Closed.

[Greyson "Grey" Sebastien]

Grey had not slept the night before. He had dozed at some point, in the chair beside the fire in his living room, beneath Orion's watchful gaze. But it had been an uneasy rest, and he had not wanted the oblivion of the sleeping potion. To be in a magical sleep would be to expose himself to vulnerability he did not want, and so he had numbed himself with firewhiskey, given in to his morbid thoughts and grieved anew. And hated himself all over again.

Eventually he had come downstairs into his shop, though the sign on the door still proclaimed CLOSED. He wouldn't be opening his shop today, or ever again. He had summoned his boxes, and was packing them, a gypsy again, ready to move on to the next place, to begin again and rebuild the walls.

[Headmistress Hells]

Hells stood outside Grey's potion shop studying the Closed sign. She reached up and knocked on the door, then stood back. She wasn't sure if Grey was around, or even awake, but as soon as she had showered and dressed that morning she had come to see him. She had her excuses ready, her headmistress mask on and she refused to let him rile her. As far as he was concerned she was here to do her job. Nothing more. She kept her attention on the closed sign, waiting for some sign of life behind that shut door.

[Greyson "Grey" Sebastien]

Grey set his shop to packing itself and turned toward the door without thought beyond turning away whatever customer might be standing on the other side. He was numb at last, and so his mask was returned, though it was brittle and weak. But he had made his decision, some time in the late hours of night, and so there was no question left in his mind of what he was doing.

When Grey opened the door, he showed no surprise, though that feeling of being unsettled and exposed shifted inside him. "Headmistress," he said coolly, inclining his head slightly in polite if distant greeting. He could recall the previous night only vaguely from the thick haze around his mind, but he remembered enough, and he remembered the important parts, if not the details. She had, somehow, been into his mind, and he had resigned from her employment.

Grey put up as strong a mental shield as he could manage, though, like his mask of politeness, it was frail. "Come in," he said politely, letting the words come automatically, with no real emotion behind them. "Was there something that I could do for you? My apologies for the state of things." He gave his wand a flick, and the packing stopped, though it must have been apparent what he had been doing. "If it is a potion you have need of, I should be able to find it with little trouble."

[Headmistress Hells]

Hells stepped in, her face showing no emotion. She was, after all, there for business only. She glanced around at the disarray, it was quite obvious to anyone that he was packing and it saddened her slightly to see he was running away once again. "Hello Grey." She said, his name sliding easily of her tongue. "I have no need for a potion." She began, wondering if she had asked for one, he knew which box they would have been in. "After last night's incident, I came to check to see if you were intent on resigning." She turned to study him, her chin held defiantely as she maintained her cool composure. "Am I right in presuming you are still?" She waved her hand over the boxes, before letting it drop to her side. She didn't bring up the details of the night before. There was no need to. Whether or not he reWizarded, she was in no mood to dredge it up.

[Greyson "Grey" Sebastien]

Incident. It was an odd description for what he recalled, but Grey made no move to correct her. She was keeping her distance, and he clung to that, though part of him insisted that it wasn't right. "I am afraid I have outlived my usefulness at Hogwarts, if not my welcome," Grey said. There was no keeping the hint of emotion from his voice, even if he couldn't truly feel it, but then, there was no reason to hide it, was there?

[Headmistress Hells]

"I am presuming of course that you have come to that decision alone? For I don't recall any mémbers of staff telling me that you had out stayed your welcome." She wasn't going to let him go that easily. Regardless of what went on between them, Hells refused to not fight for her staff or students. Her eyes flashed stubbornly as she clasped her hands in front of her. "Nor have I heard that you are no longer useful to the school." Hells wasn't going to praise him or stroke his ego, she was just pointing out the truth. She subconciously licked her dry lips as she waited for him to respond.

[Greyson "Grey" Sebastien]

"Headmistress--Hells--let's not pretend that this is about my teaching abilities." No, if he was breaking free, he might as well come clean first, a thought only brought to the fore by the numbness that distanced him from his words. "I will not ask you how you came by the things that you know, but I will ask that you let me deal with my personal ghosts as I wish. I am a man accustomed to my privacy." He stopped himself and regrouped, willing himself to resume his distance.

[Headmistress Hells]

"You showed me the things I know Grey." Hells said. She had not expected him to bring anything up and was slightly taken aback by his abruptness, yet she covered it well. "I couldn't have seen anything if you hadn't let me." It was a slight exaggeration of the truth, yet it was the truth all the same. She had not forced her way into his mind, she hadn't even attempted it, his mind had willingly drawn her in. "I have not come here to fight you Grey. I came to tell you that you still have your job if you wish to keep it. But if you are adamant that you wish to leave, then so be it. Just remémber that there is only so much running you can do, before you fall short of places to run to." Her face relaxed slightly, her eyes softening. She could understand his pain, had she herself not ran when the going got tough? Yet she faced up to her demons, Grey, it appeared, had yet to face his.

[Greyson "Grey" Sebastien]

"And the things that have happened between us, am I to forget them?" Grey asked, pushing himself, when Hells would not push him. "Am I to forget the things that weren't supposed to happen, that weren't supposed to make it any farther than the masquerade? Can you forget them?" He thought that unlikely; something of what he remémbered from the incident last night told him that sex could not possibly have been the whole of it. "Are we to work together with this knowledge between us?" Everything had changed irretreivably.

[Headmistress Hells]

A flush spread across her cheeks as her mind briefly went to the better side of their evening. However she kept control of her emotions and straightened slightly, looking Grey straight in the eye. "I wouldn't want to forget them." She began, raising her chin slightly as she spoke. "What happened, happened. If I had an opportunity to go back and change things, then I wouldn't. I'd do it again. I have no regrets for what occured. I feel no guilt or shame." She was however, beginning to feel frustrated, yet she didn't let it show. Her patience was a trait she valued and she could stand there all day with a reply to his questions. "Do you want to forget what happened between us Grey? Go back and change what happened the night of the masquerade? You are after all a talented potion maker. Surely you could have knocked up a potion to escape from the reality."

[Greyson "Grey" Sebastien]

Somehow, her question caught Grey offguard. He was rendered momentarily speechless, unable to deny anything, though her question was rhetorical, it seemed. "I don't want to forget," he admitted, his voice low, but stark in the relative quiet of the shop. "But how can there be more?" He asked the question of himself, rather than Hells, unable to say even what he meant by it. How could there be more than that night? He had lived in dreams and nightmares for so long, lived for escaping the very same, that he wasn't sure he remémbered how else to live.

[Headmistress Hells]

"We all learn to walk before we can run Grey." Hells started, her voice gentle. "Sometimes we just have to close our eyes and take one step forward. Nobody knows where that step will take us, but that is the chance we take." She instinctly stepped forward, then stopped abruptly, not wishing to close the gap between them just yet. "Life is not meant to be easy. Whatever is thrown at us is to make us stronger in some shape or form. When something good comes along, we should grab it, not let it pass us by." She looked away, focusing on a spider that was making it's way across a shelf.

[Greyson "Grey" Sebastien]

He could see her point easily, and the desire to do so, to put aside pain and doubt to take that chance, was temptation he could not deny. But how? How to step out of solitary darkness? "I don't know how," he admitted softly. He had loved once, unwisely, but powerfully, with his entire soul. He didn't remémber how he had done it then, didn't know if Hells meant her words as advice or an offer, and he was afraid to ask. Had he, perhaps, not imagined the connection between them at the masquerade. Was there, maybe, already more between them, and was that why this was so difficult? He had no answers to his own questions, unless Hells felt something as well.

[Headmistress Hells]

Hells felt her heart in her throat and she swallowed it down. Her hands shook slightly and she clasped them tighter. Taking a deep breath, she finally spoke. "Just close your eyes and take one step forward."

[Greyson "Grey" Sebastien]

"And?" Grey prompted. She could not take the step for him, that he knew, but neither could he find it in him to take that step alone. "I know what I am risking," he said. He was risking his heart, risking himself as he had become over the years. Risking his soul, perhaps. "Is there anything to be gained?" It was as close as he could bring himself to asking if she would be there, if he was risking himself for her. What was it that she wanted? He was still unsure.