Voice of the Dead


 * Julias.jpgAlyssa Claire Berg: 23 years old at death, ghost, muggleborn, playby: Julia Stiles
 * Liam Neal Benson: 23 years old, seer, halfblood, Godric's Hollow cemetery caretaker, playby: Hayden Christensen

She'd been lying to him, but only a little, so that counted for something, right? When you'd passed on to the other life, you'd do anything for a little company. It'd been a stroke of good fortune when the previous caretaker had become too old for the job, to be replaced by not only a younger man, but a seer. Alyssa had been dead for three years. Three long years had passed in silence, filled with the silent pain that her gravestone had been visited only six times since her death. Each time the visitor had been her mother, and she hadn't been to the cemetery in four months now.

Always, her mother came with the same question, "Why?"

And Alyssa would have done anything to answer her, to at least convince her mother that her death hadn't been a suicide. The most painful part of her passing had rested in the idea that her mother thought she'd taken her own life. Of course, Jackson had planned it that way.

Jackson Reeve had been her fiance. Her pureblood fiance that had suddenly gotten antsy at the idea that he'd proposed to a muggleborn, though she'd long since applied and been accepted as a halfblood. At first, Alyssa had shaken off the apprehension under the assurance that anyone would be wary during times like these, but Jackson had grown increasingly distant, and she hadn't been able to keep shaking it off. She should have just left him, but she'd loved him, and she'd been eager to solve their problem.

She'd come home early from work at St. Mungo's, so distraught by her failing engagement that she'd hoped to find someway to ammend it, to satisfy him. But Jackson hadn't expected her home for two more hours. She'd been right outside of the room in their house that he kept as an office when she'd heard him talking and had come to a stop in her tracks. At first, she hadn't heard what he was saying, but the way that he was speaking made her pause, and she was eavesdropping before she knew it.

What she heard struck fear in her heart. Though she'd loved Jackson, his conversation with the mystery person on the phone had left no room for question: he was part of the Rouge, and she was unmistakbly listening to him explain how he'd murdered a muggleborn's mother and father when they'd attempted to take their child from the orphanage.

She'd been outraged. For the first time in her life, she'd felt real fury, because she was a muggleborn, because she herself had been forced to cut ties with her own parents--something she had found solace for only in the idea that she'd had Jackson to fill the void. Jackson, the murderer. She shouldn't have stormed in, started shouting, making threats.

Before she knew it, she was dead--shoved out the third story window that looked out over their front lawn. It'd been so ridiculously easy for Jackson to make it look like a suicide, for him to convince everyone that she'd been depressed, had started missing her muggle parents and feeling isolated and trapped. He'd certainly played the weeping, hurting fiance well enough.

She wanted to kill him. It was second only to her desire to assure her mother that she hadn't taken her own life. The Ministry had forced her to outcast her parents. She'd never even been able to apologize to her mother for that.

Feeling even more melancholy than usual, Alyssa was glad to see Liam walk into the cemetery that evening. She'd never told him the entire story of her death, nor had she relinquished her last name to him or the site of her gravestone, but she found comfort in his presence, in the way he seemed lonely too. He listened to what she would tell him, at least. He was kind, and lost in his own way. He was also completely aware of how fully the Ministry should be feared and hated.

Watching him walk toward her, Alyssa thought of her mother, of how desperately she wanted to tell her that she hadn't killed herself. But her mother couldn't see or hear her. Only Liam could.

And it would be too much to ask--wouldn't it?--if she tried to get him to risk his own neck searching for her mother in order to tell her the truth of her death. That was why she hadn't told him the whole truth. For just being a seer, he was already in a considerable amount of danger from the Ministry. She really couldn't dare to ask him to do something for her that seemed so selfish, could she?

He lifted a hand in wave as he saw her, and she steeled herself.

"We could do something, you know."

He stopped just in front of her, lifting a brow. "What do you mean?"

"We could do something to help bring down the Rouge."

Alyssa watched the look of fear spring immediately to Liam's features. She lifted up her hand, warding off what she knew would be his immediate rejection of the idea and hurrying to speak over it.

"Look, we both have reason to want them gone. No one but you can see me. I could be like a spy, and you could relay whatever I discover."

Liam scoffed at her. "Oh yeah? To who? Do you see anyone else actively defying the Rouge? You're crazy, Alyssa. I told you. I don't want any part of this war."

She frowned, deterred by his negativity, though she'd expected it. She knew him well enough by now. He had, after all, taken a job in a cemetery, as far away from living beings as he could possibly get. But what kind of life was that? She wanted to ask him, but it probably wasn't her place.

"Liam, what if I told you how I really died?"

He shook his head quickly, backing off. "Keep it to yourself, Alyssa. The Ministry already suspects me of knowing more than I should. I don't want to add your horror story to the mess."

It stung a little, that type of rejection. That's what she was to him? A horror story? He had no idea what a real horror story was, scared little boy living in a cemetery. Didn't he have any courage? Any sense of justice? She wanted to shake him from his cocoon, wanted to physically shake him until he saw sense. She advanced on him without thinking, reaching for him though she knew that she couldn't touch him.

That was why it came as such a shock when her hands touched his wrists--actually touched and held his wrists. She gave a gasp of shock and disbelief, but it wasn't just from the physical contact. All at once she felt it rushing out of her--her whole life story--straight into Liam's mind. She saw the look of surprise register in his eyes before it turned quickly into fear. He tried to jerk away from her, but he wasn't released from the vision until it was complete--until he saw her mangled body lying on her front lawn. And then she couldn't hold him anymore, and he fell roughly into the grass, panting.

She stumbled back away from him, tears springing unwarranted into her eyes before she could register them. She released a sob despite herself and turned away from him quickly. She could hear him climbing to his feet.

"D-Don't ever do that again, Alyssa."

His voice was shaking, and though she never had any attention of sharing that much of herself again, she could tell that she'd crossed some line from which they couldn't turn back. &nbsp