CHAPTER ONE: BUTTERBEER

Harry's P.O.V

Harry was bleeding out again. She could feel it, a trickle, a pull, a gush. Laying in bed, in the maw of night-time, there wasn't any blood on the linen sheets. That would have been better. More kind. A slow but tranquil spill into nothingness, a visual representation of her emotional, mental and spiritual wounds. White cotton leaching to ruby red. No one saw blood and thought normal. Healed. Intact. No. What Harry was discharging, exuding from her very pores to wisp up into the frigid Baltimore air in vapor was something much worse. She was bleeding herself out.

Her memories, her thoughts, her feelings, everything that made Harry, well, Harry, was draining from her, percolating, puffing away like the fog she so wanted to be. Soon, she would be empty. Uninhabited. Barren. And that's when the earnest, wretched darkness would come. Humans weren't born to be empty, they were made to be full of soul and dream and thought. Human's were multi-coloured. All blues and golds and pinks and greens and everything in between. A spectrum of beauty and life. All Harry could see in lately was shades of red. All she felt was blackness. All she heard was a range of dull greys. Vacant. Nothing empty could ever truly exist and once Harry was done leaking herself away, her own demons would wear her like a well-pressed skin suit.

The bed didn't creak as she sat up and swung her legs over the edge. The floorboards didn't screech as she padded over to the wardrobe. The bulb in the lamp didn't buzz or hum as she flicked the switch. She wished they did. She wished they howled and screamed and yelled so loudly, so profoundly that no one, not a sleeping Alana in a bedroom down the hall from her, to Ron or Hermione back in England, could not hear or could ignore. Blind. Everybody was blind.

The large mirror in the wardrobe door lit up. Everything was there. Those were Harry's toes. Those were Harry's kneecaps. Those were Harry's scars and uncontrollable hair. Yet it took too long, far too long, for Harry to recognize her own reflection. Too close. She had come to close to emptying out. Nearly gone. Nearly barren. Nearly a husk. Desolate bodies for abandoned souls. She took a deep breath, locked eyes with her warped, hallowed out mirror counterpart, and she began a mantra she knew off by heart.

"You have more mercy than Dumbledore. You have more compassion than Tom. You have more sanity than Bellatrix."

She had to remember. She had to believe. She wasn't them. She never would be. She couldn't be. She would never leave a child to be abused. She wouldn't let that child grow up, loveless, alone, knowing, hoping one day it would kill itself just so others could live. She would show more mercy than Dumbledore. She wouldn't kill anyone else. She would never rejoice in a slaughter. She wouldn't see death and murder as a game to play. People weren't sheep and she was not a wolf. Her heart would beat more strongly than Tom's ever did. Neither would she cackle, howl, laugh when she saw suffering. She wouldn't mutter and scamper and hide in the shadows, lost to her own delusions. Her mind would be sturdier than Bellatrix's.

However… She wanted to. She wanted to shove someone into her role, her life, just to see if they would have made the same choices she did, fell down the same hills she fell down, to kill who she killed and to die when she died. Was it nature or nurture that birthed something as she? She wanted to laugh at ghosts, she wanted to take other's loved ones from them, just so she could bare witness to some suffering that mirrored her own. She wanted to see death as the best game around, only to make more sense of what and who she was now. If it was a game, the stakes didn't seem so high, sanity didn't seem so important. Losing herself, shedding the old her, shirking the sheep wool to let her wolf fur bristle only seemed more natural if this, life, death, madness, was just a game.

She was a monster. A Frankenstein not quite finished. They had all chipped at her, everyone she had ever known, scoured her, dug out pieces of her and replaced them with their own jarring bits, crammed together, crudely stitched until here she was, a work of art, an amalgamation of all the wonderful and grotesque things in life. No. She wasn't. She was Harry. Plain old, simple, content Harry. Nothing more. Nothing less. She couldn't afford to be anything else. She saw herself in the mirror, tilting her chin up, nostrils flaring in agitation, but she felt nothing. Rage. Despair. Sorrow. Exultation. Harry wanted to feel it all, and yet, she felt absolutely nothing. Anything and everything was better than this forsaken numbness.

"You are not as vindictive as Dolohov. You are less savage than Greyback. You are not as sly as Rabastan and Rodolphus."

No, she really wasn't any of those things. If she was vindictive, she would have waited until McGonagall used her animagus form, grabbed her by the scruff of her furry frail little neck, tied her into a sack with her precious little books and scrolls and dumped her into a lake. Watched it sink. Just for the way that prim and rigid teacher had done to her on the Dursley's doorstep, knowing full well what kind of life was waiting for her on the other side of the door, all because her beloved Dumbledore told her to do it. She would watch as McGonagall slowly drowned, fighting for breath, begging for it, and Harry would turn her back like everyone else had done to her.

If she was savage, she would have hunted Greyback down. She would find him, after all, Harry was the best at finding hidden things, secret things, and she wouldn't rest until she did. She would pin him down but keep him awake… Aware. Slowly, working her way up from the feet, she would drop stones on him. Heavy ones, jagged ones, flat brick ones. She would hear his bones snap, his muscles tear, his breath labour and she would think, she would know, now he knew how Remus felt when he cast that Hogwarts wall to fall on him and Tonks. If she was feeling particularly barbaric, she would wait until he was on deaths door and then vanish the stones gone. Then the knife would come into play…

If she was sly, and she really, truly wanted to kill someone, anyone, she would be smart about it. Some deatheaters were still on the run, having dashed as soon as the tides of war changed. She would track them down first. Maybe even visit the Malfoys. No one would miss them. No one would look for them, and if they did, and if their corpses were discovered, who would cry over it? None. The wizarding world would rejoice! Karma had finally taken to action! They wouldn't investigate into their deaths, they would simply chalk it up to a victory. After that, well, the world wasn't lacking in killers, was it? What was the fun in hunting sheep when you could hunt wolves? Tom was a wolf… And look at what she did to him… Dust in the wind...

But no. She was none of those things. She wasn't. She wasn't. She wasn't!

"Don't be as petty as Umbridge. Don't be as duplicitous as Snape. Don't be as self-centred as Lucius…"

Fight it. Don't bleed out. This wasn't Harry. It couldn't be. She took a long drag of air in through her nose, and it trembled like a naked baby as she let it out. Everything was trembling, shaking, blurring, as if she was a sketch being erased. She focused on her face. For a moment, she thought her eyes flashed red.

"Be Harry. You are Harry. I am Harry. Harry is my name."

Bow to death, Harry.

No. He was dead. Dead. Dead.

There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.

"Go away Tom. Go. Away."

Come out Harry, come out and play, then it will be quick, it might even be painless, I would not know, I have never died.

"You are dead Tom. I killed you. I watched it. Me. I. Killed. You. You're not real. None of this is real. Wake up. Wake up…"

Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies. You must know this…

Everything was unfocused. Clouded. An ink drawing left in a muddy puddle. But she could see. There. In the mirror. Her eyes… Cold and crimson and she was never really free. Tom is never really gone.

I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost... But still, I was alive.

"I said go away!"

Her fist went flying, there was a shatter and sting and soon, the mirror was falling to pieces, bits dancing, gliding to the floor in silver shards, leaving a broken, shattered mess on the wardrobe. A beautiful, deranged spiderweb of glittering jewels. Was she the spider or the fly? She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think. Her heart was faltering, spluttering, missing. But she saw. She saw it. A hand, all black smoke and Thestral bone reach out from a shard, bracing against the wardrobe door, joined by another, pulling, dragging. Like the lady of the lake, he came. Her Tom.

His ebony curls, his inky skin, everything about him foul and pitch black and so achingly familiar. Her face was his face. Twins, really. The female to his male. The heads to his tails. Apart from his eyes. Red and blood and death. Orbs of hellfire. He stayed there, half in and half out the broken mirror, perched like a crow, leaning towards her, beckoning her to Valhalla and he… He smiled at her.

I'm inside you, Harry.

Alana's P.O.V

One minute her niece, Harry, was sound asleep besides her in the car, having dropped off quite soon into their journey, the next she was wide awake, alert, gazing down at her knuckles, rubbing a thumb across the bumps and hills of her joints as if she had expected to see them split and bleeding. She was a fast little thing, for sure. Harry didn't shout, jerk or flail. She simply… Became. A blink from sleeping to full awareness. It was, in full honesty, a smidgeon eerie to witness.

"Are you okay Harry?"

Alana cast a quick, quizzical scan of the girl in question. Her breathing was fine, deep and steady. Her complexion, while pale, did not seem clammy or pallid. Her movements were fluid, easy, no tremble or shake to be found in finger or arm. If Alana didn't already know that an action such as a quick drop into awareness was telling enough of a nightmare, she would have believed Harry to be rather… Peaceful. That reaction to a nightmare was quite worrying in Alana's eyes, for three main reasons. One, Harry was used to such dreams and terrors if she handled them so elegantly. Two, with such a muted reaction came a tendency to compartmentalize problems, to lock them away and brush them off. Finally, three, Harry was good… Real good at hiding her base emotion and true state of being.

"Please don't try and analyse me."

Harry's voice was soft, light, but there was something lurking underneath all that silk and velvet. A bite, a venom. A mottled warning. Alana jolted from her mental reflections and for a moment, she felt entirely too sheepish for being a thirty-three-year-old. Nonetheless, Harry's placating smile, dimpled and all white tooth, was enough for Alana to glide over anymore observations or weariness of that caution that was enveloped in Harry's tone. She really did have a beautiful smile. Cherubic abandonment.

"I'm fine, really. Just a nightmare."

Harry shrugged. It was to be expected, Alana knew. Furthermore, Harry's readily admittance of suffering from unpleasant dreams made her rethink any second guesses she had previously given Harry and her sudden and almost tranquil awakening. Alana had been given her nieces files. Saw with her own eyes through other's words, all clinical and detached and frigidly factual, what her young niece had lived through. Survived. Nightmares would be only natural. Keeping her eyes on the long, winding road into town, Alana kept her voice as calm and as welcoming as she could.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Harry looked straight ahead, down the same road and her voice felt like an elastic band being snapped against the soft skin of the inside of Alana's wrist. Swift and with a sting.

"No."

Alana frowned but kept her mouth shut. She couldn't push Harry into talking, that would only exacerbate the problem. Harry needed to come to her, when she felt comfortable, safe. Still, the quick and resolute denial hurt. Furthermore, that little pit of worry in Alana's gut began to squirm to life once more. Harry couldn't keep it all in, not forever. She needed to talk to someone, anyone. It was the only way to heal. Perhaps Alana should start trying to contact a psychiatrist...

Alana felt Harry's gaze travel back to her, felt the scorch and burn of a leveled, dead stare into the side of her face before it became soft, shy, coy almost. It was a quick shift, so fast, Alana idly wondered if she felt the undiluted rage aimed at her in the first place or imagined it. This time, there was no warning in Harry's voice, no coiled viper, just a timid sort of bashfulness and Alana really did think she had imagined the whole thing. Harry sounded so small, so lost, scared, how could she have possibly been anything else in that moment? Surely, she couldn't be? No. Harry hadn't.

"I'm claustrophobic. Sometimes I dream I'm back in that… Cupboard and the only way out is to punch myself to freedom. Not very imaginative, I admit, but, there it is. My little nightmare."

Alana winced as her hands tightened on the steering wheel at being none too gently reminded of the neglect and abuse her small niece had suffered. The speedometer picked up an extra five mph. In part, Alana had done that. In part, she had left Harry to that life. Of course, she had not known she even had a niece until a few months back, or even that her sweet sister was dead and gone, she had ran and drifted to far from her family. Still… Still. If she had of sent a letter, just one. Picked up a phone. Visited…

For a second, Alana thought she saw Harry smirk, a twisted little grin, all starving beast and mutation, from the corner of her eye but it was gone before it was really even there and Alana chalked it up to feeling tired, the topic of conversation and an overwhelming tide of guilt that lapped up her throat. Strong. Alana needed to be strong, for Harry. Blindly, Alana reached over and laid palm against jean clad thigh, squeezing soothingly. Who she was trying to comfort, herself or Harry, well, that line blurred somewhere between the gearstick and the radio.

"What they did to you… How Petunia and Vernon treated you… None of it was your fault, Harry."

Gently, Harry shirked off Alana's hand by wiggling her leg closer to herself. Bit by bit. Action by action. Word by word. Alana would reach her niece. It would take time for Alana to earn Harry's trust, her confidence. Alana could wait. She was patient. Now, Harry was back to staring out her own window, allowing the bitter breeze to rustle her loose curls from her face.

Her hair was too short to put into a high bun, just barely brushing delicate shoulder, but Harry had wrangled the top half into a twining bulb, leaving the bottom to flutter away. Through it, like she had done everyday Alana had saw her, she used a… Interesting hair chopstick to keep the whole thing together. It was long, thin with what looked like a handle at the end. It was a horrid sort of white, blinding in some places, but mottled an aged brown in others, especially the dotted holes just underneath the handle where the tip became thin and pointy. It was the handle itself that was most… Disconcerting. Sharp, jagged in places, but curved, like the knuckle of a joint… Bone. The whole thing looked to be carved out of bone, just long and originally thick enough to fit a forearm. It was beautiful, in a macabre sort of way.

"I like your hair piece Harry. Where did you get it from?"

This time, Alana did look at her. This time, Alana did see a smile, as delicate as her nieces' shoulders, warm but lost somewhere far away. Harry spoke into the wind, her words almost sucked away.

"From a… Mentor called Tom."

Ah, one of her teachers. Alana had heard Harry had been close to some of her teacher back in her boarding school. She couldn't remember reading their names, but Tom was likely one of them. Before Alana could question any further, Harry pulled away from the window and, once again, swiftly changed the subject.

"How far away are we from the university?"

Alana winced.

"Well, I've had to make a little detour."

Harry frowned and turned to fully face her.

"Detour?"

A spike of nerves hit Alana right in her sternum, fizzing like soda.

"One of my colleagues needs my opinion on a case. I want you to stay in the car. I won't be long, and then we can get on our way."

For all the time for Jack Crawford of all people to call her in, he had to choose now. Yet, Alana wouldn't quite write this down as a coincidence yet. When Alana had first discovered her niece, after receiving a letter from Petunia asking for help because she was facing jail time for child neglect and abuse, Alana had tried to pursue every avenue to find Harry. She had been turned away at every single one. They had been polite, friendly, but all dead ends. Her voice was being heard, she knew that, but it had lacked power. Power she had later found in Jack Crawford.

He had helped her find the right people, to ask the right questions, to demand the right things. In return, he had been privy to everything she had. He had gotten Harry's documents and files too. That meant he knew what Harry was capable of. The files they had made that all too clear. At sixteen she had, nearly singlehandedly, tracked and taken down a prolific, genocidal, mass-murderer and his cultish followers. No easy feat. That meant Harry had a very unique set of skills, skills a man like Jack Crawford would like at his disposal, should he need them.

So, no. Alana didn't want Harry anywhere near the FBI or Jack, should she be used like Will Graham was. She was only sixteen for goodness sake! She needed to live like one, not a blood hound. The trauma she had suffered could be deepened by any involvement into Jack's sordid world. Alana couldn't possibly allow that. A soft, gentle hand on her arm, nestling into the crux of her elbow, snatched Alana from her spiralling thoughts. Glancing to her side, she saw Harry, eyes as green as freshly cut grass shining in the sunlight, large, open… Innocent.

"I'm not going to lie and say I'm fine, you'll see right through that, wouldn't you? But I will be fine. I can't hide away forever."

Alana didn't want her to hide away. She simply didn't want her around things, situations or people that could possibly wrought forth terrible memories for her. Harry had only been with her for two weeks, just two, and she was doing magnificently. She had been golden. She spent most of her time reading, and if not reading, she was cooking or outdoors. She was polite, cheerful, a bit dark and morbid in her sense of humour, but otherwise, exactly like all other teenage girls. Dumping her into a situation where she would end up tracking another serial killer could reverse all that.

However, on the flip side, it could bring a sense of comfort and closure to her. Harry, unfortunately, had spent most of her life doing just that. To be back into a familiar routine of sorts, knowing what to do and how to do it, could bring an offer of confidence to her. Still, the risk of the opposite happening was too high. Far too high. Harry's voice turned smooth, sweet and deep, like buttered beer.

"After all, I thought today was about showing me what you did, where you worked, how you lived. A day of bonding, you called it. Isn't this just another part of that? I just want to know what you do with your life, this is another aspect of that. I want to know you."

Alana sagged, defeated.

"Okay, okay, you win. But if Crawford asks you to do anything you are uncomfortable with, you just give me a nod or a wink and we'll leave, okay?"

Harry pulled back as she nodded, grinning. For a long while, all was silent apart from the quiet hum of the car. Then Harry smashed that, like a sledge hammer to a glass vase, with four little words

"Why did you leave?"

It was the first question, personal that is, that Harry had asked Alana in the entirety of the two weeks they had been together. As difficult as this was for Alana, it couldn't have been easy for Harry either. Growing up an orphan, finding family was never easy sailing. Yet, Alana wished Harry had asked anything but this. But, to earn Harry's trust, she needed to be honest, open, as much as she possibly could, even if that openness would hurt like rubbing salt into a wound.

"My mother, your grandmother was… She was a tough person to get along with. She was a lot like Petunia, actually."

Harry gave a dry chuckle, all dead autumn leaves and broken twigs.

"You have my deepest sympathies."

Alana shook her head.

"There was the appropriate amount of arguments in the home when that house is filled with three female teenagers, but nothing so extreme. There was no abu-"

Alana cut herself off. There was no point in reminding Harry of her own past, she likely knew it better than anyone ever could. Neither would it be beneficial to point out that Alana had a better childhood. That would only birth resentment. Slowly, she collected herself and began again. Baby steps, for both of them.

"But there was always a feeling of being trapped. Me and your mother used to make up fantasies of running off together. We were planning on building a tea-shop over in Brazil at one point. We were going to call it The Garden. When Lily was accepted into that gifted school, our family became more… Strained."

Harry inclined her head, as if she had been expecting just that. Perhaps she was.

"With my mother gone, you felt every bit more the outsider."

It was odd, having it pointed out to her, but yes. With Lily gone, that feeling of looking in, being on the outside, only grew inside of Alana when she was younger.

"I'll be honest with you Harry, in the beginning, I was very much jealous of Lily. After a visit from one of her teachers from her new boarding school, mother kept insisting she was special, unique, though she never told us why. One night, Lily and Petunia ventured out together while I stayed home with a cold. Gosh, they must have been around thirteen at the time. I had barely turned seven. Or was it six?"

Alana flipped the indicator and turned right. They would be there soon.

"Something happened that day. Petunia refused to speak of it, but her view of Lily became warped. She believed Lily was a freak, and with mother's insistence that Lily was special, it only drove Petunia wilder in her accusations. At one dinner, Petunia dumped a whole basin of water over Lily, expecting her to melt. She kept saying that witches were unnatural."

Harry's laughter was almost booming in its intensity and very nearly, Alana almost swerved her car right into a tree lining the side of the road. When Harry spoke, it was through the roar of her chuckles dying off.

"You thought aunt Petunia was delusional? Fucking brilliant."

Alana sighed.

"I believe Petunia wished for the same admiration from mother Lily garnered, and in so, was given to more… Impractical beliefs into reasoning why mother loved Lily so. Petunia had always been given to strong imagination."

Harry tutted.

"So, with my mother and aunt Petunia at odds, you got the hell out of dodge while you could."

Alana wished it had all been that simple. She really did. A delusional sister, a need to escape, but life was never so black and white.

"My mother didn't want me to be caught in the middle of their dispute. She sent me away to another boarding school at a young age. From there I… Drifted. Eventually, I went to university, began my career in psychology, started my own practice and soon, years were going by without me even noticing I had not spoken to either of my sisters."

Suddenly, there was a chill in the air. Keen, mewling, nibbling. It had nothing to do with Baltimore's weather, nor the open car windows, but everything to do with the steady gaze Harry locked onto Alana.

"You changed your name."

Alana tried to laugh the chill off.

"I did. Delilah never suited me."

Harry's head cocked to the side, inquisitive, playful maybe, predatory almost.

"Changing your name means you didn't Drift. You wanted out, you got out and you stayed out. You emigrated, changed your name and you never looked back. Not even once. Your own parents died, your sister died, her husband died and not once, not for a moment, did you ever glance behind your back to see the bodies piling up. Please, don't start lying to me now. You wanted gone and you got gone. There was no accident in that."

Alana felt like someone had reached into her ribcage, wrapped their small hands around her heart and crushed. There was a low hum in her ears, the rattle of a breath, the tightening of her hands and she was spluttering back before she could fully form a thought.

"I-… Yes. Perhaps I did."

The chill broke and something like an excited buzz thrummed between Harry and Alana as the younger smiled brightly. It was like there had been a switch, night and day, winter and summer, life and death, joy and sorrow, and in a flash, Harry had flipped it. Once again, it was so fast, so swift, so fleeting, Alana was left questioning her own emotional state, mental wellbeing and imagination on whether it truly happened or not. Nonetheless, Alana had come to more of an understanding than just her need to run back in her younger days. She needed to be strong. She couldn't escape anymore. She needed to be strong. Harry needed her. Harry's next words only broke her heart further.

"I'm not angry at you. Running sounds nice. I'm glad you got out while you still could. It got very dark back there. Bright, friendly, loving people like you don't really survive in the darkness. Not for long."

Alana cut Harry a sad little look. She could feel the sorrow, the pain, the pity pulling tightly on her skin, trawling.

"You did."

Harry smiled at her, but it never reached her eyes. Finally, Alana pulled up to the parking lot, sliding into the mess of cars, scanning the scenery to find an eligible space. When she eventually parked, the dam she had inside of her, the one holding it all back, every word, every regret, every broken promise burst like a balloon.

"I should have been there, for you and Lily. I should have sent a letter sooner. I should have-"

"Don't. Please… Don't. Wishes are inconsequential. What is done is done. Ad initium novum."

Alana blinked in surprise. Latin. Harry spoke Latin. Quite proficiently by the roll and accent her voice took. Steadily, Alana pieced herself back together, calmed her heart, wrangled in her thoughts and stiffened her shoulders. Be strong. For her. For Harry.

"Yes, Harry. To a new start. I'm here now. As long as you want me, need me, I will be here. I promise."

Harry unbuckled her seatbelt, swung the door open and stepped out, pausing for a brief moment. Slowly, she spoke to Alana, face away, a lonely silhouette. That bone white carven stick glinted in the morning sun.

"Let's hope neither of us live long enough for you to come to regret that promise."

Then the car door slammed shut.

How was it? Any good?

I got a little perverse kick at writing about Harry having, keeping close and using Voldemort's old wand. It's sort of like a trophy for her, but at the same time, a very real sorrowful reminder of what she had and what she's lost. What she was and what she's becoming. After all, the way I see it, Harry is used to carrying around something of Tom's, she was his Horcrux after all, and I think, now that that link has broken, a connection in this fic which is going to be heavily explored, she would find some sort of torturous comfort in having something else of his close at hand. I also really liked 'recycling' Tom Riddle's old quotes and throwing them back at Harry in a more warped and unstable context. However, I am a bit shaky on how I portrayed Alana Bloom here, but I'm hoping I can iron her character out better the longer I write her. Honestly, I'm trying as much as I can to keep most characters as close as their canon counterparts, with some obvious liberties taken, so just, please, give me a little while to get them as straight as I can lol.

Either way, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I had some real fun writing it.

If you want to see more, have some thoughts or theories you'd like to share, have a little idea you might want to see happen (If used you'll be accredited, of course), or anything really, please drop a review! I love hearing from you all.