable. Perhaps age was key. He wished he had known how to talk to people when he was younger, and perhaps things would have turned out easier.

As it was, Basil had always been afraid of others when he was younger. He was a awkward kid, sticking close to his cousins instead of making new friends. As he grew older, he grew more sociable, more interested in talking to new people, and more comfortable reaching out. There was something about him—a skill he had honed with years of practice. He was able to, generally, deduce the feelings of others based off of only limited interactions. He could read body language. He could read tone of voice and word selection—it all meant something to Basil, and he could tell people, accurately, the way they were feeling. While this skill came as naturally to Basil as breathing, in his younger years it caused much tension. Now, with more tact, Basil was able to use it for evil, sometimes without others even knowing he was doing it.

Now, with Sybil, he was using those powers for good, trying to read her to do something good for her. Him? Them? He couldn't tell the difference anymore between what he believed was morally right and what he thought was right because he wanted it to be right. It was a dangerous place to be, but she was already there with him, and his charisma was dialed up to twenty.

Billie - no, Sybil smiled at his response. Even the names themselves split her right in two, she thought, leading him by the hand with tentative steps. Sybil Sinnoway was her grandmother; the name tethered her to her past with steel thread, woven firmly through her ancestry and genealogy. It was old-fashioned. It held history. It meant something bigger than her. Billie Fay seemed more... modern. Not the type of name her grandparents would have wanted their grandaughter to have. Too boyish. But there was something appealing about that too, she mused. Billie by itself didn't really mean anything, but it had been Kendrick who'd helped her choose it. He'd helped her make it for herself. She could barely think of a single thing that was her own.

Sybil slowed her walk for a moment, her large eyes following the outline of the short stone wall beside them before looking out at the harsh rocky cliffs beyond a wave of damp grass. She could feel him looking at her and it felt a little surreal; how could he be here? How could she be here? A sudden rush of warm affection bloomed in her chest towards the young man beside her. The way he was looking at her made her feel so very visible and important. That someone like him would take any sort of interest in someone so small and insignificant as her was a little baffling, but Sybil didn't question it. Sometimes she put it down to his nature.

The pair were headed towards the main house, but Sybil's thoughts were drifting in another direction. The girl pulled on his hand slightly and moved towards the small stone wall on their left, before hopping up on it and swinging her legs over it as elegantly as she could manage. It wasn't very tall; Basil could probably step right over it. Their feet made wet squelchy sounds against the grass but Sybil could barely hear their footsteps over the wind and the waves. She still didn't let go of his hand. "One time with papa, I saw a pod of charybdis seahorses down there," she told him, speaking loudly so that he could hear her. Sybil felt a little like she was in a bit of a trance; everywhere she looked, she saw all kinds of memories replaying before her eyes.

The girl moved towards the cliff's edge, allowing the roaring crashes of waves beating against the rocks relentlessly to wash over her. The wind tossed her blonde curls around her. Just before reaching the edge, Sybil led her companion to the right, her little feet taking them both down a concealed, rocky path. "We have puffins between April and July," she told him with a small smile, not noticing the way she'd slipped into present tense or the fact that she'd said we. "And the silver atlantic seals give birth between September and November, so there are usually seal pups around then. We've just missed them," she added, "but sometimes you can hear moonwhales off the coast. They're beautiful. Maybe we'll be lucky."

Sybil could feel her eyes shining with enthusiasm as she started speaking more. She became more animated too, using her free hand to gesture as she spoke. It was out of character for her, but she was buzzing with excitement. After a little while, the path led them down into a huge cave encasing a bay. For some, such an environment might seem creepy at night; it was dark enough that she couldn't see very far in. "When I was a child, I used to come down here and play," she told him breathlessly. It was a little quieter here, the bay sheltered from the raging waves outside by the wide shape of the coastline. No less wet, however. The environment was so damp that she felt like she was drenched, even though she wasn't. "Papa built me a sort of cubby house on the shore in this cave, I wonder if it's still here?"

tw: mentions of suicide

Basil was loving this, taking extreme interest in ever memory Sybil chose to share with him. He loved animals, he ideas of seeing seahorses, puffins, and baby seals making his heart light. Basil had always loved animals, sometimes more than people. He loved snakes most of all, but he loved all things—soft and fluffy, scaly, or creepy-crawly. He was thinking of getting a pet tarantula, if he didn’t think his runespoor would eat it alive. Maybe if he kept them apart and firmly told her no. He fed each head of his large snake a little mouse every few days, and they seemed happy. It always bothered him to feed them live food, but he knew that it was the circle of life. If he wanted to keep his snake, he needed to feed her.

Basil’s love of animals went beyond that, however. He used to find dead things in the forest, animals large and small, and he would carry them home for burial. This sick ritual was so disturbing to his mother that she had him psychologically evaluated, for fear he was doing this to the animals. In fact, unknown to Basil and his mother, it had been his brother Reed who had been harming the animals. It was Basil’s sincere love for them that had him bring them home. He held a funeral for each one and had an extensive animal graveyard in the back yard of his home, which he often showed off to guests as a young one. Older now, it had been a long time since he found discarded cadavers in the woods, but it had also been a long time since he spent time in the woods, whispering in parseltongue in hopes that snakes would come to him. Seeing Sybil relive her childhood brought back so many memories of his own, memories of a house lost in time, of ghosts, of snakes, and far too much death. Hers seemed full of life, at least, which made a good contrast.

Basil was veiled in darkness, raised in it from a child. Even his home was bleak and serpentine, he was often sickly-pale inside his dank home—then there was Rowan, his caretaker and babysitter. The visual of him hanging from that rope forever seared into Basil’s memory. He had done nothing to stop it, as though he was in some kind of strange trance. He’d let him die, he’d watched him die… and Basil thought Rowan was happier for it, anyway. Regardless, Basil saw himself to be a creature of the darkness, of the night, which made Billie seem so ethereal to him, otherworldly. She was good, light, caring. She hurt no one and nothing, and he loved her deeply for it. It led to his strange infatuation with her. It led him back to this.

He let her lead him off the path, the estate forgotten as he hung on every word that passed between her lips. As she mentioned a clubhouse in the cave, he grew excited. That sounded like an adventure. He reached for her cool fingers, grasping them in his warm palm. “Take me there…” He urged, letting her lead the way. “I want to see your private space. I bet memories still live there.” He whispered the last bit like it was a secret between them. He began to walk through the cave when he heard the familiar sound of hissing. He put a hand in front of her to stop her. “Wait…” He said quietly. He turned on the light on his wand and saw a large snake recoil from the light and steady itself, ready to strike.

“We won’t hurt you.” He said firmly, in parseltongue. The snake looked confused for a second. It had never spoken to a human before. “Just let us pass, or better yet….” He knelt down to look at it closer. It was a venomous snake, but he wasn’t afraid. He stood between the snake and Sybil. “Let’s be friends….”