To Define Treachery
Chapter II / The Prisoner Predicament
by en extase
Tallgrass, on all sides.
Below, the rickety structure of the Burrow - five crooked stories, four chimneys and a garage held together only by precarious threads of magic - looked as wondrous as ever. Its outer edges were blurred by a fiery brightness, the home backlit by the sun halfway sunken beneath the overlooking hills. The pond in the garden was serene; the only movement betraying the presence of dragonflies and frogs were the gentle ripples traveling through the water and the lazy circles traced by the blossoming lilypads floating on its surface.
Harry watched silently, drinking in the vision of his second home in fond remembrance. Had it only been a summer ago when Fred, George, and Ron rescued him from the Privet Drive in a flying car? When he'd met the mother who had raised the coolest older brothers that could be imagined and the most loyal friend he'd ever met, or their father with his quirky fascination for Muggle technology?
Almost as if in recognition of his thoughts, he saw a silhouette flicker beyond the window on the lowest floor and caught a glimpse of Molly as she bustled about with housework. He saw two young men stride out of the garage. The first was of medium height stride out of the garage, carrying several sets of robes that were horrifically marred by burns and singes in his muscled arms. He wondered if he was Charlie, the accomplished Quidditch Captain and prefect, for Gryffindor House, professional dragon trainer and wizard whose wand was passed down to Ron. The second was much taller and had hair that went down to his shoulders. He was saying something over his shoulder to his sibling as he pulled down the up-and-over door. Harry decided he must be Bill, the only other brother he hadn't met, the Curse-Breaker. Charlie laughed and transfigured one of the burned robes into a hog-nosed bat which swerved down to hector Bill, who good-naturedly endured it for a few steps before snatching the creature out of the sky with his bare hands and tying its wings into a knot, whereupon it reverted back to its original, charred form.
Harry was grinning widely. He decided to go down himself and introduce himself to the eldest Weasley brothers.
He made to take his first step toward the retreating brothers, but stopped short when a quiet voice spoke up.
"They don't know yet."
He whirled around, and found himself face to face with Ginny Weasley. They were both wearing their Hogwarts uniforms. She held his gaze only for a split second before a faint blush suffused her cheeks and she averted her eyes to her demeanor much like when he'd first met her, though perhaps the starstruck wonder at seeing the Boy-Who-Lived was muted. A shade of it remained, and Harry hated the feeling of his own worthlessness that welled up when he saw her lingering adoration.
What could he say to the phantom of the girl whose life he'd taken? How could he defend his decision and make her understand? He was too young to be explaining it to her and she was too young to be dead at all. He was astounded by her youth. The dusting of freckles, the way she had to crane up to look at him because he was taller by a head. She'd just begun to learn of magic. She was afirst year. How could that journey end so abruptly?
"Hi Ginny."
She gave a small smile at his tentative greeting.
He brushed his fingertips against her forehead, and when his fingers registered the warmth of living flesh he barely suppressed the urge to recoil as if he were seared by molten lead. He kept his wrist locked as he forced himself to maintain the unbearable contact. With agonizing slowness, he traced his fingers across her temple until he reached her ear, tucking a loose tress of auburn hair behind her ear. He let his arm fall to his side.
"My brothers have always wanted to protect me," Ginny mused aloud. "For as long as I can remember.
Harry was beginning to breathe faster and faster. He shut his eyes as her words assaulted him like thrusts of a knife.
A sharp crack interrupted them. They both turned back to face the Burrow. At the end of the footpath, Arthur Weasley appeared. He moved with an almost mechanical stiffness, his movement uncertain. He was wringing his hands. Harry felt deepest loathing at himself.
"Dad will fly away on the Ford Anglia for a few nights to be alone, I think," Ginny said thoughtfully.
The side of his lips twitched as he moved his mouth soundlessly, trying to muster up the courage to say something and break the flow of the torturous words. He stayed still, wrestling with himself for another second - then he was plunging through the sheaves of tallgrass, turning his back on the image of the Burrow and the phantom of Ginny. The long thin stalks whipped at his face and body but he charged through uncaring.
"I think... mum will take this the hardest." Her saddened voice was following him, its source everywhere and forming an unbreakable sonic prison, with him as its solitary inmate.
"SHUT UP!" Harry shouted, tearing wildly through the field. "I told you why I had to kill you! Stop it stop it stop it-"
The blades of grass became razor sharp, and in one instant he was covered in countless lacerations as they sliced through the skin of his cheek and limbs. He staggered, but he was able to sustain his forward momentum right as he reached a downward slope. He raised his arms to shield himself against the knives he was throwing himself into.
"What the bloody hell did you want me to do?" he called out shrilly, heaving with exertion. "Would you have me let him come back? Is that what you wanted?"
The winds abruptly intensified and howled like a host of demons clawing their way from hell. The tallgrass was flattened and it was terrifying to see it happen to the entire field around him and the meadows visible in the distance. He lost his footing completely and was pitched forward, tumbling end over end through brambles and thick knots that slammed into him unforgivingly before he landed flat on his back, gasping in pain.
Breaths, coming and going faintly.
"I don't know."
There was a tremulous waver in Ginny's whisper-soft voice. He noted idly that she was kneeling beside him. He gave no physical reaction to her appearance and was too wearied to note it with much more than mild resignation. He could only lay there, sprawled with his feelings and thoughts pulled feebly in too many directions.
"Why would you kill an innocent girl?"
He wheezed out the answer.
"You know why. "
"I don't understand," she insisted.
"Because..." Harry faltered.
All of it seemed like the worst impulse. Was that why? Had the synapses in his brain been firing incorrectly as they were ruptured by the basilisk venom? He uttered a strangled moan and let his head fall back, breath leaving him in a rush of air. He stared unfocusedly at the grey clouds in the sky.
"I... I made a mistake," he said to her, voice small, "The worst of my short life. I'm sorry you had to be the one to pay for it."
A small hand slipped into his and he gripped it tightly, feverishly trying to memorize the smooth silkiness of her skin, the illusory pulsation of life, and the gentle facsimile of warmth.
The youngest Weasley child looked pityingly at him, touched by his apology. Her Hogwarts robe flowed like liquid around her slight form and her vibrant hair caught the fading sunlight as the wind snatched at the ends of the fiery locks. She tightened her grip on his hand.
"Harry-" and he could feel the strains of frustration, loneliness, and heartbreak in her answer.
The winds were intensifying again and detritus flew in weaves of chaotic patterns all around them. Ginny seemed to understand that their time was growing to a close. She looked at him, lost and scared.
"I'll try to be brave."
His eyelids fluttered open.
He blinked at the blank ceiling, then sat up.
It took him a moment to comprehend the blurriness of his perception. He could see the sheets drawn up to under his arms clearly enough, but things became less distinct from there until he only saw a hazy mass of darker colors at the foot of the bed. His hands reached out on instinct to the side, and he found his glasses.
He put them on and the world came into focus.
And he wished he'd never woken up.
"Welcome back to the world of the living."
Tom Riddle was sitting in a chair, feet propped up against the edge of the bed, flicking pages of a book he was reading lazily. A nightstand was next to the bed, a wardrobe sequestered in the corner, and a bookcase that looked untouched took up the wall opposite the windows. The curtains were open, but the glass of the windowpanes was murky, like oxidized headlights of a car or a fogged up mirror. It was impossible to see what lay beyond the windows in the outside world.
"I'm not quite there myself, for which I fully place the blame on you," Riddle intoned without taking his attention from the book.
"You'll never get there," Harry said darkly. The words passed through his mouth without hesitation, without the slightest regard for self-preservation.
This time, Riddle glanced at him over the top of the book cover, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a thin line. His fingers pinched the corner of the page he was in the midst of turning.
"Did you know that I was the one who healed you? Were it not for me, you'd be a liquefied mess staining a Hogwarts uniform."
"I don't care. In fact, I hate you," Harry spat, his ire provoked by his torturer's arrogance. He struggled up so that his back was propped up against the headboard. "I hate that you manipulated Ginny, tricked me into trusting you, and then made me kill her. And I especially, especially hate how you have the gall to sound as if I owe you a favor."
There was a heavy thump as Riddle abruptly shut the book closed and leaned forward in his chair.
"I didn't make you kill her," he said quietly, eyes boring into Harry's knowingly. "You could have accepted your fate. But, the consequences weren't acceptable to you. Somehow, your mind works in the most fascinating of ways, and you created a choice for yourself. Now Ginny is dead, you are recovering, and I am but half-alive."
He smiled charmingly.
"So, here you are."
"Here I am," Harry repeated, the statement rolling off his tongue lifelessly.
Riddle studied his face intently, but there was nothing to read in his features. Harry felt emotionless, dead. It showed. Chuckling in amusement, Riddle rose from the chair and set the book down. He yawned as he stretched his arms above his head lazily.
"Well, make yourself at home. I'll go and get us some brunch."
Whistling a wavering tune, Riddle left the bedchamber, not bothering to shut and lock the door behind him because he didn't need to or due to simple negligence. Somehow, Harry doubted it was the latter.
Harry waited until the retreating footsteps diminished into silence, then shot out of the bed and reached the doorway in a single bound.
Sensory deprivation was the cruelest torture, and Tom reveled in his newfound freedom from its clutches. A flock of birds flew overhead, tiny blots in the sky. He tried to follow the movement of their wings as they bore the creatures aloft before they faded into the distance, disappearing behind towering office buildings. He felt no ill will toward the Muggle insects teeming around him, because they were populating his world and erased the dark solitude he'd been trapped in for so long. He even permitted a pretty teenage girl to brush shoulders with him. The brunette met his eyes over the brim of her sunglasses flirtatiously, before breaking up in giggles and skipping a few steps before returning to her usual stride after she'd caught up with the friend she'd been walking with. Tom peered curiously at the other pedestrians wandering the streets. He wore a long-sleeved t-shirt with some silly Muggle brand name on it, with a pair of sunglasses were hooked on its collar. He was blending in, absorbing the feeling of being lost in a crowd.
He closed his eyes blissfully, silently savoring the warmth of the sunlight.
It stunned him how few of the memories immortalized in the diary's entries had taken place during the day. They were his most glorious moments, but they'd taken place in the night or in secluded places away from prying eyes. They'd gotten dark and depressing after reliving them endlessly, and the people he'd befriended or made his victims had become puppets, reenacting the same play over and over again. It took the joy out of weaving his deceptions to see the same students and teachers fall for his schemes a thousand times. He needed this, to set aside his disdain for Muggles for an hour and know that these people were in the present and that, whether they were harried and running errands or going shopping for leisure or simply enjoying a stroll on a nice day, they were doing so of their own accord.
But, things were not completely right.
Tom could feel the looseness in the slackened bonds that kept him from becoming physical. There was a faint feeling of floating in his steps, as if gravity was not certain whether he belonged in its domain. To be halfway free from the confinement of the ensorcelled pages was at once exhilarating and frustrating. He was so close to being himself again. Physical sensations like the breeze on his face were muted, as if diffused by a hundred layers of deadened skin.
He wanted to feel whole, not like a flesh-wraith roaming the earth because the lords of death were indecisive.
He'd invested so much in coaxing the life from Ginny Weasley and to be stopped a few steps short was frustrating in a way he'd never experienced, even when he'd been stranded for entire summers at the orphanage.
He glanced up when he noticed a sign hanging over the small, local diner he'd been looking for. The lettering on the sign was dull in the daylight, but would be shining an incandescent neon a few hours later. Followed a gentleman through the entrance, he mentally reminded himself to see the city of Birmingham by nighttime.
Harry found himself standing in a long corridor, adorned by paintings of picturesque scenes he didn't care for. They were probably portraits of famous people by famous artists, but they looked the same to him; the same waxy skin, disturbingly penetrating beady eyes, the same cravat and gloomy background. A Joseph Mallard Turner painting of a torrential flood seemed to enliven the mood a little, and there was a painting of a weeping knight kneeling aside a slain warhorse. There were only three rooms within sight; his own, the room next door, and another across from his. At each end of the corridor was a doorway leading to sets of stairs.
He started by checking the room across the hall. Opening the door, he stepped into a washroom. Linoleum tiles, plastic drapes that were dark blue with illustrations of cartoon fishes and sea flora dotting it. He checked the cabinet behind the mirror for anything useful. He found a first aid kit he deemed heavy enough for the task he had in mind for it. He hauled it back into his room and tensed up his sore arm muscles before hurling it at the occluded windows with all the force he could muster.
He held his breath as it soared through the air and smashed into the strangely-altered windows, but not through them. The kit merely bounced back off and landed on the floor, the clasps falling open and the bottles of pills, packages of bandages and gauze, skin stapler, and miniature dental module clattering about.
A disappointing, if not unexpected result. Riddle must have made everything unbreakable.
He fled back into the hallway.
He tried the room adjacent to his, but when he tried to turn the doorknob he met the resistance of a lock and he was too tired to hurl his body against the door to see if it would break down. He quashed the momentary feeling of longing for his wand. An Alohomora would go a long way in his predicament.
He rushed down the stairs closest to him, bare feet slapping against the cold, polished wood in rapid succession before he arrived on the floor below. There were another three rooms, two with their doors ajar, and another staircase at the opposite end of the hall. At this point, he didn't at all care about the particulars of the house - he only wanted to find the front door or back door or whatever, and get the hell on his way.
He caught a glimpse of the rumpled blankets and realized he'd just gone in a circle.
Cursing under his breath, he took off down the opposite staircase. Just as he expected, he wound up in the same hallway.
Feeling an impending sense of doom, he generally ran himself ragged trying to escape the loop enclosing him.
Finally, he staggered against the wall, sinking down underneath the painting of the sad knight.
He screamed at the top of his lungs in frustration, and instinctively curled up, drawing up his knees and clasping his hands around them as echoes of his anguish rang with an unexpected harshness in his ears.
He began pondering things.
Certain questions, like why Riddle had decided to heal him before the basilisk's venom had consumed him. Hypotheticals like how the Weasley family would take the death of its youngest. Would they be shown her corpse, gutted and emptied of blood so that it was a dried-out husk?
Certain worries, like whether Dumbledore had surmised what had happened - and whether he had even been reinstated as headmaster at all. He assumed that Riddle had taken all evidence of his connection to the Chamber of Secrets.
And a certain regret that would stay with him forever.
He'd killed Ginny in a moment of sheer belief, absolute certainty that it was the only way to keep Riddle from coming back.
And now what, he thought miserably, she's dead, I'm a prisoner, and he's somewhere outside, a free man.
He stayed there, huddled against the hall. Detached from time, from his own guilt.
The sound of footsteps eventually emanated from the stairwell.
Harry turned his head to look at it. Feeling his wounds burn against his bandages, he forcefully dragged himself onto his feet, gritting his teeth. He hobbled back into the bedroom, kicked the chair Riddle had sat in out of sheer spite, and slid gingerly under the covers.
Before long, Riddle was back. He glanced at the medical kit and its scattered contents but made no mention of it. He righted the fallen chair and seated himself, removing the meals he'd ordered from the diner from his bag. He drew a wand - Harry's wand - from his pocket and gave it a nonchalant flick, simultaneously conjuring a tray complete with utensils in Harry's lap and levitating the roast beef sandwich and a container of tomato soup onto it.
He sat down, watching Harry expectantly. He'd changed from his wizarding attire into Muggle clothing for his trip, the first time Harry had seen him wear anything other than his prefect uniform.
He picked up the spoon and fork, holding them idly.
Minutes lapsed in silence, and eventually Harry conveyed the message that he wasn't hungry and that Riddle would have to initiate any dialogue. The tall Slytherin boy was toying with Harry's wand, weighing it in his hands, examining the fine grain patterns, trying to get a feel for the invisible bond between the wand and the wizard it had chosen.
"Your wand feels exactly like my own," Riddle thought out loud.
Harry stayed sullenly quiet and kept his gaze downcast, as if disappointed to find himself alive.
Then, he muttered, "It's holly and phoenix feather."
Riddle considered Harry's answer, weighing it against his expectations and absorbing the implications it entailed.
"Truly we are two of a kind, Harry."
He put the wand down and leaned forward, captivating Harry's attention by the sheer intensity of his stare.
"Our histories could not be more similar. You resemble me in physical ways, some obvious and some subtle. We wield brother wands. And now, both of us have killed."
"I killed Ginny to stop you," Harry said slowly, looking up, "You murder because that's what... that's what evil people do! I don't know what it is, exactly, but I know that it will always separate us."
"I murdered someone, as you so delicately put it, because I wanted to create a living memoir of myself, not out of any sense of enjoyment or satisfaction. Murder was just the means by which accomplished my goal," Riddle reasoned, spreading his hands in front of him defensively.
Harry seethed.
"To what degree do you think society differentiates killers? Neither of us are soldiers, fighting for the glory of the Isles and thereby exempt from the laws normal citizens abide by In the end, I killed Myrtle painlessly by way of the Basilisk's stare and you absolutely butchered darling little Weasley. You killed her in a more painful and bloodier way when Ginny would have died peacefully had you left her to me. It would have been like falling into a pleasant, ever-lasting sleep. Do you know what kind of a mind, what kind of soul it takes to be able to consciously make the decision to take another life and in such a brutal manner?"
Harry remained silent.
Riddle smirked as he rose, smoothing over his shirt as he prepared to depart and leave the boy to his own devices.
"Do eat. You need to regain your strength."
Harry Potter, holder of the brother wand and murderer at a younger age than I, he thought to himself. He paused to give a backward glance over his shoulder. He felt a strange joy watching the motionless raven-haired boy hold his silver utensils in his small, balled fists, the side of his mouth hollowed tensely, and Avada-Kedavra-green eyes staring hard at nothing.
One day, the door to the room next to his was unlocked.
He'd all but given up on exploring his prison. Nothing seemed to change, there were no irregularities or shifts in pattern that would indicate an opening for him. The staircases linked to the same hallway and the windows remained paintings always seemed to be mocking him, these Victorian-era aristocrats with soulless eyes, and he tired of it.
But he'd had a spark of inspiration while eating breakfast, and he made the decision to keep a certain piece of silverware on his person. The butter-knife wasn't sharp enough to threaten Riddle, but he'd been searching for a suitable whetstone to sharpen it into a potential weapon. He'd wandered out of his room, but throughout his search the unassuming door of the sealed room kept turning up in his peripheral vision.
On impulse, he put his search on hold and grasped the doorknob, bracing himself for the feeling of the latch bolt jamming as he turned it. He blinked as the resistance of the locking mechanism failed to manifest.
Disbelieving but feeling the faintest glimmer of hope, Harry pushed the door open. Pale light flooded into the room, and he saw that it was a study, dominated by an armoire desk with its folding doors opened wide to reveal the slide-out writing surface. He glanced around, and seated himself in front of the desk.
He flicked the switch of the lamp to give himself some light and examined the notepads and other articles of clutter, hoping to find some inkling of Riddle's plans. Something to bring an end to his ignorance and help him chart a course of action to breakout and find his way back to his friends and Dumbledore.
He found some documentation written in looping, cursive script that was difficult to interpret, like his teacher's handwriting in his first year at school with Dudley. It took him a while to realize that they weren't written by Riddle, but by whoever had lived here previously before Riddle had taken it over. Had Riddle killed the previous occupants too? They were medical care and citizenship papers, half-filled out fax return forms.
He swept his arms across the entirety of the desk, sweeping away all of the meaningless clutter onto the floor. He sat there, breathing hard for a long moment. Half-heartedly, he opened the drawers of the desk and peered into them, sorting through equally useless things like pens and envelopes and unused stationery.
It was hard to stifle the rising sense of hollow disappointment. With the possibilities narrowed to the sealed room, he'd built it up in his head as the keeper to the solutions of his problems. Find a way in, and he had the tools and knowledge to enact a miraculous mistake.
Reality was unkind.
There was a sharp sound of knuckles rapping against the wood of the door Harry had forgotten to close. Gritting his teeth, he looked up, leveling a hateful glare at the figure standing in the doorway.
"I thought you'd notice the door wasn't locked."
"What do you want me from me?" Harry asked, figuring he might as well ask the essential question.
Riddle reached within the folds of his robe and delicately extracted an object. An object with a black cover and binding, so innocent at first sight.
"I just want you to write."
Harry shot to his feet, horror writ on his features.
"I won't," he hissed, staring at the diary in Riddle's hands.
"No?"
The boy's gaze snapped to meet Riddle's challengingly.
"I have to put a piece of myself into the pages, invest real feeling and thoughts in it, otherwise it's meaningless scribbling. That's why it worked with Ginny! You can't manufacture authentic feeling."
Harry jumped, startled by the loud thump of the diary hitting the face of the desk.
"You owe me a life debt."
Riddle towered over him, and an aura of authority seemed to blaze to life around him and impose his will in the very air molecules, imbuing them with an electric intensity that made Harry's hair stand on end. It cowed Harry despite his incomprehension of what precisely a life debt was. He only knew that Riddle held some power he didn't comprehend yet over him and that he could use it to compel Harry to do what he wished.
"I made the choice to spare your life. In the wizarding world, that gives the debt-holder immense power. I could force the matter had I the inclination, but I don't need to. You can either obey me, or I will find someone more willing. Someone..." Riddle's tongue darted out to moisten his lips in thought, "someone like Ginevra. Insecure, waiting for a friend to enter their lives and lend a sympathetic ear to her woes..."
Devastated, Harry sank into the chair. Without another word, Riddle turned on his heel and left, and it enraged Harry that Riddle dared show his retreating back so fearlessly.
Harry buried his face into his folded arms as he listened to the door shut and the clicking sound of the lock.
"You think you're so invincible?" he whispered.
He drew the knife from its hiding spot in the waistband, trying to stave off the mounting desperation.
He stabbed it into the diary, but the blade bent sideways when it made contact. Harry could only stare in disbelief between the unblemished yellowed paper and the deformed metal of the knife.
He flung the knife away, blind with rage, and tried tearing the pages with his bare hands, but they resisted like they were sheets of titanium.
He buried his face into the palms of his hands, suddenly feeling unbearable exhaustion setting into his bones.
Why is this all happening?
He wanted to be back at Hogwarts, wishing for Potions class to be over. He longed to be facing the troll in the girl's bathroom with Ron again, or standing on the chessboard of life-scale pieces and being a knight's move away from being cut into ribbons. He even wished he were at the Dursleys, subjected to their hatred and condescension, because nothing was worse than this imprisonment at the hands of his hated enemy.
For a long while, his breathing was the only audible sound to accompany his thoughts. His eyes wandered down to his reflection staring up at him from the blade of the warped knife, the features hazy and dull in the wan light.
Unbidden, the last words of his imagining of Ginny Weasley rose to the forefront of his mind. He wished he knew whether he'd seen some shade of the real Ginny in his dream, or whether it was some phantasm that risen up in his basilisk venom-weakened mind, but her last farewell replayed itself over and over in his mind.
I'll try to be brave.
He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temple, silently praying for strength.
He reopened them, steeling himself.
His hand reached out and picked up the fountain pen and - slowly - he began to write.
Each word engraved itself into his soul forever even as the ink faded into the pages.
My name is Harry James Potter, and one day I will be the death of you.