Chapter Fifteen | Sisyphus
The silence was deafening, punctuated suddenly by a scream and the earth shattering realization that no matter what she did, she was trapped. Frozen, like stone, Catherine stared across the snow covered fields, an involuntary whine bubbling in her gut and flowing across the snow in hysterical murmurs.
"It won't stop," she managed to gasp, blood pouring from her bitten lip. "It won't ever stop."
She scrabbled for her wand, pressing it to her head, before lowering her hand.
It wouldn't change anything, but would it hurt to try?
Raising her hand again, a familiar acid green bubbled at the tip before she was interrupted by a sudden pop. Dazzled by the following flash of red, Catherine watched as her wand sailed into the hands of Dumbledore, the wizened man standing before her with fear in his eyes.
"Oh thank god." He hurried forward, patting Catherine down for injuries and flinching at her maddened expression. "Catherine, what have you done? Your face-"
"I can't leave," she whispered, staring him in the eyes. "It won't ever stop."
"Catherine, I… Severus, please, I need your help."
Catherine didn't even turn to look at the man, cloaked in black and sweating furiously as he flicked his wand and conjured a floating stretcher. She did react when he went to lift her onto it, rolling over the snow away from Snape and shooting him a glare.
"Don't touch me."
Snape cursed as he advanced towards her. "Albus, she needs to be-"
"Stupefy."
-::-
Catherine opened her eyes to the sight of the Hospital Wing, twice in one day and no less pleasant to look upon than before.
Dumbledore stunned me.
She almost laughed aloud at the thought of the man knocking her out, trying to imagine what a sight she must have been, sat at the bottom of the tower in a puddle of her own blood with nary a scratch on her.
And then the weight of her prison settled once more over her shoulders.
"Immortal."
The word tasted like poison, the knowledge that no matter what she did, no matter how hard she struggled, she would always stay caged.
The thought of suicide had always rested at the back of her mind, something she had fallen in love with over time. The chance to end things on her own terms. The chance to have control over the one, ultimate facet of her life.
Existence.
Yet now she could do nothing, trapped by a god she didn't even know the name of, what whims and fancies dictated its infinite, incomprehensible life.
"Just let me die," she mumbled, praying that the voice would listen
Not yet, child.
And that was all that needed to be said.
So Catherine glared at the ceiling, arms rigid at her sides and itching to tear, to cut, to flay. She stared, and thought of Yharnam, of a city that asked her for only one thing - a willingness to slaughter.
She found herself craving the simplicity of it, the struggle for dominance over the beasts that walked its streets and the driving need to uncover whatever secrets the Church had left buried. Catherine wanted to know, needed to know what happened there, and realized then that the constant threat of Voldemort seemed almost mundane in comparison to the mysteries that unhallowed city hid within its walls.
Catherine didn't rest on the thought that she no longer knew how to speak to others, how to interact with a human being that she didn't want dead, or who had no wish to kill her themselves.
Perhaps she could write Voldemort a letter.
She did laugh at that, a muted giggle that sounded more like the choked gasps of a dying woman, erratic and twisted enough to chill one's blood.
As her laughter died down, she perked up at the sound of arguing, voices trickling under one of the side doors in the wing.
"Albus," the drawling hiss of Snape burned the air, barely reaching Catherine's ears. "She's lost her mind. Do you still think-"
"I pray not."
"But-"
"Enough, Severus," Dumbledore barked, the ire in his words clear. "Now is not the time or place. A student of yours has just failed in an attempt to take her own life and yet you still attack her. I thought by now you'd be done with whatever petty grievances you had against James Potter, but it seems I was mistaken."
"A cry for-"
"She threw herself off the Astronomy Tower, Severus. The fact that Catherine is alive and well is a miracle."
"You saw her blood."
"I did."
"Then how do you explain her still living? If not for-"
"That is but a theory, Severus. She has not become possessed."
"And how would you know? You've hardly spoken to the girl this year."
"While that may be true-"
"No," Snape fumed. "It is gone from her. Yet she still has nightmares. What I saw in her head, Albus, made my heart stop. There's no precedent for what Catherine is or what has happened to her. For all you know she could have… retained its properties."
"You don't believe-"
"I do."
Their voices quieted, too small for her to pick up on even with Yharnam blood in her veins. She turned away from the door, pulling the blanket over her chin and shutting her eyes as she waited for the two to leave.
They knew something was wrong, and listening to them ponder on it made Catherine's skin itch.
She wanted to run, hide herself away so that they didn't lock her up and leave her to rot in some godforsaken cage. Or perhaps they'd stick her in St. Mungos next door to Gilderoy Lockhart, mind addled and soaked in his own piss.
To live there, eternally, or kept as some researchers plaything…
Catherine couldn't die. The Headmaster and Snape knew. Would they say a thing to the Ministry?
Shivers wracked her body as she imagined scalpels and cold walls, iron chains on her wrists and the empty eyes of an Unspeakable looming over her as they took their notes. They would tear her to pieces given the chance. Tear her apart and watch her come back, only to repeat the process.
If she couldn't die, would she age? Would she be kept in a hidden chamber for all eternity, if the Ministry were to find out? Would she simply wither until nothing was left but dust and her broken mind, still shackled to the world regardless of her bodily death?
Perhaps that was what ghosts felt like, there but not quite. Did they all lose their minds, slowly, with the knowledge that they were trapped in an unfeeling existence? Never to touch, to taste, to live as truly as they once had, yet forced to watch as others did around them?
Could a ghost wish to die?
Her breath caught, choking, as she wondered what her fate would be, even after all this was done. Djura and Eileen had escaped the dream, lost nearly all memory of the place and regained their mortality. Would she be so lucky?
The door opened and she listened as Dumbledore and Snape stepped through, a few murmured words passing between them before Snape marched out of the Hospital Wing, not stopping to offer a passing glance Catherine's way as he slammed the doors behind him.
"Catherine, awake already?"
She cursed, opening her eyes. "Yes."
The Headmaster sighed heavily as he conjured a chair at the foot of her bed, and if she didn't know it was her imagination she would have sworn she'd heard his bones creak as he sat down.
"You gave us all quite the scare today."
Catherine blinked wearily at the man, mind shuttered as best she could. "I did."
The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, simply looking at one another. Dumbledore was haggard, visibly so, beard tousled and his robes askew, changed from when she had seen him at the foot of the tower that morning.
"What time is it?"
"About half one, last I checked. It seems as though my stunning charm is a mite bit stronger than I'd first thought."
She hummed. "I'm surprised it worked."
"Why?"
Catherine laughed. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you."
"Try."
"No."
Another sigh left the man, heavy and wounded. "I only wish to help you, Catherine."
"You can't."
"I cannot help if you will not tell me. You need to let me help you Catherine, otherwise I am powerless."
"You saw what happened, Headmaster. You saw the blood. The crater. You know what I did, but somehow I'm still here, alive."
His face fell, distraught. "You could have died, but accidental magic-"
"Don't lie to yourself. I died. It just didn't stick."
Dumbledore turned towards the Hospital Wing doors, as if judging them, before taking his wand from his robes and locking them from afar. Another wave of his hand and an artificial hush fell over the two of them, a warm blanket of silence resting on their shoulders.
"Why, Catherine?"
"Why what?"
"Don't-" he bit his lip, eyes shut tightly. "You tried to kill yourself, Catherine. I must ask why."
"It felt right at the time."
"Does it now?"
Catherine shrugged. "It didn't work. Why would I try again?"
Rubbing at his eyes, Dumbledore exhaled slowly. "What happened to you?"
"Who was in the Astronomy Tower? I heard footsteps behind me when I jumped off the edge."
"Professor Snape. Your friend, Miss Granger, had run to find a professor. She said that she was worried about you, the portraits told Severus where you had gone. He… connected the dots, as the muggles say."
"Severus Snape tried to save me," she enunciated. "Snape."
"Of course. He is a teacher, you are a student. Regardless of whatever grudge the two of you hold he would not simply allow you to die."
"So he did it out of some sense of duty?"
"No! Heavens, no. He did it because it was the right thing to do, and no matter what you may say or believe I have utmost certainty that he does not hate you."
Scoffing at the very idea of it, Catherine leaned back against the headboard. Doubtful, after hearing Dumbledore and Snape's conversation in the sideroom. The wonders of eavesdropping and vampiric hearing.
"So, now what?"
"Excuse me?"
"What now?" Catherine gestured to herself. "Am I to be locked up? I imagine the Ministry would be excited to get their hands on someone unkillable."
"Catherine!" Dumbledore thundered, getting to his feet. "You couldn't possibly imagine that I would- to even consider such a thing… I- do you truly think so little of me?"
Her lip curled in contempt, resentment building, the learned fury of Yharnam hot in her veins. "Well, what? Am I just going to start going back to classes as if nothing happened? Like the whole school doesn't know that I jumped off the tower? How did you survive, Catherine? You trying to meet your parents, Catherine?" she mocked, leaning forward. "The Ministry is already attacking me, you think they're not going to hear about this from Umbridge? What am I supposed to do, tell them I was stopped? An arresto momentum would still tear my insides apart falling at that speed.
"So, what's there to do, Professor? I sit and wait until they bring in their own 'counselor' and drag the knowledge out of me? I'm sure Umbridge already knows about the state I was found in, that she's already had a look at the dent I put in the ground and filled with my blood." A derisive laugh slipped from her lips, cold as ice. "You think they're not going to - what - connect the dots? And then you sit in front of me asking why I did it instead of how I survived? Seems like you already have an idea of what happened. Possessed, was it?"
Dumbledore blanched. "How could you have-"
"Like I said, you wouldn't believe me," she interrupted, waving her hand. "I heard your conversation. So, what am I supposed to have retained? What's the big theory as to why the Girl Who Lived just won't die?"
"You should not, could not have heard a word of that. I cannot-" Dumbledore paused, swallowing heavily.
Catherine felt as he touched at her mind, furiously throwing up a barrier to halt his entry.
"What has happened to you, Catherine?" The horror in Dumbledore's voice was evident, his expression stricken with grief. "Is it just you, in there?"
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"Why did you throw yourself off the tower, Catherine? Severus told me of what he'd seen during your lessons, and what he did manage to make out frightens me more than I care to say."
"What do you mean, just you in there?"
"Your scar is faint. Healed, just a thin line across your forehead. You didn't notice?"
"What?"
"But something has settled in you, something dark and terrible. I can hardly sense it, but what I can… it's something I've never seen before, except in him." His features shifteded into something cold and forceful, a glint of anger in his eyes. "Is it just you, or has Tom finally slipped through and taken over?"
A blink. She had just a moment, one moment to blink, and she was bound - shackles strapped to her wrists and chaining her to the bed. Catherine shouted, a roar on her lips as she strained against them.
"I will do my best to help you, Catherine, but I fear that-" he choked on his words, eyes flickering towards Catherine's scar. "I fear I may be too late."
"Let me go!" she screamed, wrists bleeding as she pulled angrily at her restraints. "What are you doing?"
Dumbledore instead stood in front of her, his gaze steeled. "I'll get him out if it's the last thing I do, I promise you this."
"You're mad," she whispered.
"No, I can see you in there, Tom. I can see your magic. Just the same, the exact same. You thought you could hide from me, in the mind of her? You thought I wouldn't see your corruption?" he hissed, every word laced with outrage. "Are you speaking through her? Guiding her actions? Was it you that pushed her off that tower?"
Teeth gritted, Catherine pressed down on her thumb as hard as she could, relief washing over her as it snapped into place, her hand slipping through the shackles. She reached for her wand but Dumbledore was far too quick - conjuring a rope from thin air and pulling her hand away, the length of it curling round her wrist and tying her to the bed frame once more.
"Let me go!" Catherine shouted, petrified.
"I am so, so sorry Catherine."
Her vision filled with red, and she knew no more.
-::-
She found herself in the dungeons upon waking up, a wretched gasp shaking her as she shot out of the prison cot and rushed the bars, grappling uselessly with the cold iron that gated her path..
The cell was small but clean, the cot in one corner and a small alcove worn into the wall opposite it, a hole carved through the centre. She didn't need to think hard to know what that was for. No natural light trickled into the cell, instead a cage strung to the ceiling filled with everlasting fire.
"Oh god." She pressed her hands to her face, running them down her jaw as she looked around. "He locked me up. He's insane."
Dumbledore thought she was Voldemort. He thought she was Voldemort, or at least, Voldemort was somewhere inside her mind.
Catherine knew there was a connection, something about her scar that linked her to that vile man. Dumbledore had told her as much, her occlumency lessons were to defend herself against that connection, to stop him from slipping into her mind, but there's no possible way she could be possessed by the man. Not so far away, not without him being there.
But Dumbledore thought she was possessed, thought some small part of Voldemort had taken root inside her and was changing her, and that thought had landed her here.
"He's really gone mad."
The Headmaster was old, that much she knew, but to do this…
She couldn't believe it, and she was the one standing in the Hogwarts Dungeons - she assumed - with nothing but a bed and a hole in the wall to piss into. "He's gone mad."
Because there was no way she was possessed, she knew that, and her jaunt through Yharnam had done something to make Dumbledore think otherwise.
He could taste the blood on you, the moon's scent and my kind's blessing.
"You!" Catherine shouted, grabbing at the bars. "Get out of my head! You did this! You put me here!"
Circumstances lead you here, but it was not I. You should thank me, girl, for saving you from Flora's grasp.
"Stop speaking in riddles," she hissed through clenched teeth.
You were taken to the Moon's dream, though I freed you of your bindings long before she drew you to Yharnam. The things she would have you do to leave her grasp are better left unspoken.
"What, you expect me to thank you? That one god got to me instead of the other?"
I only expect you to continue as you have.
"Doing what? Killing everything I see?"
She swore against the silence, smashing her head once against the bars and relishing in the pain it brought, the blood that trickled down her forehead.
Pain kept her lively, a comfort to remind her that she was still aware, not screaming in some padded cell far away from here. Pain kept her sane.
The quiet click of heel on stone echoed off the dungeon walls, growing closer and closer. She gripped the bars tight, pressing her face against them as she tried to look round the corner and see if Dumbledore had come to visit her, or if she was lucky enough for there to be a wandering student who had somehow found themselves lost.
Neither, she found, instead the darkened silhouette of Severus Snape gliding towards her, his face impassive.
Catherine never thought she would ever be glad to see the man.
"You need to get me out of here," she hissed, trying to press herself further into the bars as if she would fall through them to safety. "Please, Dumbledore has gone mad."
He only stared at her. "Dumbledore has sent me here to help you, Miss Potter."
"Help me?" Catherine wanted to smash her head against the bars again, eye twitching as she restrained herself. "You've let a madman lock me in a cell."
"He has good reason to believe that you may be possessed by the Dark Lord."
She snapped, furious. "Good reason? Ha! You wouldn't know good reason if it bit you on the ass. You're a petty, hateful bastard who detests me because of who my father was. I heard you speaking to Dumbledore, even he knows you have a grudge. So what then? You win by taking it out on me? A fully grown man, a professor, bullying an eleven year old on her first day in school, her entry into a world she had no idea exists? Good reason? Fuck you."
Catherine spat on the floor. "You'll both be locked up for this insanity. The Ministry already hates Dumbledore, and you're a Death Eater. You think they'll treat you kindly for this?"
Snape didn't speak, jaw rigid and lips pursed. "You've always been petulant, but now you finally reveal your true colours, don't you?" He scowled, leering down at her. "I have come here to help you, yet you now try to leverage your status against me? As if the name of the Girl Who Lived will carry some weight with a Ministry who has labelled her as insane? Aptly so?"
"Fuck you."
He ignored her. "Dumbledore believes you to be possessed.. I will be visiting you to see whether Dumbledore is correct in his assumptions. You will not leave here until the issue is sorted. Understood?"
"Fuck. You."
"I will see you tomorrow, Miss Potter."
As Snape went to leave, Catherine spoke. "I'm not possessed."
"You would say that if you were, wouldn't you?" he drawled, turning to face her.
"I'm not possessed and I know it." A smile crept across her face, splitting it in two. "Does that scare you? To know that this is me, not Voldemort?"
"If that were to be true, then yes. I'd find that quite… worrisome."
"Imagine how I feel."
He sneered, though the expression was forced, weightless. "I'll be seeing you."
"What'll you do when you find out it's just me!?" Catherine roars, rattling the bars. "Will you try to put me down? Keep me locked up? A cage won't hold me, Snape!"
Silence meets her rage, drowning her words and leaving them to hang in the air, unheard and dying.
The only part of her that can.