He was almost like a God to her, Harley stretched out like a cat on the huge king sized bed covered in luxurious purple silk covers inside their Gotham apartment. Her Puddin was away doing business. He never included her in his business dealings, well unless they required her seducing someone. She never really minded she told herself, "mister J just likes to play our game, watching me seducing other men get's him all jealous and dominant, just the way I like him" she chuckled to herself softly, twining her platinum hair tipped with red and blue through her fingers. "He just doesn't want me getting involved with his business because he doesn't want me getting hurt." She traced the tender bruise he had gifted her with that morning when she questioned him about what time he would be home, she had wanted to make him a nice romantic dinner, she hadn't been trying to nag, honest.
She knew deep down, very deep, buried somewhere so far she hardly ever acknowledged these thoughts that if you care about someone you don't treat them like that. Oh you can hurt people you love, she did believe that, after all sometimes it's the people we love that we end up hurting the most. But she was uncomfortable when her pudding made her flirt with other men, he would watch in the shadows as they slid their hands across her body a smirk on his face almost as if he was enjoying watching how uncomfortable it made her. He always stormed in before it crossed the line into clothes being shed, but still she thought maybe it's a sign he doesn't really care. "No, I'm just being silly of course he loves me. I'm his queen and he's my king." She sprang out of bed putting aside her troubling thoughts. "What to do, what to do, I'm boredddd." She suddenly heard her phone playing Beyonce's "Crazy in love." Which was for when Mr J texted her. She went over with a huge smiled on her face and read the msg. " Hey sugar put on a party dress, it's date night!" All doubts she had about him far from her mind , she bounced over to her wardrobe, flinging upon the doors and frowning. "I need something extra special to wear tonight" She thought as she remembered how Joker had seemed distant lately, always cranky with her and shutting himself up in his office/torture chamber doing who knows what. Sometimes she heard screams coming from the office, but she never interrupted his work, having learnt the hard way the consequences of doing that.
She grabbed her purse and headed out into Gotham's fashion district, the good thing about Gotham was it was so corrupt that she knew nobody would call the police. Even if they did half the cops were on Joker's payroll anyway so fat lot of good it would do them. Now and then someone would look at her a bit to long or give an obvious start of fear and recognition when they saw her, all in a days work for being a super villain she thought to herself gleefully as she watched an obviously nervous father pull his young daughter away quickly. Not that he had reason to fear, believe it or not she did have a few lines she wasn't willing to cross, hurting animals or children were some of them. She wasn't sure why, but if she had to examine her psyche from the perspective of her former self Doctor Harleen Quinzel, she would say she saw them as the only true innocents, and maybe just maybe part of her longed for that innocence. But she knew deep down that it was to late for her now, Joker had twisted and moulded her into who she was and there was no turning back. She was a broken, doll she was so far gone she enjoyed the pain, sometimes even craved it, she longed for the chaos and destruction only her amazing Mister J could bring. She wasn't as dumb as people believed her to be though, the dumb blonde act was mainly just that, an act that she dropped when not around Joker. She didn't get her Pyschology degree by being stupid, ok she may have gotten it by sleeping with several of her teachers, but still she knew she was no dummy. She was a master manipulator, a chameleon who could blend in to her environment and seem harmless until she drew close enough to strike, she was a predator in a beautifully damaged package. She had days though were a flicker of her old self would come to the surface. She made her way past various clothes stores, looking in the windows and trying to find something that caught her eye when she noticed an old lady making her way down an alley a mammoth thug looking man following her with an evil look in his eye, one she had seen in Joker's many a time.
He neared the woman and reached out to grab her when Harley struck, she reached for the knife she always had in a holster on her thigh ( a present from Mister J) and swift as a snake plunged the knife deep into the assailant's neck. "Didn't your mumma tell you to respect your elders, tut tut" she clicked her tongue and smiled at him manically as he started choking and coughing. "what's that your saying,? I can't quite hear you." She mockingly said as she cupped her ear and leant towards him. He slid down to the ground and stopped moving. The little old lady was shaking and looked at Harley "thank you so much, God must have sent to angel to watch over me today." This made Harley quite uncomfortable "lady I'm more of a devil then an angel, now I advise you to avoid dark alleys like this, their not exactly safe for little old ladies like yourself you know." The lady still shaking form the ordeal of having nearly been robbed then seeing a man die horribly in front of her clasped Harley's hand and said "You're an angel to me, I want you to have this as a token of my appreciation." She reached into her blouse and unclasped a necklace, it was on a simple silver chain and had a bright red ruby attached to it, it was plain but beautiful, there was something unique about it. "This necklace is for fulfilling your wishes, whatever they may be, I want you to have it dear." She pressed it into Harley's hand and then with a smile turned around and left. Harley stood there, she hadn't known what to say to the obviously crazy little old lady, she wanted to laugh and call her insane and say to go home to her cat's but something had stopped her, maybe it was the way she had faintly resembled her grandma.
As she started walking she thought about her childhood, her parents had died in a car crash leaving her to live with her only living relative, her grandma. Her grandma was a kind woman, always pottering about in her little herb garden and feeding the birds, they hadn't had much in the way of money but still Harley was at her happiest back then, despite her parents death. She remembered how her grandma would snuggle her up in a warm blanket and sit her on her lap on the rocking chair in front of the fireplace. She would read her stories about magical lands far away that Harley had always longed to be a part of. Her absolute favourite had been Harry Potter, she had begged her grandma to read it to her over and over, she had fallen in love with the magical world and had wished when she was 11 that she would find out that it truly did exist and that she would get to go to Hogwarts. That didn't happen though, instead when she turned 11 her grandma had died from a stroke. She was heartbroken and left to fend for herself at an orphanage having nobody to take her in. Despite it all she knew she had something that the other orphans didn't, the truth. She knew she had parents that loved her and wouldn't have given her up. Most of them didn't have that knowledge to comfort them. Now orphanages in general aren't nice places, but in Gotham they were absolutely awful, holes in the walls and filth everywhere, she had quickly learnt the sad fact that most people didn't care about the orphans. The rich were busy keeping rich and didn't want to give away their money to charity, and the poor had to many problems of their own to care about her problems, so she was left to survive in that hellhole. It was a place were bullying had run rampant, with nobody caring enough to keep them in check, she had been a target of the abuse for being a bit to pretty, for having had parents that loved her, the other children had been jealous and hateful towards her. She had had one friend though, a streetwise orphan a few years older then her called Grace. Grace had found Harley amusing and they had often walked around Gotham together when life at the orphanage got to be to much to bare. Grace had aged out before Harley and left Gotham with some guy she had met, but not before giving her some advice. She had said to be careful when someone tried to adopt her, to make sure they were doing it for the right reasons, because sadly people in Gotham often weren't. So when a middle aged balding man had come in to adopt her one day she surveyed him closely and noticed how something seemed off with him, how she didn't like the way he was looking at her. She had lost enough of her innocence to know what he was, a pedophile. So she did the only thing she could do, the acted like a little monster and told him if he tried to adopt her she would do horrible things to him, things no thirteen year old should know about. It was during this period of her life that Harley had first emerged, the darkness inside her had grown, she had to be tough simply to survive.
She continued her shopping trip finding a great sparkly black and gold dress eventually, she set aside her dark thoughts of her past wishing as she did sometimes that she didn't remember it. That when she had emerged from that chemical vat with her love to start this new life she could have had a blank slate with no memories to go with it, Joker said he didn't remember his past at all, she didn't quite believe him. "I guess he just doesn't trust me" she thought sadly making her way home.
Later that night she was all dressed up in her beautiful dress waiting for her Puddin, it was 2 hours past when he said he'd be home. She kept going to the bathroom to retouch her makeup needing to keep busy to keep the troubling thoughts that he had once again forgotten about their plans away.
Suddenly the door opening alerting her to his presence, striding in humming to himself, his usually well groomed green hair falling messily into his eyes he looked her up and down in appreciation. "Well hey there sugar, did you get all dressed up for little old me? Why I feel flattered." He slurred, she stood nervously, he could be at his most dangerous and violent when drunk. "No he feels bad about what he did before, he promised he wouldn't do it again" she told herself , but remembered all the times he had previously promised the same thing only to break that promise. Their relationship was a confusing one even to her, she liked the fighting to a degree, sometimes even started it. The slapping and hair pulling was almost a sort of foreplay, but now and then she could see a demonic glint in his eye that signaled oncoming pain even she didn't enjoy. That glint was currently in his eye.
"Puddin your late" she started nervously walking over to him the way someone might approach a wild animal, slowly and cautiously.
"I'm late, I'm late, I'm lateee, for a very important date! Ha ha ha!" he laughed and started spinning around then as suddenly as he started he stopped grabbing her by the shoulders and throwing her into the wall. "Puddin your hurting me" she started saying her voice shaking slightly, wishing she could be a bit more courageous, a bit more like the old her. "Shhh now, no need to be afraid, I'm not gonna hurtcha." He grabbed the sides of her face and looked at her, she then noticed a smell, a smell of perfume, it wasn't her perfume. "Puddin, why do you smell like perfume?" she started asking her voice shaking slightly with the oncoming tears that threatened to slide down her cheeks. "Well uh you see dear I was delayed, I was having some fun of the erotic kind" he said rolling out the erotic slowly as if to taunt her. "Also I caught up with batsy on my night time wanderings, we reached an agreement of sorts, see he knows that I" pointing to himself "will neverrr be kept in jail or that joke of a nuthouse arkham asylum for long. So we made an agreement, I give him you and he stops chasing me. You are the next biggest villain in Gotham after me you know. I'm actually quite proud of that since I created you after all, and well now I'm sick of playing with you, I've found another fun toy to play with" he chuckled darkly.
Harley couldn't speak, couldn't even breathe, sure they had their fights, fights of epic proportions, but she had always thought that deep down he loved her, that he would never want another woman.
Suddenly the batman came crashing through the door, Joker started waving at her tauntingly and suddenly something inside her snapped, it was like every doubt she had about him, every bit of anger and most currently her deep welling sadness that was so deep in threatened to drown her entirely was brought to the surface in a turbulent mess of chaotic emotion, usually she liked chaos but this she to much for her. Almost on auto pilot not even fully aware of what she was doing she pulled out the gun she had in her tight blue and red shorts pointed it at Joker and before him or Batman could react she fired, one shot, one shot was all it took to change her world entirely. She watched as Joker fell to the ground, a bloody, dripping hole in his forehead, eyes blank, mouth finally silent never to laugh again. Suddenly a feeling of numbness overtook her, next thing she knew Batman had knocked her out and she awoke in an orange jumpsuit in a cell in arkham asylum. She didn't even have the strength to care, that last bit of strength she had had gone into killing the Joker, now she let the numbness overtake her, she rocked back and forth on the floor.
She was like that for days, possibly even weeks, possibly even months. She had lost track of time as the numbness had slowly given way to all consuming grief and despair. Joker had been right, he had made her, he had created her in his own twisted image and without him she didn't know who she was. With nothing but time to stare at the wall she had had lots of time to think, to think about the way Joker had treated her, she knew now it wasn't love, it never had been, she didn't think he was even capable of such an emotion. She started to realize that she could go on with out him and however much it hurt she was better off without him. She was still heart broken and consumed by grief, but she slowly started to regain her sense of self. As the clouds of despair ever so slowly started to depart she started to remember what life had been like before Joker, and she thought that maybe just maybe she could find herself again, she knew she could never go back to her old self entirely, neither did she want to. But maybe she could create a new self.
One day she heard the door to her cell open and the security guard walked in with her lunch, he was a kindly older man who had taken a liking to the strange villainess currently occupying the cell. He held out the plate to her " you might find a surprise on that if you actually bother eating " he said with a grin.
As he left she picked up her plate, finally having a bit of an appetite, she started to eat wondering what it was he meant, as she picked up her bread roll she saw her necklace , the necklace that the old lady had given her sitting on the tray. She had forgotten about it's existence entirely. "Crazy old lady" she chuckled for the first time in a long time, "hell why not give it a try, it's not like I have anything to lose."
She thought about what she might wish for, remembering again her grandma and those days spent in front of the rocking chair reading, she said loudly , "Ok Mr genie or fairy godmother or however this works, I want a fresh start, I want Hogwarts to be real." She waited actually faintly hoping for something to happen, it didn't. "Piece of junk, I don't know what I was thinking." she threw the necklace into the corner and curled up in her small cot to go to sleep.
She awoke to the feeling of hard stone beneath her, thinking she had once again managed to fall off her bed due to tossing and turning she sat up slowly. The first thing she noticed was that she was in some kind of school uniform, definitely not her hideous orange jumpsuit, she suddenly caught sight of her arm and saw that the deathly pale color she had previously possessed had returned to her normal fair skin, picking up her hair she noticed it to had returned to her previous honey blonde color. Still half asleep she was finding this a lot to process when suddenly she heard the sound of approaching footsteps and a bossy voice "Just who are you and what do you think you are doing here, I know all the students that go here and your not one of them."
She looked up and felt like if she hadn't already been lying on the ground she would have fallen over, standing before her gleaming prefects badged pinned to the front of his robes was none other then a young Voldemort , also known as Tom riddle.
( If you want me to continue hit that comment button and let me know! Not sure if this pairing works at all, so I need some encouragement please.)
