Knowledge is Power
Disclaimer/Plot/Author's Note: SEE FIRST CHAPTER
Dedication: I'd like to dedicate this story to my many good friends and loyal fans: my recommended reads are Saviour of Magic by Colt01, For Love of Magic by Noodlehammer, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong, Partially Kissed Hero by Perfect Lionheart, Harry Potter and the Daft Morons and Angry Harry and the Seven by Sinyk, Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin by The Sinister Man, Harry Potter and the Rune Stone Path by Temporal Knight, A Study in Magic and A Study in Magic: The Application by Books of Change, Dark and Light by Pleasedial123 and Harry Potter: My Life Is My Own by Sashian
Pairings: Eventual Harmony; Others TBD
Normal Speech
'Thoughts'
/Parseltongue/
Review Answers:
Deathmvp: Weirdly, something about your review inspired me to do what I've done in this chapter, so thanks for that: I don't actually know what it is, before you ask;
WhiteElfElder: Open doors? Only if those doors are the doors to Hell because I'd say this is more like floodgates being destroyed by the raging force trapped behind them;
"I told you, Hermione…I tried being a normal kid and all I got was hurt; I also told you I took on mind games and attempts to tug on my heartstrings like one's playing a violin and I'm still standing."
Chapter 20: Ghosts of the Past
To Hermione's surprise and Neville's relief, Harrison seemed to keep hold of his pretend-happiness all throughout the decorating process, though if there was one thing that distracted Neville, it was how different and yet similar Muggle decorations were to magical ones.
Suffice to say, the idea of the funny musical decorations, beautiful electronic lights and so much delight and warmth in the minds and hearts of their hosts, it was almost impossible to think of anything else definitely made Neville think twice about ever saying Muggle holidays were less-exciting or necessary than magical ones.
When Daniel managed to hoist Hermione up to stick what they called the Christmas Star on top of the tree, it only completed the image further, though if there was one other thing that made the occasion, it was the air of pride in Harrison's voice when he remarked, "It's perfect."
And yet, when Neville looked to his friend, he couldn't help but notice an air of darkness clouding even the pretend delight in Harrison's look.
What he'd said to Hermione about this home being the place where being normal was stolen from him also lingered at the back of Neville's mind, so much so that, like Hermione, he couldn't help but wonder what had happened to their friend in this warm, friendly place that might have contributed to his cold, dark, sleeping-dragon attitude.
But, like Hermione, Neville also knew he couldn't pry, no matter how much it hurt either one of them to look at Harrison and know that, behind the Killing-Curse-esque green eyes, the darkest of dark storm clouds were gathering.
And how, all the while, no matter how much he smiled or put on airs and graces, Neville and Hermione were reminded of one thing:
Every smile, every positive remark and every bit of childish glee…
It was all pretend…
Knowledge is Power
'Why here? Why, of all the houses in all the streets in all the towns of the UK did Hermione have to live here?'
That was the thought that ran through Harrison's mind as he stalked his way up to the guest room of the Grangers' home, trying his utmost hardest to maintain the air of a welcome guest and a happy-go-lucky young boy enjoying the holidays.
But no matter how hard he tried, he was reminded of the pain, the humiliating revelations and the air of family that had been stolen from him within these four walls. The basement room that used to be his cage where Mr Miller had caged him like an animal, demanding he stay focused on his studies instead of being a kid, had been turned into Daniel's man-cave and rumpus room, complete with an assortment of games, even a pool table and dartboard.
But even the air of fun it now held hadn't helped Harrison any as, when he'd been allowed to look in the room, the only thing he'd felt was the urge to leave growing stronger than ever.
He could still feel the metal of the handcuffs and the ache in his belly when he'd been allowed food and drink in return for a reasonable amount of studying being done. He could still smell the diffusers and smelling salts used to keep him awake and he could still taste the equally-disgusting medicines the Millers had force-fed him to keep himself awake. Most of all, when he'd walked into the now-changed room of a thousand hours of torture and inhuman confinement, Harrison had experienced a very brief moment of hallucination via flashback when he saw the younger him pleading to be let out and Mr Miller dragging him back to the desk.
The same desk that had since been repainted and turned into a small workbench in the corner of the room, but it was there nonetheless.
As for the rest of the house, it was filled with as many ghosts as that basement.
Even as he walked up the stairs, Harrison felt like he could still hear the overcompensating efforts of the Millers' attempts to reach social status as they had soirees with the right sort of people and paraded him around like a horse in the dressage. He could also see the greedy eyes of the Millers in every picture frame, even though said pictures were pictures of the Grangers, he could still feel their leering glare on him as they sized him up like he was a Christmas goose waiting to be stuffed, plucked and roasted.
And fed to the baying hounds and false-laughing hyenas whom the Millers entertained with their soirees.
'Why here?' Harrison kept asking himself, part of him aware of a sudden feeling of vertigo, nausea and disorientation that seemed to cloud even his sight as he wondered, 'Why her? Why did she have to live here? Why…why…why?'
Suddenly, Harrison's eyes widened as he felt his foot miss the top step while a wave of nausea and dizziness overcame him.
The next thing he knew, he was going down, but not before twelve sharp, hard bumps walloped him on the back of his head.
As darkness claimed him as a result of the fall, the last thing he was aware of was Hermione screaming his name…
Knowledge is Power
If there was one sound that even the busy lives of the Granger elders would never ignore, it was the sound of their daughter screaming, which spurred them into action as they ran out to discover the source and reason for such a terrified cry.
"What happened?"
Spurred on by the noise, Daniel ran from where he'd been relaxing in front of the television while Emma tore out of the kitchen, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief as she found her daughter cradling the head of her friend, Harrison, in her lap, tears rolling down her face.
"He…he must have slipped on the stairs…" sobbed Hermione, earning shushing gestures from Neville as she told them, "But…but he's never fallen; not even on the stairs at school and…and they do…do weird things."
"Magical things," said Daniel, kneeling next to Harrison where, extending his hand, the Granger patriarch searched for a pulse before, heaving a sigh, he added, "He's alive, sweetheart, don't worry: just unconscious. Any signs of wounds or injuries."
"He…he's got a bump…a few bumps here," said Hermione, earning a curious look from Neville as she indicated the back of Harrison's head before she asked, "But…but how could he fall so badly? What…what was he doing? How could…why did he…"
Looking up the stairs, Neville frowned as he mused, "He must have missed a step somewhere going up; but you're right, Hermione; he's not usually so clumsy or absent-minded. Heck, it's Harrison; I don't think he's ever been absent-minded about anything, not even before we met him; a little dense about some things, maybe, and a bit sociopathic at times, but…but nothing like this."
"Let's get him on the sofa," suggested Daniel, helping Hermione lift Harrison's unconscious form into his arms before, checking him over with a keen eye – just one of the things he'd acquired in his training as a dentist – he coughed once as he added, "He doesn't feel like he's suffered any more injuries, but we can check him over when…"
"AHHHHH!"
Suddenly, Neville's eyes widened while all the blood drained from Hermione's face as they both saw Harrison snap back to wakefulness, but when he did so, he flailed and screamed hysterically, squirming and wriggling like a fish on a hook while he exclaimed, "No, don't touch me, let me go; leave me alone. Don't touch me…get away…put me down…stop…stop…"
"Dad, put him down!" insisted Hermione, watching as her Father did as she asked, although he didn't seem to have much choice since Harrison was not just flailing like a drowning person.
Every now and then, his hands caught Daniel in the face, but when the man let the boy down, Harrison stumbled and staggered away, heading for the sunroom at the back of the house with a hasty, if somewhat-drunken stumbling movement as he tried to escape to freedom.
"Harrison?" asked Neville, but in response, Harrison turned and held his hands up, keeping them at arms' length while he continued stumbling towards the back door.
"St…stay away from me…just…just keep back!" exclaimed Harrison, earning alarmed looks from the Granger elders while Hermione, recognising Harrison's state for what it was, put hands on both her parents, shaking her head as they looked from the hysterical young man to their little girl.
"Let him have his space," Hermione advised them, watching along with them and Neville as Harrison started pacing, fumbling around as though he was blind while his breathing was short, sharp and filled with fear and disbelief. "Harrison doesn't like people touching him…so waking up in your arms must have put him through a panic attack, Daddy."
"The poor boy," gasped Emma, looking to the young man who was feeling around as though he was still trying to find his sight.
When he found the door handle, Harrison twisted it and pushed so hard that he actually fell out onto the snow-covered tiles in the back garden of the Grangers' home, but he managed to recompose himself as he slipped and stumbled over the ice and snow as he escaped into the back garden.
As she watched him make such frenzied, terrified movements, Emma looked back to Hermione as she asked, "What…why would he react so violently, Hermione? Surely he's been touched and held before now…or is this another of those things we don't want to know about?"
"I should say so," said Neville, but before anyone could say anything else, they all ran to the back door when a loud thud sounded from the back garden; to Hermione's shock and Neville's disbelief, Harrison had fallen again, but he was still wriggling and staggering, on his hands and knees, through the white wonderland out the back.
Hoping the sound of his voice might shock his friend back to reality, Neville cried out, "Harrison: it's all right. Come on; calm down, take some deep breaths. The Grangers aren't going to hurt you; Doctor…I mean, Daniel was just trying to help you somewhere safe because you'd knocked yourself out by falling down the stairs. But it's okay: you're perfectly safe here…"
"No!" gasped Harrison, reaching a bench that was usually reserved for days spent out in the sun in the back garden while he insisted, "You…you're all the same, all of you; you pretend to be kind and welcoming, but you lie! You never believe anything I say because you prefer to think that I'm just a kid and I know nothing, when all the while, I'm smarter than all of you! I know what's real and what's not. and I know now that I was right all along; I can never trust anyone but myself!"
"What's happened to him?" asked Daniel, a note of disbelief in his words as he watched Harrison struggle to his feet, but he still pressed his hands to the bench, his legs now trembling while his eyes were looking anywhere but at them.
"It…it's like his fall has…has caused him to regress to the boy he was when I first met him," argued Hermione, her voice edged by a note of fear and sorrow as she explained, "Back when he was as cold as the ice and snow around us…can a fall do that, Daddy?"
"Of course, it can't," answered Harrison suddenly, letting out an almost-crazed laugh as he straightened up before he turned as he explained, "A simple knock to the head can't cause an instant neural reconfiguration just like that, Hermione, even an accident. Neither can it cause such a short lapse of unconsciousness either, but I guess I'm the exception: not for the first time either, eh? And no injuries from a fall that should have surely broken part of my shoulder bone if not my radius, ulna or my humerus, but nope: once again, a miraculous recovery! Brilliant…and who says I regressed into anything?"
"Now he's just ranting," remarked Neville, though he was just as worried as the others.
"Of course I'm ranting, what's the matter, Longbottom? Never enjoyed a good rant before?" asked Harrison, again letting out a laugh as he clicked his tongue before he shook his head, "Oh, how I envy you lot; funny little Muggle and human brains. How do you get around with those things?"
"And now he's insulting us."
"Not at all," argued Harrison, lifting his hands to his head where he scratched feverishly at his wild dark hair while he laughed at their dumbfounded expressions before he told them, "On the contrary, my hosts, I envy you, I told you; your minds. They're all so placid, straightforward and barely used, yeah? Well, mine's like an engine, racing out of control. A rocket, t-tearing itself to pieces, trapped on the launch pad…hiding in the dark and using the cold and the shadows of winter to keep themselves in check and why?"
He actually roared out the last part before he looked again to his hosts and friends as he added, "Because I have to pretend to be normal, isn't that what we agreed? Well I'm sorry, but in case it escaped your notice, all of you, I'm not normal and do you know why?"
Not one of the others dared to interrupt; instead, Harrison pointed to the house behind them as he exclaimed, "Because of this place! Because, for a while, I chose to believe I could have a family and be a normal kid, even with my love of reading and my interests in knowing the ways of the world, although they were Muggle ways. I had no idea about the magical world, but I still believed I could understand one and forsake the other. And then what happened?"
Letting out a laugh of amused mockery, Harrison threw his arms up as he continued in his almost-crazed tone, "The Millers happened: Mr and Mrs oh-we'd-love-to-have-a-lovely-little-boy-for-our-own who only wanted me because I was special! And when they had me, what did they do? Show me off like I was a trophy from a hunt, make me stand up tall and mind my P's and Q's and put on a good show like I was a dog at Crufts. And when I wasn't doing that, I hear you ask? Well, then they were shoving books down my neck and demanding I learn and learn until I dropped and, when I tried to run away, what did my former custodians do? Sent me back with a smacked bottom and a waggling finger about lying like a naughty boy while Mr Miller put on a show worthy of Oscars for ten years about how he missed me and how he couldn't understand why I'd make up such lies!"
With each word Harrison spewed out, Hermione was turning whiter and whiter while Emma's hands suddenly found her mouth.
As for Daniel, his fists were getting tighter and tighter while Neville looked like he'd rather be anywhere but here right now.
Harrison, on the other hand, seemed lost to his ranting as he rubbed at his wrists as he asked, "And how did the loving Miller family ensure that, I bet you're dying to know? Well I'll tell you; they put locks on the door of the same room you now call a man-cave, Doctor Granger, and they covered up the windows except for when I earned it and, when I grew rebellious, they handcuffed me to my desk! Chained me up like a dog in a kennel and demanded I study and do them proud otherwise I'd never see daylight again!"
Suddenly, it was Neville who slipped on the frozen path, but not before Hermione steadied him even though she too was shaking with disbelief, horror and fury as Harrison poured his soul out as he insisted, "They didn't want a son: they wanted a trophy to leech off of for the rest of their lives!"
Here, he smiled wolfishly, licking his lips like a snake flicking its tongue at the air as he chuckled darkly, "Well, unfortunately for them, they chose the wrong trophy to try and claim for their own: my life is mine and I wasn't about to let them get away with abusing me, stealing my childhood from me as easily as those damn Dursleys did and taking the last hope I had for love and family ever again!"
Looking to Doctor Granger, who was redder than a ripe tomato, Harrison smiled like a shark smelling blood in the water as he said, "Who do you think was responsible for their crimes being made public, Doctor Granger? Because it sure as hell wasn't the IRA or the Inland Revenue!"
Silence followed Harrison's tirade, though as he looked at the group before him, his emerald-green eyes darkened as he seemed to struggle with the next emotions he showed, which, to Neville's surprise, were relief, finality and an air of being in a complete state of calm.
He even took a deep and very long breath of relief before, looking to each one of them, he seemed to revert to the real Harrison once again as he addressed the group of shocked, horrified and otherwise-emotionless listeners in a much-softer voice.
"The information you think you might have just heard; you were mistaken. If you ever mention hearing any part of that revelation on this property, in this context, I guarantee you, on behalf of the honour of my family, comprised of me myself and I and what little trust, respect and…friendship I have for you that materials will be found on your computer hard-drives resulting in your immediate incarceration."
Even Daniel looked beyond horrified while Harrison's eyes darkened as he added, "Don't reply, just look frightened and scuttle…"
With that, he walked back to the house, cool and calm as you like before, looking to each member of the group, all of whom didn't know what to make of any part of what they had just heard, he offered a very thin, but cold smile as he scoffed;
"And cheer up, everybody…after all, it's Christmas!"
Knowledge is Power
While Harrison returned to the house, Hermione tried and failed to get a word out with regards to anything she'd just heard.
At the same time, she could see tears falling down her Mother's face while her Father was as still and unwavering as Harrison had been when he'd gone into a trance-like state. He seemed to be mirroring a coiled viper waiting to strike, while his hands were trembling and his fists were clenched so tightly that Hermione noticed a few drops of blood dripping onto the snow in the back garden.
Next to her, Neville had his eyes fixed on the house itself, though before he could say anything, or Hermione for that matter, the brunette gasped when her Father addressed her.
"Hermione…"
Startled by how un-fatherly he sounded, Hermione couldn't have turned her attention away from him even if she wanted to, even as the older Granger addressed her and her friend.
"Neville…promise me something."
"What?" asked Neville.
"Anything," chorused Hermione, speaking at the same time as her friend as she looked at her Father.
In response, Daniel turned to them before he explained, "Promise me, you will never abandon that boy, no matter what happens, what he may say or do to try and convince you otherwise or what your own thoughts may be on whatever matter threatens what friendship you have with him. I want you both to swear you will never abandon him."
"I promise," chorused the two magic users, but when Hermione did, she swallowed as she asked, "Why did he open up like that, Daddy? We've been trying for weeks to get him to open up and then…was it the fall? The wound to the back of his head? The memories…"
"No," said Daniel, shaking his head slowly while he looked to the house as he added in an almost-inaudible voice, "It was something he'd already gone through back when those…those animals decided to make him grow up too quickly, too soon and too abusively!"
Before Hermione could ask what he meant, however, her heart turned as cold as the world around them when her Mother added to Daniel's remark.
But when she did so, she was as cold and coiled-snake-like as Daniel in her voice, despite the tears of pain that rolled down her face;
"Crucible."
While Neville looked confused by the remark, Hermione's eyes widened as she seemed to get the point, which was only helped by Daniel nodding slowly, his eyes never leaving the spot where Harrison had vanished before, to her shock, he looked at Hermione with a stern, almost un-fatherly air about him as he addressed her once again;
"Never forget your promise, Hermione Jean Granger…because if I ever find out you have done, I will never forgive you…and neither will he."
Chapter 20 and it looks like the cat's out of the bag, but that doesn't seem to be a good thing: what will this mean for our heroes, especially after learning the dark truth about Harrison's past?
Also, what did Emma mean by crucible and what does Daniel see or know about the one Harrison's experienced? Will it be enough to bring back the boy we all know and love or is this the end long before it has begun?
Keep Reading to Find Out
Next Chapter: Christmas Day brings a surprise present for one of the team while the return to Hogwarts brings another kind of surprise for our lone wolf;
Please Read and Review
AN: Revelation
So, I bet a lot of you are wondering why I had Harrison bare all in this manner; well, it was mostly because I figured I'd spent long enough on the brooding angst, but I still wanted to hold that air of warning and 'coiled viper-slash-sleeping dragon-ness' Harrison has in him even though he's opened up, so that's why I wrote it like this.
Also, Daniel's role in this story is going to be more-personal and supportive than you might expect of a Harmony fic – or maybe not, I don't know: he's usually supportive in a lot of them, especially any by robst – but I thought I'd have a similar effect on him that Harry had on Emma in another of my stories.
Which one?
Chronicles of Camelot; in there, there's a line I wrote about something Emma was thinking about when she first meets Harry and, well, as weird as it was, I wanted a similar act for Daniel for this one.
