Chapter Two: The Fishbowl Effect
"It is now recognized thatdissociationis a way of forgetting, for a time. The mind siphons off the bad memories into a separate part, and reclaiming those hidden-away memories us a complex process. So, when the memories resurface it does not feel as though they belong to you, it feels alien, more as if someone had told them to you, or you had seen the images in a film."
- Carolyn Bramhall
Pain, familiar and yet new to her all at the same time, radiated like a heat wave out from the space between Harriet's legs. She stared at the pillar to her left, stuck into the cement flooring of the room she lay in, her eyes hollow and gaunt with deep black circles beneath them that looked like bruises she'd gotten in a fist fight.
This was not the first time this had happened in the month since she'd arrived at Malfoy Manor and been thrown into their damp, unfinished basement, and she knew by now that it was far from the last time either. The first time she'd been able to think of herself as unlucky. The second time was just another spot of bad luck. The third time she'd realized it was a pattern. And by the time the fourth came around, she accepted it completely.
Today it was Amycus Carrow. Tomorrow it might be Crabbe and/or Goyle Sr. The day after that, who knew who it would be? All Harriet knew was that three times a week and sometimes more, without fail, a Death Eater or two or three would stomp down the velvet covered steps to the barred door leading into her dank and musty cell. They would pin her to the ground, pull down her pants and underwear, and force themselves inside her. They wouldn't stop if she bled, they wouldn't stop if she begged them to, and they wouldn't stop if she hurt them. The only way they would stop was when they'd had their fill, dirtied her with what was inside them, and left her, trembling and filthy on the floor of the Malfoy's basement.
The first few times, Harriet had cried. Now she was slowly losing the ability. Sometimes, when it all became too much, a few tears of pain would escape her eyes, but other than that, her expression remained blank, stoic.
Defeated.
It was almost strange to Harriet to be back in this position when she hadn't been for nearly six years. The last time anyone had forced themselves on her was when her uncle had been molesting her and sometimes raping her as she grew up in the Dursley household. Her aunt had never noticed and the one time she'd tried to tell her as a little girl, Petunia had slapped her so hard across the face, her cheek had burned for hours afterwards. Once Vernon found out what she'd done, he'd threatened to kill her. He warned her she was only there because Petunia insisted on it and he would have no problem ending her life and all the problems she brought with her. Harriet had believed every word he'd said and allowed him to hurt her until she got her Hogwarts letter when she was eleven. Everything had changed then and something had changed with Vernon as well. He'd seemed to relinquish control over her when she made the decision to go to Hogwarts and so for almost six years, she'd been safe.
Now, everything had changed.
Alecto Carrow thrust deep inside her one last time and shuddered on top of her. For a few moments, he lay on top of her, breathing heavily. Then, finally, he pulled himself out of her, his sticky wetness falling out of her as he did so. He stood, zipped up his pants and left the cell.
Harriet lay where he'd left her for longer than she was able to count, shaking, staring at the pillar, wondering how long it'd been there and who'd carved it. That was what she thought about every time one of them came down into the cell. She focused on something in the room, and she thought about how it got there until she could almost ignore the radiating heat and agony between her legs and pretend she'd floated off to wherever that pillar had originally been sculpted or the ceiling had first initially been painted.
She could lose herself in the fantasies of the history of the house she was trapped in long enough to ignore the pain of her present.
It's not that bad, a voice inside her mind whispered to her now. You are able to forget it, even if only temporarily. That means it's not that bad. There are plenty of people in this world who have it worse than you. Don't feel bad about this. It's nothing to feel bad about.
Everything the voice said to her was true.
At least to her.
No, it wasn't that bad. Yes, she was able to temporarily forget it. Yes, there were plenty of people in the world who had it worse than her. And no, what was happening wasn't anything to feel bad about. Especially after everything she suffered in her time at Hogwarts.
"It's not that bad," she whispered to herself.
The words felt heavy on her tongue, as though they carried with them a weight that she was not yet familiar with and, in all likelihood, shouldn't have been.
But she'd decided that didn't matter because, like she'd said, it wasn't that bad.
The moonlight shone in through a small window set into the basement wall near the ceiling, illuminating the darkness in which she lay. For a long time, Harriet stared at it, watching how it glistened off of the small pools of water made in the depressions of the stone. She saw how it reached the wall to her right near the cell door and lit up the space there. As the shock of another violation wore off of her body, through painful experimentation and movement, she found that the closer she was to the left wall, the better she could tell if someone was coming down the stairs to where she was being kept.
As her focus fell away from the moonlight to trying to find the driest, most comfortable patch of stone to spend the night on, she began to tremble again as the realization of what had just happened to her yet again caught up with her mind.
Tears welled in her eyes as she scanned the room for a place that wasn't covered in a layer of damp. She closed her eyes and the tears fell to the ground, mingling with the moisture already there. She stepped over it, took off her shoes and socks, and felt with her feet on the floor for a place to sleep where she wouldn't wake up the next morning with hypothermia.
At least your brain is still functioning, the same voice from before whispered to her. If you can function even now, it's not that bad. You're upset over nothing.
Harriet shook her head, trying to quiet the voice, but it didn't work.
A part of her believed that voice, though logically she knew it was wrong, and it was that part of her that listened to it and did what it asked of her. She slumped to the floor in the corner of the room, drawing her legs up against her chest, staring at the moonlight, her eyes losing focus once more.
It was almost the end of June. It had been almost a month since Dumbledore's death.
ϟ
Hermione paced the bedroom she was sharing with Ginny, a piece of parchment turned into a crumpled paper ball in her fist. Her other hand was curled just as tightly, her teeth were gritted, and her hair appeared frizzier than usual.
"I can't believe they would say this," she gasped out, her words barely distinguishable through the anger and venom in her tone. "She's the Chosen One for God's sake. She's the best chance we have at destroying You-Know-Who and righting everything he's wronged and they're saying they're just going to leave her with the people that want to kill her?"
"I told you," Ginny said despairingly. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, watching Hermione pace, wringing her hands, struggling to keep her own anxiety under control. "They think that Harriet's dead. They don't think there's any reason to send anyone to rescue her because they think that sending wizards to get her is just sending them to die. They don't think there's anyone worth saving."
"But she is worth saving!" Hermione replied, wheeling around to face Ginny. "And she is alive! Don't you think if Vol – You-Know-Who had killed her, he'd have let everyone know as soon as it happened? People would give up and stop fighting instantly! They'd succumb to the regime he wants them to right away, so it wouldn't be in his favor to keep it from us if she was dead."
Ginny said nothing. She didn't have an argument for her friend. Everything Hermione said made sense and it frustrated her just as much that no one else, even wizards who were their friends, could see what Hermione could see so perfectly clearly.
"How did you and Harriet meet again?" she asked softly, staring at her shaking fingers.
Hermione turned to look at Ginny. "What?"
Ginny looked up. "How did you and Harriet meet?"
Hermione let out a heavy sigh and plopped down on the bed next to Ginny. "On the Hogwarts Express our first year," she replied. "I came into the compartment she was sitting in with Ron to ask her if either one of them had seen Neville's toad, Trevor. It wasn't until we were almost murdered by Hagrid's three headed dog in the third floor corridor that we became friends, though." She turned to look at Ginny. "What about you?"
"I saw her during Ron's first year," Ginny answered almost instantly "But I didn't know it was her at the time. I didn't really meet her until she rescued me in the Chamber of Secrets during my first year, which is odd, since that was the first summer she spent at our house."
Hermione gave a small smile and Ginny returned it, but neither one of them really felt the action they were presenting. Harriet was still missing and that was still only a fact because she'd been kidnapped by Death Eaters. And they'd just been rejected by the Order of the Phoenix when they'd requested help to go to rescue her.
In an instant, Hermione's smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
She looked away from Ginny, her gaze turning to her stocking feet on the wooden floor.
"We have to figure out a way to save her ourselves, then," she said in a whisper. "We don't have any other choice. The world says she's the Chosen One and from what I know about her and from what I've seen, I believe they're right. Harriet is the Chosen One. She can destroy You-Know-Who. And she's not dead. Not yet."
"So we have to save her," Ginny finished.
Hermione repeated the statement with a nod. "So we have to save her."
And this time when she smiled, it was genuine.
NOTE: Kudos to anyone who didn't read the quote and figured out what was going on with Harriet without help ;) Alright, I wanna say that I realize this probably sounds out of character for Hermione to do, but idk. I think if she was in this situation, she would be this logical about it and would be able to do her own form of dissociation to figure out how to handle it.
