Disclaimer: All character's belong to J.K. Rowling...
Author notes: I've raised the rating accordingly out of safety...so everything should be covered.
Pairings: Harry/Ginny, Harry/Luna, Harry/Ginny/Luna
Prompt: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.- Albert Einstein
Out with the Old
"Are you absolutely positive this is safe?"
"Yes, Harry. My family has used this method for ages. Look at me. I turned out quite all right," Luna said, holding the vial towards the shafts of moonlight that seemed to hum through the opening of the cave.
Ginny gave him a look. That look that asked 'How did I let you talk me into this'. He responded with his 'As I recall, we didn't do much talking' look that he saved for occasions such as these.
"Erm, actually, I just remembered that Harry and I have a previous engagement. Don't you remember, dear?"
"Slipped my mind completely. We're too late for it to be fashionable. Besides, what do we have to lose?"
"If you don't want to do it, I would understand," Luna said, and Ginny winced.
"No, no. This is great. Just great." Ginny looked at her dress robes, fingering the already dirty patches and smears. Harry figured that she was just trying to keep her hands busy.
"Why a cave?" Harry asked. "And uh, why this cave?"
"This is where I used to play as a child," Luna said dreamily. She lowered the vial and Harry saw her figure illuminated against the moonlight. Harry wondered if she ever stopped being a child at all, and it jolted him that she thought of her childhood in the past tense.
He couldn't quite explain why.
The cave had been close to the Lovegoods' old home, and now it made sense that a younger Luna would have wandered here. The light glistened against the stale water and brought forth prisms in odd colors.
"So this will…this will change how we feel about our memories," Ginny said, as if repeating the idea made it true.
Harry inwardly stirred at the hope in her voice.
The nightmares had gotten worse with time, and he had gotten used to it. Every night for the past seven years he had woken up screaming and Ginny would always hold his head tightly to her chest, curling her arms over his head as if to shield him away from an invisible attacker. She would whisper in his ear a mantra of comfort. Only—a few times he had struck out at her while battling his inner demons, and in the mornings—God, in the morning, she had to wear a mauve cream to cover her bruises.
Of course, they kept the truth to themselves as long as they could. It was a personal problem between the two of them. Unfortunately, the eye of the public was ever-present, and his reputed fans had noticed that Ginerva Potter had never worn blush and scarves before. An article was in the Daily Prophet before the week was up.
Then in the eight year of peace for the rest of the world, they had both woken up screaming.
Despite her sharp glares, it was entirely Ginny's fault they were here in the first place. Luna had written to them quite consistently for someone so seemingly dotty. It was a just a chance happening that Ginny decided to write one line of script describing 'sleeping troubles'. And it was just his luck that Luna had a solution to their problem, one that had never let her down.
And here they were.
"Three drops for each of us," Luna proclaimed.
"You mean two drops," Harry corrected, feeling ridiculous with his knees against his chest. He was starting to dislike the way the cave seemed to be shrinking.
"Oh, no. Three, one for you, one for you, and one for me."
"It's our nightmare," he protested. "It's really none of your business-."
"What Harry is trying to say is we've shared this dream for months. And it is personal. If this potion really does allow us to see our dreams and understand the reason behind them, then it's something we have to do together."
"That's the difficulty. Two is not new and hasn't worked very well. I have to be there as an objective observer," Luna said, her eyes seeming to light up at the word 'objective'. He supposed it was a Ravenclaw thing.
"You didn't tell us that before!" Harry exclaimed and had a change of heart about this little arrangement.
"You didn't ask. Anyway, you're not still having dreams about sex, so it's nothing I have seen before."
Harry tried to work that statement out but was distracted by a vial being thrust towards his up-turned face. He bit his lip stubbornly.
"Harry," Ginny whispered, looking resigned. "Please. We've tried everything else."
The liquid in the vial was a pure, unearthly pearl. It almost hurt to look at it.
"I want to know what the hell th-!" Luna tipped the vial and before Harry knew it, a drop had touched his tongue.
And it spread. The sensation from the liquid soon spread to his mouth and poured down his throat. A blinding, throbbing pulse formed against the back of his eyes.
He shouted for Ginny not to drink it, not to touch the damn stuff that was currently trying to push his eyeballs from their sockets. Or he thought he was shouting. Maybe he wasn't.
Was there something to shout about?
He blinked, straightening his glasses. The cave had moved. Well, someone had moved the bloody thing because he certainly was elsewhere. Just where exactly was a bit troubling. His new surroundings were of mist. Just mist. He wondered if his delirium was trying to impress him. If so, it was doing a lousy job.
How unoriginal, he thought.
"Well, you do have to admit it is rather timeless," Luna said from behind him, and he jumped forward only to trip on something. The 'something' turned out to be wooden teeth, a piece of parchment with foreign squiggles on it, and a foul pair of socks. A golden snitch-like bird chattered happily by his head. Yes, chattered.
"Everything that is misplaced ends up here. So it all comes back in the end."
"Uh-huh. And who lost me, then?" Harry scoffed. Several bewildered looking cats trooped by his feet.
"That's funny. I didn't know someone owned you, Harry."
"She'd like to think so. I'm in the doghouse as we speak, Jim," Harry said then choked. "Don't tell me—old jokes get lost here too?"
"Oddly enough, all of the bad ones do."
"Oh, this is original," Ginny said dryly from his left.
"What are you doing here? We can't both be lost. Someone has to do the finding," he pointed out.
"Actually, it's your memories that are lost. The things you've hidden from yourselves over the years. I suspect they want to be found, and that's the reason you're having nightmares."
"…So we're in a giant lost and found box," Ginny muttered.
"One for the entire universe apparently," Harry said, looking around at the clutter, some highly unidentifiable.
"Well, even if we found our memories, I still-we still won't be able to change how we feel about them. That's mad."
"Oh, but you can! Everything is constantly changing. The same memory can get a different result. Something new and delightful out of the old and dreadful. It's a fascinating cornucopia of correlation! Some are distant cousins in relation and there are a few bad apples copulating about in the fruit basket of probability so they care more-"
"If you're doing an advertisement, Luna, don't bother. No one in their right mind would buy your sleeping solution," Harry said wildly, and words and memories began to spill out of his head. Quite literally.
He was nine and lying in the bushes under the Dursleys' window. A merry jingle came through the window and there was a burst of warm laughter from inside. He curled up into a ball, wishing he could disappear.
He winced. Ginny stared at him wide-eyed.
Luna smiled. "There, you see."
"I'm not having nightmares over a toothpaste commercial!" he bellowed.
"But you know…it kind of makes sense," Ginny mused, and Harry's jaw dropped.
"How! How does this— any of this— make sense? Unless we're damned to suffer in a very convincing version of hell in a sock drawer."
"I suppose when we see what's been bothering us that we um-laugh at it, kind of like fighting against a boggart…right?" She looked at Luna for approval of the idea.
"Not quite. You have to really feel differently about it. Yet a good dose of laughter is often times the best medicine for the mental malady."
"So what exactly about that memory was funny?" Harry demanded, and the two fell silent. "Yeah, thought so."
"Were you very lonely, Harry?" Luna asked, coming closer to him. He stared down at her, noticing how very small she was. Her bone structure was somewhat sort and delicate, despite the way she intimidated him at times.
"No." Ginny raised an eyebrow skeptically. "It's true. I didn't know there was anything better out there. It was kind of life for me."
"Well," Ginny muttered, smiling at him sadly. "I knew they were terrible people, Harry. Ron told me, you know. About the bars on your window."
"Back then," he said quickly. "It's all right now. There's no reason to dig it up again. The past is the past. Dumbledore said not to dwell on dreams."
"He didn't mean when your dreams are ruining your life, Harry," Ginny argued, her brow furrowing.
"I suppose not. I've always been the exception, huh," he said, laughing away some bitterness. He didn't like pity, and this was the one thing that hadn't changed over the years.
"Of course," Luna said brightly, who was close enough for her chin to touch his chest. "You know first hand that a rule can be broken. That the narrow-minded walk in single file while the broad-minded-"
"I get the picture," Harry responded gently. "I just don't think this is going to work. I'm sorry. I can't do this."
"Can't or won't?" Ginny demanded, putting her hands on her hips.
"I won't!" he exclaimed sharply, crossing his arms across his chest in defiance.
"That's Mummy's special, widdle boy! Vernon, come here, Duddlekins is saying two words instead of one!"
"Takes after his old man. It only took two years, mind."
There was a stunned silence.
"Two words?" Ginny intoned.
"Two years?" Luna looked thoroughly scandalized.
Harry felt his face flush hotly. "All right, I'll try it. But only if I can call it quits at any time."
"Of course," the girls chorused, and he had the distinct impression he was being manipulated. Somehow, somewhere, this had to count as blackmail. Even in the rubbish bin of the universe.
"You've both seen mine. Now show me yours." After the fact, he thought he could have worded his request a bit better.
"I can do better than that," Luna promised, and suddenly he was back in the rose bushes and finding it hard to breathe. That was possibly due to the fact that Luna Lovegood was straddling his waist. The fortunate thing was that he was no longer nine years old. The unfortunate thing was he hit his head on the window ledge.
"Did that hurt?" she asked.
"Oh, not at all. Just almost had a—wait, it hurt." Harry reached up and felt the window glass. It was slightly cool, and the sweat from his fingers left a pattern on the surface. The roses smelled of freshly laid mulch and the water sprinkles tsked with razor sharp accuracy. Luna was quite real too, and he felt her warmth through his clothes.
"Er, so. What's all…this about?"
"That's what I would like to know," Ginny said, peering over the rose bush. She didn't seem to mind that her dress was in complete taters, allowing her pale skin to show and against the black fabric, he couldn't really stop thinking how nice it would be to touch those places.
"Do you feel any differently? Not as lonely, I imagine."
Harry paused for a moment. Luna was on top of him, her eyes calm and bright. There was Ginny, her red hair coming out of its bun and framing her face in a very distracting way…
"Definitely not as lonely," he confirmed.
"I wonder why," Ginny muttered. "Luna, I'm don't think that is necessary."
"Oh, this is your place on top. I should have known," Luna observed, and Ginny blushed scarlet.
"Y-now, this is absurd. That's my husband you're sitting on!"
"A decidedly-not-as-lonely husband," Luna corrected. "I don't mind trading places."
"What!" The sprinkler tsked and a car drove by, the driver unperturbed by the scene developing in the Dursley's prized lawn.
"I would be under Harry, right here, and Ginny, you would be on top of Harry. I don't want to replace you. I'm only trying to help."
"You've got a funny way of showing it! Come on, Harry, we're leaving." Ginny grabbed him by the collar and pulled him through the rose bushes. The Dursleys had left the pruning up to him, and to his horror, he realized he had been slacking off the job in this memory. Luna toppled off during the struggle and to all appearances looked bewildered by their refusal.
"After I find a door," Ginny hissed, looking around fiercely and resembling a small tiger. She marched towards the Dursleys' doorstep, Harry in tow.
"Uh, Gin, that may not be such a good idea," he sputtered. Ignoring his advice, Ginny pushed open the door, and one of the Dursleys' good coat racks met its untimely end.
"That was absolutely disgusting! The nerve! How could she?" she yelled. Three heads swiveled in their direction.
"Who are you people, and what are you doing-?" Vernon sputtered to a stop, spotting Harry in all his twenty six year old glory.
"Oh, you're just a memory, you bloody idiot, from the sick mind of my husband who was happily letting my good friend seduce him in your fertilizer!" Ginny roared at cowering Dursleys. "So don't even try to pretend you're real. Just continue doing whatever it is you do. There's nothing to see here."
"Out with the old, in with the new," a dreamy voice chirped from outside. Aunt Petunia shrieked and rushed to the china cabinet where she started to build an impressive arsenal consisting of drinking glasses, knives, and sporks.
"Bugger," Ginny hissed.
"Right. Ginny, wand, quickly," Harry whispered out of the side of his mouth.
"I don't have mine."
Uncle Vernon's frighteningly prune face broke into a vicious smile. "What a shame," he growled, clenching his beefy fists. "Come back in time to torment us, huh. Some kind of little mind game."
"The neighbors, Vernon," Aunt Peturnia cautioned. "One of those things is wandering about in the tulips."
"My prized, rare-bulbed tulips…"
Luna popped her head about the arch of the kitchen doorway, the already wilting flowers clutched in her hand.
"Excuse me, but do you have a bit of string? These would make a most wonderful addition to my collection. I've found that these flowers attract Wrackspurts by the dozens. By the way, you have one, there, dozing on your bald spot."
A small distraction occurred as Uncle Vernon started to hit himself in the head, staggering madly about the room as if he were on fire and doing a very good impression of a bull in a china shop.
"Come on," Harry said, grabbing Ginny by the hand and rushing towards Luna. "It's time to go."
"You two are always in such a rush," Luna complained, leaning against the doorway.
"Where's the way out?" Ginny asked. There was a crash from the next room. Aunt Petunia had upturned a vase over his uncle's head, in an effort to rid him of his unwelcome guest.
"You know, I've never thought of a way out," Luna said calmly. "It's funny, the way time flies by."
"Time!" Harry shouted. "You said that place was timeless! So-so-so-." He searched frantically for an answer.
"A clock," Ginny returned, smiling despite the insanity of the situation. "Stop the clock."
Harry had just attacked the antique grandfather clock when Uncle Vernon sprung out of the sitting room with a weapon in hand, his weight traveling impressively around his waist. He brandished the fire poker like a bizarre, bulkier version of a samurai warrior, bellowing at the top of his lungs.
"I"LL PUT YOUR OUT OF YOUR MISERY, YOU ABOMINDATION! I SHOULD HAVE DROWN YOU THE MOMENT THOSE FREAKS ABANDONED YOU HERE!"
"On second thought," Harry said, a haze burning across his mind. "I don't need a wand to deal with you."
"Harry!" Ginny screamed, looking terrified. "Don't you dare-!"
A flying gooseberry pie plate had exploded near her head. Moving faster than he had ever seen her move, Luna pulled Ginny into the kitchen, out of range of the array of dinner utensils.
"Come on!" Harry shouted at his demon of an uncle. The memory of his childhood must have been more potent than he had realized. To his nine-year old mind, his uncle had been a giant, and Harry could not see a single shred of goodness or humanity in his face. He recalled all the times he had been bullied into the cupboard by those large hands, and with every pang of pain and loneliness, the house darkened visibly; his uncle seemed to loom taller.
Spiders started to crawl through the cracks in the wood on the wall, ruining the flowered wall-paper, and he felt them on his face while he slept, while he ate, while he cried.
Harry realized this wasn't the past. Not the real past, just something that lived
inside of him. He had kept this monster alive.
"DAMN YOU!" Harry cried and fear and sweat swelled to a feverish pitch in the house. "DAMN YOU FOR MAKING ME THIS WAY! I WON'T LET YOU BE A PART OF ME! I WON'T!"
Blind, he reached for any weapon within arms length. His hands found something made of glass and massive weight, and not thinking, he threw it at his uncle's contorted face.
Numbers and small, golden hands exploded and broke into a thousand red pieces. He felt a pull, from inside of him. Not in his navel but in his heart, and it was painful. He screamed.
Into the mist. The house had disappeared. His body shook and trembled as if a fever was breaking.
"Ginny, Luna!" he cried. "Oh, please, please, answer me! I didn't want to hurt you!"
Ashamed and feeling so very small, he couldn't hold back his tears any longer. Harry covered his face, hiding within the mist where all the lost things ended up.
"Oh, Harry…"
Lithe arms wrapped around his middle, and a familiar, warm presence pressed into the small of his back. "It's okay. It's all right. I didn't know, I swear I didn't know. I'm so sorry I didn't realize…"
He could never bear the sight of Ginny crying and hugged her. He wanted so much to be apart of her, even though that other side had always been there. It made him afraid he wasn't good enough for her, or anybody. There was something in him that made people, normal people like the Dursleys, want to lock him away. Something that made them so afraid.
"How could I not have known?" Ginny asked him, her voice hoarse. Hateful but only towards herself.
"I didn't let you. If you got close enough, I was…I thought…"
"That's so stupid!" she said but she was smiling. "You know I love you. You. Everything about you."
"I know," Harry said, a small bit of relief flashed through him.
"The nightmares though. The nightmares, they'll be gone, won't they? We did it. We beat this."
"Oh." Luna stood nearby. To Harry's amazement, she looked almost awkward.
"Thank you," he said, and he had never meant the phrase more in his life. "Thank you, Luna."
"But what happened in there?" Ginny asked, looking up at Luna sharply. "Between you and Harry?"
Oh, Harry thought. That explains Luna's discomfort.
"I would like to know to," Harry added.
"Oh that?" Luna asked. "You've been writing to me for quite awhile, Ginny. You said Harry was starting not to care for you."
Harry gave a start. He moved Ginny so they were face to face. "What? You-you thought I-was what, making up nightmares so you would have to leave me?"
"It wasn't just during the night that you were distant from me, Harry. And I never thought you were making them up, not for a single minute. I just thought I wasn't enough to really help you," Ginny said then battled to face Luna again. "But you, you saw an opportunity, you took advantage of our problems to get close to Harry. How could you, you of all people, be so two-faced?"
"If I had two faces," Luna mused. "You would think I'd put both to use."
They stared up at her. Was she admitting she had a plan to drive them apart or denying the accusation? A clutter of newly misplaced items fell into the place, making the pair jump.
Luna tilted her head, her unnerving gaze unusually focused. "Quite the opposite. You wrote that Harry didn't care very much for you. I discovered quite the opposite."
"…You mean you played a trick on us?" Harry sputtered, dumbfounded.
"It takes a clever ruse to sort the truth from the lies."
"I…I don't know what to say," Ginny said. "I said all those things to you and the entire time you were actually trying to help."
"It's all right. Perhaps it wasn't a very nice trick."
"We owe you. A lot. More than you know," Harry said, helping Ginny to her feet. Then, after a pause, he reached out and took Luna's hand, bringing her closer to the two.
"For what?" Luna looked puzzled, her eyes darting between their illuminated faces.
"For helping us sort out our troubles. And the nightmares as well," Ginny said kindly and hugged Luna tightly. Harry put his arms around the two of them. Luna stiffened but then slowly melted into their embrace.
"This is all very pleasurable," Luna whispered into Ginny's shoulder. "But I haven't quite gotten rid of your bad dreams yet."
"What do you mean? Of course you did," Harry said. "I hadn't realized how badly my past with the Dursleys still haunted me."
"Yes, there's that. A very unpleasant memory indeed. But not the trouble-maker of the bunch."
"There's something else?" Harry stepped back, frowning. "I'm not that much of a head case, am I?"
"…There was the war," Ginny said, looking uncomfortable. "Maybe, well, surely you'd have bad memories of that time."
"Come on," Harry said, wandering around the place. Finding a quaint abandoned couch, he sat down, holding his head in his hands once more. "It would take years before I'm over that. We'd be here forever."
"Unless this beastie is not coming from your head case," Luna declared.
"Then where is it coming from?" Harry asked. Luna looked at Ginny.
"That's impossible," Ginny said, laughing and crossing her arms.
"You've both had the same dreams this year. What if they were really the one and the same to begin with?" Luna asked.
"…You're always awake before me," Harry remembered, looking at his wife as if seeing her for the first time. "Always….Because you had woken up screaming before me."
His wife was the strongest person he had ever known. And now he was starting to think he had never thought to comfort her as much as she had comforted him…
She hugged her arms tighter to her chest and her smile remained despite the look of uncertainty in her expression.
"I would have remembered," she said, still laughing.
"Not if you desired—needed to forget." Luna touched Ginny gently, lovingly, on the cheek. Ginny backed away, shaking her head, her red tresses whipping across her features.
"I-this is about Harry. I can't have a problem now, you know. That's-it's not me. It can't be me."
"Gin…" Harry rose to his feet, alarmed at her behavior. "You could have told me. Why on earth did you think you had to tough it out alone?"
We can't both be lost. Someone has to do the finding.
His voice echoed through the mists, and Harry's heart seemed to stop. All this time. All this time, Ginny had thought…
Luna listened to the words thoughtfully. "I see what has happened now," she said. Harry couldn't meet her gaze this time. All he could see was his wife who was practically shattering before his very eyes.
"It's a mistake. This was a terrible, terrible mistake," Ginny said, holding her forehead. "It's…it's hurting again. Please, make it stop."
The mists turned again, shifting. Harry felt a change the air. Something familiar. Something he had felt before, except inside of him. Reaching inside of him.
If death is nothing, Dumbledore, then kill the boy.
His world froze at those soft words. Those empty, soulless, silky words. Endless words.
"Oh my God." He heard someone speak, someone calling for help, any help, and found it was him. How weak his words sounded, helpless and alone. "Not Ginny. Not again."
The room pulsed into blackness. It was almost like a heart beat after being gone for so long. The mists looked…like it forming into a smile. A face. A body.
A sharp hissing sound filled his ears and he turned in time to see Luna sailing in the air, having been pushed by an invisible force. She screamed, and Harry wished, wished, prayed, and looked for a cushion. A couch. This couch, he thought, and hoped, and suddenly the room reacted.
Luna hit a cushion, found just for him, and rolled to the floor unharmed. He raced towards her.
"Luna, you've got to get us out! Right now!"
"I-I'm trying! It won't let me!"
Ginny let out a banshee-like wail that could only come from pain and hate. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and when he tried to scream, nothing would come out.
His wife's small body had been engulfed by the energy in the room. Her arms were covered in blood as if they had been dipped into a paint can. He could smell it, something old and hidden. Ginny looked at hands idly.
She's going into shock, Harry thought desperately, his heart twisting.
"It's absorbing the magic of this place," Luna whispered. "Her nightmare is actually being reborn."
Harry ran. He ran towards Ginny, the mist reflecting and refracting like a fun house. He couldn't get to her. She looked at him, her lost gaze seeking him out. And she smiled.
Goodbye, Harry she mouthed.
Then the mist swallowed her whole.
They were left in darkness once more.
"Harry, is that you?" Luna touched his forehead. "These are your glasses. Is this your face?"
"Yeah. Yeah, it is," he said numbly, allowing her fingers to trace his scar. "If only it wasn't," he said, his voice threatening to break into hysterics. "I kill everyone who gets close to me."
"I—that's not true. Ginny's not dead!" Her sudden shout made him blink, and his head cleared.
"Well…as good as dead, and I-."
She shoved him. He didn't know which was more surprising: that Luna Lovegood actually shoved him, or that he could feel anything at all.
"Haven't you been listening? Everything changes here."
"Obviously. Judging by what just happened, it works a little too well!" he shouted in her general direction, tears pouring down his face. In the end, he couldn't help Ginny, and he felt like disappearing into nothingness would be a justifiable fate for someone like him.
"…I think we should leave now."
"Excuse me? I will not leave Ginny behind," Harry snapped.
"Neither will I. Shall we go after them?" she inquired firmly. "Or will it just be me, then?"
"…No way in hell are you leaving me out of kicking his arse. Even if it is just a bad dream's arse. One question, though: how?"
"Think about it, Harry. Nothing is more dangerous than what people want to misplace."
The darkness parted instantly at her words. Luna Lovegood stood in front of him. In her hand was a…shriveled Hand of Glory? He pointed at it, his brow furrowed.
"Oh, there are lots of little items like this lying around, just waiting to be used."
"So technically, would using a dark object be frowned upon here since this isn't the real world?"
"I'll pretend if you will," she said, smiling.
"I've never minded a little imagination. Hold on, let me find something." He knelt down and remembered. Dumbledore's office had been ransacked on night during the war, and McGonagall had written to tell him how Godric Gryffindor's sword had disappeared.
Soon, the hilt was in his grip once more. He felt twelve again. A bit naïve, a bit afraid, but hopeful. He was hopeful.
"Your dark object is a bit more impressive than mine is," Luna observed.
"I need someone to light the way. You're perfect for the job, you know. And it's not a dark object. Trust me."
"I do believe in you," she said, her smile becoming somewhat shy. He blinked. He didn't know Luna could be shy. "I really do."
"Don't believe me," he said quickly. "Believe in us. We have to believe in each other to get out of this alive."
"Ginny too?"
"Yeah, Ginny too. Let's go get her."
-Next part up soon!