Psychomachia
My name is Harry Potter, and I was in hell.
Well, I wasn't literally in hell, of course, as I am still alive and at the time was waiting for the first day of classes of my 7th year to begin the next day. Unable to sleep, I found myself wandering the halls of Hogwarts, safe from Filch, the prefects and whatever teachers making after curfew rounds, under my invisibility cloak. Somehow, surviving, to say nothing of winning the fight with Voldemort, was not turning out the way I had imagined.
Tom was gone, and most of his Death Eaters, both the actual marked kind and those who were simply financial supporters were either dead, imprisoned or neutered, so it was reasonable to expect that my life would improve… right?
But no, that would make too much sense, it would be too easy. The Universe couldn't have that, could I?
Of course not. Sometime during the twelve days I spent in St Mungo's following the final fight with Tom, I came to the realization that I had utterly lost my mind.
On the plus side, no one seemed to have noticed.
This, of course, this only caused me more concerns. Had I always been like this, just too wrapped up in my own misery to notice?
"Oh, for the love of magic, Potter," Tom said from my left shoulder. "It was only exposure to my magnificence that allows you this opportunity."
"Oh, fuck me," I whispered.
"Language Harry," Hermione huffed from my right shoulder. "And you shouldn't be paying any attention to him. You know what a bad influence he is."
Wonderful. They were back.
- Psychomachia -
Twenty minutes later, safely ensconced behind the curtains of my bed and three-layered silencing charms, I was hugging my knees and rocking slowly as a pair of figments of my imagination argued from either side of my head.
My worst nightmare stood on my left shoulder and glared imperiously at my best friend, who was giving a good as she received.
"Oh, Merlin," I whined. "I hope there's a bed near Neville's parents, that way at least someone will visit me occasionally."
"Nice whinging, Potter," Shoulder-Tom hissed in Parseltongue, which infuriated Shoulder-Hermione to no end, restarting the shrieking back and forth argument between them.
Does it make sense that only one of the figments of my imagination could speak Parsel? It certainly didn't make sense to me, and for that matter, still doesn't.
Not for the first time, I tried to ignore their screaming match and evaluate what I knew about them.
First of all, they weren't ghosts.
Well, probably weren't ghosts, anyway. Seeing as Hermione was both still alive and at this hour likely sleeping in her bed in the girl's dorms, which pretty much disqualified the Hermione standing on my right shoulder from ghosthood… ghostliness? The state of being a ghost?
Whatever.
Real Tom was most definitely dead. I didn't drop a house on him or anything, though at one point that was one of my plan 'b's, after Hermione discovered that L. Frank Baum was a squib who transcribed some minor historical events of the magical world into a series of children's stories. Dumbledore, Moody, and even poor Kingsley Shacklebolt all took big chunks out of old Tom, leaving me to deliver the killing stroke in the form of a cutting charm that severed his head from his shoulders.
Fair? Not at all, but we weren't dueling, we were fighting a war. Just like the time before, as soon as Tom was gone, his Death Eaters collapsed like a house of cards, which was both lucky and stupid. Lucky for us, and stupid of them. Dumbledore was exhausted, almost unable to move. Draco Malfoy would have been able to kill him. Moody was unable to fight with his magical eye blinded and his wooden leg destroyed, Kingsley's legs were severed just below the hips, and me, I was too busy trying not to die from the blood-boiling curse Tom hit me with as my cutter sliced through his neck.
The Death Eaters had taken hits as well, all of the Lestranges were dead, Neville and the Patil twins had made very sure of that. Hermione had her own revenge on Dolohov for what he had done to her in the Department of Mysteries. I have no idea what spell she used on him, but his body was turned inside out without killing him. That was some nasty magic, and seeing its application was more than a little disturbing. Ginny, Ron and the twins fought and killed Lucius Malfoy, hopefully earning a bit of closure for that damned diary and the attacks on their father.
Despite all of this, the Death Eaters still outnumbered us at least three times over, given that the Aurors weren't responding. Fudge had them all at the Ministry so he had someone to safely hide behind. There was no logical reason for the Death Eaters to turn tail and run. Nevertheless, they did.
So, yeah, we were lucky.
I woke up in St Mungo's four days later in the bed next to Moody and the one across from Shacklebolt. Shack was still out, but Moody was turning the air blue with his cursing. The healers wanted him to stay, but the old man was having no part of it.
The Healers were learning something those of us who fought Tom already knew. If Alastor Moody didn't want to be someplace, there was no way short of killing him that would make him stay.
The old man nodded to me as he clumped his way out of the room on his newest replacement leg, showing that my pretending to be unconscious had not fooled him in the slightest. The flustered Healers followed Moody from the room, still pleading their case, leaving me alone in the room with Shack who, given his state, wasn't likely to be able to carry his end of a conversation.
I lay in the hospital bed, just enjoying the silence for a moment when my sanity broke.
That sounds like a literary device, doesn't it? But no, I actually heard a distinct 'snap' just before little Tom and little Hermione appeared on my shoulders and started their first argument.
Does a mind make a noise when it is broken? Mine did.
- Psychomachia -
Fortunately, Little Tom and Little Hermione weren't around all the time. The first Breakfast of the school year was delightfully psychosis free. It was fun just people watching now that the pressure of the war was off.
Everyone was leaving me alone, mostly because of Hermione's (the real one, not my imaginary friend) threats of horrific revenge on anyone who bothered me.
Lord, but I love that girl. I always wondered if having her in my life was the equivalent of a normal bloke having a protective older sister.
"Good morning, Harry," Parvati said as she took the seat across from me.
"Sleep well?" Lavender asked as she did the same to my immediate right.
"As well as any crazy person can," I laughed.
"We nutters have to stick together," Lavender giggled, bumping my shoulder with her own before she began to fill her plate. "Oh, by the way, my Mum said I should thank you 'for everything', but I won't because I know you hate that sort of thing."
"Then why did you bring it up?" Parvati asked.
"Because as much as our Harry hates the attention, he needs to know that people appreciate everything he's done," Lavender explained.
Parvati nodded her understanding and then the pair of them launched into a discussion of which of the standard Hogwarts breakfast selections fit into their diet plans.
I had spent the time since ending Tom deciding that I was going to end the monk-like existence I had been living since Ginny and I broke up. I'd built up a list of the girls I wanted to ask out, Susan, Tracey from Slytherin, Morag, Padma, Parvati, and Lavender were my first choices. Each of them had their own attributes that attracted me to them, it was just a matter of manning up a bit and actually asking one of them out.
And Lavender was sitting right next to me… Convenience was a thing, after all.
"Say, Lav," I said hesitantly. My palms were sweating. I hadn't been this frightened when facing off against Tom. While waiting for her to respond, I wondered just what it was that was so wrong with me.
"Yes, Harry?" she asked, interrupting her discussion of the relative merits of orange slices over peach halves.
"I was wondering, you know if you don't have anything else to do if you'd like to go out sometime."
Lord, was that as stupid as is sounded?
She smiled, "Are you asking me on a date, Harry?"
"Yeah," I nodded while wiping my hands on my trouser legs.
"Sounds like fun," Lavender said, exchanging a knowing look with Parvati across the table. "Were you thinking the September Hogsmeade weekend?"
"Yeah," I nodded again, still trying to dry my hands. What was wrong with me?
"It's a date," she smiled again before engaging Parvati in an in-depth discussion on what she might wear for our date.
Well, I decided as I started in on my eggs, that hadn't been so bad.
"Brown, eh?" Shoulder Tom noted as he popped into existence on my left shoulder. "Not bad, smashing tits, nice arse. You'll be nailing that, yes?"
"We will NOT be 'nailing that'," Shoulder Hermione huffed, appearing on my right shoulder.
"Don't listen to her, Potter," Shoulder Tom snapped. "She's got Virgin written all over her, and is bound and determined to keep you that way along with her."
"What we will be doing," Shoulder Hermione continued, ignoring her sinister counterpart, "is treating Lavender with respect. We will take her out, treating her like a princess. We will wine her, dine her, treat her to the romance of her life, and then…"
"And then?" Shoulder Tom asked sarcastically.
"And then," Shoulder Hermione said, looking Lavender up and down with an evil grin, "Then we nail that.
I honestly didn't know what to say to that, but Shoulder Tom just stared at his counterpart with open-mouthed amazement. "That is the evilest thing I've ever heard," He said, his with admiration in his voice. "Are you sure you don't belong on this shoulder?"
AN: And this is where it died. This started as a take-off of an older TV show called 'Herman's Head' where the joke was the titular hero's personality is portrayed as being completely separate individuals in the guy's head. Sort of like the Pixar Inside-Out movie, only about 20 years earlier. Fans of that show might recognize Shoulder Hermione's last line.
Couldn't get it to work, so then I decided to move the concept to the 'Shoulder Devil/Angel' cliché.
It's not going anywhere and hasn't for about two years, so I thought I'd put it here.