A/N: Written for the Harry Potter Day Competition 2015 for the Dark Lord and Co Category and the "Not a Bad Word Count" Category. Thank you to my lovely brother for beta reading this for me.
When psychologists and therapists ask him to delve into the past and dig out memories in their attempt to find explanations and treatments, they determine that everything started the day his parents died. It's almost like it's a gruesome rebirth or a day to mark on a calendar and remember every year; the only thing that's missing is the celebratory card and gift exchange. He just wants to forget it, but they all just want him to dig it back up and analyse it like a high school English student searching for supporting evidence.
At the time, however, it was just another school day. Dennis was five years old and loved leaving his rundown little home with its tiny stretch of grass lining the footpath for the wide expanses of the school playground. While all the other children were always eager to return home at the end of the day, he routinely wished he could stay back just an extra few minutes in order to run around some more.
On the day in question, he had found a good tree to climb. Its branches twisted around, creating a canopy of sitting spots and footholds for him to explore. He was sitting in one of the little nooks, having a rest while he enjoyed the view he had of his otherwise boring school, when he spotted his teacher approaching his perch with a solemn-looking pair of policemen by her side. Worried that he might get in trouble and hoping they hadn't yet seen him, he scrambled further up the tree and onto a branch with better leaf cover.
Alas, no amount of leaf cover could have hidden him from the news. The small party found him and his teacher asked him to climb down before telling him what had happened in a soft voice that had him yearning to clamber back up the tree and away from these adults with their pitying eyes.
Now, he wishes that he had done just that; he wishes that he had climbed right back up that tree and refused to budge.
-t-
The next moment they focus on is always – always – his arrival at the orphanage. Just the thought of that place is enough to send shivers racing down his spine. A few therapists have recommended that he go back there to face his fear and to give his adult brain the opportunity to reframe what his child brain had deemed terrifying. Perhaps, they invariably think, seeing it now will make it seem smaller, less imposing, less powerful. Surely, they say, that will make things better.
But he can't stomach the notion. It's still too fresh, too raw; he knows that going back there will just tear things further apart. So, instead, he's stuck retelling everything he remembers about the day he arrived there and the torturous years that followed it like rabid hellhounds.
It hadn't looked quite so bad at first. It was dingy and crowded, but he was used to that. Sorrow had occupied his mind and prevented him from wasting any attention on his surroundings.
As time elapsed, however, it got worse. The matron, Mrs Cole, was kind but overworked and so often frazzled and preoccupied. And the other children were cruel to him. Most of it was unintentional; their memories of their parents were faded and inaccurate, and a number of them frequently asked him to tell them stories about his as a means of creating false memories and comfort, not realising the strain that put on him. One boy, however, was domineering and harsh to everyone. He had been left at the orphanage as a baby and the rumour was that he saw himself as having more of a right to it than anyone else; it was the only home he'd ever known, and he was determined to be the man of the house. His name was Tom Riddle; Dennis had once made the mistake of calling him Thomas and had been swiftly punished for his blunder. He quickly learned to avoid the boy without giving away that that was what he was doing. It didn't stop the nastiness, but it did protect him from the worst of it.
-t-
The worst thing about discussing the orphanage is that he knows where the conversation will inevitably lead. It's the crux of everything, after all. That little out-of-the-way sea cave is almost like a black hole in his mind; whenever his thoughts start straying too close to it, they all get sucked up until all that's left is blank nothingness and fear. At least not one marcher from the parade of psychologists and therapists that has come and gone over the years has ever had the horrible sense of suggesting that.
He can't even remember it properly. It's always there, niggling at the back of his mind, but then it wafts away before he can catch hold of anything but the barest wisps of memory.
His avoidance tactics had failed him that day. Usually, he only hid when Tom Riddle was looking particularly enraged or, worse still, calm. Fury meant he was looking for someone to avenge himself on, while calmness meant he had his plans in place to castigate them. The rest of the time, Dennis forced himself to stay nearby so that Tom would remember his presence positively. That day, however, Tom had simply looked antsy and excited when he'd asked Dennis and Amy to go for a walk with him. It hadn't been a particularly compelling invitation, but refusal was never an option when the older boy requested something, so both children had followed him obediently. They had followed him, then something had happened that had made them feel like the world was squeezing in on them, then they'd been someplace entirely different, then they'd followed him to a cave, then he'd cut Dennis' hand and smeared his blood on the wall, and then –
He can't remember anything solid after that; snippets of the evening come to him in bursts, and they're horrid enough. More comes to him while he's asleep, but he always forgets it within minutes of waking. Sometimes he thinks that his forgetfulness might be a blessing in disguise. The psychologists insist that remembering is the first step to recovery as it will give them something real to work with, but, no matter how many times therapists arrange to meet him on a beach to trigger sensory memories or attempt hypnosis to take him back to that place, nothing ever comes. Despite their insistence that it's vital that he remembers, he can't help but be glad that he doesn't. If merely thinking about it creates a black hole, what would returning to it do to him? They seem to want him to jump in headfirst, but he knows that's merely the path to an excruciating death.
-t-
Admittedly, his current life doesn't feel much better. He has nightmares; dark, twisted things that take him back to that winter afternoon and remind him of everything he's spent his life trying so hard to forget. It doesn't seem fair that they still haunt him to this day. Suffering through it once was agonising enough; reliving the events – or, at least, the feelings – night after night just seems excessive. But nothing seems to help. His parade of helpers have failed dismally at every turn, from the shrink who almost institutionalised him when he mentioned the trippy sensation of having his world compressed until he materialised elsewhere to the therapist who well-intentionally tried to give him control of the situation, only to realise that his natural inclination would just be to curl up and scream until his throat was parched from overuse. He tried staying awake until his exhaustion made him almost collapse from fatigue, but that just made him sick as well as terrified. He tried accepted medicines and old folk methods and even unsubstantiated new stuff. Alas, they all failed, and his nightmares persist unencumbered.
He still makes and attends appointments in the hopes that something will come along and save him from his own brain, but he doubts that will ever happen. For now, the only time he ever feels normal is when he meets up with Amy and just sits with her. She's in almost as bad a state as he is. They used to debate what that might imply about that evening, but both quickly realised that extrapolating and hypothesising was merely making it worse for both of them. So they sit together in treetops or on park benches and occasionally talk about nothing while fighting not to remember everything. He listens to her usually optimistic tales of her disastrous attempts at relationships, both platonic and romantic, and listens to her ramblings about her favourite animals and shapes. She hears him, with feigned confidence, discuss his own random thoughts and ponderings.
The dark imprints that it left badger him less when he's with her, yet they still unrelentingly hound his mind and warp his thoughts and feelings.
He's existing. He might even be surviving. But he's sure not living.