Chapter 26 – Mad World

Note: Chapter Title from Gary Jules' song 'Mad World'

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters.

Now that that's out of the way, let's begin…

Last time,

A solid beam of white light hits him, knocking him to the ground.

"Harry?" Dumbledore asks cautiously as the boy in question blinks awake, shaking his head to clear it.

"Y-Yes, Sir?" Harry asks.

"Do you trust me?"

Harry gives the Headmaster a genuine smile. "Of course, Sir. I trust you more than anyone."

Now,

Sirius returns to Grimmauld Place to find Remus still at the kitchen table and drinking heavily, Moody and Mary with him. He sighs, taking a seat beside the man he loves. "Remus…"

"I don' wanna be like this," Remus whispers, "I dunno how else t'be an'more."

"I think it might help to be able to think straight for more than 5% of the day," Sirius replies gently.

"I canno' go ta therapy, Pa'fu," Remus tells him.

Sirius nods, "I know, I spoke to Severus. He seems to think that you said what you said in an effort to push him away. Given your history, Remus,…I have to ask. Are you…having thoughts of suicide?"

Remus flinches slightly at the words, he drops his head to the table as the other three occupants of the room listen intently. "No, no'reallae. I jus'…I don' wanna kill miself, Pa'foo. I just don't wanna be here anymore. I don't wan'ta feel like this."

"Like what?" Sirius questions patiently.

"Everyfin hurts," Remus whispers, "All of the time. 'n' it shouldn', coz I got all of yous, but it won' stop hurdin." Remus screws his eyes shut, covering them by pushing his head into his arm on the table. "I deserve it though."

"No, Remus, no," Sirius tells him, pushing a hand through his partner's hair lightly.

"You don'know what I did…" Remus replies in a tortured voice, "I jus' wan'ed th'pain to stop. I didn' wanna do it, I didn' wan'ta hurt'im," Remus says, suddenly sobbing heavily. "M'sorry, m'so sorry."

Sirius quickly wraps Remus up in his arms, trying to comfort him as he locks eyes with Moody, both of them thinking the same thing.

The truth about Remus' time as a PoW may finally be coming out.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Hermione asks her brother the next day.

Harry lifts his head and gives her a filthy look, "Why wouldn't I be?"

Ron raises an eyebrow at him, sharing a look with Hermione and Ginny. He clears his throat, "Well, you glared daggers at Justin when he tried to talk to you during breakfast, you picked a fight with Malfoy, and you're looking at me like I'm something on the bottom of your bloody shoe."

Harry's eyes narrow at him, "Like I'd listen to a blood traitor like you," Harry spits.

"HARRISON! WHAT THE SHIT!" Hermione screams at her brother, gathering the attention of the Great Hall who had previously not been listening to their conversation.

"What? You think you're any better?" Harry asks, a cruel smirk on his face, "Muggle Raised, still a wizard. Shunned here, shunned there, tell me. Do you actually fit in anywhere?" Hermione blinks at Harry, tears in her eyes. Harry nods, "Thought not, it's probably why no family ever wanted to keep you." Then he stalks off out of the room.

"…What…the…fuck," Ginny asks.

From the Teachers' table, Severus, Lucius, and Minerva exchange stunned looks in the silence of the Hall. But one man doesn't look so stunned.

The ever-present twinkle in his eyes grows brighter still.

"Hey, erm, Harry?" Benoit says quietly as he changes direction in the hallway to walk beside his cousin.

Harry scowls at the younger boy, "What do you want, Little Benni?"

Benoit seems taken aback by the harsh attitude, having skipped dinner in the Great Hall and instead been in the library researching things and so missed Harry's blow up. "Well, I just wanted to get your advice on something."

"Why me?" Harry asks with a raised eyebrow, "Don't you have an older sister you can write to?"

"Yes, but she's not here, you are, and you're my cousin so I just thou-"

"I'm not your cousin, Lupin. We aren't related. Our parents are living some dream life where things like friendships and shit matter but they don't. Blood runs thicker than water and you are not mine," Harry tells the boy harshly.

"HEY!" Benni and Harry turn to see Theo Knott and Draco stalking towards them. "Leave him the hell alone," Theo demands. Harry sneers at him before Draco physically steps between them.

"Theo, take Benni and go find Blaise. I'll deal with this," Draco orders, feeling rather unused to the old usual of people following what he says after so long of following the maniac before him.

Theo takes the frightened and hurt Benni away from the scene as Draco and Harry glare at each other.

"What the fuck, Mate?! You don't ever dare speak to him like that again. Or anyone, for that matter."

"Suddenly grown a conscience, have you?" Harry asks, "Tell me. How did that family feel about you when you were screaming the word Mudblood at Hermione every five seconds? You may be her brother now but don't think she's forgotten. It wasn't so long ago that she was jonesing for another chance to punch you."

Draco looks at him in bewilderment, "Harry, please, tell me what's going on. Me and the others, we're relying on you. We can't do any of it without you," He tells Harry pleadingly, a word he never would have expected to describe a Malfoy.

"Any of it? Dray that whole 'movement' thing is over. We were wrong to try. Dumbledore isn't the bad guy here, he is a great man trying to save people from evil," Harry explains, "We're going to take down the Dark Wizards, Draco. All of them. And when you grow up to be exactly like your psycho Death Eater of a father, you'll go down too. Malfoy."

"Big talk coming from the Son of the Dark Lord himself," Draco spits at him.

"Mum and Dad kept me from him for a reason. I was wrong to ever go against what they wanted. They know what's best for me, they always have. So has Dumbledore."

Draco and Harry continue having a stand-off until they hear someone clear their throat. The two look up to see Lucius standing near them. "Is there a problem, boys?" He asks with an elegant eyebrow raise.

"Of course not, Professor," Harry replies, "Just an old rivalry that won't ever die." With that, Harry turns on his heel and leaves.

"Dra-" Lucius begins, but when he turns to look, his son is stalking off in the other direction.

"Something's wrong," Hermione announces as she stalks into the converted meeting room in the Graveyard that night, the others already there seated around the table.

"Yeah, no kidding," Blaise scoffs, nodding to Draco who glares moodily at the table.

"Someone's messed with him, they have to have. Harry would never act like this, not to us and not to you," Pansy reminds them all.

As they all nod, Ron is suddenly struck by a realisation. These Slytherins they once despised and whom previously despised them, trust Harry so much that they do not consider the fact that he has willingly turned against them.

"He had a meeting with the Headmaster earlier today. Perhaps that has something to do with it," Luna offers.

"So what, we think Dumbledore did something to Harry?" Ron asks.

"Well in what world would he ever talk to Little Benni like he did?" Blaise challenges, Ron concedes to that point.

"Hey, haven't heard Benoit speak since…well not for a long time. That's something, right?" Pansy asks.

Blaise nods, "Yeah. Hopefully it'll last. Do him some good to make more friends after, well, we sort of killed the last one," He adds with a wince.

"Forget all this," Draco suddenly snaps, "Something is wrong with Harry and we need to fix it!"

"And we will," Pansy tells him, "But right now, we don't know anything. We need help." Pansy looks around, ensuring she has everyone's attention. "I think we should go to Severus."

Draco looks at her in concern, "He'd find out about Harry."

"I think that's a risk we need to take. Before Harry tells Dumbledore everything he wants to know," Pansy pushes.

"Harry would never do that!" Draco reprimands sharply, "This entire thing is his vision, his dream. He won't do anything to jeopardise that."

"No one here is doubting Riddle," Blaise reassures his friend, "But he's not himself right now. We don't know what's wrong, or how to fix it, and with Black now alive and Re with him, Sev is our best…our only, option here." Draco fidgets for a moment before he nods.

"If we tell him, he will immediately put together that the rest of us are involved," Luna points out.

Neville shrugs, "Anyone who isn't willing to be found out should not have gotten involved to begin with," He says. Everyone looks to him in surprise. "Well it was always a risk, wasn't it?" The group all nod slowly.

"So, we tell him?" Hermione asks her brother.

Draco thinks it over for another minute, trying to think more rationally. Then he nods, "Harry already said this is all over, that he's fighting for Dumbledore now," Draco informs them, then nods again, "We tell him."

"Professor, we need to talk, now," Ron tells Severus, having walked to the Potions office and finding Snape grading something or other.

"Oh?" Severus asks, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.

"It's about…him."

Severus' eyebrow drops, "Oh." He quickly charms the door shut and puts a silencing charm up around the room. "Talk."

"Inimicus has been compromised, we have reason to believe that Dumbledore did something to him. Don't know what exactly, but if we don't get him back then the entire cause falls. Now, we don't know for sure if Dumbledore even knows that Inimicus is Inimicus. We think it's more likely that he just wanted him back under his thumb."

Severus looks bewildered, "Under his thumb? Weasley, how do you expect me to help when you give me no information?"

"You want information? One minute, Inimicus is his usual self, planning the Headmaster's demise and backing his Reapers up. The next, he's a fucking twat and worshipping at Dumbledore's feet. Like his entire personality was –"

"Reversed," Severus cuts in. Ron nods. Then Severus remembers the spectacle from dinner and what Benni and Lucius had told him about their interaction with Harry…and it clicks. "Dumbledore cast the moral reversal spell on Harry, who is also Inimicus."

"Guess Pansy owes Blaise money. She didn't think you'd work it out until you came to the Graveyard," Ron tells him, unsurprised that his Teacher put it all together so quickly.

"The Graveyard?" Severus asks, instantly thinking of being bitten by those re-animated corpses.

"It's what we call our meeting place. There's a huge rotting corpse, it's a long story." Severus blinks at him for a moment. Ron just moves on, "What's the Moral Reversal spell? Beyond the obvious."

Severus sighs, "That's pretty much all it is though. It reverses the morals of the target, complete 180. Casting it on them again shatters their mind."

"Sounds like what happened to Bellatrix Black."

"It's exactly what happened to Bella."

"So," Ron begins, obviously thinking hard. "If casting it again won't undo it, how do we fix him?"

"Ron…there is no cure."

"There has to be."

"There isn't."

Ron leans on Severus' desk threateningly. "Then make one. Because if Dumbledore gets the truth out of Harry, we all go down. You included."

"I've tried!" Severus snaps, "One of my oldest and closest friends was sent batshit insane because of that spell and it was ALL MY FAULT!" He shouts, "Of course I've tried, I've tried everything I could think of. There is. no. cure."

Ron watches him for a minute before he stands up again. "Come with me. Amans will want to see you."

"Who the hell is that?"

"Inimicus' second."

Ron walks out, Severus hesitates for a moment before going after him.

"So, I suppose I can assume Mio is involved with this as well," Severus says quietly as Ron leads him through the empty halls of Hogwarts.

"If you like," Ron replies.

They walk the rest of the way in silence until they come to the boys' bathroom with the entrance to the chamber.

"Open," Ron commands in carefully practiced Parseltongue. The sink opens up revealing a giant hole in the floor.

Severus looks at it and sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Let me guess, we're jumping down there."

Ron smirks at him before stepping over the edge and immediately dropping soundlessly. Severus hesitates for one moment before he remembers something from years ago. He smiles softly and whispers, "God-father duties." Then he jumps.

A while of walking through rat skeletons later, Ron opens a snake decorated seal and steps through into a giant cavern.

It clicks to Severus exactly where he is, "The Chamber of Secrets?" He asks. Ron nods, though really the question may as well have been rhetorical.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE!"

Severus looks over to some tunnels in alarm, then back to Ron who sighs, but it is not him who explains.

"We had to confine him before he gave anything away," A man dressed in a black cloak with a white square mask, red triangles for eyes.

"Tutamen, how's things here?" Ron asks, frowning in concern.

Tutamen sighs, shaking his head, "Still shouting that Dumbledore will stop us and save everyone while also going on about blood purity and shit."

Severus blinks, reverse really does mean everything reversed, even if those things don't make sense together. But more than that, Severus frowns, because he would recognise that voice anywhere. "Blaise?"

Blaise pulls his mask off and smiles grimly, "Hi, Sev." He looks between the two, "So, what's the situation?"

"Some moral reversal spell," Ron explains, nodding for Severus to say more.

"It's a spell that James Potter and I created, a long time ago. It's had disastrous consequences ever since. As I told Weasley, there's no way to undo it."

"You also said that that's what happened to Bellatrix Black, right?" Ron asks, Severus nods. "Well that proves it then. She was on our side when she died, it had to have been reversed – unreversed, whatever – or she would still be fighting for them."

Severus looks at him, eyes wide. "There's a cure."

"It doesn't have to hurt, Remy. It could all go away. You can make it go away."

Remus jerks upright in bed, gasping, unable to breath. He'd fallen asleep as soon as he transformed back into his human form, usually those sleeps are far too deep and exhausted for dreams. Sirius must have tucked him into bed. He feels a hand on his shoulder, comforting him, and leans into it. A soft kiss is pressed to his head and Remus freezes. He smells perfume, feels the softer body against his. It isn't Sirius beside him.

"It's all right, Remy," Bellatrix says to him gently. Remus trembles with fear from his nightmare, even knowing he must still be dreaming. But somehow, still, he feels safe here with this Trixie, his Trixie. "Tell me, Remus. What happened? What did I do to you?"

"You don't know?" He asks, voice hoarse. He assumes from screaming in his nightmare and wonders if, when he wakes properly, his voice will sound that way.

"I don't remember anything I did after the Moral Reversal Spell was cast until I came back to myself," Trixie explains. She leans her head against his shoulder, "Please, Remy. Talk to me, what did I do?"

Remus takes a deep shuddering breath, "It wasn't what you did, Trix. It was what I did. You gave me a choice and I…" Remus turns suddenly, burying his face in Bellatrix's shoulder. Bellatrix calmly strokes her hand through his hair as he sobs. "I didn't want to hurt him!" He says, rather frantically.

Bellatrix waits for him to calm a bit before she pulls him back and looks him in the eye, a soft smile on her face and a gentle hand cupping his cheek. "I didn't want to make the world think I was crazy when I was a kid. Sometimes we are put into impossible situations and we do what we must to survive. That doesn't make you a bad person, Remus. It just proves what we've been saying all along. Werewolf or no, you're still human."

Remus feels tears streaming down his face as he leans forward to rest his forehead against hers. He feels the dream losing substance and holds back another sob, "I miss you, Trixie."

"I'm gone, Remy. But there are people still with you, and they can help, if you'll let them."

When Remus opens his eyes, it is not Bellatrix he sees, but Sirius.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sirius asks when he sees Remus has woken up.

Remus takes stock of their position, Sirius sitting against the head of the bed and Remus with his head in his lap, holding on to his legs like they are the only things keeping him from being sucked into a blackhole. "I-It started about those ten months," Remus whispers, still shaking. Sirius runs a soothing hand through his hair, much like Dream-Trixie had done mere minutes before. "Then it changed into another dream about Bellatrix," He explains. Remus takes a deep, fortifying breath, "She thinks I should tell you what happened."

Sirius raises an eyebrow, though Remus is not looking at him to see it. "Do you think you should tell me?" Remus frowns, biting his lip. He curls into Sirius' lap more, but nods. "I'm here to listen, Moons. I always have been."

Remus nods again, "I know." He clears his throat, "I don't know how long I had been there already, but…" Remus trails off, a lump in his throat that seems to be blocking all air to his lungs. Sirius strokes his hand down his back soothingly, seeming to be bringing air down everywhere his hand went. Remus takes a deep breath, "They'd given up trying to get me to talk, they knew now that I wouldn't. So, Voldemort started making it a reward. Do good work and they could torture me however they like." Remus shudders again at the memories, tears in his eyes that wipe onto Sirius' pyjama pants as he turns his head. A moment later he turns back again to keep talking, never turning his head enough to actually look at Sirius. "Then one day, Voldemort and T-Tri-" Remus cuts himself off.

Sirius strokes the hair out of his face, "I know who you mean," He says gently.

Remus lets out a shaky breath, nodding in relief before he continues, "They came in and he offered me a deal. If I got one of their prisoners to talk, they'd stop hurting me." Sirius remembers what Remus said the one and only time he's ever even almost talked about what happened and suddenly sees where this is going. "I-I just wanted to stop hurting," Remus tells him, crying in earnest now, "Just for a bit, I knew they wouldn't hold up their end so I…I dragged it out as much as I could. As long as I was hurting him, they weren't hurting me." Remus breaks down sobbing, "I-I did-didn't want to hurt him, Pads. I-I just wanted the p-pain to st-stop."

Sirius pulls him upright, wrapping him into a tight hug that Remus snuggles into as he breaks apart. "I'm glad you did, Remus."

"W-What?" Remus asks in shock, moving his head back just enough to meet his eye.

"I'm glad you took that offer. If they wanted information out of that man, you more than anyone know that they would never give up. At least that way, one of you got a chance at some rest from it. Call me selfish, but I like any scenario that you aren't being hurt in far more than one in which you are."

Remus holds his gaze for a moment, tears streaming down his cheeks though he hardly feels it over his shock. Then a small smile, more of relief than happiness, spreads onto his face. "Y-You don't hate me?"

"Remus, I'd have taken that offer, probably a lot sooner than you did," Sirius tells him, "I don't hate you for wanting to not be in pain." Remus buries himself back into Sirius' chest and decides that, until he absolutely has to, he's not moving from this safe and warm and loving embrace.

Severus stands in the Chamber of Secrets, or 'the Graveyard' as the kids call it, pinching the bridge of his nose. He's no idea what to do or how to save his God-Son, but clearly there is a way, or Bellatrix would have been insane until the day she died. Of course, Bella had the spell cast on her twice and her mind broken, who's to say whatever healed that could even counter the spell as it should have been, he thinks to himself as he shuts his eyes in annoyance.

"So how did you work it out?" Severus' eyes open in shock at hearing Harry speak. He walks into the meeting room and sees all of the 'reapers' and himself sitting around the table. He grows interested in the scene, recognising it as a vision and hoping this will somehow give him the answer he needs.

Vision-Severus smirks, "I had a vision. Of this conversation actually."

Severus looks at his vision-self in surprise, "It works like that?" He asks quietly, knowing none of them can hear him.

"Trippy," Hermione comments, "We're being watched by past Uncle Sev."

"So, this is when you first heard the riddle? Well, not when, exactly…" Blaise frowns, trying to grapple some sane understanding of this insane situation.

"What riddle?" Harry asks. Severus raises an eyebrow, wondering if his confusion is an indication that he won't remember what happened. But nothing has happened that would indicate Bellatrix didn't remember. Of course, no one would notice if a crazy person had seemingly forgotten what she'd been doing.

Then his vision-self begins speaking, "Reversed…reversed…broken. What happened before will happen once more while the cure waits beyond the shore. Power lost he will regain until only sad is allowed to remain."

"…what? That's it?" Severus questions incredulously, "How did you work anything out from that?"

"What else did your vision show you?" Pansy asks.

Vision-Severus chuckles, "Nothing actually. Well, this sentence is the last thing I heard before the Vision faded away."

"Severus!"

Severus blinks to see Remus standing in front of him, the kids standing behind their ex-professor and looking at him with concern. "Re?"

Remus sighs, "Anything important?" He asks.

"Oh yeah. How to save Harry." Severus winces, "Sort of. Anyone good with riddles?"

Everyone looks to Hermione who smirks, "Try me."

Five minutes later…

"I don't understand!" Pansy says in almost a sob as she drops her head to the table, covered in notes and drawings as they try to puzzle out the riddle.

"Give it to me again?" Hermione requests, rubbing at the bridge of her nose in frustration.

"Reversed, reversed, broken," Severus says.

"Well that's pretty self-explanatory," Blaise says, Hermione nods.

"I'm getting fourth year flashbacks. You know, the singing egg?" Ron asks Hermione who seems mildly amused as she nods before turning back to Severus.

"What happened before will happen once more."

"Again, pretty simple," Remus comments frustratedly.

"While the cure waits beyond the shore."

"Okay, so, not in the country," Draco says, face in his arms on the table.

"We assume. It might be a reference to an ocean or an island or a boat…let's table that for now," Hermione says, nodding for Severus to continue.

"Power lost he will regain," Severus recites, "Could be talking about Dumbledore or the Dark Lord."

"Dumbledore would make more sense in this scenario, wouldn't it?" Remus poses.

"Well, in a straightforward sense, yes," Hermione answers, "But…well there are some things that are need to know and Inimicus has not decided that you need to."

Remus looks to Severus who shrugs. Pansy, Blaise, Neville, Ron, and Luna also look confused. "You know whatever this is?" Severus asks Draco and Ginny.

"You remember when I mentioned Amans?" Ron asks him.

Severus nods, "Inimicus' second." Ron gestures to Draco, Severus nods then clears his throat, "Either way I think it's more of a warning than actual help in solving this."

"What was the last line?" Hermione presses, no one questions why Ginny would know, obvious as it is that Harry would have told her.

"Until only sad is allowed to remain," Severus finishes. Remus groans, getting up and pacing the length of the room. The kids all continue thinking, but Severus leans against the wall and watches Remus expectantly and happily. He always feels far more optimistic when he sees proof of Remus healing.

Suddenly he stops moving and turns around, devastation on his face.

"Uncle Moony?" Hermione asks, seeing the expression.

"I was just thinking…whatever it is had to have happened to Trixie."

"Yes, and?" Ron pushes when he says no more.

"The cure is off the shore, only sadness can remain. Where do we know of where Bellatrix spent time, where there can be no happiness, on an island."

Ginny looks up in alarm, "Azkaban."

"How could Azkaban cure anything?" Luna asks, though really, it's more of a statement of disbelief.

Neville frowns, "Hold on I read something the other day. There are some curses that deal with the mind, they are undone if the memories are taken from the current time to a time before the spell was cast. Maybe something similar happens here?"

"How do you mean?" Ginny asks him.

"Well, Uncle Sirius has some memory problems right? And it's from the Dementors draining the happiness from him and leaving only sad."

"Right…?" Remus confirms, unsure where his nephew is going with this.

"The spell reverses morals, what's bad is good…and what was good is bad," Neville explains.

"You think that the dementors took what was good which was actually bad and left what was bad but was actually good?" Draco asks him, Neville nods.

"Right, and with what was really bad gone, what was actually good was left and…what, refreshed the brain?" Remus questions.

"Like a factory reset on a laptop!" Hermione states, catching on.

"I don't know what that is, but I think you've got it," Neville replies.

"That explains why Trixie doesn't remember much. Dementors took everything the real her considered bad and, like with Sirius, they took memories too," Remus comments, everyone looks to him in confusion.

Severus turns to him suspiciously, "How do you know that she didn't remember?"

"Oh, er, I don't. I mean…it's just a feeling," Remus answers awkwardly, "More importantly, how are we going to replicate this on Harry? We haven't any Dementors."

"We wouldn't have been exposing my brother to Dementors even if we did!" Hermione tells him strongly, aghast by the mere suggestion.

Remus' face pales slightly when he realises what he suggested, "Right, sorry." He swallows harshly, hands shaking mildly.

"Re?" Severus puts a hand on his arm slowly. Remus gives him a tight smile before turning back to the others.

"Do you think obliviating him would work? It's only been two days," Ron points out, Neville shakes his head. "Well, what then?!"

"I…have sort of an idea," Ginny states, staring off into the distance before she takes a very measured breath. "But it's pretty insane."

Everyone in the room looks around at each other, nodding to unspoken questions.

"Insane is what we do here, Weaslette," Draco tells her, "What's the plan?"

Notes:

So, my internet was down for a while, hence the late upload, but I did take the chance to do final edits on the next few chapters which means no more delays! (barring internet hijinks).