August 27th, 1893 — Rowle Residence, Wellingtonshire, Hogsmeade

He had enough presence of mind to know he couldn't apparate, not in his present state. How long had he knelt upon the floor, a decade's worth of emotions crippling him, before his wife had found him? And now—this news about his father was simply overflowing the pot, its contents bubbling over tremendously. Robert Rowle felt as though he was experiencing sensation for the very first time, all of them utterly terrible.

A portkey, then—he kept some, for emergencies, small brass coins with each of his family members' names engraved into them (he had, of course, furnished each with a set of their own, though Robert couldn't think what kind of emergency they might have been needed for). An easy way to travel—although the nausea he had felt, clutching the ALGERNON coin within his sweaty right palm, seemed above and beyond what he might have expected. (Indeed, it did not help with Robin's sensory overload).

The now-useless token dropped to the marble floor of his father's entry hall as Robin's hand moved instead to cover his mouth, swallowing the bile that had risen up his throat as a result of the transport. His head, which had been swimming for some time, now had begun to throb slightly too, and the wizard found it difficult to gather his thoughts.

"Miranda!" he called out his sister's name. "Miranda!" His tone was urgent, demanding—far too much so of one who had found her father and spent much of her day confined to a wheelchair but then, reason was fleeting at this point.

— Miranda Rowle —

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   Elias Grimstone

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— set by mj —

A bed feeling had woken up Mira that morning. Something was going to happen, and not even the Curse could mellow down the foreboding she felt. By the time she’d finished her breakfast, she’d had the Vision.

Her father; laying in bed. Herself; crying (this was odd, she never cried). Another vision, of herself and her siblings gathered together in a room.

And just like that, it was gone.

Mira had felt a strong urge to leave whatever it was she was doing and go to her father to tell him what she had seen. Nothing could stand in her way of her telling her father. The Vision had involved both him and her siblings, the two topics she knew she couldn’t delay telling her father about, unless he was at work.

When she reached for his study’s door, she suddenly felt, for lack of a more historically accurate metaphor, like she’d removed a pair of noise cancelling headphones.

Suddenly, all of her nerves were getting too much information from her surroundings — the corridor was too bright, the cotton of her dress too coarse against her skin, and too sticky due to the humidity. A tightening feeling to her chest at the prospect of going to her father’s study, just like she’d felt all those years ago, that Christmas Day of 1862.

It wasn’t the sight of her father on the floor that had Mira dropping on the floor, unable to contain her sobbing. It was the return of three decades worth of painful memories coming to the surface, like a radio switching between stations, out of control.

The rest had happened too quickly: her companion had found her and had sent word immediately for a healer, while sending Mira to her room to rest. She’d taken her reaction for a normal shock to seeing one’s father after he’d suffered a stroke.

The house had quieted down, that is, until Robin came and he started calling for her.

Not caring about her wheelchair, Mira made her way downstairs.

“Shhh, Robin,” Mira made, her voice carrying something of the bossiness she’d had during their games in childhood, when they would hide from Philip. “The healer is still upstairs, we can’t talk here.” And so she dragged him to a sitting room that was never used during the summer.

Only once they were there, she allowed herself to say: “I know.”

What, exactly, she didn’t know.

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   Elias Grimstone

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“I have a very childlike rage, and a very childlike loneliness.”

- ※ -

Still in a state that he could not put words to, Robin allowed his sister to maneuver him into a lesser-used sitting room. This was not his childhood home, after all, but altogether their father's domain; he was a guest here, even more than he was family.

"Father had a stroke," he stated, eyes looking to hers for confirmation of this fact, once they were situated. "Father had a stroke—that is impossible, and my head, it... it swims and—" Robin looked down at his sister pitifully, desperately in need of guidance.

— Miranda Rowle —

  

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“I know, I found him,” Mira told her brother, taking his hands in hers to squeeze.

“Something has changed,” she observed, because if anything, she hasn’t had the formal education to even know what the Imperio curse was.

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“I have a very childlike rage, and a very childlike loneliness.”

- ※ -

Something has changed.

The understatement of the era. Indeed, if Robin hadn't been so weighed down with what seemed like actual years worth of emotions, he might even have managed a laugh. The room around them was the same, of course, but Father was possibly dying, Robin felt as though his heart was breaking and his head was drowning simultaneously, and Mira was—

"Miranda," he took a step backwards, brow furrowing in confusion, "you are not in your chair."

While she had not used it exclusively over the years, Robin could not remember the last time he had seen her in a room without it—standing sentinel in case she had one of her spells and needed it (and she always did, to the point where she usually just remained upon it indefinitely). And yet, not only had she come to him without it, but she had guided him here, stood before him in spite of the emotion of the day.

Something had, indeed, changed.

— Miranda Rowle —

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   Miranda Rowle, Seraphina Bythesea

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— set by mj —

Mira stared awkwardly at her legs, or rather her skirt as they were concealed in it.

“Oh, yes,” Mira observed as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. “I”ve never needed it, actually. I just felt compelled to use it when people were calling. You know, Father always told me I was sick, it only felt natural.”

But here she was, not sick. She had never felt sick, not truly, but she’d felt compelled to remain in bed or in her wheelchair nonetheless, when people were looking…

This was all so confusing!

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“I have a very childlike rage, and a very childlike loneliness.”

- ※ -

Compelled.

Later, Robin would think he had suspected before, but it was here and now that the final missing piece of the puzzle slid into place, a new understanding far darker than he could have anticipated lowering onto him like a shroud. It seemed impossible, utterly ridiculous, and yet the wizard knew it to be true with an absolute certainty he had felt only twice before in his life.

"An Imperius Curse," he said at last, more to himself than to his sister. Their father—a man who was now just clinging to life—had cast an Unforgivable upon Miranda, and surely Robin as well. How could this be?!

— Miranda Rowle —

  

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"A what?" Mira asked light-heartedly, her eyebrows naively furrowing, for she had not gone to Hogwarts and had no awareness of the Unforgivable Curses.

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“I have a very childlike rage, and a very childlike loneliness.”

- ※ -

Of course—without proper education due to her illness (her supposed illness), of course Miranda would not know. Indeed, Robert had been part of this lapse even if he had not realized it, long having sought to shelter his 'poor sister' from the evils of the world. This realization, though, was too much on top of a situation that was already too much, and would have to be grappled with later.

"The Imperius Curse," he explained, volume dropping so instinctively that Robin did not even realize it, "is one that strips its target of their will—no," the wizard corrected himself with deepening frown lines, "that's not quite right. It-it binds the target's will to that of the caster, making their person an extension of the caster. Indeed, they can still go about their daily life much as usual, with the caveat that the caster can make any... changes to behaviour, to living, that they so choose."

It was a highly theoretical explanation for an illegal, and now deeply personal, spell.

— Miranda Rowle —

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   Edwin Rowle

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— set by mj —

Mira listened with interest as her brother described this 'Imperius Curse', reminiscent to when he'd described her spells he'd learned at Hogwarts, all those years past. Except, this time this lacked the light-heartedness of those times, as much as could one describe them as such, given that she hadn't been herself.

Indeed, that explained many things. On that Christmas day, Father had called her in his study and ever since she had been sick. The Imperio Curse might have rendered her his puppet, but it hadn't erased her memories. It all came crushing down on Mira: the way her father had looked at her, his face a mixture of pity and determination and then... a haze. A previously energetic child bound to her bed, preferring rest to play. So many years lost, to a bed and a wheelchair.

Emotion overcame her, tears burning at her eyes. "Papa did this to me?"

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“I have a very childlike rage, and a very childlike loneliness.”

- ※ -

"And to me," came his quiet response.

It explained everything, really: the muddled thoughts, the waves of brutal emotion, the feeling that he was supposed to be somewhere but couldn't remember where. The fact that his life did not look as though Robin felt it should.

"He did it to me as well. I wonder—Philip, and Sera, and Edwin... it seems likely, does it not? Philip used to want to play quidditch." Robin couldn't even remember if his brother had so much as mentioned the sport in the past twenty years.

— Miranda Rowle —

  

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Something dropped in Mira's stomach when Robin said he'd been cursed as well. Mira had a suspicion when and why her brother had been cursed. Unfortunately, the Imperio Curse hadn't erased all memory of the thirty years that had passed, and in spite of the haziness of it all, she could recall her vision of his betrayal to all his father held dear. Her feeling compelled to go to her father's study and tell him all about it.

Did Robin suspect that she was behind it? The thought scared her. Robin had been her favourite brother, she didn't want him to get mad at her and never speak and play board games with her again!

"I guess so," Mira agreed shyly, looking down. Even in childhood, she was likely to hide the broken vase and lie instead of admit that she'd done something bad. "I would have liked to go to Hogwarts." Around the time she'd been cursed, Mira had been old enough to start getting excited about the magical school, looking forward to her sorting and all her classes. All that had been stripped away from her, and why? She was just a child, and not a problem one either (apart from being too talkative sometimes) surely he could have just conditioned her to do his bidding.

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   Aldous Crouch

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“I have a very childlike rage, and a very childlike loneliness.”

- ※ -

It struck him then, truly struck him, just how much each of them had lost to their father's... what, hubris? Evil? Robin, the life he had wanted, Miranda a life at all—for if father had made her invalid, that meant she had been but a child at the time.

It was a terrible and miserable realization.

There were not, he realized, words in any language to convey what needed conveying. Instead, he simply moved to embrace his younger sister.

— Miranda Rowle —

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   Alexandra Rowle [Sofia]

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— set by mj —