So Warnings! there are descriptions of Blood and some gore in this. It is mild... ish, so be careful. And here is chapter two
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As Harry entered her Lab, crates in arm, she had a great many thoughts stirring themselves around her psyche. Just half an hour previously, Harry had been at the mercy of a pissed off drunkard, and then the tables had turned on them. In a fraction of a second, Harry's magic had seared the flesh from a man's bones, (although it really didn't reach the bone, just burnt him severely... which she was really trying not to think about), leaving it an unsightly and excruciatingly painful mess. Admittedly, it had accomplished the task she set it, but... it had been so violent. And the way her magic had lashed out at him when he tried to get her a third time...
It was terrifying. It had been in self defence, yes, and she hadn't killed him, but she had left him with an arm that would have been horribly scarred if she hadn't used Dittany on it, and three cracked ribs, with a further two actually broken. And then, instead of just leaving him there to awake in agony, like a far too great a percentage of people would do... she had healed him. She had healed him as best she could and fixed his robes with overpowered cleaning and mending charms, and left behind a second dose of pain reliever, because she felt rather guilty about hurting him in the first place.
She would, Harry decided, brew extra healing potions to flesh out her repertoire. It would be good to have them anyway, in case of emergencies or further disputes. Then, as she settled in to brew the rest of the potions on Krait's list, Harry carefully focused on the unfamiliar recipes and put the thought of her magic and its behaviour in a box, locked within the lab in her mind, to be examined when she had completed her brewing.
Later that night, after settling into bed, Harry closed her eyes and retreated to her mindscape. She needed to deal with this now, before anything else happened. Opening her inner eyes, Harry strode swiftly through the illusionary gate and into the potions lab at the base of her mountain. Stopping in front of a box on one of the bookcases, she eyed the storm it depicted with trepidation. She had to deal with this. She couldn't let it wait around any longer, because next time, (and Harry was sure that there would be a next time, given Knockturn Alley's reputation; it wasn't all just hearsay, her parents had warned her away from it for a reason), her magic might injure whoever grabbed her in a way that couldn't be healed. It could leave them permanently crippled, for life and it was a possibility that Harry was terrified of. And yet she hesitated as she reached for the box.
The crux of the matter, Harry knew, was that she needed to be able to trust her magic. It was her magic that allowed her to do potions, after all. However she also knew that she did trust her magic... She trusted it to protect her when it believed she was in danger. When Lee had tried to hurt her hands and destroy her ability to brew potions, her magic had lashed out and slammed him into the wall hard enough to knock him unconscious and bruise him greatly. This afternoon, it had done the same thing, breaking the ribs of a fully grown adult male with the amount of force it had used; and his arm... She had asked it her magic to make him let go, and it had burnt him, searing the skin and leaving behind the most horrible smell of burning flesh. And she hadn't even noticed the smell of it until she was tending his wounds; wounds she had inflicted with her magic, which brought her to another thing she hadn't noticed.
The man's blood had stained her hands. It had dried there, clinging to her skin along with scraps of charred flesh. Harry had dropped her wand at this discovery, horrified. The only thought that ran through her mind at that moment was to get it off get itoffgetitoffgetitoffofme! And it had disappeared, but Harry hadn't noticed, the image of it burned deep into her brain, even as she mindlessly cast cleaning charm after wandless cleaning charm.
She'd only noticed when she realised how lightheaded she felt and that she was hyperventilating. Forcing herself to calm down and breathe properly had taken a few minutes, at which time she noticed the remarkably clean state of the street in her immediate vicinity. And then how clean the man now was as well. Harry had taken one more, deep, shaky breath and picked her wand up and pulled burn paste from her potions kit, bandages not far behind. She'd mended his robes with a rather over powered Reparo, because to her still, slightly shaky mind, it seemed a pity his robes were so clean, but still tattered. Maybe Pansy was wearing off on her...?
Swallowing back bile as she remembered The Incident, Harry blinked back the hot, prickling feeling behind her physical eyes and reached decidedly for the box in front of her, carrying it with her into her Space Room.
Floating towards her magical core, Harry took a deep breath and then exhaled. She needed to do this, it was her magic and she was in charge of it! With a wave of her hand, the box floating next to the Heiress opened and thin, glowing streams of though drifted from beneath the lid, curling and coiling in invisible currents. With a brush of her fingers, Harry's thoughts resolved into memories. And she spoke memories playing behind her to really try and illustrate the point she was making.
"This has gone on long enough." Harry's core pulsed gently in response to her voice, the ropey lines of snake-like fire shifting, like the tilt of a head, effectively communicating 'Curiosity' to its human.
Harry swallowed and called forth memories as she spoke.
"It has to stop. You have to stop acting against or beyond my orders when I give them and not act without my permission. When I was attacked by Lee Jordan, you flung him against a wall, and that was good, that you stopped him, but you also hurt him. And today... you did what I asked and that was brilliant, but you did it in a way that I cannot tolerate. You burnt him so badly that I had to use a quarter of a bottle of Dittany healing him."
Harry grit her mental eyes against the memory of the blood on her hands. It had been horrible and gut wrenching and how the sight of it had made her feel inside... she had no word to effectively describe it.
And then she had healed him.
And healing him after seeing his blood on her hands... that had shown her something. It had given her a taste of how Archie must feel and why he was so intent on learning Healing; because Harry knew now that the ability to heal people was important; so, so, very important. It was important because Harry never wanted to have someone's blood on her hands like that again, and the ability to heal was the best way to stop that.
"You are my magic. You aid me and comfort me and protect me when I need protecting, but you need to stop acting without order. You and I have always been together and we always will be, until the day I die and maybe beyond that. We're stuck with each other and that means we need to be able to trust each other." Harry took a deep breath before speaking again. "That means I have to be able to trust you to answer when I call you and work with me, without acting out and behaving smoothly. And It also means that you have to trust me to defend myself and make the right calls, whether I call on you for help or not."
Raising her head from where it had become bowed, she stared at her core, eyes blazing with emerald fire.
"You are my magic and I refuse to be afraid of you! You are mine and you are not the one who is in control! I am the one who is in control!"
All at once, Harry's core blazed up with brilliant light, blinding in its intensity, and Harry's hand splayed forwards, cutting through the magic sharply. Pressing forwards, she reached her core and plunged her arms deep inside it, determined to make her magic listen to her.
And in that one moment, time stood still.
Then there was light and sound and touch and taste and smell and Harry was drawn into a whirlpool of memories.
When her eyes cleared, the first thing Harry saw was a baby held within its mother's arms. The woman was whispering to her child and Harry could sense the love she felt for the little newborn. And then Harry had felt the mother's wishing and Something within the woman reacted. And it was familiar, Harry knew this Something! Harry remembered the Something from Before, in the warmsoftdarkness and started to reach for it, but then the baby's eyes were filled up with Love's Something. Harry frowned, in as much as Harry could frown. That wasn't right. Baby was Harry's and Something that was not Harry shouldn't fill Baby's eyes. So Harry pushed the Something that belonged to Love out and filled Baby's eyes with Harry instead.
Baby is not Baby and Harry is not Harry, Not-Harry discovers. Baby is Harry and Harry is Magic.
Magic watches Harry play with Brother and Not-Named, gentle nudges making sure she isn't hurt. Harry is Laughing and Happy and then Harry asks and the meanrudenasty that made their Harry cry is burning and Brother and Not-Named look at Harry with Fear making their eyes wide and Harry is scared. Magic wants Harry to be NotScaredHappy and makes Brother and Not-Named forget being Afraid of Harry and why, but instead of making Harry NotScaredHappy, Harry is more scared. Harry is scared of Magic and then Harry is shutting Magic out, locking them away inside Harry where they can't help Harry be Safe and Happy.
Magic is scared for Harry.
Harry has let Magic out, where Magic can help Harry be Safe and Happy, but Harry has only let them out a little bit. Magic is still happy to Help Harry.
Harry has found Wand. Wand Loves Harry just like Magic does and agrees to help keep Harry and Magic Safe and Happy. Magic likes Wand.
Harry meets Dragon and Flower. Magic likes Dragon and Flower. Dragon and Flower make Harry Happy.
Magic Loves Harry and Hates Enemy for hurting Harry and making Magic's Harry so very scared of him. Magic makes Enemy go away.
Harry asks Magic to make Danger let go of Harry and Magic burns Dangers arm away from Harry. When Danger tries to grab Magic's Harry a third time, Magic flings Danger against the wall, like it did to Enemy, who they Hate.
Harry is Upset with Magic for hurting Danger and Magic doesn't Understand Why. Harry knows that Magic just wants to Protect Harry, but Harry wants Magic to Trust Harry to be In Control and to Know that Harry will Trust Magic to Support Harry and let Harry be In Control.
Harry Shouts that Harry is Not Afraid of Magic and Magic is Scared. Magic does not want Harry to Shut Them Out again. So Magic Shows Harry that Magic Loves Harry and will do Their Best for Harry; because Magic Loves Harry and Harry is Theirs.
Harry gasps both physically and mentally as she drops out of the confusion of memories that belong, not to her, but to her magic. And then Harry realises she is crying. Tears are streaming down her face and she is taking great, sobbing, heaving breaths, gasping out apologies between the tears and sinking into her magic, feeling it surround her in a warm, loving, joyful embrace, because she understands and she whispers out a final sentence before she slips away from the land of consciousness and into that realm of deep, exhausted sleep, the kind that only comes after you cry and cry and cry again.
"I will never shut you out again. I promise."
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so this chapter was hard to write. It fought and fought until I managed was suddenly inspired. I was going to write more, but I really wanted to post on my birthday, (I'm now 21!), so here it is. I would greatly appreciate hearing what you guys all think. be warned, Flames will be used to help Harry brew Felix Felicis.
