Liquida Tenebris (Remastered)

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/53602225.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Category: M/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood
& Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley
Characters: Harry Potter, Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Ginny Weasley, Draco Malfoy,
Luna Lovegood
Additional Tags: Dark, Male Slash, Dark Magic, Violence, Blood and Gore, Torture
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2024-02-07 Updated: 2024-02-12 Words: 74,007 Chapters:
23/?
 Liquida Tenebris (Remastered)
by DoYouMindIfISlytherin

Summary

Something is wrong with Harry. He's hearing voices. or rather, a voice. It's telling him he's
been on the wrong side since the beginning. Harry doesn't believe it. Eventual Dark!Harry,
eventual HP/LV slash. (This is the completely remastered version of LT, written in honour of
its tenth anniversary and my insanity.)
 Once More, With Feeling

(Author Note: This is a retelling of Liquida Tenebris, in honour of its tenth anniversary. It is
completely stand-alone and is not in line with the original, posted on FFnet.

I was quite young when I wrote it the first time, and I didn 't have the skills or the discipline
that I do now.

If you have read Liquida Tenebris before, hello. How incredible to see you again; Please
allow me to reintroduce myself. You can expect a completely revamped, reworked, thicker
plot.

If you haven 't read LT before, welcome; Please allow me to introduce myself.

Trigger Warnings: This fanfiction contains graphic depictions of violence, torture, and sex.
It deals with dark themes such as self-harm, suicidal ideation, and mental breaks. It
features an eventual Dark!Harry with an (extremely eventual) Tom Riddle/Harry Potter
pairing. Consider this a blanket warning, but I will place individual warnings at the
beginning of chapters with particularly triggering scenes.

This fiction is primarily a love letter to my future self, and my one true pairing, the Mount
Everest of enemies to lovers.)

No Jesus Christ, Seether

You're so quick to choose the path walked by the righteous

So you can go and nest among the weak.
And the innocent observers will refuse to find the lie within
Renew the disappointment of the meek.

'I killed Sirius Black! I killed Sirius Black!' Once again, without warning, the gloating, high-
pitched voice of Bellatrix Lestrange rang in his head. The Boy Who Lived shook himself and
refocused on his aunt's immaculate front garden. The tedious and repetitive tasks were his
least favourite, his mind prone to wandering back into that Atrium, back to the veil and the
madness that followed. He plucked at minuscule weeds and focused on the sun beating down
on his back. He'd rather be doing something that required more active attention, but, as it was
with every enforced return to the Dursleys, he had been worked like a dog through the break,
and was running low on complex tasks.

'… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…' Harry shook
his head with more violence than before and stood from his kneeling position. There was
nothing more to be done for the garden. He turned to face the sun and sighed, noting that he'd
spent hours in the dirt, and it wouldn't be long before he was alone with his thoughts. Nights
were the worst. Without distractions, the previous weeks would roll through his head on a
loop. His days at the Dursleys were never pleasant, but this time, more than ever, he counted
the seconds until he returned to Hogwarts. To his family.

He made his way inside and said nothing to Petunia as he passed her, which had become
customary. Harry had noticed her watching him with more interest, which he guessed had
something to do with his sunken eyes, pallid features, and skeletal frame. Food and sleep had
become something intangible to Harry James Potter. As he opened the refrigerator to prepare
a meal for the Dursleys, his stomach revolted at the mere thought of dinner. He prepared a
salad and well-done steaks for his blood relatives, his thoughts once again moving towards
Sirius as he plated and served the food, an unrelenting lump in his throat as he silently
excused himself to his room.

He took the stairs two at a time, relying more on his arms, legs, and muscle memory to guide
him than on his tunnelled sight. He closed the door behind him and fell against it, his vision
swimming, blood pounding in his ears as he tried to settle himself. Hedwig hooted softly at
him from her cage, tearing his eyes from the carpet to the bird. He moved toward her, petting
her through the bars absently as he attempted to steady his breathing.

'…And the Dark Lord will mark him as equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows
not…' Harry stepped away from the bird with a jerk and moved to the window instead,
staring down at Privet Drive and willing an escape to appear. The quiet street mocked him for
some minutes, he couldn't guess how many, before he paced back to his trunk and took out
the letters he'd received from his friends throughout his enforced stay at the Dursleys. And
reread them as he did every night.

Ron's messy scrawl bled together on the parchment as tears blurred his eyes. Ron had taken
the route of only discussing light topics, avoiding Sirius' death and the events prior. Hermione
had gone the route of endless placating, worrying, needling, in neat script with meticulous
punctuation, always an attempt to reassure him, but the letters only served to dredge it from
where he'd tried to hide it away. Hers were harder to read.

'I killed Sirius Black! I killed Sirius Black!' Her maniacal laugh rang out from ahead of him,
as he chased her, wordlessly, thoughtlessly, through the Atrium of the Ministry. He could hear
the fighting, spells ringing out, the roaring of flames and the screams and yells of his friends
and his enemies alike. He heard them like one might hear underwater, the only sound he
heard with crystalline clarity was that of Bellatrix Lestrange.

When she finally turned to face him, eyes bulging, teeth gnashing in a wild smile, as Harry
slid to a stop.

'Aww, did you love him, itty baby Potter?" She cooed, dramatically shushing him with her
hand.

It can 't have taken more than one beat of his heart, but it stretched as their eyes locked. A
roaring, white-hot rage was thundering in his chest, his vision tunnelled and he panted once,
twice. His wand raised, no recollection of it. Time felt slowed to a crawl, his blood pounding
with the pressure in his head, in his chest. He was screaming, howling, he realised.
Bellatrix hesitated, a blink with a step back. She had drawn her wand an instant after Harry
had, but she did not curse him. She jerked her chin at him defiantly, a warning or a dare.
Harry 's thoughts were razed in the blaze of his fury, incomprehensible and irrelevant, his
connection to his limbs and mouth severed, his motions and actions fueled by a primal drive.

And so, Harry broke the stalemate. Pushed by his vengeance, and in hindsight, something
much darker.

Harry shot up from his bed as though doused in ice water, drenched in sweat and panting, he
slid to the floor. He didn't need to look in the mirror to know that he was paler than usual. He
stripped his shirt in an effort to cool off and locked eyes again with Hedwig. She ruffled her
feathers, agitated with her cage and stressed by Harry's frequent panic attacks. He stood and
unlatched her cage, sending her out the window and into the night. He shut off his light, but
instead of the bed, he once again lowered himself to the carpet.

Lying in his bed had the most detrimental effect, he'd noted. His head hit the pillow and the
ground running, leaving no room for anything other than Bellatrix Lestrange, the Prophecy,
Sirius, and how the moment he'd cast that spell… No. He wasn't thinking about it. He wasn't
thinking about it. He bit the inside of his cheeks as he stood and paced, deciding the floor was
also undesirable. Each time he crossed his cramped space, he glanced out the window, willing
an event, anything other than the liminal space that haunted him through the glass.

Harry had no desire to check the time these nights. Minutes would drag into centuries as he
willed them faster, and he had stopped minding any clock quite quickly. The nights went no
faster regardless. The Boy Who Lived cycled through grief, rage, regret, and boredom,
pacing, sitting, and reading through the nights, until the exhaustion took him, sometime in the
small hours of the morning. The purple haze of dawn lulling him into an uneasy
unconsciousness. Most often, sleep claimed him on the floor.

'…And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives…'

The Chosen One awoke with a start, angrily shaking his head. He got up from the floor and
let his, and another, owl into his space. The golden morning light told him that he had slept
very little, exhaustion becoming part of the fabric of his being. He took the letter offered by
the second owl, one he did not recognize, and it flew from the window before he'd looked
down at the parchment.

A letter from the Headmaster, stating that he was to be brought to the Burrow by Dumbledore
himself in three days, on Friday night. Any relief he felt was muted, doused by the events he
desperately regretted. He was grateful for the glimmer of hope, regardless.

Come Friday night, Harry was more restless than usual. His thoughts raced as normal, but
they were blessedly dispersed with the knowledge that tonight, he would at least be free of
this room, if not the turmoil. The dark-haired teen watched the street exclusively as he
waited. unlike the nights before it, something would finally interrupt the monotonous and
agonizing stretch between dusk and dawn. He hadn't warned his relatives, unable or
unwilling to summon the strength required to use his voice, and certainly avoiding the chaos
that would ensue among the Dursleys if he were to announce the Headmaster's imminent
arrival.

So, he waited, as his blood relatives turned in for the night, heralded by the flipping of light
switches and the quiet closing of doors, signaling to Harry that it was somewhere between
nine and ten PM.

He stood leaning his forehead against the glass, eyes unfocused as he watched the repetitive
houses that lined the repetitive street. His neighbour's lights were extinguished one by one.
Slowly, at first, then faster as the hour wore late, patches of warmth receding until the street
was only lit by the dull blue of the interspersed street lights.

'…The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month
dies…' His jaw tightened as the prophecy entered his thoughts unbidden. A lump formed in
his throat at the thought of Sirius, the thought of him falling backwards into the veil, his face
still smiling, eyes wide. Not far behind these thoughts was Bellatrix Lestrange, but he forced
them away. He would not, could not consider her. He felt, he knew, if he let himself think
about the events that followed the murder of his Godfather, he would slip into the yawning
abyss that he had been skirting for weeks.

Harry realized that the lawn he'd been staring at for hours was no longer empty, and his eyes
bugged as he watched his headmaster move leisurely down the Dursley's footpath for a
moment, before he flung his messily packed trunk closed, startling Hedwig, who had spent
most of her night indignant at her lack of freedom.

By the end of the night, Harry was certain that he wouldn't be longing for another break in his
monotony anytime soon. Dumbledore had made a spectacle in the living room, distressing
and shaming the Dursleys, seemingly for Harry's benefit. It had mildly lifted his mood, but all
events thereafter only served to sour it further. The headmaster discussed his godfather's will
with him, declaring him the new owner of the Order Headquarters, number twelve
Grimmauld Place, its house elf, and Buckbeak, who Harry decided should be with Hagrid.
Harry and Dumbledore had ensured that the house elf, Kreacher, was indeed loyal to the Boy
Who Lived, and after confirmation, the house elf was sent to Hogwarts to work in the
kitchens. The Boy Who Lived had immediately noticed that the Headmaster's left arm was
charred and shrivelled. The man dodged all questions about it throughout the night and into
the morning, but Harry didn't stop inquiring.

The headmaster further admonished the Dursleys for their treatment of Harry on their way
out and told them that when he returned, it would be for the final time, coinciding with his
seventeenth birthday. That thought had roused him from the horror of recent happenings, if
only momentarily.

Instead of side-along Apparating him straight to the Burrow, they landed in a street he didn't
recognise. He soon learned he was being recruited to convince a man named Horace
Slughorn to take a position at Hogwarts. Having successfully, and unknowingly, completed
the task, he was finally transported to the Weasley house in the early hours of the morning.
Dumbledore informed him before he left the Burrow that he wanted to see Harry for private
lessons as soon as the school year commenced, but didn't specify the nature of the lessons.
He had been warmly greeted, regardless of the sombre undertones. He had not slept, as he'd
hoped. When breakfast had been served that morning, Harry moved his food around his plate,
feeling everyone's eyes on him, and decidedly ignoring them.

He, of course, had been asked repeatedly if he was alright.

How was he feeling?

He watched his fork move the expertly cooked bacon into the over-easy eggs. He knew it
looked delicious, that Molly Weasley had perfected her craft with an abundance of care and
affection, he knew that he should eat. When he thought about it, when was the last time he'd
eaten more than half an apple when the pangs wrung his gut? Still, he moved the food, not
looking up, barely looking down.

How was he feeling?

He wondered how unhinged he would become if he answered the insistent question honestly.
Harry had replied with silence, thus far, when asked. The questioner would invariably nod,
apologize, and then double down on the inquisition at a later time.

How was he feeling?

A question he'd avoided asking himself at any cost. When his mind wandered too close to
what he could only describe as a cliff, a precipice, with no discernible bottom or end, A
yawning, hungry mouth in the middle of his head, he was not above inflicting pain on himself
to distract from it. Biting the insides of his mouth until he tasted iron, gripping his hair, nails
dug tight into the palms of his hands, drawing blood. On one occasion, he had bitten himself
with an unbidden ferocity on the inside of his upper left arm. The pain had been, more than
once, the only thing stopping him from dancing too close to the edge.

In the depths of the abyss, he knew he'd find the moments he'd endured with Bellatrix in the
ministry, the memory reaching for him from within it like tendrils, dragging him in when he
was tired. When he tried to rest. He would find those moments there. Those, and something
else.

He dug the fingernails of his free hand into his thigh and tightened his jaw.

How was he feeling?

He stood from the table with more force than necessary, killing any quiet conversation that
had been taking place.

"Sorry," he muttered, excusing himself. He was tired, he'd said. Sorry again.

They had let him go, whispering in his wake, the concern following him like a poltergeist up
the stairs and into Ron's bedroom. The Boy Who Lived collapsed face-first into his makeshift
bed on the floor, and screamed himself raw into his pillow. He was sure that the Weasleys
would have heard him, however muffled, but there was no stopping once he'd started.
'…The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…'

Days passed in much the same way at the Burrow, the familiar rhythm of the Weasley house
went a little way toward soothing Harry's mind at first, he had begun sleeping sporadically
throughout the night, and taking small amounts of his meals.

He had talked with his friends, though he had little he felt like saying, making the
conversation stiff. He had admonished Hermione, and by proxy, everyone else in the room,
and told them that he was not to be asked how he was feeling. He had said this loudly. He
hadn't directed this at Ron or Ginny, because, much to his relief, they hadn't asked. Ginny had
watched him with knowing, sad eyes during his outburst.

Their O.W.L results had been delivered the morning of Harry's arrival at the Burrow, and
Harry and Ron had received seven O. each, whereas Hermione earned herself ten. Harry had
been elected quidditch captain, earning whoops and cheers from Ron and Ginny. The Boy
Who Lived was pleased with this, but it felt so far away at that moment that it was only a
marginal improvement.

Any plans the Boy Who Lived had of becoming an Auror were dashed by Snape, with the
revelation that Harry would not be able to take N.E.W.T level potions with only an exceeds
expectations. The Chosen One felt little more than a twinge of disappointment at this news.
His plans felt small.

Harry realized with quickness that sleeping for more than an hour at a time increased the risk
of completing his recurrent nightmare. When he slept, he lost his defences, and without them,
he would fall back into his memory of that night with painful clarity. The look on Sirius' face,
then the look on Bellatrix's, when he'd cornered her and raised his wand.

Each time the dream would shock him awake, bolt upright and panting, glad of Ron's
tendency to sleep unreasonably deeply, even through the moments afterwards, where he
couldn't slow his breathing, when his throat closed and his body moved off its own accord,
fleeing what was inside his head. He had avoided the memories that followed with ferocious
effort, but when he was unconscious his mind took the express track, flashing through the
murder, the chase, and the stalemate, rushing to the seconds after and stretching them as
though savouring them.

'Aww, did you love him, itty baby Potter?"

He could no longer hear anything but the rush of blood in his ears, the static haze of his
screaming. His vision was on a tilt-a-whirl, eyes swimming with tears, arms and legs numb.
No thoughts.

"You've got to mean it, Harry. You know the spell." A voice behind him said.

Harry Potter raised his wand and cast the Cruciatus Curse.
 Dreamless Sleep

When you break, Bears Den

I found you shaking like a leaf

Underneath your family tree.
You could never live out in the open
Regretting every word you've spoken.
When you break, it's too late for you to fall apart
And the blame that you claim is all your own fault.

It quickly became obvious to the occupants of the Burrow that there was something to be
concerned about when it came to Harry James Potter.

He had taken to sitting upright in bed at night, leaning against the wall with his eyes wide
open. Ron had reported that when he went to sleep, Harry was still awake. When Ron awoke,
Harry was still awake. Though he had been eating more than he had been when he first
arrived, it appeared as though he was sleeping less. He snapped at the slightest provocation,
choosing to spend more and more time alone as the days leading up to his sixteenth birthday
ticked by.

The house was on edge, a slight panic building at the despondent state of their Boy Who
Lived. Hermione and the twins had formed an unlikely alliance, working together to try and
shift Harry's energy. The trio tiptoed on eggshells around the teen, Searching for a crack in
his armour. And while his mood had seemed minutely lifted by his return to the Weasley
home, it had steadily soured despite their efforts. Often, it earned them a verbal beating from
the retreating Chosen One.

Conversations became hushed, mealtimes consisting of meaningful glances as Harry moved

his food around his plate.

Ginny and Ron had taken a different approach than Hermione, Fred, and George. They had
given him a wide berth, the both of them watching him far more than they conversed with
him. Fred had told Molly one morning that he had stumbled upon Harry and Ginny across
from each other in the sitting room at three in the morning, and that the pair were sat in
silence.

Harry's birthday brought no change in his mood, and the gloomy affair was marred further by
more bad news, in the form of Dementor attacks, the death of Igor Karkaroff, and
kidnappings being carried out by Death Eaters. This information had been brought to them by
a desolate-looking Remus Lupin, and a forlorn Arthur Weasley. Molly had tried desperately
to improve what was truly an abysmal party, and while Harry appreciated her attempt, there
was nothing to be done.
He had taken to creeping out of his room when the hour grew late and the Burrow fell silent,
taking a heavily cushioned armchair and staring out the darkened window. Most nights,
Ginny would sneak down the stairs not far behind him, and she would sit with him
wordlessly, watching the same glass panes. Harry wondered how it was that she, of all the
people occupying the Burrow, knew what it was that he truly needed even though he could
not articulate it. Her quiet company subdued his thoughts, unwilling as he was to break under
perception.

He had thought about telling his friends about the prophecy that Dumbledore had revealed to
him, on the night of Sirius' death. Each time, he couldn't summon the strength to broach it.
He could scarcely think the words, let alone speak them.

Harry watched the sun rising and glanced at Ginny, who nodded in silent agreement, closing
the book she had been reading. The pair ascended the stairs and bid the other a whispered
goodnight, though the house would soon rise for breakfast.

Their Hogwarts book lists arrived that morning, and a trip to Diagon Ally was planned by a
flustered and anxious Molly.

Two days later, the Weasley household, along with Harry and Hermione, stood around the
fireplace preparing to floo to the ally. Harry had returned to sleeping as little as he had at
Privet Drive, such was his desire to keep his memories at bay. He had maintained his small
improvement when it came to how much he was eating, but he was desperately tired. He
would find his head wobbling unsteadily even when he was standing. He decided he would
need to do something about it. In the event of an attack, he would be worse than useless.

Diagon Ally was not the beacon of hope that he remembered from his previous years.
Storefronts stood bare. Significantly fewer patrons rushed through their tasks, and no jovial
conversations took place on the cobbled streets. Ministry pamphlets and wanted posters
replaced advertisements and notices. Several shops were boarded up and abandoned, the
Leaky Cauldron was deserted. An unnatural hush had fallen.

Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny went through the motions of purchasing their school
supplies. Very little conversation sparked among the group, filling Harry with guilt, though
he hadn't the will to rectify it. At one point, Ron had tapped him on the shoulder and directed
him to look at the retreating back of Draco and Narcissa Malfoy, stealing away towards
Knockturn. Harry had frowned, filing it away, but opted to do nothing in the moment, tired as
he was. Ron had balked slightly at his lack of interest but had fallen back into an uneasy
silence.

Weasley's Wizard Wheezes served as a brief respite from the bleak state of the ally and
Harry's mind, and he had plastered the occasional smile on his face for the benefit of his
loved ones. Once they had completed the mandatory shopping, Harry and Ginny broke from
the group as the Boy Who Lived announced he had one last task.

"No, it's okay, it will only take us a minute," He'd told Hermione and Ron when they'd made
to stand from the seats where they'd taken a break. It had earned a strange look from
Hermione, her eyes flitting from Ginny back to Harry, before she nodded her agreement.
Harry assumed it looked as though he might have wanted alone time with the youngest
Weasley. Though that was true, it was purely because her company was easy and
undemanding.

She followed him to the Apothecary, where Harry picked up a three-month supply of
dreamless sleep. He didn't buy enough to last him the whole school year, opting instead to
test the potion. He shrunk them down and hid them in his pocket. Ginny did not comment,
instead giving him a sad smile.

Harry wasted no time that night. He waited for the telltale light snoring from Ron before he
unstoppered the bottle and downed the contents. He laid back, heavy, and sleep overwhelmed
him.

He was young again, no older than eight. He watched a group of seagulls overhead, circling
in the sky lazily in the heat of the afternoon sun. Harry laid back on the grass, content with
his position on the lightly crisped lawn.

"There he is! Hey freak boy!" A voice startled Harry to his feet, already running. He chanced
a glance behind him and found that three older children were hot on his heels, two boys and
a girl. They hooted and hollered as they ran, laughing as they corralled Harry toward a cliff
face. The Boy Who Lived took this in with a start, adrenaline pumping in his veins as he
changed course, narrowly avoiding the largest of the three children. He was fast, though, and
he had more stamina.

He ran for far longer than he was chased.

Harry awoke pleased that he hadn't dreamed of the night at the Ministry, and that he had
managed, for the first time in many weeks, to sleep through the night.

He was also confused. He had taken dreamless sleep, so why did he dream? Why did he
dream of an unfamiliar location? Unfamiliar people? It would not have been strange for him
to be chased in his childhood by a group of kids screaming freak, but it had been completely
foreign. His thoughts wandered to the reason he had been in the Ministry in the first place.
Because Voldemort had tricked him with false visions.

He shook it off, deciding to ask Hermione about dreamless sleep potions after breakfast.

After the morning meal, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny had taken to the garden. Ginny
flew circles above them on her broom, practising maneuvers after her suggestion of a two on
two quidditch match was shot down.

"Hermione," Harry said, breaking the silence as he watched Ginny slow to a stop and looked
out at the woods that bordered the perimeter of the Burrow.

"Yes, Harry?" Hermione seemed startled to hear him say her name.

"Do you know if dreamless sleep… stops dreams?"

"Well, yes," she said, "it's in the name. I think that's a good idea, we can brew some when we
return to Hogwarts. If you had said something yesterday we could have stopped by the
Apothecary?"

He hadn't told them about his nightmares, or the dreamless sleep potions. He shrugged off
Hermione's light admonishment without another comment. Ginny resumed her flying, though
she seemed less enthusiastic. Ron remained silent throughout the conversation, and Harry
made a mental note that he would have to put more effort in with his best mate.

He mulled over Hermione's answer, deciding that it was very unlike her to be wrong. And it
was in the name. Still, he had a dream. Not his nightmare, but a nightmare all the same. A
terror that he knew well, through a lens he didn't recognize.

"Are you having bad dreams, Harry?" Hermione pressed. Ginny came to land nearby and
called them inside before he had to answer.

Throughout the following weeks at the Burrow, Harry did not dream again. He was finally
well-rested and properly fed. His grief felt less raw. He found himself smiling at Ron's
theatrics at dinner one night, arguing with Hermione about her opinion on his new chess
maneuver. Harry knew that the atmosphere at the Burrow was entirely dependent on his
mood. If he did not shine like a beacon, all hope was lost. Instead of bolstering it, the thought
washed the smile from his face. He hid it with a forkful of mashed potatoes.

In the wake of his slowly receding grief, he had noticed a new sensation. A feeling that he
had no reference point for. Vaguely uncomfortable, not unlike a need. A need that he couldn't
pinpoint or identify. He had registered the rush in his stomach every few days. Strong enough
to sway him on his feet, as though he could start running and somehow reach this thing, this
nameless need. Each time he had resisted the urge to… Well, do something. What that thing
was, he didn't know. It brought with it a creeping anxiety, one that chained itself unbidden to
the night at the Ministry, to how he had felt when he used an Unforgivable. Connected in a
way that he couldn't understand.

Now that he had control of his sleep, he wasn't vulnerable to dreams of that night. While he
was awake, there were still occasions when he needed to forcefully bite his tongue or dig his
nails into the back of his neck. He found that the memory and the unidentifiable feeling were
catalysts for each other, each capable of triggering the other. He had been caught in a painful
feedback loop more than once, unable to bite or scratch his way free.

On those occasions he had wordlessly excused himself, or muffled his face in the pillow,
fighting his mind and his body, resisting the thought of Bellatrix writhing under his wand and
instead reliving the minutes that came before it, all while he needed. In those moments he
was consumed with dread. Dread at the thought of having cast the curse, to begin with. Dread
that they might find out. The people he loved. Dread at how he had felt when the curse hit its
mark.

Several thoughts circled his mind with nowhere to land. If he acknowledged them, if he
questioned them, he would come undone.
The morning of August first, the Burrow was buzzing with activity as Harry, Ron, Hermione
and Ginny prepared to leave for platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Molly and Arthur saw the
teens off at the station, and Harry found himself seated with Luna and Neville after fighting
through crowds of people asking 'Is it really true? That you fought You-Know-Who? At the
Ministry?'

Harry dodged all questions and was glad that he was at least well-rested in the face of the
startling chaos of the platform and the train. Harry regretfully dodged Luna and Neville's
attempts at conversation, offering only small, apologetic replies. The both of them had been
there with him that night, at the Ministry, along with so many others, to fight at his side while
he retrieved the prophecy that now haunted him. A trap, in the end. He knew that Luna,
Neville, and everyone else would have seen the state of him once he'd been found, apparently
collapsed at the feet of Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort himself, rabid. He had no
recollection of at least an hour after the curse had ceased, as the tide of the battle changed
with the arrival of the Aurors, the Minister, and Dumbledore.

He had been told that he was inconsolable, Ron had said that he 'completely snapped', that no
one could get through to him until he had been stunned and then sedated with a potion at the
Order Headquarters sometime later. He got the sense specific details were being withheld for
his benefit.

He blanched at the thought of Luna and Neville bearing witness to his aftermath and avoided
all further attempts at conversation completely. He was thankfully granted reprieve in the
form of an opportunity and an idea. Blaise Zabini passed their carriage, and Harry
remembered the blond Slytherin, weeks earlier, conspicuously making his way towards
Knockturn Ally. The Boy Who Lived excused himself, removing his invisibility cloak from
his trunk with no explanation as he went.

He followed behind Zabini until he Reached Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson, who were already
locked in a whispered discussion. He hid himself on the rack above their heads, using a
particularly rough stretch of track to hide any noise he'd made.

Malfoy was paler than usual, Harry noted. His eyes were searching his surroundings with a
paranoia that the Boy Who Lived was familiar with, as though he was expecting an ambush.
The blonde would grip his left forearm, his jaw tightening when he did so. It was not lost on
Harry that the Dark Mark was placed on the left forearm of Death Eaters. The Chosen One
didn't need to wait long, as Malfoy began to gloat that he wouldn't be spending any further
time at Hogwarts, after the end of the year. Harry noted that he seemed far more tense than
proud as he blustered, Parkinson and Zabini exchanged worried glances before correcting
their faces.

The Boy Who Lived waited for more details, for something concrete. Pansy had asked about
Harry directly, "What about Potter?"

"Don't go near Potter," Draco snapped in reply, his tone thick with dislike, but there was a
command in his voice. Parkinson took the warning and nodded silently.

The conversation fell into quiet, and Harry waited for the train to stop and the Slytherins to
leave before he began to shuffle down off the rack. Malfoy had paused in the doorway, turned
and looked right into his eyes before departing, or at least where his eyes would have been,
had he not been invisible.

At the feast that night, Harry pushed himself to eat more than his usual meagre helpings,
swallowing hard as he watched Dumbledore give the start of term speech. His eyes would
wander without permission to the Slytherin table, seeking Malfoy while he mulled over what
he had heard on the train.

Leave Potter alone? Not the usual course.

Each time he locked his eyes on the blonde, he was in intense discussion with Zabini and
Parkinson.

"Where were you on the train mate? We couldn't find you," Ron asked through a mouthful of
chicken leg. Hermione nodded her agreement, looking up from the textbook that Harry
guessed she had started on the ride.

The Boy Who Lived gave them a look that said 'later,' and though they seemed much more
curious, they nodded acceptance.

In the common room that night, he told them what he had done, and what he heard as a result.
Ron had agreed that it was highly suspicious, but they would need to know more before they
brought their accusations to the Headmaster. Hermione was less convinced and had tried to
argue the point with him. Longing for his four-poster bed overwhelmed him, and he and Ron
dredged up the stairs to bed. He drew his curtains after rummaging in his trunk, drinking the
dreamless sleep potion and losing consciousness blissfully quickly.

He was creeping the halls of a building he didn 't recognize, late at night. He moved until he
heard what he was looking for, the barely muffled voices of the three children who had chased
him.

He stood on the other side of the door, ear pressed to the wood as he tried to make out what
they were saying. They were not talking about him, but that didn 't stop the rage, regret, and
sadness that crept into his head and heart. He could hear his old friend laughing at
something that one of the others had said, and Harry recalled that he had never said
anything funny enough to make him laugh like that. Old friend. A funny concept.

Then the other two had arrived and convinced his friend that there was something wrong with
Harry, swaying him to popular opinion. So the other boy had taken to sneering at him, then
sniggering, then chasing. Harry knew it wouldn 't be long before his luck would run out, and
he would find out what his old friend would do if he caught him. He stood with his forehead
pressed to the door for a long moment before he turned and crept back to his room.
 Born as the Seventh Month Dies

Madness, Ruelle

I see that look in your eyes

It makes me go blind
Cut me deep, these secrets and lies
Storm in the quiet

Feel the fury closing in

All resistance wearing thin
Nowhere to run from all of this havoc
Nowhere to hide
From all of this madness, madness, madness
Madness, madness, madness

He awoke with thoughts of the Ministry on his mind, the dream momentarily forgotten as he
grappled once again with the memory of Bellatrix, and what he had done. A frustration came
with it, forcefully needling his mind and draining his focus. He had curled into the foetal
position, every muscle tense. He bit down on his knuckles harder with each wave of nausea
and incomprehensible hunger that rocked him. He noticed that he was sobbing and forced his
fist deeper into his teeth, quieting the sound.

The instant the spell hit; Harry was removed from himself. He fell into the deepest recesses of
his mind, replaced with foreign emotions. His rage was still blurring his vision, grinding his
teeth in his jaw, but there was part of him that had rejoiced. The purest bliss had blossomed
in his chest, knocking him to his knees as he watched Sirius ' murderer writhe under his
curse. A wave of contentment washed through him. Satisfaction, he'd realized. He could feel
his throat laughing.

Harry did not remember what happened after that moment, but he could recall all that came
before it with vivid clarity. He rolled from the bed and hit the floor, caught momentarily in
his curtains. He noticed he had blood on his hands but wasn't sure of the source, numb as he
was.

Closer inspection showed that he had broken the skin of his knuckles with his teeth. He
cleaned the wound and healed it, glad for the ability to fix his self-inflicted wounds now that
he had returned to Hogwarts. Small mercies. The sun was not yet rising, and he hadn't made
enough noise to wake his sleeping dorm mates. He decided against climbing back into bed,
sick to his stomach at the thought of it, so he crept down the stairs to the Common Room,
forcing the memory back before it choked him. He was only slightly surprised to find Ginny
already there, reading by candlelight. She smiled at him and didn't ask why he was up so
early.
Snape's plan to derail Harry's sixth-year Potions class had been foiled by Slughorn, who
insisted that an exceeds expectations was perfectly acceptable. Harry knew this was purely
due to his fame, but he took the win. He hadn't shopped for Potions at all, and as a result, was
using a spare copy of the textbook. The notes in the margins had been spectacularly helpful,
earning him a vial of Felix Felicis and the ire of Hermione Granger. He kept the potions
textbook to himself.

Horace teaching Potions meant that Snape had gotten his wish and was teaching Defense.
Harry hadn't been thrilled, but he didn't have the energy to truly put up a fight. Snape himself
had noticed this in his first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, where the Boy Who Lived
made no attempt to take any bait that the Professor laid at his feet, in the form of docking
house points, snarky comments, or outright attacks on his character. A different kind of
exhaustion had begun to seep into him, borne of the intense effort required to keep his mind
in check.

Hermione seemed to be growing tired as well and had decided to ignore Harry's request to
leave it alone, apparently very keen to get the Boy Who Lived to discuss how he was feeling
and to discuss what would happen now, after the attack at the Ministry. On this occasion,
Harry, Ron and Hermione sat with him in the Common Room after dinner, and the bushy-
haired girl had resumed her needling. She got more aggressive as the hour wore on, no longer
making comments in passing, but firing questions one after the other.

"If you're having nightmares, Harry, maybe you should discuss it with the Headmaster?"

"What did Dumbledore speak to you about, after the Ministry? What about the Prophecy?"

"What will we do now?"

"Did the Headmaster tell you what happened to his hand?"

"What happened with Bellatrix? And Voldemort?"

Harry's head had snapped up at this question, though he had tried to stop it. He saw a spark in
Hermione's eyes, and he knew he had just given a dog a bone. A heat had begun to spread
through his limbs, making him sweat despite the cool air outside. His heart rate spiked, and
he was hit with the urge to flee. He knew that Hermione would let none of it go, and so he
decided to answer a question that might distract her from what he couldn't even allow himself
to think about.

"Dumbledore told me the prophecy. That night, after the Ministry." He waited for that to sink
in before he continued.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches," He began, aware of his
hands shaking in his lap.

"Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies, and the Dark
Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not, and either
must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives, the one with
the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..." He watched
as they took the information in, realization forming on their faces. Ron slowly became slack-
jawed, but Hermione's eyes shot side to side as she digested the prophecy. Harry could see
the gears moving in her head from the outside.

"Harry…" Ron said, his tone mournful.

"Either must die at the hand of the other?" Hermione asked, over the top of Ron. Harry
nodded, his earlier spike of adrenaline at the mention of Bellatrix had subsided, leaving him
bone-tired in its wake.

Discussing the prophecy with them now was all well and good, he knew. He also knew that
later; he would need to fight that much harder to extinguish the thoughts.

"What does that mean?" Hermione pressed, and Harry gave a one-shouldered shrug.

"I suppose it means only I can end this." He muttered. As though triggered by the thought,
the unidentifiable hunger rose in his gut. He shifted, uncomfortable.

Hermione seemed to be waiting for something more, and when he gave no further details, she
leaned forward in her seat.

"What happened with Bellatrix?" Her eyes flashed again, and Harry thought he should have
known better than to think she would let it go. The Boy Who Lived shook his head, partly in
warning, partly in answer.

"Do you not remember?"

"I don't know what you want me to say." He bit out. "I chased her. She didn't curse me first."

Hermione nodded, taking his tone as a cue to let the matter drop. Her keen eyes told Harry
that it wouldn't be forever.

Harry had received word from Dumbledore that his private lessons would start on the
following Saturday. The Boy Who Lived realized that it had completely slipped his mind.

Come eight PM on the Saturday in question, Harry gave the password to the statue that
guarded the Headmaster's office. He had taken a seat across from the man and given him a
weak smile in greeting. Dumbledore had gently prodded at his mood, trying to get a gauge on
how he had been faring. Harry put more effort than he usually did into appearing fine.

"So, Harry. You have been wondering, I am sure, what I have planned for you during these —
for want of a better word, lessons? Well, I have decided that it is time, now that you know
what prompted Lord Voldemort to try and kill you fifteen years ago, for you to be given
certain information."

Harry had not been wondering, distracted as he was, but he kept that to himself. He drew
closer to the Headmaster as he explained that they would be using a pensive to view
memories.
Through these memories, he was shown the Gaunt family, a dishevelled, angry, deformed
group of people, through the eyes of a ministry worker sent to investigate an attack carried
out on a Muggle man by Morfin Gaunt, the son of Marvolo Gaunt.

Afterwards, Dumbledore discussed Morfin's sister, Merope, and how she had brewed a love
potion to ensnare the same man that Morfin had attacked. Tom Riddle. She eloped with him
and quickly became pregnant. However, before the birth of their child, the Muggle had
realized her deception and left her alone. An hour after giving birth to her son Tom Marvolo
Riddle in an orphanage, Merope died.

Harry left Dumbledore's office with a heavy unease.

He had told Ron and Hermione about the nature of his meeting with Dumbledore, and they
had discussed at length what the purpose might be for showing Harry the Dark Lord's family
history.

After that, he had taken to avoiding Hermione. Her insistence on constantly deconstructing
the happenings of the last few months had worn down his defences and frayed his already
raw nerves. By proxy he had avoided Ron and Ginny, choosing instead to steal away to any
empty part of the castle and force his mind onto his schoolwork in silence. Ginny still joined
him after hours when he found himself haunted.

He had considered, many times, telling his friends or his Headmaster what had happened that
night with Bellatrix Lestrange. The way he'd felt. He had dismissed it from every angle, too
ashamed to admit to himself, or them, what he had done to his mind. He knew they would
react as they had when he was revealed as a Parselmouth. Disgusted. Alarmed. Instead, he
willed it away, convincing himself that with time, it would fade. And so a rift gradually
formed.

Quidditch tryouts were approaching, and as the team captain, it was Harry's responsibility to
pick out the new team members. He distracted himself with thoughts of this but was
displeased to find that, like so many other things in his life, it could not hold his attention for
very long. As though on cue, he was reminded of the insistent and unnamed need deep in the
core of himself. Growing, he noticed, with each passing day. He stood from the spot he
occupied in the grass that afternoon, books forgotten, and stripped his outer robe. He dropped
it as he sprinted across the grounds as fast as his legs could carry him.

He found himself at the edge of the Forbidden Forest and doubled over as he caught his
breath. He noticed that a group of Slytherins had been watching him from some distance
away. Malfoy, he realized, with Parkinson and Zabini. They passed him after a moment.
Harry locked eyes with the blonde as they went, still bent at the middle and panting. Malfoy
did not comment, and neither did the pair he walked with.

The Boy Who Lived felt no better.

He was at the seaside again, this time not alone. The other children ran through the sand,
kicking and laughing as he watched. Amy and Dennis, two of the children who had chased
him to the cliff 's edge, had sniggered and looked in his direction from their seats at the edge
of the beach.

He remembered meeting Dennis, how they had smiled at each other, both deciding upon
looking at the other that they were friends.

His anger quickly became a rage as he looked at them. He saw the mouth of the cave some
distance behind, and an idea came to him. Maybe there was no need to wait and find out
what the other boy might do if he caught Harry. Maybe he would show Dennis what would
happen if he were the one trapped.

With that thought in mind, he stood, plastering his most convincing smile on his features as
he moved toward the pair.

The morning of Quidditch tryouts, Harry had snuck out of the dormitory before first light. He
crossed the grounds and came to sit at the edge of the lake, watching the water ripple. He'd
dropped his robe next to him, letting the crisp air serve as a distraction. He shivered but
ignored it. He knew he should have joined his friends for breakfast. Ron had seemed anxious
about the tryouts, but Harry didn't have the energy to bolster him. He threw a rock into the
water, then another, then another.

When the time came, he made his way to the Quidditch pitch, bypassing the castle.

In the end, Ron had made the team as Keeper by a hair, beating McLaggen who had
inexplicably flown in the wrong direction, missing his final catch. It was later revealed that
Hermione had cast a Confundus charm on Ron's opponent. Harry had half smiled at this.

After the tryouts, his friends were content to happily chatter amongst themselves in the
Common Room, and so Harry had been comfortable enough to sit back and watch them. His
potions textbook was on his lap as he idly flipped through it.

Sectumsempra - For enemies.

He briefly debated asking Hermione if she knew the spell but decided against it. Her disdain
at his success in Potions stayed the question. He ran his fingers over the words and noted that
the book hadn't steered him wrong yet.

"What happened after- After Dumbledore found me? In the Ministry?" The question had
spilled from his mouth without permission that night, while he and Ginny sat quietly in the
Common Room. Harry hadn't gone to bed yet, and neither had she.

She glanced up at him and bit her lip, hesitating.

"Are you sure, Harry?" She looked, inexplicably, deeply sad.

He'd nodded despite himself, needing to know, his anxiety finally outweighed by curiosity.
He found he could only bear the news from Ginny.
"Well, Dumbledore found you with… You-Know-Who. Bellatrix escaped when the
Headmaster got there, and the Minister arrived just in time to see- well. That he's back. Then
he was gone. He didn't even fight Dumbledore. The Headmaster pulled you into the Floo
straight away because you were… We figured You-Know-Who cursed you. Did he? Curse
you?"

Harry didn't know and told her so. He had barely noticed the Dark Lord's presence.

"What was I like?" He'd whispered it because his voice was unreliable. All he knew was that
he had been completely outside his mind.

She hesitated, briefly, and closed the book she'd been ignoring. "You were laughing. It was so
loud. You were screaming too, and… you fought. Everyone. Not with magic, but we couldn't
get near you."

She looked apologetic but didn't make a move to placate him. For that he was glad. It was
clear they didn't know what he'd done to Bellatrix, but there was a very real possibility that
Voldemort did.

His fear that the dreams he'd been having were the Dark Lord's memories was confirmed
during his next 'lesson' with Dumbledore. The pensive took them to halls that he'd realized he
recognized, and a vile nausea ran through him as he watched his Headmaster talk to the
Matron, a woman he'd seen at the beach.

"On the summer outing — we take them out, you know, once a year, to the countryside or to
the seaside — well, Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop were never quite right afterwards, and
all we ever got out of them was that they'd gone into a cave with Tom Riddle. He swore
they'd just gone exploring, but something happened in there, I'm sure of it. And, well, there
have been a lot of things, funny things..." She told a younger Dumbledore. Harry knew who
she was talking about. Dennis and Amy, the children who'd chased him in his sleep.

She brought the three of them to a barren room within the orphanage, where a distrusting
young Dark Lord watched Dumbledore. He took a seat across from Tom and proceeded to
tell him that he was a wizard.

"I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."
Tom told him. The man looked taken aback but hid it well.

As the future Headmaster took his leave, Tom Riddle called after him, "I can speak to snakes.
I found out when we've been to the country on trips. They find me, they whisper to me. Is
that normal for a wizard?"

As Harry wordlessly watched this interaction, his head swam. He had been seeing
Voldemort's childhood through his eyes. He glanced at Dumbledore, watching the memory
alongside him. If he told the man, there was a good chance that he would be, once again,
subjected to Severus' Legilimency. And then Snape might see the night in the Ministry, what
he'd done and how he felt. Then the people he loved would push him away and pull him into
a death grip, forcing him to fight while making him feel responsible and unclean. So, as he
watched Tom Riddle size up Albus Dumbledore, he resolved to solve the issue himself.

He knew that the visions he'd had before were unreliable and that he would not act on them.
If he pushed it away, it would be of no consequence.

After the pensive memory, Dumbledore tried to initiate a conversation about the recollection,
but Harry struggled free and claimed that he needed to think about what he'd seen.

He sought solace where he could, where he so often did, after the strange man left. In the
small, wooded area beyond the orphanage, in the company of a grass snake.

"He told me I'm a wizard. That there are people like me." He whispered to the small creature
curled at his feet.

"I'm going to go to a school," He continued, the snake watching him intently. The palpable
excitement had grown to the point where his hands were shaking, a grin stuck permanently to
his face. There was a place he belonged.

"Will you take me with you?" It asked after a pause. The snake was small enough to fit in his
pocket, and he told it so. Of course, he'd bring his friend.

"Look! He thinks he can talk to snakes!" The oldest boy, Richard, called to Amy and Dennis,
but the pair were not as close as the older boy was, unsure.

In the same instant he finished his sentence, Richard stomped on the snake. Harry hadn 't had
time to react. Molten rage brought him to his feet. Amy and Dennis had the sense to run as
though their lives depended on it. Richard just sneered.

"What are you gunna do about it, freak boy? Huh?" He shoved Harry back and he stumbled.
He glanced at the snake on the ground, his only friend in this godforsaken place, smeared
into the grass. Reduced to incomprehensible gore. He howled, locking eyes with the murderer.

Richard fell as a scream was torn from his chest. He writhed in the grass in front of him and
his dead friend, begging, sobbing, screaming. Harry felt a rush of exquisite satisfaction.

He watched the boy contort until he stopped moving.

 Divination

(A/N: Forgive me for whizzing through Canon. We've read the books. I'm about to shatter it,
crush it into dust and snort it like cocaine.)

Until the End, Breaking Benjamin

Why give up, why give in?

It's not enough, it never is
So I will go on until the end
We've become desolate
It's not enough, it never is
But I will go on until the end

Surround me
It's easy
To fall apart completely
I feel you creeping up again
(In my head)

His most recent dream had done awful things to his mood. Watching the macabre scene had
been punishment enough, but feeling the raw, familiar pain, followed by the righteous joy as
he watched the boy scream, so intense that he'd awoken smiling, had shaken him
considerably.

He didn't want to consider the similarities between himself and the Dark Lord. He didn't want
to acknowledge the kinship he had felt when the dreams had started, the way he intimately
knew the fear, hope, and horror that the Dark Lord felt. These dreams had to be some kind of
trick, some kind of trap. Again, he pushed away the idea of telling anyone. He could handle
this. He couldn't bear the looks on their faces.

He struggled with these thoughts as he sat with his friends at the Three Broomsticks. Ginny
sat in the far corner of the pub with Dean Thomas. She had given him a small wave when
they entered, then turned her attention back to her date. Harry had expected Ron to react to
his sister canoodling in the pub, but he didn't. He sipped his butterbeer and chatted lightly
with Hermione, the two of them sensing that Harry didn't want to talk, so they didn't direct
the conversation to him.

Harry had noted that Malfoy, Crabbe, and Zabini had made a swift exit out the back way
when the trio sat down. Malfoy was acting in a far more sheepish manner than his previous
behaviour dictated. He had given Hermione a look that said as much, but she shrugged him
off.

He took a sip of his butterbeer and resisted the thought of his latest nightmare for the
umpteenth time that morning. The strange hunger grew in his gut as he sat there, making him
flinch momentarily before he bit it down. He decided he wanted to get more dreamless sleep
before they left Hogsmeade, enough for the rest of the year. He wondered how he would slip
away from his friends, unwilling as he was to discuss the reason. He vowed to check the
library for a stronger alternative to the potion.

Harry watched as Professor Trelawney entered the pub and struck up a chat with Slughorn at
the bar. The Boy Who Lived was bored and agitated. Hermione had engrossed herself deeper
in her conversation with Ron, and he took the opportunity to steal away, claiming bathroom.
Neither noticed when he slipped out the front door.

Harry had bought his potions and decided to head back to the castle alone, opting to explain
his absence later rather than sooner. Hermione had accosted him for just that at dinner that
night when he decided to reappear from his hiding spot within the library and join them. He
had searched for an alternative to the potion but had come away empty-handed.

"I just needed some fresh air," He'd told her. Freezing cold fresh air. She'd sucked her teeth
and narrowed her eyes, saying nothing.

He searched for Malfoy at the Slytherin table, a knee-jerk reaction. He found the blonde with
Pansy, the two of them sitting in silence. Malfoy looked sick. Pansy's eyes kept flicking to the
staff table, and Harry followed her gaze there. McGonagall was whispering in the
Headmaster's ear, her lips moving rapidly. Dumbledore's face gave nothing away, but he
could tell something was wrong. As though the Headmaster sensed the thought, his eyes
locked with Harry's from across the hall. The Boy Who Lived questioned the man silently but
received nothing in return. He said something to Professor McGonagall and she nodded, then
scurried from the room.

He found himself with Ginny again that night, once the others had gone to bed. He had been
waiting for the other shoe to drop since dinner. He sat, bouncing his leg, while the youngest
Weasley watched him.

"Everything's okay, right Harry?" She questioned softly. He realised it was the first time she'd
asked him that.

"I don't know," He said honestly. She chewed her lip but didn't press.

The other shoe came in the form of McGonagall mere minutes later, near midnight.

"Potter, the Headmaster will see you now," She seemed surprised to find him awake.
Professor McGonagall led him to Dumbledore's office and ushered him in, her lips pressed in
a fine line. She didn't follow him up the staircase.

"Harry, my boy. Sit." The old man said from behind his desk, his hands steepled on the
hardwood. Harry felt for the chair and sat down, not taking his eyes off Dumbledore.

"It has come to our attention that Professor Trelawney is missing. She did not return from
Hogsmeade and we cannot locate her. It is too early to tell, but we believe this may have been
the work of Death Eaters." Dumbledore gave a pause before he continued. "I felt I must tell
you this, tonight, at this late hour. I must confess to you that I have not divulged the whole
story."

He waited, narrowing his eyes, knowing that he was about to receive more bad news.

"You see, Harry, it was Sybil Trelawney who foreshadowed your birth all those years ago."
The Headmaster waited for the Boy Who Lived to understand.

"She gave the prophecy?" Harry guffawed, shaking his head. "That… can't be right."

"Unfortunately so," Dumbledore bowed his head as the gravity of the situation sank in. "I
was there to bear witness. And so you understand the predicament we find ourselves in."

Voldemort was likely torturing Trelawney within a breath of her life as they spoke. Any
minute, he would know what Harry knew, he would have the prophecy that Harry had fought
tooth and nail to find, to protect. Dumbledore looked far more grave than he felt, if that were
possible. He thought back to that morning when he'd seen Trelawney in Hogsmeade.

"It was Malfoy," Harry said after a moment. Dumbledore's eyes widened.

"That is a severe accusation, Harry,"

The Boy Who Lived could tell by the man's tone that he was already fighting a losing battle.

"I saw him there, at the Three Broomsticks. Trelawney was there. She was talking with
Professor Slughorn." He insisted.

"You saw Draco there with Sybil?" The Headmaster pressed.

"Well… No, he left when I got there, and Trelawney came after…" He trailed off when he
realized that his reasoning would be flimsy to the Professor. The man's raised eyebrow told
him as much.

"We will put the full power of the Order into this, of course, my boy. We will find those
responsible."

Harry hadn't felt reassured.

In the days that followed Professor Trelawney's disappearance, Hogsmeade trips had been
cancelled. Several families withdrew their children as it became clear that this kidnapping
had been the work of Death Eaters. Harry numbly thought that it was good he had gotten his
potions when he did.

Dumbledore's assurances that it would all be fine had fallen on deaf ears. He could sense the
Headmaster's growing anxiety, now poorly hidden, and it fueled Harry's fears. Harry was sure
that by now, the Dark Lord had the prophecy that Sirius died for. The Boy Who Lived had
taken to watching Malfoy on the Marauder's map and noticed that he was frequently very
close to the Room of Requirement, sometimes vanishing within it.
It was one such night that Harry watched the Slytherin on the map, pacing outside the
tapestry, then disappearing from the map. The Chosen One made a split-second decision and
scrambled from the bed, sticking his wand and the map into the pockets of his pyjamas,
before he took the invisibility cloak from his trunk and threw it over his shoulders.

He made short work of the distance between him and Malfoy. He checked the map and found
that the Slytherin must still be inside, judging by the way he was nowhere else. He waited,
his heart thrumming in his chest.

He had begun to wonder if he'd missed the blonde and misread the map before the door
reappeared and Malfoy poked his head out, scanning the corridor. Harry waited until the
Slytherin had begun down the hall away from him before he threw the cloak off and shouted:

"Hey!"

Malfoy spun, eyes wide. He'd raised his wand on instinct but seemed to hesitate when he
realized who was looking at.

"Potter," He sneered, backing away.

"What did you do with Trelawney?" Harry spat, crossing the space between them quicker
than Malfoy could create it.

The Boy Who Lived was aware of the ache in his gut, but his adrenaline masked the
sensation. Malfoy swallowed heavily and tried to retreat faster. Harry shot a stunner at his
feet in warning, expecting the blonde to fight back.

"You don't know what you're talking about," The blonde bit out.

Harry did know what he was talking about. He could feel that he was right. He was just the
only one who could see it. He shot another stunner, this time at the wall behind Malfoy. The
other teen flinched and stopped his retreat, and, to Harry's bafflement, lowered his wand.

"I'm not going to fight you, Potter,"

But Harry wanted to fight. His blood thrummed in his ears and his stomach lurched with
rage, hunger, and adrenaline. His hands shook as he shot a third stunner, this time narrowly
missing the blonde's head. This finally inspired the Slytherin to run.

The Boy Who Lived chased him, pleased to put the rage to good use.

"Sectumsempra!" He screamed the spell, and both teens hit the ground from a sprint.

Blood quickly pooled around Malfoy as he rasped for breath, grasping for his wand before
losing consciousness.

The Chosen One vaguely understood that he'd made a mistake. Overpowering relief flooded
him. The aching, gnawing hunger finally sated. Bliss numbed his limbs as he spread out on
the floor, laughing.
This was how Snape found them.

"Cruicio!" He watched Bellatrix writhe under his wand and hissed in satisfaction, intense
warmth spreading through him, washing out the pain.

"Good, Harry. Very good."

The Chosen One snapped awake, realizing slowly that he was alone in the Hospital Wing.
Well, not strictly alone, Malfoy slept across the way from him, looking deathly pale. It
dawned on him what he'd done, and he promptly vomited off the edge of the bed, alerting
Madame Pomfrey in her office.

"Oh dear, Potter, oh dear." She muttered, clearing the mess with a wave of her wand. He
allowed her to reposition him in the bed and feigned sleep, not willing to interact. It was still
dark, so he guessed that only a few hours had passed.

He'd cursed Malfoy.

And he'd felt the same as he had when-

He shook his head and rolled over to bury his face in the pillow.

The sunrise brought with it a flurry of activity in the Hospital Wing. Hermione, Ron, Ginny,
Snape, and Dumbledore surrounded his bed. Malfoy still slept across the way.

"It is your belief, Potter, that Draco is somehow responsible for the disappearance of
Professor Trelawney?" Snape wasted no time in beginning the interrogation.

Harry pursed his lips, his eyes flicking to Dumbledore and back to Snape.

"I saw him at the Three Broomsticks before she disappeared. I left to get some air. He's been
acting strangely," He looked to Hermione for confirmation but she pursed her lips in
response.

"I heard him say on the train that he wouldn't be returning to Hogwarts after this year. He's up
to something Professor." He said this to Dumbledore.

"So you took it upon yourself to use dark magic against him?" Snape deadpanned.

"I- No, that's… I didn't, I mean I didn't know…"

"Now, now, Severus," Dumbledore said.

Hermione avoided his gaze, instead watching the Headmaster with her chin in the air.

"You must know, Harry, that none of this is reason enough to believe that a student is behind
the kidnapping of a teacher." Dumbledore addressed him. "And certainly not reason enough
to curse them."
The admonishment was clear.

"I found the spell in a book. I didn't know what it did. I was… Angry." He felt ridiculous as
heat flooded his cheeks. He looked at Ginny for the first time, and she gave a tiny reassuring
smile.

He forced his gaze to the Headmaster and pleaded with his eyes. He couldn't bear the thought
of the night at the Ministry, couldn't bear the thought that it had all been for nothing, and
there wasn't anything anyone could do about it. They would sit idly by while the Dark Lord
plucked them like flowers from a garden. Frustration washed over him when the Headmaster
ignored his silent begging.

They didn't believe him. They didn't trust his word, and certainly, they didn't trust his
intuition. Harry felt a pang of guilt at the thought that they were probably right to distrust it.

Snape had given him detention every Saturday for the rest of the year, and he had been
suspended indefinitely from playing Quidditch. Harry hadn't bothered to hide his sneer as
Snape and Dumbledore exited the hospital wing. It appeared that they thought Harry had
been injured in a duel. That Malfoy had fought back, and that's why he'd been found with his
brain leaking from his ears. He pushed the thought away, guilt and fear bubbling. Hermione
had left quickly after the Headmaster, and the Boy Who Lived got the clear message that she
was angry with him.

Madam Pomfrey came to release him from the confines of the Wing, and he walked back to
the Gryffindor Common Room with Ron and Ginny, still in his pyjamas.

Harry had watched the Gryffindor versus Slytherin Quidditch match from the stands a few
weeks later, alone. Hermione had avoided him, and he had avoided her. Ginny and Ron were
both in the air. He had served his detentions thus far wordlessly, ignoring Snape's incessant
bullying as he used the time to finish his schoolwork.

He had noticed that he felt clearer after he left the Hospital Wing. Even his magic flowed
more smoothly from his mind to his wand. The dreams had subsided as well, as though
granting him a reprieve. And so he watched the match, feeling relatively more soothed even
though they had heard no word about Professor Trelawney. He didn't want to think about
why, pushing the thought away, sometimes with violence, each time it arose.

Harry noted that Malfoy had been replaced as Seeker by a Slytherin he didn't recognize, and
he wondered why he hadn't noticed earlier. He searched the crowd for the blonde but couldn't
spot him. He cursed and wished he'd brought the map to the pitch.

He decided to leave the match, aiming to check the Marauder's map. He made his way down
through the stands as Ron missed his second goal, signalled by the uproar of the Slytherin
house. As he crossed the lawn towards the castle, he rehashed everything he'd witnessed
Malfoy do or say, trying to make sense of it. The blonde git was up to something, and Harry
was going to get to the bottom of it. Over the last few weeks, the Slytherin had taken to
travelling in a pack, never far from at least two of his housemates, even when he paced
outside the Room of Requirement. Crabbe, Goyle, and sometimes Zabini would escort
Malfoy and wait outside the tapestry, before returning the git to his Common Room.

The hallways of the castle were empty, everyone at the pitch. He was lost in thought when he
nearly rounded a corner when Snape's hushed voice stopped him. He leaned against the wall,
pressing himself close and listening.

"Allow me to help you. I made a vow to your mother-"

"I told you I don't need your help," Malfoy. Harry sucked in a breath and swallowed.

"It certainly appears to me that you do."

"He chose me for this. Me!"

"I suppose being torn to ribbons in front of the Room of Requirement is all part of your…
Plan." Snape drawled.

"He came after me! I didn't fight him." The Slytherin hissed.

"It did not appear that way to me."

"I raised my wand but I didn't use it."

There was a pause.

"I don't need help. Everything is fine," Malfoy's tone made it sound not fine.

The two had separated after that, blessedly not coming Harry's way as he processed what he'd
heard. Snape was in on it. Whatever Malfoy was up to, the Defence Professor had sworn to
help see it through. Harry didn't need three guesses to know who had chosen Malfoy to carry
out this plan.

The Boy Who Lived understood at once that he couldn't go to the Headmaster with this.
Anything he said to Dumbledore invariably made its way to Snape, such was his blind trust
for the man. There was no way he could go to him and point a finger at Severus. For
whatever reason, the old man could not see through the obvious facade.

He knew he couldn't go to Hermione either, not that he'd felt particularly inspired to do that,
recently. Ron had been detached and distant. He made his way to the Common Room, his
original plan, though he no longer needed to check the map.

Harry told Ginny everything he knew about Malfoy that night. She had let him talk and
dissect into the early hours of the morning and told him that she believed him, that the
Slytherin and Snape were planning something, something that Voldemort had put into play.
The Boy Who Lived was grateful to be believed.

He had gone to bed at around three in the morning, downing dreamless sleep.
 A Holly Jolly Christmas

World So Cold, 12 Stones

It starts with pain

Followed by hate
Fueled by the endless questions
No one can answer
A stain covers your heart
And tears you apart
Just like a sleeping cancer

No, I don't believe men are born to be killers

I don't believe that the world can't be saved
How did you get there and when did it start?
An innocent child with a thorn in his heart

Slytherin had won the match against Gryffindor, Ginny had told him at breakfast the next
day. Ron sulked into his toast, not eating it. He had flunked pretty hard and missed several of
the Slytherin's throws. In the end, it hadn't mattered, as the Slytherin Seeker caught the
snitch. Ginny had replaced the Boy Who Lived as Seeker, Seamus replacing her. It hadn't
gone well.

Harry looked up at Dumbledore and Snape at the staff table several times. They both ignored
him. He avoided looking over at the Slytherins, nervous now when it came to Malfoy. He
would continue to try and understand what the blonde was doing, but he'd vowed to himself
that he'd be more careful. Hermione hadn't joined them for the meal, and he wondered when
she'd give in. He thought about telling her what he'd heard about Snape, then decided she
would probably explain that away as well. Even though he felt in his bones something was
wrong, she would disassemble what he'd heard and find that in reality, he hadn't
heard enough.

Harry had been invited to Slughorn's Christmas party, as had Hermione and Ginny. Harry was
undecided on whether he would go. He didn't feel much like a party. The youngest Weasley
told him over her eggs that he would need a date. He still had a few weeks to decide if he was
even going.

Harry found that he had been accepted at Hogwarts in a way he 'd never experienced. His
fellow housemates shared his interests, and they quickly bonded over strictly 'theoretical'
discussion.

He was barely halfway through his first year when he found a rather large snake at the edge
of the castle. He had sat down to speak with it without hesitation, thrilled to find that this
particular species was magical in nature, its scales iridescent, like oil on black water.
A fourth-year Gryffindor had witnessed this, he learned later. He quickly discovered just how
far Wizarding hospitality extended. He was shunned by all but his fellow Slytherins, most of
the Hogwarts student body gave him frightened looks as he passed. For a superstition, he 'd
been told.

Harry sat up and dug his fists into his eyes. Groaning. He'd managed to go without the
dreams for several weeks. He'd almost allowed himself to think that they were gone, the
strange hunger pain with it.

As though summoned, the gnawing ache rattled through him. He sucked in a breath and
tucked himself into a ball, hissing. Face down on the bed, he dug his hands into his hair and
pulled. This was his fault. He'd done this, in the Ministry, when Voldemort had pushed him to
curse Bellatrix. When he'd obliged, he'd broken something inside himself. The Dark Lord had
been pleased.

Now he saw Voldemort's childhood in his dreams. A childhood that was eerily similar to his
own.

Another insistent wave passed through him and he blanched at the thought of what satisfied
it. Surely now that he knew, the only task would be to avoid dark magic. He had done that
every day of his life before that night at the Ministry. He could do it over. Everything he had
learned only served to cement his desire to never speak a word of it. Again, the Boy Who
Lived convinced himself that the dreams he was having were some kind of trick, a ploy to
distract him from Malfoy, maybe.

Whatever the case, he strengthened his resolve for the sake of his sanity. When the pain
slowly subsided, he got out of bed and descended the stairs to the Common Room. As he
came close to the bottom of the stairwell, he heard the muffled sound of Ginny Weasley,
crying into her knees. Harry was behind her but could see her shoulders heaving. He
hesitated, unsure if he should announce himself. He decided to give her what she had given
him. Space.

The Slug Club Christmas party was approaching quickly. Hermione had returned to sitting
with them but was pointedly ignoring the Boy Who Lived, which he allowed. He had let
Ginny talk him into attending the party, and she chattered to him through lunch about who he
would invite. Harry didn't think there was anyone in the school he really felt like being
around, present company excluded.

Ginny hadn't given any signs that she was upset about something, but Harry watched her
carefully. It had crossed his mind that she had fought with her boyfriend, and that had been
why he'd found her crying in the Common Room. But the Chosen One was familiar with real,
sharp grief, and he had recognized it in the way her shoulders shook. In the way she was
alone, and silent. He noted that she had been spending less time with Dean and more time
with Harry, Hermione, and Ron as the days ticked by, but she made no indication that it, or
anything else, was bothering her.

When he'd asked her how things were going with her boyfriend, she'd said, "Oh, things aren't
that serious between us."
In the end, a few days later, he'd bumped into Luna in the corridor outside Gryffindor Tower
and decided on impulse to invite her to Slughorn's gathering. She had accepted in her
whimsical manner, after asking if he was sure he didn't want to take someone else.

The night of the party, Harry and Ron got ready in their dormitory, while the girls got
prepared in theirs. Hermione had invited Ron, and Ginny had invited Dean. He and his best
mate got ready in silence. Harry realized that the Weasley teen had barely made any attempt
to talk to him over the last few months, instead opting to only speak to him in reply. Harry
had frowned at this revelation, deciding to talk to him later. Maybe after the get-together.

The group made their way to Slughorn's office later that evening. Ginny made light
conversation with Luna and Hermione while Harry watched Ron from the corner of his eye.

Hermione quickly pulled the red-haired teen away from the group when they reached their
destination, and Ginny gave the Boy Who Lived a small, apologetic smile as she slipped
away with Dean Thomas. Harry avoided making eye contact with Snape, pretending that he
wasn't in attendance. Luna smiled at him serenely as they sat off to the side, accepting a
handful of hors d'oeuvres and butterbeer from the house elves making their way around the
party. Slughorn's office had been magically extended to accommodate the large group of
people it held.

"You look different, Harry," The blonde girl stated, matter-of-factly. He looked at her,
eyebrows raised in question.

He knew he didn't look the picture of vitality, such was his struggle with his thoughts, every
damn night. Most often he chose to entirely forgo rest and the dreamless sleep potion.

She didn't answer his silent question, instead saying, "I think you'll be alright."

She smiled to herself. Harry shrugged it off, scanning the room. Ron and Hermione stood
awkwardly by the punchbowl. The bushy-haired girl looked flustered. He couldn't spot Ginny
or her date. Sometime later, around the time that Harry was thinking to himself that he should
make excuses and take his leave, Filch dragged Malfoy and Zabini into the office by their
ears.

"I found these two lurkin' about in the corridor," Filch grinned, licking his blackened teeth
while he nodded along to himself.

"Alright, fine, we were gate-crashing," Zabini said, holding his arms up in surrender.
Slughorn pushed his way through the gathering crowd as Harry locked eyes with Malfoy. The
Slytherin looked down at the carpet.

"Oh, all in good fun, Argus." Professor Slughorn said, mirth in his features as he spread his
arms wide. "It is Christmas after all."

Snape broke through the gaggle of people and snatched the two Slytherins from Filch by the
back of their robes, dragging them from the room in silence. The Boy Who Lived searched
the crowd for Ginny, and when he found her, gave her a pointed look. He didn't bother
looking for Hermione among the faces, confident he knew what he'd find in her expression.
Harry discarded the thought of following the suspicious trio from the party. His desire to
understand what exactly they had planned was strong, but there was something stronger
brewing in him. If he allowed himself to consider it honestly, if he followed them, if he heard
something that triggered him, he was at risk of doing something… Frowned upon. He
couldn't risk it. He gnawed his lip, pushing down the thought of the growing want he now felt
most days, sporadically.

He waited what felt like an appropriate amount of time for them to escape, then excused
himself, heading to the Gryffindor Common Room to wait for Ginny.

He had gone upstairs to collect the Marauder's map, when he found a box of chocolates in a
love heart-shaped box on his bed, addressed to him. He prodded the card open with the tip of
his wand.

Love, Romilda Vane.

Harry levitated the box into the trash.

He returned to the Common Room and watched the map while he'd waited, eyes firmly
locked on the footprints that said 'Draco Malfoy' and 'Severus Snape', in the Defence
Professor's Office. Neither one of them had moved when Ginny, Ron, and Hermione came
through the portrait hole.

The bushy-haired teen looked on the verge of tears as she entered. She glanced at the map in
Harry's hands and rolled her eyes. She scoffed and shook her head at the room at large, then
stomped up the stairs to her dormitory. Ginny watched her go, her expression regretful. Ron
bounded up to the boy's quarters without a word to either of them.

"What's going on there?" Harry asked when Ginny finally came to sit and look at him.

She frowned for a moment, then said, "I don't really know. I think they had a fight."

Harry decided that she looked particularly bashful for someone who hadn't been involved in
the fight. She gave him a look that said 'don't', and so he didn't. He couldn't help but wonder
what he was missing. She didn't stay up with him that night, seemingly lost in her thoughts as
she wandered up her staircase after Hermione. Harry had let her go and returned his attention
to the map.

Both Snape and Malfoy had retired for the night.

The angry, dark hunger rose in his stomach and spread through his chest until it swam in his
head. He groaned, knowing that he didn't have much time before he couldn't control the
noises he'd be making. He staggered up the stairs, collapsed into his bed, drew the curtains,
and cast the silencing charm in time to cover the guttural retching.

Harry had opted to spend the Christmas break with the Weasleys, such was his desperation to
leave the presence of Malfoy and Snape. He was hopeful it would serve as a better
distraction, and reduce his risk of doing something he'd regret. Hermione had decided to
spend it with her parents. He didn't find out what she and Ron had fought about. Each time
he'd asked the Weasley, he'd gotten a bitter 'just leave it alone, mate,' in response. Harry had
realized, with a pang of regret, that he was glad Hermione had decided not to spend the
holiday with them. Whatever the reason for her absence, Harry couldn't bear her scrutiny.

The ache had gripped him constantly, from the night of the party onward. A pain not unlike
true hunger haunted him throughout his waking hours, making him irritable. This was
interspersed with regular, more intense waves, sometimes twice a day. Each time, he'd
squashed the small desire he had to tell someone about it. The only one he could consider
telling at that moment was Ginny. And he wasn't sure what she would do if he did. Wasn't
sure if she would help him or out him. The thought of making a mistake stayed his hand, his
fear that he would make another rash error. Get someone else killed.

Instead, he'd tried to strengthen his resistance on his own. He would struggle free, each time
with more effort required, as he fought what he had inflicted on himself.

Harry sat with the Weasleys and several Order members at the Burrow on Christmas Day,
after they had finished breakfast and exchanged gifts. They had assumed that Harry's sour
mood was because they still had not received word on Trelawney. She had been presumed
dead. This had been interspersed with more regular kidnappings -one being the wand-maker,
Ollivander- along with an increasing number of murders, some of them within the Ministry
itself.

The Chosen One had certainly been bothered by Trelawney. The knowledge that Voldemort
had not succeeded in seeing the complete prophecy had been his only consolation in the face
of the fact that it had been a trap and he had fallen for it. He had paid with his godfather's life.
But it wasn't the source of his vaguely disgusted expression.

As he watched his loved ones chatter happily, the mood lifted by a decent Christmas morning
and no further bad news, he could feel the true reason for his discomfort rising in his gut. He
felt like he was falling as he sat there, stomach somersaulting in sick anticipation. He excused
himself from the sitting room. No one followed him.

Harry watched, from a vantage point strangely low to the ground, as Dumbledore,
McGonagall, and Hagrid stared down at him. He couldn 't move his arms or legs, but he was
comfortable. Tired.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Albus? They're the worst sort of Muggles imaginable. I've
watched them all day. They're dreadful." Minerva said, her eyes wide and sad.

The Headmaster ignored her, turning his attention to Hagrid, who was blubbering, wiping his
tears with an enormous handkerchief.

"There now, Rubeus. It is not goodbye forever."

The three of them watched the Boy Who Lived fight sleep on the doorstep of number four
Privet Drive, Little Whinging.

Harry jerked awake, jamming his glasses on his face reflexively. It was still dark, so he could
see barely more than the outline of Ron's room.

The dream had been his memory, not the Dark Lord's. That much was obvious, but it was
impossible that he should remember that night. He'd been barely one. He decided that it was
some new deception, but it brought with it an uneasiness.

He played Quidditch with Ron, Ginny, Fred and George that morning after they had eaten.
Anything to distract from the unrelenting pain in his middle. The youngest Weasley seemed
distracted, and so she, Harry and Ron lost to the twins.

"Don't tell us you've gone soft!" They had called after Harry as he admitted the third defeat,
and he and Ginny had called it off.

Despite the precarious mood at the Burrow, Ron and Ginny both seemed relieved to be free
of Hermione. Harry had wondered again what had happened the night of the party. The Boy
Who Lived felt shut out by Ron and had given up asking what had happened between his best
friends. He had wondered if he could still call them that over dinner that night. Pangs of fear,
guilt, and grief robbed him of his appetite for food. He found he no longer wanted to ask Ron
why he'd been acting strangely toward him. He was afraid of the answer.

He glanced up at Ginny and she was already looking at him. She looked horribly sad for the
barest of seconds -until he met her eyes- before she looked over at her mother and thanked
her for the meal.

"It's delicious Mum," She said, smiling. Harry raised his eyebrows in question, but she
avoided his gaze.

"Yeah, it's really good. Thanks Mum." Ron agreed. Harry nodded along with them, tearing
his eyes away from the youngest Weasley.

"-It's called, as I understand it, Professor, a Horcrux," Harry watched Slughorn's reaction to
this carefully.

He had spun on his heel with his eyebrows chasing his receding hairline.

"Now why would you be looking into something like that?" He asked, and Harry feigned
nonchalance.

"It just got me wondering. I thought about asking my Head of House, but I thought you might
understand," Harry gave a small smile, "Because you're different."

"This is all purely theoretical, right, Tom?"

"Of course, Professor, I merely wondered."

"A Horcrux is a dark piece of magic. It allows a person to be brought back from certain
death, at the cost of splitting off a piece of their soul and placing it in an object." Slughorn
said as he watched Harry carefully, while the Chosen One roamed the office appearing
casually interested.

"An object?"

"It could be any object. A necklace or an old boot."

"And how does one… Split the soul, Sir? Out of curiosity."

"I think you already know the answer to that Tom." Slughorn looked deeply troubled now: he
was gazing at Harry as though he had never seen him plainly before, the Professor was
regretting entering into the conversation at all.

The Boy Who Lived pushed past this. "And could someone, in theory, create seven?"

"Seven! Isn't it bad enough to think of killing one person? And in any case, bad enough to
divide the soul once! But to rip it into seven pieces ..." Horace trailed off, but Harry had what
he needed. He could tell by the Potion professor 's demeanour that it was possible.
 Purely Theoretical

Breathe Into Me, Red

And this is how it looks when

I am standing on the edge
And this is how I break apart
When I finally hit the ground
And this is how it hurts when I
Pretend I don't feel any pain
And this is how I disappear
When I throw myself away

When Harry returned to Hogwarts, gnawing on the most recent memory of the Dark Lord, he
felt as though he'd been pushed to his limit. The ever-present ache had reached a pitch he
could only describe as starvation. He unpacked his belongings with gritted teeth, his fellow
dorm mates unpacking alongside him.

He was called to the Headmaster's office early in the day, and he dragged his feet as though
they were made of lead.

"Hello Harry," Dumbledore said, tone quiet as the Chosen One sat down. "I'm afraid I have
no news of Sybil."

The Boy Who Lived gave a sharp nod, bitter. He kept his eyes on the floor as the man
explained that they would be viewing another memory. Harry paled at the thought but came
to stand beside the Headmaster at the Pensieve.

It dawned on him, once again, that he recognized this recollection. He had seen it just nights
prior, through the young Dark Lord's eyes.

It was the same, but from Slughorn's perspective, right up until the point where Riddle began
his questioning. The memory grew strange, as though viewed through a fog. The Potions
Master immediately bristled at the barest mention of a book, sending the Slytherin from his
office with a verbal lashing and instructing him to never go looking for such magic again.
There was no mention of Horcruxes, as Harry remembered it.

"This is all purely theoretical, right, Tom?"The words Slughorn had said in his version of the
memory came to him as he watched the carpet where the desk met the floor, after they'd
returned to the office.

"What do you make of that, Harry?" Dumbledore asked.

"Do you think that happened, Professor?" He questioned in return.

"As it appeared? No."

"Do you think someone altered the memory, Sir?" Harry asked, glancing at the Headmaster
and feeling unwell.

"I believe Horace himself tampered with it," Dumbledore said, watching the Boy Who Lived
over the top of his half-moon spectacles.

"Why?" Harry pressed.

"I suspect he is ashamed. Forgive me, my boy, but I'm afraid once again I must ask too much
of you."

Harry's head swam as the old man requested that he allow the Potions Professor to 'collect'
him, to gain a shot at finding the real, unedited memory. The Boy Who Lived had agreed. He
had seen Voldemort's version of events. Through some accident of the magic that bound
them, or a deception, he didn't know. He wanted it from Slughorn. The real memory.

He had dragged himself back to his Common Room some hours later, feeling drained and
frightened.

He'd thought long and hard about everything that he'd seen in his dreams as he lay in bed that
night, in between the periods of raging hunger that rendered him thoughtless, hidden with the
curtains drawn. Silencing charm in place.

Why would the Dark Lord want him to know about this? About Horcruxes and Slughorn?
Something that Dumbledore seemed very interested to see? For this reason, Harry doubted its
authenticity. He felt sure that it was meant to be divulged to the Headmaster, walking them
towards an ambush. That was what Harry would have done, before. And so the Boy Who
Lived had held his tongue, a silent refusal to participate was his only solace as the need
rocked him to sleep.

Harry found Hermione in the Common Room that morning, as he attempted to sneak out
before the others rose for the first day of classes.

"You didn't write," She told him, her lips pursed. Harry noted that her eyes were red, as
though she'd been crying.

"I'm sorry," A pang of guilt hit him. "I thought you were mad at me. About Malfoy."

"I was." She jutted her chin, "I am."

Harry glanced at the portrait hole, then back to his friend.

"That's no excuse not to write. Ron and Ginny… didn't either." She had snapped this, but her
voice broke. Harry stepped towards her, putting his hand on her shoulder.

"I didn't know. I am sorry, Hermione." He'd almost said that he'd been too distracted, but she
would undoubtedly ask why. Undoubtedly take offense.
He had noticed that his hands shook minutely, not particularly noticeable, but enough to
worry him. His spell-work had grown sloppy, his aim and his mind not as focused, as though
he were wading through neck-deep mud.

Hermione's eyes had narrowed, taking Harry's tired demeanour as an indication that she was
boring him. The way his eyes kept trailing to the portrait hole didn't help. She shrugged out
from under his hand and out of the Common Room.

"It's fine," she hissed as she went.

He sighed as he watched her go, and waited at least ten minutes before he ducked out after
her.

Over the days that followed, Harry had begun brewing calming draughts in the Potions
classroom after hours, under the supervision of Slughorn. He figured it was a good way to get
closer to the man, as well as take the edge off the monumental hunger that hadn't let him rest
for weeks. He used the Half-Blood Prince's book to ease the brewing, though he was now
distrustful of it. He had thought that he should get rid of it multiple times after his run-in with
Malfoy, but he hadn't.

The draughts helped, but only slightly so. He got the feeling he was on borrowed time. He
didn't know if he was a danger to himself. A danger to the ones he loved. He bit the thought
down as he stirred his cauldron three times clockwise.

"How goes the craft, Harry?" The Potions Master asked, looking up from the paperwork at
his desk.

"Oh, very well, Professor. I've got a great teacher." He felt the compliment had come out
wooden, but Slughorn chuffed in response.

"Quite easy with the right student." He'd winked at Harry and returned to his work.

The Boy Who Lived hadn't found a way to broach the subject of Tom Riddle. It seemed
obscene to spring it on him, and he didn't feel that it would work. So he brewed in silence,
glancing up at the man now and then, pondering what he could possibly say to get the
Professor to divulge what was probably one of his most shameful secrets. This, and trying to
ignore the pain he was constantly in. Growing, as it always did, as the night wore on.

He'd bottled his potions and thanked the Professor. He'd uncorked a vial as soon as the door
closed behind him, downing it as he walked through the Dungeons. The ache that he had
grown so familiar with spiked in his gut, and Harry worried that he wasn't going to make it
back to Gryffindor Tower. He willed himself faster, while the furious starvation slowed him
down. His breath came in tiny, harsh bursts, making his head swim from a lack of oxygen.

He wasn't going to make it. The calming draught had done next to nothing.

He'd nearly slowed to a crawl when he gave up and collapsed into the room closest to him.
Storage, he thought dumbly, as he drew his wand and cast Silencio while he fell to his knees,
then forward onto his stomach. His hands didn't bother to catch him. His vision swam at the
edges as the room tilted, colour slowly draining from the world as he writhed, begging it to
stop. He held his wand so tight his whole body shook. He was torn apart inside, his mind
screeching under the weight of the agony. He couldn't do this. He couldn't.

"Please, please, please-" He wasn't sure if it was his own voice he could hear, if the sound
was inside or outside of his head, as he lost consciousness.

"But Professor, I don't really have a home to go to. I don't want to go back there. Surely the
other teachers won't mind if I just stay in the Slytherin dormitories until the new school year
starts?" He felt desperate, pleading with Dumbledore with his eyes and his words. It made
him feel weak. But he had begged regardless.

"Forgive me, Tom, but you must return home."

Harry registered that the man didn 't seem at all regretful, his eyes glittering with dislike as
he sent the Boy Who Lived out of his office.

He leaned heavily against the door and steadied his breath before he said: "You can't fight it
forever, Potter."

Harry burst awake, still in the storage cupboard, unable to tell the time just by looking at the
room. He fought to his feet and struggled to cast a Tempus charm. One in the morning.
Fantastic, past curfew, half out of his mind in the Dungeons without his invisibility cloak.

He wished he'd had the good sense to take the map with him, at least. He didn't want to run
into Malfoy, or any Slytherin, in the state he was in.

He opened the door as quietly as he could and peeked at either end of the corridor.
Thankfully clear. He used his hands and his muscle memory to guide him through the dark
halls, listening carefully as he ignored the discomfort in his middle. He was grateful to reach
the lighter parts of the castle, and more blessed still to reach Gryffindor Tower without
incident.

He only allowed himself to think about the dream once his curtains were drawn and silenced.
The memory Tom Riddle had addressed him directly.

It was dawning on Harry that he was getting closer to useless with each passing second.
Struggle as he might, there was no escaping what lurked in his head and turned in his gut. He
stumbled blindly through his classes, his magic hardly responding to him as he groaned
through the hours, excusing himself to scream in locked, silenced, empty rooms three to four
times a day.

He had asked Ginny one night if she knew of anything better than a calming draught when it
came to soothing panic. She hadn't. In the past, he would have asked Hermione. He didn't.

He had unwillingly pulled away from his friends in his haze, feigning illness. He knew that
Malfoy was still creeping around in the Room of Requirement almost nightly. He could not
address these things, locked as he was in his own mind. He could feel their eyes on him, his
friends and teachers.

It was with what felt like the last ounce of his strength that he slipped his invisibility cloak
over his shoulders in the dead of night and moved, achingly slowly, to the Library. Where
he'd hoped against hope that he would find anything, a charm or a potion, to ease his
suffering. Images of Bellatrix writhing on the floor of the Atrium, then the memory of
Richard, screaming in the grass in much the same manner, came to him unbidden. He shook
his head fiercely, growling at the empty hallway as he steadied himself against the stone wall,
digging his knuckles into the bricks.

His arms and legs were unreliable, shaking. Sweat was pooling on his brow and he wondered
if he was going to vomit. A panic had begun to spread. There would be no hiding this. He'd
declined rapidly, the hunger had reached a crescendo and not relented as it usually did. He
had been wracked by it for hours. His breathing sped up as he struggled with the fact that he
wasn't going to get to the Library. That if by some miracle he did, he wouldn't find anything
anyway. Someone was going to find him right where he was. And then they would
investigate.

His heart was pounding with such ferocity that he almost didn't hear the hushed voices of
someone coming down the corridor. He had brought the map, but hadn't checked it in what
now felt like hours.

Parkinson and Zabini rounded the corner, whispering to each other. Parkinson was a Prefect,
so it didn't shock Harry to see the pair this late at night, though he was certainly not pleased.
He sucked in a breath as they approached him and he willed himself into silence, squeezing
his eyes shut and forcing himself not to hear them.

As if to insult him, the hunger intensified, spreading through his limbs like heat. He wasn't
doing this. He wouldn't do this.

"…It doesn't matter, it looks like all of Potter's friends have abandoned him. Makes things
easy for Draco." Pansy muttered, her voice low, but close enough to him now that he'd heard
her clearly.

"Imperio," Harry whispered, wand already raised.

His head hit the stone with some force as he slid down the wall, gasping. Zabini punched
Parkinson three times in the face before she hit the floor, unconscious. The Slytherin looked
at his fists, and Pansy on the ground, like he'd seen a ghost. Harry's hooded eyes followed
Zabini under the invisibility cloak as he ran from the corridor as though chased.

Harry was horribly ashamed to feel relief. Tangible, delicious relief.

He had used a second Unforgivable. A double life sentence in Azkaban. The thought sent a
revolting shiver through him and he pushed it away, refocusing on Charms class. Hermione
and Ron sat on either side of him, and chatter had begun to flow between the trio with more
energy than it had in over six months. His friends still seemed stiff around each other, but
Harry was happy about the progress despite what had inspired it.

As far as he could tell, nothing had happened to either Parkinson or Zabini as a result of his
actions. He'd seen them the very next morning at breakfast, the both of them deep in
conversation with Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. Pansy's face was spotless, healed sometime
during the night. He guessed it hadn't been Madam Pomfrey. He'd avoided looking at the
Slytherin table after that, afraid that they would somehow see what he'd done in his eyes.

Harry knew that these golden hours would be short-lived, that he would once again fight the
hunger and be faced with the unfortunate reality that he had broken something. That he now
held a secret that could destroy everything he'd worked so hard to build. He was a danger to
everything he held dear. If he wasn't careful, if he didn't find a way to end this, it would all
unravel in his hands.

Ron showed him a crude drawing of Malfoy and Snape, and Harry laughed, pushing the
thoughts back where they had come from.

He had resumed watching Malfoy on the Marauder's map with more focus. He sat in his bed,
idly eating licorice wands that Ron had volunteered to him after dinner as he watched
Parkinson, Crabbe, and Malfoy stand outside the Room of Requirement. The Boy Who Lived
wished he had a way to see what the blonde was doing inside. He wasn't thinking about the
Imperius. The thought made him ill.

His eyes wandered to the Gryffindor Tower, and he noticed after a quick inspection that
Ginny wasn't in her bed. Neither, he realized, was Ron. Nor were they in the Common Room.
It was close to two in the morning, and while it hadn't surprised him to see the Slytherins
gathering for extracurricular activities, he was shocked that the Weasleys were out of bed.

He rapidly scanned the map and saw the two of them walking down a corridor near the
Divination Tower. Curiosity got the better of him as he slipped out of his curtains, stuffed the
map and his wand into his waistband and threw his cloak over his head.

He followed them on the map and on foot, wondering why they had snuck out without him.
Without telling him. The siblings had stopped in a classroom Harry knew to be empty.

When he reached it, he pressed his ear to the door, hoping that he could hear them. Ginny
was talking, but he couldn't quite make out the words. He strained and realised that the young
Weasley was casting, muttering what sounded like spell-work.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She said, interrupting the rhythmic chanting, her voice shaky.
There was a moment of silence, disturbed by a sob and a crunching sound that made Harry's
stomach lurch, his hand hesitating above the doorknob. Ginny stopped crying and resumed
her soft chanting. It didn't sound like any spell he'd heard before.

The Boy Who Lived stepped back, frowning. He looked down at the map and confirmed that
it was indeed Ron and Ginny on the other side of that door.
He waited for the pair to come out, and they did, after around fifteen minutes. Harry watched,
dumbfounded, as Ginny exited, wracked by silent sobs, tears streaming readily down her face
as she choked from the force of it, steadying herself against the wall as she dragged herself
down the corridor. And Ron, blank-faced, staring straight ahead and walking slowly beside
his distraught sister.

Harry stood in the hallway and stared after them long after they had vanished around the
corner.

Harry had been watching the youngest Weasley, but after that night it became a higher
priority. He spent more time with her, as much as he could, outside of class. He observed her
closely for any sign of, well, anything. He visited the Library with far more frequency,
searching for anything that could explain what was wrong with him, and how to fix it. He
brought Ginny with him, and sometimes Ron. Hermione would ask too many questions, so
they would lie and tell her they were going to the Pitch to run drills, then hide away in a dark
corner of the Library and talk in hushed whispers.

Neither of them asked why they were pulling the wool over Hermione's eyes, or why they
had taken up residency in the Library. He suspected that they would ask, but they were giving
him as much grace as they could afford. As he was them. He would often feel Ginny's stare
while he read, flipping through page after page of useless information. He was sure she felt
him watching her as well. Since he had found them in that abandoned classroom, acting
bizarrely, there had been no further odd behaviour.

He watched her now, two books in her lap, one on top of the other, as though she was trying
to hide the title. Harry had been using the same technique. They were alone, Ron had opted to
go to dinner early. Ginny looked up and locked eyes with him, each silently questioning the
other for a moment before Ginny looked away, shaking her head and standing.

"I'll see you in the Great Hall, Harry." She smiled and excused herself.
 Fixing a Cabinet

The Bird and the Worm, The Used

All alone he turns to stone

while holding his breath half to death
Terrified of what 's inside
to save his life he crawls
like a worm from a bird
crawls like a worm from a bird

Out of his mind away

pushes him whispering
must have been out of his mind
mid-day delusions of pushing this out of his head
maybe out of his mind

All he knows
If he can't relieve it, it grows
and so it goes
he crawls like a worm
crawls like a worm from the bird

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches," Trelawney intoned as
Harry watched Dumbledore and the woman in the side room of a pub.

"Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies," There was
something to her demeanour, Harry thought to himself. Something more than the haze the
prophecy induced. Dumbledore looked entirely nonplussed by her sudden predictions.

"And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows
not,"

The Boy Who Lived frowned at this but continued his examination of the memory.

"And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."

He withdrew from the woman 's mind momentarily, ignoring her wailing, before he re-entered
the memory with unnecessary aggression. There was something he was missing.

Harry had immediately discounted the idea of telling the headmaster that he was pretty sure
the Dark Lord had found the prophecy. It was likely that Dumbledore already knew, probably
through Snape. They had already concluded that Trelawney, and the prophecy along with her,
had been lost. So, he pushed the dream down and locked it away with the others.
Two weeks had passed since he had used his second Unforgivable, and he was on edge,
expecting the hunger to resurface at any moment. The Slytherins continued to give him a
wide berth, inside and outside of class. While he was glad for it, he was mostly suspicious.

He had gotten no further in understanding what was wrong with him, and he had begun to
suspect that whatever was going on, he wasn't going to find the answers in the Hogwarts
Library. He hadn't given up, but he was considerably less hopeful. He'd been sitting with
Ginny and Ron in the Library, still searching, but less enthusiastically, when a loud bang
snapped him out of his head.

"This is a funny-looking Quidditch game," Hermione said, her hand still on the book she had
slammed on the table.

"Oh." Harry said, closing the Occlumency text he'd been reading. "We finished up."

"No!" She hissed, careful not to yell in the library, despite her book slamming. "Stop it! What
is going on Harry?"

The Boy Who Lived finally looked into her eyes, guilt washing over him. He wished he
could tell them. He wished he could tell them, and that they would understand. That they
could help him, that he wouldn't invariably fuck it all up. That he wouldn't frighten them. Get
them hurt.

"Hermione… I can't-"

She didn't let him finish, instead turning forcefully on her heels and storming from the
library.

The Weasley siblings watched him, both looking forlorn. He refocused his attention on the
book, frowning. When Ron and Ginny returned to their reading, Harry took the map from his
pocket where it had stayed, permanently, after he'd cursed Zabini. It was a reasonable tool in
avoiding the Slytherins, Malfoy in particular. The easy way he'd used the Imperius unnerved
him, and he'd opted to take more care in avoiding temptation. He didn't want to think about
how difficult it was to avoid that particular temptation, once the hunger had clawed at him for
weeks. He'd taken to biting his tongue until he tasted metal every time the thought of Zabini
and Parkinson cropped up.

He watched Hermione ascend the staircase of the headmaster's office on the Marauder's map
and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Harry…" Ginny began, breaking the stillness of the late-night Common Room. He looked
up at her, already wary.

"I wouldn't ask- but since - since that night… Is everything okay? Are we all okay?" She
hadn't been reading, as Harry was, instead sitting with him silently after dinner.

He wanted to open his mouth and tell her everything. He wondered if he would feel relieved
or horrified. Both.
"We're all fine, Ginny," he said after hesitating for too long. She looked as though she might
cry but shook her head instead.

"It's late," she said, sighing as she stood. "You know I trust you, right, Harry? You can trust
me too."

She didn't wait for him to reply as she headed to bed.

Instead of repelling Hermione, after their spat in the library, he'd inadvertently caused her to
never let him out of her sight.

She made a spectacle of packing up her things and following him when he ducked out of the
portrait hole every time she caught him leaving, and she did catch him, more often than not.
The only reprieve he got from her, and her bristled attitude, were the classes that he didn't
share with her, and detentions with Snape. She was cordial with only Ginny, shooting Harry
and Ron meaningful, angry looks, saying very little to them. Because of this, he was
spending less time searching for answers.

He'd conceded the fact that he wasn't going to find anything in a Library made for children.
He didn't know where on earth he'd find a single sentence describing his current predicament,
but it wasn't in Hogwarts.

He sat with the three of them in the Common Room, chairs and lounges pushed to the sides
to make space for them to sit on the ground. Open Herbology textbooks lay in the middle,
scrolls of parchment in front of them as Hermione corrected everyone's grammar and flow.
All except Ron, who had given up after writing his name and the first line of his essay.
Hermione had ignored him entirely. A group of first-year Gryffindors squealed at the other
side of the room, chasing chocolate frogs.

"Harry, you've forgotten the part about Alihotsy," Hermione told him, not looking at his face.
He sighed and shot the youngest Weasley a look. She smiled apologetically. She'd been
working on her Charms homework but had slowed down halfway through her page. As he
looked between the Weasley siblings he realised that he hadn't seen them speak a word to
each other in… How long?

He frowned and corrected his essay, adding that Alihotsy tree would make anyone who
consumed the leaves cackle like a hyena.

He'd begun to tally how many days he could go before the aching hunger rose and noted, as
he suspected, that he was getting less and less time between thrashings. As far as he could
calculate, the amount of time he had before the pain came back had been halved with every
casting. If he was right, he had a matter of days before it resurfaced. If he was lucky, maybe
two weeks.

"Are you excited for Apparition lessons, Harry?" Ginny asked, snapping him out of his
anxiety.
"Oh. Yeah. Should come in handy," he said, not mentioning that he had hardly thought about
it. A chocolate frog invaded their circle, and Harry caught it, handing it to the shy first-year
girl who'd come to claim it.

Hermione had returned to her Herbology essay, and Ron was tossing a small ball in the air
repeatedly. The bushy-haired girl scoffed at the Weasley but didn't say anything.

He 'd been surrounded in the bathrooms on the second floor by two Gryffindors and a
Hufflepuff, the three of them with their wands raised, laughing at him.

Harry had his raised right back, but he knew he was outnumbered as they backed him into a
corner. He wracked his brain and found that there was no solution that wouldn 't result in
either punishment or pain. He decided the choice was obvious.

"Liquida Tenebris!" He'd startled them with his shout, the trio not expecting him to fight
back. They'd had time to turn on their heels as a thick, inky tidal wave of blackness
surrounded them. The three students hit the tiles with a scream and a smack before there was
silence.

The dream shifted, and he was crying on the floor in Privet Drive. He was no older than four.
Vernon was shouting, Petunia was holding Dudley and rocking him, looking at Harry like he
was a cockroach she 'd removed from her ear. Dudley glared at him from his mother's arms
while his uncle dragged him by his ears and threw him into the cupboard under the stairs.

"No food for the rest of the week!" Vernon sing-songed through the door as he locked it from
the outside.

Harry had found three toy army men in the back garden while planting. Caked in dirt and
long forgotten, he 'd brushed them off and slipped them into his pocket. It was clear Dudley
had forgotten they'd existed. He had found Harry playing with them a few days later and
snatched them back.

The Boy Who Lived, seething with fury, had pinched his cousin on the arm in retaliation.

The Boy Who Lived woke with his jaw firmly clenched and his heart pounding. He uncorked
a calming potion that he kept under his pillow and took it in one mouthful. He waited for less
than five seconds before he took another from inside his side table, downing it as well. He
dug his fists into his temples as he felt the telltale burning beginning in his middle. Less time
than he'd thought.

Harry let out a shaky breath and pulled the map out, also under his pillow. A distraction. He
cast Lumos and watched the map. The Slytherins were, for once, where they were supposed
to be. In the Dungeons. While he watched them, unmoving, he realised that he did have a
way to see what Malfoy was up to.

He shot out of bed and down the stairs, calling Kreacher and Dobby once he'd reached the
Common Room. Harry immediately regretted calling them both at once when the pair got
into a fistfight over the Chosen One's honour.
"Stop! Stop, stop," He pulled them apart before they could alert the entirety of Gryffindor.

"I need you to do something for me, Kreacher." He told the elf quickly, so they wouldn't
brawl again, "I need you to follow Malfoy into the Room of Requirement and find out what
he's doing in there. I want you to go with him, Dobby. Make sure he doesn't screw it up."

The pair had disappeared with a snap, Dobby nodding enthusiastically and Kreacher giving
his best sneer.

Harry had been relieved to feel some semblance of control.

A week later, the sixth-year students gathered for their first Apparition lesson. No one
managed it successfully, but Susan Bones splinched herself, which had been declared a 'good
effort' by their Ministry-appointed instructor.

"Until next Saturday, everybody, and do not forget: Destination. Determination.

Deliberation." He'd called after the retreating, grey-faced sixth years. Harry had headed
straight to his detention with Snape afterwards.

The raging hunger increased exponentially from the instant he'd noticed it had returned.
Spending time with Snape was hard enough on a regular day. It wasn't a regular day. He was
gnawing on the inside of his cheeks with aggression when he pushed open the Defence
teacher's door. Snape turned when he'd stepped into the frame and watched Harry for a long
moment, the both of them stood still. The Boy Who Lived waited to be told exactly what it
was he was going to be doing for the detention, but the man just stared.

"On your way, Potter," Snape said after an awkwardly long minute, waving his arm.

"Professor?" Harry questioned.

"Go."

He didn't need to be told a third time, so he took his leave. He was glad to not be spending
the afternoon with the Defence Professor, but he was confused and wary about the reason. So
much so that he shut himself in a toilet cubicle and took out the map.

He waited, and sure enough, Malfoy joined the Professor. The two of them left the office, and
then the castle grounds entirely.

Kreacher and Dobby had returned to him late at night, while Harry and Ginny were
discussing their very limited theories on Malfoy and Snape after Hermione had finally
relented and gone to bed. It was as though the discussion had summoned the elves.

"He's repairing a cabinet." Kreacher had said, distaste for the Chosen One obvious.

"A cabinet?" Harry parroted.

"Yes, Harry Potter, Dobby is seeing the young Malfoy. With his wand!" Dobby imitated a
wizard casting a spell.

"That's… all he's doing? Fixing a cupboard? For this long?" The Boy Who Lived was
incredulous.

Harry told them to continue watching him as much as they could without arousing suspicion.
The elves popped away and Harry frowned. It didn't make sense.

"That doesn't make sense," Ginny said, as though she heard him thinking it. "Do you think
we should… Ask Hermione?"

Harry decided that he would at least ask her if she knew of any dark… cabinets. "She doesn't
believe me. About Malfoy. Not yet anyway. I'll ask about the cupboard."

Ginny had nodded and agreed that it was probably best not to provoke Hermione with the
Slytherin.

"Ginny… Is everything good with you and Ron?" Harry had asked in a moment of silence,
after debating whether he should ask at all.

"Oh. Ah," She frowned, and her fingers turned white on the arms of her chair.

"What do you mean." Her voice was quiet, careful, deadpan.

"I mean is something wrong? Are you fighting? I haven't seen you talk to each other since…"
He trailed off. He wasn't sure exactly when he'd seen the two of them interact last. The night
he'd found them in an abandoned classroom. But even that strange night, Ron hadn't spoken a
word to her.

"You know how Ron is. He doesn't want to hang out with his little sister." Her hands had
relaxed.

"Right." Harry said, squinting at her. He was certain now, more than before, that there was
something wrong.

That there was something wrong, and she was hiding it. The Boy Who Lived was familiar
with that sensation, and for a moment he realized how frustrated his friends must have been
by his recent behaviour. That feeling stopped him from pressing her further.

"My Lord, I bring news." Snape bowed low and remained that way until Harry motioned for
him to rise.

"There is a Prophecy."

Harry needed no further invitation to enter the man 's head, and Severus allowed it. Harry
saw through his eyes as the man watched Albus Dumbledore and Sybil Trelawney take a
private room. Snape waited a moment, searching the Hog's Head Inn for prying eyes before
he followed them and pressed his ear to the door.
"-The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."

The dream morphed and he was standing in Godric 's Hollow, looking up at a quaint little
two-story house in the sleepy street. He took it in for a moment before he moved up the path.

"Bombarda Maxima," he said as he reached the door. The commotion was instant.

"Lily! Lily get Harry!" James shouted. His wife wasted no time in racing up the stairs as
James spun to face him.

"No! You won't take him! You can't have him!" He had drawn his wand, levelling it with
Harry's face. He had no plans to take the child. He was simply going to kill it.

"Avada Kedavra," The Chosen One's tone was conversational.

When Harry woke, he was already vomiting. He fought the sheets that were stuck to his body,
thrashing until he fell out with a bang. He was aware that he was making a lot of noise but
could do nothing to stop it. He was alternating between not breathing and hyperventilating,
rasping howls wracked him as his arms and legs lost sensation, seemingly vanishing from his
body. The room strangely turned a shade of blue-green as he struggled.

"Harry? Harry!"

He felt hands on him and he instinctively fought, vision blurred with tears as he clawed at
whoever was touching him. Desperate, choked sobs escaped him as he threw his limbs
blindly, kicking and swinging and screaming.

"Harry!?"

He was aware of more people watching him now, but he couldn't focus. Couldn't fight it. He
lost consciousness on the floor, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

"I think he's waking up," Harry heard Ginny's voice as he opened his eyes, in the Hospital
Wing for the second time that year.

Ron, Ginny, and Hermione sat around his bed.

"Are you alright mate? Gave me a right scare," Ron said, while the others nodded.

The Boy Who Lived sat up slowly and avoided looking at them in the eye.

"I had a nightmare. About my - parents."

"From Voldemort?" Hermione asked quickly.

Harry flinched but felt he hid it well. "No. Those have been… Getting better." He lied,
swallowing heavily and still watching his bed covers with interest. He noticed that the hunger
had returned to haunt him constantly, the dull ache unmoving in his solar plexus.
He fought back tears and squeezed his eyes shut before he chanced a look at Ginny. Her face
was still as a mask while she stared at him.

The Chosen One had been allowed to leave after he awoke and was told that Dumbledore
was away from the castle, but when he returned, he'd requested that Harry come and see him.
Someone must have informed the headmaster, wherever the man was, that Harry had an
episode. He didn't seem to find that a comfort as he allowed Ron, Hermione, and Ginny to
lead him back to the Gryffindor Tower.
 Liquida Tenebris

The Red, Chevelle

They say 'Freak'

When you're singled out
The red
Well, it filters through

So lay down
The threat is real
When his sight
Goes red again

This change
He won't contain
Slip away
To clear your mind

When asked
What made it show
(What made it show)
The truth
He gives in to most

Harry was at the zoo with his aunt, uncle, and cousin. They 'd both had ice treats, Dudley's a
huge heaping of chocolate ice cream piled into a too-small cone, and Harry a lemon
Popsicle.

They were trailing through the reptile house when they stopped in front of a display holding a
Burmese Python. It had been sleeping, so his cousin smacked on the glass with his fists.
Vernon and Petunia wandered away, bored, leaving the boys to watch the sleeping serpent.

"It's asleep," Harry snapped the obvious when his cousin hit the glass a second time. Dudley
scoffed and followed his parents.

"Sorry," The Boy Who Lived told the snake. To his surprise, it looked up at him and then rose
to his height.

"No matter," The serpent told him.

"You can talk!" Harry said, eyes wide.

"So can you," it told him.

Harry looked at the sign, saw where the snake was from, and asked if it missed its family. It
had pointed out that it had been bred in captivity.

"Look! Look! It's awake!" Dudley came rushing back, shoving Harry to the ground.
Nonsensically, he beat his fists on the glass again. Harry glared at him from his place on the
concrete, and the glass vanished before his eyes. Dudley fell in, screaming and flailing as the
giant Burmese Python slid out of the enclosure over the top of him.

"Many thanks." The snake said as it passed him.

Harry was suddenly standing in front of a bloody, semi-conscious Trelawney. Her head lolled
back and forth as she whimpered, but she had long since given up begging. It had taken a
tremendous, coordinated effort. Specialists had been brought in from around the Country,
threatened, tortured, cajoled, and then Obliviated or killed once their work was done,
depending on their skill and attitude. He had been careful, not one of his Death Eaters knew
Sybil was still alive.

He tilted her head back between his thumb and forefinger, then entered her mind through her
eyes.

He watched as Trelawney took a seat in Dumbledore 's office, the future Divination Professor
told the headmaster about her credentials, about her relation to the famous Seer, Cassandra
Trelawney. The man had smiled dryly from his desk, hands clasped, elbows on the wood.
Sybil thanked him for the interview, for the opportunity of the Divination position.

Trelawney 's head snapped back midway through telling Dumbledore that she had predicted
the Holyhead Harpies winning the World Cup four years previous. Her voice went low, and
her eyes glazed over.

"The one with power to rival the Dark Lord's own approaches-"

Harry was ejected from the dream with violent force. Pain split his head. His ears rang as he
reached for his wand in reflex, sitting up. He drank a calming potion, a mere ritual at that
point. He'd gotten no rest since he'd returned from the Hospital Wing. He'd been assaulted by
the dreams every night since, bleeding into each other, back-to-back-to-back.

This one in particular was worrying. He still had no way of knowing if these dreams, or
memories, were accurate. That wasn't a line of the prophecy that he knew. He thought back to
the Dark Lord watching Trelawney and Dumbledore in the room at the pub. How he'd
thought there was something wrong.

The Headmaster and the Divination Professor had been in Dumbledore's Office. At
Hogwarts. Not at the Hog's Head Inn.

If these memories were correct, Snape gave up his parents. If they were correct, the Prophecy
that they, and Sirius, had died for, appeared fabricated. To what degree, Harry didn't know.
He held onto the thought that it was all too obscene to be real, that it was a ploy. The way
he'd been forcefully ejected from Voldemort's mind before Harry could see the full memory
did make him wonder, but he pushed it aside and put it atop the pile of things he wasn't
confronting.

He resolved that he needed to get Slughorn's version of the Horcrux memory if he was ever
going to get a clue. If Slughorn's matched Riddle's… Well. He'd think about that then.

Dumbledore had not returned to the castle since the night he'd seen his parents. Harry had
tried to ask him what he thought he should do, how he should proceed with Slughorn, before
he left. The headmaster hadn't any answers.

He stayed in his four-poster bed, trying to formulate a plan while he fought with the hunger
spreading through his limbs like adrenaline. He was still brewing Calming Draughts with the
Potions Professor every few nights, and Harry had multiple conversations with him,
sometimes about Lily. Each time the Boy Who Lived couldn't find a sentence that would get
him the memory.

He decided that he would have to broach it, prepared or not. Sooner rather than later.

"Hermione, have you ever heard of any kind of… magic cabinet?" Harry could feel her eyes
on him as he asked, but he kept his firmly on his book, feigning mild interest. Ginny glanced
up at them from her reading, then quickly returned to it.

"No? I mean… Not off the top of my head. I can see what I can find?" She offered, sitting
forward in her chair.

"No, that's okay. I saw it mentioned in a text, I was just curious." He wasn't going to let on
that he'd sent Kreacher and Dobby to spy on Malfoy in the Room of Requirement. Fixing a
cupboard was far too benign a thing to be doing. It wouldn't rouse her suspicion of Malfoy,
but it would certainly make her mad that Harry hadn't let it go.

The youngest Weasley shifted in her seat but didn't say anything. Harry had done a decent job
portraying disinterest, and Hermione returned to the letter she'd been writing to her parents.
Slughorn had been unavailable that night, and so he'd had to reschedule his interrogation
plans. Which, at the current rate of things, wasn't ideal. He could already feel his friends
watching him with more interest, more concern, with each passing day. They would notice
this pattern, and he no longer had an excuse to hide it behind.

The Boy Who Lived looked at the words in his lap, but he wasn't seeing them. It had been a
little over four weeks since he'd cursed Zabini, and he didn't think he'd have much more time
before he lost control again. His stomach rolled with anxiety, but also with anticipation.
Excitement. A thrill intertwined with the pain that made his mouth water. He swallowed
heavily and excused himself for early bed.

He didn't stay there long. He waited for his housemates to retire for the night then took his
cloak and the map and stole out of the Tower.

He was slow-moving and deliberate as he wandered through the corridors, watching the map,
avoiding Filch, Prefects, and a relatively close call with McGonagall. He kept all thoughts
purposely from his head as he floated to an empty room near the Astronomy Tower, guided
there by his spotless mind and the movements of others in the castle. He closed the heavy
wooden door behind him, flinching as it groaned. He watched the Marauder's map for a
moment, making sure no one was coming to investigate.

Once he was sure he was alone, he shakily dropped to his knees, silencing, locking, and
warding the room. His mind raced as he kneeled there. If he did what he was considering
doing, it would be a defeat. He would be willingly conceding before the hunger forced his
hand. Before he'd fought. The idea of doing it on purpose made him feel revolted, nearly
physically ill. But he'd found no other way, and as he always was, he was running out of time.
The risk of doing something uncontrolled, and deadly, was too high. In the wrong situation,
with the wrong people, in the wrong moment…

The sickly-sweet ache roiled in his gut, egging him on, and making him sway on his knees.
Sweat was already pooling on his brow, and he knew his face was grey with the weight of it.
He had to do something. Before he was feral with it. Obvious. A problem. He couldn't bear
the thought of hurting anyone else. He'd admitted to himself that when he let this go
unchecked, he was dangerous. With that off the table, he had only one option.

He raised his wand, arms tingling, thoughts tumbling as his heart raced. He let out three
rough rasps of breath before he whispered "Liquida Tenebris."

He was knocked off his knees and into the stone as though by a shock wave, forcing the
breath he'd been holding out with a gasp. He was enveloped in a wave of deep black smoke
the instant he'd muttered the spell. A raw, indescribably intense relief flooded him, relaxing
his muscles to a nearly uncomfortable degree while his mind was wiped blessedly clear, his
arms and legs splayed out on the bricks. He could hear someone laughing quietly. Himself?

He breathed the magic in, inhaling more deeply than he had in months, eyes rolling up into
their lids. Energy thrummed in his every molecule in time with the pulse of the spell, lulling
him into the most exquisite bliss. He was the one laughing, he realised, feeling it in his throat.
His voice sounded strangely doubled. He became aware that he was still holding his wand
above his head, still pouring inky blackness into the room like a flood. Increasing the density.

'Rest,' His own voice said, inside his head, 'You've done so well.'

He laid there -slate wiped clean, no thoughts could swim against the current- for much longer
than he needed to. Whispers reaching his ears but missing his mind.

He had expected pain. Relief, yes, but primarily pain. The spell he'd seen in the memory and
the spell he'd cast on himself weren't the same. When he'd decided to use it, it had been
because it seemed like a good curse to use without a target. Not an Unforgivable. He'd
assumed it would be horrible, but not fatal. Riddle wouldn't have risked killing those
students; the thing in his head wouldn't destroy its host. He had gambled, put faith in the
memory he'd seen in his dreams, nearly delusional with hunger. And the way he saw it, he
had lost.
What he had experienced had been far worse than the suffering he'd prepared for. Casting the
Cruciatus Curse was a fizzling match compared to the supernova of Liquida Tenebris. His
whole body still thrummed with it the next day, his cells humming a tune, as the sixth years
gathered for their second Apparition lesson.

"I hope you all recall! Destination. Determination. Deliberation. The three Ds!" Wilkie
Twycross called over the gathering students, "Like last time, we're just going to aim for the
other side of the field."

The sixth years separated and began cluelessly attempting to Apparate. Harry stared at the far
end of the snowy open field where they'd gathered, -unable to Apparate on the Hogwarts
grounds- and turned his body the way he'd been told to. He hadn't expected anything, but
when he felt a familiar pull in his navel, he tugged back.

All at once, the sensation of being shot through a too-small metal pipe overcame him, the air
forced out of his lungs as he was catapulted through a hurricane of warping colour before he
was suddenly at the other end, announced with a small pop. He glanced down at himself, then
at the students now far away from him, astonished.

"Bravo! Bravo, Mister Potter, excellent form. Truly! Excellent! See now, everyone? Not so
bad!" The examiner squawked, sounding as shocked as Harry felt.

The Chosen One decided it had to be a fluke and tried again. He Disapparated, once more
rocketed through the tube, and reappeared near his friends. Hermione's mouth hung open, and
Ron was grinning ear to ear, patting him on the back.

"Wicked, mate!" He said.

Hermione pursed her lips and refocused on twisting her body, glaring at the other side of the
open area.

By the end of the lesson, Harry's had been the only success.

Harry had been uplifted by Apparating, and if he were honest with himself, still floating
through the air after he'd done… what he'd done. This combination of things brought with it
confidence, and he used it to carry himself toward Slughorn just before midday, locating him
on the map in the Potions Classroom.

"Oh, Harry! I was just thinking about you, I thought you might like to move on from brewing
Calming Draughts. Although Madame Pomfrey is always grateful when you brew extra. I've
just collected some Chizpurfle fangs, perfect for brewing Wiggenweld Potion. Quite a
complicated brew, but I trust it will be well within your wheelhouse." Slughorn rambled as
Harry entered.

"The antidote to the Draught of Living Death, you know!" The Professor said, already setting
up a cauldron. Harry grinned and followed his lead, pulling his textbook from his bag. The
Boy Who Lived found that without Snape looming over him like a storm cloud, he quite
enjoyed potions.
The two of them crafted the potion in relative silence, interrupted by occasional questions and
directions.

"Professor," Harry began, once the potion was stable and bubbling, "You- taught Tom Riddle,
didn't you?"

As he'd expected, Slughorn stiffened, ram-rod straight, looking at him as though he'd asked
the man to strip in the Great Hall at dinner time. The Professor turned, potion forgotten,
leaving the room and the question. Harry balked, looking between the swiftly exiting man
and the angrily bubbling cauldron. He extinguished the flames and chased Slughorn.

"Wait! Sir? The potion?" He tried. The man pretended not to hear him as he scurried away.

The Boy Who Lived ran then, catching up to the escaping teacher.

"Sir?" He pressed again.

"Oh!" Slughorn said, as though he'd just seen Harry. "You'll have to excuse me Mister Potter,
I have an urgent appointment you see." He looked physically pained as he tore away from the
Boy Who Lived.

He watched the Professor go, frowning. As well as he'd expected, not as well as he'd hoped.

He sighed and turned, heading back through the castle to find his friends and tell them that he
wasn't any closer to getting what he needed from the Potions Professor. He pushed the
thought of Liquida Tenebris from his head as he crossed through one of the courtyards, the
stones slick with melted then refrozen ice. It was the quickest route if you didn't slip.

"Oh, Harry! Over here." Luna called, and he turned to find her and Neville sat on a long stone
bench, a book open between them. The blonde girl was levitating summoned flowers, light
pink and twirling in the air. Juxtaposing the grey of the castle.

"Hey Harry," Neville said as he approached, "How are you feeling? I mean since the other
night."

The Boy Who Lived realised he hadn't spoken to Neville since he'd been taken to the
Hospital Wing last. He sat next to Luna.

"Ah, yeah. I had a nightmare. About my parents." Harry said, knowing that Neville would
understand that particular ache.

"And there's your other problem, of course," Luna said dreamily, not looking away from her
flowers.

Harry's stomach dropped as he looked at her, fighting to keep his face neutral.

"What do you mean?" He bit out, hoping to warn her with his tone.

"You know what I mean," Her tone was slightly less buttery, but she didn't seem to pick up
his warning, "I can see it all around you. It's beautiful, today."
She said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world. His heart hammered as he
watched her, smiling at her flowers. Neville looked confused but wisely said nothing. There
was no way she could know. Could she? Were they talking about the same thing? Could she
truly see it? Had she told anyone? Had they believed her?

"Don't worry, Harry." She'd told him simply, and he'd had to excuse himself.

That night he'd filled Ron, Hermione, and Ginny in on his misfortune with Slughorn. He'd
spoken at length to the three of them until it was just him and Ginny in the Common Room.
She'd let him brainstorm ideas, and try to formulate a plan, but she offered no advice of her
own. She headed to bed earlier than she usually did, and so Harry had been left alone with his
thoughts.

Something he'd been dreading all day. Anxiety roiled through him, twinged with, much to his
disgust, desire. The thought of what he'd done had hung on the outskirts of his mind since,
making his stomach leap with anticipation each time he registered it. He realised he wanted,
not needed, to do it again. The hunger was not active, dormant in his middle. Despite its
dormancy, it somehow felt more present.

He decided, as he sat there, that he wasn't going to do it again. It had been different. Stronger.
It had scared him as much as it had thrilled him. He didn't want to think about how few
options he had. He dismissed the thought of studying dark magic to find something more
suitable, less harmful. The thought was nearly as repellent as Liquida Tenebris.

He dragged himself up the stairs at nearly two AM, taking his usual dreamless sleep and
forcing his head to his pillow.
 A Rare Enough Gift

Help I 'm Alive, Metric

They're gonna eat me alive

If I stumble

They're gonna eat me alive

Can you hear my heart beating like a hammer?

Beating like a hammer?

Help, I'm alive

My heart keeps beating like a hammer
Hard to be soft, tough to be tender
Come take my pulse
The pace is on a runaway train
Help, I'm alive, my heart keeps

Beating like a hammer

The headmaster had returned three days later, around the same time the pleasurable,
concerning after-burn Liquida Tenebris caused had left him. He felt closer to normal than he
had in a long time, with neither the hunger nor the vibration of the spell to cloud his head.

The summons from Dumbledore revived the anxiety he'd been beating down. He knew he
was about to be interrogated, and he had no idea how he would hold up to the headmaster's
scrutiny. He was thankful, at least, that the ache wasn't ravenous as he traipsed up
Dumbledore's staircase.

"You'll need to forgive me for my absence Harry," The man said without preamble, "More
pressing matters."

He gestured for Harry to sit, and he did, in his usual armchair.

"That's okay, Sir," he said in return, his heart in his throat. He gripped the arms of the chair
and wiped his sweaty palms inconspicuously.

'Prepare yourself.' The voice had come from inside his head, making him startle in his seat.

He looked at Dumbledore for any indication that he'd heard it, but the man just smiled at him,
before offering him a sherbet lemon. Harry refused, frowning. He could feel the thing, the
hunger, shifting in his gut and his head. He felt the barest tugging on his memories, on his
dreams, as they were gently pulled deep into the core of himself.
"I was sent word that you have been having a nasty time, Harry." Dumbledore said, "Is
everything well?"

As he spoke, Harry felt the headmaster enter his mind through his eyes. It wasn't a sensation
he'd ever noticed before, but he did now, feeling an unfamiliar thread whispering through his
thoughts and memories of the months following the attack at the Ministry. He was subtle and
deliberate, but there was nothing left to see. All of it dragged into the centre and covered by
impenetrable darkness. Any thoughts he had about the man being in his head were also
vacuumed up as they came, flitting too far from the headmaster's metaphorical sight. Harry
noticed, numb, that the thing in his head was illuminating the thread that Dumbledore was
creating in his mind. Pointing him out. Making him obvious.

"I've been having dreams about my parents," Harry said, fighting to keep his tone neutral. As
he said it, a fully-fledged fabrication of a dream entered his thoughts. In it, he was with his
parents, talking, before they turned to ash and were swept away in the breeze. Harry hoped
the headmaster couldn't hear how fast his heart was beating in his head.

Dumbledore took the memory and examined it before he moved on to his pitiful attempt at
retrieving the real memory from Slughorn.

"Any luck with Horace?"

Harry thought that the man knew there wasn't any goddamn luck with Horace, as fear, anger,
and confusion built. These emotions were pulled away as well, and the Boy Who Lived just
felt bizarre in their absence.

"Oh. No. I've been trying."

The memories of brewing potions with the man after hours, and Harry's continuous planning
and rehashing, were all presented to Dumbledore. The outlandish sensation of his brain being
puppeted by whatever was inside him made him uneasy, but the alternative may have been
worse.

The headmaster let him go after he had been thoroughly invaded.

He made his way to the Common Room, skipping the rest of his classes. His heart was
pounding, but he was devoid of emotion right up until the moment he closed his curtains and
silenced the bed.

Then he screamed until his throat was raw. Until no sound came out.

In the week that followed his meeting with Dumbledore, the hunger returned. It was more
insistent, but Harry pushed it away violently each time.

Since it had spoken to him, outside a dream or a delusion, a deep, pervasive fear had taken
hold. The thing had moved his thoughts and memories as though they didn't belong to him.
Self-preservation, Harry had figured later, when he dissected what had happened.
He still thought that this was some kind of trap, but now he had too many pieces of the puzzle
for it to make sense. If whatever was in his head wanted to lead him on a wild goose chase,
wouldn't it have been a benefit to show Dumbledore the trap? To show him the false
memories? Harry could only deduce that whatever the plan was, the thing in him wanted to
be hidden.

It felt far too late for him to unhide it. He'd done too much, assumed too much.

He'd pointedly avoided the headmaster's eyes after the meeting. He'd guessed he was going to
be questioned, that Dumbledore would pry, but wouldn't push. Give him some sage advice,
maybe chastise him gently. Instead, he'd used Legilimency to rummage in his mind, with no
permission or regard. How many times had he done that without his knowledge?

He chewed his toast mechanically, eyes glued to the table.

The ache rattled in its cage, and Liquida Tenebris popped into his head. It had been incessant.
Every other thought was punctuated by desire. He needed it, the ache told him so, but he also
wanted it with every fibre. He wanted the peace that came with it. He had nothing else that
could compare, no other spell or potion that could soothe him like that. But he knew where it
had come from. He knew it fed something in himself that he had no business feeding. It
wanted it as badly as he did. He was certain half the time the desire wasn't even his, that the
thoughts had been manufactured and sent to him. So, he still hadn't cast it. It had felt worse
than an unforgivable, somehow. Taboo.

The only other idea he'd come up with was to find some kind of vermin and curse it. The
image of casting the Cruciatus on a cockroach had made him laugh despite himself. He found
it as horrifying as he did ridiculous, and so he'd discounted the thought.

"How are you holding up, Harry?" Luna's voice said from beside him, startling him into
dropping his toast. He hadn't noticed her sit down.

"Oh- Luna," He half shifted to look at her. Ron, Ginny, and Hermione were chattering
amongst themselves, but at any moment they could turn their attention to the blonde
Ravenclaw.

"I'm fine." He told her.

"That's funny. You don't look fine at all." She said, looking at the side of his head as though
she could see into it. Harry wondered for the second time what exactly she thought she knew.
He'd shushed her after that, eyes bugging out of his head in paranoia. She'd shrugged and
reached for bacon.

"I think you'd feel a lot better if you didn't fight it," she said, mouth full.

"What're you playing at?" He hissed, resisting the urge to turn and face her fully.

"It's alright Harry, I'm your friend." She said as she took in the expression on his face. Her
tone was still airy.
Harry liked Luna. She had been one of the few who had believed him about Voldemort's
return after the Tri-Wizard Cup. She'd followed him into the Ministry, into a death trap.
Despite her occasional self-deprecation -and the way she was talking to him now, like she
knew- she had a soothing presence. He didn't know if that was enough to balm the suspicion.

"We're going to talk about this later. Alone." He muttered, and she nodded.

"Sure, Harry."

"And- Don't speak to Dumbledore." He'd whispered the last word. "Don't even look at him."

"Of course." She said like it was obvious; like there was no reason to question that logic.

'Careful.' The voice inside him said. Quiet.

Harry slowly put down the piece of toast he'd picked back up, swallowing nothing. He hadn't
heard it since Dumbledore's office. He was happily pretending he'd never heard it in the first
place.

He noticed he was holding his breath and tried to draw one in, struggling for calm. He looked
up at his friends and saw that Ginny was watching him, her face expressionless. Ron chatted
animatedly with Hermione, his hands waving in the air as he described something Harry
couldn't quite make out over the din of breakfast. He was glad at least that he was holding
Hermione's attention, as he fought hyperventilation. He stood up carefully and removed
himself from the hall before he had a very public panic attack.

He managed to have a very private one, in a toilet stall, silenced.

The castle at large may have shunned him, but in Slytherin, he had thrived. His Housemates
took his word for law, and a large group of them would sit around him in the Common Room
at every opportunity, listening to him talk, laughing at his jokes, appreciating his plans.

Nott, Rosier, Mulciber, Lestrange, Avery, Dolohov, and a handful of the Black family members
sat with him that evening. Lestrange was discussing a curse he 'd found in the Forbidden
Section rather loudly, the others chatting amongst themselves, paying Lestrange little mind.
Harry watched them talk, content not to partake. Instead, he relished in the feeling he'd long
been missing. Home.

He was in the Gryffindor Common Room in a blink, surrounded by Ginny, Ron, Hermione,
Fred, George, and Neville, in his fourth year, before his name had been pulled from the Cup
and everything had gone to shit. Ron was gushing over the Beauxbatons girls, giddy, and
everyone had lost it, laughing uncontrollably. He 'd held his sides, his face hurting, and
thought that this was nice. This was home.

Luna had found him, in the end. She came into the Gryffindor Common Room with Neville
and asked Harry if he wanted to see something cool. He followed her out of the portrait of the
Fat Lady, and she led him to the Greenhouse, where she presented vines, reaching lazily as
though there was a breeze in the sealed building. The plants were too small to be aggressive,
still seedlings.

"Tentacula," she told him, reaching for a vine and holding it gently. "Neville told me all about
it. You said you wanted to talk, Harry?" She raised her wand to cast Muffliato and turned to
smile at him, briefly.

"You said that I have- A problem. You spoke like… like you can see it." Harry's words
tumbled out, blood pounding in his ears.

"I've always seen it," she said, kneeling to appreciate the swaying plants, looking at him from
the corner of her eye. "The first time I saw you, I noticed it, here," She gestured at his head
from her position on the ground.

"It was really small. Size of a Nargle. I thought, wow, what a strange little thing. Then the
night at the Ministry, it got bigger." She stood and showed him the size with her hands, then
put them on either side of his ears to show that it was slightly larger than his head.

"How- How big is it now, Luna?" He asked, and she stepped back, looking above his head
and then down at his body.

"Huge. It's all around you, Harry." She nodded and smiled as the Boy Who Lived felt his face
drain of colour.

"It's dark right now, but sometimes it glows." She added.

"Glows?"

"A brilliant gold. It's really nice." She'd returned to the plants, staring into the centre of them
at their tiny mouths, snapping at nothing.

"What is it, Luna? Do you know?" He pressed, not comfortable talking about it glowing.

"Oh, I don't know, Harry. I figured you knew." She gave him a small shrug.

"But you said I'd… feel better if I didn't fight it?"

"You do feel better, don't you?" She asked.

He ignored that comment, "How is it… How can you see it?" He took a step toward her,
looking between the twisting vines and the side of her head.

"It's just energy Harry, everyone has it." She told him simply. "Yours was very- broken. It
seems a bit better now."

"Better?!" He snapped incredulously, then added, "How many people can- see it?"

She shrugged again, "I don't know. No one that I know. My father says it's a rare enough gift,
but of course, there are others."
"You haven't told anyone, have you?"

She laughed, "No, Harry. It's not my business. People don't like when I talk about auras. I
don't suspect anyone would believe me if I told them about yours, anyway."

Harry wasn't sure what that meant and had wanted to question her further, but she had smiled,
given him a small wave, and floated out of the Greenhouse. He was confident in the fact that
she didn't seem to know what it was, what it meant, or what he had been doing. He realised
that he didn't know those things, either.

The start of March brought Ron's birthday. It had been over three weeks since he'd cast
Liquida Tenebris, and he was constantly gnawing at the inside of his mouth. He was getting
close to the limit, he knew. He watched Ron open an impressive haul of presents and cheered
him on in what he'd hoped was a believable fashion while his insides writhed.

There had been a strange lull in Death Eater activity, with no movement since the kidnapping
of Ollivander. This coincided with Malfoy frequenting the Room of Requirement less and
less, spending only minutes of his time in the room every few days. Instead, the Slytherin had
taken to patrolling the halls, always with Crabbe, Goyle, and Zabini. Sometimes Parkinson.
They would sweep the castle most nights, till the early hours. Sometimes split into groups of
two. Harry was suspicious, of course, but couldn't figure it out.

He looked around the Common Room, most of Gryffindor milling about, congratulating Ron,
and chattering about the wristwatch he'd received from his parents. He couldn't see Ginny
anywhere, so he stole up to the empty dormitory and took out the map wondering if she'd
slept in. Something that she seldom did, despite their usual late hours.

She wasn't in the Gryffindor Tower. He quickly found her alone in the same classroom he had
followed her and Ron to, weeks earlier. He frowned, tucked the map back into his pants and
descended the stairs.

"Where's Ginny?" Hermione had whispered to him, looking around the Common Room.
Harry had shrugged, eyebrows knitted together as he watched Ron showing Neville his new
chess set. He wanted to go and see exactly what Ginny was doing, but the festivities held him
in place until the start of classes.

He took the map out several times throughout the day, and Ginny remained in the empty
room. Ron didn't seem concerned, but Hermione mentioned it several times, saying that she
was hoping to have a cake for Ron after dinner in the Common Room and that she'd hoped
Ginny would help her with it. By the middle of the day, the bushy-haired girl was ready to
take it to the headmaster and declare her missing. Throughout this, Harry hadn't hinted that
he knew exactly where she was. He felt oddly guilty ratting her out like that, so instead, he
didn't go to lunch. He shirked Hermione and Ron, claiming he'd left something in his trunk,
then collected the invisibility cloak and headed to the classroom near the Divination Tower.
He didn't want his friends to join him, and he didn't want to bump into the Slytherins, visible,
alone in the halls, starved as he was.

He hesitated at the door before he knocked. First gently, then a bit harder.
"Ginny?" He called, noting that it was silent inside. A moment later the door opened, and
Ginny let out a shaky breath when she saw Harry's disembodied head. She stepped aside for
him to enter and closed the room behind him. He removed the cloak completely and noted
that her eyes were red and puffy.

"You've been in here all day?" He said, more of a question than a statement.

"I- Dean and I broke up," Her voice was flat, and Harry recalled her telling him that they
weren't that serious. Serious enough to lock herself away?

"…Ron was opening presents this morning. Hermione wanted help with… A cake. We
wondered where you were, I checked the map." Harry decided he felt very awkward having
invaded her privacy. "I was worried."

"I know. Sorry." She swept her face with the back of her hand.

"You look pale," She noted. Harry had known how he'd looked but was displeased that he
wasn't the only one to pick up on it.

"I know," he said, sighing.

She let him walk her out, though she seemed reluctant. The both of them moved silently to
the Great Hall, Ginny wiping her face and struggling to appear neutral, Harry biting his
tongue and struggling to appear neutral.

He'd seen Dean after Defence that afternoon, and Harry followed him down the corridor on a
whim.

"Hey! Dean!" He called, and the other boy spun to look at him. He broke out of the group of
Gryffindors he'd been walking with.

"Harry, what's up?" Dean said as they reached each other.

"I wanted to ask- uh, about Ginny?"

He looked defensive, and Harry shook his head, "I'm not mad, I just wanted to ask…" He
wasn't certain what he wanted to ask.

"She's all yours if that's what you mean mate, she broke up with me weeks ago. Gotta warn
you, though, she cries. Like, a lot." Dean's eyes bugged as he said this.

Harry let him go, the Gryffindor shaking his head as he went. Ginny Weasley had been fine,
as far as he could tell, for those weeks that she and Dean had been broken up. She hadn't told
him, or, as far as he knew, anyone, that the pair had split. Why then, was she crying alone this
morning? Why had she been crying with Dean? Harry found that he had more questions than
answers. He also didn't know how to broach it with her.
 Wordless

Let the River in, Dotan

The coldest night came in the spring

The final frost was laid again
We draft the roof, froze the shoots, killed the flowers
And stole the colour from the sun

Oh, let the river in, burst the dams, and start again
Oh, let the river in, the will of man can't hold it in
Oh, let the river in, as the blood beneath my skin
Let the river in, nature plays, and nature wins

You held on to my hands like a vice

You turn the screw, turn them right
But there's a point, there's a limit where we break
The current finds the quickest way

I hear the breaking of bricks and walls

I feel the rhythm of the water

"I know what you are known as," said Dumbledore, eyes narrowed. "But to me, I'm afraid,
you will always be Tom Riddle. It is one of the irritating things about old teachers. I am
afraid that they never quite forget their charges' youthful beginnings."

Harry had come to the now Headmaster of Hogwarts, seeking the Defence Against the Dark
Arts position. And while it was true that he had already done unforgivable things, there was
still a part of him that longed for the castle. For how he had felt, so briefly.

"The time is long gone when I could frighten you with a burning wardrobe and force you to
make repayment for your crimes. But I wish I could, Tom … I wish I could..." Dumbledore
told him, face calm but wand raised as he forced Harry out of the room.

The scene shifted, but he was still in the headmaster's office. In his fifth year, when
Dumbledore refused to meet his eye, and refused to speak to him, leading ultimately to Harry
seeking the prophecy himself.

"Look. At. Me!" Harry shouted, and the old man spun, looking at the Boy Who Lived for a
bare second with disgust.

Harry was used to these dreams. Used to, but not comfortable with. He'd noticed that they
appeared to be drawing parallels, telling a story, trying to get a point across. The Boy Who
Lived wasn't comfortable with the point, either. He was no closer to retrieving the memory
from Slughorn, and the date set for Harry's fourth 'lesson' with Dumbledore was two days
away.
The Potions Professor hadn't allowed him back to brew Calming Draughts, opting to pretend
he wasn't in the classroom or his office, though Harry knew he was. And so, he'd lost access
both to the ingredients and Hogsmeade. He'd thought about going to Madam Pomfrey for the
draughts, but she would most assuredly alert the headmaster about the Boy Who Lived
burning through the entirety of her stock.

It had been four weeks. He could no longer summon the will necessary to worry about the
lack of Calming Draughts. About Slughorn, the Headmaster, Ginny, the prophecy, or Malfoy.
He could feel, based on how frantic the hunger was, that he had one, at best two weeks before
a choice would be made for him. He'd noticed that Liquida Tenebris was more efficient at
feeding the ache than the Unforgivables were. It had bought him slightly more time.
Regardless, two extra weeks would be incredible luck. He rolled out of bed, not bothering to
check the time but noting it was still dark.

He had taken to silencing his bed all night, but as time wore on, his magic refused to
cooperate, and he'd been unable to hold the charm through to the morning. So, Ron had asked
him if the Dreams were getting worse. So had Neville.

"Don't tell Hermione. I'm fine. Really." Harry had spat this at them through gritted teeth.

The Great Hall was decorated for the Slytherin versus Hufflepuff Quidditch match, and the
students at breakfast were building hype. The Gryffindor table was solemn, though, having
lost the last round. Ginny and Ron seemed particularly upset, and the pair had opted not to
watch the match. So had Harry. Although Harry had been released from his detentions with
Snape, he was still not allowed to play Quidditch. He'd decided over the food he wasn't
eating that morning that he wouldn't want to fly, even if he could.

"Harry you really look awful," Hermione told him, bringing Ron and Ginny's attention with
her comment.

"He doesn't look that bad Hermione," Ron said, but both his and his sister's face told the
Chosen One they didn't believe what Ron was saying.

"Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing? I'm sure Dumbledore will see you too, if you
need," The bushy-haired girl pressed.

"I'm fine," He ground out, for what felt like the millionth time. She raised her eyebrows,
unconvinced.

She was right to be unconvinced. He wasn't fine. The familiar fiery ache had resumed
invading every waking minute. Filling every sleeping moment with memories. He knew he
was sporadically sweating. That his eyes were bugging, that his skin felt and looked too tight.
His brow was perpetually furrowed in pain, and he was vanishing behind locked doors
without rhyme or reason to scream at the top of his lungs.

He couldn't bring himself to cast that spell again. The thought filled him with both dread and
a desire, twins in their intensity. He was still sure that if he could somehow survive it, wait it
out, he would return to normal.
The conversation with Luna had scared him. If she could truly see whatever it was that he
was feeding, then it was growing. He was nourishing it. A theory he'd guessed at, but never
wanted to be confirmed. If he could feed it, then he could starve it.

But waiting it out meant that he would be, very obviously, in agony within some number of
days. In agony, and dangerous.

Harry brought himself to the headmaster's office two days later with an incredible amount of
reluctance. He almost dreaded the Pensieve as much as he dreaded his bed. Dumbledore
himself had now added to the distaste he felt as he ascended the stairs, mingling with the
adrenaline that constantly washed through him.

"Harry, my boy, you look quite peaky," Dumbledore said when he entered.

"Yeah. I'm fine really. The prophecy's been keeping me awake," he lied, eyes locked on the
hourglass on the headmaster's desk.

"I see. No luck with Horace yet, I take it?"

Harry resisted the powerful urge to glare at the man and instead shook his head.

"Well, we'd best not keep you long then," Dumbledore said, standing. Harry did the same and
followed him to the Pensieve.

The first memory showed Tom Riddle and an old woman named Hepzibah Smith, who
resembled an overly frosted cake. The Dark Lord had shown particular interest in a cup and a
locket in her possession.

In the second, he was shown Dumbledore's perspective of Voldemort seeking the Defence
position, but Harry noted that there were several differences. The headmaster had been kinder
in his rejection, with no hint of distaste on his face. Dumbledore had not drawn his wand,
instead, it had been Riddle with his wand raised as he backed out of the room, vowing that
Dumbledore would regret his decision.

Dumbledore had told a barely responsive Harry afterwards that Hepzibah had been murdered
days after the memory they'd viewed took place, and that since the day he'd shunned the Dark
Lord, the Defence Against the Dark Arts position had been cursed.

Harry felt that he should have taken the differences as evidence that the memories he was
being shown in his sleep were fabricated, but there was a bubble of doubt in his stomach as
he left the headmaster's office.

He'd been in the Common Room nearly a week later, doing his homework quietly with Ron,
Hermione, and Ginny, while he struggled to keep his thoughts on Slughorn and off what he
wanted to be doing instead.
If he could get that memory, he could get some indication of authenticity. Maybe he'd find
answers. If he could focus.

'Felix… Felicis…' A whisper in his head, far away, barely there. He stared down at the scroll
of parchment he'd been not writing on, blinking. Trying to stop his hands from shaking.

In truth, he'd nearly forgotten about the potion. He gnawed his lip and looked up at his
friends. Hermione had started directing Ron on his homework. Ginny had stopped working,
staring into the fire. It was still early, early enough to drink the potion and talk to the Potions
Master. If he wanted to take the voice's advice.

"I have an idea," he said out loud, ignoring the nervousness that came when he understood
the voice wanted him to get Slughorn's version of events. He told his friends what he was
going to do and got up slowly, retrieving the potion from its pocket in his truck and drinking
it in one go, before he could change his mind.

"Dobby!" He called, an idea striking him. A warmth was spreading through his limbs, and he
felt as though he couldn't make a wrong move. The elf appeared with a crack.

"Harry Potter! Dobby has no news on the young Malfoy. He is being too careful for Dobby,"
Dobby rambled before Harry shushed him.

"I need the best bottle of honeyed wine you can find in the kitchens. Like right now, please."

He checked the map while he waited for him to return and confirmed that Slughorn was in
his office. When Dobby reappeared with the bottle, he'd thanked the elf and dismissed him,
then threw his cloak over his head, bottle in hand. He descended the stairs and left the
Common Room, not saying goodbye to his friends. He was sure they would have seen the
portrait hole open for no one. He made his way to the Dungeons with a one-track mind.

He didn't knock, he simply walked in, the door unlocked.

"Harry!" Slughorn shouted at Harry's floating head.

"Professor!" He shouted back, removing his cloak and revealing the bottle. "I thought it
would be pointless to knock since you've been avoiding me. I came to apologize," he offered
the wine and took a step forward.

"Oh, no need, no need. What's this, Harry?"

"Honeyed wine, Sir." He told him, taking a seat as Slughorn took the bottle.

"Oh, I do love honeyed wine. How did you guess?" The professor put two glasses on the
table and poured them.

"Intuition," Harry said, and Slughorn froze, briefly, before he passed the Chosen One a drink.

Harry was careful to avoid the topic of the memory until the Potions Master was properly
sloshed. He needled at the man's resolve after he'd told Harry the story of the fish his mother,
Lily, had summoned for Slughorn as a gift, how he had known she was gone the morning
he'd come downstairs to find the bowl empty.

Harry had insisted that his mother would have wanted the professor to be brave, that he
needed the memory to understand and possibly defeat Voldemort. That no one would see it,
apart from him and the headmaster, that his secret would be safe with Harry.

He said all the right words, and through tears, the professor produced and bottled the
memory, asking Harry not to think any less of him once he'd seen it.

He'd thanked the man and left him crying at his desk, heading straight for the headmaster's
office, under his cloak, with the memory held tight in his hand.

He was aware that it was late in the night, and that was confirmed when a very tired-looking
Dumbledore met him in his office in robe-like pyjamas. Harry wasn't sure how long he could
avoid looking the man in the eyes before it aroused suspicion, but he hoped the potion would
prevent that disaster.

"I have the memory, Sir. Slughorn's," Harry said, looking at the Pensieve instead of the man.

"Oh, at last, Harry. Now we shall see. Quickly," Dumbledore took the memory and poured it
into the waiting bowl. Neither of them wasted a moment.

"-It's called, as I understand it, Professor, a Horcrux," Tom Riddle said, feigning disinterest.
Slughorn had turned to look at the teen as though he'd just eaten a spider.

"Now why would you be looking into something like that?" The Potions Master asked. Harry
felt nauseous.

"It just got me wondering. I thought about asking my Head of House, but I thought you might
understand," The Dark Lord smiled, "Because you're different."

The memory played out exactly as he remembered it. He searched it desperately for a single
difference, however slight, and could find none. The headmaster had once again wanted to
discuss what they'd seen, but Harry told the man that he was about to decorate his carpet and
that he might be better off in bed. Dumbledore had suggested the Hospital Wing, and Harry
had nodded, promising to return as soon as he was able, and descended the stairs in a daze.

He threw his cloak over his head and jogged not to the Hospital Wing or his dormitory but to
the empty room near the Astronomy Tower.

He had the strength to silence it, but little else. His magic was disobedient, as though it, too,
had a one-track mind. He didn't want to think anymore. Certainly, didn't want to feel. His
head and chest bursting with pain, confusion, and fear, he raised his shaking wand higher.

"Liquida Tenebris."

He was immediately swept into it, an explosion of hurricane-force magic, roaring around his
ears, dense enough to hold his weight as he fell back. Despite the intensity, Harry floated,
effortless, untouched by the ferocity, his eyes closing as he was finally, blissfully free. The
voice whispered to him. He knew it was the voice, now. It sounded as comfortable as he felt,
but the meaning of its words slid right off his brain.

Harry didn't recall returning himself to bed that night, but he awoke there, being shaken by
Ron.

"Blimey, Harry, it's nearly time to go!" Ron told him, tossing the Boy Who Lived's robes at
him.

Harry was shocked to find that it was indeed light in the dormitory, that he had slept in for the
first time in almost a year. He pushed down the thought of what he had learned the night
prior, -that his version of the memory had been correct, making it suddenly more likely that
the dreams he'd been having were true- and found that it was easy. The warmth that still
vibrated in his arms and legs, an aftereffect of the spell, made it simple to push it all away.

He quickly got changed and followed Ron into the Common Room, where Hermione waited,
looking flustered.

"There you two are! We're going to be late." She said, leaving the Common Room.

Harry and Ron followed her out, the Boy Who Lived fighting a grin. They headed to the
Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, Hermione nearly running, although they probably
weren't actually going to be late. They passed Luna as they went, and she stopped in her
tracks.

"Hello, Harry. You look stunning today." She looked him up and down for a second longer
before she smiled at the three of them and continued down the corridor in the opposite
direction.

"Did- Did Luna just… Flirt with you?" Hermione asked, pausing in the walkway.

"I- no? I mean, no. I don't think so." Harry said, walking again, dragging the two of them
with him.

As soon as they had taken their seats, Snape entered. When the man started drawling, Harry
found his thoughts returning to the night prior. Not to Dumbledore, Slughorn, or the memory,
but to the way Liquida Tenebris made him feel. He was less disgusted, he realised.

'Pay attention,' the words rang clearly in his head, as though said by someone sitting right
next to his ear. He flinched, startled, but found that he was still not perturbed.

Harry glanced at Snape.

"Now... you are, I believe, complete novices in the use of nonverbal spells. What is the
advantage of a nonverbal spell? Very well — Miss Granger?"

"Your adversary has no warning about what kind of magic you're about to perform which
gives you a split-second advantage," Hermione said.
"An answer copied almost word for word from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six, but
correct in essentials," Snape responded, summoning an apple.

A thought struck Harry then, and he found himself unable to contain it, 'Can you… Hear
me?' He directed the thought at the thing in his head deliberately.

'Yes.' Without hesitation.

Harry sucked in a breath. He'd suspected as much. He felt he should be more alarmed.

Another thought came to him. The night Dumbledore had used Legilimency. When the thing
in his head had dampened his emotions.

'Are you- making me feel less?'

A long pause followed as Snape showed an example of wordless magic, levitating the apple.

'Yes,'

'Stop it.' Harry warned, frowning.

The emotions he should have been feeling, disgust, concern, fear, all flooded back, although
squashed by the afterglow of the spell.

'You're too… Reactive.' The voice said.

'Shut up.' Harry told it.

His classmates had already begun practising, looking constipated as they struggled to levitate
their conjured fruits.

"Do you find yourself above nonverbal casting, Potter?" Snape was suddenly in front of him,
and Harry avoided his eyes.

"No, Sir," he said through gritted teeth. Snape dropped an apple on his desk with a thud,
earning a few sniggers and guffaws from the Slytherin house. Snape gestured at the fruit and
Harry pulled out his wand.

As he did so, he felt the thing in his head, shifting and pulling his attention to his magic. He
could physically feel the thread from his mind to his hand.

'Here.' It said, and Harry flicked his wand. The apple responded, lifting easily into the air
above the Defence Professor's greasy hair.

(A/N: I don 't remember when they do nonverbal spell training. For my convenience, it's now.
I won't apologize xx.)
 Back Alley Transactions

Don 't Save Me, Chxrlotte

Maybe I'm wretched and deserve this, I don't know

Don't save me, I'm almost glad if this is how I go
The monsters under my bed want to beat me to it though
Every word that they've said
It goes 'round in my head while I drown in the undertow

Look into my eyes

And tell me what you see
A demon in disguise
Pretending to be me
Bury your surprise
And listen carefully
He lives inside my mind
He'll never let me free

Don't save me I think I'm in hell

These walls are talking I can tell
I've bathed in fire since I fell
Don't leave me on my own

Harry had gone to Dumbledore that afternoon after his classes finished. He could already feel
his thoughts and memories being pulled under the metaphorical rug as he walked, the thing in
his head sensing what he was about to do. Harry wondered what would happen if he tried to
tell the headmaster what had been happening, what he'd been doing and seeing, wondered if
it would let him get the words out.

"There you are, my boy! Looking much better I see." Dumbledore bid him to sit, and he did.

"Yeah, Ginny had some Pepper-Up. I got some sleep." Harry lied, feeling brave enough to
look the man in the eye. He was confident that if the headmaster used Legilimency, it would
be under control.

"Very good, very good. I trust you've thought about what we've seen."

"You think Voldemort succeeded in making a Horcrux, professor?" Harry had thought about
it.

"I think he succeeded in making several," Dumbledore said. The Boy Who Lived noticed that
the man's gnarled hand rested on the diary that Ginny had used to open the Chamber of
Secrets in his second year—Tom Riddle's.

"Sir…"
"This? Yes, Harry." He said, then raised his blackened arm, "And this ring."

The Boy Who Lived could nearly physically feel the thing in his head squirming.

"How many more do you think there are." It didn't feel like his voice and had come out
hollow. Maybe his mouth and his head were numb.

"I believe there are six in total, though now we must consider seven. This ring, and the diary.
Both destroyed. I suspect the objects we saw with Hepzibah, the cup, and the locket. I think it
is possible that his snake, Nagini, may also house a Horcrux. The sixth, the seventh?"
Dumbledore raised his hands, questioning. "A mystery."

"We must destroy these Horcruxes, Harry, if we are to destroy the man."

In the end, the man hadn't used Legilimency, and Harry had been released both from the
headmaster's office and the vice grip on his thoughts.

Harry took Ron, Hermione, and Ginny out of the Common Room that afternoon, leading
them to the edge of the lake. They had let him lead them quietly, sensing Harry's serious
mood. They came to sit on the rocky waterline. Winter was over, but it was still freezing, the
grounds covered in half-melted snow. The sun was out, but it wasn't warming anyone. The
three of them looked at him, and he sighed.

"Voldemort… He's…" Harry struggled to find the words to describe what he'd learned.

"In Slughorn's memory," he started over, "Tom Riddle spoke to him about dark magic,
something called a Horcrux."

No one said anything, so he continued, "He… The Dark Lord split his soul, put the pieces
into objects. If we don't destroy those objects, we can't kill him."

There was a long pause, before Hermione said, "How many are there?"

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, "There could be seven."

"You're joking," Ron said. "Seven?!"

"What are they? Where are they?" Hermione spoke over the top of Ron, louder in pitch.

The Boy Who Lived shook his head. "We've destroyed two. Tom Riddle's diary, in the
Chamber of Secrets," Harry looked at Ginny as he said this. She was pale, not looking at him.

"And a ring, that Dumbledore found sometime after the attack at the Ministry. That's what
happened to his arm. The others… The headmaster thinks there's a locket and a cup. He also
thinks Voldemort's snake is one as well. The other two… We don't know what or where they
are. We don't know where any of them are, really." Harry finished, feeling more hopeless
after having said it all out loud.
Six days later the warm comfort of the spell had long left him, allowing the full weight of
events to swamp him. He'd given in, again. He'd been blindsided by the fact that Slughorn's
memory matched the one he'd seen in his dreams, crushed by the headmaster's betrayal when
he'd used Legilimency, baffled and overwhelmed by the news of the Horcruxes, and so
starved he could barely stand it. He hadn't found another way. He could feel that the thing
was stronger. It made him sick to think that when the thing was… healthy, it could subdue his
emotions; could smother his thoughts in the crib. It was ever present, though silent.

He felt he had to carefully examine every feeling and idea, particularly now, when he felt like
he could talk to it. Like it would readily respond. It was well-fed enough to do seemingly
whatever it wanted with his head. As far as he could tell, though, it hadn't messed with his
mind since the morning after he'd last cast… that spell. Not unless he looked at the
headmaster. His anger and confusion certainly felt equal to events. It hadn't talked to him,
though Harry knew it was capable.

He hadn't wanted the Horcrux memory to be accurate. Hadn't wanted to consider that there
was even a remote possibility the prophecy his loved ones died for was fake. That someone
was lying to him.

'The one with power to rival the Dark Lord's own approaches,'

Harry wasn't shocked to hear the voice in his mind. He had braced for it since the day he
wordlessly levitated the apple. He was even less surprised that it had been sitting on that line
of the vision. Just as Harry had been. He shook his head, biting his tongue and digging his
nails into his palms as he forced the thought away, refusing to engage.

After the lull in the Dark Lord's activity -and in the face of the upcoming Apparition exams
for those old enough to test out- trips to Hogsmeade were reinstated on the seventh of April,
for extra practice. Harry felt that it was a false sense of security, but he was glad for the
opportunity to get more Calming Draughts and ingredients.

It had been three weeks since he'd last fed the thing that lived in his head. As a result, he was
not calm.

He followed Ron and Hermione to the village, not paying any mind to the fact that he wasn't
seventeen and so couldn't test out for Apparition yet, and that he didn't need practice. He let
his friends lead and talk, his mind and gut preoccupied.

The three of them settled on some rocks while Hermione schooled Ron on the theory of
Apparition, though neither of them had successfully done it. The Weasley teen looked
preoccupied and kept nodding rhythmically while staring off into the village.

"I've actually gotta go in and get some stuff for classes, you two right to wait here?" Ron said
after Hermione noticed he was just nodding without listening. She frowned and shook her
head, but looked down at her bag and took out a book as Ron walked away. Harry watched
him go for a moment before he looked at Hermione.
"I need to go and get some potion ingredients too. I'll be back in a minute?" Harry said, and
she scoffed but didn't look up from her reading.

"Sure, Harry, but do try and hurry. We're supposed to be practising."

Harry didn't go straight to the tiny Apothecary, instead, once he was a decent distance from
Hermione, he threw his invisibility cloak over his head and followed Ron's footprints through
the melting sludge-like snow on the street. He'd begun carrying the cloak in his bag once the
hunger had returned and it was clear the Slytherins were going to continue their nightly
rounds of the castle.

He'd been distracted from the Weasley's oddness by the Horcruxes and the thing in his head,
but he wasn't going to squander an opportunity. He spotted Ron after a moment of following
his tracks. The redhead was looking around nervously, as though he didn't want to be noticed.
The Boy Who Lived sped up, careful not to make any sound.

He didn't follow Ron to any shop, instead, his best mate crossed the bridge to the outskirts of
the town, through the barren fields, to a run-down building Harry guessed had once been
used to store grain.

Inside the building was an older, scraggly-looking man, maybe forty years old. Ron entered,
and Harry followed, careful only to step when his friend did, then hiding in the corner of the
building.

"Nearly wasn't gonna wait for you. Hardly ought to have come this far," the man snapped as
Ron approached. Harry noticed he was missing almost all his teeth, slurring his speech.

"Got caught up," Ron said, shrugging one shoulder, "Did you bring it?"

"If you bought the gold?"

Ron produced a pouch from his inner robe pocket and held it up for the man to see. "Show
me the book."

The man did as Ron asked, producing a burgundy, leather-bound book, holding it up in the
same way Ron was holding the money, so he and Harry both could see the cover. The deep
gold lettering wasn't a language he'd ever seen.

"On three," Ron said, "One, two, three."

They exchanged the book and the gold on three, and the man swiftly exited the grain house,
disapparating with a crack. Ron tucked the book into his robes and followed the stranger out.

Harry let out a breath he hadn't noticed holding, while his mind raced. Why would Ron be
buying a strange book from a strange man in secret?

He made his way to the small Apothecary while still under his cloak, more worried now
about being spotted by Ron. He stepped inside before he shrugged it off. The Matron gasped
and admonished him, but he ignored her as he bought his supplies, mind still running through
what he'd seen. He downed three Calming Draughts as he exited the store.
When he returned to Hermione, Ron was already with her, looking flustered as she tried to
correct his twisting technique.

"This isn't going to work Hermione," He told her, "I'm bloody useless at this."

"Harry, you were gone ages!" The bushy-haired teen said when she saw him.

"Got what you needed, mate?" Ron asked, eyes slightly narrowed.

"Sorry, she had to look in the back for some ingredients," Harry lied.

"Show Ron how it's done again." She told him.

He suddenly didn't feel like being in the village or with his friends. He was certain if he tried
to Apparate he would fail, splinch himself and wind up in the Hospital Wing, sluggish as his
magic and head were.

The magical weakness wasn't the worst thing about the hunger, about the thing in his head,
but it was certainly high on the list. He was vulnerable and dangerous all at once. Harry
shrugged at Hermione, feigning disinterest in what they were doing, and watched Ron
carefully.

He gave no indication that he'd been involved in any back-alley transactions.

Two days later, he heard the voice again. He'd been sitting up with Ginny, trying to distract
himself with the mystery of the book Ron had bought. Harry was ashamed to have searched
Ron's belongings for the burgundy tome but hadn't found it. Gone. Hidden, Harry assumed,
somewhere before Ron returned to the Common Room.

He thought about the Horcruxes and the headmaster, he definitely did not think about the
dreams, the prophecy, or the spell.

'You'll- make me beg… then?' It was barely a whisper, disjointed and hard to hear, but he had
heard it. He pretended he didn't, looking up at Ginny instead. He didn't say anything to her,
but she met his eyes anyway. He knew she could see how pale he was. Again. How his eyes
had sunken in. Again. That he'd taken to staying up most nights instead of bothering with
"Dreamless Sleep". Her eyebrows knitted together, and her lips formed a white line.

"You aren't going to talk to me, are you, Harry?"

Harry shook his head minutely, noticing that he'd drawn blood biting his tongue.

"About what, Ginny." He said after a long pause, through clenched teeth. He'd almost told her
that the same could be said for her and her brother, but he still had a small semblance of self-
control.

She had shrugged and looked away.

Harry was waiting, alone, in the dead of the night, in dense woods outside a small lodge
house, nestled firmly in the middle of nowhere. He 'd tried the door, but it was warded
properly shut. Only darkness inside.

It was something he knew he shouldn 't be doing, but as soon as he'd learned about the
creature, he'd had to see one. Had to get her out. If she was what they said she was, it was
wholly unethical for her to rot away in a cage. Misunderstood. The cost would be exorbitant,
and he'd had to source funds from his Slytherin housemates, promising that it would be well
worth the investment.

Mulciber had said that it would be worth it for Harry, no one else was going to need or want
to get within ten metres of her. The Chosen One had asked what the difference was.

Harry had begun to think it was probably too good to be true when the stranger that Nott 's
father had mentioned to him was late. He was debating leaving when he heard the crack of
Apparition inside. The door unlocked and swung open, a scruffy old man poking his head out.
Harry moved toward the man while he gave the Boy Who Lived a wary look.

"Nott didn't say you were a bleeding student," The man said, his greying beard bouncing with
his words.

"I assure you, that won't be a problem," Harry said smoothly.

"This here," The man began, leaning forward and hissing in a whisper, "Is the bloody
deadliest thing I've ever got my hands on. How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen? Got any hair
on your balls yet? I can't sell you this in my right mind."

Harry thought, sure, let 's get you in the wrong mind then. His hand was already on his wand,
in his pocket, and he'd been practising nonverbal casting. The man's eyes glazed over.

"A'ight, then, come on in," The man said, stepping aside so Harry could enter.

There was a cage in the empty cabin, maybe two by two metres in diameter. Too small to
contain the creature it did, Harry thought as he took in the sight of her coiled tightly,
overlapping herself and nearly filling the cage.

A Maledictus. A woman cursed to gradually transform into a beast. This one had taken her
final form in the shape of a serpent.

"Hello. I'm Tom Riddle." Harry said.

She shifted in her cage, meeting his eyes and trying to unravel.

"Tom Riddle. I am Nagini."

Harry raised his wand and blasted the lock off the cage.

'Don't you... Think it's strange,' the voice began, 'Dumbledore- would hold an…
interview…' Though it had grown quieter, harder to understand as the days wore on, it was
certainly more talkative the hungrier it got.

'In a pub… In the presence… of Severus- Snape.'

Harry ignored it, as he usually did. But he had found that strange. The more believable
setting had been his dream version when he'd been inside Voldemort's head. He shook it off
and refocused on what Hermione was saying.

'A known… Death Eater- Spy.'

"Well, if the potions turned dark green it means you've… Are you alright Harry?"

'That he would- invade your mind… For the simple crime… Of dreaming.'

"Yeah, Hermione. I'm good. The potion turns green. What next." Harry tried to school his
face.

"Well, no, if the potion turns green it means you've stirred too many times, you've got to…
Start again. It's supposed to be magenta if you stir correctly," she said, eying him.

'You wondered…' It paused and the hunger hit him in a wave, making him squirm
unwillingly, 'how often- he'd used… Legilimency.'

"Uh-huh. And then?" Harry said, pushing the pain and the voice away.

'I can… show you,' the image of the inky black magic came to Harry, 'if you- give me
strength.'

"You've got to let it cool for… Harry? You really look ill." Hermione said, and Ginny looked
between the two of them with concern. Ron had gone to bed early, and Harry found himself
annoyed at that. He'd used Ron as a Hermione ward more times than he could count.

"How long do you cool it for." Harry insisted. It had only been four weeks since he'd cast that
godforsaken spell, and already his body, magic, and mind refused to heed him.

'Harry.'

Harry shook his head, too violently he realised, for present company.

"Harry, please, what is going on? You've been acting so strangely, and I thought it was Sirius,
but-" Hermione cut herself off, as they weren't alone in the Common Room. It was past
curfew, but still early enough for a few groups of Gryffindors to be milling around.

"How long do you cool it for, Hermione." The Chosen One closed his eyes when his tone
came out sharp. A roaring had begun in his ears, as though he sat next to a waterfall.

"I- fifteen minutes. Until the colour darkens. Harry…"

'Harry…'
"Maybe I should get the headmaster," Hermione said to herself and Ginny, not to the Boy
Who Lived, who wasn't listening. "Do you need us to get Dumbledore, Harry? Or Madam
Pomfrey?"

'The one- with power… To rival… The Dark Lord's own- approaches.'

"ENOUGH!" Harry shouted, suddenly standing. He had his wand out, not raised but close.
Hush had fallen in the Common Room, and he felt all eyes on him. He exploded out of the
portrait hole, ignoring the looks on his friend's faces, wide with shock. He sprinted before
they could follow. He heard Hermione calling after him and Ginny saying something, the
both of them anxious. But after rounding a few corners, their voices were distant.

He'd planned to just leave, maybe run until his legs gave out, maybe head-butt a wall till he
lost consciousness. As he ran, though, he realized his legs were moving him automatically to
the room he'd grown to hate. His vision tunnelled as he flashed through the halls, trying to
keep his ears open for Filch or a professor, but all he could hear was the completely
disjointed whispering of the voice, the whipping of his robes as he sprinted, and the roar of
his blood in his ears.

He wasn't going to cast it. He was pretty sure. He just needed to lock himself in a quiet room.
He just wanted silence. That's why he was running so fast. Because everything was too loud.
He'd silence the room and then just sit in it. It would be fine if it was quiet.

"Expelliarmus!"

Harry turned, too late, spinning on his heels from his momentum, nearly stumbling as he
watched his wand fly from his hand. Malfoy stood at the other end of the hall, panting, wand
raised, Crabbe, Goyle, and Zabini behind him. They looked as though they had chased him
for some time, judging by the way Crabbe was doubled over, wheezing.

"Stupefy!" The blonde snarled and missed as Harry rolled for his wand, unsteady on his feet.

"Stupefy!" All four Slytherins were casting, and one of them hit, sending Harry ramrod
straight, face down onto the floor. He could see his wand, just to the left of his head before
Malfoy snatched it up.

"Hurry up, move him," the blonde hissed, and Crabbe and Goyle began dragging Harry not
gently by his stiff arms, still face down. "No, you imbeciles. Your wands. Use your wands."

Harry noted through the blaze of his hunger, rage, and possible concussion that the Slytherin
sounded frantic.

"Was beginning to think we weren't gonna catch you out, Potter. Credit where credit is due,
eh?" Zabini said above him, slapping Harry on the back in mock congratulations.

"Levicorpus," someone cast, he wasn't sure who, maybe Crabbe, and the Boy Who Lived was
dangled by his ankles through the corridor. The empty classroom that Harry used to cast was
awfully close to the Room of Requirement, he remembered, as they came to a stop and
Malfoy began pacing. Harry could see him from the corner of his eye, all the blood pooling
in his head.

The four Slytherins and a levitated Harry went inside when the doors appeared, and Malfoy
stunned him again when he was dropped to the floor.

"Alright. Go." The blonde said to the other three.

"Draco…" One of them said Harry couldn't move to see which.

"Go." Malfoy spat, and they obeyed, signalled by the opening and closing of the heavy doors.
They were alone in the room then, surrounded by mountains of random objects. Harry felt
stunned to within an inch. Malfoy wordlessly levitated him and began walking.

The Boy Who Lived noticed that the Slytherin was breathing noisily, almost like he was
crying, as he moved through the towering piles of forgotten objects floating the Chosen One
along behind him. They stopped after a moment, Malfoy taking the time to stun Harry again
while he levitated.

There was some shuffling, out of Harry's line of sight. Maybe the soft closing of a door?
There was a long moment where there was only silence before the quiet shuffling began
again.

"Okay. Okay," Malfoy said, more to himself, his voice low. Harry was moved through the air
and his angle changed. He was suddenly face to face with the Slytherin as he was backed into
what he assumed was the cabinet the elves had told him about. Malfoy was crying, he
realised. Harry hoped the Slytherin could see the venom in his eyes.

"I had to do this. I had no choice," Malfoy said, closing the door; and shutting Harry in.

The cupboard was shut for a very brief moment before it opened again. Harry fell forward,
hitting the ground with force, knocking the breath out of him.

"He's done it. Oh, Draco, thank Merlin. He did it. Bella, he did it," Harry recognized the
voice but couldn't see her or who she was talking to. Narcissa Malfoy. Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Crucio!"

Harry felt the curse before he could comprehend it had been cast, burning acid ripped through
every part of him. Unable to move, he choked on it, silent. He could hear shouting but
couldn't understand it. It felt like an eternity when the curse finally lifted.

"That was stupid, Lestrange." A man said. He didn't recognize the voice. Harry was levitated,
still face down.

He could feel the sweat dripping off him. Maybe it was blood. From his angle, he could see
that he was in Borgin and Burkes, the shop he'd managed to accidentally find himself in in
his second year. No longer in the school. A panic tried to grip him, but above all else, there
was fury, mingling with the hunger that seldom left him, making him vibrate against the stun.
Bellatrix's face appeared under him, a grin splitting her features.

"No, I owed him one, didn't I darling?" She slapped him on the cheek and then searched his
eyes, "We're so glad you could come to play, baby Potter."
 Wandless

Apex Predator, Otep

The writing on the wall

A psalm in napalm

Abandon all hope

But try to stay calm

Bleach to clean the curses

I exist, I'm not the first
Tell my mother I love her
I didn't suffer

Nobody move, nobody gets hurt

But where's the fun in that?
I gotta satisfy the thirst

Nobody move, nobody gets hurt

But where's the fun in that?
Death is such a flirt

No regrets, no apologies
A self-fulfilling prophecy
The Apex Predator.

Harry found that he couldn't breathe. Any air that made it into his lungs seemed to vanish.
His ears rang in rhythm to the pounding of his heart. His shoulder felt like it had been
dislocated as the Slytherins had dragged him to the cabinet, or maybe afterwards when he'd
fallen out of it. Possibly even when he'd been chained to the wall by Bellatrix Lestrange and
Fenrir Greyback. It didn't hold a candle to the yawning ache in him, growing as the panic did.

He'd been Apparated to a third location, out of Borgin and Burkes. He could be anywhere in
the country. He'd seen a small cottage as he'd been levitated in, so thick with wards they were
visible, a shimmering, translucent green dome. He'd been left there, chained to a stone wall,
for he hadn't known how long. He found that he could move, but his sensations had been
fried by the stuns and the Cruciatus, his mind fractured by the thick, overbearing hunger, and
his body and thoughts had stopped properly responding while he'd hung there. His glasses
had been lost, but it barely mattered, he could hardly see. What he saw was wildly
incomprehensible.

He could see Voldemort -blurred and twisted by his unreliable vision- but he couldn't
understand it. He wasn't sure when he'd entered, wasn't sure if Dark Lord was even real. He
couldn't properly register it as he thrashed uselessly, hissing and snapping like a wild animal.
The Dark Lord was speaking, probably. There was no one else in the room, maybe. He was
going to die, most likely. None of it mattered compared to the agonizing burning screaming
fire pulsing through him. So, Harry dropped his head, then swung it back into the stone with
all the force he could muster. Pleased when his vision blackened, and he felt the hot wetness
of blood on the back of his neck. Anything else.

Suddenly he couldn't move, but it didn't matter, he thought, as he slipped willingly into the
dark.

When he came to, he felt worse. Pain rattled through every nerve, every fibre, particularly in
his head. His thoughts were jumbled, eyes unfocused. He thought he could see that Dark
Lord, standing inches from him, but that made no sense. Could swear he felt Voldemort in his
head -with all the subtlety of a nuclear bomb- piecing together his fractured thoughts and
memories while the thing in his head scrambled around like a feral cat at the vet, but that
made no sense.

He couldn't move, he realised, only his eyes rolled freely in his head.

'Harry… Are you really- going to make me beg?' The voice was all he could hear with any
clarity, and so he clung to it.

He couldn't form a thought in response, and so he formed a metaphorical question mark. Beg
for what? The spell? Right now? Bound, gagged, wandless, brain broken? Harry could still
feel the Dark Lord in his head, but he was too invested in reassembling memories to notice
the strange, frantic conversation taking place inside a hurricane.

'You know… The spell,' it said, pulling up the thread of his magic, tattered as it was by the
state of his mind. Harry grasped it, thoughtless, starving, and forced the full weight of his
rage and pain into it, into the thing in his head.

Wordlessly, wandlessly, bound, gagged, and broken, the darkness exploded out of him with
force. It doubled back, pushing its way into his eyes, mouth, ears, and nose. The pores of his
skin. He produced it faster than he could take it back, and so the room was filled with a
slowly expanding implosion.

The third time Harry regained consciousness he also regained his senses. He recalled the last
few hours with a brutal sharpness. Any pleasure, relief, or calm he may have felt from casting
Liquida Tenebris were null in the face of his current reality, probably retained by the thing in
his head. In its place was sharp clarity, a vibrancy to his awareness that only served to spook
him further as he took the scene in. He tried casting nonverbally as soon as his eyes had
opened but found that his magic wasn't responding.

He was still bound in chains, still immobilized by a spell, but he was clear enough to finally
understand the room he was in. The Boy Who Lived wasn't sure if it had been blasted to bits
before or after he'd cast, but the paint had been stripped from the walls that weren't stone,
plasterboard pieces littered the floor, along with chunks of wood Harry assumed had
belonged to furniture. The building looked like it had been long abandoned before it had been
blown to bits.

Slithering through the debris toward him was Nagini, eyes on his. Beside her, standing still,
was Voldemort. Face like a stone as he watched Harry watching them. Panic gripped him as
he tried again for his magic, feeling bitterly betrayed when it wouldn't respond. They locked
eyes for what felt like an eon while the Boy Who Lived struggled against his bindings. How
could he have been so stupid? How hadn't he seen this coming? He was going to die here. He
could pinpoint the moment where he'd sealed his fate. In the Ministry. Voldemort took a small
step forward and tilted his head, strangely like a cordial bow. The snake had reached Harry,
rising so she could get a better look at his face.

"It seems we have much to discuss," the Dark Lord said. Harry noticed Voldemort was
holding his wand. All he could do about it was close his eyes.

'You're gonna let me die here?' The Boy Who Lived directed the question at the thing in his
head, demanding his magic.

"But first, the particulars," Voldemort said. He sounded closer, so Harry snapped his eyes
back open to find the snake-like man was indeed closing the distance between them.

"I am going to offer you a deal. This agreement will see you back home in the castle with
your friends before the night is over. Would you like that, Harry?" He seemed to be waiting
for the Boy Who Lived to answer, even though his lips were fused.

Harry narrowed his eyes in response.

"Now, when I release you from your bindings, you could start a fight you won't win. Or, if
you choose wisely, you could secure your friend's lives. The people you love, safe."
Voldemort raised and flicked his wand, arms wide, allowing Harry to move his face.

Instantly, instinctively, Harry reached for his magic, but it was again unresponsive.

"What." He spat instead.

"I will vow not to harm your friends, and in return, you will vow not to speak a word of this
meeting, or any other between us to anyone. You will not allude to it in any fashion."

"What," Harry repeated, breath coming out in a whoosh.

"Neither I," Voldemort spoke slower, as though Harry was thick, "Nor my Death Eaters will
harm your friends. Your Order of the Phoenix, of course, is excluded."

"A Vow?" The Boy Who Lived asked, "Like your word?"

"An Unbreakable Vow. Death upon those who break it."

Harry's mind raced at this. Death? Voldemort would risk death to keep this meeting private?
He would swear not to harm his loved ones to ensure secrecy?
"And if I don't agree?" Harry asked.

"Then you will not return to Hogwarts tonight." There was a clear threat in the Dark Lord's
tone.

Harry rapidly considered the implications of the Vows Voldemort was proposing. He didn't
want Harry to tell anyone that the Dark Lord had taken him. Why? Any other "meeting"?
What did they have to discuss? The Boy Who Lived searched the Vows for loopholes and
reason while the Dark Lord watched him. Harry's eyes vibrated from the force of his
heartbeat.

"I don't understand," Harry said eventually. "Why would you want this?"

"That would be a conversation for after the Vows." Voldemort was lightly pacing, not looking
at the Boy Who Lived.

Harry considered his options and found that he didn't have many. If he wanted to escape this
place while his magic was disobeying, if he had any hope of defeating the monster in front of
him, he might have to first consider his deal. Depending on what exactly the Dark Lord
wanted to discuss, not being able to tell anyone the contents, or even that it was happening at
all, would present problems. He knew that. To what degree, he didn't know. Surely not to the
degree of losing the Chosen One, the one fated to defeat the Dark Lord? Because that felt like
option two.

He didn't like the odds of escaping on his own accord and was even more nervous about the
prospect of being moved to a third location. He had gotten himself trapped. Who knew how
long it would take for the Order to find him, who knew if they would? Who knew what chaos
Voldemort would reap while the Order put more and more effort into this spectacular fuck
up?

The Dark Lord was watching the hope die in Harry's eyes, and the Boy Who Lived shot him
a glare, before he said, "What are the terms."

"You will not discuss this meeting or any other, with anyone other than myself, until I allow
it. You will maintain secrecy unless I will it. I will not harm your friends intentionally, so
long as they are not members of Dumbledore's… Order. I will command my followers the
same but understand they will not be bound by the Vow, only my order. Should one of them
disobey they will be punished accordingly, but my Vow will not be broken." The Dark Lord
said.

"None of the students," Harry said suddenly, hoping he had some bargaining power.

"None of the students?" Voldemort repeated. "Some of them are my followers already."

Harry had guessed as much and didn't hesitate. "So? None of the students."

"Except you," Voldemort said, his face expressionless.

Harry considered it and then agreed. What difference did it make?

"So be it." The Dark Lord said.

Harry was shocked that he'd agreed. Instead of reassuring him, it concerned him further.
Exactly how much was this conversation worth? His mind raced for a solution, anything, as
he hung there, eye to eye with the Dark Lord. Nothing came to him. Only fear and a
realization that he'd found himself in a situation with no prizes.

"Alright. Fine. Have it your way." Harry said, heart racing. He didn't see any other option.

Voldemort waved his wand again and the Chosen One dropped to the floor like a sack of
potatoes, released unceremoniously from the chains. He slowly got to his feet while the
Voldemort pressed his wand to his Dark Mark. Nagini watched Harry barely a metre away,
waiting, and probably hoping, for him to try and escape. He couldn't help but look at her and
think of the memory of her crammed in a cage, of raising his wand and blasting the door free.
A Maledictus. He could feel the thing in his head watching the serpent through his eyes, so
he tore them away, once again he searched for his magic and still found it withheld.

He used the time to force his left arm back into its socket, yelping as he did so. Definitely
dislocated. His whole body hurt while he corrected himself, slowly standing up straight. He
realized the whole lower half of his face was caked in blood, as well as the back of his head
and neck. Hours old and flaking as he tried to rub it off with his good arm. There was a crack
outside the small building, and Harry was bewildered to see Narcissa Malfoy enter.

"My Lord." She said, bowing low, "You called for me?"

"You don't want anyone to know but you bring Narcissa Malfoy?" Harry said this in
Parseltongue, and both the Dark Lord and Nagini whipped to look at him.

"Narcissa has sworn her own Vow." The Dark Lord hissed after a moment. "Yes, I need you
to bear witness to a pair of Unbreakable Vows, Narcissa. Come, draw your wand." Voldemort
had turned back to the woman and was ushering her closer with an outstretched arm. She did
as she was bid, looking between the Boy Who Lived and the Dark Lord with eyes like
saucers.

Voldemort grabbed Harry's injured arm without warning, making him wince. Harry noted that
there was no other pain, in his scar or anywhere else, as a result of the Dark Lord touching
him. Narcissa raised her wand and waited, her eyes locked firmly on Voldemort. As he began
speaking in Parseltongue, she began casting.

"I, Tom Marvolo Riddle, swear that I will not intentionally seek to harm any student of
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by any means, with the exception of Harry
James Potter, and any member of the Order of the Phoenix. Any who bear the Dark Mark will
be ordered as such, on the following terms,"

Harry watched as a golden thread formed around their clasped arms as the Dark Lord spoke.

"Do you, Harry James Potter, swear that you will not discuss the nature, the contents, nor the
occurrence of any correspondence between you and I unless I will it?"
"I swear it," when he swore, the golden thread brightened, tightening on their clasped
forearms.

"Do you, Harry James Potter, swear to do everything in your power, by means of magic or
otherwise, to maintain this secrecy?"

"I swear it," Harry's heart hammered like a drum, his ears ringing to the beat. The thread felt
as though it was digging into his skin, burning, before it faded.

Narcissa finished binding the tandem vow, her eyes questioning as she was bid to wait
outside by the Dark Lord.

"Resist," Voldemort said, wand raised at Harry once they were alone again.

"Wha-" The Boy Who Lived felt the Dark Lord slam into his head through his eyes, but the
thing in his head had been waiting for him. It promptly forced Voldemort out, not bothering
with subtlety or secrecy.

"Good. You will keep it strong and private. Do you understand? You were hopelessly easy to
take from the school. Narcissa!"

Harry startled when he shouted, and when he realised exactly how much the Dark Lord had
seen in his mind. The Boy Who Lived deflated as he understood why he was here. The
hunger. Whatever was growing in his head was of particular interest to the Dark Lord. Why,
he wasn't sure, but he knew it was nothing that he'd want to be a part of. Harry was suddenly
bone tired as the woman re-entered the shack, her eyes low.

"You will take Harry back to Borgin and Burkes," Voldemort said, and Narcissa's head
snapped up.

"But Draco-" she said before she stopped herself.

"Are you going to harm Draco Malfoy?" The Dark Lord asked, directed at Harry.

"Uh- no, not fatally," He responded, his voice flat as he kept his eyes on the woman. He
guessed they hadn't expected the Chosen One to return to the school. At least not alive.

"Good, all friends you see, Narcissa!" Voldemort said.

Harry didn't like the way he said 'friends', and neither did the Malfoy Matriarch. She shot
Harry a pleading, confused look, then nodded.

'You didn't tell me why you wanted the Vows," Harry said in Parseltongue when Narcissa
indicated for him to follow her out of the wards.

Harry already had an inkling why the Dark Lord had pressured Harry into the Vow. The thing
in his head. He wanted it as secret as the thing itself did. The Boy Who Lived couldn't say he
hadn't seen it coming, but the realization that it was far too late to do anything about it now,
that he'd made yet another mistake in a series of mistakes, was beginning to settle heavily on
his mind.
"I've kept you long enough. Narcissa, I will see you afterwards, do not delay." The Dark Lord
said.

Harry kept his wide eyes straight ahead as he exited the building. Narcissa held her arm out
and he took it, dazed. She side-along Apparated him to Borgin and Burkes, right in front of
the cabinet. He bent down to scoop his smashed glasses off the ground, saying nothing to her
as he stepped into the cupboard, closing the door behind him.

When it opened, he was back in the Room of Requirement, alone.

Harry fell to his knees, eyes locked on the stone floor. Inside his head, he was screaming, but
it didn't come out of his mouth. He felt like he stayed there for hours. His mind was painfully,
searingly blank.

When he finally dragged himself to his feet, he realised that he had to look awful. His glasses
were shattered, and there was blood on his face from his nose, and on the back of his neck,
from head-butting the wall. Pain shot from the front to the back of his head. His whole body
ached from the ordeal, and he had no wand to fix the issues. In response to these thoughts,
the cracks in his glasses vanished before his eyes, the dried blood on his face and neck fell
free, his robes repelling the dirt, blood and debris he'd collected. The pain vanished with it.
He knew the thing in his head was responsible, and he snarled at it. It was silent.

Once he'd found his way out of the maze of junk and into the corridor, early morning light
was spilling across the stones. He carried himself to the Common Room, numb.

Malfoy still had his wand. He hoped the git hadn't pitched it into the lake as he told the Fat
Lady the password.

"Harry! Oh, Merlin, Harry." Ginny had exploded from her seat by the fire and tackled him in
a hug.

Harry could see Hermione through Ginny's red hair, glaring at him from her seat, Ron next to
her, looking sheepish.

"She didn't go to Dumbledore. I convinced her not to." Ginny whispered into his shoulder
before she let him go. Harry wasn't sure how she'd known he didn't want to see the
headmaster. It might have been his shouting before he'd stormed out.

"We were worried," Hermione said, and Ron nodded.

"I was… In the Room of Requirement. I needed- space." Harry squeezed his eyes shut as he
lied, images of his arm clasped with Voldemort's bound by shimmering gold thread swam in
his vision.

"See Hermione, that's why we couldn't see him on the map," Ron said, flapping the map in
question. Harry hadn't noticed that he had it. Obviously, they'd decided to check it after he'd
been kidnapped.
Hermione had her arms crossed as she looked between the three of them. It was clear Ron
and Ginny had bullied her into waiting. Harry didn't know how to feel about this. On one
hand, maybe Dumbledore might have figured it out. Burst through the door with the Order in
tow before Narcissa had raised her wand. On the other, if the headmaster hadn't saved the
day, he'd be facing an interrogation for breakfast while under an Unbreakable Vow.

"I'm sorry." Harry said after a long pause, "I'm gonna go get dressed."
 Repercussions

(TW: Moderate self-harm in this chapter.)

Let You Down, Seether

If I could speak, I'd tell you all my fears and deprivations

If I could feel, I'd take away your pain
If I could breathe, I'd show you all my scars and imperfections
If I could bleed, I'd hold you in my veins

You've got me feeling like an animal

Beat down in fear and paralyzed
You've got me feeling like I have no other hand to hold in this assisted suicide

Harry wanted his wand back. Preferably before classes, but he didn't see a way to shake his
now paranoid friends off before breakfast. It would have to wait. He got changed out of his
robes as though he were a robot, his actions mechanical. His heart had thundered in his ears
since well before Malfoy stunned him. Though certainly worse afterwards.

He couldn't bring himself to feel the full scope of his emotions. There was too much in his
head. The full picture escaped him, and his mind was numb with the size of it. He tried to
bring himself solace with the fact that he had at least protected the students of Hogwarts. But
it was at a cost he didn't understand. So it felt, at best, laced with poison.

He could feel the thing in his head. Every thought Harry had ran through it's metaphorical
fingers.

He'd been changing his shirt but sat down on the bed as it finally, truly dawned on him that
the thing in his head was not some random, separate entity. He couldn't pretend it was,
anymore. It was Voldemort's. His magic, his memories. His voice. For whatever reason, he
had a piece of Voldemort's power in him.

'The one with power to rival the Dark Lord's own approaches,'

Harry didn't even have a warning when he slapped himself in the face. He stood up, shook his
whole body, and put on a shirt. He stared straight ahead and said nothing as Ginny, Ron, and
Hermione walked with him to the Great Hall. Ron had handed him the map, and Harry
nodded thanks.

He was roused slightly from his numbness when he laid eyes on the Slytherin table. Harry
found Malfoy, who had already spotted him. Colour drained from the blonde's face, and one
by one his friends stopped talking as they followed Draco's haunted gaze to the Boy Who
Lived. Harry didn't take his eyes off Malfoy as he sat down, made it so he was facing the
Slytherin as he reached for toast.
Harry noticed Hermione following his laser-focused glare to the Slytherin table, but she
wisely saved it for later. The Chosen One bit his toast and chewed it with force. The blonde
looked like he wanted to run. Or vomit. Parkinson was flicking her eyes between Harry and
Draco, whispering rapidly in his ear. He didn't seem to be hearing her. When Malfoy stood
up, Harry did too.

Draco Malfoy rushed from the hall, followed by his friends and the Chosen One.

Harry had muttered to Hermione and Ron that he'd see them later. It was obvious he was
following the blonde, but they didn't move to join or stop him. Ron put his hand on
Hermione's shoulder, and she scowled, tearing her eyes away from Harry as he bolted from
the feast.

"Hey, git!" Harry snapped at the retreating Slytherin once outside the hall, and all five of
them turned as though they were shocked he'd followed.

"Potter," Zabini said as Harry rapidly approached, stepping in front of Malfoy like a
bodyguard, wand raised. The Chosen One disarmed the Slytherin with a wave of his hand
then shoved him to the side as he grabbed Malfoy by the front of his robes.

"My wand." Harry spat.

"It's- It's… Not here," Malfoy was distraught. The Slytherins were paused with their wands
raised, warned by Harry's wandless display of magic.

"Where."

"Dun- dungeons."

"Good. We're walking." Harry said, pushing the Slytherin away, satisfied when he lost his
footing. Pansy tried to help him up, but he shook her off, disgusted.

The Boy Who Lived took the invisibility cloak out of his bag and made pointed eye contact
with the now upright Malfoy while he threw it over his head. He didn't want to be seen with
them; he'd been lucky enough that the altercation thus far had no witnesses. Questions
weren't welcome. He also felt the need to prove a point and give a warning. He wanted to
curse the blonde to within an inch of his life but scaring him would do.

"You've got to be joking," Zabini said, mouth open as Harry vanished. Crabbe reached out as
though he expected it to go through the Boy Who Lived.

Harry stepped out of the way of his hand and repeated "We're walking," while pushing
Malfoy's shoulder.

"That's just not possible. Is it?" Pansy said behind him as they started moving toward the
dungeon. No one responded to her.

He followed them to their Common Room in uneasy silence. Malfoy spoke the password in a
hushed whisper, and the great snake on the wall revealed the door. The grand spiral staircase
that descended into the expansive, hall-like Common Room was familiar. The green haze of
the light filtered through the lake; the copper fixtures turned blue over time. The fountain that
poured from overhead at the base of the stairs, heavy like a waterfall. A good place for
private conversations. Several Slytherins milled about, some looking up at the group
entering. The thing in his head felt very present as he took in the lake from the windows
before he trailed after Malfoy and Zabini to their dormitory. The other Slytherins remained in
the Common Room, looking nervous.

"In your trunk? That's a good hiding spot Malfoy," Harry said, stripping the robe as the
copper, vault-like door closed.

Malfoy turned and passed Harry his wand, sweat visible on his forehead. Zabini had his
raised, stepping foot to foot, ready for a fight. Harry looked over the pair of them, wondering
if they'd have anything to say. Malfoy looked white as a sheet.

"I'll see you around," Harry spat, throwing the cloak back over his head before pushing the
heavy door open and slipping out.

"Well, no wonder we bloody couldn't find him," he heard Zabini say.

Harry resisted the urge to look out the windows at the lake as he exited. To stay and watch the
Grindylows taunt first years through the glass.

He managed to avoid Hermione's inquisition proper until lunchtime. She and Ginny forced
him into the library, but only because he'd silently allowed it.

Hermione sat him down as he looked right through her. He didn't know where Ron was.

"Harry, last night…" Hermione wasted no time, talking before she sat down. Harry took a
deep breath in.

"What happened? I was going to ask you… About Sirius. I know you don't want to talk,
Harry, but that night- at the Ministry," Hermione looked to Ginny for support, but she gave
her none, opting to watch the Boy Who Lived silently.

"That night at the Ministry, something happened, didn't it?" Hermione said with more
confidence.

"What do you mean?" Harry could barely recognize the sound of his own voice.

"Something… Something happened, I'm certain of it. You've been acting strangely, you've
been sick, the obsession with the Slytherins… And last night it seemed like you might-"
Hermione pressed, pausing before she could say he looked like he had been about to curse
her before he ran from the tower.

Harry's eyes flicked to Ginny, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Sirius died," the Boy Who Lived moved his gaze back to her, "Sirius died, Hermione, that's
what happened."
"I've been… I haven't been coping. Fine. I know. It was- my fault. That he was there. That
anyone was there." Harry said when Hermione's face didn't change.

"That's not true." Ginny snapped, "Nothing that happened there was your fault." She scowled
at him, pursing her lips.

"I mean, I'm glad you feel that strongly, Ginny. I can't say I agree with you." Harry meant that
more than she knew. If he hadn't chased Bellatrix…

"Look. I'll do better, I promise," Harry said, standing. He could feel it all trying to catch up to
him as he steadied himself on the arm of the chair.

"Harry that's not… That's not what this is about. We don't want to think you have to 'do
better'. We want to help you." Ginny said while Hermione crossed her arms.

"I know. I know you do. I'll see you both at lunch," Harry said, leaning toward the door and
waiting for them to let him go. They did, seemingly keen to talk about him in his absence.

It became clear throughout that day and the day following that the Slytherins expected
repercussions. It was obvious to him now that Malfoy thought he was sending Harry to his
death, and that he had not planned in any capacity for the Boy Who Lived to return to the
castle. It was also clear he hadn't been told that Harry had been returned by his mother on the
order of the Dark Lord, and so, the Slytherins appeared to be waiting for their doom, waiting
for Harry to drop the other boot on their heads and take it to the headmaster. Presumably,
while the Slytherin's parents told them all nothing.

The Boy Who Lived was quite happy to leave it at that. Watching them skitter out of his
presence, as though absence would make him forget, was the only amusement to come from
the ordeal.

Herbology with the Slytherins meant they couldn't escape, and Harry distracted himself with
prolonged, intense staring at the group responsible for his kidnapping. Malfoy refused to look
at the Chosen One, focusing on the Tentacula in front of him, ghastly pale. It was clear he felt
the glare. The five Slytherins worked in silence, Parkinson and Zabini staring at Harry almost
as much as he was them.

Hermione and Ron were watching this exchange, and the bushy-haired teen made a very clear
'we're going to talk about this later', face when Harry finally looked her way.

The Boy Who Lived didn't want to give himself time to think about what had happened.

He kept telling himself he'd made the Vow with no other options, that if he hadn't, the war
might have been over the very next day. The Order wouldn't have been victors. He would
have ended the war, handing himself to Voldemort without the means to struggle. That the
price of not discussing the meeting would surely be worth it, over the alternative. Surely.

He pushed the incessant thoughts away and put more venom into his glare, making Parkinson
duck her head.
"Now if I catch any of you trying to steal these leaves, it's detention every Sunday for a
month!" Professor Sprout called.

The thing in his mind hadn't spoken since the morning of his return, but Harry felt it. He
squeezed his eyes shut, disgusted at the idea of having to cast Liquida Tenebris, regularly, to
keep the Vow. If it was hungry the secret wouldn't be safe. He wouldn't be doing everything
in his power. Harry felt that particular trap was probably the cruellest part of all of it.

If strong was the mandate he'd need to cast it weekly, as far as he could tell. There was a part
of him, not a small part, that was pleased to have a reason to cast it. A reason not to fight it.
Glad for the removal of the moral dilemma. Equal parts ill and relieved, his eyes moved to
Professor Sprout.

"Professor, I have a meeting with the headmaster. I wonder if you'd excuse me?" Harry didn't
have a meeting with the headmaster. He felt the Slytherins drilling their eyes into the back of
his head as he was excused and left the Greenhouse.

He'd just wanted to get out.

As he crossed the grounds, he heard Malfoy call out his name. Harry spun; wand raised. The
Slytherin put both of his hands up in surrender as he crossed the soggy lawn between them.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked, wand still raised.

"What are you doing?" The blonde hissed as he got close.

"You followed me out of the greenhouse, Malfoy." Harry looked over at the building where
his friends were and decided they needed to move whatever this was inside.

Harry turned and continued toward the castle.

"You didn't need to," the Boy Who Lived told him as he pushed the heavy wood door open,
"I'm not going to Dumbledore. Right now."

He kept walking away from Malfoy, wand in hand.

"Potter, wait,"

Harry paused but didn't turn.

"I had to. I didn't get a choice. He tells you to do something you don't get to- you don't get to
say no." His tone was pleading.

He turned to the blonde and spat, "Oh, I get it, Malfoy. I get it."

They blinked at each other, the air tense.

"What… What happened? I- I haven't had… We haven't had any word." The Slytherin's face
had shown true fear for a second, before he straightened, hiding it. He tore his eyes off Harry,
looking disgusted.
Harry felt sympathy, somehow, above all else. He could see it from Malfoy's perspective.
Ordered to kidnap the Chosen One, presumably for the Dark Lord to kill. Tilt the scales of
war, then remain in the school with the enemy. Whereafter the Chosen One returned without
any word from his mother, or Voldemort himself. A bit much, for a fresh Death Eater.

Harry couldn't tell him what happened. He couldn't tell him that he'd seen his mother and that
she was fine. That all their Death Eater parents were likely fine. That the Slytherins were,
remarkably, off the hook for kidnapping him by pure twist of fate. He could probably only
say one thing.

"Malfoy. Everything's fine." Not for Harry certainly, but things were looking up for his least
favourite Slytherin.

The blonde stared at him, incredulous.

"Just write to your mother, yeah?" Harry bit out and walked away, not willing to skirt the
Vow any further, and done with the conversation overall.

"What's going on with the Slytherins? Why did Dumbledore want to see you?" Hermione
wasted no time that night at dinner when Harry caught up with his friends. His second
interrogation of the day. He wasn't in the mood for it.

He could feel the Slytherins watching him from their table, but all the fun of glaring back had
been sucked out by the look on Malfoy's face.

"Uhh, just more of the lesson stuff, nothing groundbreaking. I don't know what's going on
with the Slytherins." He'd stirred his soup instead of looking at her.

"You've been staring at them since yesterday." Hermione deadpanned. "You chased Malfoy
out of the hall this morning."

"Yep," Harry said, popping the p.

"They're all staring at you, right now," Ginny added.

Harry shot her a look then returned his eyes to his bowl.

"Probably because they're up to something." He bit out. Hermione scoffed and shook her
head, immediately letting the argument go. Ginny still watched him though, eyes questioning.

Harry hadn't really slept. He was on the second night of sitting in his bed and staring at the
curtain when he decided he'd had enough. He didn't want to sit with Ginny, didn't want her to
ask a question he was too raw to withstand. Didn't want to not answer. Already the weight of
not telling them, not being able to, was like a brick in his stomach. Before, he'd felt like he
was protecting them. Now, he felt like a planted bomb.

He'd taken the cloak and slipped out into the halls, aiming to just walk. He didn't need to cast
the spell, the thing in his head was content and bleeding raw energy out of his ears. Though
the numbing it bought was tempting, he felt like he'd earned the way he was feeling.

As he wandered the corridors he came across Parkinson, walking with another sixth-year
Ravenclaw girl he hadn't met. Harry hadn't been able to resist and crept up behind the
Slytherin.

"Careful," he whispered in her ear.

Pansy screamed, already running. The Ravenclaw followed confused and startled. Harry had
grinned at this, but it was fleeting. He'd watched the Slytherins on the map, though he knew
what they'd been planning had already come to fruition. Malfoy hadn't left the dungeons save
for classes since that night.

Voldemort knew Harry would take the Vow. That much had become clear. There seemed to
be no plan for the event of Harry refusing. At least, not for refusing and returning to
Hogwarts.

'He knew you would martyr yourself without hesitation.' The voice said.

"Shut up," Harry hissed.

It wasn't wrong. Of course, he'd put himself in the place of the students. For starters, he'd
been presented with one option. But if he were honest if he'd been offered it in a situation
where he'd be free to walk away and refuse… He likely would have still done it. The students
of Hogwarts were safer than they'd been since the beginning of the war.

Or… Maybe they weren't. The likelihood that the Vows had a purpose that would sway things
in the Dark Lord's favour was uncomfortably high. Harry just didn't understand how. He'd
slid down a wall, staring at his hands under the cloak. If he imagined hard enough, he could
see the gold thread binding his left arm.

He threw his head back into the stone to tear his eyes away, satisfied when pain spiked in his
skull.

'Stop it.'

Harry hadn't been planning to, but he did it again.

'Enough,'

He still felt it wasn't enough, though. He could still hear the thing and see his hands and hear
his thoughts so he slammed it back a third time, making his vision swim.

'Enough!'

The Boy Who Lived looked back down at his hands, and without any warning opened a deep
gash across his left forearm into the palm of his hand—a nonverbal, wandless Diffindo.
Blood spilled instantly, and the pain came readily after, making Harry gasp and sit up. Blood
was quickly pooling in his robes and overflowing onto the floor.
"Shit," He hissed, standing, brain fuzzy in alarm. He looked down to heal it, to try and
remember how, when it began to stitch itself back together with no input from him.

'You are an idiot.' The voice hissed, as the blood and pain vanished from Harry's robes, arm,
and head.

"Stop doing that," Harry muttered, dazed at what he'd just done, "Stop using my magic."

There was a pause.

'What makes you think it's yours? Who's to say it isn't you, using mine.'
 In Darkness, Dreaming

Prayer, Disturbed

Another truth you can never believe

Has crippled you completely
All the cries you're beginning to hear
Trapped in your mind, and the sound is deafening

Let me enlighten you

This is the way I pray

Living just isn't hard enough

Burn me alive inside
Living my life's not hard enough
Take everything away

Another nightmare about to come true

Will manifest tomorrow
Another love that I've taken from you
Lost in time on the edge of suffering

"It has come to my attention Bellatrix that you took it upon yourself," Harry began, his tone
warm, "To disregard a direct order."

The woman was on her knees, bowed so low her nose was grazing the ground. "Please, my
Lord. He cursed me first- when we attacked the Ministry. It was fair." She flinched as she
spoke.

"I know. Were you stunned? Wandless? Tell me, did you misunderstand me when I spoke
plainly? When I told you that Harry Potter was not to be harmed?" He flicked his hand and
Bellatrix was writhing, back arched, bleeding from the mouth before she could answer.

Harry had chanced sleep. He groaned, sitting up. Dreamless Sleep. He scoffed and climbed
out of his four-poster bed, rummaged through his trunk for the small number of Dreamless
Sleep potions he had remaining, and took them to the Common Room, where he dumped
them in the fire.

"Harry?" Ginny. He hadn't noticed her sitting in an armchair, blanket on her lap.

"I figured you'd be asleep," Harry said, sitting down across from her as she sniffed the air.

"Is that Dreamless Sleep?" She asked.

"Yeah."
"Why are you burning it?"

"It's not working."

She frowned and fell silent.

The Slytherins seemed more relaxed the next day. Harry still caught them looking at him, but
with far more confusion than fear. Obviously, someone had heard something from someone.

Luna had chased him down in the corridor after Charms, telling him once again that things
looked beautiful. Harry hadn't responded, feeling sick about it. Ginny, who'd been the only
one walking with him, had given him a strange look, but he ignored that, too.

Despite attempting to appear as fine as possible, he'd noticed Hermione in the headmaster's
office twice since he'd been returned to the castle. Why, he didn't know. She hadn't mentioned
it, and made sure she said she was elsewhere doing else-things when asked. He could feel the
thing in his head was alert at his train of thought, but he didn't know why that was either. He
didn't want to ask it. He didn't want to hear it speak.

He was avoiding, uneasily, the thought of what he'd done to his arm. He'd stormed away from
himself when the voice had said that his magic wasn't his. Returned to bed and dreamed of
Bellatrix and Voldemort. Some part of him was glad that she was punished for cursing him,
though the question of why was lingering.

"Ginny… Have you ever heard of a Maledictus?" Harry asked as he and the youngest
Weasley headed to lunch.

"A what?"

"I just saw the term somewhere. Something about a curse."

"I mean, we could check the library?"

Harry had shrugged, not wanting to appear that invested. He was curious though, and decided
he would find out on his own time.

'A Maledictus curse is passed down through blood. Mother to daughter. Like Animagi at first,
they can transform into a beast at will. What kind is dictated by the curse itself. However,
over her lifetime the transformation becomes permanent, locking her in her animal form, her
human mind lost to it.'

'No one asked you.' Harry thought back, then, 'So, Nagini was human?'

'Yes. I was able to learn after I found her that she is from Indonesia. Non-Magical, in the…
typical sense. She was with a Circus, but attacked in her snake form and escaped. That was
before her curse became permanent. I could find little else.'

'You said she would lose her human mind… Does she remember ever being human?'
'Not… Last I saw her.'

Harry felt a bubble of grief, not his, and realized that the thing missed the Maledictus. Then
he realized that he was talking to it, and stopped.

"It's just… a bit unappetizing, don't you think?" Harry asked, digging his heel into the soft
earth near the edge of the forest.

"Ha! Coming from you? Unappetizing? Do you think it's gruesome, too, Riddle?" The young
woman beside him asked wiggling her fingers and saying 'ooo'. Her sleek black hair
collected grass, sweeping the dirt underneath her as she spoke, "You do immortality your
way, I'll do it mine."

Harry had laughed, shaking his head. He pushed himself up from the ground and offered her
a hand.

"Are we going to talk or are we going to fight?" He asked as he pulled her to her feet. She
grinned like a Cheshire cat.

"Ready when you are, snake boy," She said, her stance low to the ground, hands up.

"Always ready, Bearstrom," Harry said casually as he tackled her to the ground and swung at
her face. His fist bounced off her nonverbal, wandless shield and she kicked him off with both
her legs, winding him.

"So I can see," she cackled before she went for his eyes.

Harry sat up, realizing that he'd fallen asleep in the Common Room. He was alone. Ginny
had been with him, but she must have headed to bed and let him sleep. He didn't recognize
the woman in the dream. She'd been in Ravenclaw robes, and she appeared to be in her final
year. She wasn't a current Death Eater, that he knew of. Maybe she'd died.

'No. She didn't die.' It had snapped this, sounding more like a command than something it
knew for certain.

Harry ignored it for a moment before he searched the dream for significance. There was
always something, the thing in his head wouldn't be showing them to him otherwise.

'The memories… Are involuntary.'

The Chosen One frowned. Involuntary?

'Her name is Cassiopeia. She-'

The voice stopped there, and Harry could feel a deep regret, along with sadness. Whoever she
was, it seemed like she had been someone whom the Dark Lord trusted enough to talk to
about his Horcruxes. Or at the very least, that he had plans for immortality. Harry posed this
question silently but was met with quiet.
It had been six days since he'd been returned to the castle. He felt like he was waiting for the
inevitable. Whatever that was. He was sure that whatever form it took, it wouldn't be
pleasant. He kept pushing it away, trying to console himself with the fact that so far, he'd
shown an incredible aptitude for escaping by the skin of his teeth, for pulling an ace at the
very last second. He could do it again. He could work this out, Vow or not.

The headmaster had requested him for the following day, and he was carrying around that
particular dread with the knowledge that he'd have to cast Liquida Tenebris before then. He
didn't know what the meeting was about but judging by the way he'd spotted Hermione
several more times on the map in Dumbledore's office, it might have had something to do
with his withdrawn behaviour, despite his best efforts.

The thing in his head hadn't spoken much since he'd dreamed of the Ravenclaw girl. Harry
still felt it, it was strong, but seemed to be lost in itself. The Boy Who Lived could sometimes
feel what it was feeling. He'd noted that it seldom felt anything positive and that alone was
enough to sour his mood regularly. There was also the thought that he wouldn't acknowledge.
The thought that he could relate. He was familiar with that blend of grief, regret, and
rejection. His own often intertwined with it, until he felt like he might choke.

He'd been feeling particularly morose that afternoon, in Defence Against the Dark Arts.
Snape was enforcing further nonverbal practice, as were most of the professors. Nonverbal
casting would be expected of them in their seventh year, to be used exclusively. Most of his
classmates still struggled, except Zabini, Malfoy, Harry, and Hermione. He'd noticed, though,
that his connection to his magic was sluggish. The thing in his head noticed too.

'Today.' It said, and Harry agreed.

He hadn't stopped carrying the invisibility cloak in his bag, even though the Slytherins were
no longer a real concern. Secrecy had suddenly become a higher priority, most especially
when he planned to be using dark magic. The thought made him simultaneously ill and
wanting. He squirmed in his seat while Snape berated Neville for his failure to summon a
nonverbal shield.

Defence was thankfully his last class for the day. He walked with Ron and Hermione towards
the Common Room when it was over, then at the halfway point claimed he'd left a book in
the classroom. Hermione let him go, the thought of a lost book clearly moving her. Once he
was out of their line of sight, he took out the cloak and disappeared, making his way to the
empty room he'd claimed.

Without the hunger driving him rabid, he was able to witness and influence the spell with far
more clarity. He stood in the centre of it as it poured from his hands, circling his feet, and
rising steadily higher. He was able to control the flow of it, watching, fascinated, as it brewed
above his head, closing him in a dome of black storm clouds. Despite him not being as
starved as he usually was, the spell felt far more potent as it bled from his fingertips. He held
his breath and brought the inky, smoke-like spell back into himself with a flick of his wrists.

Gormlaith.
Rionach.

Corvinus.

Noctua.

Ominis.

Marvolo.

Morfin.

Merope.

His breath hitched as he reached the final name in the Gaunt family tree, as it always did. All
of them, dead. All of them, disappointing.

A shift, and he was running down Privet Drive as fast as his legs could take him. He was
sprinting from Dudley and his friends, who had taken to the activity over the summer break.
He was slow that day. he was hungry, on day three of an enforced food break. And he was
tired, the hunger didn 't let him sleep.

So, they 'd caught him, not too far from the house. They'd taken turns kicking him in the gut,
back, and ribs while he curled into a ball on the sidewalk.

Harry pressed his glasses onto his face automatically as he got up. It was light in the
dormitory, though everyone was still asleep. The dreams had put both Harry and the thing in
his head in a bad mood. The spell had taken some of the edge off, with regard to his poor
emotional state, but not as much as usual. He'd guessed it had something to do with the short
period between casting, but it wasn't like he could ask an expert.

'The Dursleys.' It stated, drawing his attention away from collecting his robes.

'Tell me, what would you do? To them. If there were no consequences?'

Harry's lip curled in response. He disregarded it, returning to his clothes and throwing them
on the bed.

'Oh, go on, Harry. Lie to me and tell me you've never wanted to make them hurt.'

He ground his teeth together as he got changed, forcefully ignoring its needling. Dumbledore
expected him before classes. The thing gathered up his memories, thoughts, and emotions
with slightly more force than usual as he made his way out of Gryffindor Tower.

"Ah, there you are. Take a seat. Liquorice?" Dumbledore shook the bowl as he entered
Harry's mind. The Boy Who Lived declined the candy.

"It's come to my attention, Harry, that you're still having a hard time after the death of Sirius,
and the events that took place in the Ministry," the headmaster said, as he scanned Harry's
thoughts.
The thing in his head very easily transmuted the pain Harry and it had been feeling into grief
for Sirius and slammed it with ferocity into Dumbledore's thread, making the man visibly
flinch.

Harry pursed his lips in response, "It was my fault," he repeated what he knew to be true—
not fabricated. Though he still felt a raw ache at the thought of Sirius, what he had
represented, it wasn't the source of most of his discomfort.

"The things that transpired that night were terrible, but they were not your fault."

Harry felt the reassurance might have landed better if Dumbledore wasn't actively invading
his head. He seemed to be searching for something, pulling on the tail end of memories.

"So I've been told," Harry muttered.

"While I have you here, Harry, I'd like to invite you along with me, to collect the next
Horcrux."

"You've found one?" The Chosen One leaned forward in his seat, the thing in his head
squirming.

"I think I am close. A matter of weeks, I should hope. If what I believe is true, of course. I
will let you know as I do."

Bubbles of nervousness, both his and not, were keeping the thing on its toes as it swept them
into the centre of his head. Dumbledore continued his active search, as close as he could get
to aggressive without, he believed, alerting Harry.

"Okay, professor, I'll go with you." His voice felt mechanical, "Is there any news? From the
Order?"

"Well, no. There has been a strange hush, Harry. There has been little word on Death Eater
activity. Which is not to say, that they are not moving."

"What do you think it means?" He pressed.

"If I were made to guess, I would say that Voldemort is up to something," Dumbledore said,
half smiling. The thread retreated from his head, seemingly satisfied after another extensive
search.

'He thinks he's funny.' The voice hissed.

Harry was bid a good day and was allowed to go to breakfast.

The meeting ran through his head on repeat into the next day. He'd seen Hermione's name in
the headmaster's office on six separate occasions. If he asked, she would lie, presumably
hoping he wasn't checking the map.
So, she had gone to the headmaster and lied to Harry about it. He assumed it was to do with
his recent behaviour, but if he were honest, he felt better than he had before he was taken to
the Dark Lord. Not feeling the soul-destroying pain constantly had improved his ability to
play pretend. He felt he was doing a more convincing job of looking and acting regular.

The Vow and his mental state weren't as obvious on his face as the hunger had been.

So why then, was she going to Dumbledore?

'You think defence is enough. You have so many questions, but you won't empower yourself to
find answers,' the voice told him.

'What does that even mean?' Harry asked it.

'Legilimency. Look for yourself.'

Harry balked at the idea and looked up at Ginny, who'd been avoiding sleep with him.

"If I… Tell you something, Ginny, will you keep it to yourself?" He asked.

"Of course, Harry." She said without hesitation, leaning forward.

"Hermione's been… Going to the headmaster. About me, I think. Then she lies about it,"
Harry scanned her face for any evidence that she knew this already but couldn't find any. She
looked slightly appalled.

"Why?" She asked.

"I was going to ask if you knew," Harry said, deflated. She shook her head.

"She hasn't said anything to me about it. To be honest she's been a bit weird since Christmas."
Ginny said.

The Chosen One thought the same could absolutely be said for her, but that, whatever it was,
felt much larger than Hermione's lasting grudge.

'Look for yourself.' The voice insisted, 'Let me show you how,'

Harry bit down on his tongue.

"Do you think I should ask her?" Ginny asked.

"No. Don't. Don't tell her we know," he told her, and she nodded.

She went quiet, and a slow, hot rage began to bubble in Harry's chest.

"-And when you've clawed your way to the top of the world, Tom-" She paused to slap
him, "Marvolo." Another slap, "Riddle." Another, "I hope you think of me. I hope you think
about how I'll SPIT on your grave, you half-blood piece of fucking shi-"
Harry snapped awake, heart thundering in his chest. He'd dreamed about the black-haired
woman again. She'd been older, maybe twenty, spitting fury and trying to gouge his eyes out
with her hands and her magic. The thing in his head was crackling, shooting random bolts of
pain into his head.

'Don't.' It hissed when he'd barely thought about questioning it.

He drank a Calming Draught, hoping the effects would transfer. The pain slowly subsided,
and the thing stopped writhing, so Harry assumed it did.

Harry got dressed and wandered the halls under the invisibility cloak until breakfast. Once he
was sitting with his friends -Hermione arguing with Ron about something completely
innocuous- he noticed Malfoy staring at him from the Slytherin table. It was a very pointed,
purposeful look, but Harry couldn't figure out what exactly the blonde was trying to convey.
So, he raised an eyebrow, shook his head, and returned to his eggs.

"Are you coming to Hogsmeade tomorrow, Harry?" Ginny asked from beside him.

"Sure, yeah," he replied.

He didn't need to go, but he did want to get out of the castle. Each time he thought about the
headmaster or Hermione's repeated visits to him, a white-hot anger crawled up his throat. He
couldn't look either of them in the eye. Worse, the thing in his head shared the resentment,
perfectly happy to let him feel both his and its distaste and rage, mingled.

He and Ginny were the first to leave breakfast, Ron and Hermione still locked in a heated
debate that Ron had seemingly started just to anger her. Which was fine with the Chosen
One. Before they were even three metres out of the Great Hall doors, Malfoy shoulder barged
Harry from behind, pushing through the middle of them. He felt the Slytherin shove
something into his hand as he went past.

"Watch it, Potter," the Slytherin spat as he hurried away.

"He's such a git," Ginny scowled, righting herself and glaring after the blonde.

"Yeah, he is." Harry agreed, holding what felt like a note tight in his hand.

He'd opened it during his first class as soon as Hermione's attention was on Professor
Flitwick.

Need to see you. Privately.

He crumpled the note and frowned.

 Truth

Truth, Seether

If I gave you the truth would it keep you alive?

Though I'm closer to wrong, I'm no further from right
And now I'm convinced on the inside
Something's wrong with me

He'd crept out that night, after performing his usual trick, pretending to go to bed early and
waiting for his housemates to go to sleep. He'd seen Malfoy on the map in the Slytherin
Common Room, accompanied by Zabini and Parkinson. He figured he'd have to sneak right
in. He knew that the password was null and void in the face of a simple Parseltongue
command. Something he'd learned from the dreams.

So, he headed to the dungeons under his cloak, holding his breath as he passed Filch and
McGonagall, who were hurrying out of the lower level of the castle.

He commanded the door open and descended the stone stairs to the darkened Common
Room, ripples of the moonlight through the lake were scattering on the floor, making him
pause to watch. Malfoy, Zabini, and Parkinson were still sat up, surrounding a brazier on
green leather couches, the only ones left at nearly one in the morning.

"…And you can't open it?" Pansy asked.

"No, I've already told you. He made it pretty clear." Malfoy said.

"And you can't ask," Zabini stated.

"No. I shouldn't even be telling you two. Tell anyone and I'll know," the blonde snapped.

"Yeah, you'll know cuz you'll be dead, Draco." The dark-skinned Slytherin snorted, then he
said, "We wouldn't do that to him, would we, Pansy?" He looked at her, tone suddenly
serious.

She shook her head looking scandalized, "Of course not."

Harry waited for them to say something more, but the group fell silent. He gave it another
minute before he tapped the blonde on the shoulder, making him yelp and slide off the leather
couch.

"Jumpy," Harry said. Pansy squawked and then covered her mouth.

"Potter." Malfoy spat, standing, and straightening his robes, "How long have you been in
here?" His eyes searched the empty air, the Boy Who Lived not bothering to take off the
cloak.
"A better question is why am I in here?" Harry asked.

Malfoy scowled and started towards the waterfall near the staircase, and Harry followed him,
still invisible.

"I've been told to give you this," the Slytherin said, his back to his friends. He took an
envelope out of his robes and extended it in front of himself, unsure of Harry's location.

Harry took it, stomach dropping as he tucked it under the cloak. The Slytherin eyed the space
in front of him in confusion, though the Chosen One was already ascending the stairs. He
looked down at it once he was outside in the corridor, alone. A plain white envelope. There
was something though, lingering in the paper. Probably a privacy ward. His stomach lurched
as he slowly pried it open. He recognized the handwriting.

May 3, 11 PM, Borgin and Burkes.

A week away.

He'd gone to Hogsmeade the next day with only Ginny, both Ron and Hermione staying at
the castle after a particularly sour fight that had left Hermione in tears and Ron sat in his bed
behind the curtains, not answering to anyone. So, he'd happily left the grounds without them.
He'd hardly spoken two words to Hermione, unable to force his teeth apart to get them out.

A week felt simultaneously too close and too far away. He wanted it over and done with, but
he wanted more time to prepare. He didn't know what exactly these meetings would entail,
just that he was sure he would hate it.

Ginny was quiet as they walked, frowning at the village as it came into view like it had done
something to insult her. The village, of course, was beautiful at that time of year. Wildflowers
had begun bursting out of the earth, smattering the road with colour.

"You okay?" Harry asked.

"Oh. Yeah, sorry. Just thinking."

Harry squinted at her but didn't ask. As they approached the town, Ginny sat down on a stone
bench and tapped the space beside her, instead of continuing into the village. He sat down as
he was bid, watching her warily.

"You know, Harry… I-" She began, "I know that things have been… Hard." She nodded and
looked away from him, as though she was done. The Boy Who Lived swallowed, knowing
she wasn't. His tongue suddenly felt like lead as he fixed his eyes on a chimney puffing
smoke in the distance.

"But I also know you're not being honest with us." She said after she collected herself. "I
understand why you won't speak to Hermione… She-" Ginny couldn't find the words for
Hermione, "And I know things with you and Ron have been… They've been different. But if
you want someone to talk to, I can listen. I won't tell them anything if you don't want."
Harry could tell she'd been planning her speech for a while. He decided that if he could, he
would probably tell her, above all the others. She was right about that. He had to fight a lump
in his throat and the thing in his head while he tried to formulate a sentence worth saying. A
sentence he could say.

"If I could explain anything to anyone, it would be you, Ginny." He said what he'd been
thinking, his mouth dry as he continued, "I need you to keep the fact that I even said that to
yourself. Please don't press." Harry put his knuckles into his eyes and cried, then, unable to
stop it.

A week. And a fucking Unbreakable Vow.

"Harry…" He felt her hand on his back, and then she leaned into him, "Okay."

Ginny had helped him pull himself back together, apologizing profusely while she dragged
him to the pub around half an hour later, keen not to ruin a Hogsmeade day. She'd asked him
to order the drinks, maybe as a distraction, and so he was waiting in line while the voice
whispered to him.

'Legilimency is not as difficult as it's claimed to be,'

Harry hadn't been thinking about it at that moment, he'd been lost in what Ginny had been
saying while staring dumbly at the base of a stool, but he had been thinking about it. It would
likely be something considered both useful and in his power, and so he was likely bound by
the Vow to at least make an attempt. Or at least, that was what the voice had told him several
times.

'It merely requires a good grasp of the theory and practice…' It said as Harry walked up to
the bar, his turn to order.

'Failing that brute force should do,' it grabbed the thread of his magic and propelled it into
the barkeeper's mind like a lasso when Harry locked eyes with his.

"That's Harry Potter then probably wanting butterbeer… With the Weasley girl, two then,
damn I wish Malcolm would get an owl out about that-"

'Good. Don't pay attention to the drivel, find a memory. Any memory. Move Carefully. He's
not paying you any attention, but he'll notice you. And talk. Order your butterbeers.'

"Hi, uhm, can I get uh… Two butterbeers?" Harry had whiplash and a vague sense of motion
sickness from the sensation of his magic in someone else's head.

A flooded room, water quickly rising while a woman squawked in alarm.

"Alright, alright, Meg, it's just a bloody busted pipe no need to-"

Harry's magic was pulled back by the thing as the bartender passed Harry the drinks.

'Sufficient, against someone with no Occlumency protection.'

Harry didn't like the way it had just thrown his magic from his head without permission.

'Not yours, and you'd decided.'

He took the mugs to where Ginny was sitting, frowning deeply.

By the next night, the thing in his head was requesting the spell. Five days. He was ashamed
to feel both relief and desire when it had roused him from his sleep.

He lit the end of his wand and checked the map, scanning the Common Room, then the
dormitories. He once again noticed that the Weasley siblings weren't in the tower. Harry
frowned, searching the map. He couldn't find them in the castle. Either they were completely
off the grounds or in the Room of Requirement. Ron's curtains were closed, and when Harry
tried to open them, they refused, charmed closed.

He decided he didn't have time for their particular mystery, that he'd missed them in the act.
He opened his trunk to grab his cloak, but it wasn't where he left it. Baffled, he searched
under his spare clothes and abandoned textbooks. He checked his bag; in case he'd forgotten
to remove it. He briefly panicked at the thought that the Slytherins had gotten greedy at the
sight of it, but then he thought of Ron. And Ginny.

"What?" He hissed the question at no one.

He took the map and instead made his way to an empty storeroom, closer to the tower, not his
usual. Avoiding detection by keeping his eyes glued to the paper. He felt incredibly
vulnerable. He wasn't comfortable with the fact that, in the minutes or hours after he cast the
spell, he didn't remember or understand what happened to him. How he returned himself to
the tower. Surely, he used the cloak. He hadn't been caught.

'You'll be fine,' the voice seemed certain, which served to make Harry suspicious.

'How do you know?' He questioned.

'You may not remember. I do.'

Harry didn't like the implications of that, and so he'd asked it to elaborate. It didn't.

The next morning, he did indeed awake in his bed, fine. Ron and Ginny were also back in the
tower, and a quick check of his trunk showed that his cloak had been returned.

The spell dulled the alarm and betrayal he felt at their weird theft, as well as the anxiety he
had about May third. He was glad for the light reprieve, though he was sick of the guilt and
shame that came with it. The knowledge that if someone saw him doing what he was doing,
he would be shredded alive by the collective Wizarding World. If they saw it, if somehow,
they understood it, his fall from grace would be legendary.

But casting Liquida Tenebris was a warm bath on a mid-winter day. It was a deep sleep after
a week of insomnia. It was his favourite meal after starving near to death. It was also
unfortunately nurturing some strange piece of the Dark Lord. A trace left by dark magic, fed
by it. And he was sworn to keep it secret.

The thought always took his breath away, and so he was once again glad for the numbing
properties of the spell. He shook off the loop and got up, looking at Ron as he did so,
debating what he was going to do.

At this point, he felt confrontation was best.

"Ron," he said, shaking him awake. His eyes snapped open immediately.

"You took my cloak," Harry said, and Ron sat up.

"Oh." He was looking at the Boy Who Lived with wide eyes.

Harry felt the thread of magic that was allegedly not his offered to him, and he took it,
parroting the lasso feeling the thing had shown him without much hesitation.

Harry figured he must have gotten some nuance of the craft wrong because what he found in
Ron's head was not anything close to what he'd seen in the bartenders. A vast, seemingly
limitless white expanse, with nothing as far as his mind's eye could see. At the centre of it, a
silvery, pulsing orb, thrumming like a heart. He quickly pulled his magic back.

"I really am sorry, Harry. I needed it for a prank." Ron was saying, snapping him out of the
daze.

"A prank?" Harry repeated, brain swimming.

"You'll forgive me, right? I'd never take it, you know, permanently," Ron looked sheepish and
was trying to get out of bed.

"A prank on who?" The Boy Who Lived pressed.

"Er, Dean Thomas. Ginny and I. She was upset, it was my idea. I told her you said we could
borrow it."

'I have never seen anything like that before,' the voice told him.

'I didn't do it wrong? Is it Occlumency?'

'You did… Fine. No, not Occlumency.'

Harry, confused, let Ron go after it was clear he was going to get no real answers from him.

Two days later, Harry was all at once aware that whenever he had a question, particularly a
magic-related one, he asked the thing in his head. And it readily answered him, sometimes at
length.

In Defence:
"Potter, what is the protection against a Lethifold?" Snape drawled. Harry made a question
mark in his head.

'Patronus,'

"The Patronus Charm, Sir."

Snape had put his chin in the air and turned away in disgust.

In Potions:

"Can anyone tell me the properties of Ashwinder eggs? Maybe you, Harry?" Slughorn asked,
grinning at him.

'Love potions. The eggs swallowed whole cure ague.' It told him when he asked.

"They can be used in love potions, Sir. And the eggs cure ague, if you swallow them whole."
Harry said, hoping no one asked what ague was. The Potions textbook belonging to the Half-
Blood Prince had remained in his trunk for three days.

"Very good, very good, ten points to Gryffindor."

In Care of Magical Creatures, it described the history of the Horned Serpent.

'They're most common in North America. Incredibly intelligent, but uncommonly violent in
nature. One of my ancestors, Isolt Sayre, she befriended one. She was one of the co-founders
of the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A Parselmouth, of course. She named
one of the four houses after the Horned Serpent. She used two shards of its horns to create
both the first American made wands, and the first with cores made from serpent horn. For
her sons.'

'Did you know her?'

'Isolt co-founded Ilvermorny in the year sixteen-twenty.' It deadpanned.

He'd been sitting at lunch while it told him about Runespoors, giant three-headed snakes that
often killed their third head -in doing so killing themselves- out of frustration when he locked
eyes with Hermione. All at once it stopped talking and passed Harry the thread. He took the
opportunity, seeing how he wouldn't have to talk across the table and work inside her head
over the din of the Great Hall. He threw his magic over the distance.

"-Thinks it is. As if I can't tell somethings not right. He lied about the Slytherins he's been in
their Common Room twice, and I saw him with Malfoy then he lied about seeing the
headmaster. The spell keeps tracking him to empty rooms after hours Dumbledore doesn't
believe me even though I've never lied to him doesn't make any sense…"

Harry felt ill as he watched Hermione list all the ways he'd lied and acted strangely, while he
grappled with the fact that she'd been tracking him. Watching him.

'Find out when. Find out when she put the tracking spell in place.'
His heart hammered as he dug for the memory associated with her thoughts. He found it,
neatly attached.

The morning after he'd been returned to the castle by Narcissa and the Dark Lord. The relief
the thing in his head felt was palpable and shared. He didn't know what 'everything in his
power' would mean if Hermione had known something she shouldn't have. It was already bad
enough; he was glad not to have to find out. He pulled his eyes away from hers, having found
it all in less than twenty seconds. He'd have to remove her spell when he left the school, but
that would likely arouse her suspicion. So would confronting her. He glared at his sandwich,
no longer hungry.

She knew he was stealing away at night, but she didn't know why. Hermione wasn't the type
to leave something undiscovered.

By the first of March Harry noticed that Ginny was actively avoiding him, choosing not to be
alone with the Boy Who Lived and seldom showing up besides. He hadn't had the chance to
mention the cloak to her, though he wasn't sure if he was going to. He wondered how true it
was that Ron told her Harry said they could borrow it. He was even less sold on the fact that
they'd been pulling a prank. So, Harry had to consider adding Ginny's name to the long list of
people he didn't feel like he could trust. He'd known she'd been hiding something, but it had
seemed like none of his business, curious as he'd been. Now she'd stolen the cloak with Ron
and was avoiding Harry after her brother had lied to him. Making it his business.

Not to mention the weird white void he'd found in Ron's head. It gave him chills every time
he thought about it, but he couldn't put his finger on why. The voice was very keen to
examine the youngest Weasley's thoughts now that Harry had given up all pretence of
resistance to Legilimency. It wanted him to use the map and hunt her down. While Harry had
been keeping tabs on her using the map, he wasn't quite at that point.

It also wanted him to cast Liquida Tenebris before they left for Borgin and Burkes. That
brought with it the issue of Hermione's tracking spell. She could, any time he snuck away to
cast, bring the headmaster along to unlock the door. Breaking the tracker presented its own
problem, she would notice. The voice had found the tracking spell, after they'd discovered it
existed, floating along behind him like a semi-deflated balloon. Without the weird
Legilimency induced by the thing in his head, without it seeking out Hermione's magical
trace, he wouldn't know about it. They'd debated removing it straight away. There was a
concern that she would just replace it, but worse than that, she might take the fact that he'd
removed the tracker to the headmaster as irrevocable proof that he was up to something. With
no real and believable way to know it was there, he'd be asked several questions at a
minimum.

The sudden and seemingly collective betrayal of his friends had shocked him. Ron was more
withdrawn than usual, despite his begging for forgiveness. Harry had begun locking his trunk
when he wasn't carrying the map or the cloak, and looking over his shoulder whenever
Hermione wasn't standing right next to him. Ginny was in the wind after her speech that he
could trust her above the others. Harry didn't know why she'd done it, but it suddenly felt
untrue.
'What do we do?' Harry had asked it that night.

'I have one idea. It doesn't solve everything, but it might work for Saturday. I break the
tracking spell in the Room of Requirement as we leave. I hope it will lead her to believe the
magic of the room broke it, not us. We cast Liquida Tenebris there after the spell is broken.'
 A Northern Constellation

Big Bad Wolf, In This Moment

Once upon a time

There was a nasty, little piggy filled with pride and greed
Once upon a time
There was an evil, little piggy typical disease
You see this little pig is slowly becoming my own worst enemy
You see this evil pig she's a blood, blood, blood sucking part of me

Everywhere I go, you go along with me (she said)

Everything you get, is all because of me (I said)
Everything I do, you do along with me (she said)
No matter where you run, you cannot hide from me

The morning of May third brought with it a wall of anxiety. It was a Saturday, so there were
no classes to distract him. Ron was playing chess with Seamus, and when Seamus gave up
Harry was sure that he'd find another opponent. Ginny was missing, as she so often was after
she'd stolen his cloak for a 'prank'. Hermione was watching him over the top of her book.

He'd been pretending to read also. His mind constantly wandered back to Borgin and Burkes,
11 PM. He'd done a good job at avoiding the reality of it so far but having to delay the spell
for two extra days had frayed his nerves, and so, the knowledge was harder to push away. He
didn't want to see… Voldemort. Didn't want to talk to him. He'd begrudgingly accepted
communicating with the thing in his head out of necessity, but speaking to the Dark Lord was
another thing entirely. He still didn't understand why it was happening, but the more he
thought about it, the closer the dread became. He felt up to his nose in it.

The day passed achingly slowly, by the time the sun finished setting he felt ready to gnaw his
arm off in agitation. Adrenaline had kicked in hours earlier. He'd had to stop bouncing his
legs countless times, settling instead for chewing his tongue. He'd gone to bed as soon as he
was able, heart hammering as he waited for the others to sleep. Ginny had taken to returning
to the Common Room at a late hour. Though Harry was taking the cloak, he was hoping not
to run into her. Or Hermione. She'd gone to bed when Harry did, but he was certain she was
paying attention.

He just had to hope tonight wasn't the night she followed him on foot.

At ten o'clock he threw the cloak over his head and exited the Tower with his eyes glued to
the map. He couldn't see Ginny anywhere. He hoped she wasn't already in the Room of
Requirement. He didn't know where she could be otherwise, but he was too preoccupied to
question it. His pulse was so loud in his throat that it felt like it was constricting his
breathing. It made his face hot as his eyes stayed on the footprints labelled Hermione
Granger, still in Gryffindor Tower.
He paced in front of the tapestry with his heart between his ears. The doors appeared and he
pushed his way inside, hands shaking with adrenaline. Straight away he could feel the thing
in his head tearing Hermione's magic to shreds. He moved through the junk until he
recognized the way to the cabinet.

'When I… After I do this- I want my mind. Like before.' Harry told the thing as he raised his
wand. It hesitated, then agreed.

He cast Liquida Tenebris. He didn't spend any time watching it, he just pulled it back in while
he fought to stay on his feet. Failing that, he fought to stay on his hands and knees as it
overcame him.

Once it was over, as he'd requested, he was conscious and not overwhelmed by the effects of
the spell. He noticed that the thing in his head was less present and wondered if it was from
holding in the magic. He didn't know if that meant he'd be going into this more alone than
before. He didn't like that the absence of the voice made him feel vulnerable.

'Here… Just- busy.'

Harry frowned and didn't respond, instead casting a Tempus. He'd used forty minutes getting
to the room and casting the spell. He tucked the invisibility cloak and the map into a set of
drawers nearby. He still had twenty minutes to burn but decided he couldn't stand there a
second longer as he pulled the cabinet open and stepped inside.

He was met with Narcissa in Borgin and Burkes, looking shocked to see him a second time
even though she'd obviously been stationed to wait for him. She hesitated, dancing foot to
foot for a moment before she extended an arm to him, saying nothing. He took it, and she
Apparated them to the same heavily warded house in the middle of nowhere. Narcissa backed
away from him and Disapparated with a crack.

There was light inside the small building, but not a lot. His breath was shaky as he crossed
the rippling wards and hesitated at the door, listening. He had his wand this time, but he felt
no more confident. He heard nothing inside, so he slowly turned the handle, peeking in.

The interior had been repaired and updated. It was sparse, but furnished, a high-backed chair
with a desk, three armchairs on the other side of it. Four candelabras lit the room, telling him
that someone had to have been here recently to light them. He had his wand raised as he
scanned the room. He was alone, the one far door in the room was closed, but he could hear
nothing behind it, either.

He noticed an envelope with his initials on it, on the desk, along with a small black box. He
opened the letter.

I have arranged for your skills in combat to be appraised.

You will do as bid by your assessor.

Understand that this letter serves to bind these meetings under the Vow.
It wasn't signed, but again, he recognized the handwriting. His assessor? Another Tempus
told him that it was eleven on the dot, and his stomach jumped with nerves as he backed into
the far side of the room, watching the entrance.

Seconds later the front door swung inward, and a woman stepped into the room. She was
pale, with high, sharp cheekbones. Eyes as black as her hair as black as her robes. She looked
him over from head to toe before she smiled wide, revealing a set of fangs.

'Cassiopeia… She did- She wouldn't be here- She… Not after…Not unless-' The thing in his
head spiralled, spitting supernova bursts of pain and pleasure as lost its grip on the magic of
the spell. Harry promptly passed out.

When he woke up he was in one of the armchairs, head numb. The voice had gone back to
holding the magic tight and was quiet, but he could feel its attention split. Cassiopeia sat in
the high-backed chair behind the desk, watching him. He sat up higher, eying her warily. He
noted that she didn't look older than twenty-five. She must have been turned into a vampire
not too long after trying to gouge out the young Dark Lord's eyes.

"Well, I had been about to say that your reputation precedes you. I've been quite curious
about the baby who defeated Tom Riddle from the crib," she said, while Harry watched her
fangs as she spoke, "Don't worry, I've been beggared not to bite by our… Mutual friend."

'I don't understand. This doesn't make sense,'

"I… Sorry, who are you?" Harry finally asked, his brain fuzzy with the spell the thing was
barely containing, and its emotions shot like bolts of electricity into his head. He couldn't say
that he knew her, that he'd seen her before in his dreams. That would be violating the Vow.
But he could ask her questions.

"My name is Cassiopeia Bearstrom, Harry Potter. I've been asked to examine your
capabilities in battle." She squinted her eyes at him as she spoke, tilting her head curiously, as
though she was trying to find something in his face. The thing in his head squirmed wildly in
response, making him woozy.

"Why?" He asked, squeezing his eyes shut and then opening them again, "Why is any of this
happening?" He gestured to the room. She half smiled, her dark eyes glittering in the
candlelight.

"Why indeed." She came to stand beside him, her movements so fluid she seemed to float.
She offered him a hand and he begrudgingly took it, standing up.

"Are we going to talk or are we going to fight?" She asked, and that was all the warning he
got. She flipped him onto his back, using his arm against him.

Harry's wand had been in his hand since he came to, so he shot stuns frantically as he fought
away from her, still on his back. She fired hexes wandlessly as she advanced on him, dodging
his stuns effortlessly. Unlike his, hers hit, stinging like bees. He threw up a wordless shield as
he crawled backwards, struggling to find his feet. She broke the shield with a wave of her
hand and sent a second barrage of hexes. He'd been hit in several locations repeatedly, the
pain overlapping and doubling, sapping his focus.

It became obvious quickly that he wasn't a match for her, and so he did the only thing that
made sense. He cast Liquida Tenebris for the second time that night, the blackness exploding
out of his hands and chest, putting a rapid stop to the vampire's onslaught.

Harry could swear he heard her laughing from within it.

He cut the spell off quickly, not willing to push his luck with the voice's strength. He could
feel the thing sizzling in his head like a live wire. Cassiopeia stood in the middle of the
shredded room, correcting the toppled candlesticks, and relighting them, eyes wide, grin
wider.

"Where did you learn that spell?" She asked as Harry finally made it to his feet.

He shrugged one shoulder, panting. She didn't stop smiling as she corrected the remainder of
the room wandlessly. She floated over to the desk and picked up the small black box that had
been thrown to the ground, tossing it to him. Then she told him to run.

"What?" He'd asked, but she was already chasing him out the front door and through the
wards, sending hexes at his feet as he ran.

He sprinted as fast as his legs could carry him, heart pounding with another sudden burst of
adrenaline. Though he got the sense she was not moving as fast as she could have, he could
still hear her rapidly catching up. He didn't get far, she crashed into his back from behind
when he'd almost tripped on a large clump of grass, sending him face-first into soft dirt.

"Alright. Not fast, not skilled. Bit of a one-trick pony if the record serves." She said, standing
up and brushing off her robes as Harry spat out earth.

"The Boy Who Lived," she laughed like that was the funniest thing she could have said,
doubled over and wheezing till her snorts became quiet, her shoulders heaving with silent
laughter until she collapsed to the ground beside him all over again. It took her a moment to
recover. Harry used the time to pick the remainder of the plant matter and grit from his teeth,
frowning at the vampire in distaste. He'd managed to hang onto the box she'd thrown at him,
so he tucked it in his robes.

"Ah, alright, Boy Who Lived. That will do. You're to come here every second Saturday, same
time." She stood and offered him a hand, which he didn't take, opting instead to help himself
up.

"You're going to run fast every day between now and then, yes? Like your life depends on it.
Work up to forty-minute stints. I'll Apparate you back," she said, stepping towards him.

"Don't worry about it," he said, Apparating back to Borgin and Burkes alone.

He pushed past a once again startled Narcissa and entered the cabinet, avoiding her
questioning eyes. Once back in the Room of Requirement, he turned his attention to the thing
in his head.

'Who is that?' Harry insisted. He could feel its resolve and its grip on the remnants of Liquida
Tenebris slipping, forcing him unsteadily to his knees.

'She was- She was like… Family.'

'And what did you do to ruin it?' Harry asked, leaning forward so his face was on the cold
stone.

It didn't answer him, instead, it washed him in intense grief. Thick and overpowering, it
intertwined with the effects of the spell it was letting slip, clouding his head. His own pain
came up to join it, apparently not willing to miss a party, until he was sobbing. He yelled into
his balled-up fists until his head swam from the lack of oxygen.

"Okay… Okay- stop," Harry gasped, trying to push himself upright under the weight of it. He
wasn't sure if he was being punished for asking, but decided he wasn't going to do it again.
He could feel the thing in his head struggling to get its emotions and the spell under control,
just as Harry was, while he crawled to the set of drawers where he'd left the cloak and the
map. The box the vampire had tossed at him fell from his robes as he moved, and he paused
to stare at it, bewildered.

The grief subsided slightly, becoming rapt curiosity on the thing's behalf. He sat back and
opened the box gingerly, as though it might bite, hands humming with adrenaline. There was
a note on the top, which he read first.

This does not belong to you, though it is in your possession.

I trust you know the entire Ministry stock was destroyed the last we visited. I expect it to
return to my possession once you are no longer in need.

Under the note was a Time-Turner. His arm shook as he cast a Tempus. He'd been gone from
the Common Room for two hours. He took the Time-Turner from the box, noting that it
looked different than the Ministry-mandated kind. It was still an hourglass, but with no outer
ring, and slightly larger.

'Why is he doing this?' Harry asked. It ignored him like it almost always did when it came to
questioning Voldemort. It didn't entertain Harry's ideas, wouldn't confirm or deny suspicions.
It kept him firmly in the dark. A Time-Turner was extravagant. He couldn't understand it.

'I know you have theories. Or a theory? I'm sworn not to tell anyone, what's the difference?'

It was frustratingly silent as he forced himself upright, exhausted, putting the chain over his
neck. He wandered a little way into the piles of junk, under the cloak, then turned the Time-
Turner twice. The room whizzed around him momentarily before he made his way out
through the mountains of lost property, careful not to bump into himself.

His hands were still shaking as he collapsed into his bed.

"Cass! Cass! C'mon, stop. Be serious, Cass, be serious for one- oh, no, no, she's doing it."

Harry didn 't recognize the hushed but frantic voice coming from the aisle as he tried to read.
Three students had been sniggering behind his back for a few minutes now, and he'd had to
remind himself several times that he was in the library at Hogwarts, that he couldn't react.

As he decided to remove himself, a Ravenclaw girl, also in her first year, sat down across
from him. He recognized her, he knew her name, but they 'd never spoken.

"You're the freak who talks to snakes," she said, tone neutral as she watched him curiously. It
had only been a few weeks since he'd been outed as a Parselmouth, and he was often
reminded.

"Cass!" Someone hissed from the bookshelves behind them before they ran away, two sets of
feet stomping out of the library. She didn't seem to notice. Harry made to stand, hands on the
book he'd been reading.

"Is it really cool? What do they say?" She asked in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning forward,
brown eyes glittering. Harry's hands paused on his books, hesitating in place as he took her
in.

"Yes. They tell me all sorts of things," he said, watching her face. She grinned wide, leaning
even closer.

"Can you show me?"

"Yes," Harry was unable to resist smiling back.

Harry had to drink a Calming Draught when he woke up. Not for himself. He resisted even
thinking about the memory as he took a shaky breath in. It was dawn, orange light slowly
filling the room as he pulled his curtains open.

He'd watched Hermione on the map after he'd returned to his bed, and she had indeed left the
Common Room in search of him, barely twenty minutes after he'd used the Time-Turner. He
hadn't stayed awake to see if she'd found him, instead opting to deal with it all later. He didn't
know what to do about her. Deflecting wasn't working, he knew that much. She'd replace the
tracking spell, that he'd assumed. Most likely, she'd take it to the headmaster, and his head
would be searched for contraband ideas.

'Very annoying actually,' it said, in response to Harry's thoughts.

'What do you suggest we do?' He asked it. There was a brief pause.

'You don't want to know what I suggest we do.'

Harry sighed and finally got up. It was probably right. He probably didn't want to hear what it
had to say.

'Probably.' It mocked him as he got dressed.

 Leash Your Dog

Occupy Your Mind, Villagers

Our bodies are dancing

Divisions all die
Eye of the beholder
Beholding the eye
And in this infinite space, dear
I can hardly feel time
And I just want to occupy your mind

Harry had no other choice than to play dumb with Hermione. She didn't say anything to him
about his sneaking out, though her lips were tightly pursed throughout the day. She recast the
tracking spell sometime in the morning, the thing finding it during one of its regular sweeps.
They left it there, again with no real option. She had gone to the headmaster, at lunchtime,
saying that she felt nauseous and wanted to see Madam Pomfrey. Harry had taken out the
map under the table and watched her head straight for Dumbledore's office. He wondered
what she was going to say to him this time, wishing he was a fly on the wall.

'Three guesses,' the voice said.

He still hadn't seen much more than Ginny's retreating back since he'd confronted Ron about
the cloak, and he was slowly building resentment about it. Her actions were baffling him. The
thing in his head kept pushing him to seek her out, seemingly as curious about the Weasleys
as he was, since it had seen the weirdness in Ron's head. He was still undecided, but he'd
watched her movements on the map with the same regularity that he watched Hermione.

He was watching her that night, on the map from his bed. She was sneaking through the halls
back towards the Common Room at nearly one in the morning. He'd watched her go off the
edge of the map in the Forbidden Forest, which explained why she was vanishing from the
paper, but it only raised more questions. Had she and Ron taken the cloak to the forest? Why?
As she was close to the portrait hole, he decided enough was enough and jogged down the
stairs, sitting down and pretending he'd been there for hours when she came through, locking
wide eyes with his.

"You know, when I go missing for the night, it's all battle stations," he began as she
sheepishly closed the frame, "You slink about for a week and no one bats an eye. That must
be nice."

She stiffly came to sit, avoiding looking at him. "I've been…"

"Ginny," he bit out, and she met his eyes.

The thing in his head needed no permission as it forced its way into Ginny's mind. Where it
bounced off with a nearly audible crack. All at once she was standing, looking at him as
though he'd slapped her, then sprinting up the stairs to her dormitory while Harry watched
her, stunned into silence.

'That was Occlumency,' the voice supplied.

'Yes, thank you.' Harry snapped.

"Don't be silly, Cass, you know the Slytherin couldn't bear to be seen with us. In public!" The
seventh-year Ravenclaw clasped his forehead in faux shock.

Cassiopeia had insisted that Harry socialize with someone other than her or his housemates,
and he 'd begrudgingly agreed. To make her happy. He thought the Ravenclaw was too
dramatic, and he stared too often. Too intensely. Harry tore his eyes away from him then,
pleading with Cassiopeia with his face. She smirked before she looked at the Ravenclaw.

"You know, Alicent, the Room of Requirement… Fills any requirement? Say if we wanted to
get really, really, really drunk… The room would provide the means," she told him, standing,
pacing, "Even while we're already inside," she finished, as a tray appeared on the table in
front of them, a set of glasses with two bottles of… something.

Harry shot her another warning look, but she was dancing rings around the dark-haired
Ravenclaw while he grinned at her. She was pouring him a glass, then herself, avoiding
Harry save to pass him a drink, not looking at his face. Wine. He sniffed it, then sipped it,
frowning at her though she was still pretending he wasn 't in the room.

When he woke the thing in his head was, in Harry's opinion, disproportionately panicked by
the dream, hissing, and spitting as he downed two Calming Draughts. It was quiet as he got
up, sulking in the far corners of his mind. it was still dark in the room, but the first hints of
the dull, silverly dawn were showing through the windows. He could feel its anger clearly,
but there was something else, fleeting. It was trying to hide it, snapping at him when he came
close to the emotion. Harry frowned, confused, but left it. He'd learned curiosity was seldom
rewarded, particularly when it came to Cassiopeia.

He once again wondered why he'd never heard of her, never seen her. Did no one know they
were ever even friends? The thing stirred in response to his indirect questioning, so he sighed
and fought the thoughts off, instead thinking of Hermione. He'd messed up with her, but he'd
had little choice. She looked at him now as though she deeply mistrusted him, and so Harry
supposed she did. He also supposed that she had good reason, that he wasn't to be trusted,
that he'd made yet another series of irrevocable mistakes.

Then Ginny. She'd felt him, she'd felt the thing in his head, reaching for her thoughts. He
didn't know when or how on Earth she'd learned Occlumency. She'd certainly never
mentioned it to him. He wasn't particularly keen on going downstairs and finding out exactly
how badly he'd screwed up. Both Ginny and Hermione could present a pretty compelling
case to the headmaster, at that point.

He needed to talk to Ginny. He didn't see a way to confront Hermione, she was rigid in her
conviction, but Ginny… Maybe she'd listen. Not that he could offer her many words. He got
dressed and checked the map. She was still in her dormitory, along with Hermione. They
were close enough together that they could be talking. He pushed down the bubble of anxiety
and left the room as the light grew golden.

He didn't see Ginny that day, she stayed in the tower, mostly in her dormitory. Hermione
stayed close, shooting him suspicious looks. Ron trailed along behind them, looking far away
and distracted. Harry didn't have the mental capacity or the desire to address any of it.

The thing in his head kept thinking about the vampire and so Harry would. And then he
would be aggressively chastised, as though it was his fault. He'd push his thoughts back to the
youngest Weasley, and he found it to be more irritating than Cassiopeia. When the day was
over, Ginny was still in her bed. Hermione didn't say anything to him when he asked, just
shooting him a 'you should know,' scowl, which didn't inspire hope. Despite that, Hermione
didn't go to the headmaster that day, which he thought was a good sign.

He didn't follow Hermione and Ron to the Common Room from their early dinner, instead,
he'd ducked into a corridor when they weren't looking, Hermione fussing with Ron's tie as he
slipped away, running when he was a safe distance from them. He quickly turned three
corners before he released a breath and pushed out through the huge entrance doors he'd
doubled back to, out into the courtyard, then across the bridge to the far edge of the grounds.
He dropped his outer cloak and bag on the ground, conscious of the time and the rapidly
descending sun. He concealed them with a spell just in case anyone was out there with him,
though he felt alone as he started to run along the tree line.

He picked up the pace until he felt he was 'running for his life' fast and tried to keep it. He
found his thoughts were harder to focus on, the faster he got, the further he ran. His heartbeat
for once was focused on his legs and not his head. His head was focused on his legs instead
of itself. Until he couldn't really breathe anymore and had to stop.

'That wasn't good time,' the voice told him.

'How long was it?'

'Three minutes.'

"Ahhh," Harry said out loud, panting, still buckled over. "Forty-minute stints? Forty?"

'If I was running for my life I'd run better,' He added mentally.

He waited for his lungs to stop feeling like they might come out, then sprinted back the way
he'd come, sucking in lungfuls of air and forcing his legs past the comfortable limit. He
collapsed near his belongings, inhaling like he was in anaphylactic shock. He'd managed six
minutes in total. Definitely could stand to be improved, but he couldn't understand why the
Dark Lord would will it. To protect the thing in his head was the only thing that made sense,
but the reason for that was still beyond him. Still made him feel a sick dread.

'Beyond you too, is it?' Harry asked spitefully as he made his way back onto the grounds,
panting, knowing it wasn't going to answer him.
"We both know you're entirely too busy," Cassiopeia sighed and crossed her legs. Dramatic.
She flicked her black eyes at him to be sure he was seeing her being dramatic, then flicked
them away again.

"I am dealing with two concurrent disasters. Possibly a third. Do," Harry leaned forward,
"Forgive. Tell me what you saw." He'd had to save this conversation for the house that he'd
custom-made purely for this problem. Warded, locked, far-flung, protected by Vows and
Secret Keepers.

"Well, you weren't wrong. He's just… Some guy. There were a few things though… At the
sight of me, he fainted. Twitching on the floor. Didn't seem like a vampire phobia. When he
came to, I swear I could see it in his eyes. He used Liquida Tenebris easily like he did when
he saw you. Pretty much to your skill level if I had to guess," she gave him a pointed look,
"He fights like shit though. Hopeless."

"I believe that Dumbledore has kept him defenceless on purpose."

"No. You don't think that…" She paused when Harry pressed a finger to his lips shushing her,
then tapped his temple.

"Remember? So, you agree, it was Liquida Tenebris?"

She nodded, "Nonverbal, but it's distinct, wouldn't you say?"

"I have a theory about why, but it's…" Harry shook his head, leaving the half-formed thought
and continuing with another, "I saw fragments of my memories in his head. I found something
else, though. When he came to me, he was… Not easy to read. But I have reason to believe it
is sentient."

Her eyes bugged. "Sentient? Is that possible? How sentient?"

"It seems to patrol his mind like a guard dog. I'd like a better look. But that poses its own…
Issues."

"Right, because you're the Dark fucking Lord Voldemort,"

"Swearing has never become you,"

"Up your ass," she poked her tongue out and he felt a wave of nearly foreign, long-forgotten
peace.

"And you think… Hogwarts is the best place… For it?" She pressed, resuming the same
argument she'd begun when he'd first told her.

"I have done the best I can," Harry began slowly, "It would be counterproductive to kidnap
him. He needs to come to us."

The Boy Who Lived snapped awake, breathing hard.

'I think you already know how unwilling I am to discuss this with you,' the voice said
immediately before he'd formed the questions that were coming. It sounded, above all else,
tired.

'They spoke like they know what you are? Didn't they? Don't you think so?' Harry pressed
regardless.

'When- if, our interests ever align,' it snapped, 'I'll tell you what I am myself.'

"So, you do know!" Harry gasped, sitting up in his bed.

'Of course I- Of course I know. He knows too. So does she, by the looks of things. Does that
help you any, Harry?' It seemed more agitated than usual. So they did know. That put him
behind.

'What did he mean by I have to come to him? What does that mean? Like for a meeting? It
sounded like he meant… Permanently-'

'I'm no privier to that than you are,'

'Yeah, but you know why… Why would Dumbledore be- why would he keep me defenceless on
purpose?' There was a long pause, and Harry assumed that it was done talking to him.

'You're so thick I can hardly stand it. Genuinely. Cast Liquida Tenebris Harry before I kill us
both.' It fizzed in his head, and though he only half believed it, the spell was due.

There was still the issue of Hermione's tracking spell.

'Do it here,' it told him.

'Oh, right yeah, of course, flood the dormitory with your evil smoke cloud and choke the
whole of Gryffindor?' Harry scoffed out loud.

'It's our… evil smoke cloud, for the record. Ward it in.'

'Oh, I see, the magic is yours, but the spell is ours. What ward holds that in?'

'I'm so glad you asked actually,' it ignored his comment and extended the magic. Harry took
it, removed his wand from under his pillow, silenced his bed and stuck the curtains while he
waited for instructions. It did the casting for him, words he didn't recognize in his mind as his
wand was guided by a vague feeling of correctness. A small dome formed above his head
within the confines of his curtains, shimmering faintly silver. He reached out to touch it and
found that it was solid.

'Do you think that… Condensing it in a small space like this is a good idea?' Harry asked.

'I really do.'

When he cast it and the weight of the darkness crushed him, forced the air from his lungs as it
pinned him to the bed, violently, blessedly destroying his thoughts, he found that he agreed.
By Sunday, four days later, he'd had enough of Hermione and Ginny both. The youngest
Weasley was a ghost, Hermione Granger a poltergeist.

Hermione had gone to the headmaster twice since he'd tried Legilimency on Ginny, but he
hadn't been called to see Dumbledore yet. And he knew it was when not if. The only victory
he had was that he'd managed to run for ten minutes straight on Saturday. The rest felt
miserable. Ron was entirely stoic at the sight of him, minimally responding. The older
Weasley spent more time pestering Hermione than anything else. Harry didn't know what was
going on with him, but he hadn't managed to get a real, meaningful word out of him since…
He wasn't sure when. Before that year, at least.

Hermione seemed to distrust everything he said, regardless of authenticity. So, slowly, he said
nothing to her, choosing to instead steal away from her and Ron when they fought for no
reason. He knew that she would track him, that she would know that he was leaving just to
run around the grounds, that she knew he was giving her the slip on purpose. She was
becoming increasingly frazzled, snapping at Ron with more and more ferocity, and picking at
every word the Harry said until the Chosen One found he could barely stand her anymore.
The fact that she had put a tracking spell on him, that she told the headmaster about it, and
that he'd allowed it to continue, was leaving an increasingly sour taste in his mouth.

'Why wouldn't you leash your dog?' The thing had taken to egging him on about it.

He found that worst of all he missed Ginny. Several times he'd sat up late in the Common
Room without her, wishing that he'd just left well enough alone. So what if she'd stolen the
cloak? So what if she was hiding something? So was he. And now he was alone with it. And
he supposed, so was she. He'd watched her on the map, wandering the castle, occasionally
talking to Luna, Neville, or Hermione, but mostly by herself. Sometimes she vanished from
the map entirely.

He'd been running that evening, before dinner, the thing in his head keeping minutes as he
tried to distract himself from… All of it. He was doubled over, catching his breath -eleven
minutes, it told him- when he heard the last voice he wanted to hear.

"Harry my boy, fancy finding you out here," Dumbledore called. Harry remained doubled
over, though he'd lost the breath he'd been trying to catch. The thing scrambled to hide what
was now quite a number of errant thoughts and actions, while Harry tried to buy time. He
couldn't shake the suspicion that he'd been given no warning on purpose as Dumbledore
approached him, still talking, "I thought it was a lovely evening for a walk, don't you agree?"

"Yes, sir," Harry muttered, slowly rising, as ready as he was ever going to be as he locked
eyes with the headmaster. He wasn't surprised at all when the man entered his mind.

"Were you running?" He asked as he moved over the last few days in his memory. The thing
gave him scrubbed versions, showing Ron and Hermione squabbling like infants, slinking
away from them to run, to clear his head. At that point, it was a concentrated, paired effort.
He and the thing were wrestling with each other's anger and fear. Harry would pass his
emotions and thoughts freely, quickly, while resisting the ones he could.
"Yes, sir, it… Clears my head. Things with Hermione and Ron have been- I don't know if
you've noticed…" Harry said, trailing off while Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.

"They aren't getting along very well, as of late, are they?" The headmaster asked, still
searching his memories, now focused on finding the nights Hermione must have told him
were unaccounted for. The thing showed him Harry wandering the halls aimlessly under the
invisibility cloak.

"You mustn't stray too far from those you love, Harry, you'll find they are anchors in the
coming storm," Dumbledore said as the thread vanished.

It held his emotions and thoughts until the man was out of sight, and then it released them
like a tidal wave.
 Vessel

Serenity, Godsmack

I'm the one in your soul, reflecting in the light

Protect the ones who hold you
Cradling your inner child

I need serenity
In a place where I can hide
I need serenity
Nothing changes, days go by

Where do we go when we just don't know

And how do we relight the flame when it's cold?
Why do we dream when our thoughts mean nothing
And when will we learn to control?

The next week passed in much the same manner, with Ginny and Ron avoiding him in two
different ways, Hermione doing anything but. He'd managed to get his running time to fifteen
minutes with a good pace, but he couldn't imagine forty.

The thing in his head had begun pestering him early in the week to let it show him
Legilimency on Snape. Which was something it wanted to do for unknown reasons, although
Harry could hazard a guess. He'd told it that there was no way that he was going to do that.
The risk was too great. It had argued back that wasting time was the greater risk, and they'd
been stuck on it for days.

The Slytherins had gone from watching him in horror, to confusion, then for some reason to
awe, still mixed with bafflement. Several times, he'd passed Malfoy or Zabini in the corridor,
and they'd paused, mouths open with unasked questions before they would walk away,
shaking their heads in silence. He'd wanted to ask, but he had Hermione, hovering and
watching when she was with him and when she wasn't. Which was a problem on that day
particularly because he was meeting Cassiopeia at eleven. He'd briefly considered just not
going, but the thing had thrown an unholy tantrum at the mere suggestion.

Harry sat in the Common Room, watching Ron watching Hermione.

'Let- Would you consider,' it began, and Harry flicked his eyes back to the Herbology text in
his lap, 'Would you consider… Letting me fight her,'

'Do you mean to say that you have the means to control my body and my magic?' Harry
forced the thought out with emphasis on each word. There was a long pause.

'You suspected as much,'

Harry fought to stay in his seat, glancing at Hermione, 'I… You also know I didn't want it to
be true,'

'I do. You think I would cause havoc, hurt the people you love, do objectively evil things. You
think I would do things you won't admit you want. You think I'd do these things,' there was
something like adrenaline making Harry's heart pound, 'Without permission.'

'So, you'd do those things… With permission? Why would I give you permission to do any of
that?'

'Why would you.' It repeated.

Harry frowned, tucking his head lower and turning the page of the book he wasn't reading.

'Like they said, you've been kept weak on purpose. Is that what you want? To stay that way?
We can show you how. You can watch through your eyes, feel what I feel, so you can learn.' It
said once he'd thought it was done. Harry swallowed.

'I'm not… Stronger than you in your own mind. I cannot move you unless you allow it. If you
take it back, I cannot keep it from you.' The voice was needling, sensing a small agreement in
his thoughts. That yes, for some reason he wasn't as strong as he should have been,
considering what he'd been set against.

But what he'd been set against was Voldemort.

'Who better to train you, then.'

Harry sucked in a breath and could feel himself losing the fight. He was annoyed with the
way it found the path of least resistance, every time. It wasn't wrong. And it wasn't a bad
idea. In theory.

'And the Vow? You can't say anything about it to her with my mouth, can you?'

'It's not something I'd risk trying.'

'Are you sure about that? She made you lose it last time. Every time we dream about her you
need to overdose us on Calming Draughts.'

'She caught me off guard. I know how to say nothing to Cassiopeia. For all intents and
purposes, I'll be you.'

Harry thought the odds were good that she would figure it out straight away, but if it didn't
break the Vow that wouldn't matter anyway. They'd already assumed it was sentient.

'Exactly,' Harry could practically hear it purring in his ear.

He likely would learn faster if his body moved of its own accord. If he could follow it, watch
it, and create muscle memory. He was also interested in the idea of having a fighting chance
against the vampire.
'We agree?'

'Well, no, I didn't say that yet,' Harry resisted, but they both knew he'd given in.

That night the plan was the same, act as though the room had broken Hermione's magic,
which they hadn't been able to confirm if she believed. He'd cast Liquida Tenebris the night
before, tucked in his warded bed, not wanting either of them to be as foggy as last time.

Having the same plan twice made both nervous, but the Time-Turner went a long way in
settling his anxiety. What evil could he possibly be getting into in the Room of Requirement
in the span of two to ten minutes by himself? He threw on his invisibility cloak at a quarter
past ten, a new fear in his gut as he quietly pushed the portrait open.

He was going to let the thing in his head control his body. He was taking its word that it
wouldn't be able to keep control. He hadn't seen anything indicating that that wasn't the case,
but the nerves fired up regardless. The voice didn't say anything to him as he made his way
through the halls, keeping a brisk pace but careful not to make any noise.

By the time he was inside the room, his heart was hammering. He tucked the cloak and the
map away. The Time-Turner lived around his neck.

'How… Do we do this then?' Harry asked, grateful to not have to use his voice.

'Relax. Don't fight,'

At once there was a sensation like the thing was expanding, unravelling as it grasped at the
threads of his consciousness. His body jerked as he fought the automatic desire to resist. It
was pulling him gently into the space it usually occupied while his blood was screaming,
though the beat of it felt further and further away. He experienced his limbs as though they
were fully numb. He knew where they were in space, but suddenly couldn't move them,
couldn't gauge sensation accurately.

'Relax,' It repeated, sounding much more like it was outside his head, its voice reverberating
in his ears. His senses slowly dulled, slightly muffled and blurred like was watching his life
on an old television. He could feel its emotions and hear its thoughts as though he was in a
cyclone of them. Harry felt much smaller in his own head.

The thing itself was ecstatic. It looked at Harry's hands and it laughed, a short, sharp sound.
The Chosen One could feel its excitement like he was being showered in it, crackling in his
brain. It sharply inhaled, then exhaled, then inhaled again. Then it laughed a second time,
gasping until it sat them down on the stone in a heap. Harry was watching it all, slightly
worried. He'd figured that it wanted this, he'd guessed as much when it had asked. Harry had
seen the value in it, and so disregarded the fact that he was being corralled. The reality that it
was so overjoyed it had to sit down was making him second guess himself though. Despite
that, he could feel he could indeed take his body and magic back, it was almost an effort not
to.
"Don't. Please-" It shook Harry's head at the sound of their voice, "I did want this... I wasn't
expecting it to be so… It's been a long time since-"

'Is this how it feels to be you?' Harry asked.

It looked at his hands again, "I think so," it stood up, shaky.

Harry could feel his heart beating as though it was kilometres away. A fresh wave of
adrenaline washed over them as the thing raised his hands and shot an explosion of electricity
into the air from his fingers. While inside his own head, Harry could see the workings of it.
He could see the dark tendrils of the thing connected to every nerve and fibre, see his magic
thrumming under its command in his mind's eye. But he could also see another bubble of
magic, one that he was familiar with. He realised with a start that it was indeed not his as he
reached out to touch it. It was darker, angrier, and smaller than his own, though it felt no less
potent.

It stopped shooting bolts into the room when it noticed him examining the ball of power.

'You weren't lying…' Harry said, though it felt more to himself. The magic roiled under his
touch, simultaneously pulling away and pulling him in.

"It's a shame you haven't noticed, Harry, that I seldom lie to you," it said as it cast a wordless,
wandless Tempus, and stepped into the cabinet.

It stepped out, spotted Narcissa, and gave her a sharp nod as it took her arm before she
offered it. Which, more than anything prior, made her gasp in alarm. It tugged her arm
impatiently, and she Apparated them to the heavily warded, far-flung building, then
disappeared with a crack.

It was already holding wandless shields in place as it pushed the door open and stepped
inside. At first glance the room was empty, but its eyes found Nagini, in the corner of the
room obscured by the desk, curled in a large pile, head raised watching him. Harry felt its
breath hitch and was overwhelmed with its adoration as it approached her without hesitation,
cupping her head in both of Harry's hands.

"There she is," it cooed in Parseltongue. Nagini didn't respond but allowed them to touch her,
not taking her eyes off theirs.

'Why is she here? I thought we were seeing Cassiopeia?' Harry asked, nervous.

'Safe to assume the Dark Lord is nearby.' It told him, nonplussed, stroking Nagini between
the eyes with two fingers.

It stayed there for a moment before it stood and turned toward the door, taking a few steps
back from the snake; watching the entry. A few minutes later it opened, and Cassiopeia
appeared, already smiling at him. Harry felt it brace as she slowly approached them,
examining. Magic was already crackling from the both of them, making her grin wide. Harry
felt his face smile too, small, but she noticed it, taking three quick steps forward so they were
inches apart. She put one hand up, palm facing him as she stopped.
The thing put Harry's hand up as she reached them, and touched their hand to hers, palm to
palm. Harry's heart was pounding at the sight of her, but the thing made no indication
outwardly that it was having an effect. She was grinning madly, eyes wide.

"I see you," she whispered.

The thing drew back Harry's spare fist and threw it at her face.

To Harry's shock, it landed. She spat blood on the floor; still smiling as she lunged for him. It
rolled backward, taking her with him, flipping her over with her momentum. It and the
vampire corrected at the same time, circling, grinning.

It released a shockwave of magic from Harry's body, shattering the windows and stumbling
her. It sent out two more before she could get back on her feet, stepping backwards away
from her while it moved his arm above his head, magic swirling around the room as it swept
all the shards of glass into the air. With the other hand, it spewed the blackness of Liquida
Tenebris, keeping the vampire in place. It was deliberate in not allowing the spell back in, but
Harry could feel it was not a small amount of concentrated effort.

The instant it released the darkness, it shot the shards of glass at her, thousands of pieces
shredding the shield she fought to keep up. It dropped the glass once they began to break
through, cutting gashes into her face and arms. She was still smiling, supernaturally fast as
she ran at them; shooting random magic frantically that it struggled to deflect as she tackled
them a second time. It threw up a shield that she shattered with what felt like a Bombarda,
winding them.

Then she slammed her fangs into Harry's neck, making it scream. She ripped her head back,
mouth spilling blood all over the front of them as it struggled out from under her. It kicked
her with both feet directly in the mouth with a satisfying crack as soon as it was able. She
scrambled backward, laughing, hair wild, face and body covered in blood and wounds. She
leaned against the wall, still sitting; legs splayed out in front of her.

"What happened to not biting?" The thing spat, hand on Harry's neck.

"He didn't say anything about not biting you. Have you missed that as much as I have?"

"More," it laughed again, the same short, sharp sound.

They watched each other for a long moment, and Harry felt the million things that it wanted
to say to her whirling in his head.

Nagini took that moment to shake glass off her body, distracting the thing as it removed the
rest of the shards from on and around the serpent with Harry's magic.

"Forgive me," it told the snake in Parseltongue.

"Forgiven, Tom," Nagini said.

The name hit it like a punch in the gut, Harry felt it stop breathing. Its thoughts jumped
wildly; he got whiplash trying to follow them. All at once he was aware of how much it
resented being a 'thing'. Being 'it'. Nameless and squashed, despised by the only person it
could communicate with. It had loathed the name, once, hated what it had represented, but it
loathed what Harry had created with far more intensity.

The realization that Nagini had seen and acknowledged it had taken the wind out of both of
them. Harry was shocked to mostly feel guilty. It was beginning to scramble in his head as
though it was a monkey trapped in a cage, which made Harry feel worse.

"We've been productive," it said, standing, locking eyes with Cassiopeia, "I'm leaving."

She'd been watching them with curiosity and continued to do so as it stalked out of the house
and the wards, Apparating back to Borgin and Burkes. It didn't look for Narcissa as it
climbed into the cupboard and closed the door.

'I'm… I didn't realise…' Harry said as it emerged from the cupboard in the Room of
Requirement. He could feel the pain it was in at the thought of returning to the confines of his
head, the panic and desperation that rose with it. Over and over the image of Cassiopeia and
Nagini flashed in his head; desperate to be with them; howling to be free of the Chosen One.

"Of course, you didn't realise," it hissed, "I'm nothing to you."

Harry could feel the tightness in his throat. It seemed to be waiting for Harry to take his body
and magic back, but he didn't. He waited, quiet, feeling far more guilt than he'd anticipated. It
crossed the space and collected the cloak and the map, questioning him but not directly. He
ignored the silent question as it healed the bite on his neck, vanishing the blood as it threw
the cloak over their heads and moved toward the exit, turning the Time-Turner one and a half
times. Once the room was done whizzing around, it took them out of the room and back to
the tower, not saying anything to him. Harry responded in kind.

He could feel that it was confused at being allowed to remain in control, despite no longer
needing to. The truth of it was that Harry felt cruel. So, he didn't do anything as it walked
back, let it cast sticking and silencing charms on his curtains. As it laid back on his bed and
closed their eyes it was still questioning him, seemingly unwillingly. He continued to ignore
it, sensing that it wasn't really asking; that it didn't want him to acknowledge it. As though
trying to hide from his perception while being undeniably massive. Harry wondered if this
was what it looked like when he was trying to be tactful.

'Just… Go to sleep,' he told it, after a few minutes had passed and it became clear it couldn't
stop looping its thoughts.

When he awoke the next morning, it was quiet in his head. He could feel it, curled small, as
far from him as it seemed possible for it to get. So, he left it, guilt still washing through him
as he walked alone to an early breakfast. He was surprised to see Ginny in the hall, one of the
only Gryffindors, and one of the seven students all counted at breakfast at ten past six in the
morning on a Sunday. He sat beside her before she could bolt, hoping that sitting beside and
not across from her would soothe her nerves.

"Ginny, wait," he said as she made to stand, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."
"I haven't told anyone, Harry," she scoffed as though she thought that was the only reason he
was apologizing.

"No- I… It's not up to me… Who you tell," Harry bit out, "I shouldn't have done it. But you
took the cloak. You've been sneaking around and lying to me, Ginny," he said, and she
abruptly stood up.

"Oh? And it's your business? In the same way that you're lying and sneaking about is mine?"
She hissed, climbing off the bench seat, and storming away before he could say another
word.
 Lost

Words as weapons, Seether

Keep me dumb, keep me paralyzed

Why try swimming, I'm drowning in fable
You're not that saint, that you externalize
You're not anything at all

It's oh so playful when you demonize

To spit out the hateful, you're willing and able
Words are weapons of the terrified
You're nothing in my world

Say can you help me, right before the fall

Take what you can and lead me to the wolves

Hermione found him at breakfast a few minutes after Ginny had stormed away. She replaced
the tracking spell nonverbally, presumably under the table, while she frowned at him. The
thing in his head was incensed as it alerted him, angrier than he'd ever felt it. Harry fought it
and his own rage down as he locked eyes with her. He knew he was glaring as he entered her
head but didn't try to stop it.

"-Understand why it's not sticking… Can't find anything in the library about the Room of
Requirement, can never find him afterwards but then he just comes back downstairs to the
Common Room? Dumbledore swears that he hasn't found anything strange, that I should be
less aggressive, but he's just getting worse and worse… There's no way that he could
possibly… But he's always looking at me like-"

The thing pulled its magic back.

'Stop scowling directly into her head and eat your breakfast,' it snapped. Harry obeyed,
refocusing on the food he'd been ignoring and pretending Hermione had never sat down in
the first place.

Two days later, in defence, the thing in his head resumed its needling about letting it practice
on Snape.

'Legilimency is much different when used against Occlumency,' it had said this before.

'And so, the risk of getting caught is insane,' Harry had said that before, too. He was
squeezing his quill too tight, bending it, as he kept his eyes firmly away from the Defence
professor.
'Your fear of the truth is boring me,' it told him while he ignored it, 'Don't you want to know
what he swore? Why?'

'He swore to help Malfoy. I don't care why anymore.'

'And what about Dumbledore?'

This gave Harry pause. There were several questions he'd like to cross reference in that man's
head.

'And so first, we fry smaller fish,' it insisted.

'I wish you'd shut up,' Harry told it, heart hammering as he looked up at Snape, who was
looking over the room and talking about the danger of underestimating a dragon.

'I know,' it said as it threw its magic across the room, landing with feather lightness on the
man's eyes.

Harry watched, blood thrumming in his ears as the thing entered Snape's mind with surgical
precision. Everything inside was walled shut, mountainous structures with no visible give
cropped up in the man's mindscape like colossal tombstones.

'Occlumency appears and acts differently in each person. A unique signature and style of
protection. Snape's is formidable, some of the most impressive Occlumency I've ever seen. I'm
familiar with his mind, but there are places even I have been unable to access,' it told him as
it moved fluidly between the structures.

It seemed to know where it was going as it snaked through his head.

'When I show you this, I want your assurance that you will not react. You understand the
situation we would be in.'

So, it already knew what it was going to show him. 'Well, that's ominous, maybe just show me
what he had for breakfast?'

'If you can't control your reaction, I will. If you'll allow it,' it had paused outside a memory,
older than most of the others.

'I… How bad is it?' Harry was aware that they didn't have much time; that Snape would
eventually stop talking and break eye contact with the room.

'It will raise several questions, I'm sure.'

'Well… Then…' Harry paused, debating, wanting to see it, and wanting anything but to see it,
'Do it first. Control my emotions first.'

There was a flicker of surprise before it did as he asked, then wormed into the memory
through a crack in its facade.
Harry saw a little red-headed girl from Snape's perspective, maybe nine years old, her green
eyes twinkling as Snape transformed the falling leaves of a tree into tiny fluttering birds,
flitting about her face and getting caught in her hair as she giggled.

'Your mother,' the voice said, sounding like it was standing right behind him.

The instant it spoke it quickly but gently removed its magic from the Defence professor's
head. It was right. It did raise several questions.

'Why would you show me that,' Harry asked first, eyes back to being glued on his parchment
while he used the emotion-free time to digest what he'd seen logically. The two of them
barely seemed old enough to be Hogwarts students, both of them dressed in plain clothes. So,
they'd met beforehand?

'I feel it is important, but I've only been able to guess why. You know almost as much as I do,
now.'

'Almost.'

'Almost,' it repeated.

'Why would he give up my parents if they were… Friends?' Harry wondered, and there was a
long pause.

'There were… Two possibilities. He seemed to have hope that your mother wouldn't be the…
Target.'

'Give me my emotions back now.'

'Are you sure that is… Wise?'

'Now,' he repeated, standing up and walking out of the classroom, ignoring Snape calling after
him. As he did the detention that was threatened if the Chosen One didn't return to his
seat right now.

It waited until he was clear of the room to release his emotions, and he was overcome with
them. Confusion and rage, the rage mostly directed at the thing in his head. For showing him,
for existing, and for playing a part in killing his parents. He hated it for being part of the man
who'd ruined it all, for one line of a prophecy. He could feel the thing retreating from his ire,
so he made sure it heard him.

'For one line that was fucking fabricated,' he hissed in his head, 'Two possibilities? Why not
kill all the options and be thorough for once in your life Tom?'

He'd stopped his tirade instantly when he noticed that he'd called it Tom, both shocked into
silence.

He refused to acknowledge it for several days after that and it seemed fine to let him, until the
morning of the Slytherin versus Ravenclaw Quidditch match.
'It's been a week,' it said, referring to the spell and the familiar hunger beginning to itch.

He was sat in the stands, watching the teams enter the pitch. Ron and Hermione either side of
him, though none of them had exchanged a kind word all day. All week. Harry thought that
they weirdly felt like sentinels. Like gargoyles.

He spotted Malfoy's blonde head on the pitch. So, he'd been reinstated on the team. Suddenly
not as busy? Harry wondered, not for the first time, what the three disasters that the Dark
Lord referred to were. He was one of them, he'd assumed. But what were the other two? Why
had things gone so quiet? Harry felt like any problem he presented had been swiftly dealt
with by the Vows.

Hermione startled him by talking, "I saw Professor Dumbledore in the halls after dinner last
night. He asked me to tell you he'd like to see you this evening." Her tone was wooden and
formal. Harry just nodded. He knew the headmaster hadn't told her this in passing in the
halls, but it made no difference.

Harry finally silently acknowledged that it was time to cast as he watched the players kick off
into the air. He was fairly certain Slytherin had the Cup in the bag that year. Malfoy was a
better seeker than the Ravenclaw offering by a mile, and so Harry stood up, Hermione and
Ron following him without a word as he left the stands.

The things he had felt, learned, and seen were beginning to leave deep marks inside his head.
He felt unreal as he dragged himself across the grounds, "friends" in tow, feeling hollow,
sick, and numb.

He'd frequently thought about how it felt when the thing had controlled his body. How it felt
to be trapped inside his head, however willingly. He didn't like thinking about how it would
feel if he were unwilling. Like it was. He usually followed these thoughts up with awe at how
powerful the thing was. How it moved, cast, reacted. Leagues above him. Thriving in it. He
wanted that; he was past denying it. That thought would invariably bring up the same
questions. Why, if this was his enemy, practically preternatural in battle, was his education so
lacking? So lacking that it felt deliberate?

He hadn't even thought about Snape and his mother, every time he broached it, on purpose or
by accident, he'd build a rage he felt like he couldn't hold.

Harry didn't say anything to Ron or Hermione as they entered the Common Room, nor did he
say anything when he ascended the dormitory stairs, locking himself in his curtains, silencing
them, then casting the solid ward.

'You know why it feels deliberate?' It asked.

"Because it's deliberate," Harry bit out.

'Do you remember when I said I could show you how often he'd used Legilimency on you?'

"I don't want to know," he growled, but he did want to know; it knew he did, so it showed
him anyway.
It felt as though almost every interaction he'd ever had with the headmaster whipped past his
mind's eye, bound by the same silver thread Dumbledore used to see into his head. Countless
times a year, searching over and over for… Something. When it finally stopped, he realised
that tears were streaming freely down his cheeks.

"I- said I didn't want to know," it came out in a whisper, and before it could reply, "Liquida
Tenebris."

As it crushed him, it, and his thoughts, he realised he was still crying.

He'd let the way it felt wash him out entirely until sometime past the start of lunch. He didn't
want to get out of bed even once he felt like he was able. Outside seemed worse than inside
as he dragged himself for food, the spell doing little for his sour mood. Hermione had
apparently waited for him the entire time, looking at him with suspicion from an armchair.

"I was taking a nap, alright with you?" He snapped before he could stop it.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a nap. And he hadn't been taking one, but that
felt beside the point. It was far, far more likely that he was napping over feeding a piece of
Voldemort its dark breakfast while it showed him all the times the headmaster had betrayed
his trust.

She looked appalled and returned to her book, not following him out of the portrait hole for
once.

"I'm afraid I have unfortunate news about the Horcrux we were searching for, Harry,"
Dumbledore began as Harry sat down; ready when the headmaster entered his mind; his face
a mask, "It seems as though the trail has gone cold."

Harry narrowed his eyes while the thing in his head scrambled for the thought that this was
somehow Harry's fault; that Voldemort had been warned by either his thoughts or his
memories, "What do you mean, Sir? It's lost?"

"Well, you could say it was always lost," Dumbledore said, more to himself as he turned over
the Chosen One's memories, shaking them for details, "But I have lost all trace of it."

"Of course, as always I will alert you at once when I have word." The headmaster said,
smiling sadly over his spectacles as he sent Harry out into the night feeling worse than he
started.

Harry once again fell into an uneasy rhythm, Ginny avoiding him with expert precision, Ron
avoiding him in all other ways, Hermione scowling at him whenever he breathed in her
presence. Interspersed by the thing in his head needling, questioning, agitating him. While he
felt guilty and hated it for making him feel that way. When he slept, he saw its memories, or
it saw his.
By Thursday it told him the spell was due. They were set to see Cassiopeia on Saturday, and
neither of them had broached the subject of who was going to fight the vampire. He cast the
spell that night, letting it knock him unconscious.

Friday brought more weird, pointed looks from Malfoy, and so he'd found him during the
break. Ron and Hermione were busy fighting over lunch when he snuck away, finding the
Slytherin in a second-floor bathroom with Zabini on the map. He'd been running and all but
kicked the bathroom door open. Anxious to get it over with without bringing Hermione's
attention to it.

Both Slytherins had screamed, jumping apart when he entered, Zabini tucking something
quickly into his robes. Harry found that he didn't care. The dark-skinned Slytherin stared at
the Boy Who Lived until the blonde shooed Zabini out of the bathroom.

"Here," Malfoy said, once he was gone, producing another white envelope, "I'm not supposed
to ask what that is, so I won't."

"Okay…" Harry said, shaking his head, exiting the bathroom, and stuffing the letter into his
inner pocket.

It burned a hole there until bedtime, Hermione hadn't let him out of her sight since he'd
vanished for fifteen minutes at lunch. He stuffed it under his pillow as he got ready for bed,
then lit the inside of his curtains with the tip of his wand once he was locked inside. He tore
open the envelope immediately.

Henceforth, I allow Harry James Potter to discuss the nature and contents of his Vow with
the witch known as Cassiopeia Maria Bearstrom.

Tom Marvolo Riddle

There was a small blot of what looked like blood on the letter, and the paper itself hummed
with magic he couldn't identify.

'I want to talk to her,' it said as soon as he'd finished scanning the words.

Harry knew it would want that, but Harry was suddenly far more wary. What would it say to
her, with free reign? What would she say to it? Harry could feel it deflate as his paranoia
grew.

Unbidden he thought about the panic he'd watched it go through when it came time to give up
its freedom; the way it had just wanted to sit in her presence, and he felt guilt rising like bile.

'I don't owe you anything!' Harry snapped inside his head when he felt it watching his train of
thought.

'Well aware.'

Harry shook his head, frowning hard.

'I can't really expect you to go in and talk to her with my best interests at heart,' he continued.
'No, you can't.'

'It's a stupid idea. I don't understand why he would go through all that effort to make the Vow
and then let her in on it.'

'She is Cassiopeia.'

Harry's heart hammered as he tried to understand why he still felt like he was more likely to
allow it than not. All the reasons not to aside…

'Fine. Fine. Fine! Talk to her,' he'd snapped, rolling over angrily as he jammed his eyes shut.

By Saturday night the thing had suggested that they Obliviate Hermione. It had suggested 'to
infancy', to be precise. Harry could feel it pacing corner to corner in his head, agitated. They
had no further ideas on what to do with Hermione, as Harry wasn't about to Obliviate her.
Though she was proving to be a colossal nuisance. The Chosen One was taking solace that
she seemed to still suspect it was the room doing the cutting of the tracking spell. That if he
made it to the room fast enough, he would be pretty much walking right back out.

Which was the only plan. So, that's what he did. He broke into a sprint as soon as he was free
from the portrait hole.

He was more nervous than he was the first time, the lack of the Vow in her presence changed
the situation. As soon as he came to stand in front of the cabinet the thing in his head was
pulling on the threads of his control, begging it gently from his hands. He fought
hyperventilation as he let go, falling backward into his mind, losing all sensation as though
he'd fallen into the ocean.

It tucked his belongings in the usual drawer and entered the cabinet. Harry was debating
whether or not he should just make himself small, try and ignore the intensity of its emotions
and the meeting altogether. It was as nervous as he was. Possibly more so, but it was also
thrilled. There was something else, too, crowded out on purpose and hidden from his mind's
eye. Harry was still trying to work out how to not watch when Narcissa Apparated them to
the now familiar house.

It thanked her then ran to the building, bursting through the door before Narcissa had
Disapparated. Cassiopeia was sitting in the high-backed chair, Nagini at her feet. Both
watched them enter. The vampire gestured for it to sit, and it did. Harry could feel his heart
leaping with adrenaline as she smiled at them.

She scanned his face for a moment. Searching for it, Harry assumed. It didn't say anything or
change its expression as she watched but her eyes lit in recognition regardless.

"I have some questions," she began, "Tell me how it is you're controlling his body?"

"He has to allow it," it told her.

She startled them both by squawking, half laugh half disbelieving shriek.
"He has to allow it?" She repeated, incredulous, "How on Earth would you get him to allow
it?"

Harry felt a slow smile form on his face. Smug. He then noticed that she was reading from
something in her lap.

"Alright, don't tell me, I'll guess. Okay… Dreams. Tell me about… Dreams? It just says
dreams," She flapped the small notebook in the air.

The mention of dreams wiped the smile off Harry's face.

"He… Dreams- when he dreams, most often, they are my memories. Sometimes, they're his."
Harry could see several more thoughts pop up at this that it quickly hid.

This only served to bring his attention to the discussion with more interest.

"Let me ask you something, Cassiopeia, what does he dream about?" It asked.

She smiled, flashing her fangs in response.

"Liquida Tenebris?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

It sighed, looking from her to the snake, who was also watching him intently.

"Specifically?" It asked when she didn't elaborate.

"Why? I mean… That spell is- you know?" She gestured vaguely with her hand.

"It was his idea," it said, and she guffawed all over again. Harry remembered the dream.

'It was your idea,' the Chosen One snapped.

"Okay, it was both of our ideas," it added when Harry objected.

"And… Why?" She asked again, leaning forward.

"Honestly, I think you and the Dark Lord need to put your heads together and ask yourselves
why Liquida Tenebris."

She smirked at him, readjusting in her seat and looking down at the notebook.

"Two… Distinct magical signatures… Who does the casting? Of Liquida Tenebris?" She read
out loud.

"We both do," it told her, which was news to Harry. He thought back to when it said "ours".

"You both do?" She shook her head and Harry got to wondering how big a deal the spell was.

"Yes," it deadpanned, "Think. Cassiopeia."

She watched them for a moment, searching their eyes again. She looked down at the
notebook once more.

"How much do you remember?" She asked, looking back up.

"Everything." It said without hesitation.

"How much can he see?"

"He can see you right now."

"And what can he see of your memories?" Her eyes had widened when it had told her Harry
could see her, but she breezed past it.

"The dreams are involuntary and… In terms of content and risk, random. He can only see my
active thoughts when we are like this. I can hide… Some," at its words, Harry saw those
thoughts, surfacing then vanishing at their mention, too fast and numerous for him to catch.

"…Noted," she locked eyes with it, and Harry felt it warning her with his face, "And when
he's in Tom's head? Voluntary?"

'Noted,' the Chosen One parroted.

"No, but…" It gave her a pointed look and the Boy Who Lived wondered if that meant it
could be voluntary.

"And… How is he coping?" She asked, not looking at the notebook, making Harry wonder if
it was written down.

"Not- not well."

Harry felt it stop itself before it told her about his tendency to hurt himself.

"Does… Does he know?" She sent it a knowing look and the thing in his head fought panic.

"No. Don't," it hissed as it readjusted the stranglehold on its thoughts.

"Alright, okay. That's it for now, cut somewhat short by…" She gestured at Harry's head.

"Wait," it said, as she stood up, "I don't want to go back yet."

She sat back down as quickly as she'd stood and opened a drawer in the desk, taking out a
bottle and a glass as she watched them.

"No, I don't suppose you would, would you? Single malt." She said, shaking the bottle, "One
of the downsides… I do miss drinking." She winked at them as she leaned across the table,
offering the glass she'd poured. It thanked her, taking a small sip, then a longer one.

"Will you tell me what happened?" It asked after a long pause, eyes locked on a sleeping
Nagini.
"When?" She laughed.

"After… And then when- And obviously what happened after that. Edited." It said, making
no sense to Harry.

"Alright, after that night… I went to Albania, then Peru, then the far-flung half of Russia, for
a stint, even though you said that lead was long gone. The whole time I missed you
horrifically and I hoped you were dead, instead of…" She shook her head, "I found her in
Africa. There's really not a thrilling story to tell though; she turned me, and I loved her. She's
gone now, I'd rather skip over that, thank you. Recently… I'll tell you that he's… Changed.
That's why I'm here, now."

"…How?" It asked, finishing the drink and putting the glass on the desk. She poured another
and handed it back. It downed that one as well. Harry could feel confusion bubbling at her
words, for some reason making it wary.

"Good question."

"Even… Changed, why would you return?" It pressed.

"Good question," she repeated, smirking.

It had returned them to the castle four and a half hours later. It had largely sat in silence with
her, getting quite drunk while she told it stories about her travels, how she'd nearly died
several times, but her hope of kicking the Dark Lord's tombstone over had allegedly kept her
going.

It collected Harry's belongings, used the Time-Turner, and put them to bed. He was surprised
when it retreated, relinquishing control. Both were drunk and lightly influenced by Liquida
Tenebris, so Harry didn't ask his half-baked questions.

'Harry… Thank you.'

He'd nodded, falling asleep, "S'fine, Tom."

( AN : I'm so fuckin excited for chapter 20 that you get 2 in one day.)
 The Kids Are Not Alright

( TW: Heavy themes surrounding grief and death.)

PANIC!, Smith & Myers

It's a bottomless pit, if the straitjacket fits

Then go to the front of the line
It's a slippery slope wherever it goes
It's probably all in your mind

Did you name it yet?

Is it dangerous yet?
It's too late to forget
And here it comes

I start to panic, we need to go run and hide

I start to panic, because we're all gonna die
I start to panic, because the truth is a lie
I start to panic, you know, the kids are not alright

The first two weeks of June were the same strangely mundane rhythm. Run fast, avoid
Hermione, be avoided, feed the thing in his head every five days. It was a Thursday, and the
spell was due. He was still in class, one of the last for the year. He'd received no word from
Dumbledore on the Horcruxes, and there was still no Death Eater activity that substantiated
to anything. He hadn't spoken to Ginny, though he'd seen her. Mostly her back. Ron and
Hermione continued to fight, Hermione looking ready to bite the redhead. None of his
dreams had answered his questions.

In a little over two weeks, he'd be back at the Dursleys. Unable to use magic until his
seventeenth birthday. A full month without Liquida Tenebris. A problem. He'd been pushing
the thought down with all the others but as the date approached it was harder to do.

He'd asked the thing in his head about what it said to Cassiopeia, about what she had asked it,
particularly in regards to their interest in Liquida Tenebris, but it deflected his questions by
asking uncomfortable ones in return, until they squabbled like children. Harry had threatened
to not let it take the wheel the next time they saw the vampire, but it had called his bluff
annoyingly quickly.

When he cast Liquida Tenebris that night he noticed, as he had before, that it was growing
more potent each time he unleashed it. The intensity constantly pushed some threshold in him
further and further from a baseline that he didn't understand. Harry lost consciousness with
that knowledge at the edge of his thoughts.
Cassiopeia was laughing, her face red, her outer robe shed and left on the floor beside her,
tie loose. She kept her attention on Alicent, careful not to look at Harry, as though meeting
his eyes would trigger him to flee.

She 'd kept the wine flowing, and the three of them were quite drunk. It had dulled Harry's
unexplainable nerves somewhat, but he was wary of losing his inhibitions with what he
considered to be a stranger, though Cassiopeia had constantly presented Harry with the
Ravenclaw over the last few months. He knew she was up to something; she had a whiff of a
well-thought-out plan on her though Harry couldn't understand it.

As though she could hear him thinking about her, her eyes snapped to his. She grinned
slowly, then crawled across the floor towards the couch he and the Ravenclaw were sitting
on. The Chosen One 's heart began to hammer as she used the arm of the chair to pull herself
up to his face, alarmingly close. He didn't move, watching her as she inched closer to him,
frozen.

She pressed her lips to his, softly. Though she 'd never kissed him, it was familiar. Reassuring.
She pulled away and searched his eyes, still smiling as she turned to look at Alicent. He was
watching them, eyes hooded, cheeks red. Cassiopeia moved to him then, kissing his left cheek,
then the right, then lightly on his lips, before she sat back and turned Alicent's face to look at
Harry with her hand on his chin.

All at once Harry understood, and alarm flooded through him as Cassiopeia gently shoved
Alicent in his direction. He 'd never told her. Never even said it to himself in his head.

She rocked back onto her feet and slowly moved away as Harry struggled to tear his eyes
away from him, to stop them from flicking to his lips. Alicent was moving closer, and
something else was trying to overpower the fear in his gut. He heard the heavy doors of the
Room of Requirement close, and terror and desire mingled at once, freezing him in place
until one feeling won out.

"This can't- leave this room," Harry said, voice shaking. Alicent half smiled, leaning closer
still.

The Ravenclaw nodded and the overwhelming want moved Harry, crashed him into the
Ravenclaw 's mouth while he shoved him back onto the couch and pinned his arms above his
head-

Harry snapped awake, the thing in his head already in revolt, thrashing between his ears.

'Don't.' It kept saying, though Harry wasn't saying anything.

Wasn't thinking anything. Or he was trying not to. He sat up, trying to catch his breath and
calm his heartbeat.

"Oh," he said as he shifted.

Harry went still as realized that the dream had aroused him. Substantially.
"No. Nope. No," he took a Calming Draught from under his pillow and chugged it. That
wasn't…

He was yanked from the shock by a shuffling sound in the dormitory. He frowned, wondering
who was awake. He wasn't concerned about them hearing him, silencing charms had become
his bread and butter. He took the map out from under his pillow and squinted at the map in
the dark, not wanting to announce he was awake with the light of Lumos.

Ron, moving around the dormitory while Ginny paced in the Common Room. He cast a
Tempus. Three in the morning. He was going to follow them this time, relieved to have
something else to think about. Wanting to find out what they were doing once and for all. He
waited for Ron to descend the stairs and meet Ginny, then he crept out of bed to unlock his
trunk and grab his cloak, ignoring the way his heart was still beating in a far lower position
than usual. The thing in his head took a chance and destroyed Hermione's tracking spell,
hoping she was asleep and wouldn't notice. It was a problem for later, but it would be a
problem for now if they left it in place. Harry and the thing were pointedly ignoring each
other.

Ginny and Ron had already ducked out of the Tower by the time Harry reached the portrait
hole, but he watched them scurry away on the map. He followed at a distance; far enough
away that he couldn't actually see them as they rushed through the halls. Headed toward,
Harry assumed, the Forbidden Forest. Once they'd avoided Filch and absconded out one of
the side exits, Harry jogged to get closer as the map became useless. He caught the door
before it had fully closed, squeezing through.

The Weasley siblings were about ten metres ahead, jogging across the lawn, Ginny's head on
a swivel. Harry matched their pace, heart racing. He was glad for the running training,
suddenly. He'd gotten a lot better at not falling on his face. When they entered the tree line he
sped up, anxious about losing them in the dark. They were around five metres ahead of him
then, and he was careful not to snap any branches as he watched them and the forest floor,
stepping when Ron did, eyes flicking between the dirt and the redhead's feet. Ginny had her
wand raised, though she didn't create light, so the three of them moved in near pitch
blackness until she came to a stop in a small clearing.

Ginny began casting privacy wards, muffling and silencing charms, and wards he didn't
recognize, lighting the tip of her wand with Lumos. Ron, bizarrely, stripped his robe and
pyjama shirt off, then lay on the ground and stared blankly at the sky. Once she was done
casting, she came to stand beside her brother; close enough to Harry now that he could see
the tears streaming down her cheeks as she took a book from her bag, sitting it and herself in
the dirt. A burgundy, leather-bound tome with a title he couldn't read. The same one he'd seen
Ron buy at Hogsmeade.

Sweat was pooling on the back of Harry's neck as he watched her open it to a bookmarked
page covered in runes and markings that he'd never seen before.

'Closer. Show me the text,' it said, and so he inched toward the book, hyper-aware of himself
as Ginny began to chant in a language he'd never heard.
He stared at the markings and the thing in his head said nothing. Harry felt a bubble of
concern and recognition that it hid.

Ginny took a large, ornate knife from her inner robs. Her hands unsteady as she looked down
at it. Ron still hadn't moved, perfectly still save for the minute rise and fall of his breathing.
Harry fought to understand it, questioned the thing as his eyes grew wider. His heart beating
painfully fast as he looked from the knife to the book, to Ginny, then back to Ron.

Only when she stopped chanting; raising the knife above Ron's chest and moving to strike it
down, did Harry react.

"Ginny!" He gasped, grabbing her hands; still invisible.

She let out an unholy soul-rattling scream as she stumbled backwards, knife still in her hand.
She was already hyperventilating; eyes bulging as Harry removed the cloak. She didn't look
at him or Ron, instead she watched the ground, shaking, sobbing, muttering to herself. He
inched toward her and realised that she was saying 'no' over and over until she was suddenly
shrieking it and scrambling away from him, horrified. She'd dropped her wand, the clearing
made darker by leaves obscuring the Lumos.

"Ginny? Ginny!" The panic was seizing Harry too.

He kept looking at Ron, not comprehending his lack of… Anything.

"No! No! NO! NO! No, no… No…" She'd screamed it so many times her breath left her; she
tilted on her axis, face white.

'She's going to hurt herself,' it warned him when Ginny began to raise the blade in the
direction of her throat.

When Harry was too shocked to react, it did, yanking the knife to them with a nonverbal,
wandless Accio then stunning her still with its magic. Harry dropped the weapon and stood
staring at the scene as though he was absent from his head, confusion and shock freezing him
in place.

'Calming Draughts. In your pocket,' it directed him, and the Boy Who Lived remembered he
had arms and legs.

He took the potions from his pocket with numb fingers, hoping two would be enough. His
movements were jerky as he approached her, knelt beside her. The thing in his head helped
the potion find her stomach and not her lungs with magic while she was under the stun. It
waited a few seconds before releasing her.

She crawled away from him without hesitation, still sobbing, but not screaming.

"Ginny… What," Harry tried to form a question, but found that he couldn't find a coherent
one. She didn't look at him, curling into herself, becoming small.

"I- can't. I can't. I can't," she whispered repeatedly as Harry once again tried to get close to
her.
"You can't… What?" He tried to be gentle; it was clear that she was broken, but his panic and
confusion changed the tone of his voice.

"Azkaban. It's Azkaban. Harry, it's Azkaban. For this its…" She gasped; a deep inhale, before
she was sobbing uncontrollably again.

Unable to draw breath she fell into silence, shoulders heaving.

"Azkaban?" Harry returned his eyes to Ron, now behind them, still lying motionless, "Ginny.
What is this."

She looked as though the pain was physical as she winced away from him, finally sucking in
air, red in the face.

'What is this?' He asked the thing in his head.

It didn't respond.

"It's a- it's a life… Life sentence, Harry. If I- If they… If you tell them. If you tell them,
Harry. In Azkaban. I'll- Don't. Don't tell them. Please," she finally met his eyes. In them, he
saw devastation.

Harry thought about his own double life sentence as he looked at her, shaking, hiccupping,
fighting to stay upright, sweating bullets. He looked at her brother again; then back at the
knife he'd dropped in the leaf litter.

"Were you… Going to kill him?" He asked. Though it sounded ridiculous, that was certainly
what it had looked like.

She shook her head vehemently in response but was crying all over again, unable to form
words.

"Ginny, please…" Harry said, reaching for her. She flinched away.

"Don't make me- don't make me do this to you," she was weeping, shaking her head.

"I won't- I won't tell anyone," Harry said, realizing it was true.

"That's only… That's just part- telling you feels… Worse. It feels worse- than everyone else
it's… I'm so sorry, Harry, I'm sorry. You have to forgive me, please forgive me. This wasn't
your fault." She'd hidden her face in her hands and so he'd nearly missed the part where she'd
said that it wasn't his fault.

He wondered why on Earth he'd be sat there thinking this was his fault when she muttered
something else -something he missed the first time, when he replayed it the meaning flew
over his head- made no sense…

"What." His heart thundered as he looked at her, the thing in his head suddenly very large at
the rush of adrenaline. She hadn't said what he thought she'd said because it was
incomprehensible. Impossible.
"He's… He's- dead," She whispered.

"What."

"At-" She swallowed thickly, shook herself as though she had to physically fight the words
out, "At the Ministry… That night."

Harry's ears rang as her words landed, it was his turn to shake his head vehemently, "He's
right there."

She was crying. Mournful; wailing. Then she was screaming into the dirt with all her
strength, face so close to the ground she disrupted the leaf litter. Harry was standing, panting.
And then he was suddenly next to Ron, shaking him by the shoulders.

"Ron! Ron!" He was screaming too.

Ron didn't flinch, didn't move his eyes, or bat Harry off. Limp in his arms.

"Ron! No. No, Ginny, he's right here he's breathing."

She wasn't paying any attention to him, rocking back and forward. He was next to her in an
instant, holding her arms, making her look at him.

"He's breathing," he repeated, forcefully, gripping her tighter with each syllable.

She shook her head, "I- I- I keep him- breathing."

"What?!"

"I-" She stopped again, and Harry shook her, eyes bugging out of his head.

"It's… Necromancy." She'd breathed the word in disgust and looked down at her hands.

"Nec- Necromancy?" Harry repeated. Even though the word had no meaning, didn't make
sense.

She didn't answer, instead let him piece the rest of it together with what he already knew.
Ron's strange behaviour since that night at the Ministry. The way he never spoke a word to
Ginny, nor she to him. The way she had quietly mourned all year, hiding away behind locked
doors, in empty Common Rooms. Sat with him till the sun rose. The way she would say that
none of it was Harry's fault, that night. The vast, empty white expanse in Ron's head, the
sliver orb thrumming like a heart…

He looked at Ron and the weight came down; knocked the breath from him, closed his throat.
A numbness spread through his body while his stomach fell out of his middle; tears already
falling as he got shakily to his feet and stumbled to his best friend. Harry took Ron's hand and
shook it, then shook his arm, shoulder, head. He kept repeating his name, grabbing both sides
of his face and staring into his blank eyes; pleading with him, unable to comprehend it. He
could hear himself sobbing, refusing, panicking, but he could hardly feel it.
Collapsed beside him he found that he couldn't bear it. He was breaking. The blackness was
seeping from his fingers and chest as he sobbed; he could see it leaking from his eyes,
obscuring his vision. It was building and he couldn't stop it. Had no capacity.

'You have to take over, you need to do this, I can't. I can't. Please,' he begged it, but he didn't
need to.

It was already pulling him down into himself. Harry didn't fight it. It numbed him, tucked
him away. He thought he felt like a pebble, rolling around. It corrected the curse, shooting
what Harry had summoned into the trees. Then it turned to face Ginny, who was still crying
in a heap.

"Come. Back to the castle," it told her as it approached.

The stark change in tone and demeanour snapped her slightly out of her state as she looked at
them, blinking hard.

"We can get more Calming Draughts into you. We have been here too long, the sun will be
rising soon," it extended a hand to her, and she took it, frowning, stumbling to her feet.

She caught her breath, wobbling on her legs and looking at them as though she was accepting
her fate. She slowly approached Ron, shooting looks back at them as she collected the book,
the knife, and her wand. When Ron began to move, -to stand up from his place in the dirt- it
crossed the clearing and put a hand on Ginny's arm. She was crying silently.

"Leave him," it said, and she spun on them instantly.

"Leave him?!" She hissed.

It searched her face while she searched theirs; Harry watching its thoughts while a dark,
blank realization came over him.

"Leave him. He died at the Ministry," it said.

Ginny cried with volume then, collapsing back into the dirt, "No… I can't- why would you
say-"

"Do you want to carry him forever?" It asked, kneeling in front of her.

"I- no... But-"

"Then leave him. Come morning, someone will find him…"

Her eyes snapped up and she narrowed them, as though she'd just come out of a daze. She
surprised them by trying Legilimency; a small tentative thread came close to the edge of
Harry's mind before the thing shattered it, making her wince.

"Don't," it said, standing.

"Harry…" She was shaking her head.

"The sun is rising," it warned, "Leave him. Let go."

She continued to search their face as it helped her to her feet a second time. She gave a shaky
nod, her face breaking as her shoulders shook.

Ginny and the thing in Harry's head watched Ron's chest stop rising and falling.

It had returned her to the Common Room under the cloak. Then it had fetched a large number
of Calming Draughts from Harry's drawers and watched her take them; sat with her as the
morning light filled the Common Room. All the while she watched them, silently questioning
but too exhausted and erased by the potions to speak. Each time it felt for Harry, he resisted.
Didn't want to go back to it, didn't want to feel what he knew he could feel beneath the
numbness. At six-thirty, once Ginny had downed eleven draughts; it led her to the Great Hall
for breakfast. Unwilling to chance a run-in with Hermione any longer and needing them to
appear normal.

It had decided for both of them that they wouldn't be the ones to notice Ron's absence. Harry
could see that it was thinking about Hermione and the tracking spell it'd broken. It didn't
know if she'd noticed yet; but when she did, and Ron was found, their lack of a tracker was
inconveniently timed. It sat Ginny at the table and heaped her plate with bacon while it
churned through the details.

The youngest Weasley was silent, absent. Up to her ears in Calming Draught and recovering
from shock. It was a Hogsmeade day, so, the hall was half full despite the early hour, which
was good. More eyes to confirm them normal at breakfast. It checked for Harry again, and
the Chosen One pulled away from it, refusing once more.

It looked at the staff table to do a count of the teachers, searching for any absences, when it
noticed Dumbledore's eyes on them. Suddenly it was thinking things like 'last chance if
things go wrong'.

The Boy Who Lived had begun to question the trains of thought before he watched it propel
its magic from their head like a gunshot, travelling an unprecedented distance to reach the
headmaster.

Harry could feel its fear as it hesitated; hovering above Dumbledore's eyes, before it went in
with renewed resolution. The Chosen One could see that it was hoping the man's
Occlumency was 'transitive', a term that it had used to describe those with situational
protection. Throwing magic from this distance was neither expected nor regular. So, it hoped
that while he sat at the head of the hall far from the students and not looking at the staff
alongside him, his protection would be down.

While it entered his head Harry saw that it was half correct in this assumption. There was a
dense white fog in the headmaster's mind, but there were shapes, and thoughts, partially
visible within it. It slinked among them, searching fervently for something; checking the far
reaches of the man's mind. Despite Harry being fully sedated in his head he felt like this was
a bad idea, poorly timed. He was still not willing to take back control and feel what he was
feeling, and so the thing took advantage of the opportunity. After a few seconds of searching,
Harry watched it realise that it couldn't find what it was looking for because Dumbledore was
actively thinking about the memory.

"-Born as the seventh month dies." Trelawney intoned, her head thrown back and lulling
there as Dumbledore's eyes widened behind his desk. Harry realised what they were watching
with a dulled spike of adrenaline. The thing shushed him, took it off him, but the fear kept
bubbling.

"They will mark each other equal, both entrusted to those who revile their true nature."

The thing was rapt, watching it unfold with a mixture of horror and thrill at success while the
Boy Who Lived began to struggle.

"Each will hold power the other knows not," Trelawney continued, her tone flat as
Dumbledore scribbled on parchment.

The Boy Who Lived could feel his inner walls caving in.

The thing in his head too distracted by the prophecy to register that Harry was flailing,
gasping under the weight of it, 'Please… Stop.'

"And each must die at the hand of the other, for neither can die while the other survives, the
Dark Lord's equal shall rise as the seventh month dies-"

The Chosen One forced the thing back into its place with a crack, retracting its magic from
Dumbledore's head with no grace. He realised he was standing, all eyes on him as he panted,
chest rising and falling rapidly. The headmaster was standing as well, moving towards him.

'Stop. Harry, stop. Listen to me, you need to stop-' It was talking but Harry couldn't really
hear it above the ringing in his ears. Couldn't really hear it above all the sudden blood-
curdling screaming. Over Dumbledore's voice booming above all the other sounds, the
scraping tables, seats, cutlery, and plates crashing to the floor; the sound of bodies hitting
bodies as they scrambled away from him.

"STOP HIM!"

'Run. RUN.'

Harry had been trying to do that, but the blackness had exploded out of him. Filled the hall
rapidly, blocked out the sun.

Seconds later there was eerie silence.

'RUN!'

The best Harry could do was stumble, tripping over bodies dumbly while his whole being
vibrated. Spitting arcs of darkness almost without pause; pain tearing out of him with
screaming intensity. The thing in his head desperately fought for control but Harry couldn't
let go, as though he'd grabbed a live wire.
He felt for the doors by memory, sight useless. He tripped multiple times, his brain static as
he felt for a pulse on the nearest collapsed student. Alive. He kept going for the door, sure he
could hear movement, which only served to force the curse out with more aggression.

'Help me,' Harry managed to think, the effort colossal.

'I'm… Trying,'

He could feel it pushing, searching for purchase in his head while Harry moved his semi non-
responsive limbs toward what he hoped was the Room of Requirement while he spewed
Liquida Tenebris like a tsunami.

Somewhere down a hallway Harry hoped was in the right direction he lost the strength to
hold on. His consciousness and magic frayed, fractured. The thing took over the shattered
remains -the Boy Who Lived howling in their head- moving them toward the tapestry,
pacing, panting, still spitting the spell like a stuttering cough.

It shut them in the room, fighting the last waves of the curse before it struggled for the
cabinet -knocking random objects over as it went, causing avalanches of debris in their wake-
fighting for breath as it fell into the cabinet then out into Borgin and Burkes. With the job
done, it retreated. Neither of them moved to take control.

Narcissa had begun to say something when the cabinet opened but squealed in alarm when
they'd landed without resistance onto their face. Harry's eyes were open, and they both
watched, but neither had the strength or the will to pick it all back up. So, they saw the
Malfoy Matriarch panic, Apparate them to the little house with the wards, panic again, pace,
debate touching her Dark Mark with her wand, pace again, then Apparate them a second time
to wrought iron gates that they recognized. Malfoy Manor. She levitated them along behind
her while she moved as fast as her heels and dress would allow up the white gravel path.

(AN: They call that subverting expectations. I hope you had as much fun reading this chapter
as I did writing it ;). I like to stay 10,000 steps ahead of you in word count, and posting this
chapter early in the schedule likely means no chapter tomorrow xx.)
 The Path of Least Resistance

Shadow Wind, Dotan

Facing the water

Bodies are cold
Hitting the bottom
Floating across the ocean
We dive in the waves of hope
Drown as the world is floating

In this city of time

With no time to win
We all got caught by the shadow wind, shadow wind
Through the walls of blinds
Running past our skin
We all got caught by the shadow wind, shadow wind

Harry had begun to realise as the hours ticked by that he was still unable to take control of his
body. His emotions and sensations split into a million tiny pieces. He felt like he was rolling
in the glass inside his head. The thing was in a similar state; both of them shattered and shell-
shocked.

He'd been put in a bed in a darkened room and left alone by an increasingly distraught
Narcissa. He didn't know how many hours he'd laid there, but by the time the door opened
again, spilling candlelight into the room, night had fallen outside.

Cassiopeia: barefoot and creeping across the hardwood, carrying a lit candlestick that she
placed on the bedside while sitting next to him on the ornate four-poster. He registered all of
this numbly with his peripherals.

She was scanning him with her hands, Harry could feel her magic prickling his skin as she
moved.

"Ah. What have you done," she whispered.

She didn't try to rouse him. Instead, she left the room, taking the light with her.

Eventually exhaustion won out over the intense disarray of his head, and he fell into
something like sleep.

When he woke, he was still trapped in his head with the thing, neither of them able to form a
coherent thought; emotions scrambled and mixed; memories fragmented and wildly
confusing.
He could hear a hushed conversation outside the door. A man and a woman, arguing, it
sounded like. He got pieces of sentences as he stared at the intricately patterned white ceiling.

"-I'm not his keeper, you've barely told me the half-" the woman said.

"-In there I am liable to choke the life from him myself-" the man said.

"-Told you, you should. I'll do it right now if you're suddenly too squeamish, far more trouble
than it's-" she began, interrupted by the sound of a slap, a pause, another slap, then silence.

The Boy Who Lived was aware of the thing in his head going haywire only in the vaguest
sense, unable to grasp the meaning of any of it.

'I. Need. Your. Help. With. This. Wake UP!'

At that moment the door opened, and Cassiopeia entered, alone, levitating a tray in front of
her as she entered. She opened the heavy emerald green curtains with a flick of her hand,
filling the room with moonlight, then lit the small chandelier above their heads.

She sat beside him and forced three potions down his throat, making him swallow with
magic. She ran her fingers over his head again, spiking his brain while frowning deeply.

"Still in there, snake boy?" She muttered while she worked. Neither Harry nor the thing were
able to respond. She left shortly after, leaving the room lit.

Harry had no way to tell how much time had passed before he became aware of his own
consciousness, of his situation, of what had come before it. Their emotions had mixed into a
concoction that was poisoning him. Still trapped in his head.

He could see that his magic was shattered. Ruined. So was the second magical core. Depleted
entirely by- the thing was trampling his thoughts; frantic, flinging around among the
shattered pieces.

'If we don't fix this… I don't- Harry, I- need you to focus. Help me.'

'How?' Panic was the only thing he could clearly feel; his body gasping for breath; his eyes
rolling back in his head. Out of their control.

'I don't… know. I- don't know,' it was still scrambling for the pieces, like sand. Pouring
uselessly from both it and Harry's grip; nothing happening when he tried to cast, tried to
move.

'What do we do. What do we do?' Harry kept repeating.

It seemed lost, speechless.

'Please- what do we do?' He tried again, desperation seizing him.

His magic couldn't be gone. He had to move. He couldn't be trapped there. His body was
thrashing; he could feel it from far away. Revolting due to the panic, the adrenaline, not to his
command.

'I'll do whatever you tell me- I'll do it. Please,' the silence was scaring him more than
anything, the way he could feel it struggling for a solution. Finding none.

'…Please,' Harry's body continued to convulse without a pilot while true fear washed over
them.

He realized he could feel hands on him; felt something like magic seeping into him. Cold and
unfamiliar. Freezing his muscles and his mind as though suddenly caught in a glue trap. His
thoughts moved in slow motion as a woman he'd never seen before appeared, inches from his
face. Eyes glowing faintly green as she held both his hands; the full weight of her on his
chest, grounding him. Her short black hair hung on either side of his ears; her face all he
could see.

His breathing slowly returned to normal, his thoughts moving through molasses. When she
seemed satisfied that they were still, she began to speak. Slowly, purposefully, in
Parseltongue.

"Coiled like a clod, his eyes the home of hate."

'Nagini,' it said as soon as it heard her voice, still caught in her trap; unable to make sense of
it.

"Where rich the harvest bows, he lies in wait. Linking earth's death and music, mate with
mate," she was holding their face, eyes brighter.

"Is it lure, or warning? Those small bells may sing like Ariel sirens, poised on viewless wing,
to lead stark life where mailed death is king."

By then her strange magic had stilled them completely. Caught mesmerized under her gaze as
she began to shift and contort, her skin turning to scales; her body lengthening as she
continued to speak.

"Else nature's voice, in that cold, earthy thrill, bids good avoid the venomed fang of ill,
and life and death fight equal in her will."

Now fully serpent, she drew back and struck him twice in the middle of his chest. The venom
burned instantly, spreading like acid through his ribcage, up his neck, into his head while he
remained motionless, eyes locked on the snake. She released them from her trap; allowed
them to think, and Harry panicked.

'Did she just kill us?!'

'No. No. Follow my lead. Focus on me,' it was tugging on his consciousness.

The grains in his head; the dead magic, the fragments of pain, fear, hate, and confusion, had
begun to move under Nagini's influence, swept into it. Her poison clouding their senses. He
lost threads of himself in it; tiny shards ripping strings off; lost in the cyclone of it while his
vision slowly blurred. Heart rate slowed. Harry tried to keep a hold on his mind; on the thing
in it, but he was stripped to nothingness. And so was it. Everything torn to shreds and still
whipping with force inside his head as his senses and his consciousness gave in.

"-Know I don't even know. I'm not a healer, and even if we did pop into the ward at Saint
fucking Mungo's do you think they'd say 'Oh, yep, saw this exact thing twice last
Wednesday.'"

Harry didn't feel… Right.

'I'm just going to preface this with the fact that- listen to me- the alternative was losing our
magic and the ability to ever do more than blink and breathe.'

The Boy Who Lived felt around in his head, startled to find it all wrong.

'What… Is that?' Every grain of his magic -and that of the thing in his head- had been drawn
into the middle of his mind; suspended, thrashing, combined with all he had felt, all it had
felt, glued together by Nagini's power and her venom.

'That is… I don't know,' it told him.

"He's waking up. Come and find me before morning."

Harry's body jerked when he recognized the voice, and he was all at once horrified to hear it
and pleased that his limbs had responded.

"Slowly there," Cassiopeia said, "You got… Bit by a snake."

"The… School," Harry bit out.

"Pardon?"

"School," he tried again, mouth thick.

"You're going to drink this and go back to sleep, okay?"

"No," he said, but she forced a potion down his throat anyway.

In seconds he was sunk back into unconsciousness.

When he woke the next time it was the familiar, angry hunger that roused him. He opened his
eyes and rolled blindly, falling off the bed and hitting the floor. The ache felt days old. He
struggled to remember when he'd last cast it. To remember where he even was.

His body went rigid as it dawned on him.

In a white armchair slightly too small for her, spilling over the sides, was Nagini in serpent
form. She watched them, and Harry simultaneously crawled away and asked her "How?" in
Parseltongue, which served to freeze him again.

He hadn't intended to speak. Least of all in Parseltongue. He had no reason to ask her 'how'
anything, in that moment.

Harry's hand lifted to his face, but he hadn't willed it to.

"No," he whispered, "No."

'This is better than the alternative,' it could feel his panic rising, 'Do not cast. Just breathe.'

It was breathing for him when he refused, while he tried to scramble backwards. Steady,
measured breaths juxtaposed his wild eyes.

'Listen to me, listen, you're okay. Do not cast.'

Harry realised that Nagini was close and tried to crawl away, but his limbs disobeyed. He felt
like he was anything but okay as she reached his feet, sliding up his legs as he watched; while
he was fighting the thing in his head, rendered frozen by them both. He could feel the same
cold seeping into him, slowing his mind and body to a crawling stop as he fell back. Nagini
coiled herself on his chest and held them both there, stuck inside and out.

After what felt like an hour, she released the magic but didn't get off his chest. She was large
enough that breathing was almost a struggle. He wasn't strong enough to lift her off, or even
free his arms. Not that the thing in his head was letting him move as they struggled for
control.

'I need to know you understand, Harry, what I am saying to you,' it said, 'Whatever this is, it
is fragile. It needs time. As much as we can give it. Do you hear me?'

'Just take it. I can't- do this. Just take over.' Harry's brain was fried, exhausted by his
emotions, panic wearing his mind thin as he failed to comprehend everything that had
happened. Everything he'd done. The consequences were still unseen, but he was certain they
would be devastating.

'I am sorry. I have tried.'

'Try harder,' Harry had tried to command it, but he begged instead, 'Make it stop. Tom. Make
it stop. Make. It. STOP. MAKE IT STOP!'

"Nagini, I need something to calm this," Harry's voice said in Parseltongue, once again
without his permission.

"Yes. It is coming."

It came in the form of Narcissa, minutes later, skirting the snake who hadn't moved from his
chest, looking far more distraught than the last time they'd seen her. The thing swallowed the
potion for him while Harry screamed inside his head.
He'd had to guess how long he'd been sedated for. Judging from the unrelenting need in him,
over ten days. Each time Harry would become conscious the thing in his head would beg him
not to use his magic -while they both fought for control- eventually leading to more sedation.
Nagini was a sentry; the serpent was asleep on his legs at all times.

Over and over. Each time he woke the agony worse; until he and the thing were screaming,
clawing, biting, and spitting when they came to.

Until they finally let him wake up what felt like weeks later. Strangely in the grass. In the
dark, lit only by a half-moon. He heard multiple voices chanting as he tried to fight his way
upright. The pain twisted him physically, worse than he remembered. Wards were being
constructed and strengthened around him. While Nagini, as a serpent, was coiled nearby,
within the wards. He struggled to look at who was chanting, standing around him in a circle.
He could feel something… Pulling in his gut. Tiny in comparison to the all-consuming need,
but enough to pull his attention for a fraction of a second.

Cassiopeia, Narcissa, Draco, Bellatrix, and…

'Wait. Wait until they are ready,' the voice told him, both of them desperate as Harry locked
eyes on the Dark Lord, heavily cloaked, face hidden. He was not looking at Harry; focused
on constructing massive wards around the Chosen One and the Maledictus. A much larger
version of the solid wards Harry had summoned.

Nagini was twisting at his feet, convulsing, thrashing, until she came to stand as a woman.
She helped him stay upright, leaning her weight into him and holding his face, tearing his
attention from Voldemort. He hadn't taken a breath in what must have been minutes, judging
by the way his head swam between her thin fingers as she pulled his face down to look at her,
cold seeping into his cheeks at her touch.

"Now," she told them, eyes glowing. They obeyed.

A sonic boom tore from them. A screaming darkness, consuming all sound. A nuclear-force
expulsion, uncontrollable even if the Boy Who Lived had the thought to try. It felt different,
though Harry wasn't present enough to properly register the change in its tone, the change in
pressure. That it was far more painful than he remembered, his brain too numb to receive the
information. As it screeched back into them, overflowing, pouring back out, they welcomed
it.

When it finally ceased what felt like hours later; both Harry and Nagini were stumbling like
newborn deer in the grass while those responsible for the wards exchanged wide-eyed
glances. The Dark Lord snatched up his drunken familiar and Disapparated, followed soon
after by Bellatrix; while Cassiopeia dragged Harry back to the Manor up the hill, Narcissa
and Draco trailing behind.

Cassiopeia was looking at him as though he 'd broken her heart. They were alone, in a
bedroom at an Inn. He'd rented it for this. Warded it. Silenced it. Spent hours in it
beforehand, pacing.
"Tom… This can't be what you choose. Don't tell me it's true…" she pleaded but stopped
when she saw something in his eyes.

He looked at her for a long time.

"Don't. Call me that. Mudblood," he hissed, and her face turned to ice.

"Choose them, then! Call me unclean! ME!" The air cracked with her magic, and she sent it
snapping at him. He deflected it; and so, she came at him.

Screaming, scratching at his eyes, magic sparking from her fingers as she crashed them both
to the floor, " And when you've clawed your way to the top of the world, Tom." Slap.
"Marvolo." Slap. "Riddle." Slap. "I hope you think of me. I hope you think about how I'll
SPIT on your grave, you half-blood piece of fucking shit! I hate you! I fucking-" She started
sobbing; shaking uncontrollably as he threw her off.

"You're not doing this. You're not. You're not a fucking Dark Lord Tom, you're all I've got. I'm
all you've got. You're not this…" She watched him back out of the room, gasping. Harry's face
was like a tombstone as he closed the door without another word.

Both Harry and the thing in his head were trying to talk with one mouth when they awoke,
garbled non-words the result. Nagini was asleep in her human form at the end of the bed,
curled tight in a ball. He watched her eyes snap open as he moved. She was sitting upright in
an instant.

Harry's mind raced at the sight of her, at the memories of the last… How long?

Ginny… Ron. The Great Hall.

The prophecy.

Harry scrambled out of bed, hardly able to breathe as Nagini followed him, watched him.

Ginny had been with him. Sitting right next to him.

"How long has it been?" It asked in Parseltongue with Harry's voice.

"It is the second of July."

They both did the math. Seventeen days.

"What happened at the school?" Harry asked in English. She stepped away from him, moving
for the door instead. She made a random motion with her hand that Harry took to mean that
he should wait while she left him alone.

She returned with Cassiopeia, then Nagini left again. The vampire looked him over, took in
that he was standing upright, that he wasn't screaming or flailing.

"How are we all holding up?" She asked, sitting in the white armchair the Maledictus
sometimes occupied.
"There was a… Complete annihilation of both of our magical cores. Our minds nearly
followed. So, really excellent," it said on behalf of them both.

Harry wondered dumbly where he got the robes he was wearing.

"And now?" She pressed.

"We… Repaired it. I cannot say how- well. How did you know… What to do? With the
curse? The wards? How did you know when to do it?" It peppered her with questions while
Harry tried to arrange his own.

"You were constantly screaming about it very loudly so," she shrugged, "We took a stab in
the dark."

Neither one of them remembered doing that.

"The school," Harry repeated, "What happened at the school."

She tensed up, suddenly cagey, "Is… Who am I speaking with? I can't… Tell."

Harry himself had been barely able to comprehend that issue. That there was no line drawn in
his head anymore. That it was no longer his, intruded on. But theirs. Shared.

"Both- both of us," it said, frowning, "When- while we repaired the cores, everything was…
Mixed. It was not neat. I am still working through what exactly it means."

"The school," Harry hissed.

"I think he wants to know about Hogwarts, Cassiopeia," it warned, their words nearly
overlapping.

Her eyes were wide as she took this in, they were darting side to side as she slowly stood up.

"Ahhh," she drew out the sound as she backed out of the room, "I need to… Go," she
slammed the door behind her. Harry heard it lock.

Harry hissed and kicked it, but the thing in his head wouldn't let him blow the room up. Left
alone for the first time since his arrival; conscious and unable to hide from it; the reality sank
him to the floor.

( AN: The poem Nagini recites is The Rattlesnake by John Charles McNeill)
 Fragile

7 Layers, Dotan

You had questions and you knew names

Hidden secrets linked in chains
Wrapped in circles, locked in squares

I was a stranger in my own skin

7 layers graced and wearing thin
I was a stranger in my own skin
7 layers I've been hiding in

Father's eyes and my father's smile

I couldn't tell I was just a child
Missing memories replaced by dust
Speaking tongues into my ear
Told herself what she had to hear
But did she ever think I'd never find out?

Cassiopeia had returned over an hour later, long enough for Harry to spiral into a panic attack
and then recover. His own mind felt foreign. Shards of thoughts that weren't his, emotions,
convictions, all blurred; conflicted.

The feeling that they had done something irreparable with unclear consequences was
weighing on both of them. When the vampire returned, she found them on the floor. Staring
blankly, swaying slightly.

"Oh, Jesus. Are you fine to even walk?" She asked, stopping in front of him.

"Walk?" They repeated.

She looked uncomfortable, avoiding their eyes, "Tom wants to… See for himself. The
damage."

Harry immediately felt sick, desperate for the ability to retreat into his head; reeling at the
reality that it wasn't really his head anymore. Even the thing balked at the thought of seeing
the Dark Lord, though he couldn't grasp why.

"Necessary?" It asked.

"Eh…" She began, shrugging, "It's a bit overdue, actually. I'm going to warn you, it's best you
just… Be very quiet. Don't speak to him unless you're answering a question, okay? Quick,
concise answers. Keep it so… Morally ambiguous."

"What?" Harry asked.

"Well," she finally met their eyes, "How do I put this… He can't- stand you? Particularly
after… I'm actually going to let him deal with this, so if you could get up please."

"Well… I can't- stand him either," the Boy Who Lived said, bitter about all of it.

"Maybe it's best if the Harry part shuts up?" She suggested, yanking them off the floor when
they made it clear they weren't moving, "And don't… Stare."

"Stare?" Harry repeated.

"Shush," she told him, bidding them to follow her out of the room and down a hallway.

The walls were painted black, making it feel narrow. They followed her, thrumming with
adrenaline as they continued to fight each other for control.

'It is best for me to lead in this. I know you know that,' it told him as they walked slowly,
delaying.

'I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can take it,' Harry didn't just mean seeing
Voldemort.

Harry stopped them, leaned against a wall, and struggled for breath. It forced him to breathe,
which he didn't appreciate. He wanted to claw out of his skin. Cassiopeia had turned to watch
them but said nothing.

'We need to stay as level as you can manage. Understand? I have no idea how we are even
walking. Casting the curse was… Different. The magic feels fragile. I know you feel it. So,
breathe. Walk. Let me do the talking.'

"Back to bed, Draco Malfoy," she said in a conversational tone, though Harry couldn't see the
blonde anywhere. She tapped her ear when it questioned her with a raised eyebrow.

'Fine. You talk. I'll try,' the Boy Who Lived told it, as they resumed following the vampire
down the long hallway.

Feeling weak and sick at the thought of it, dragging himself as though to his execution. She
led him to the farthest end of the Manor from where Harry was kept, down three flights of
stairs. Then she hesitated in front of a heavy set of dark wooden doors, looking at them.

"Just… Be quiet, Alright?" She hissed as she threw the doors inward, then rushed away
without another word.

Straight away Harry couldn't walk, so the thing moved them through the entryway in his
stead, kept their breathing steady despite the pounding of their heart. Harry had his eyes
squeezed shut as he entered, the strange feeling he'd felt in the field under the wards was
flitting in his gut, pulling him into the room.

'What is that?' Harry asked, eyes still closed, refusing to open them.

'You… Feel it?'

"Sit. Down," A warning from the far end of the room.

Heart thundering, it opened his eyes. It took them both several seconds to understand the
scene. To understand what they were seeing. Sitting at the far end of a large dining table, big
enough to seat twenty, was Voldemort. Scowling deeply, disgusted at the sight of them.
Nagini standing next to him, hand on the back of his neck. Both of their eyes glowed faintly
green, but that wasn't what had struck them still.

The Dark Lord looked… Human. Dark brown, almost black hair swept back, slightly roman
nose, high cheekbones, sharp chin. Still pale, but not deathly so. Normal.

"SIT. Down," the Dark Lord repeated, making Nagini flinch and adjust her hold on the back
of his neck.

They both scrambled to do so, tearing their eyes away and then bringing them right back.

"Do not resist," Voldemort warned, ice in his tone as he exploded into Harry's head.

He tore through his memories as though burgling the place, saw Ginny and Ron in the
clearing, saw the prophecy through their eyes, the curse that had torn him apart, what Nagini
had done afterwards.

Then he was suddenly holding the fragile core they'd made from the dust, panicking them
both.

"It's... Fragile," it said out loud, barely a whisper.

The Dark Lord was incensed. He was suddenly standing, Nagini struggling to reach the back
of his neck, her eyes leaking florescent green smoke into the air.

"You have rendered yourself irredeemable. Give me one reason. What are you good
for? How are you worth more to me conscious? With magic?" Voldemort shook his head
violently, brushing Nagini off, not breaking eye contact.

He was still holding their delicate magic. Harry could see it, solidified, no longer roiling. It
reminded him of a dried ball of sand, glittering, black, reflecting light that wasn't there. The
same fluorescent green glow in Nagini's eyes pulsed within it, visible within the hairline
fractures. It looked like it would crumble under the wrong touch. They both struggled to keep
their breathing under control as their minds raced. Nagini had replaced her hand on
Voldemort's neck, frowning, looking between the Dark Lord and Harry.

'Both,' it began, barely a whisper in their head where the Dark Lord could hear it, 'Entrusted
to those… Who- who revile their true nature-'

Voldemort slammed his fist on the table, splitting the wood and sending four chairs flying
with a shock wave.

"OUT!"

Harry stumbled off his chair, scrambling for the door.

"Both of you!" The Dark Lord sent Nagini out after them.

The three of them stood in the hallway while Harry and the thing caught their breath.
Furniture exploded in the room they'd exited. It caught Nagini's eyes and pleaded with her.
For what, neither it nor Harry knew. She took their hand, expressionless, pulling them back
towards their room.

She stopped in the doorway as they reached it before she took their face in her hands and
searched their eyes.

"I know what my heart is like since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge, holding a little
pool. Left there by the tide."

It was suddenly crying, a deep ache in their chest while it struggled to look anywhere else as
she spoke, but Harry couldn't tear his eyes away.

"A little tepid pool, drying inward from the edge."

There were tears in her eyes too as she tore away, locking them in the room.

Harry was splayed out, leaning against the half-destroyed wall, watching the sunlight stream
through the roof, through the branches of the tree that occupied the hole there. Nagini was
coiled haphazardly around his legs, watching his face. The book in his hand -worn with time
and repeated use- was forgotten. He looked from the roof to the floorboards, rotted through,
blackened by fire and time. The Gaunt house empty for years. He let out a long, shaky sigh,
finally looking at the Maledictus.

"Nagini…" He began, but he didn't finish his train of thought.

Couldn 't bear to speak what was in his head aloud. So, he returned his eyes to the pages.
Reading to her in Parseltongue.

"Is it lure, or warning? Those small bells may sing like Ariel sirens, poised on viewless wing-
"

Harry couldn't tell which one of them was sobbing when he woke up.

Their room had been stocked with Calming Draughts, which Harry took to mean he was no
longer going to be sedated. He nearly fell out of bed as he reached for a potion, on the
bedside table, as he spotted Cassiopeia sitting silent and still in the corner.

"A very excellent job on being quiet last night. I commend it," she said when they looked at
her, "He wasn't set to murder you afterwards at all. Required no talking down."

She examined her fingernails.

"When he said that I'd… Rendered myself irredeemable…" It said, trying to form the
question.
She shrugged, disregarded the non-question, "I don't think you're ready to be awake. If it
were up to me, you'd still be sedated while we worked through it. Unfortunately, Tom has a
plan now, and we're of course on a time crunch, too many things are already in play… Yadda
yadda."

She rolled her eyes, removing an envelope from the front of her low-cut dress.

"So, I hope you're in a strong enough state of mind to hear repeated bad news."

Neither it nor Harry said anything. The Boy Who Lived was certain he couldn't bear it, that
he didn't want to hear it; as usual the thing had a sick curiosity, a need for all the information.
She handed them the envelope, watched them open it.

Harry,

I don 't know where you are, but I hope this letter finds you. I hope you're okay. Things have
been… Really hard. Mum and Dad took it hard. I guess we all did.

Things have changed at Padfoot 's place. Dumbledore says…

She, or someone else, had crossed out several lines and Harry was unable to decipher what
they said.

I don 't know what happened in the hall that morning, but I know it wasn't on purpose. If it
was my fault… If I caused something… I'm sorry. I hope one day you can forgive me, for all
of it. I hope you can come home.

Ginny.

They returned their eyes to the vampire, questioning. The thing in his head kept flicking their
eyes to the scribbled-out lines. Harry felt his heart breaking at the thought of Molly Weasley
organizing her son's funeral. The thought of their faces. All of them. That he wouldn't be
there. That he wasn't there.

He dropped the letter with a gasp and pushed his fists into his eyes.

"Drink another one," Cassiopeia told him.

His hand moved at the things command, downing another Calming Draught with Harry's
acceptance.

"Now… Drink a third."

It realized that she was nervous. It did as she asked and warned Harry to brace himself.

"I don't… Know how much he knows… About the curse," she said.

"Nothing," it told her, and she nodded like she suspected as much.

"Alright- are you gonna tell him, or will I?" She asked.
"I- I will do it," it said.

Harry realized they were both shaking, that it wasn't just him. It reached for a fourth draught
without being directed and drank it.

'Liquida Tenebris… Is a- manifestation of pain. It is- a proportionate… Manifestation. When

we lost control of it- in the hall…"

Harry's heart was still thundering despite the potions.

'Proportionate…' He repeated, hoping that it wouldn't mean what he thought it meant.

'I- created the curse… It was for- When I- I learned, later… That it is… Far more painful
than the Cruciatus… Depending on- depending on how much pain I was- Harry... I have
never cast it like that…' It's disjointed train of thought landed despite Harry's confusion.

"No," he said out loud, refusing to believe it.

There had been so many students. All the staff…

"Caught up on that part then?" Cassiopeia asked, "Because unfortunately, it gets worse."

Harry blinked at her, feeling like he wished he'd never met her.

"Three students died."

Their breath left them. Cold seeped into his limbs; heart in his stomach.

"No," Harry repeated, shaking his head.

"There's a silver lining. We know you're only responsible for two, now. The whole… Weasley
thing…" She trailed off.

"Get out," it hissed, glaring.

She stood up, hands raised in surrender as she floated from the room, locking it.

It seemed to be waiting for Harry to panic, bracing to calm him. Instead, he folded in half,
sobs weakly bubbling out of his throat as his thoughts lost all coherency.

They'd left him largely alone after that. The room was choked with wards, the thing in his
head gently feeling them out. Alarm wards, locking wards, silencing wards, even the solid
wards were maintained from the outside of his room.

Cassiopeia was giving him a wide berth, which both of them were glad for. They were
occasionally joined by Nagini, and it would sometimes pass the time by talking to her;
avoiding the Vow, while she mostly said nothing. It had been two days since the vampire had
told him that two students had died in the hall. Each time he thought about it he was numb.
He'd been sitting alone with all of it. The weight pushed every ounce of happiness out of him
until he'd forgotten the sensation. The only consolation had been the claw-foot bathtub in his
en-suite, where he spent most of his time scalding himself with too-hot water, forcing the
thoughts out with pain. When he wasn't doing that, he was picking a fight.

'Why wouldn't you tell me. Why didn't you warn me?' Harry pressed it about Liquida
Tenebris, as he had done countless times.

He'd been unable to sleep. He found he rarely could.

He'd hammered it with questions, with blame, with the pain in his head and his heart,
screamed at it, screamed at himself. Fought to claw his own eyes out in the hopes that it
would feel it, though it stopped him before he could successfully pop them from his head.
Normally it let him berate it, and would say nothing while Harry felt its guilt, rage, and pain
in return. This time it seemed to have had enough.

'I had NO capacity to warn you. If I could have, if I had WARNED YOU,' it was suddenly
furious, 'I would still be a voiceless STARVING GHOST IN YOUR HEAD.'

Harry's heart hammered as he ran through it all again and found no solution. No reversal. He
drank a Calming Draught, but it felt like dousing a house fire with a water pistol.

He let his heart rate slow, breathing intentionally. The process took longer each time the panic
picked up, anxiety the new baseline.

'I want this to stop,' Harry told it.

'I know.'

'And if I… Tried to stop it?'

It was silent at Harry's implication.

The Chosen One's ideations were interrupted by cracks of Apparition, coming from the
outside the manor. A few at first, then dozens. They crossed to the window, both curious.
Harry peeked out the curtains and watched maybe sixty Death Eaters, cloaked, moving
toward the manor, some of them levitating trunks. While he watched from the darkness of his
room their door opened, and it turned to find Cassiopeia.

"Not that you've left this room recently," she began without ceremony, "But I'm here to tell
you that you mustn't leave it now. Okay?" She was still hanging onto the door handle, half in
the room.

They didn't question her, stared blankly as she frowned.

"Alright… Well, good."

She left, locking the door. Harry wondered how he'd walk the halls anyway. His weakened
magic wasn't going to free him from this room. Even if he had anywhere to go. He returned
his gaze to the window, though the Death Eaters were already inside.
He lay awake after that; alternating between wild, uncontrollable panic that took his breath
away, to a vast, aching, empty numbness.

It startled Harry out of his head by using his mouth to speak in Parseltongue.

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes- the nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs- the stiff
heart questions 'Was it He, that bore,' and 'Yesterday, or Centuries before'?"

Nagini wasn't in the room, so Harry had to assume it was talking to him. Or to itself. Barely
whispering, "The feet, mechanical, go round - a wooden way, of ground, or air, or ought –
regardless grown, a quartz contentment, like a stone – this is the hour of lead – remembered,
if outlived, as freezing persons, recollect the snow- first, chill – then stupor – then the letting
go."

"Is this… My fault? Was I…" Harry trailed off.

"No…" It began, still speaking in the serpent language, "I made sure that-" It took a shaky
breath.

Harry thought about Dumbledore. About Hermione, about Snape. About Voldemort himself,
about Ginny. About himself. The Order. His parents, Petter Pettigrew, Sirius… How each one
of them played a part, -willing or not; purposefully or accidentally- from the beginning. If he
had to share the blame, if he had to divvy it up by percentage and apply it… The thing in his
head could only be blamed for self-preservation. For starvation. For pain. It had hurt him, but
it had never been targeted. It was careless when it came to Harry, self-interested. But not
deliberately malicious. Harry didn't display his thoughts, hiding them instead to chew on
them, while they both fell silent.

(AN: holy fuck they 're so depressed what have I done. Nagini's poem is Ebb by Edna St.
Vincent Millay, Tom recites After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes, by Emily Dickinson.)
 Thing

Mercy, Dotan

Mercy, mercy, mercy,

Can you save me from the darkness I knew?
Scars that you left
Growing me old
Holding my breath
Out in the cold
Mercy, mercy, mercy,
Have mercy on me

Your darkest ghosts are hard to leave

Like echoes as they follow me
But all I do is run for cover
Every time you pull me under
So let me go, I'm begging, please

"Well, you know my opinion on the matter. We can keep going in circles, and I can keep
saying the wrong thing until you tell me all of it," Cassiopeia said, sitting cross-legged in an
armchair.

He shook his head and swirled his glass. Nagini sat at his feet, tearing pages from an old
book she 'd stolen from the Malfoy Library.

"If I told you, you would know," He said to the vampire after watching Nagini for a moment,
"The Ministry? The trial? Word, please."

"Scrimgeour is dead. Right on cue," she opened her jaw wide, unconsciously, like a snake
unhinging, fangs flashing.

Something she did when she was quite hungry. He made a note of it.

"Thicknesse was Imperioed last night. I haven't heard anything about moving the trial date,
but it shouldn't be too difficult to do now. Not really getting into the part where he's been a
fugitive for nearly a month…" She gave him a pointed look, telling him without telling him
that it was far too much effort.

"And the Order?" He asked, sipping the wine he'd nursed for over an hour. Nagini had nearly
shredded the entire book and had begun tearing the pages into thin strips.

"No word. Complete reshuffle on their safe houses. Gone, basically. Dumbledore is the only
one who's daring to walk about. It would be safe to assume… That he would show up at the
trial, right?"
"I would be shocked if he did not."

"So… I- Why bother with the trial? Why not just keep him here? Who gives a shit if he's
wanted?" She pressed.

He shot Cassiopeia a look when she questioned him.

"He will be more useful at the school," he said as Nagini turned to look at him.

It sat them up when they woke, mechanically taking a Calming Draught as Harry's thoughts
raced.

"Trial? Were they talking about me? Like a trial at the Ministry? For me?" Harry paused
momentarily but not long enough for it to answer, "He wants me back at Hogwarts?"

'I would say you are correct in your assumptions,' it interrupted him in his head when it
became clear that he wasn't going to stop talking, 'We need to cast.'

That thought knocked the others out of Harry's head. The last time they'd done it they'd been
half mad with the ache; he'd cast on instinct, their strange fragile magical core somehow
withstanding it. He'd become afraid of it, his magic. One wrong move and he could break it,
trapped again with the thing in his head while they both scrambled like rabid animals nothing
but panic…

'Harry,' it said when he began spiralling.

It forced his breath level as their bedroom door pushed inward.

"Oh fantastic, you're up at two in the morning," Cassiopeia said, levitating a tray of food and
potions into the room.

Harry felt it baulk at the fact that she seemed to dislike it too, after what they'd done in the
Great Hall.

"Tom needs to see you. In the morning. When the sun is up, I mean. Nagini will collect you. I
wouldn't dilly-dally around the mansion. Any questions?"

"Uh… It-" Harry had begun to say, 'it wants to cast,' but the words caught in his throat, his
mouth closing unbidden.

He realised he'd been about to call it 'it' out loud. It didn't say anything to him, but Harry
could feel that it flinched every time he even thought the word.

'I- it doesn't feel- calling you Tom… It makes it…' He fought to find words that didn't make
him feel unreasonably guilty.

'I understand. I do not expect it of you.'

For some reason that made Harry feel worse.

"We need to cast," he said instead, and Cassiopeia looked at him like he was a five-year-old
who'd just asked to pee on a road trip.

"Ugh, fine, yes, it will be arranged. Can it wait till tomorrow night?"

"Yes," it said, narrowing their eyes.

She nodded sharply and left them alone. Harry collected the tray and sat it on the bed, but
they didn't touch it. Harry had never seen the main dish before. It was extravagant.
Unidentifiable. There was fruit on the side though, and he decided that he'd eat that if he ate.
Everything they brought him was under a Stasis Charm, which was for the best.

'What do you think he meant… When he said that I had rendered myself irredeemable?' It
asked him.

Harry knew it was stuck on what the Dark Lord had said, it had thought about it over and
over, though it hadn't asked him his opinion on it.

"He could easily have been talking to me," Harry said out loud.

'No.'

"Well, I- I mean you know more than me, so. I thought he was talking to me."

Harry pushed the food in the bowl with the silver fork, absently trying to recognize an
ingredient, "It's weird that she calls him Tom, still…" Harry thought about the dream that
they hadn't even discussed, where Cassiopeia had tried to claw the Dark Lord's eyes out after
he called her a mudblood.

"So does Nagini," it said out loud.

"Why are they here? It seems like- like they love him. Like they care about him. Like he feels
the same way about them… Dumbledore made it seem like he was just- incapable of that,"
Harry formed one of the questions that rattled in his head.

'Ah, Dumbledore. Or as we know him: 'The Fount of Purest Truth.''

"So, it's not true then? He does care about them?"

'…Yes,' it seemed like it wanted to say more.

There was a commotion outside the window, someone squealing, which made them both
jump. It moved them to the window first, one eye pressed to the gap in the curtain. On the
lawn not too far from his view on the fourth floor were eight people, one of them on the
ground yelping while the others shifted foot to foot. Two of them he quickly recognized,
Cassiopeia, with her wand raised, and Draco Malfoy rolling around under it. The others took
slightly longer, far away and in the dark, but once he recognized Parkinson, he recognized
most of the rest. Crabbe, Goyle, Zabini… The seventh and eighth he wasn't sure if he'd ever
seen, two dark-haired girls, one shorter than the other.
The vampire let the blonde go and then shouted at them to run. Malfoy was the only one who
did not hesitate as he scrambled to his feet and took off into the dark. The others followed
when the vampire fired hexes at them.

'I- want to run,' Harry thought as he watched them.

"I wouldn't mind a fight," it muttered with his mouth.

Harry could see Nagini in his peripherals, but he couldn 't bring his attention to her. There
was too much blood. The siren of his heart in his ears was too loud. His vision tunnelled as
he took in the full scope of what he'd done.

One of the bodies was at his feet. The other two bodies upstairs. The ring firmly clenched in
his fist. He found that when he put it down, he felt fractured. This wasn 't magic that was
well-researched. Recorded. Studied. So, he hadn't known what to expect. His chest heaved as
he stared at the man covered in blood, unrecognizable, bitten by Nagini repeatedly at Harry's
command then killed with the Killing Curse.

Tom Riddle Senior.

He touched his hand dumbly to Nagini 's head, not looking at her as he Disapparated,
reappearing in the Gaunt house. He knelt on the floor and couldn't understand why he was
weeping. He pried a floorboard loose and hesitated, swallowed, and then dropped the ring
inside. All at once he felt broken, damaged.

Nagini had wrapped herself around his middle, squeezing as she whispered in his ear: "A
little tepid pool, drying inward from the edge."

The dream shifted and he was standing in the Room of Requirement, alone, wand raised, an
idea in his head that wouldn 't leave him. It kept him awake at night. He'd done the research
and learned that spell crafting was risky. He'd done more research and learned how it was
done. He was willing to try anything.

He cast it slowly, deliberately.

As the ink-black agony tore through him, stripping his senses, and destroying his thoughts, he
found that he liked the pain.

"I hate this," Harry snapped as they startled awake. It was quiet in his head, as close to absent
as it could be.

The sun was rising, the sky purple when he looked out through the curtains. They'd slept for
maybe two hours.

When Nagini came to collect them and lead them through the manor holding their hand, it
was still quiet in his head. Harry could only feel snippets of what it felt though it was hiding
as many of its thoughts as it could. Although those walls were harder to keep in place. What
he could feel was dark and angry. He was sure there was fear, too, well-hidden but too
familiar. He didn't ask who was supposed to speak to Voldemort as they came close to the
dining room.

Nagini pulled him into the room with both hands, walking backwards. He noticed the
furniture had been repaired. The strange tugging in his solar plexus brought him into the
room along with the Maledictus, though the thing in his head said nothing about it. She sat
him in the chair furthest from the Dark Lord. Voldemort himself was staring into his hands at
the far end of the table, the muscles in his jaw worked as Nagini came to stand beside him to
calm him with her magic, lighting both of their eyes. Only then did Voldemort look up at
Harry.

"…Padfoot's place," the Dark Lord said.

"A trap," it said with Harry's mouth.

Voldemort's eyes narrowed, "Explain."

"Dumbledore told Harry last year that the property had been willed to him upon the death of
his Godfather. He knew I was in his head and saw the prophecy. He was certainly present in
the hall when we…" It trailed off, "He knows what has happened, and I suspect he was
braced for it. The mention of 'Padfoot's place' in Ginny's letter was intentional. Orchestrated.
The house is a trap. There have been no Order members there since the fourteenth of June, I
am certain of it. They would not shelter in a house owned by Harry Potter."

Harry didn't even bother to stop it from talking. A savage anger would boil in him at the
thought of the headmaster, and so, he found himself thinking that it was well and good that
his trap was wasted.

"And is the Weasley in the Order?"

"No," they both spat, remembering Voldemort's end of the Vow.

It added, "She is under their guardianship outside her volition."

It was sneering with Harry's face, and he found he agreed with it. They hadn't spoken about
its theory about Ginny's letter, but the fact that someone -probably the headmaster but
possibly her family- had likely forced Ginny to write a trap into her letter made him feel ill. If
they had her doing Order things, under the Order's roof…

"Please excuse me, he is about to have a panic attack," it stood up without being excused and
walked them to the corridor before it let Harry fall to his knees.

'You have to make him understand she's not…' He'd been about to think 'not in the Order' but
the truth was he didn't even know for sure. He didn't know what had happened after that
night, what she'd been through, what she'd been told. Whether Dumbledore had told them the
prophecy… That he was no promised Saviour; that there was no hero. At least not in him.

'Harry,' it was breathing for him but struggled as he flailed in the hallway, both of them
gulping air like landed fish.
"Why would he do that… Why would he fabricate it -I can't… Explain it. Explain it to me.
Why would he- if I'm not even CLOSE to- The prophecies are not even close they're- not
even close Tom they're not even close to each other they're not even close… To what we are-
I don't…" Harry felt a hand on the back of his neck, then the familiar, seeping cold of
Nagini's magic.

The Dark Lord stood leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, looking down his nose in disgust.

Harry glared at him while they succumbed to the Maledictus entirely.

Nagini had returned them to their rooms once they'd been able to stand, long after Voldemort
had slammed the doors on them.

He sat and picked absently at fruit afterwards, the prophecy and Ginny still looping in his
thoughts. Not far behind them was Ron. Then the students he'd… Killed. Still nameless. The
Ministry, the trial. The Minister, Scrimgeour, dead, probably for him, because the Dark Lord
wanted him at Hogwarts for some reason-

'Harry.'

'Tom,' he'd thought it deliberately, wooden when he did it on purpose, "I can't take this," he'd
said it before, but each time it felt truer.

Nagini had stayed in their room, looking for all the world like a short, bird-boned, thirty-
something-year-old Indonesian woman, not a giant human-eating snake. When Harry had
spoken, she'd looked up from her paper tearing and folding, tilting her head too far to one
side as she met his eyes.

'How is she human?' Harry wondered in his head.

'I have the same question. Who should we ask, the Dark Lord Voldemort, the Bitch Vampire,
or the Maledictus herself?'

'Alright point taken. No theories then?'

'My only observation is that it seems extremely new to her. She is fascinated by her fingers.
Tearing up every book in the house. You've seen her move, how she behaves.'

'New like… How Voldemort looks…' Harry didn't have any words for that, more spooked by
the man looking like a regular twenty- to thirty-year-old guy than he was by the snake face
he'd become weirdly accustomed to.

'New like that, yes.'

'You think it's got something to do with us don't you,' Harry pressed, sensing the thought.

'Only a theory, nothing confirmed. Stop digging.'

'Well, what's the theory?' Harry dug.

'I have nothing solid.'

'Fine.'

As Harry walked them with leaden legs to the field, following Cassiopeia and Nagini through
the dark, Narcissa and Draco following behind them, the thing in his head kept almost saying
something. The pause before words kept punctuating his panic until he thought:

'What?'

'It's… Now that we-'

Harry could feel frustration and anger coming from it, but there was something else it was
trying to hide. He felt it though. Shame. It didn't finish its thought, so the Boy Who Lived
frowned all the way to the clearing where the Dark Lord stood, hooded and masked. Harry
could only tell it was him because of the pulling, like a compass that pointed him in his
direction. He pushed the thought away, instead looking at Nagini coiled at the Dark Lord's
feet.

She came to Harry as he stood in the middle, Cassiopeia, Narcissa, And Draco took their
places around them, Draco questioning Harry intensely with his eyes before tearing them
away. The Dark Lord began casting and the others followed suit. Nagini unravelled and came
to stand before him, taking his face in her hands, eyes glowing. Harry realised she was there
to stabilize him as her cold magic steadied his breathing. It was an uneasy feeling, his
muscles relaxing as though he had drowned.

As the wards solidified and they prepared to cast, it spoke again.

'By now… I hope you understand.'

It didn't allow him to question as the curse exploded from them.

Agony. Skull-splitting, fiery, all-encompassing. Worse than anything he'd ever felt; he had
nothing to compare it to. He couldn't stop it once it started, panic ripping through him as he
fell into the grass. Vision blacked out, sound swept into the storm of it, though he was certain
he was howling. Nagini was lost in it, -Harry couldn't see her or feel her magic- the three of
them held down and strangled by it.

Another sensation grew in his gut alongside it. One that blindsided him. A burning, angry
pleasure. Not like he'd felt each time he'd cast it before; it didn't soothe him; it wasn't passive
or gentle. A desire and a confusion built in him as he rocked in the grass, the pain still
spitting blitz in every inch of him, too much for him to be conscious. Still, the want grew,
aggressive, along with the pain.

When it stopped, after an age, he curled into a ball; nauseous, confused, ashamed and
aroused.
He'd refused to be moved from the grass, curled in the fetal position, jaw locked tight.
Voldemort had Disapparated with a crack, taking a stumbling Nagini with him. Narcissa and
Draco had left as well, choosing to walk back to the manor while Cassiopeia grew impatient.
Harry thought about asking it what exactly that was, but all at once he already knew, and he
didn't want to know. He didn't want to think about this being the new 'normal', that every
five-ish days he would have to feel… That.

Cassiopeia Apparated them to the gates and then kicked him in the leg when he still refused
to get up. He rolled instead, onto his back; splayed out and glaring at the stars.

"He really should just kill me," Harry muttered, more to the thing in his head, but Cassiopeia
exclaimed:

"Right?! That's what I've been saying!"

(AN: Some of you are confused and have told me so. It's intentional, you're confused because
Harry is. Unfortunately, he's an idiot please stand by.)
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