Halcyon Days

by D.J.F Levesley

Denzel Greengrass is a Psychiatric Healer at St Mungo's, and ends up taking on the case of 'H', a patient who is addicted to memories. Can he ever help this mysterious man who refuses to show his face to ever leave his dream world?

Halcyon Days By David Levesley

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters, ideas or concepts that appear within this story.

If you were to look into Denzel Greengrass' office, you would not suspect him of being the sort to work with mad men. Orderly, impersonal and bleak, it was the home of the amnesiac or the office worker but not the psychiatrist.
An illustrious figure in a cloak of savage crimson and deep plum strode into the office, and was about to place a file onto his desk, only for Denzel's hand to raise slightly, stopping his superior in his tracks.
"Just a moment."
Denzel's wand tapped his desk. His pins, his parchment, his ink and his quill had all been laid in perfect little districts upon the desktop. Books and piles of papers were all perfectly placed at perpendicular and parallel angles, like a fine work of architecture, and as his wand rapped the mahogany surface they all shifted round like perfectly aligned cells under a microscope, leaving an ideal place for the man to place the folder.
"Thank you, sir." Said Denzel, kindly.
The man had a look of curiosity, amazement and fury in his eyes as he slammed the file down on the desk.
"New patient, Greengrass. Number 907. Spell Addiction Annexe, needs some of your specific help. We've already got counsellors trying to wean him off his obsession, but we think it may be a rather more internal affair than they are prepared for; and of course, there's no one more aware of how our clocks tick than you, Greengrass. Isn't that right?"
"I don't mean to blow my own trumpet, but you may indeed have a point sir," said Denzel, smiling smugly as his boss nodded.
"You have a week, Greengrass. After that, we will evaluate your progress and be a bit more strict. You have carte blanche until then."
"Of course sir, yes sir. May I ask, sir..."
He paused, and he waited for his boss to stop in the doorway and turn to face him.
"Yes, Greengrass?"
"Well, sir... I was wondering... What is the man addicted to?"
The man in his crushed velvet robes stared down at Denzel, their eyes gazing into each other's souls without the bonus of magic for a few seconds. Then, Denzel's boss smiled, and left after uttering just one word.
"Memories."
The velveteed man swooped out of the room, and Denzel was left alone. After a couple of seconds, waiting tensely for his boss to force his way back in, Denzel slumped back into his chair and pulled the bottle firewhiskey placed perfectly in line with a book on aversion therapy from the bottom drawer of his desk. He poured himself a measure up to a little notch he had made in the glass tumbler, and drank it in one go. His throat burned, his mouth crumpled in reaction, and then the overwhelming sensation of calm.

He hated the little facade of a Slytherin graduate he put on for his employer, but he knew it was what his boss liked. He had been a Slytherin too. A good Slytherin. Although what this meant and what this suggested were far from similar. Then again, St Mungo's Psychiatry division did have a tendency to be populated by Slytherins. People who knew what was best to do for themselves, people who knew how to manipulate and seduce. The sort of people who could really take a madman apart and rebuild them. Yes. This was the career of a Slytherin. But maybe what made Denzel such a bad Slytherin- as his head of house had often called him back in the day- was what made him such a laudable legilimens and practicioner of psychiatric spells.

He had always been the polite one. When he first went to the common room at Hogwarts he had let some people in his year pass through before him, and from that moment had received the stigma of a pushover. It had never been a problem of blood- he was as pureblood as the best of them- but throughout school he was always the Slytherin with the brains and the courtesy as well as the machiavellian instinct. Shunned for his house by the others, and despised by his own, it had been upon arriving in his career with the grades one expected from an Auror candidate that Denzel Greengrass became the boy his family had always expected. Now, here he was, a St Mungos Healer for the mind. As he strode down the blue linoleum floors, the mint sterile walls rang out with the pounds and sobs of the inmates within. People not capable of understanding their incarceration. People considered lesser than muggle-borns or squibs. The mad.

According to the file he had been handed, Patient 907 was housed in one of the furthest cells, the Wormwood Room, a chamber named as such because of how everything inside was green and smelt faintly of cleaning spirits. At the crossroads between the wings of cells, Denzel arrived at the Goblin security counter. He rang the little brass bell, but the goblin at the counter remained distracted by something else. Two more rings, and still nothing.
"Loki?"
The aged, slender and white haired goblin turned from a gilded old till to look at Denzel.
"Oh, you again, Dr Greengrass."
"I need your help in opening cell 808."
"Ah, the Wormwood Room," said Loki, the words rolling off his sharp tongue as he leapt from his tall stool, revealing his true height. Dwarfed by the strong Denzel's broad and lofty body shape, Loki lead the way to the compartment and turned in an ironically militaristic way to face the Wormwood Room's door upon arrival. One of his long fingers, latticed with ice blue veins, stroked the door carefully. A series of butterfly-like locks began to disperse from the spine of intertwined metal strands down the centre of the doorway, and suddenly it had peeled away into two cherubic silhouettes watching over all those who entered. "May I leave now?" Asked Loki, clearly not enjoying his company.
"Yes, Loki. You may."
"Thank you. I'm so glad you gave me permission. Otherwi-"
"That is all, Loki."
With a grumble, the goblin stormed back up the hallway.
Denzel paused briefly in the portal. The figure beyond the door did not seem threatening, and yet he had the sudden feeling he was in the presence of someone very powerful as he walked into the room. Taking his wand out, he walked over to the small peppermint coloured table in the middle of the room, where the man sat the other side, his hands and feet shackled to the floor by a dozen chains- a design idea stolen from Wizengamot trial furniture.
"Hello, H." Said Denzel, in a falsely bright tone.
There was a very long silence, only broken by the rattling of chains as the man began to heave. His face was not visible to Denzel, as he was staring at the floor. His dark hair, receeding slightly now as he was in his 50s, was streaked with grey. A pair of glasses hung limply on the end of his nose, almost falling off as he stared at the padded floor, pushing them up the bridge with a hand almost incapable of doing so by his captivity. He began to breath quite heavily, and then, after a few minutes, said, "my name is not H. My name is-"
"We prefer to keep names out of the equation at this stage. At least on your part. After all, memories are why we are here."
H scoffed a little, but Denzel was not deterred.
"I am Dr. Greengrass."
"What's your first name?" Asked H, almost curiously. Denzel sat and looked at the top of the man's head, finding the start of a tonsure of baldness. He was not allowed to give first names at this stage in treatment.
"My name is Dr. Greengrass."
"Doctor is not your first name. Tell me your first name!"
Don't be afraid, man! He's wandless!
"My name is Dr. Greengrass for now. You will not know me as anything else."
"I can see we're off to a great start already then," said H, bitterly.
"We have procedure, H. You must simply learn to cope. Now, I'm not going to beat around the bush. Your addiction is a very unusual once, which is why I'm paying special attention to your... Problem."
"Problem?" Said H.
"Yes. Problem. Let's not debate the relativism of-"
"You paused before you said problem."
"Did I?"
"Why did you pause? What were you going to say?"
"I... Nothing. I was just caught off guard."
"You were going to say 'case', weren't you, Dr. Greengrass," said H, with so much venom Denzel had to wonder if he was treating a basilisk, not a wizard, "but you didn't. Why?"
There was no point hiding in denial now.
"Because 'case' is so sterile. Problem is more personal. I want you to feel I realise you are not conveyer belt subject umpteen. You are a valid member of society in need of some readjustment."
"I'm not mad."
"No, you're not mad. Just an addict."
There was another silence. Denzel felt an unusual pleasure in silencing his patient. Finally, H broke the silence again.
"Greengrass. You're not of a relation to a Daphne Greengrass, are you?"
"Yes I am. She's my Aunt. She doesn't... I mean... I'm closer to my other Aunt. Astoria."
"She married Draco Malfoy, didn't she?"
"Yes, she did."
"Still married?"
"Thirty years last week."
H said nothing. He seemed to be mulling something over in his head.
"Interesting that you cannot give your own first name... But you have no problem discussing your family's. Do you not consider them in need of the protection or something that you are?"
"None of my family are involved in this problem. Only you and I."
"Oh, you are most mistaken there, Mr. Greengrass."
"Doctor Greengrass, H."
"You've yet to prove yourself worthy of my noting you Doctor, Greengrass."
The way he said his surname was not in the same way his boss said it, as a nickname. He said it as a derogatory term. Like he had just called him a mudblood.
"Let's get back on track. You have a memory addiction. How does that work?"
"Give me a memory and I'll show you."
"You don't give a devil's snare a spotlight, H. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Perfectly well. I've faced devil's snare before, you see. Devil's snare, devil's snare... There's a rhyme... Can I look into my memories to remind myself so I can tell you it?"
"No. You may not. You need to get over your addiction. If you're not careful, you'll take so many memories and stay submerged in them for so long that you will never exist in the real world. You'll just exist forever in this world of your dreams."
"They aren't dreams! My memories are real! This isn't real! This life I live! IT'S A NIGHTMARE!"
"You're hysterical."
"YOU'RE NO HELP!"
Dr. Greengrass picked up his file, took his wand, and pointed it at the door.
"Alohamora."
The door swung open. He stepped through, giving one last glance at H before the door shut.

"How am I supposed to treat a patient if I can't even see his face?"
Dinner was a subdued affair. What was supposed to be his girlfriend and him throwing a homecoming party for his best friend had turned into a subdued discussion of the ambiguous H.
"Maybe he's got a wound from when he... You know..." Began Denzel's girlfriend, a pretty blonde thing with a penchant for ruby lipstick.
"...Attacked his wife?"
"Denny!"
"It's what happened, sweetheart." Said Denzel, assuredly and firmly. She pouted at what she took as condescension.
"He is right, we shouldn't beat around the bush on this," said Bronwyn, Denzel's friend, "but I don't think... No, not a mark..."
"Do you have any ideas, Bronwyn?" Said Denzel's girlfriend, calmly.
"Well... Maybe he's avoiding eye contact."
"What? But why?" She asked, looking at Denzel, quite ironically, right in the eyes. Suddenly, it clicked.
"Of course!" Said Denzel, so loudly several other couples at Chang's Chinese Restaurant turned round. "Occlumency!"
"Keep it down," said his girlfriend, "there are muggles here, you know..."
"If he doesn't make eye contact with me, he can't go through occlumency. Either he's got something to hide, or he's afraid of the procedure..."
"Or both," added Bronwyn through a mouth of prawn toast.
"Well if he doesn't like it, there's no point in using it on him then," said Denzel's girlfriend.
"Why would you think I would?" He said, innocently.
"Because I know you, Denzel. And when you exhaust all the options YOU think exist, you'll try the ones YOU know you shouldn't."
Denzel smiled and laughed, but he knew- as did his girlfriend- that she had a point. He was, after all, a Slytherin.

After a few days, there had been nothing more established than what they had discovered in that first meeting. H had an addiction. H had no regard for authority unless he deemed them worthwhile. Denzel was ready to lose his job in a few day's time when they saw how little progress he had made.
It was time to bring him food. To save money, the Addiction Ward had decided that transfiguring the food the cafeteria couldn't sell into seemingly reasonable dishes was the best way to keep them fed, as they believed no addict capable of taste. While this may be true for a person addicted to snorting peruvian instant darkness powder, this was not so for H. Denzel and the 'Food Administrator' Violetta Merryweather stood at the door as Loki carressed the locks with a spindly finger. With a bow to Violetta and a raspberry to Denzel, he left them facing the inmate, whose face was still not visible.
"Lunch," said Violetta, in her unimitably sonorous voice, "get ready."
"It's not like I'm going anywhere," snarled H. Denzel had to wonder if this was the first time Violetta had served H, because unlike the other staff, she seemed completely incapable of adapting to his mannerisms. She was going to be the stern matron no matter what, and Denzel already knew this was not going to end well.
"Here."
The tray of food clattered to the table, pieces of the ambiguous selection spilling over the edges, turning back to soot and fat as it left the field of enchantment.
"You expect me to eat this?"
"You have the last few days," offered Denzel, but it was quite clear neither H nor Violetta considered him relevant at the moment.
"You will eat what food we give you." Snarled Violetta.
"This isn't food. You probably give your house elves better food than this," snarled H.
"We feed our house elves very well, I'll have you know!" Announced Violetta, puffing herself up like a busty cockatoo.
"I know the way you ministry controlled divisions work, and I know the way wizards work too. You're just a couple of dirty civil servants when it boils down to it."
"You have friends that work in the ministry, do you not?" Said Violetta with the cruel smurk of feeling victorious. "Are they as bad as we are?"
"Maybe they are now," said H sadly, "I haven't seen them in a while."
"Maybe if you kept your head out of the pensieve and in the real world..." Guffawed Violetta, and Denzel flinched already knowing what was about to happen. He had seen H raise his head for a brief moment, but before Denzel could register any facial features, he had lowered it again. A strange ripple of energy had passed through the room, like a gust of wind from a helicopter taking off. Denzel checked his bare hands and felt his neck to make sure H hadn't inadvertently used a spell on him, but he soon realised that he was not the target of the wandless magic. Violetta, already having puffed herself up, was not expanding to ridiculous proportions. Her fingers now had the appearance of thick sausages, her eyes were sinking between a tubby brow and fat cheeks. Her mouth, which was shrieking to begin with, was now almost too obscured by flesh to be able to make any noise. Violetta was now obscenely circular, flailing little arms and legs no longer in proportion to her balloon-like torso.
"H, stop this now!" Cried Denzel. "I don't want to have to get security!"
"Call them, if you want, I don't care," said H angrily, the sorry sobs of Violetta now just moans and groans from inside her flabby prison, "if they rile me up I'll do the same to them. I've always been known for being good at wandless magic."
Denzel stood looking at Violetta and H for a few seconds, wondering whether to try and see H's face once and for all whilst he was busy feeling angry. But he realised that to save a life was more important at the moment.
"Expecto Patronum!" Announced Denzel, and three cuckoos sprang from the end of his wand in an ejaculation of silvery vapour, the three little birds swooping round the room before diffusing through the door and chirping down the corridor outside in different directions, crying 'THE WORMWOOD ROOM, THE WORMWOOD ROOM, COME! COME!'. As their cries disappeared into the distance, Denzel could feel H's anger move to him.
"Why did you use that?"
"Because you're going to kill her if we wait too much longer. She shouldn't talk to you like that, but by God, H! Be a bit more considerate!"
"I'll be considerate when you finally unchain me!"
The door opened, Loki standing still in the doorway as two rather broad-shouldered healers arrived on the scene.
"Declino!" Announced one of the healers, swishing his willow wand through the air around the gargantuan Violetta. Like a balloon being popped, she was suddenly thrust into a mad journey around the upper regions of the room, swirling and shrieking as if letting out gas as she went. With a last flick of the healer's wand, Violetta streaked out of the room, her body hitting the wall across from the doorway as she crumpled to the floor.
"What did you do to her?" said one of the other healers angrily to H, pointing a wand at his balding patch.
"Nothing. We already knew she was full of hot air, didn't we?" Chuckled H.
"Leave him to me, Bulstrode," said Denzel. The healer turned to look at the Doctor.
"I don't think punishment is your department, Greeny."
"We shall decide the punishment once I have talked to him. For now, you and Farquhar should set about fixing Miss Merryweather. You are, after all, staff of St Mungos Hospital."
The two old acquaintances stared each other down. Bulstrode had been two years below him at Hogwarts, but had made his life hell. Unlike his gormless buddy Farquhar, Bulstrode was blessed with both brains and brawn.
"Very well, Greeny. But if you go soft on him, don't expect me to return the favour."
Denzel nodded, and the two men left the room, the door curling shut behind them.
"Why didn't you let him attack me?" Asked H, still staring at the floor.
"It isn't right. You did something wrong, but that doesn't mean they should harm you."
"Is this all just a ploy to make me trust you?"
"No, H. I'm not like that."
"Not like what?"
"A good Slytherin." Said Denzel, feeling a certain cathartic joy as he felt that the albatross around his neck had finally become a boon after all these years.
"If you say so."
There was another moment of quiet. Suddenly, an idea flashed through the Doctor's mind... But would it work? If it did, it would solve their relationship. Or was this gambit just the sort of behaviour H was expecting him to do? No. He needed to do this. Their relationship could get little worse, and he quite fancied keeping his job upon the review.
"Take my wand, H."
Although he could not see H's face, he could tell that H was shocked by the way his back seemed to stiffen suddenly.
"What?"
"Take my wand. Prisoners in Azkaban get one last owl. So you deserve to use one last spell, as if you refuse to help us at all you'll be only using wandless magic here for quite some time."
There was another pause, but the feeling of deliberation on H's part made Denzel feel like goosebumps were breaking out all over the back of his body. Like being hugged by a ghost. The careful analysis of his patient was both exciting and terrifying.
"What wood?"
"Blackthorn."
"Core?"
"Dragon Heartstring. And before you ask, it's thirteen and a half inches."
There was another moment for the cogs to whir in H's head, and then his hand shot out. Suddenly, Denzel began to realise what this meant. He always hated the feeling of handing over his wand. It was like ripping off a limb and passing it over. But he needed to do this. If it worked, he would get it back right away anyway. He placed his wand in H's hand. Due to H not looking, he placed it in his palm, and personally curled H's fingers round the gnarled handle. The wand was now pointing at him, Denzel's eyes focusing on the wavering pendulum of the wooden shaft now directed at his abdomen.
The wand curved through the air. Denzel tensed and felt his life flash before his eyes. He would never tell his girlfriend that he... That he.
"Visioverto."
The wand was pointed directly upwards at H's obscured face. Golden tendrils of light exploded from the tip of the wand and curled around H's face like a gilded coccoon, and as the light died, he raised his face upwards, and Denzel saw himself staring right into his own facial features below H's own hairline.
"Here's your wand. Doctor."
Denzel took his wand back, trying not to seem like he was snatching it off H as he glanced into his own eyes. H knew what he was doing, it was clear. To have used the killing curse, or the imperius curse... Neither of those would have served him much use, what with the strict security staff and the fact that somewhere round the building an imperius curse would end up being lifted by security charms. No, he had chosen the spell that retained his anonymity. His voice was too cracked and tired to remind Denzel of anything, and the files were not allowed to include photos since the 1992 Patient Secrecy Act was passed by Cornelius Fudge. Now, H was still anonymous, but he was able to communicate far easier to Denzel. "So, what do you want to know?" Said H, suddenly far more casual now he didn't need to keep hidden.
"Why you started using memories recreationally." Said Denzel, already knowing the questions, having tried to use them for the last three days without success. His heart was beating so hard he feared H would hear it.
"Well, there's no definite time, you see. I suppose it started when I was fourteen. I was first introduced to liquid memories then, although I'd experienced the idea of viewing another person's before. But that's a long story. They sort of became... Normal after that. The idea of being the voyeur of the journey of another human being no longer felt... Sinful. I felt guilty afterwards of course, but to look into a person's pensieve was no different to, to... To looking at their books at home, or finding out their favourite Weird Sisters song. Of course, you could always extract a memory and find out for yourself..."
"I don't like looking into other people's lives. It's not right."
"That's very strange, Doctor. Because if I hear correctly, you're an accomplished legilimens. And if there's one thing I know about legilimency- and I'm fairly practiced in the theory if not the practical performance of the stuff- it's that they tend to be the sort of person who like manipulation and control."
"I don't like those things," said Denzel far too quickly.
"And what house did you say you were in again?"
"That's not important. So... Do you remember when you started using memories as an actual source of pleasure, not for another reason?"
H looked at the wall, thinking carefully. It looked so weird to see H's mannerisms portrayed through his own face, but he knew that H was doing this to scare Denzel as much as he was to protect himself.
"I suppose when my first child was born. It was when I was in the delivery room, here at St Mungos. When I saw that child... It reminded me of something I saw in a dream when I was seventeen. A disgusting, pitiful creature I had no chance of helping, and had to leave, suffering at my side. It was a... A disgusting thing... I love my children dearly you understand, but it was that moment that made me realise the life of a parent is nothing great. It's something I wasn't ready for."
"So you continued living the life you knew you were prepared for- the one you had already lived," said Denzel.
"Yes. My life had never been easy, but if I had already survived it, I knew what was happening... I could enjoy it a lot more. The worry, the fear, the anger of being a parent... That was really rather hard to enjoy. I always put on a brave face for my children, when they got old enough to be able to realise that I disappeared a lot. But only my wife ever knew. Her and my close friends."
"The ministry workers?"
H nodded.
"I feel bored with my current life, as well. Not that it isn't filled with things to do. But they're not the things I enjoy doing. I enjoy adventure, being able to rough it and do exciting feats of derring-do... I must sound like a coward and an escapist, but I always love being able to show my confidence and my competence. Being an auror gave me a chance to do that, but soon after the fall of Voldemort," he gave Denzel a pitiful look as he shivered at the sound of the name, "things in the Auror department got a bit boring. I started to detest my job. I tried playing Quidditch again. I'd always been good. But it wasn't enough. I tried to get back into contact with old school friends... That didn't help. I just envied their lives..."
"Because they weren't your's?" Said Denzel.
"Yes. It's hard to get used to a family life, when you've never known your own. I'm an orphan, you see."
Denzel nodded.
"My files say that you didn't just use your own memories. Care to expand?"
"Memories are finite, Doctor. I ran out. But I needed to see something fresh, something exciting. So I... I asked my friends for vials of their memories. They wanted to help. Some of them resisted. Said I should get help. But I couldn't. I needed their assurance. So I would watch their memories, see how they had adored and respected me. But just the memories of friends, even best friends... Their emotional sentiment began to become tired and old after a few dives into my pensieve. So I decided..."
"Your wife's memories."
"She was resistant. Horribly so. If she hadn't known of what I'd become maybe she'd have tried to help, but she knew I was spiralling out of control. She tried to stop me, she... She destroyed my pensieve with a reducto spell..."
"But that didn't help, did it?" Asked Denzel, finding himself to be leaning forward in his chair with intrigue.
"No. I... I got angry. You know how a drug addict gets enraged if they can't find their stash? Well... When your entire source of memories is destroyed..."
"You used the cruciatus curse on her, didn't you H?"
"I told you, I don't like it when you use the code n-"
"You used crucio, didn't you?"
"Yes. I did." Sighed H, and Denzel had never seen his own face so contorted with rage and self-hatred. Suddenly, his quite grief turned to self-justification and fear, "I didn't mean to! I love my wife! So much! She's everything to me. We were Hogwarts sweethearts. But I lost it at that moment. When she destroyed the pensieve... I remembered all my terrible memories. All the moments of loss. Terrible things. It was like dementors had just swept into the room. I couldn't... I didn't really know what I was doing..."
"That sort of anger is the worst when you have a wand and a knowledge of dark magic," said Denzel softly and calmly. H was now looking at the floor again, but not out of a need for privacy. He was crying.

H's wife was known simply as Mrs H in the files, but an address had been provided. Her and the children had moved away from their family home to somewhere near Holyhead, but she was still willing to talk to Denzel, even if reluctant at first. She didn't want to meet in the hospital, and so they settled on a cafe in Anglesey, a place near her new home.
It was a chain store with walls of a vile terracotta colour and Italian words scrawled in golden stencil writing on the windows, but the tea was reasonable enough. Mrs H helped herself to a scone as Denzel was paying. She had gone grey, though she was far too young to be grey through age alone. Although most of her hair was a spoiled silver, strands of ruby raspberry had emerged like islands in a steely grey ocean. She was smoking, so they had to sit outside after ordering, and her voice was rather raspy from several years of the habit.
"I started when he did," she said after she lit up her first cigarette, "I think my habit might be a bit less dangerous."
"You may be right," said Denzel, trying to smile.
"I love him, you realise." She said, very suddenly, as if his softness had frightened her, "I'm not doing this to get back at him. I want... I don't want to cut him out of my life."
"I understand," said Denzel, cooly.
"It all got too much... He's such an incredible guy. Too incredible. He lived such a wild life that nothing I could offer him would live up to it."
She looked out over the street they sat beside. Her eyes locked onto a parked bus, and as it drove away she moved back to her conversation.
"Doesn't do much for your self-esteem." She said, her voice sounding like it was about to break. Suddenly, Denzel felt the desperate desire to pluck the memories in her head and relieve her from having to live through them through her own eyes day after day. But he knew part of this desire was a want to investigate each and every moment. To know what really happened, to get lost in it. He put it down to spending so much time analysing H's behaviour.
"Was it... Was it only you he did what he did to?"
"Oh yes. Oh... He would never use any spell against anybody he knew nowadays. It was one terrible moment. I don't hold it against him really. I just... Why did he ever start?"
"I don't think he quite knows himself, Mrs H."
"It's so stupid. How such a small desire grew into something so terrible. How things that have already happened have overwhelmed us. We never escape the past, Doctor Greengrass. I hope you know that. Never think you leave who you were behind."
He smiled as coolly as possible, and drank his tea. He could feel her eyes mining into him. She didn't need occlumency, or memories. She knew him already just from talking to him.
"You're not like other Slytherins."
"I'm not a Slytherin anymore. I graduated."
"Yes, but you aren't just made a Slytherin because you suit the colour green. It's a character trait. I know you want lots of things, and you'd do a great deal for them. Otherwise you wouldn't have come all the way to talk to me about... What do you call him? H? But you're not... You're nothing like your Uncle."
"You mean Draco?" Asked Denzel, and Mrs H nodded.
"He was a mean boy, but... I suppose he grew up to be better?"
"Sometimes, when I was younger, Aunt Astoria would say she walked into something, which is why she had bruises..."
Denzel trailed off. He didn't know why he'd said this. He hadn't even told his nearest and dearest about the things he had noticed back when he was a child about Astoria and Draco. But here he was, telling someone he'd never met before. There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Mrs H spoke again.
"Isn't it unusual how when we add a prefix to something, we drop the suffix? When you're somebody's father through wedlock, you're a father-in-law. But you're never a grandfather-in-law. Aunts and Uncles seem to break that rule rather, don't they? I'd never want my nieces and nephews calling me an Aunt-in-law. I wouldn't want their kids calling me a Great-Aunt-In-Law... Sorry, I'm babbling. Should I stop?"
"No," said Denzel rather quickly, "no. Keep going. It's been forever since I talked about nothing with anybody. What are your nieces and nephews called?"

"I can't stand Occlumency," said H fervently, "that might be why I didn't like you to start with."
"So you like me now?" Said Denzel, feeling a swell of joy in his heart as he spoke. He had never wanted to be liked by anybody more. As he watched H think to himself, he could see the family life of H play out in his mind, and he desperately wanted to have his girlfriend love him like H's wife loved him. Maybe, he feared, that would never happen. No, this was not the time to think that.
"You're better than the others. The others treat me like a freak. But I'm not."
"I know."
"I KNOW you know, I just SAID that!" Snapped H, briefly tensing, his fingers clenching to the edges of his chair, causing the chains to clank slightly.
"I'm sorry, H." Said Denzel, slightly taken aback.
"No, I'm sorry... It's just... Without my fix I... I get really angry... And please, call me by my name, I..."
"I can't. Not yet. Besides, I only know your first name. That's all I know about you."
"The other staff know more. I know they do. I heard Violetta say something about me. Before I..."
"Made her a patient in the hospital she worked for?"
H laughed sardonically under his breath.
"I can't control my wandless magic. I've always been... Susceptible to fits of the sullens. My friend's Mum... That's what she called it when my Godfather got like this."
"Why are you sullen, H?"
He didn't need to use his powers to tell why, but he wanted to keep him talking. This was the way to break through and getb in some important questions.
"I love her. But I can't be with her. Because of something else I can't live without. Can't you help me get better?"
"I don't really know enough about the case yet, but I'm building it up. If you co-operate though, then I may be able to piece more together."
"What happens after you solve my case? Am I let out into the world after all this?" Asked H, hopefully.
"Well, we won't have reason to keep you, so yes. I suppose we will, once we're sure you're... Clean."
"What if I were to bump into you on the street afterwards? What if I bumped into you and your... Wife?"
"I'm not married." Said Denzel, suddenly feeling very nervous at where this was going.
"What's she like? Are you going to?"
"She's fantastic. And I dunno."
"How did you meet?"
"Well, a friend, Bronwyn intr-"
"You know, I don't think using just words could ever tell me how much you love her. Maybe, you could... Show me."
Denzel felt a sick sense of failure in his stomach. He still needed memories.
"Show... You?"
"Just place your wand to your temple, and let it out into a pensieve. You must have one nearby."
"No, H. I can't do that. I can't let you slip back into that routine."
"GOD DAMMIT, I NEED SOMETHING, PLEASE. YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE ME LOVE LIFE BY PUTTING ME THROUGH TORTURE."
Denzel felt that feeling again. That zephyr that he had felt when Violetta was hit by the inflation spell. No. He wasn't going to fall to him. He felt a zap of electric energy race through his body. His limbs spasmed helplessly. He forced his mouth and mind to co-operate, and fire the first spell he could think of from the tip of his Blackthorn wand.
"LEGILIMENS!"

It was as if he had been plunged into a sea of suffocating, colorless, flavourless ink. His body was engulfed in a tidal wave of emotion and thought, and suddenly he was falling, falling.
He had landed. Landed in a kitchen. A red-headed woman was slowly losing what colour she had left in her hair as she chopped up potatoes. A man with hair of such similar hue to her own he could only be her brother sat at the table with two of the woman's children. One of the children had startling emerald eyes.
"Bloody hell sis! I can't believe he's at the pensieve again. What is this, the third time since I came this morning?"
"Don't. Please. It's not a simple thing."
"You should just get rid of that damn object. I know it's a relic from Dumbledore and everything, but come on!"
"It's not that SIMPLE. That won't stop it. He'll do something else, I'm sure of it. I know him ok?"
"If you don't do it, I will ok? He's my best mate, but I don't trust him anymore. It's just... Hey mate."
The figure of a man loomed in the doorway of the bright kitchen.
"Turn off the lights, darling."
"But dear," she said, not facing him but instead resuming her preperation for dinner, "then I won't be able to see what I'm doing, will I?"
"I don't like it. It's too bright."
"Mate, that's because you're stood in the dark," said the redhead. His voice was not as kind as it should have been.
"Take the children into the living room, please bro?"
The siblings met eyes, and then the man nodded. He ushered the children through another door, closing it behind him. Denzel stood in the middle of the kitchen, watching the strange scene unfold before him.
"I'm going to switch off the lights for you, darling." Said H, stood in the doorway, a morbid spectre surveying his beautiful wife.
"Alright, but your dinner will be late if you d-"
Her nervous laughter was cut short as the lights went out, and there was the sound of shrieks and combat. Mrs H grunted. A figure was thrown against the kitchen table, sending it several inches nearer the door to the living room. Beyond it, over the sound of the TV, the girl with the beautiful eyes began to cry. The lights came back on, and it was Mrs H pressing the switch this time. H lay sprawled on the floor, attempting to raise himself.
"How DARE you!" She cried in fear and disgust. "Don't you dare..."
"Memories! I need... Memories!"
The doorway from the living room attempted to open, but the kitchen table made it difficult. Mrs H's brother's voice rang out in a mock tender tone.
"Hey, what's going on in there?"
"Nothing, go back to the TV," said Mrs H, but her voice was far too shaky but to be seen as anything but a grim facade. She looked back at her husband, and in a moment of foolish resolution, ran upstairs. Denzel followed almost unwillingly, following her form as it rocketed up the stairs, tripping on one but still managing to race up to the landing and burst into a room so small and shadowy it could have been a darkroom. All that created light in the room was the pensieve, an electric blue aura coming from the frog-spawn like memories floating on its surface.
"REDUCTO!" Cried Mrs H, and like a sonic wave shooting from the end of her wand, the pensieve cracked and shattered. The blue fluid was now just normal water, spilling onto the dark floor. For a moment, she looked triumphant. Then the door was thrown open where it had only previously been ajar, and both Denzel and Mrs H turned to see the figure of her husband stood dark and shadowy in the landing.
"What did you do, you bitch?"
"The right thing."
Her husband spluttered. His appearance was still scratched with shadows. His visible hand drew out a wand, and a white boom erupted from the tip of his wand, hitting his wife. For a moment, her silhouette was lifted from the floor, and then she was knocked to the wet ground, shrieking and spasming in pain.

All of a sudden, he was leaving the house. Out the pensieve room, down the staircase, into the kitchen, into the living room, where the children hugged close to their concerned Uncle. Out the front door, out into the street, and suddenly, like Mary Poppins, he was lifted up into the sky, carried by a force like a fish hook stuck through his navel.

Now he was back in the Wormwood Room. Slumped against the wall next to the door. H was slumped back in his chair, a strange sort of steam rising from his body. Now, he'd finally see who H was. Denzel approached the chair, pushing the table out the way so he could stand right over H. How had ever been foolish enough to trust such a disgusting animal of a man? Was he a death eater? Another Pettigrew?
The door burst open. Loki, Bulstrode and Farquhar had leapt into the room, yelling in what could have been tongues for all Denzel cared. He carefully rolled H's head into plain view...

And caught sight of the lightning bolt scar across his patient's forehead.