CHAPTER FIVE: CAULDRON CAKES

24 hours ago...

Hemlock's P.O.V

Hemlock Potter took a deep inhale and came hurtling back to herself. It was startling, confusing, a complete mess. Memories were funny like that, weren't they? Sometimes, you remembered every damned detail, right down to the dust in the air and how the light would flicker off it. Other times, you remembered the broadest strokes of a conversation, the gist of feelings the speech conjured in you. Rarely, you remembered smells, or a distinct sound, perhaps a flash of green or a woman's dying scream, just shards of broken glass that slit open your palm if you tried to grasp them too tightly. Sometimes, if you tried to clasp them really snug, they chopped your fingers clean off. At that point in time, standing besides her aunt, enclosed by Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham, Abigail Hobbs walking through the wooden door of her father's hunting cabin, Hemlock remembered nothing.

There was nothing. Rightly, Hemlock didn't know exactly where she was, why she was here, what she had been doing, saying, for her mouth was half way to closing and Alana was smiling at her, there was a chuckle from Hannibal, and even Abigail seemed to be more at ease as she glanced over her shoulder to Hemlock as she passed the barrier into the cabin. So Hemlock must have been saying something, she must have been, and it must have been something good for once, something comforting and kind, and she must have gotten here somehow, and she had done something, she knew that, what was it, where were they, what-…

Harry was coiling in on herself. An imploding star. Another breath. Deep. In. Hold. Merlin. It burned. Everything burned. She couldn't hold the breath long before it came sparking back out like smoke crisping in the air. She couldn't keep a thought straight, and trying to look back, there was nothing. How could there be nothing? Something had to come before now, surely? That's how time worked. She didn't just appear here, with these people, speaking but not understanding what she was saying-

The last thing she remembered clearly was hearing Abigail lie. Yes. That's right. She had lied. There had been a man on the phone, who had spoken to her father, and Abigail knew him, she did, she did. The panic had started to come then, as if Harry was slowly being sunk into black waters and she could feel Tom's cold hands wrapping around her throat, fingers, like tree roots, piercing her skin, burying, taking a foothold, deeper, deeper-

Little Alice fell

DoWn

T

h

e

Hole.

Bumped her head,

And

BrUiSeD hEr SoUl.

Harry kept seeing those stag heads every time she blinked, on the back of her eyelids, between the slats of the windows, in that second right before she breathed in, dusk and twilight, trapped in the in between. The memories there seemed more scraggy, broken glass, broken glass, broken glass with stag heads which weren't stags but her parents and-…

Hemlock had tried to work it through, she was sure of that. She had tried to piece it all together. The phone call had changed everything, everything. Merlin, she was repeating herself, an echo, fading, distorted. Distorted. She had tried to picture who would do this, why they would do this, what a copycat had to gain-…

Not a copycat. Something else. Something old but knew, a wedding gift, something borrowed, something blue, something… Familiar. Tom in a different skin suit. Hemlock didn't remember much after that. She felt rose petals and anthrax, a soft voice, strong but coaxing, who, who, who, who…

wHo

A

M

I?

And then bang, here she was, standing in the woods, at a cabin, an echo, bleeding out. She had worn the face too long this time. Too long. Wrong face. Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong rhyme. Yet, visibly, to the outside world, nothing had changed. She was still smiling, Harry could feel the tightness of her cheek muscles, she was walking towards the door, she felt the thudding of her soles against craggy ground, she was loose limbed and easy breezy lemon squeezy and no one could see.

Off

With

T

h

e

I

r

HEADS. HEADS. HEADS. HEADS? HEADS. HEADS. HEADS.

Why couldn't they see Harry was breaking apart inside, a nucleus exploding, plasma everywhere? Everywhere. Was she breaking? She felt whole. She felt light and airy and all things bright. A big fat moon in the night sky. But something was horribly, horribly wrong. She couldn't remember. Why couldn't she remember? And why was she acting so calm when she felt anything but?

We're all mad here.

I'm

MAD. You're

mAd.

"He cleaned everything."

That was Abigail speaking as she took a sweeping look around the bottom floor of the cabin. Hannibal, Will and Alana followed her into the belly of the beast, right into the middle of the room, but Hemlock could take herself no further than the edge of the door. The in between was safe. Nothing could reach her there. Her hands felt sticky. All fly traps dipped in honey. Or was it honey laced fly traps? Something… Merlin. Wearily, Hemlock looked down and saw… Nothing.

Just skin. Pale. Slightly pink. Ten fingers and two palms and fourteen phalanges. She had a bruise around her middle knuckle on her left hand, a slight scrape straight across the bump that looked like a shooting comet. She flexed her hands, in, out, in, out, stretch. Seven times. Always seven. Can't escape that number. She doesn't even know if she wants to try. Then she saw it.

It was just a slither of rust, dark brown almost, underneath her fingernails. No. She was clean. She was. Hemlock had always been half manic about her hands. She kept the fingernails trimmed neatly, the cuticles pushed back right to the boarder, she washed them seven times, three times a day with strong antibacterial soap until, in splotches, some of the skin was white and flaky and dry.

Sometimes she'd chew on those little patches until she bled and the soap stung and burnt and scarred. She had to, you see. Otherwise, when she touched herself, scrubbed at nose or itched thigh or ran a hand through her hair, she was reminded of Voldemort grappling her head, sending them both sailing down over the battlements of Hogwarts castle, laughing, screaming in her ear as his nails, so long, so dirty, cut her face to shreds and-

Hemlock looked around herself, but everyone was so caught up in Abigail Hobbs, in her web of deceit and lies and shitty acting, they didn't see the real spider skulking at the door, spinning and cocooning and simultaneously exploding and imploding and-. Slowly, Hemlock brought her thumb to her mouth, scratching tooth on nail, for all her worth just looking a little uncomfortable. Nothing odd. Copper. She tasted copper rust. Blood.

Painting the roses red. We're painting the roses red. We dare not StOp. Or waste a dRoP. So let the paint be sPrEaD.

We're painting the roses...

RED.

We're painting the roses red. Oh, painting the roses red, and many a tear be ShEd. Because we know, they'll cease to gRoW. In fact, they'll soon be

DEAD. DEAD? DEAD.

"He said he was afraid of germs, but, well, I guess he was just afraid of getting caught."

48 hours ago..

I am calm. Collected. In control. It was easy. The boy, Nicholas, was running for Abigail, curses and hate spilling from his lips and I could not care. He was a tool, a blunt hammer, knock, knock, knocking, and I could not care. It was interesting to watch, in that cool, detached manner scientists often had. Put chemical X into solution B and watch the whole beaker shatter. I wonder if Tom felt this way? I think he did. I can still feel his snake scaled face over my own, mixing with the roses and anthrax, my face will shatter like the beaker, and it's become a second skin by now. I have forgotten, for so long now, where he ends and I begin. I shed that skin this day. I shed so many skins. So many faces. So many lies. Now, however, I feel almost too much like Tom that my own face, Harry, doesn't feel right. Itchy. Annoying. Fake. But I knew Tom's face wasn't my own either. I, right now, was something else. Different. New. This new face, of blood and bone and elder wood, for the first time, felt right. It felt like me. Really me. I am me. Finally.

And I do not care.

A few well placed words, a lull of magic, just a touch, and Nicholas was doing everything I wanted without me ever saying I wanted it. There had been no need for Imperio or other such dark hex's. Just my voice. For the first time in my whole life, from cupboard to battlefield, I was in complete control. I could have made Nicholas do anything, say anything, become anything.

If I really wanted to, I could have made him slit his own throat and sing through the last rattles of his life. I would have chosen a happy song, of course. I wasn't a complete sadist. Sweet Caroline or, if I was feeling rather humorous, Don't Stop Believing. Sirius had loved that song. If that had been what I wanted. That was control. That was strength. That was… Power. Finally, I understood the temptation that had been lurking in Tom's words all along.

"I can make them hurt, if I want…"

And I could. I could hurt them all. I could repay every insult, every bruise, every cut. Who would stop me? Who would know to stop me? I, the Chosen One. I, the Girl-Who-Lived. I, the saviour of the wizarding world. So many titles, so many faces, so many lies. Who would think little old me, of all people, would turn and bite the hand that feeds? No one. Absolutely no one. Not the Ministry. Not Aurors. Not Jack or Alana. Really, I doubt Will would even see me coming. No one would until it was too late.

Perhaps later. I had something more important to focus on. This copycat killer. He wanted to talk, did he? He wanted to see my face? My real one? Someone finally wanted to see the truth? Well, I was always told I talked too much for my own good. Harry Potter wouldn't be able to do what needed to be done. Tom would be too savage. But Hemlock? The person I had always denied I was? The name I could not stand because, for once, it made me look inside and see my own beast growing? The face of bone, blood and elder wood? I could do it. I could do it happily. I could do it and sing Sweet Caroline.

Nicholas Boyle was a tool, but not a hammer, no. He had more purpose than a hammer. Perhaps he was a Swiss army knife. First, he would unsettle Abigail enough for her to feel in danger, I would sweep in just in time, scare him off, gain some sympathy, perhaps loyalty from Abigail, and that would be a step further for her to confide in me on exactly who was on that phone. In the meantime, I would 'talk' to this copycat who felt like Tom. I would talk in the only way people like us would understand.

And when someone found my message, for they had to, this killer was obviously keeping an eye on the investigation, he was close by, how else would he be able to replicate Hobbs killing so well so early on, I had to have a scape-goat, didn't I? Who better than the boy who had threatened Abigail Hobbs? Crawford would be so sure Abigail had a hand in all this he would look nowhere else, Will would be so concerned with trying to prove Abigail's innocence, he wouldn't look any deeper than a not her conclusion, and without Crawford or Will to point them in the right direction, Alana and Hannibal would be boxed in. Win, Win.

Then, in fear of her life, Abigail would fall back more into me, into my web, my message would get across to this Tom-not-Tom, and I could begin tracking him. Will would be safe then. Safe. Easy. One. Two. Three. Four. Five birds, one stone.

The girl with Abigail, Marissa was it? Or Alyssa, I couldn't hear so clearly this far out, threw a stone right at Nicky-boys head and I knew it was time to slink in. Dusting up my jacket, giving a quick head-butt to a tree to make it look like I was jumped, perhaps knocked out, I take a deep breath. Show time.

"Abigail, run!"

Wow. I really do sound panicked. As I broke the tree-line, a trickle of blood running down my forehead from where the knot in the tree struck a bit too harshly on my head, seeping into my eye, turning my vision red, or was it always red? Jacket dusty, shirt torn, I must have painted a rather sorry picture. Nicky-boy ran, as expected. Alyssa-or-Marissa blinked, wide-eyed, and my shouting drew the attention of the occupants in the house as Will and Hannibal came tumbling through the door, quickly followed by a frantic Alana.

"Oh my god, Harry?!"

Will went to run after Nicky-boy into the woods, but a bit of a wobble, a jerk of falling over, grappling with his arm to stay upright, stopped Will as he tried to help me find my balance that, really, I had never lost. It wouldn't do any good for Nicky-boy to get caught so soon. No. He needed to get out, away, let Abigail think he was still out there, waiting for her, out there doing what I, in actuality, would be doing later. Alana came running over.

"Was this that boy? Jesus, Harry, you're bleeding!"

Hemlock. Not Harry. I was never going to be Harry again. Harry was weak. Harry was stupid. Harry didn't understand there was no going back no matter how much she pretended. Harry was dead. So was Tom. Only shiny, new, cold Hemlock remained. This is who I am. See me. Of course, I don't say any of this. Instead, I cry. I sob. I even shudder and quake. I play the part, as I always do.

"He… He came out of nowhere. I told him it was private property. He kept asking where Abigail was. I knew something was wrong. I tried to shout… I did, I really did, but he was too fast and-..."

Alana pulled me away from Will, wrapping her thin arms around me. I thought of breaking them. Bending them right over my knee until I heard the satisfying crack of bone and tendon. Instead, I cling to her, as if I am a babe seeking the shelter of their mother. Alana hummed in my ear and ran a hand through my hair and I had to fight down the urge to crush her voice box.

"You're safe. I'm here. I'm here."

I hid the chuckle underneath a sniffle.

"Abigail, is she? I tried… But he was fast and I… I tried..."

Alana squeezed me tighter. From over her shoulder, I can see Abigail looking at me. There is a softness to her eye. Good.

"I'm okay… Thank you, Harry. I don't know what he would have… Thank you."

The girl beside her, Alyssa-Marissa, however, is frowning. Well… That just wouldn't do. Looks like I found my blank canvas. Hannibal cut in.

"I'll call an ambulance. She might have a concussion."

Will is stumbling towards the woods. It would do no good. Nicky-boy would be long gone by now.

"I'll call the FBI and get a group down here. He might still be in the woods. Hold tight, Harry."

They won't find him until it was too late. Nicky-boy wouldn't be captured, just like I wouldn't be caught. I was new, clean, precise.

I wouldn't be caught.

24 hours ago…

Will questioned Abigail as Harry came rushing back to herself once more. No. No. No. That… That wasn't real. That hadn't been her. It couldn't have been. Harry was a good person. She was. Yes, sometimes she was misguided, and lately she was a bit apathetic, and things were more grey than black and white, but she was a good person. Please. She was. She was?

"No one ever came here with your dad? Except you?"

But she wasn't. Harry wasn't a good person and she hadn't been one for a long time. Dammit, evidently, she was likely not sane. Had she ever? She felt too much enjoyment from this work, the great hunt. And she wanted more. She always wanted more. More death. More blood. More games. More. More. More. She could say this had all been for Will, she could lie like that, Harry could. But it wasn't. Not really. This had been about her. It always was.

Harry was self-centred, selfish and greedy that way. In part, no doubt, it was about Will's safety. Harry knew that. She really did want to see him out of harms way. Nevertheless, she could have easily done that by informing him he was the true target of the Tom-not-Tom. Instead, here she was, setting up a chessboard, placing people, lives, as pawns, waiting for her turn to move. Or had she had her turn? She couldn't remember.

Abigail shook her pretty little head. Harry's hand slithered out her mouth, the taste of copper still crusting on her gums, as she felt along her hairline. She winced. There was a gash there, hidden by her hair, which, oddly, was down for once.

"He made everything by himself. Glue. Butter. He sold the pelts on Ebay or in town. He-… He made pillows. No parts went to waste. Otherwise it was murder."

41 hours ago…

I was calm. Collected. In control. I had given my statement to the small group of FBI agents who had come to the Hobbs residence, as a medic stitched my head back together. Apparently, I had hit it harder than I thought. Fifteen stitches. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, was commitment to acting. No one suspected me. No one even thought of questioning me deeper than; how tall was he? What colour was his hair? Did you see if he had any weapons?

In fact, the acting agent who had taken the vanguard in the questioning had smiled at me, patted my shoulder kindly, told me how brave I was. He assured me I was safe, that his team would find this man and put him away, that I had nothing to fear. Could no one see?

Alana had smiled at me and I thought of strapping her to a dentist chair, pulling her white teeth out with dirty pliers until there was only gum and blood. How pretty would she be then? I might even wear them as a necklace. I only held her hand tighter and smiled back, all coy and shy and hurt, in the back of the ambulance.

Once we had departed for the evening, setting up shop in a motel to get some well earned rest, it was only a matter of waiting. Before one am, I was out, Alana's car keys safely in my pocket, sat nav ready to go, driving down the long road, with me, a transfigured pillow, laying back in my motel room to provide an Alibi. Alana normally checked in at three, she'd peep her head around the door crack, see my black curls slumbering away, she might even smile at the peaceful face I had spelled, and well, how could someone be in two places at once?

Pulling up onto the side of the road, surrounded by nauseating peppy little happy homes of well cut lawns, merry white fences and, Merlin forbid, welcome matt's with cheesy slogans, I cut the cars engine and double check the sat nav. Marissa Schurr, nineteen, student. She had a pretty year-book photo, and she had been pretty easy to find. She lived close to Abigail's home, they went to the same school, and, therefore, lived close to the hunting cabin we, Will, Me, Alana, Abigail and Hannibal, would be visiting tomorrow in hopes of jogging Abigail's memories. Perfect.

I look out and over to the house. The front bedroom light is on. I can see Marissa through it, cosy in her pyjama's, sitting on the window sill without a care in the world, on the phone, laughing, twirling her black hair around her delicate little finger. I wonder, in another life, if that could have been me. Another me, where my biggest worry was a failed test, perhaps split ends, or, fucking hell, a chipped fingernail. Would I have still ended up right here? Waiting? Readying to pounce?

I think so. I was always, always, going to come right to this moment. I could lie. Would you like that? I could tell you I was hesitating by watching Marissa on the phone. I could tell you that guilt, real guilt that tasted salty and briny was twisting my guts up real good and I was all muddled and confused and 'unbalanced' and not entirely myself, and please, won't you help me? Little me? I never meant to hurt anyone, really! I was just so befuddled and how could I, Harry, do such a thing if I was in my right mind? Or, perhaps, I could play on my own 'trauma'. The loss of my mummy pushed me to it. Uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia was nasty and so, I had to be nasty back. Tom made me do it. You hear that? Tom made me do it! But, yes, I could lie. Lies were prettier than the truth, as pretty as Marissa and as pretty as Alana's teeth, and as pretty as my broken bloody mind.

So, if you want to, believe the lie. I wouldn't blame you. I've believed it myself for so long. But for those who wanted the truth, who could look into the darkness and understand, when you do, it looks right back into you, to your very core, know this. I do not care. It was like scribbling out a shopping list. Milk. Eggs. Bread. Sugar. Coffee. Soup. Flour. Instead, as I sit in this car and watch, my shopping list was something else. Apparate. Snap. Grab. Apparate. Trunk. Drive. Shiny cogs in a run down machine. And like all shopping lists, sometimes, you wonder about replacing an item for something else that tickled your fancy. Snap? Why not Crucio? Confringo? A quick Avada? And then you wonder if you have forgotten something. Bleach? Scourgify. Gloves? Check. Notice-me-not charm? Ready and locked. Tom's wand? Already in hand.

See? I was not getting any true enjoyment out of this, as much as you would writing a shopping list. I was detached, going through the motions, clinical even. However, there was a certain rush. The kind you get when you're on a roller-coaster, the first big climb up and the machine would crank, crank, crank and then stall right at the precipice and you could look down and, any second now, you know it was about to drop. That's when the real fun came. Or, I could be lying about that and being truthful about the 'lie'. I could be lying about everything. Perhaps even I don't know the truth. Subjectivity and all that jazz.

Hesitating or planning, it does not matter in the end. I sit here, watching. Did Tom watch Lily and James through Godric Hollow's windows? Did he see my mother making tea? My father shaving in the bathroom? Them singing me to sleep as they laid me down in the nursery for the last time? Was it a shopping list for him, or a roller-coaster? Am I stuck? Doomed to repeat my worst memories? Are we all stuck? Locked in? Trapped in a cycle of rinse and repeat? If so, what was to come, what I was about to do…

It wasn't murder. Not really. I was just repeating what I had been taught. A Parrot. Squawk, squawk, squawk. When things got tough, people got dead. I had learned that one from an early age. This death had a purpose. Like Lily's. Like James's. And if a death had a purpose outside of death, well, it wasn't murder, was it? You can't blame a parrot for swearing when that was all it had heard in its entire life. I chuckle. Perhaps I was hesitating. Perhaps I was planning. Perhaps I was lying about everything. Perhaps I had really smacked my head so hard I had turned my brain to mush.

I step out of the car and shut the door with a muted thud. With a crack of air splitting, lightning in a plastic bottle, I am gone. This wasn't murder. It had purpose.

24 hours ago...

Abigail was frozen in place for a long time, and it was the sound of her inhale, shaky, dashed, notched, that masked Harry's own as she came back with a blink, her hand falling away from the wound on her head. Harry wouldn't say she felt sick, exactly, even if she could feel bile rising in the back of her throat. She felt more… Torn. Ripped. Stuck in two places at once. There, in her memories that were slowly trickling back, and here, in this room, nothing but a watcher by the door. No one was looking at her still. Why was no one looking at her? Was she not here? Was this imaginary? What was real and what wasn't? Did she die in the battle of Hogwarts and this, whatever the fuck this was, was the conjuring of the last atoms of oxygen floating in her mushed, meshed brain?

"He was feeding them to us, wasn't he?"

No. This was real. Monstrously, tortuously real. Before Will could answer Abigail, Hannibal was speaking.

"It is very likely."

Abigail looked distraught. Harry… Harry only watched. She wasn't so panicked any more. There was no dread, or fear, or loathing or terror. Just a sense of creeping apathy. Creeping like vines over a towering wall. What was done was done, and Harry couldn't remember. But she was, oh, she was, and what she was remembering… It was as if someone had reached right into the cortex of her brain, right into the juicy bobbly part and flipped a switch. She knew what was coming. She knew and she could do nothing to stop it.

"Before he cut my throat, he told me he killed those girls so he wouldn't have to kill me."

40 hours ago…

I am calm. Collected. In control. I have my arm wrapped around her neck, squeezing, the palm wrapped around until it cupped over her ear, craning her neck more over the crux of my elbow. My other hand is over her mouth, pressing her nose until it nearly broke as her mouth gnashed and ground under the pressure. There was no point in this. None what-so-ever. I had cast the silencing charm as soon as I apparated in. All her struggling, all her kicking and yelling and clawing at my arm, no point. No point. Still, it was the least I could do for her, I think. To allow her to believe, in her last moments, she had given her all. She had really fought tooth and nail and had been so close, so fucking close to surviving. There was to be pride in that. I knew that because I, too, once had been like this girl, fighting so hard, for so long, only to realize it was all for nothing. I had to die. Marissa had to die too.

Rinse and repeat, Hemlock ol' girl. We're nearly done.

In the end, I had gone for snap. I liked working with my hands. There was something special about it. Something you couldn't gain with magic, with a simple flick of the wrist and point of a wand and flash of a colour. It made it more real. More personal. Intimate. Idle hands are the devils playthings. That's what aunt Petunia used to say over her beak nose. I don't know whether she meant it to mean anything remotely like this, of what I was doing right now, but, well, here we are. Perhaps my idle hands were possessed. Perhaps the devil really was in my fingertips, hidden between pinky and thumb. Perhaps he had been there all along and Petunia, with her paisley print dresses, bony hands, beak nose and beady little black eyes had saw it all from the very get go.

Idle hands are the devils playthings Hemlock! Get to work! Now! Or to the cupboard with you! No food for a week! Don't make me get Vernon! You know how his belt feels, don't you! Do you want the belt? Do you? Do you? Idle hands are the devils playthings Hemlock!

Well, look at me now aunt Petunia. Is this what you wanted? Is it? Her neck will be next. I'd use her favourite pearl necklace, the one she made me polish and shine until my idle hands became numb and bent wrong. Or perhaps the sewing kit. The one she forced me to use until the pads of my fingers were littered with pinpricks because, fuck, what six year old knows how to sew?

The girls struggling was waning now. Growing weak. With a twist of my arm, a push of my hand, her neck twisted fascinatingly.

Snap.

She flopped in my arms. I dropped her to the pink carpet. I watched. I waited. I watched. I waited. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Here comes the melted clock faces all over again. No guilt came. No remorse. No yapping conscience. I even laughed. See that Albus? I am laughing. A girls dead at my feat, her parents are downstairs, gobbling up takeaway, watching some shitty sitcom on a flat screen, and I am laughing. I can't stop laughing, in fact.

It's that terrible sort of laughter. Hysteric almost. The kind you have to double over to keep your sides from splitting. Huh. Like the girls neck had split when a piece of bone had broken free. Ripe fruit sagging, flies buzzing, and I am laughing. A girls dead and I am laughing. She's dead and her neck is at a right angle, she's bleeding, and I can't stop laughing. I think Tom is laughing with me. I like that. I like that very much.

Eventually, I do stop laughing. When the blood stops coming. When it's just a corpse, no more fight. When it gets boring. Still, there is no guilt. No remorse. No conscience. Morality has fled me like the girls blood had fled her still body. I set to work then. I am, after all, on a time restraint.

I clean with a few spells, I leave no trace, no mark, nothing. I am meticulous, if anything. I am clean. I heave her body up into my arms. It's cold. Lifeless. Her arm is getting stiff. I didn't know rigor mortis set in so fast. Did you, Tom? Of course you did. I shouldn't have asked. Or had I been laughing for hours? Debatable. Time means very little to me here, right now. I only know this was needed. I needed to do this. I had to. It was only a matter of time. I have to get the Tom-not-Tom. I have to. If I didn't, he would strike first because I had idle hands. If I don't get the Tom-not-Tom, I would have to get someone. I have to. Will. Alana. Abigail. Hannibal. Molly. Hermione. Ron. No one would be safe.

I killed a girl today, and I can't stop laughing because, if I had not, it would have been someone else, somewhere else, sometime later. I was always coming to this. I know that now. Best it was Marissa, so her death could work towards something greater, a better hunt, a chase for the Tom-not-Tom. Yes. Better her. Do you see me Tom? I killed an innocent girl today, and I can't stop laughing. I hope you're proud. I hope you burn in hell you bastard. With a crack, we're gone, the girl and me, me and the corpse, and there is nothing but an empty, silent, clean room.

24 hours ago...

This cabin room was clean. Too clean. Scored and polished and clean. Coming back from this snippet, this shard of glass was easier. Too easy. Blink and it was gone. Not gone. It was still in there, in Hemlock's mind, but she wasn't there there. Honestly, she didn't know whether she wanted to know more, or if she should walk away from this cabin, run as far as her feet can carry her, and if she ran far enough, perhaps those broken glass shards couldn't reach her. Hemlock didn't run, in the end. She was never one to. Alana was smiling softly, edging towards a crying Abigail and Hemlock…

Merlin. Hemlock couldn't bring herself to care. Not fully. She only found it funny. Exceedingly funny. There Abigail was, with her fake tears, and fake sorrow, and fake, fake, fake and Alana was eating it up, so gentle, so soft, offering any comfort she could to the young girl.

"You're not responsible for anything your father did, Abigail."

That was a lie, wasn't it? Everything about this place, these people, this bloody scenario was a lie. Abigail broke, really broke, the pitch in her voice changed, the notch in her breathing became uneven, and, really, Hemlock thought this might be the first truth, her own truth, she had said in a very long time.

"If he would have just killed me, none of those other girls would be dead."

If Garret Jacob Hobbs had have killed Abigail, none of those girls would be dead. Will wouldn't be breaking apart. This Tom-not-Tom would not be lurking right in their rose garden. Hemlock wouldn't be here, standing in this very spot either. She wouldn't be slowly piecing together a shattered mirror of a forgotten night. There wouldn't be blood underneath her fingernails. There would be no crawling realisation. And, worst of all, Hemlock might have cared. For, right now, as back then, she couldn't care. The switch had been flipped and the light had gone out, and Hemlock knew what was coming and she couldn't care enough to deny it, to fight it, to pretend. She couldn't care.

"We don't know that. You're father-"

Alana's placating words were interrupted, rather rudely, by something dripping off the ceiling, something dark and red, splattering on Abigail's forehead. The girl startled. Even before she reached up, shakily wiping it off, Hemlock knew what it was. She knew that thickness, that glimmer, the shimmer it held, all to well. Blood. One by one, like a flock of sheep, everybody turned their gazes up to the ceiling, finally spotting the patch of blood seeping through the old, polished, previously clean wood.

Hemlock wanted to laugh.

36 hours ago…

I am calm. Collected. I am in control. I'm in an empty warehouse. No one will find me here. No one will look. By the time I'm done, there, like Marissa's bedroom, will be nothing to see. I like that. Perhaps some steel workers will wander in one day, maybe even tomorrow morning, cross this very table I am standing at, maybe even place their tool boxes on this table and they will never know that, just hours earlier, there was a dead body on it. Would they laugh too? Unlikely.

Yet, at the moment, the table and warehouse wasn't empty. I'd stripped the girl off, but left her knickers on. I wasn't a complete monster. It's cold here, very cold, there is no heating, no sun, nothing. I like it. Marissa is cold too. Cold and stiff and I have to work fast. Still, you can't rush perfection. A cut here. A stitch there, thanks aunt Petunia, those sewing tasks actually paid out. This needed to make a statement. It needed to draw attention.

Do you see me?

There's blood on my hands. A lot of blood. Turns out bodies were filled with the sticky stuff. People were just bags of blood and flesh and bone. This blood is cold. It's getting lumpy. Coagulating. Browning. It reeks too. What's this? Liver? Kidney? I don't fucking know. I haven't studied anatomy. However, I do know a pair of lungs when I see one. That's what I need. Cassie had no lungs. I need the Tom-not-Tom to know I see him. I understand. There's a loud hiss at my feet. I look down at the cage, elbow deep in ribcage and guts. I hiss back. The snake stills under my order. Good. He had his part to play too. Just like the smaller snake, nothing but a grass creeper, dead, at the side of the table.

I find the lungs and I vanish them after I cut a bit free and place it underneath Marissa's swelling tongue. The Tom-not-Tom hadn't vanished Cassie's lungs. I know that. I'm not going for a replica. I just want him to know I see him. I see him and I'm coming. Knowing Garret Jacob Hobbs, knowing the Tom-not-Tom knew him too, I think I know what he did to the missing lungs. I wonder if he used salt or pepper, or perhaps vinegar? Doesn't matter. This isn't a bloody fish and chip shop. I pull back a step, I take a sweeping look. The face was going to be difficult. So was the skull. But this was my message. Mine. I needed to say it in my own way. I have to. What did Will keep saying?

This is my design.

I bend down, I open the cage, I pick the python up. You see? Me. All me. This is all me. Not Tom. Not Albus. Not anybody. Me. Hemlock.

"In you go."

24 hours ago…

Will was the first to climb the stairs up to the top level of the cabin. Almost in a trance, knowing, painfully knowing, what was up there, what was coming, what she was about to see and feel and-… Hemlock followed behind him. She could hear her own voice echoing in her head, wrapped in parseltongue, poison, In you go, and step by step, in she went. Into the darkness. Will reached the top before Hemlock did, and she only watched as he disappeared into the dark, around the corner, onto the top landing. She may not have been able to see him, but she heard his voice, likely from the mobile he had pulled from his jacket on the way up, drifting down to her.

"We need ERT at the Hobbs cabin."

33 hours ago..

I'm humming as I drive Alana's car up the winding road in the dead of night, deeper into the woods. I realise I've been humming since the warehouse. I glance over to the file sprawled open on the passenger seat, papers scattered about. Just another thing I had nabbed from Alana. Then again, that wasn't the worst I had done tonight, was it? I double check the Hobbs cabin address. Yes. I'm on the right track. Just up this road. Around the bend. I remember what I am humming.

Paint the roses red.

An old Disney song from Alice in Wonderland. Merlin, I hate that film. I hate that song. I hate it all. Dudley had loved it. He had watched it so much he had worn out the tape until aunt Petunia had to go dashing to the shop to pick up another copy so the fat fucker would stop screaming his chubby little lungs out. I don't know why he liked it so much. Perhaps because I hated it. He used to blast it. Turn the volume to max. He would put the portable TV right outside my cupboard door and he would blast that Merlin damned film right through the wood until I felt like pulling my hair out by the root. Or ripping off my own ears. I hated that song most, and he knew that. He would let it play through, rewind, and it would start all over again, and I could do jack fucking shit because I didn't know about magic, not yet, and I was locked in a dingy bloody cupboard.

Sometimes, I would hear Dudley laughing over the crooning cards. There was no Dudley chortles tonight though, not over my humming. There was no Tom either. No Albus. No Bellatrix. No Deatheaters. No Sirius or Remus. It was just me. Me and my song. Painting the roses red. I pull up to the cabin. I look into the side mirror of the car. I see myself. Not Tom. Me. I wink at my reflection. It winks back. I tidy up the file, I clean the car, I'll scourgify it later, to remove any trace. I am clean. Calm. Collected. In control.

I make my way to the back of the boot, I have to place Tom's wand between my teeth so I can lift the trunk, it tastes like blood and ash, and then I look down and there it is. If I have timed this right, I have two hours to set the stage, another three to get back to motel, and, I might just have a full nights sleep too. I can't sleep yet. No rest for the wicked. I have work to do. Soon, though. Soon.

24 hours ago…

There was just seven stairs left to the top, just seven, and yet, Hemlock felt like she was moving through sludge, so slow, so fucking slow. Each creak of the wood brought back something else. A smell. Rusty blood, old, solidifying. A sound. The crack of a shoulder joint as an antler, sawn and cropped to spike, was hammered through. A thought.This is me. A thousand creaks, and a thousand sounds, and a thousand smells and a thousand thoughts. They were there, every single one of them, washing over her. Cleansing her.

Hemlock liked them. She liked them very much. She thought this is what a baptism felt like. She wasn't sure if that made her a monster, perhaps she had been one all along, a wolf in sheep's wool, or if she was just deranged, everybody else would like that one, but they didn't frighten her any more. She welcomed them. Opened her arms and let them in. Welcomed them home.

Abigail pushed passed her, shoulder hitting shoulder, as she dashed up the stairs. She skittered around the corner and for a long moment, a very long moment, there was only silence. Then her scream came.

"Marissa!"

Lastly, Hemlock made it to the top of the stairs, she turned the corner, and she saw the body. She wasn't surprised. She'd seen this coming. If she was honest, and she rarely was these days, if ever, she had seen this coming for years now.

31 hours ago...

I am calm. Collected. In control. With the last stitch in place, I take a step back and look at my work. I wonder what Will would think of it when he sees it. I need Will to see it. If Will sees it, the Tom-not-Tom will too. I don't rightly know how I know that, but I do. I think, as well, I simply want Will to see it. I want to know what he'll draw from it. Will he see me? Or something else? Tom? No. He would see me because this, all of it, was all me. No one else. For once in my life, this was my choice, my action, my words, my art.

I was flirting with danger with this one. I know that. I had put so much of myself into it, drew my name, face, everything that made me, me, right into the flesh and Will, brilliant, brilliant Will will see it. He has to. People like us see too much and we see everything. In the dark cold light of the cabin, it almost looked beautiful.

Marissa is standing, antlers driven through shoulder blades to keep her standing tall against the wall. Her head is sliced clean off, but the cut had been sharp. It is now resting in her hands, that pretty head, cradled in palm, mouth wide open, the smaller snake's head coiling out from blue lips, it too frozen in death with its fangs out and glinting as if it was going to strike. If I squinted and turned my head to the left, in the low light, it looked like my own head. On her small brow is a crown of thorns. On her shoulders lay sewed the Stag head, skinned, skeletal, antlers nearly touching the low hanging, sloping roof. My family symbol once again mine. I told you I was selfish.

The roses were a particular nice touch, if I say so myself. White, clean, so pure, I had dipped them in her own blood, painted them red, just as those cards did, and I had laced them through the antlers, through the gaping sockets where eyes should be. It has ran a little, in narrow rivets, down the antlers, over bone, down breasts and the dip of her stomach. There is a long gash down her body, right down the centre, I had made sure to measure it, from collar bone to pubic. It is stitched lovingly, carefully, real gold thread too, and, in the dim lighting, I thought I saw the soft skin of her stomach wriggle and writhe.

My own Jack in the box. Crawford would like that one. I sure did. I hope I am there when either the python tried to break free, or when the coroners cut her open, retracing my, you hear that? MY first cut, to take a gander. Boo! Gotcha. On her left breast, right over the unbeating heart, was something I couldn't leave out. Will would not understand it. No one would. Not even the Tom-not-Tom. But, it had to be there. Just as I had to do this. A set of cuts. A triangle, a circle, a line. Compressed. Clean. Me.

I could not feel Tom's face over mine any more. There was no scales. No even a hint. I could not hear him whispering hymns in my ears. I could not see him in the shadows, between the cracks of the floorboards, in the stars, in door-frames, corners or beneath furniture, red eyes watching me, always watching me. My Tom was gone now. Truly gone. This is my goodbye. Long over due. Drawn out. Painful. Bloody. The only goodbye I knew. The only type we deserved. Written in flesh, drawn in blood and sang in death. I hate you. I love you. I can't stand your memory. I miss you. Fucking burn you bastard. And let me burn with you.

But I was here. Hemlock was here. I was finally free. Free. Merlin, I was free. Do you hear that Albus? Do you see that Petunia? Do you feel that Bellatrix? Me, I survived. I won. I am free. This is me, who I am. If the Tom-not-Tom wanted to talk, here I was. I am calm. Collected. In control. Finally, I can sleep. Finally, I wear my own face. Finally, I see.

Do you see too?

It was all coming to this. I was coming to this. Everything was coming to this. Eyes wide open. I see. You see. We all see. For when you look into the darkness, really look in, you take some of it back with you and it never leaves. It's like a seed. You plant it inside. Deep inside. Every nasty thought, every nightmare, every curse and slither of hate feeds it. It grows. It grows tall. It shadows everything else. It begins to flower. The poison pollen seeps out, through your pores, outwards, into the air, into other people, infecting and taking. It's beautiful. A beast all of your own. No one else', for it was you, bits of yourself, the darkest little faces, that fed it into being. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. There was no revelation. I am me.

I am Hemlock Potter. I am free. I am in control. This is me.

I SEE YOU.

24 hours ago…

Hemlock Potter felt calm. She felt collected. She felt in control. It, the body, Marissa, was exactly as she remembered, red roses, antlers, cradled head, grass snake tongue and all. It was exactly right, even down to the last stitch on her bodies incision, sitting a little wonky. Oh, how that had bothered her, that wonky last golden stitch. But she had no time to fix it last night. No time at all. There wasn't anything like time any more.

In the cold light of day, it was even more beautiful, and even more grotesque. Hemlock was enraptured. Captivated. Completely consumed. She could see clearly now. So clearly. For, this, staring at it, she finally saw herself, real Hemlock, mirrored back. She saw there was no real ending. This was only the beginning. Come out and play.

Alana was dragging a sobbing Abigail away and down the stairs. Will was close to Marissa, or what remained of her, almost as entranced as Hemlock, and there was a creak behind her, a cut in the air, as Hannibal Lecter finally joined them. She wanted to laugh, but she knew if she started she wouldn't be able to stop. Hemlock wondered if they see. Really see. Do you see?

Hemlock does. She's Hemlock Potter. She's free. She's in control. This, the mangled body of Marissa Schurr, is her. Just her. Once again, she feels it wash over her, salt water in a weeping wound, and she savours the feelings.

Clean. Calm. Collected. Control.

NEXT COUPLE OF CHAPTERS: We finally get back to the Freddie scene either the end of next chapter or the one after that, likely the latter. However, this chapter needed to go here, for obvious reasons, as we're not touching on Hemlock's P.O.V for a while. And I mean for a long while. However, we do delve back into Will and Hannibal, so I hope you look forward to it!

NOTES ON THIS CHAPTER:

This is the largest chapter yet, pulling in at 8.8K before authors note. However, seen as what takes place, well, takes place, it deserved it. Saying that, things do pick up speed from here on out. Think of this and the previous chapters as Part One, and we're moving into part two now, which, like the roller-coaster, is the big drop, loop-de-loops and swerves. I also can't stress enough that this fic is a strong M, and now, especially now, we are moving into some very dark territory. So, either turn back while you can, or get your night vision goggles out, cause we about to go full black-out mode on this!

This is actually the scene that started this whole fic. I was watching Hannibal one day, and I remember watching Will as he finds Marissa in the cabin and I just thought, what if that was Harry's murder? (I had only just finished re-reading The Chamber of Secrets that morning) Of course, this birthed more questions, like why would Harry kill? How would he kill? What would push him to do so? How would he end up right there, in the cabin? And well, everything was sort of leading up to this very point. This is it folks. The fall.

Writing it out was real fun. This is the first time I've ever, and I mean ever, wrote in first person and present tense. But I felt it was necessary. I really wanted the reader to be right there, with Hemlock, almost inside her mind. I wanted it to feel like the reader was sitting down with Hemlock, in an interrogation and this, sort of, is her confession. I wanted it to flow like a conversation. First person seemed a good way to get that intimate/confession feeling.

It also let me begin forming Hemlock's distinct voice, which first person allows you to do. There's no barriers from third person and past tense, because third person makes it feel like a story being told, and I wanted this to feel real, very, very real and intimate. I knew, pretty much, from the get go that I wanted it to be unreliable. She's a very unstable character. As she points out herself, she could be lying about everything. I wanted that to come through, for there to be an underlying sense of caution and scepticism. Hemlock, herself, doesn't know what's real and what's not, and I wanted the reader to get a sense of that too, what is real and what's a lie? How far can we trust anything Hemlock says?

I also wanted it to feel authentic. So, unlike usual, where I write something out sentence by sentence and pick through it, changing and polishing it, I simply sat down and started typing and didn't stop until I was finished. I've also refused to go back through it. It's not as pretty as it normally is, or put together, and there might be a million spelling and grammar mistakes, but I think that only adds to the lucidity of it. It's jarring, there's bits where she jolts from one thing to another and then back, she repeats herself and contradicts nearly everything she says, sometimes within a sentence or two, and I think it only adds to how very unstable she is.

I don't know whether I will be doing first person again, not in this fic, but I think this was the perfect place and time for it. And I hope you guys liked it. I'm actually really proud of this chapter, and I think, maybe, this is my favourite one so far just because how tangled, jolting and warped it is. It was also the most fun to write.

P.S: the synopsis of this story is a quote from Alice in Wonderland, so credit goes there, and if you want a song recommendation for this chapter, I would highly recommend Her Name Is Alice, by Shinedown. I drew deep inspiration from that song, and there's even a quote chucked in for good measure. Do you guys have any songs that you think fit this fic? If so, give me a heads up! Music always works wonders for inspiration.

A huge thank you to everyone! Silent readers, followers, favourite-ers, reviewers, if I could, I would give you all a hug, but I'm afraid my thanks will have to do.

As always, please drop a review if you have a moment, they keep the muses chattering.