Closed Gemini Clash

[Imogen Blyth]

As Imogen arrived home, she squeezed her way through the much too tight gangway that led from the front door and into the front room, and was greeted by another surprise. "I didn't think you were back until Friday?" the blonde stated, moving further into the room to get a proper look at her brother. Still wearing her new sneakers and jacket, Imogen made herself comfortable on the small worn couch beside her twin, though quickly crossed her arms over her chest. She missed her brother while he was away, but these days he'd been gone for so long that she was getting used to it. Or at least that's what she told herself. She finally stole a glance in his direction, although it was like the person she'd grown up with was no longer there. They'd only just celebrated their fourteenth birthday, but it was like the boy had aged a lifetime since she'd last seen him. Imogen wasn't sure if it was just the way he dressed, but maybe it was the way he was holding himself and the way his features seemed a little.. off. "Bet you're glad to be back," her tone was dripping with sarcasm, she knew he would have preferred to be anywhere but here. Maybe she should have been more grateful he came to visit, although she'd be kidding herself if she believed he'd actually come back here for her.

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

Stepping foot in his house was like stepping back into another world. It also no longer felt like home. A few years ago, Eoghan would have done anything to give his sister the same experiences he had, but for whatever reason there was, she simply didn't have the abilities. He'd done his fair share of feeling guilty, cutting himself off from others because he didn't want to lose sight of his real goals, and found that in the process he'd cut himself off from who he was supposed to be too. Now, he just wanted to give Imogen the insight he could, even if it wasn't the full experience.

The blonde waited for his sister to find him in the living room, although her initial reaction to him being home earlier was icier than he'd hoped for. Was this how others felt when they'd tried to talk to him a few years ago? "I've got some things to show you," he told her, pulling up his legs so he could face her properly, trying not to feel hurt by her own body language that made him feel as though she wanted nothing to do with him anymore.

 

[Imogen Blyth]

Eoghan didn't seem too put off by her comments, although that didn't exactly make Imogen feel any more cheerful either. She was spending more and more time with Eeto these days and coming to realise that Eoghan really could be quite selfish when he wanted to be. When they were children, Imogen had been blind to what was really going on, the things they were capable of when they were together. Eoghan had chosen to leave them, leave her, and she wasn't going to be quick to forget it. "What?" she shrugged, rolling an eye in his direction to check out what he was holding. For a boy who didn't even want to be here he had certainly already made himself at home on her couch.

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

Eoghan knew it was a risk for him to combine the magical and muggle worlds, but this was his sister. The Ministry went to extensive measures to keep their world under wraps, but he needed to give Imogen something if he was going to repair the bond with his twin. He could understand she felt abandoned, and it was difficult with only his word to go on when it came to what she was missing out on. "This is the Hogwarts Monthly," he said, handing her the latest edition. "It's the school paper," he pointed to his own name on one of the articles. He hadn't really gone into too much depth with the things he was doing at school, not wanting to make the rift even bigger between them, but maybe this is exactly what was needed. "Next year, I'm one of the editors of this paper. We write about things that happen around the school," He was watching for her reaction to the moving pictures above all, and a strange apprehension washed over him as he knew he was about to read about schoolmates he knew.

 

[Imogen Blyth]

Imogen had always taken Eoghan to be the nerdier of the pair, but hearing that he actually wrote for a school paper simply sealed the deal. That was the sort of thing Imogen believed kids at her school only did if they had no friends and no real hobbies. It was just a way for them to keep occupied when everyone else was going to parties or actually talking to people.

As the blonde took the paper however, she was instantly both mesmerized and astonished to see that the pictures on the front page were moving. She didn't care for the words, they spoke about people she didn't know and events she would never attend, but the pictures? It was like each page had a tiny TV behind it."How is it doing that?" she asked, not tearing her eyes away from the page to look at her brother. "And don't say magic, that's not a real answer." Everything could have just been swept under the rug of magic and then no one needed to ever explain anything properly.

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

"M.." Eoghan stopped in his tracks, a faint smile on the corner of his lips. Was she impressed? Confused? Maybe she was a little scared, like he had been the first time he'd seen things he couldn't explain. "I don't.. really know. It's not exactly a science." He had no real answer for her, at least not one she would be satisfied with. Eoghan was looking down at his hand, eyebrows slightly frowning as he bent and stretched his fingers, repeating the motion a few times. "Magic is like.. an energy, I suppose. We can channel it and control it, and while I still don't understand it, I'm learning how to use it." It was all he could give her.

The blonde shuffled in his seat, pulling out a small velvet bag from his pocket. "My articles are usually about reading the future, in one form or another," he'd never actually told Imogen that he'd read Tarot when he first joined Hogwarts. He'd picked up his first set before he'd joined the school, but always felt as though it was the sort of things she might have made fun of him for. He supposed these days though, he was running out of ways of hiding from himself without showing his own twin sister who he really was. The good thing about Tarot cards though, was that it was the kind of magic that even muggles could believe in. "These are for you." They had been his first set, the ones he'd used outside in the courtyard during his first day at school.

 

[Imogen Blyth]

Eoghan wasn't about to win any awards for his Chemistry, that was for sure. Soon Imogen would be sitting her very real exams for very real subjects, meanwhile her brother was out here wasting his time on things he couldn't even explain. It was like he was playing make believe with himself and rewarding himself for it. If this is what he and all of his other little friends could do though for a school newspaper, what else were they hiding? "What are they?" she asked, taking the deck of cards and peering at the weird artwork. She didn't care for this, and hated the idea that anyone could read her future, but maybe it was for everyone's benefit that she worked out to what extent Eoghan could really effect the world around them. For all she knew, Imogen and her friends were working hard day after day for peanuts, meanwhile her own brother could probably pluck money straight out the air. Perhaps sending him off the school hadn't been for nothing after all.

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

The more Imogen seemed to soften at the examples Eoghan was showing her, the more he could relax in her presence. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell her what he could do, only that before now he'd feared that he'd make her jealous. It was obvious there was already a rift forming between the Geminis once Eoghan had left for Hogwarts and he had no intention of making that any more severe. "They're Tarot Cards," he told her, watching with intrigue as she fingered through the deck, pausing every now and then to flip one upside down to get a better look.

He wasn't sure why this reaction surprised him, but he guessed that he'd been a fool to assume that Imogen would think this was all stupid. Maybe the pictures in the paper were enough to convince her for now that magic was real, and he wanted to use that to bring them closer, to show her what he could do and give her the opportunities to do as much as she could too, with the abilities she did have.

"Can I?" he offered his hand out again, taking the cards and began to shuffle them. It was easy enough to do a reading for her, he'd done so many now since the first one that he knew all the cards by heart, their meanings, and the ways they connected to one another. Imogen's own reading suggested that she was headed in the right direction in life, although perhaps she ought to be wary of some of those around her. Eoghan didn't like to tell her he thought the cards were right.

 

[Imogen Blyth]

It took every bit of effort for Imogen to humor Eoghan as he did a reading for her. It was absurd, the way he genuinely thought this would have any relevance to her life or what she was going through, but she nodded her head when she needed to, and the time apart meant that her feign of surprise when Eoghan revealed their meanings was accepted as genuine, since he knew no better these days.

"What else can you do?" she pushed, mirroring his own position on the couch and turning to face Eoghan properly. As he spoke, she realised this was the chattiest she'd seen him a while, perhaps even years. It was a little sad that it took something like this for him to come out of his shell, but with any luck it would be something else he would learn could come naturally.

"Can you change people's futures?" She asked, this time genuinely curious. How far did this go? Could you influence the outcome of certain events? Could you stop things from happening if, like Eoghan, you actually thought there was a chance for a certain future to come true? It would be a heck of a benefit to know you were about to be robbed, before the situation was upon you. Things like that were things people like Imogen needed to know.

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

The wide grin on Eoghan's face was real as his sister kept asking more and more questions. He would go on to tell her about reading runes, and about the subject of Arithmancy, the different ways that people could read futures. He told her that some wizards who was especially proficient, could go on to be a seer. Someone so powerful that they could quite literally see the future. Eoghan had considered it a path for himself at one time or another, although if the last year had shown him anything it was that he was beginning to feel as though the logical of Rune reading was more accurate than Divination, and there was evidence to support it. Futures could change, people could change their minds, what a seer saw in the future was only accurate for that moment they saw it, but the focus on Runes was a language. It was like trying to compare the what with the how.

Although he was apprehensive to do so, Eoghan found himself telling Imogen about some of the more advance spells and curses he'd one day come face to face with. He knew he'd learn more about them this year at school, but as ever he'd already read about them in his textbook so he was prepared. There was certainly a difference though between changing the future seen by a seer, and making someone else quite literally do your bidding. "You don't change a future any more than you would change someone's future yourself, but I suppose there's a few curses you have to be careful of if you don't want to be exploited." Eoghan had experienced enough of that for one lifetime, and in fact so had she.

Eoghan thought he was beginning to get a little off track. "You can't tell anyone about this. Not even Ma knows. You're the only one, outside of Hogwarts." No doubt he would have gotten the spanking of his life from the Ministry if it got out that a muggle was spreading the facts around. "And I'm only telling you because, well because it's you." If he couldn't tell his twin about his life, who could he tell?

 

[Imogen Blyth]

The more Imogen was hearing about the wizarding possibilities, the more she was convinced that it wouldn't be so bad to wait for Eoghan for another four years. They'd already come this far, and she'd been okay hadn't she? He was going to be the most powerful person in the group once he'd graduated, and the idea that they would have to live in their current conditions would soon be a distant memory. They could actually, really get out of here. All of them. And maybe Eoghan wouldn't like it, but wasn't this whole thing his idea to help her? He was only going to Hogwarts so that he could improve their lives.

Her face dropped a little when he told her she couldn't say a word. He certainly wouldn't want her telling Eeto. "That's fine," she said, a little too quickly. "I'm just glad you told me," she added, dropping her gaze back down to the school newspaper. Eoghan trusted her, and she was going to show him that together they could make the future they'd always dreamed of. As long as she had Eoghan by her side, she didn't need to worry about a thing. The only thing Imogen needed now was to make sure that Eoghan, her lifeline and ticket out of this hell hole, became the very best version of himself he could ever possibly be.

 

[Eoghan Blyth]

Eoghan trusted Imogen more than anyone, except perhaps Lilith. He didn't want her to feel excluded from his life just because of her blood, and even if he was limited in what he could do and show her, he was grateful for the chance that she'd listened to the things he had to say. Perhaps they would be okay, the bitterness and grudge holding could be lifted, and maybe they'd be as close again as they had been as children. He would do everything he could so that when he graduated, he'd become a doctor, perhaps even one that could specialise, and no one would be any the wiser that there were additional elements at hand. They'd save money, and work towards getting out of here permanently. It had been the plan all along and Eoghan had no intention of leaving Imogen here even if these years were hard between them. "I will protect you," it wasn't a promise he made lightly, but no matter what Imogen said, Eoghan hadn't and wouldn't leave her behind. She didn't need to be nervous of what his world was capable of, and if there was anything he could do to make her feel more like a part of his life, he'd do it.