CHAPTER 4:

COMING TO TERMS

"Can you feel that potion burning through you? It's an alchemical one, created originally as a failed attempt to bypass the Animagus rituals, but it turns you into an animal permanently. You see, if you die, too many people will be suspicious, but if you disappear, people will think you're a wanted fugitive, and the Goblins will give me your money for the rest of your natural life. So, farewell, Harry Potter. They say living well is the best revenge, and I am going to be living very well from now on, as the mother of your children…"

Harry's eyes snapped open, and he gasped. His unfamiliar surroundings (of a snazzy penthouse apartment rather than a plexiglass cage) confused him, until the events of last night finally trickled through his brain. He did recoil when the toothy maw of Frank leered down at him. "Hey there, Sleeping Beauty. How did you sleep?"

"Crappily. Seeing you first thing only made things worse," Harry snarked. "I mean, who'd want their first sight in the morning to be Audrey's off-cuts?"

Frank cackled, before he yelled, "FEED ME, SEYMOUR! FEEED MEEEEE!" Suddenly, he was hit in the face with a shoe. "Ow! Ivy, what the actual fuck?"

Pamela, for that was who threw it, was glaring at Frank, her hair tousled, dressed in a dressing gown. "Can it, Frank. I'm tired, I'm not exactly firing on all cylinders, and I don't need you quoting Little Shop of Horrors for the…how many times has it been?"

"You're the one who forced-evolved me from a plant you found in the park into a carnivorous, sentient being. What the fuck were you expecting?"

"…Okay, you know what? That's fair," Pamela said. "But I don't want my landlord getting on my case again."

Harry stood. "Hey, you want breakfast? I can make it for you."

Pamela opened her mouth, as if to refuse, before she reconsidered. "…Actually, yes, I would like some, thank you. Cook whatever you want, if I've got it in the fridge."

Harry peered into the fridge, before taking out a selection of foods. Vines came in and pulled out utensils and cooking equipment. "Oh, thanks," he said absently. "Though I want to ask…given your plant and eco-terrorism thing, isn't having bacon and stuff…"

Pamela rolled her eyes. "You thought I'd be a vegetarian or vegan or something? Look, have you seen Frank?" She jabbed her thumb at her carnivorous houseplant pointedly. "And plants grow in soil, and soil is made up, at least in part, of the rotting meat of animals. I try to buy meat from sources that do humane slaughter practises, and I'm working on ways to reduce pollution from livestock. I mean, cows fart out a fuckton of methane. I'm not exactly a meat fan, but vegetarians and vegans who claim they're more moral for eating plants are talking out of their asses. Plants are alive more than you'd think. Half the time, I can't sleep because I hear their screaming through the Green."

"The Green?" Harry asked as he began cooking.

"I don't know the details, I never really studied it like that prick Woodrue did, but my powers are not just because I'm a Metahuman. I tap into the Green. It's a bit like the Force from the Star Wars films, only it's limited to plant life and the like. I'm not the only one. Aside from Woodrue, my old PhD supervisor, I heard of something called the Swamp Thing in Louisiana. Supposedly, it used to be the famous botanist Dr Alec Holland. By the way, that smells good."

"Thanks."

"…So, how did you become so good?"

"…The Dursleys."

Pamela grasped what he meant quickly. "…Okay, so, one of these days, I want to make a return trip to Surrey and turn them into compost," Pamela said in a flat, dangerous tone. "I'd feed them to Frank, but if your uncle and cousin were any indication, he'd die of cholesterol poisoning."

"Yeah, I gotta cut down on the fats in my diet, you dig?" said carnivorous houseplant remarked.

Harry looked over his shoulder at said plant, before shrugging and returning to cooking. Normally, cooking breakfast in the apartment of one of Gotham City's most infamous criminals would be a situation that he would avoid like the plague. But he had confronted one of history's worst warlocks so many times, he had been a live-in servant to the Dursleys for the best part of a decade, he'd been bitten by a Basilisk, mind-raped by Dementors, travelled in time, faced down a dragon, endured the batrachian hybrid known as Dolores Umbridge, and had spent the past six years struggling to maintain his sanity in the face of rampant bestiality.

And given what Ginnymort did to him, he should be avoiding redhaired women of dubious morals. And yet, when he saw her, he recognised a chance to escape, with, if not a friend, then with someone he knew. True, he hesitated when he realised Poison Ivy and Pamela Isley were one and the same…and yet, he remembered that timid, bitter and sarcastic little girl he had met in the crappy playground in Little Whinging. The one whom he broke off with when his feelings for Ginny, instilled by Amortentia, grew. The one who, despite everything, despite all he did to her, despite what she did to others, gave him a couch to sleep on.

It was to his credit that he did not utterly break down until he'd finished cooking and serving the food up. Once he was seated, though, he began sobbing, his head in his hands. As he did so, Frank asked, "Hey, Ivy…is he okay?"

"…If I were in his shoes, I probably wouldn't be," Pamela muttered. "…Just let it out, Harry. I know what you're thinking. How did I let my life get so fucked up? I'm right, aren't I?"

Harry didn't reply, not verbally. He didn't nod his head either. But Pamela was right.

"Thought so," Pamela said, as if discerning his thoughts. "Look, I can't say there's a magic cure for that, only that I've been there before. I would be awake in my cell in Arkham Asylum, and thinking, how the fuck did it come to this? How come I'm wearing an orange uniform, eating crappy prison canteen food, having to deal with nosy shrinks who don't actually give a fuck about me, and guards and inmates staring at my breasts and ass and fapping over them in bed? I'm Doctor Pamela Isley, graduated summa cum laude in toxicology and botany, so how the fuck did I become known as one of Gotham's most infamous supercriminals? And unlike you, I can't blame the fact that I was duped by someone I cared about. Woodrue may have fucked me over, but in the end, I made the decision to become who I am today. And it was one of the few good shrinks in that place that helped me realise that."

Harry looked up at Pamela, meeting her eyes. God, they were so gorgeous, like his own. Hell, she had the body of a goddess, even if she had the tongue of a cynical misanthrope. "You had a good shrink in Arkham Asylum? He must've been good."

"Actually, she was a woman. And yes, she was." A sad smile touched her lips. "Dr Harleen Quinzel. Beautiful, brainy, and compassionate." She blushed a little.

"…Did you have a thing for her?"

Pamela spluttered, while Frank laughed. "He's got you pegged there, Ivy."

Pamela shot her chuckling plant a glare, before she said, "Look, it…wasn't like that. I mean, how could it be? She was my assigned shrink, and I was an incarcerated criminal. But…she actually gave a damn about me. Saved me from Harvey Dent trying to burn me alive, even gave me a plant clipping as a gift to show not every human was a piece of shit, even though I could have used that plant to kill her. You were the first person to show me remotely sincere kindness. She was the second. I guess…I had a bit of a crush for a time. And before you ask, I don't care about gender when it comes to relationships."

Harry nodded as he ate some of his breakfast. They weren't quite at the friends level yet anyway, and besides, he cared more about the fact that Pamela was a self-proclaimed eco-terrorist than her sexuality. A small part of his brain adjacent to his libido, however, did sigh in relief, and wonder if she was willing to consider him, despite one redhead of dubious morals screwing him over already. "You're talking about this like it's in the past tense. So, what happened?"

Pamela scoffed, her face twisting into a disgusted scowl. "The Joker happened. Long story short, he seduced her, had her fall in love with him, and now she's his henchman. As I told your friends last night, I wouldn't be so pissed about it if he treated her well, but he doesn't. I've tried to help, but…I'm beginning to wonder if she's a lost cause. Don't get me wrong, Harley and I are friends, but…she keeps going back to that fucking clown, and…I'm not sure how to fix it. Maybe that's why I was glad to reconnect with you. I need someone sane in my life."

"Hey, what about Selina? You know, Catwoman?" Frank asked.

"She's banging the Batman," Pamela retorted. "I trust her enough to let her crash here, but honestly, if he trusts her enough for her to know that he manscapes underneath his suit, I'm not sure I trust her enough to call her a close friend, or even a friend. Whereas you, Harry…well, you don't stare as much as some people do, you seem to give a damn about my feelings despite being a hero to these wizards, and…" She ate a bit of bacon, and sighed in satisfaction. "You're a damn good cook. I mean, so am I, but still…my point is, I need a friend, badly. And someone who isn't part of this insane mess we call Gotham City, at least not yet. Someone I can bitch about my troubles to, and who isn't an overgrown houseplant or insane. I mean, Hermione and Luna pretty much offered the same thing, but…I've known them for all of an hour, not counting their time as Oracle. You, I've known for longer."

"Pamela…you don't have to sell it to me. I'm not sure where the hell I'm going to go or what to do with my life," Harry said quietly. "Don't get me wrong, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, but…"

"But when you've been screwed over as much as you have, I'm not surprised," Pamela concluded. "Harry, I may not have lived your life, but I know what some of it is like. You've hit rock bottom. But remember, that can mean that the only way to go is up. Sorry if that seemed cheesy, I'm a botanist, not a public speaker, but…"

"No, it's fine, Pamela," Harry said. "I'll give you a chance, just as you've given me one."

"Thanks…"

Pamela was no psychiatrist. She was a botanist and a toxicologist. But she was far from stupid. Her misanthropy made her an observer of the morass of so-called humanity, Harley had helped educate her on concepts and theories in psychology and psychiatry (they at least both reckoned Freud paled by comparison to Jung), and being an inmate at Arkham meant that Pamela knew quite a bit about mental health, even if anyone offering to make her a counsellor ought to have their heads examined. Then again, given that at least three psychiatrists and/or psychologists she knew of had become foes of the Batman (Harley, Jonathan Crane, and Hugo Strange), maybe shrinks who ended up in Gotham ended up going crazy themselves.

Anyway, she had seen enough of the insane and the mentally ill to know that Harry was far from all right. And why the fuck would he? From what she knew, Harry had effectively been a child soldier, forced to fight the likes of Voldemort from a young age. Okay, Batman had his Robins, and there were the Teen Titans and the like, but they chose that life. To her knowledge, anyway. Harry had no choice to her knowledge, but his guardians abused him, he was betrayed by those he had saved, and he spent six years in a cage as a snake while forced to watch Bennet's bestiality.

She remembered Harley relating one of the Joker's theories, that one bad day is all it takes to turn a normal person into someone like him. That was a crock of shit, even Harley saw through it despite her infatuation with the Joker, but not without a grain of truth. A single bad day, as in a really abysmal one, could be the last straw, it was for her when it came to Woodrue and what he did to her, but not the be-all and end-all. And not everyone who had a shitty life turned into a supervillain when it became too much.

Harry was broken. He'd had his bad day, and was trying to pick up the pieces. And as much as she wanted to reconnect with him, she also didn't want to draw him into this fucked-up life she was leading. But the last remnants of her humanity wouldn't let her simply kick him out, at least not for now.

As they watched the news, there was a knock on the door. Pamela sighed, and went to answer it, to be greeted with the grizzled, part-cybernetic features of Sy Borgman. Seriously, did the CIA actually look for someone with that name to turn into their ripoff of Steve Austin? "Hey, Isley," the curmudgeonly cyborg said. "You got mail. Not dropped off by mailman, but by owl."

"Owl?" Pamela asked, taking the proffered package bemusedly.

"Yeah, owl. Probably those witches from last night. Oh yes, I know who and what they are. Hell, I know who your new roommate is. Poor guy. I know people, people with contacts in MACUSA, the wizards' government in the US. Can't promise anything, politics is a bitch, but…he doesn't deserve this. I've seen enough innocent people get fed to the grinder. If you're really helping out Harry Potter, then you're doing good, Isley."

"…Thanks, I guess."

"Don't mention it. Just keep that damned clown girl from smashing too much stuff the next time you have her sleeping over, or that bitch in the catsuit from stealing my stuff!"

"Look, Selina is an officially diagnosed kleptomaniac, I can't exactly stop her, and I'm sure a lot of your stuff's boobytrapped with lethal shit…"

"…I won't confirm or deny anything of the sort," Sy said with suspicious specificness.

"…And Harley…she takes after too much of the clown for my liking," Pamela concluded. "If she weren't so enamoured with the Joker and could get a hold of her impulse control, she'd be more tolerable. Hell, she'd be amazing. Anyway, she's in Arkham at the moment, after the Joker let Batman capture him to cover for his escape after they killed some rich assholes."

Sy's features softened. "Yeah, I know. And you care for the crazy girl. Believe me, I've known worse. I mean, remember when you helped me kill off Igor Lenivetskin as a favour?"

"Yeah. He was in a coma, didn't seem to die despite us cutting his oxygen tubes and IV lines, and Harley, who tagged along, took all those tubes and blew into them harder than a bagpipe player. That did the trick(1)."

"Well, I meant to say he was an asshole who made even the most hardened people in Spetsnaz lose their lunches, but hey, good times, huh?"

"Yeah, good times," Pamela said with a chuckle.

"Okay, well, I've gotta get going. I swear, the new doctor I have doesn't know the first thing about cybernetics," the scooter-bound cyborg muttered as he headed for the lift. "He wants to know why I don't get the flashy new stuff like that Victor Stone kid has. I don't wanna have that Apokolips Mother Box shit in my servos…"

As he departed, Pamela turned to look at Harry, who looked at her expectantly. She handed him the envelope addressed to him. "Probably from Hermione and Luna," she said. "Some of this is probably false ID stuff. Seems like Sy knows who you are and will cover for you too. So let's put it this way: today is the first day of the rest of your life, Harry. Hopefully, it'll be better than what went on before."

He gave her a sad, broken smile. "Yeah…hopefully…"

CHAPTER 4 ANNOTATIONS:

So, here we go. This is the last chapter before things start to skip towards the events of the show proper.

Keep in mind, Harry's currently just clawing his way out of the nadir of his life. He was framed for the murder of his best friend, his would-be wife was actually his enemy taking her over, he was trapped in the menagerie of a depraved plutocrat, and the one who rescued him was a childhood penpal-turned-supervillain. He's still coming to terms with that.

1. In the original comics, this was the first of a series of assassinations Sy Borgman and Harley Quinn undertook in the Harley Quinn comics, where Sy had his debut. Ivy wasn't involved at the time, being more concerned with tracking down who put a price on Harley's head. As it turned out, it was Harley herself…while sleepwalking. No, really.