Chapter Thirty-Three
Confronting the Faceless 💀 CompleteMarch 16-23, 1998
"Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it"
Channer Lindberg has had a raging headache for nearly a month now, and it's been getting worse and worse in recent weeks. He's been to see a healer twice and both times was sent away with a headache potion that did absolutely nothing to alleviate the endless throbbing in his skull.
He had assumed he was overworking and even started taking weekends off at the beginning of March but nothing seems to help.
He's only told one person outside of his Healer - Malcom Waters - and only because the man had walked in on him at work with his head on his knees, gripping the sides of his skull and had freaked out. Waters had recommended taking the rest of the day off but frankly the thought of leaving work early hurts more than the headache (perfect record, can't break it, can't leave anything unfinished, there's always more work).
He'd thought that maybe his sister no longer pestering him about things he doesn't understand would help, but she's been full-on ignoring him for almost two weeks and honestly it's only making him feel worse.
He enters the office Monday morning armed with several headache potions as well as a few pain relievers that he stashes in his desk drawer. He'd considered not coming it at all - waking up this morning had felt like someone had confringieod his brain, but with the Northern restart fast approaching he had decided he couldn't afford to miss a day.
Waters frowns at him, and Aiden Case looks a bit concerned as well though thankfully he's always too busy to really notice Channer's headaches (Always working, superior, should be the head not me). Channer feels rather bad that the other man has been doing more than he has for the department in recent weeks, which only drives him to take a sip of one of his headache potions and pull out his work for the day.
The first half of the morning is slow and quiet, thankfully, and Channer loses himself in the files he's poring over. The headache eases slightly as he focuses on numbers and statistics, though it never fully vanishes the way it used to right at the start of all this. It just retreats to the back of his mind and waits for him to be distracted from his job.
Unfortunately for him, distractions abound in the offices these days, and one in particular is impossible to ignore no matter how fascinating or complex the work is.
Yurina Nakayashi sweeps into the offices everyday like clockwork (a broken clock, different times, but always comes eventually) and makes herself at home in Channer's office (wrong, wrong, wrong), generally ruining any chance he has at getting things done.
Today is no exception, and it's around eleven in the morning when she struts in, smiling like she hasn't a care in the world even as the employees she passes flinch away from her. It would be a comical sight - grown men and women clearly terrified of a tiny Japanese woman - if Channer wasn't just as scared as they are.
Yurina usually finds her way into his office, after all, and she always makes the headaches worse.
"Good morning Channer." She practically purrs his name as she drops onto his desk, scattering his files and making him cringe for multiple reasons. Those had been perfectly organized- "I do hope I'm not interrupting."
She knows she is, she doesn't care that she is, and the comment is rhetorical anyway so Channer doesn't respond, just continues to stare mournfully at the scattered files (so he doesn't have to look at her).
Yurina tuts. "So how's your sister Channer? I haven't seen her around as much these days, she used to be by regularly. Family falling out? Not surprising, she's so bright and you're so serious." It's light and idle and meaningless because everything Yurina says is light and idle and meaningless. Channer knows she could destroy him if she wanted to; she's done it to so many others these past months. But she's toying with him, dragging it out, playing nice - and that just makes everything worse.
Channer wouldn't be surprised if part of his headache came from trying to figure out when exactly Yurina is going to tire of him and finish this nerve-wracking game she's started between them.
"I'm not my sister's keeper. Perhaps she finally thought to focus on her work and not mine." He says, trying to keep his voice even, failing miserably because Yurina may be evil but she's still a very pretty girl and Channer still doesn't know how to talk to those.
Yurina hums. "Perhaps. I think there's more to it though, don't you? Seems like suddenly she doesn't need you anymore."
Channer's headache gets worse as she speaks, and he presses his lips together tightly but refuses to go for a potion. He'll have to wait for Yurina to leave. (Can't show a predator any weakness, they'll attack it immediately)
She gives him a minute to reply, but he doesn't, resolutely staring at his work despite not being able to actually do anything - most of the files on the floor are ones he was using for consultative purposes and as long as Yurina is present he doesn't have access to them.
She decides to speak again once it's clear he has no intention of filling the silence. "Well I imagine that can't feel good. You're already the youngest Department Head, which I think we both know you shouldn't be - look at you! You can barely look at me, how can you possibly be effective if you can't talk to half your staff? And now your own sister has decided you're of no use for whatever it is she's planning."
Channer shuts his eyes. Maybe he can sneak a sip of the potion after all - his head feels like it's ready to split down the middle.
"I'm sorry, did I hit a nerve?" Yurina sounds more eager than apologetic, but that's unsurprising - she clearly thrives on others' misery. "Don't feel too bad Channer, whatever she's doing will probably get her killed. You're just being smart, right? You have to look out for yourself first." Her tone is dangerous, and even though Channer honestly doesn't know what she's looking for, she obviously wants something and his mind screams at him not to tell. What exactly he isn't telling he doesn't know, but it must be important if Yurina wants it.
He honestly doesn't process much of whatever else she says - his head is pounding worse than any hangover he's ever had (of which there have admittedly only been two - he doesn't like how out of control he feels when drinking so he rarely does it).
He does catch her leaving, and her disappointed tone as she says, "Try not to let all that get you down though, I'm sure you're good for something." Despite everything he feels a shudder of shame at having let her down, despite logic dictating he should be letting her down, considering her alliance. But Channer has always been uncomfortable letting down higher authorities, and as Yurina is Head of an entire Department, not just a sub-section of one, she's vastly superior to him on the Ministry's chain of command.
He decides to take lunch once he's sure she's gone, downing two of his headache potions before he goes. He leaves Case in charge for the hour with instructions to keep prepping for the Northern overhaul and to fill him in on any progress once he gets back.
He Apparates home, which he doesn't usually but he wants something comforting and familiar and his flat provides that. The change in routine does unsettle him slightly but not enough to make him regret the decision.
He goes to cook but finds his thoughts painfully pulled away from the task at hand and back to Yurina's comments. They'd struck something in him, something he can't recognize, and that's scaring him almost more than her interest. Almost - he's not stupid, he knows Yurina should be feared above all else. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if she was more feared among Ministry workers than the Dark Lord himself, considering she's around constantly whereas He hasn't been seen at all since Fudge's administration.
He nearly burns his food, but he manages to not set anything on fire, and he takes another headache potion before returning to the office. The rest of the day he does manage to get quite a bit of work done, and he gathers the team working the Northern reset before they leave to confirm that they'll be starting the endeavor on Thursday afternoon.
The next day proceeds much the same except Yurina comes in after lunch, though Channer doesn't realize it at first since he'd skipped eating entirely - he's in too much pain and is pretty sure he'll just throw up anything he tries to put down.
Yurina prattles on about his sister again, and things he doens't understand or entirely hear because, as usual, she makes his headache ten times worse than normal. When she finally leaves - after an hour - he takes a moment to curl up in the fetal position on his desk chair, pressing the balls of his palms firmly into his temples, hard enough that he can feel the pressure on his skull. Eventually he manages to grab one of the pain potions he's stored in his desk and finishes out the day shaky and ill.
Case offers to take point on the reset project so Channer can stay home and recover, but he vehemently rejects the idea, his own fears (and Yurina's words) of being inferior to the older engineer echoing in his mind. He'll take the weekend off and it will be fine. He needs to be present for this job (needs to be useful, to be good for something).
He has to take a Sleeping Draught that night when his headache refuses to let him fall asleep naturally, and his dreams are confusing and frightening. He wakes up in a sweat, memories of his parents and sisters screaming still echoing in his ears. He can't completely remember what the dream was about, but the fear that had permeated it stalks his every step through his morning routine and into the office.
Yurina comes in the afternoon again, and she looks irritated.
"You bore me." She tells him abruptly, after several long minutes of silence, during which Channer's nerves only fray further. "You have bored me."
Channer has never experienced the Crucio curse before but it does manage to be worse than his headache, which he hadn't thought possible. He also notes idly how quickly his mind disconnected itself from the experience - he's aware of the pain but it feels far away, like it's happening to someone else.
It's over in a few minutes and Yurina leaves in a huff while Channer just lies on the ground, slowly drifting back into himself and immediately becoming aware of a tingling soreness all over his body. And the headache. Of course.
Case and Waters both check in on him several minutes later and he waves them off. They need to stay on task, they have a major job tomorrow afternoon that they need to be ready for after all.
He does manage to eventually get back to his desk, and he thinks he gets some work done but he's still having trouble processing things. Case again offers to head the project the next day and Channer again insists he's fine to lead it. He'll take Friday off - a three day weekend will be more than enough to recover, he's sure.
(Liar, liar, liar, no one believes you, you can't lie to save a life)
He shuffles around his apartment later that night, still in the weird space between numb and in pain with his head pounding away (he's practically used to it at this point, only that level of pain is impossible to really get used to). He thinks he makes food - there are dishes to clean - and he assumes he eats it but he's moving on autopilot. He goes to take a Sleeping Draught, hesitates, then decides to have a Dreamless Sleep potion instead. It will still knock him out without the terrible dreams.
He doesn't feel particularly rested in the morning, but his headache has abated somewhat, much to his relief, and he manages to actually remember going through his morning routine. He gathers the files he'll need for the big overhaul that afternoon and heads into work feeling almost hopeful. Based on her actions the day prior Yurina likely is finished with her visits, which means she won't interrupt his work today, and thus, hopefully, won't trigger an increase in his headaches.
All in all a good start to things. Really, Channer should have realized that was a sign that things were going to go terribly wrong, but he was distracted by work.
He arrives at the office exactly on time and promptly calls Case and his team into his office to consult on the restart - after putting away his headache and pain potions, of course. Waters will fuss if he sees them and Case will probably be suspicious as well. He keeps shooting Channer concerned looks enough as it is.
The meeting goes smoothly - Channer doesn't speak much, just listens and takes notes so if something goes wrong later they'll be able to quickly work out why and where. He dismisses the group out to lunch once they're finished - the meeting had unsurprisingly taken the entire morning, due to the many moving parts involved in the endeavor. Not to mention the North is slightly harder than the West due to the fact there are more Muggle properties in between the Northern connections that need to be considered and avoided.
Channer goes over the notes during the lunch break, making comments and suggestions in the margins in order to smooth out the process and minimize potential complications or - Merlin forbid - the chances of breaking the Statute. He doesn't eat, but does sip one of his headache potions as he works due to the fact the pressure in his skull had been steadily increasing throughout the meeting.
He hears the team returning from lunch - the soundproofing in his office only goes one way which he thinks is quite a clever bit of spellwork - and gathers his notes to hand out before they get started.
It's when he stands up that things take a drastic and abrupt turn for the worse.
His vision flashes white and a high screeching fills his ears almost as soon as he gets out of his chair. He grabs for his desk and barely makes it before his world tilts and his legs nearly go out from under him. Only his death grip on the side of his desk keeps him up.
He breathes slowly, deliberately, not moving a muscle until his vision begins to swim back into focus and the deafening noise echoing through his brain dulls to an insistent buzz. Only then does he slowly lower himself back into his chair, still keeping each breath even and controlled. He places the files down and grabs two pain potions from his drawer, tossing them back then closing his eyes and waiting for them to take effect.
He's going to have to go home. The thought sits uncomfortably in his gut but he doesn't really have a choice - he's clearly compromised and they can't afford him having another episode like that during the incredibly delicate reboot operation.
When he's certain doing so won't set off another meltdown he stands up again and hobbles to his office door, pulling it open and waving down Case.
"I'm going home." He says, hopefully briskly but with his luck his voice is shaking. He can't really hear himself over the buzzing. "You need to take charge for the rest of the day, and be sure to owl me a full report of how things go. I've left some files that may be of use on my desk. I'll be back on Monday."
"Of course sir. Rest well." Case says, crisp and put together as always. Channer would be jealous if he wasn't too busy being in pain.
He collects his things and heads down to the Floo, waving off Waters and a few other employees as he goes. They need to focus on the job at hand, not him. That's the whole reason he's leaving, after all. Still, it feels like abandoning ship and he knows he'll be guilty over this for a long time. When he has space in his mind to feel guilty, anyway. Right now he can only focus on one thing at a time, and currently that's getting to the main Floo connection in the basement so he can get home and curl up in bed for the next seventy two hours or so.
He somehow manages to make it back to his flat, though he doesn't quite make it to his bed, instead curling up in an armchair and burying his head in the crook of his elbow as if that could ward off anything. His head is splitting open and... he'd left his potions in his desk drawer. .
Channer thinks about getting a dreamless sleep potion from his cabinet but he doesn't have the energy to move at all anymore, so he curls up tighter and pretends he doesn't whimper at the motion. It feels like something is trying to break out of his head, like Athena leaping fully formed out of Zeus's (exaggerated, just magically grown after an unconventional birth due to Zeus's weird fertility magic, really too bad he never wrote down exactly how he managed-)
His thoughts are cut off when his vision goes white again, but this time it's accompanied not by strangled white noise but by words.
"The world is at war Channer."
"Branwen is a deatheater. The group I'm working with-"
"We need you Channer, why do you keep insisting on letting things go the way they are?"
"People are dying Channer. People are dying and I'm just asking you use your job-"
"The group I'm working with-"
"How can you sit there and tell me you don't know what I'm talking about?"
It's Adeline. He knows his sister's voice and that's her without a doubt. But the words... they resonate with him and yet he swears he's never heard them before...
(Not true, you heard, just didn't want to hear, wanted to forget. Did forget)
The headache ramps up.
"If I don't know anything I can't tell her anything."
"You're just scared!"
"I don't understand why you can't comprehend that I'm not interested in you telling me these things. So stop. Please stop."
Just a simple spell...
Everything rushes back all at once, like a puzzle finishing itself. Channer's vision returns and his headache recedes, but he's left reeling with the onslaught of emotions and memories that he'd locked away (repeatedly, apparently, not great for his brain, explains the headache).
He stares numbly at the floor of his apartment, breathing heavy and quick, for a moment suspended in shock and confusion as the new (old?) information fights to gain his attention.
He blinks, shakes his head, and decides to approach this like he'd approach a Transfiguration problem: logically. Start with the basics, build from there, make connections where they fit. Rebuild his own memory bank, essentially.
Good lord, what had he done?
He goes back to what must have been the first time, back in November (must be when Adeline joined whatever group she was talking about). She had mentioned Branwen - he likes Branwen well enough, polite woman, always seems to be exactly where he needs her when he's feeling overwhelmed and she swoops in with files and distractions (deatheater, she's a deatheater none of it was real, of course she knew where to be-) and that had been the trigger. He'd thought he'd just suppress that particular memory, so it wouldn't affect how he spoke to Branwen. So he wouldn't give Adeline away.
He's a terrible liar, after all. He knows that, she should know that.
But she'd kept coming. Kept telling him things he didn't want to know, things that would change his relationship with people who would notice, who would ask him about it, and then what? He'd get Adeline in trouble, get himself in trouble, their father is already in Azkaban they don't need more family in there.
He'd kept using the memory suppression charm. Over and over. And they'd interacted with each other poorly - of course they had, the new charms had been done with no knowledge of the others, he'd erased what he'd done each time.
Really he's lucky all he got was a headache - he could easily have destroyed his memory entirely and ended up a vegetable in St. Mungo's. He's lucky.
He doesn't feel particularly lucky, but that's neither here nor there. Feelings aren't what he's doing here - he needs to get back to organizing the memories, make sure they're all back in place, that nothing else was hurt or destroyed by his massive screw up.
Adeline talking to him had mostly been randomly timed, but it was at least once every few weeks, if not more. Always the same thing - requesting he help her with the mystery group that's supposedly resisting the Dark Lord's takeover of Britain. She'd started by coming to his apartment - sitting outside of it, rather, due to the wards he'd forgotten (not the right word but can't think of another just now, need to think of one later) he'd put up - for the first few months, but in January he supposes she must have started getting desperate because she showed up at work for the first time.
He remembers freaking out, wondering who was listening, who could hear. Remembers being confused why Adeline would take such a massive risk - now he realizes she'd already tried more subtle methods and he'd erased them (suppressed them, major difference, he'd wanted to tell her. Every time had wanted to make sure he did know at the end so he could tell her what happened, what he did, why he did). It's comforting, in a twisted, guilt-ridden way, to know that he had continued to feel bad about screwing over his little sister. She's going through enough.
But... he frowns, sifting through the memories again (strange, unconnected, like reading someone else's life, will it always be like that?). She hadn't been to see him in over two weeks. She'd never had a pattern, sure, but she'd never gone that long without confronting him either. But the last blocked memory is the first week of March - he knows because it connects to one of his late nights mapping out the Northern sector for today's reboot. Recent but not too recent. Something had changed.
He feels a strong urge to call his sister, but the Floo is being watched so that isn't an option. He could owl? But mail is being monitored too. Not as stringently, but considering it was only yesterday that Yurina Nakayashi had an interest in him there's too high a chance that his correspondence would be considered worth tracking and checking.
Something in him freezes suddenly as things fall into place. Yurina. That's what's been different.
It was right when his sister stopped coming that Yurina had started to, wasn't it? He wouldn't have realized then, had just assumed he'd been unlucky enough to be her new target, but the timing is too perfect to be a coincidence. She knows something is up, has to, and she'd been trying to get Channer to confess to it.
Her questions had made his headaches worse. They'd been specifically targeted at things he didn't know he knew. Yurina suspects something for sure, but how much? Does she know about Adeline? She had given up though, hadn't she? Perhaps she just assumed she'd gotten in wrong?
As much as he'd love to believe that final thought, he knows it's unlikely. Heck, Yurina had taken specific interest in Adeline no longer reaching out to him (and isn't that more confirmation? they're watching his mail, he can't use owl post to tell her, tell her he screwed up, she might be in danger might-) so obviously she already knows that something is up.
Besides that, Channer has never seen Yurina as the mindless chaotic force she's always presenting herself as - at least, he hadn't for long. There's a level of calculation and planning that goes on with her that can only be heard if you're looking for it. Her entire persona is so carefully crafted that it goes past the point of being natural into something suspicious. But when terrified for your life, you don't question it. It's genius really.
"Not the point." He hisses out loud to himself, using the sudden sound in the otherwise dead silent apartment to startle himself out of his thoughts. Now is not the time to admire the enemy's strategic capabilities, no matter how impressive they are. He needs to figure out his next moves.
On the bright side, no one expects him back in the office until Monday, so he has the entire weekend - and a newly headache-free brain - to work out what to do. First order of business is double checking that his mind hasn't been permanently damaged by his own slapdash memory charms. He feels like he's alright but always best to do a diagnostic on things like that.
He has to go back through his old NEWT-level Charms textbook to find the spell - it's not one he ever needs to use on the day-to-day and it's never tested during the NEWT practicals so he hadn't ever memorized it. It takes about an hour (he'd had to locate his old textbook as well, and he'll definitely be reorganizing his bookshelves after this they're a nightmare and he's not sure how he's lived so many months with them in such a state) but upon performing the spell everything comes up positive. So his brain still works, which is good.
He returns his textbook to the bookshelf, and then convinces himself that reorganizing the shelves will help clear his mind so he can come up with a safe way to contact Adeline and warn her about Yurina's possible suspicions.
Five hours later his bookshelf is alphabetically ordered by author and divided between subjects but he hasn't come up with a thing on how to reach his sister. He gets up to head to his desk to keep thinking on it, but a protest from his stomach turns him to the kitchen instead. You can't get good work done on an empty stomach, his mother is always saying that.
He fixes himself food, his mind still whirring over how to reach Adeline without rousing suspicion or tipping off the Deatheaters obviously watching him. It isn't until he's sat down to eat that it finally hits him that he might have a bigger problem: namely the fact that there was a very legitimate reason he'd blocked his memories in the first place. He can't lie to save his life, but he knows now about his sister, and vaguely about her group, and about Branwen.
Forget telling his sister, first he needs to figure out how to keep her secrets now that he remembers that he knows them. Then he can worry about contacting Adeline.
His mind of course first goes to just re-suppressing the memories, but considering how much he's magically messed with his mind in such a short amount of time he very quickly writes off the idea as far too dangerous to his own mental stability. If he tries to magically mess around with his brain's wiring again that could be the thing that pushes him over the edge - and it's possible he won't even get all the memories before that happens, leaving the information there for any Deatheater to dig out if they wanted to. No, no more memory charms. Never again.
But he doubts his ability to lie will magically improve overnight (no spells invented can permanently change a person's personality). Even with three days to practice he's not going to get very far. On the bright side, Yurina had washed her hands of him rather clearly just yesterday, so he'll likely only need to worry about Branwen. He's definitely going to act differently around her, knowing now what he knows, but maybe he can pass it off as something else? Let people think he likes her perhaps?
He sighs. He'll keep thinking about it. For now he's exhausted - it's been a very long day.
He spends Friday and the weekend alternately planning out how he'll handle work come Monday and actually doing work because being at home on a Friday feels incredibly odd. He'd been twitchy enough taking weekends this past month - a whole extra day is setting off every discomfort sensor in his body.
As requested Case had sent a full overview of how the reboot went, and Channer is glad to see that it had been a complete success with only a small complication that had been easily and quickly corrected. Channer writes up the report for it but doesn't send it in right away - he needs to fake still being ill and ill people don't write reports.
He brings it with him to work on Monday instead, still not completely sure how things are going to play out if Branwen happens to come by - she doesn't always so he may end up with a few more days respite on that front - but feeling a bit better about the situation overall. He's decided that as long as he keeps his focus on work (which is what he does anyway) everything should be just fine.
Then he opens his office door and sees Yurina seated on his desk, grinning like the cat that got the cream.
"Have a good weekend Mr. Lindberg?" She asks, the manic grin never leaving her face. "I have a few questions, if you don't mind."
Author's Note: :D This is fine :D
Next Time: How much risk is worth it?
So I'm thinking I might do a final 'afterwords' chapter to share my thoughts and feelings on writing this story, if that's something people would be interested in? I'm also open to answering any lingering questions people might have there as well!
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