Lightning Crashes (invite only)

[Indrick Mal'Ghanis]

"Where are you going?" asked a girl dressed in the garb of a third-year Slytherin. The Ravenclaw boy looked at her with golden-hazel eyes and replied in rage. "I need a place where I can enter now and come out a long time later," he said. Onward he stormed, his black cloak fluttering behind him. He wasn't happy with how things were going right now, and nobody--not his twin brother, his girlfriend, nor his "sister"--was going to stop him from cooling off until he was ready.

Indrick was a third-year Ravenclaw at Trio's Hogwarts at this time, in Term 8. Seeing as very few people were higher year than him, he and his twin brother, Marthallius, who was a 3rd-year Slytherin, were much more important than third-years were in the heyday of the original Hogwarts. With all this importance going on, Indrick often got very upset with those who interfered with his ambitions. His brother was, of course, the exception, since they both were honor-bound to share the fruits of their ambitions with each other. This was normally how Indrick even reaped any personal benefits at all, since Marth's ambitions were the most common. Indrick preferred knowledge to trickery and achievement, though of course, being Marth's twin, he broke this preference every now and again. All in the name of friendly competition between the two brothers, of course.

Right now, Indrick was mad at several people. His brother had just gotten him with a magical tripwire that cast the jellylegs jinx on him. Carina Erikson, his sister by choice, had tried to get him to let it go, without success. Raven Jones, his sister by adoption, was generally unhelpful towards this--or so was Indrick's opinion. Anya Lupin, his mother by adoption, had chewed Indrick out for being outside after curfew instead of chewing Marth out for placing tripwires in the hallways. Kat Samuels, his girlfriend, was in one of her times when she would disappear for a day or two. For all these reasons, Indrick was rather unhappy, and definitely needed to spend a long time in the Room of Requirement.

He approached the location of the legendary room, and paced back and forth in front of it three times, concentrating on his goal. The room flashed open. As he walked inside, he noted the oddity of what happened behind him--instead of walking through a normal doorway, it seemed as though he'd walked through a barrier of blue light. Inside, there was a cozy lounge, with all sorts of strange-looking artifacts on all the end tables and on top of all the drawers.

"This will be a calm little place too cool down," he said out loud as he sat himself down on a couch. The artifact next to him seemed to look like a clock, except it had been made into a fan of some sort, as its hands were all moving fast enough to blow air at the person sitting in the couch. Indrick found this refreshing, and enjoyed it immensely. He sat down and waited what he knew to be fifteen minutes, but felt like much longer. Indeed, it felt as though he were years older, but he dismissed this thought as paranoia.

Suddenly, instead of letting him leave on his own, the room forced Indrick into the air and thrust him through the glowing blue barrier, with enough strength that he slammed his side into the wall opposite the RoR. "Ow! What the-" he exclaimed, stopping short as he looked around himself. Nobody was the same.

Unable to concentrate on his surroundings for very long, Indrick rubbed his side for a couple seconds until it didn't hurt so much. "Merlin, that hurt," he said softly as his eyesight adjusted to his surroundings.

This isn't right, he thought to himself. The time of year isn't right, for one, It should be spring, not winter. No, something's terribly wrong. I don't recognize any of these people. Where am I? he frantically asked himself inwardly. Then, remembering why he'd entered the room, he realized what might have gone wrong. Or...when am I? he corrected himself. Then, he spotted one person he recognized, and one person he didn't. Both of them seemed to be paying attention to him. Could it be? The one he recognized? No, she wasn't old enough...or was she? "Carina? Is that you?"

[Professor Carina Erikson]

Carina had been sitting in her quarters grading papers when it happened. What exactly, she didn’t know, but something had happened. A wave need and longing washed over, so strong that a sob was wrenched from her lips. Dropping her quill on the desk, Carina sat back and tried to calm herself. Glancing at the calendar, she realized what day it was. Carina, who had a steel trap mind when it came to dates, could remember on exactly on what day someone had done something. It had been today, back in her third year, that her best friend had given her a gift. Said gift now weaved between her legs.

With a sigh, Carina bent down to pick Ambra up and placed her in her lap. Shadow was in her robe pocket as usual, the two pets finally learning to get along. She took a few minutes to pet the cat, her loud purring comforting Carina. Laughing at herself, Carina past the feeling off to remembrance and returned to her papers.

She tried to concentrate, but the more she tried to focus on the papers the more her mind drifted to the past. After every memory her feeling of longing grew, along with a need to move. Finally, it was to the point, Carina felt as though she would go insane if she didn’t walk. Putting Ambra down, Carina left her quarters.

During her walk, Shadow had left Carina’s pocket and was now wrapped around her arm. A sign that the snake was trying to calm her, comfort her. Allowing her body to give in, Carina let what she was feeling lead her along, feeling that eventually she would see what she needed to see.

Reaching the end of the corridor, she blinked, feeling almost as though she had just come out of a trance. Confusion ran freely in her mind. The only thing down this corridor was the RoR. Why ever would she need to be here?

Her question was soon answered as a bright blue glow appeared. Carina took off running down the corridor toward it, only to skid to a stop when someone came flying out of the RoR. She had never seen anything like it before, but her curiosity would have to be curbed. The professors didn’t often use the RoR, so most likely the person that came out flying was a student. Needed to check on him or her first to make sure their alright.

Picking up her run again, she once again skidded to a stop when she saw who it was. She vaguely recognized the presence of another person with them, but paid them little mind. She couldn’t take her eyes off the boy in front of her. Her head was starting to hurt, she groped blindly in her pocket, withdrew a pain potion and downed it. Maybe Eric was right, maybe something was seriously wrong with her. Because now she was hallucinating or her mind was regressing into the past, something… Reaching a hand out, she braced herself on the wall before she fell as she didn’t think he knees were going to hold her.

Though it was odd, if she was seeing things or this was all happening in her mind, why did Shadow seem to see him too. Carina and the twins had always had a sort of bond between them, they never knew why and hadn’t tried to explain it, but it had always been there. When Indrick spoke she could almost feel the bond between them reaching out, pulling her toward him and hope swelled in her chest that maybe, just maybe she wasn’t going crazy and this was real. Swallowing hard, she couldn’t help but to try, her voice but a harsh whisper and an underlying hint of hope. “In..Indrick?

[Nyna Adustum]

This isn’t it. At least… I don’t think it is, Nyna decided as she walked down the long hallway. She had somehow acquired some free time after classes and had decided to go looking for a certain hallway. She had overheard someone saying that there was a hallway someplace in the castle where something rained down from the ceiling. She thought the person had said leaves, but she was probably wrong in that assumption.

Of course, falling leaves would indicate a fall phenomenon. Being winter, the ceiling probably wouldn’t rain leaves (or whatever the student had said) anywhere in the castle. So she was out of luck for the time being.

Whatever they had said, though, this was not the right hall. The ceiling was perfectly clear of falling items. So this wasn’t the right corridor, but which one was it?

Nyna wasn’t quite sure where she was. She knew where she had come from, so she wasn’t exactly lost, but she couldn’t say she knew her current location. At least, not very well. She knew she was in a hallway, that much was obvious, and that she was on the seventh floor, but which corridor was it? And why did she feel like she had been here before?

The Ravenclaw kept walking, gazing at the clear, rain-free ceilings as she went. She loved the architecture of the school, though she didn’t notice it very often. It really was very grand. Very…old. Suddenly it hit her. The last time she was in this hallway during the day, she had been with Indrick.

Indrick. Gosh, how she missed him. It didn’t make sense though. They had met up and talked a total of three times. One of those times had been at the Spring Fling dance. And the day after that was the last time she had seen him. More than half a year since she had last seen Indrick, and now he was on her mind, indirectly making – forcing – his way into her thoughts.

No. It wasn’t a forceful awareness that had made its way into her mind. It was more a trickling of memory than anything. Thoughts and emotions bubbled up, filling her conscious mind to its brim. A warm contentment filled her, replacing her unhappiness with something nicer, easier to bear, if only for an impermanent moment. She smiled in spite of herself.

Her state of contentment was shattered by the sound of rushing footsteps. Someone was coming, and fast. Nyna turned around. Professor Erikson was running down the hallway. Where does she have to get to in such a hurry? Nyna wondered to herself. Moving so that her line of vision was even with the professor’s route, she noticed a blue light coming from the wall. Suddenly a student, or someone who seemed like a student was thrust against the other wall.

Suddenly Nyna burst into a full sprint, following the professor down the corridor. It took a bit before the Ravenclaw was caught up to the spot where the potions professor had stopped. When she got there, she took a place behind her. It was better not to get in the way if the boy was hurt.

"Merlin, that hurt." she heard him say.

Of course it would hurt, she thought to herself, remembering the force with which he had thrown against the opposite wall. Nyna took a step so that she was diagonally back but still near the side of Professor Erikson. Something about his voice was incredibly familiar. It couldn't be, though. The one she had been thinking of had been gone for a good seven months now.

But it was. Her eyes picked up sandy hair and gold eyes. The gold eyes she'd missed for so long. It was him. Indrick. She wanted to talk to him, say something, anything, but she couldn't quite get her mouth to work right. So she just stared down at him, hoping he was okay.

He was here, actually here, after so long. Had he been in the Room of Requirement the entire time? He looked different somehow.

Time does that to people, she told herself. But this didn't seem right. Indrick seemed...younger now than when she had seen him last. As if time had somehow gone backwards. Nyna knew that her last memory of him was from the perspective of a young second year, but she couldn’t dismiss it as that. Something very strange was going on.
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[Indrick Mal'Ghanis]

"Carina Erikson," Indrick said with a grin on his lips. Something definitely had happened, something that made Carina look different. Could it really be age? That would mean that Carina was so much older now. This was definitely the weirdest thing that had ever happened to Indrick, including that time his mother and his dance date's father started shouting at each other.

"No. Bloody. Way," he mused, eying Carina and glancing slightly at Nyna. He didn't recognize her, but she seemed nice. At the moment, however, he was slightly more fascinated with the fact that he was clearly not in the same place as when he'd left. "You're...old," he said, looking back at Carina. He floated for a few moments in a state of fixed emotion, then suddenly burst out laughing. "You're old! Haha!"

"Hey, wait, but that must mean that time did something odd," he said, suddenly dead serious. "Time doesn't just advance years into the future, though," he said, still flapping his gums while everyone else was too surprised at seeing a long-gone friend quite literally come suddenly flying out of the walls. His mind was moving a million miles per hour.

"No, I must still be in the same time...just in a different timescale. Which means you all are evil, like everything in parallel timescales," he postulated, eying everyone in the hallway. After a few moments, he squeezed his eyes and made a sour face for a moment, then released it.

"Ugh, that means somewhere in this timescale there's a Marth that's more evil than me. I do my best!" he shouted, the tone of his voice not committing to either seriousness or sarcasm. His actual state of mind was revealed when his eyes shifted to brilliant, rayed golden, showing that he was incredibly happy about the state of affairs, for the moment.

For no explicable reason, Indrick simply stood and grinned smugly into Carina's eyes, thinking to himself how he'd somehow finally managed to beat his sister-by-choice in a slow aging contest. I'm younger than you, I'm younger than you, he chanted in his mind over and over. Then, as suddenly as he'd started, he ceased doing this, whirled around, and faced Nyna.

"It's come to my attention that you know me. I do not, however, know you," he said, bowing politely and offering his right hand. Wow, whoever the Indrick in this timescale is, he certainly has nice enough friends, he thought to himself, noticing that Nyna's facial expression indicated that she viewed his future-self favorably.