Seven devils all around you
Seven devils in your heart
I was dead when I woke up this morning
And I'll be dead before the day is done.
Seven Devils, Florence and the machine.
"So why did he let me go?" Harry asked the creature, who was crouched across from him. Harry sat cross legged not far from it, no longer as afraid of it.
Harry himself had almost gained his normal appearance back, save a few occasional grey dribbles. Two days had passed since his rescue, and he had been allowed to leave the wing. He had told the Headmaster all he remembered, which was next to nothing. Dumbledore had already seen the wounds on his torso, some of which left scars, due to how old they were.
Harry had three runes carved just above his belly button, for the rest of his life.
He had yet to tell Hermione and Ron what he had been through, claiming that he didn't want to talk about it when they prodded. Which was one hundred percent true.
He knew he'd have to tell them eventually.
"The same reason I tell you everything. He is certain that it wont matter either way. Which it wont. Also, such fun could be had here. Once we're complete, imagine the chaos."
Harry cringed, leaning away from the man in the tailored suit.
"You cant be sure I wont win."
The creature smiled and leaned toward him, bridging the gap Harry created.
"That's quite a narcissistic way to view things."
Harry scoffed and leaned back even further, so that he almost lost his balance and fell on his back.
"Not narcissistic. It's true."
The Other just laughed.
"How long do I have till, you know?" Harry asked.
"At this rate, maybe another week. Though it could speed up, or slow down."
Harry frowned. This was shorter than he thought. He needed to find a way to remember this when he woke.
Apart from Ron and Hermione, everyone gave him a wide berth.
Harry wasn't sure whether it was courtesy, or that they were afraid that whatever had happened to him would rub of on them.
People gave him strange looks when they thought he wasn't looking, and Harry had to hold the urge to glare back.
He wasn't there for entertainment, and he resented the fact that everything he did, everything that happened to him, was public property.
Theirs to ridicule and judge, as if he belonged to them.
"Are you okay Harry?" Hermione asked, and Harry realised that he had been glaring at the back of Pansy Parkinsons head. She had long ago stopped looking at him, most likely because of his glare, and had gone back to what ever she had come to the library for in the first place.
"Huh?" He asked, blinking at his friends concerned faces as if he had just woken up.
"Yeah, you look a bit peaky mate. Did you want to go to the hospital wing?"
"Uh, no, I'm okay. Just a bit tired."
"So he made you by accident?" Harry asked, in the same position he had been in the previous night.
"Yes," the creature nodded, waiting for the rest of the question.
"Has he ever made others by accident?" Harry probed, hoping to figure out what kind of magic it was that was living in his mind.
"No," The Other smiled and bowed his head, as if giving permission for the next question.
"On purpose?" He felt as if he was getting somewhere with this. If he could recall all this when he wasn't dreaming.
"Yes, of course, precious. Now you're starting to click it together."
"And what is this magic?" He pressed, almost holding his breath.
"I think I'll get a bigger kick out of not telling you that one."
Harry's first day back at Defence against the Dark Arts was perfectly normal, besides how much he had to catch up on.
Until the end.
"Mister Potter, please stay behind."
Harry blinked at professor Moody, before nodding to his friends to go on without him.
"How are you feeling boy?" The professor asked, both his eyes directed firmly at Harry.
"Er, okay?" It was a question, because he had always figured Moody to be unconcerned with how other people felt.
"You don't feel, combined, at all?" Mad Eye pressed.
"Err, combined, sir?"
Moody gave a short bark of a laugh.
"Was my fathers way of saying unwell."
"Oh, right." Harry said awkwardly, half turning to leave.
"Well, if you start feeling combined at all, come see me, alright boy?"
Harry nodded, though he didn't intend on coming to Moody for anything. He was a little creepy, if he were honest.
"What did he want?" Hermione asked without preamble, Ron nodding beside her from his place at the Gryffindor table.
A plate of chicken and salad sat in front of the empty space next to his friends, and he nodded thanks as he sat down.
"He asked me if I was feeling 'combined'"
His red headed friend snorted and sent a small piece of chicken flying across the table, undetected. It landed on Neville's meatloaf.
Harry watched him eat it before Hermione's inevitable questioning.
"What did he mean by that?"
Harry half smiled at his friend's predictability.
"He said it was his fathers way of asking if I felt okay."
"His dad is worried about your health?" Ron asked, having finished his mouth full.
"No, I mean that was his dad's way of asking that, I guess."
"That's nice of him," Hermione said, scooping a lone cherry tomato into her mouth.
"Yeah," Harry agreed half heartedly, though he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something weird about the encounter.
"So Moody knows about you then?" Harry said, leaning against the wall. He noticed he seemed entirely normal here now, and so did the Other. As if they were becoming more balanced.
Instead of feeling better about not looking like a burnt corpse, it worried him.
"I doubt he knows the specifics. But I suppose he's been told to watch for a change in you." The Other smiled and recrossed his arms, sliding down the wall slowly, till he was sitting on the floor.
Harry did the same without paying any mind.
"So he's on Voldemort's side?" He asked, feeling slightly sick knowing that there was a spy snooping about the school, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.
"It certainly would appear that way, wouldn't it?" he crossed his legs in front of himself, grinning widely when Harry did the same.
"What?" Harry asked, suspicious.
"Nothing, nothing."
Hermione confronted him again the next morning. She asked him again what had happened when he was captured, Ron nodding, concerned, alongside her.
She gestured for him to take a seat in front of the fire.
He sighed and sat, turning to his friends and clasping his hands together. He needed to get it over with; sooner or later.
"I don't remember much, they kept me unconscious most of the time. They carved runes into me, Dumbledore said. He didn't say what they meant. When I was awake it was-" Harry couldn't really describe what it was like being awake in that hell hole.
Stinking of his own excrement, some other smell coming over even that, a months worth of filth still overpowered by the smell of rot. Of something he didn't want to guess at.
Not eating, as far as he could recall, feeling hunger so strong every other minor pang seemed heavenly.
Bleeding and seeping filth all over himself every moment, never a moment spent dry or clean.
And that drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.
"Harry! Harry! Ron, go get Professor Dumbledore, or anyone! Harry? Harry!" Hermione was shouting, Ron was shouting, someone else was shouting.
Harry didn't know when, but he had started convulsing, foaming at the mouth. His limbs jerked unpredictably, hitting Hermione as she tried to get close.
He realised he was the other one screaming.
"Harry!" She kept yelling at him, as though he could stop.
He felt his eyes roll back into his head, and blackness washed over him, along with welcome silence.
He and the creature were now fused at the hip, like a grotesque mockery of Siamese twins.
"Well, look." The Other said, planting a ridiculous kiss on Harry's cheek that he couldn't escape from.
"Fanfuckingtastic." Harry growled, feeling very much like he was being ripped off.
"You're swearing. Certainly a good sign."
"Depends on how you look at it." Harry growled, trying to pull himself away from the creature, only causing himself physical pain in the process.
"Not long now, Harry. We'll be together again." The feeling in the words made Harry pause and look at the Other, frowning.
It reached out and stroked Harry's cheek. He didn't flinch away, merely staring at the man fused to him, curious more than worried all of the sudden.
"Soon," It purred.
(Kind of short. Eh.)