CHAPTER 23:

LIES AND DESPAIR

Harry felt his anger rise once more. "You're lying," he hissed.

"Am I? You can always ask Gehrman for confirmation. He'd know. Why else would he hate something in Maria's image, otherwise? He'd be sleeping with it if he could, the dirty old pervert." Rom shrugged with Umbridge's arms and shoulders. "Kos turned me into this hideous freak! I could live with that, if my apotheosis came with knowledge I could use, to surpass all others at Byrgenwerth!" Umbridge's face then got a look of saddened bitterness. "Now, I'm only the best because they're all dead."

"And so are you," Harry pointed out. "You said you were dying."

"I'm a Great One now, you little brat. We exist on different planes of existence. Still, I'd prefer to have a physical body again, so I'll be taking this woman's body. Then, I'll go and see if I can salvage anything from the Choir." She blinked, before she turned her eyes to him, and gave him a vicious smile. "Or maybe…"

Harry ducked under the spell she fired, before impaling both Umbridge's body and Rom's with the Moonlight Sword, fury lending him momentum and strength. "You were going to take my body, weren't you?"

"A human-Great One hybrid?" Rom sneered, coughing up a gout of blood from Umbridge's mouth. "It's wasted on you. Your mind is small, pathetic, tiny, and yet, the cosmos is within your grasp! You don't deserve it!" She reached for him, but he tore the sword out, gutting both bodies. "No! GIVE ME YOUR BODY! GIVE ME IT!"

"Not even if you bought me a drink, bitch," Harry said, before burying the Moonlight Blade into the skull of Umbridge. She shuddered, and then died. Rom's main body thrashed, but he stabbed her in the head too. The spider-like creature vanished in an explosion of light.

The smaller spiders got off Rookwood, curling up and dying, and the Death Eater stood, brushing his coat off. "Well, that was informative," he remarked. "You're part-Great One? That explains why the Amygdala had an interest in you. Anyway, allow me to introduce myself. Augustus Rookwood, former Unspeakable, and former Death Eater."

"Nothing former about you," Harry said grimly, readying the Moonlight Sword. Then, he thought he heard a woman crying. He saw a figure in white over Rookwood's shoulder.

"Fair enough, though the Dark Lord has been rather thoroughly expunged, from what I gathered," Rookwood said.

"Maybe. You were the one Bagman was passing info to, weren't you?" Harry said.

"Yes, and that coward Karkaroff fingered me," Rookwood said. He turned to see the woman. "Well, she wasn't here before."

"Then you can go approach her, or I will kill you."

"Well, you can try, but I'm curious anyway, so I'll gladly play the role of bait." Rookwood walked forward, Harry keeping a healthy distance behind the rogue Unspeakable. "Though I should add a caveat, take that creature's words with a pinch of salt. I don't think she was lying, but she was being selective with the truth, I daresay, out of spite."

Harry was trying not to think about it, to think about whether the Doll was truly Kos, that she had lied to him all this time. "And why say that?" he ground out.

"I've known many kinds of seekers of knowledge, Potter. She and I are rather alike in many regards, doing whatever it takes to get what we desire. But while I cannot say I don't fear death, unlike her or my former master, I am able to accept its presence. I believe Dumbledore once said that to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure."

"Fuck Dumbledore," Harry said bitterly. "He left me to rot."

"Well, we had too great an influence on the government, and on Fudge. Plus, Amos Diggory, in his grief, proved easy to influence. Why use magic when a few well-placed words will suffice? But Dumbledore does have a bad habit of ignoring any notion but those banging around in his skull." They had reached the woman by now, who was weeping, blood covering the front of her dress, like a macabre version of a bridal gown. "Hello there. Do you understand me?"

Harry realised that the woman was tall, with pale skin, and as she removed her hands from her face, he recognised the gaunt features of a Pthumerian, like the Church Servants, dark eyes roving over to them. Harry realised, with a start, that he had seen this woman before, in the Nightmare of Mensis, occasionally coming into Micolash's study. "Queen Yharnam?" he asked.

She peered at them, before she indicated the sky above them. The sound of a baby crying could be heard, a familiar sound to Harry, as he remembered it from the Nightmare of Mensis too. Mergo, he realised. And then, he turned…

And beheld the moon.

Only, it was blood red. A pale red, true, given the colour of the moon, but it was eerie, like pale blood. It seemed to be coming down from the sky, and he sagged to his knees under the pressure of it all…

…And then, he was elsewhere. So too was Rookwood, who was getting to his feet. "Well, that was singularly unpleasant," he remarked.

"How the actual hell can you remain calm?" Harry asked.

"I view each and every day as a learning experience," Rookwood said. "It may be an unpleasant experience, but any novel thing to learn is something to treasure. It's how I remained remotely sane in Azkaban. I began a mental monograph of Dementors, their individual traits, and their habits. I wrote it down before we left, had it left in a dead drop for my former colleagues to pick up if I die. They say knowledge is power, but I honestly find learning to be validation enough. Your Muggleborn friend Miss Granger would doubtlessly agree. Your mother would too. We have that much in common, if nothing else. Though I have to wonder, where are we?"

Harry looked around. They were in a derelict old church, with an Amygdala clinging to the ceiling. He went through one of the doors, keeping half an eye on Rookwood as he did so, and noted that they were not far from the Grand Cathedral. On the opposite side to where the path to Hemwick Charnel Lane led. He also noted the crimson moon hanging overhead. "…On the outskirts of Yharnam."

Rookwood nodded, and went through the door on the other side. Harry followed him warily, and found himself in another district of Yharnam, one he was fairly sure he hadn't been to. But as they moved onward, noting the Amygdala creatures clinging to many of the buildings, he then saw something seated in a chair that looked horribly familiar. A mummified corpse, wearing a distinctive cage-like contraption on its head. "I think I know where we are," Harry said. "I might be wrong, but this might be Yahar'gul, the base of the School of Mensis. Nasty pieces of work, not caring who gets hurt in their line of research. You'd like them."

Rookwood sniffed. "I seriously doubt that. If one is going to commit atrocities in the name of research, then hiding it behind closed doors is just good manners. This? It may be cut off from the rest of the city, but this is them throwing their arms into the air and saying, Look upon what I have wrought! Still, if you're correct, maybe they have something interesting. A library or something."

As he made to move off, Harry aimed his pistol at him. "And what makes you think I'll let you leave? Voldemort may be dead, but you're still a Death Eater. Your like raped and pillaged and murdered their way across Magical Britain, all for a lie. Voldemort was a Halfblood called Tom Riddle."

"Oh yes, I know," Rookwood said mildly. "Do you honestly think I joined the Death Eaters because I wanted to indulge in such things? No, I recognised that the Dark Lord would be able to free me from the confines of petty morality and ethics for my research. I did my homework, and honestly, I don't care. And once upon a time, I don't think you would have had the stomach to kill me…but you would. You would shoot me in the back. Lucky for both of us…" Rookwood gestured, and he faded. His voice echoed around Harry. "You can take a man from the Unspeakables, but you can't take the Unspeakable from the man. I'll take my own chances, Potter. Our mission has been a failure, so I should just salvage what I can. Whether you go back with Dumbledore or remain here makes little difference to me now. All that matters is the pursuit of knowledge, forbidden or not. Goodbye, Harry Potter. Let us both hope that we don't meet again."

Harry, his anger flaring up again, snarled an expletive to the blood-tinged sky. Thankfully, he noticed a lantern nearby, and activated it. He had someone he needed to have words with…

The Doll was asleep in the Hunter's Dream, but Harry didn't try to rouse her. He hadn't wanted to before, in case it disrupted her link with her physical self. And he wasn't sure he wanted to talk to her anyway.

Instead, he stormed into the Workshop, to find Gehrman sitting there, reading, what else? A volume of How to Talk to Fair Maidens. "We need to talk," Harry said, trying to keep a lid on his temper.

Gehrman sighed. "Really? It was getting to a good bit! This is one of the ones you got me from Yharnam, and I haven't read it yet, so…"

Harry stormed over and pushed the book down. "Yes, really. I just killed Rom, but before she did so, she told me something via a hijacked meatpuppet. So, you're going to tell me the truth, about the Doll. She's not just the creation of a Great One, isn't she? She is a Great One."

Gehrman's eyes widened, before he chuckled, a bitter thing. "Ah, so Rom figured it out, did she? Always too clever by half, she was. Yes, you're right. The Doll is Kos…well, what's left of her." Gehrman wheeled his chair, turning his back to Harry. "…Before Laurence founded the Healing Church, Provost Willem had us investigating reports of a Great One near a certain Fishing Hamlet. Kos, or some say Kosm. She was twisting the villagers into monsters under her control, forcing them to worship her. Rom was sent on a recce, and, well, you saw what she became. A larger force was sent there…and we were set upon by the inhabitants, all under Kos' control, an army of brainwashed monsters we were forced to slay. And Kos…she attacked us too. Calling down lightning from the sky."

Harry stared at Gehrman in horror. "…But you said Kos was dead," he pointed out.

"Yeah, we killed her, after a long and arduous battle. But in her death throes, she cursed us. Curse the fiends, and their children too. And their children, forever true. I heard those words echoing in our heads as she died. The Hunter's Nightmare? That's Kos' curse in action, drawing in every Hunter, all because we dared to oppose her for what she had done to one of our own. What's more…when this place was created, the last remnants of her soul ended up in the Doll. She's my gaoler, Harry, and you wonder why I hate her? Perhaps that's why she bound you to the Hunter's Dream. Because no matter how nice she actually is, she is still a Great One. And you can't trust a Great One."

Harry's feelings were conflicted. He wanted to say that Gehrman was lying, and yet, there was something that told Harry that he was telling the truth. Rookwood had indicated that Rom was telling the truth, even if he wanted Harry to take her revelations with a pinch of salt. And given that he was a Death Eater, he didn't want to trust him.

And yet, it made too much sense. The Doll was not human, never was human, and she certainly had powers. For the first time, his faith in the Doll was shaken, and badly.

"Harry?" came a too-familiar voice. And Harry turned to find her in the doorway, standing there, looking shaken. Harry realised that she must have overheard part of their conversation.

And then, Harry realised, he needed to get out of here. Away from the Doll, from Gehrman, away from murky lies and equally murky truths, both blurring into each other like a lake of mud. He rushed out of the Workshop, and found the gravestone leading back to the Hunter's Nightmare. There was no real reason to, other than a vague notion to find answers, and to get away from here.

He was hoping he was wrong, that Gehrman was lying, or being selective with the truth. He didn't want to believe that the Doll had bound him to the Dream out of malice. Not the woman he felt such affection for, not when he himself had been falsely accused. The last thing he heard before the familiar sensation of transit out of the Dream was the Doll saying, "Wait!"

But he didn't.

Gehrman watched as the Doll rushed over to the gravestone, too late. She then wheeled on him, horror and anger (the latter a novel emotion on her face) warring in her expression. "What did you tell him?"

"The truth," Gehrman sneered.

"The truth?" the Doll parroted incredulously. "I am not your gaoler, Gehrman, I am your servant. The Moon Presence is your gaoler, and mine. All this time, you knew, and you never told me."

"Why should I tell you? Even if that monster didn't forbid me, should I tell you that you're the author of my friends and comrades' misery? That they rot in a Hell of your making because of you? Maria is a prisoner there thanks to you, you slattern! You were made in her image, but you're nothing like her!"

The Doll recoiled, before she got a thoughtful look on her face. "And yet, you modelled me on her, but gave me these clothes, long before I was brought to life. I think you wished for one with Maria's likeness, and yet a docile, passive being. And yet, when you got what you desired…you hated it." The Doll scoffed. "I've known this for some time, I just never gave it voice until now, because I was loyal to you in spite of this. But you're pathetic, Gehrman."

Gehrman stilled, before he felt a bloom of rage within his soul. He didn't think this was true, and yet, a treacherous voice within him was agreeing with the Doll. "What did you say?"

"I said you are pathetic. A pathetic, perverted old curmudgeon who did not want a strong woman, but a pliant one. And yet, when you got her, you were still not satisfied. You are not unlike a man I just met by the name of Snape. He loved a woman, but in a twisted, selfish way. I met said woman, and it was she who told me who I was. You merely confirmed it." She leaned down, her pale blue eyes boring into his own. She had never gotten this confrontationally close, but then again, had she ever got angry? Her anger was a calm, quiet thing, so much like Maria's. "Whatever I was, whatever I am now, there is one thing I know I am, or rather, that I am not."

"And what is that?" Gehrman sneered.

"…I am not your doll."

This quiet rebuke did not come from the Doll in front of him, but rather, it came from the entrance to the Workshop. He looked, and found the other one standing there, the physical form of his masterpiece. She strode over. "Well, that is one question answered," she said. "I can exist in here with two bodies. That is good to know. It still feels strange."

"Buh? Wha? Aguh?" Gehrman said coherently.

"Hmm. Two of me at once causes you to regress to an infantile state," the Dream's Doll said. "Then again, you have acted like a petulant toddler than a dignified older man many a time."

"And thanks to you, Harry may be in trouble. I'm going after him. I do not remember my time as Kos…but I know it is true that I was her," the physical Doll said. "But I think you were lying, Gehrman. Not just twisting the truth, but lying."

"I am not lying."

"It's still a lie even if you believe in it," the Doll retorted, both of them.

And with that, the physical Doll left for the Hunter's Nightmare, while the Dream's Doll favoured him with a glare, before leaving for her usual spot. Gehrman felt he had won a victory, so why did his triumph taste like ashes?

Harry made his way through the Research Hall, making his way up through the corpse-littered staircases (the corpses all having weird, bulging, leathery heads, as if they had deflated oversized beachballs instead of skulls), until he came to a large pair of doors, leading to a garden with a massive tree in the middle. Simon was waiting, looking exhausted, and he wasn't alone. The man he was with looked Asian, and rather haggard and harried. "Harry!" Simon said. "I went back down, and found this guy. This is Yamamura, one of the former Hunters bound to the Dream. Like me, he was tossed into here when he objected to the Church's way of doing things. There was another man, Brador, but he wouldn't come out of his cell. Said something about a bell."

Harry nodded, shaking the man's hand. "I'd say it's good to meet you, but…I've just learned some bad things. I'm in a bit of a bad way. What happened?"

"I've been doing some investigating. The Church used this place, the Research Hall, to find ways of achieving apotheosis. Those people…they were the results. Maria watched over them, apparently. I spoke to one of the few peaceful ones, Adelline. She didn't have much information, save that Maria was waiting beyond these doors, in the Astral Clocktower." Simon indicated the building behind them.

Yamamura scoffed. "She failed to mention we'd be facing these monstrous things, living failures of the Church trying to create Great Ones, or beings like them," the man said.

Harry nodded. "Well, we'll go and face her in a moment. But I just learned something. I was told…that Kos was responsible for this. Apparently, after the Byrgenwerth scholars stopped her and an army of people she brainwashed and transformed, she cursed the Hunters for all eternity. What's more…somehow, Kos became the Doll."

"The Doll from the Dream? Are you certain?" Yamamura asked sharply.

"…Look, Gehrman confirmed what someone else told me. I don't think they're lying, but…I'm not sure it's the whole truth. I got imprisoned myself after being falsely accused. If Maria corroborates it…then…I…look, I dunno. I thought she was my friend, that she…"

As Harry subsided, Yamamura smiled. "Ah, I see. You do not just like her. You love her."

"…What?"

As Yamamura chuckled ruefully, Simon said, "Well, we'd best deal with that later. Let's go."

They approached the doors leading to the Astral Clocktower and opened them, revealing a vast space, weapons racks lining the room, a massive clock-like mechanism at the back, letting in light like a mechanised stained glass window. The room was otherwise bare of decoration, save for one thing. A chair, pride of place at the rear of the room, with a small table next to it. The chair was occupied.

And it was occupied by what could have been the Doll.

Harry couldn't see her features that clearly, but the deathly pale skin and the silvery-white hair, done up in a ponytail, was present. The woman, however, was dressed in more practical, elegant clothing, topped with a tricorn hat. She was slumped over as if dead, or sleeping.

Harry indicated for the others to hold back, and he approached her, gently reaching for her shoulder…only for her hand to lash out like a striking snake, and pull him close to peer at him. She had the same icy blue eyes as the Doll, but none of their warmth. Her face was the Doll's, but it was currently staring at him with cold intent.

"A corpse," she hissed into his ear, "should be left well alone." Her voice was the Doll's, with the same husky, Slavic-sounding accent, and yet, both softer and harsher. She let him go, and he stepped away.

"And yet, you're still alive, Lady Maria," Harry said.

She got off her chair. "After a fashion. Death was not a release for me. But it will be for you." Her gaze softened. "Oh, I do know how the secrets beckon so sweetly. Only an honest death will cure you now, of your insatiable curiosity…"

CHAPTER 23 ANNOTATIONS:

So, there you have it. The Doll has been exposed, and Harry has met Lady Maria. Oh dear.

Now, I had the thought that Harry would get into a massive row with the Doll, but it felt out of character given their relationship so far. His anger is mostly towards Dumbledore, Snape and the Death Eaters. Harry fleeing into the Hunter's Nightmare to get answers and to get away from the Doll for a brief moment felt more in-character. He's trying not to consider the fact that the Doll has betrayed him (or so Rom and Gehrman led him to believe), especially after being falsely imprisoned in Azkaban, and yet, he can't shake what he had just learned.

I also thought it fitting that the Doll would use Rei Ayanami's line against Gehrman. You know, the one Rei uses against Gendo before she triggers Third Impact in The End of Evangelion. Given how I brought up the comparisons between Rei and the Doll, as well as Gendo and Gehrman, earlier, I thought it was apt.

Finally, Rookwood. In my Tokyo Ghoul crossover Janus, I basically portrayed him as being more interested in discovery than Blood Purity politics. I view him as being not unlike Qyburn in Game of Thrones, utterly amoral, and more concerned with the joy of discovery at any cost, rather than any real allegiance, or like a more sane and less sadistic Professor Hojo from Final Fantasy VII (oh God, the version from the remake is even worse than the original game: how the hell someone like him managed to seduce Lucrezia, I have no idea). I used a similar portrayal here. We may or may not see him later.

Review-answering time! Pbc98: Rom is unaware of the Moon Presence and Gehrman's deal, or at least the specifics. Most of what she's saying comes from her reading Harry's mind. Most of it, she made up to hurt Harry and the Doll out of spite. Gehrman goes along with it to hurt the Doll.

Tenzo51: Not really. The Moon Presence, from what can be gathered from the game's lore, made a deal with Gehrman (and, it is hinted, albeit vaguely, Laurence) to create the Hunter's Dream as a means of training exceptional Hunters. This was also after the pogrom against the Fishing Hamlet, as Maria was involved in that massacre, but committed suicide some time afterwards. I doubt Gehrman would have created the Doll in physical form until after she died, meaning that Maria committed suicide before he made the deal with the Moon Presence.

Dragon Man 180: Yeah. It's fun coming up with some nasty end for Umbridge. I don't do enough of those in my fanfics, though getting her skull nommed and her brain wiped by an eldritch abomination doesn't quite live up to some of mine. I've had her eviscerated and then eaten, bisected multiple times by chainsaw, left a vegetable due to mindrape, eaten by a vampire (in a different couple of fanfics, actually), and forced to act in a devil's stage show. And those are the ones I can actually remember. I should do it more often. Maybe I should do a story where Umbridge, Harold Skimpole, Shinji Matou, and other fictional characters I loathe end up going through horrible ends. Food for thought…

HughJasz: Harry was sceptical because it's an understandable shock to the system to learn you're part-eldritch abomination, and his thoughts were, "If you were alive before, why didn't you come get me?" Give him time, and he'll accept it, as you do have an excellent point.

BoredKing: As you saw above, I realised upon coming to this chapter that making him fly into a rage went against the character development I had done so far. Harry's upset, and understandably so, but he's not taking it out on the Doll. He just runs away so that he can calm himself before he talks to her again. Finding Maria will help provide him with more of an answer, as you'll see in the next chapter. And you raise a good point. I didn't have to rewrite the chapter per se, but I did insert a few lines here and there when your review pointed out the whole 'wrongful accusation' thing, so I put a couple of lines to include that in Harry's thoughts.

Me Myself and I: Rom saw the Doll, thought she was Kos (correctly) and put two and two together (incorrectly, albeit out of spite). The Doll did give Harry a dose of the Old Blood that bound him to the Dream after all. She could concede that the Doll was created by another Great One, but at the time, she was very angry and bitter towards Harry for hurting her and nearly killing her. And when she realised what he was, well, she wanted his body. Maybe I should have had Harry say, "I need an adult."

No numbered annotations this time.