Fidgeting uncomfortably, Jace tried to get himself to knock on the door.  It seemed to take him longer every time he had one of these meetings.  It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Professor Potter, he thought uneasily, it was just that—he always felt like he was being judged, and he didn’t like it.  Besides, Professor Sinistra had probably told Professor Potter about his latest detention, and he didn’t want to talk about it.
	Finally, he managed to force himself to rap softly on the door, twice, promising himself that if there was no response he’d just leave.  It took a minute or two, and he was just starting to hope, when there was the sound of shuffling footsteps, and the door opened.
	Professor Potter looked almost as tired as Jace felt.  There were huge, hollow, dark circles beneath his eyes, and his hair was wild.  He smiled quite kindly, and said, “Good evening, Jace.”  Jace wished he would go back to calling him ‘Mr. Beleren’, since everyone else did, but the professor seemed determined for them to be on first-name terms, even though they had said almost nothing to one another the entire time they had been meeting.  Jace wasn’t even entirely sure why they were having meetings, unless it was another way to check up on him.
	An old superstition of Jace’s had resurfaced lately, no matter how much he tried to tell himself it was stupid.  He couldn’t remember anything before the day Ariella had found him in the wreckage of the old manor, but he knew that he had nightmares about it, and he knew that everyone else in the house had been dead.  What if—what if that had been his fault?  What if that was why they wouldn’t let him take off the cloak?  As Professor Potter ushered him into the cozy little room, Jace licked dry lips and almost hoped that he had just done something—really awful.  It would explain why he was never allowed to take off the cloak, wouldn’t it?  If they were afraid that he’d—that he’d—
	“Have a cup of tea.” But he wouldn’t.  He wouldn’t hurt his friends.  He wouldn’t have hurt—the memory danced tantalizingly in front of his mind, bringing with it a blurry female face, but it slipped away before he could grasp it.  “Jace?”
	Shaking his head and blinking, he realized Professor Potter was still holding out the cup of tea.  “Oh!  Sorry.”  He took it rapidly, wincing as he splattered some of the scalding liquid on his hand.
	Professor Potter sat back thoughtfully, reached for the sugar and added three cubes to his cup of tea, tried it, pulled a face, and added another few cubes.  “Jace,” he said after a moment.  “Is anything worrying you?”
	Jace’s heart gave a guilty thump, and he hastily put his tea to his lips so that he’d have a moment to think before he answered.  Professor Potter didn’t say anything else for a moment, just sipped at his tea and looked questioningly at him.  He could just ask him, couldn’t he?  Knowing why they had him wear the cloak would be better than wondering, surely?
	“You can tell me,” the professor said, very gently, almost as gentle as Professor Granger had been the times she’d visited when he was younger.  He’d never told her then, except for once—the time he’d shown her the bruises.  They had sent him to a different family after that.  And it had been better there.  They hadn’t hit him.
	“Um,” Jace began, setting his tea-cup down.  His hand trembled, and the cup made a soft chinking noise against the saucer.  And Professor Malfoy had been so nice about the time he’d actually peered into his head without asking—they must want to help.  “It’s—it’s about—”
	Something fluttered in Jace’s peripheral vision.  A stab of pain shot through his head, and he had a sudden flash of a hooded figure standing in front of him, wand raised.  He blinked, and it was gone.  He started to relax—blinked again—and it was back.  The warm, brightly-lit study seemed to peel away, leaving behind crumbling darkness and embers and ashes swirling in the air, suspended in a moment of time that seemed almost frozen.
	Wand arm raised, mouth open, all he could do was stare around at the moment of time unfolding around him, as the sickly green light blossomed in front of him.  Fear and pain flared like a Roman candle in his head as the light tore slowly through the white-robed figure in front of him.  His heart shuddered slowly in his chest, and then he was falling to his knees, pink afterimages glowing in the air in front of him, and the robed figure stood over him, looking down impassively.  Through it all, someone was screaming.
	Hands on his shoulders, hands over his ears.  The screaming was too loud, and his chest was burning.  “Jace, can you hear me?”
	He needed to breathe.  Gulping in air, he coughed, and the screaming stopped abruptly.  “Here, take this.” Something was pressed into his hand, warm and slightly sticky.  “Eat it.  It’ll make you feel better.”
	Automatically, he guided his hand to his mouth, and the strong, bittersweet taste of chocolate burst over his tongue.  Slowly, the room reasserted itself around him.  He was crouching beneath Professor Potter’s table, one hand still pressed hard against his ear, the other at his mouth.  The professor was squatting under the table with him, hands tentatively touching his shoulders.
	Jace stared at him, words rattling around his head, but none of them making it to his lips.  I killed them, I don’t know how, but I killed them.  They were afraid of him, weren’t they?  Tears pressed at the backs of eyes, and he sniffed hard, trying to push them back.
	“We’d better cut this meeting short,” Professor Potter said.  “Do you want to go back to your dorm?  D’you have a friend who can walk you there?  I’ll get one of the house-elves to fetch them.”
	Pulling his hood more tightly down over his head, Jace managed to nod.  “I guess…Ral or Elspeth would come,” he said miserably into the familiar blue cloth.
	“All right.”  Professor Potter got to his feet.  “Er, if you’re more comfortable under the table, you can wait there.  I’ve—had flashbacks myself.”
	Gratefully, Jace pulled his knees into his chest.  He did feel better in the smaller space formed by the table and the nearby armchair, and the chocolate was warming him up a bit.  But he couldn’t entirely shake the image of the faceless figure in its grey cloak staring at him with hidden eyes.  Had it been a memory?  It had been a lot clearer than most of the memories he’d managed to tap into before.
	I should have died, Jace thought miserably.  I’m a freak, and I should have died.