"Sometimes I think I am mad," he said, pulling the hands up onto the table to lay flat against the wood. "To be able to sit at a table with humans. But then I look at my hands, and I realize I'm one too."
The Minder Reader's eyes were boring into him, as if he intended to memorize every single detail of this conversation. He supposed that was reasonable, since the conversation itself was his payment.
He stared at the hands for a moment longer, his mind more jumbled than normal, the nothingness at the edges of his thoughts and on the tip of his tongue. He shook it off.
"What do you want to ask?"
No one had ever spoken to him as him - as the sharpness - and he felt exposed and vulnerable. The father was at the table too, silent and watchful - his wand right next to his tea, pointed almost casually at Snape. He had seen what those magic sticks could do, and he hesitated to use the word 'casual' and 'wand' in the same thought.
"How did you come to be?"
He scratched at the surface of the table with one of the fingers, marveling at the fine control the boy had over his body. He wondered what the boy would feel, if he controlled his wolf body. Would he marvel at how he could move, spring, and chase?
"I've always been," he said quietly, not quite sure how else to answer.
The Mind Reader laughed - caustic and corrupted.
"I assure you that is not true."
"How would you know?"
"Because if the child had an alert, cognitive, werewolf in his head before he was kidnapped Potter's wife would have noticed, Dumbledore would have seen, Remus Lupin would have suspected - the child was surrounded by people who would have known if you were anything but 'normal', then. Unless, of course, this is simply a theatrical exercise of yours."
But the Mind Reader knew it was not - he could see it in the challenge of his arched brow, in the slight fear that had entered the endless darkness, in the sheer focus that he was giving him right now - as if he were fascinating. This man, more than any other man, would know that he was real.
"I've always been, but now it's harder to know when I started knowing what he knows, because it's all in my head - the bite, the night he was taken. They're there, but faded. He sees them better than me, and I see some things better than him."
"What is the first thing you see clearly?"
"The Dark Man's red eyes." He half expected Dubhán to gasp awake and shove him aside, at the mere mention and recollection of the man and that night. Dubhán didn't. He pushed ahead, struggling for the words but finding them easier now that he could access Dubhán muscle memories as well as his vocabulary. "It hurt so much, like nothing I had ever seen before. I could feel him hurting - feel him dying. A black fire in his head."
He dug the fingernails into the wood of the table, feeling each joint in the hands tightening, the muscles across the palms burning with the pressure.
"It was a nothingness, eating in from the edges. He was screaming in his head and shaking, and I knew he was about to die. I was about to die. It was so odd to be able to know that - to be able to feel him. I could see him in his mind and he could see me - and I knew something was wrong. He wanted to dream while he died and his mind wove a picture around us - a world - where it was warm and there was soft grass instead of the hard dirt. I tried to get him up, but he wouldn't. I tried to make him fight, but he was screaming in his head. I tried - but nothing worked. I growled at him and I pushed him into the grass - and that's when I awoke into his body for the first time - staring into the Dark Man's red eyes. He's read books about it, you know - my boy. He's read books about how I'm not as affected by Dark Magic since I'm a Dark Creature. I can withstand more of it than him."
The father's eyes were on him, trying to catch his gaze unsuccessfully. He stared ahead at the Mind Reader.
"Is that what you wanted to know?"
The dark eyes narrowed.
"How does Wolfsbane effect you?"
"It makes us sick."
"It effects the boy?"
"I suppose." He shrugged.
"Elaborate."
"I would if I could," he said, trying to sound reasonable, because he would, even if he didn't particularly want to. "I am there. It is my turn. I don't know who would win if we fought over control."
"The boy gives the control to you?"
He shrugged.
"It's my turn. It's different than giving. He's given control to me now. Sometimes, when he sees something he doesn't like, he gives me control and I watch it for him." He leaned forward, watching the Mind Reader carefully - taking just the tiniest thrill from the fear in his eyes. "After all, I'm obviously less disturbed by blood than a human child would be."
The Mind Reader did not flinch and he sat back down, satisfied despite the inaction - this was a man like them - a man who had learned to conceal his physical reactions.
"Has he...has he seen a lot of that?" The father ventured, swirling his tea instead of looking at him. He looked at him, and he remembered the way he had woken in the man's arms, after he'd been bitten.
"Does it matter to you?" This was not something the boy was especially proud of, and therefore obviously not something he would want the alpha of this pack to be aware of, let alone his father. He wanted protection and he felt that the information would exclude them from the group. He had no intention of sharing something he ought not. They did not fight with each other. They worked together to survive.
"No," the father said, more quickly than he had anticipated. "But I wish he would tell me, so I could tell him how it doesn't matter."
He felt the brow drawing downward on the face, the lips pressing together and the cheek muscles twisting - all to produce a look that he reasoned would convey uncertainty.
"He won't tell you," he said, and then he was turning toward the Mind Reader, cutting off the continuation of that conversation. "What else do you want to know before you make sure he's alright?"
The boy was oddly silent in his head and he couldn't quite recall when it was last that he had been given control for this long. Certainly when the boy had been healing, he had been in control for a long time, but since then it had been moments and events.
"Do you want to bite us?" It was an odd question, he thought at first. The neck pulled back as he frowned and he looked between them as though they were being especially stupid. Then, of course, he remembered that he was a werewolf. He was supposed to want to bite them. To taste their blood. To pass along his life. To bring them to the brink of death and see if they were strong enough to survive and join his pack.
"With what?" He asked, baring his teeth. "These things? They're useless. You're safe, I promise."
"I did not ask about my safety. Nor did I ask about your teeth. I asked about the urge."
He frowned again. Somehow the topic felt almost humiliating.
"I wanted to bite you back there, when you were in my face. I wanted to lunge at you and push you into the ground and snap at your pointy nose - but right now? Not so much. I haven't felt the uncontrollable need for many many many moons."
The Mind Reader clenched his jaw.
"But after the initial torture by the Dark Lord - you did still feel the need?"
He looked up, pulled his hands down under the table, and clenched them to keep the flush from his face; focusing on the pain rather than the memory. But the memory came hot and potent in his head: brown hair, brown eyes, a smattering of freckles, wedged into a corner, sobbing.
"Yes."
"So your corruption has...worsened, over the years."
"Elaborate."
He wished the boy were awake. Wished the boy would tell him what expressions to make, what words to use, what to say to not let them see his sudden nervousness. But the boy wasn't awake and he was left to try his best. He made the word sound like him, a smooth sort of drawl that got sharpest at the end.
"You have become less a werewolf and more a boy."
"No. I am the werewolf. I just have more control over my actions. Then again, I can't say what would happen without wolfsbane."
The Mind Reader nodded.
"Indeed."
"Are we done yet?" He thought if the Mind Reader could have his way, he would lock him up in a room and deny him just that, and see what happened.
"Yes." It happened before he thought it would. The Mind Reader's wand was drawn and he was saying that word he had so many times at the castle, and there was a fog inside his own mind.
He tried his hardest not to fight; to open the boys mind but keep his closed off. He was, after all, where they kept all the secrets. Not that he thought Snape could see them. As the man himself had said: werewolves were creatures and did not encode their memories the same way. He thought maybe it would ruin some of the Mind Reader's fun if he knew that Dubhán's ability was actually just the boys subconscious' creative use of his sharpness' natural defenses.
They were in the meadow, where the trees were green and the grass that same burnt amber. The Mind Reader was on his stomach, quickly awakening. Somehow, even though he could not see the Mind Reader, he knew where he was. Dubhán was beside him here, curled up on the amber grass, shivering and he nudged at the boy, hoping he would awaken. He laid down next to the boy, to keep the chill away, nuzzling into his side and lapping at his exposed hands. Fingers curled around his fur.
-Just do it. Just do it. Just do it.-
He nudged at the boy again, wishing he could reassure him: he had done it. He had done what had needed to be done.
-Don't scream,- he said instead, in the voice he was always surprised to have.
The Mind Reader had awoken and was scrambling to his feet. They were hidden in the tall grass, but the sharpness waited until the last moment to leave the boy and rise to his feet.
He made his way over to the Mind Reader - slow and cautious, giving the man every opportunity to spot him in the field.
-I have much better teeth now,- he said, when the man stood frozen before him. This time, he did twitch. They were, after all, inside a mind - this was much different than concealing physical reactions. No matter how they appeared, these were the internal and subconscious reactions, conveyed physically in a mental landscape. The boy had been doing some reading since his first meeting with the Mind Reader and he was glad he had made himself listen intently.
The dark endless eyes observed him thoughtfully.
-I assume you have brought me into your mind, since the grass is golden.-
He tipped his head, pleasantly reassured at the feel of his ears tipping with him, but he did not answer. Instead he turned and began to lead the way back to Dubhán. He was still curled up on the grass and he went to him and nudged at his face.
-What stupid thing has the boy done?- Despite the caustic tone and words, he still felt the Mind Reader would help them. He kept the growl in his throat.
-He's afraid.- He never would have told the father. Never would have admitted it to the mother or the old man with blue eyes. But this man was different. He had made it here, and that was more than anyone else had ever done.
-Of?- He leaned down to hover over the boy, and the sharpness supposed that this was what the man had been doing to him, when he awoke to find his pointy nose and black eyes staring at him.
-Of the nothingness. He's afraid he's lost the game.-
Black eyes turned to him - sharp and potent. The hair, no longer lank or filled with burnt fumes, fell half over his face.
-Which game?-
-I don't understand it,- he said, panting nervously. -It's very...human, I think. He has said to me that he and the Dark Man are all tangled up in the Dark Man's head. I think he is afraid that what he has done today will untangle them.-
The fear had been forcefully dispelled from the Mind Reader's eyes and in its stead stood purpose and determination. Suddenly steady on his feet, he strides toward Dubhán and falls down beside the boy.
-Afraid,- he seemed to say to himself, before he his hands were on Dubhán's head, lifting it up, and his wand had been produced from a fold in his robe. Words were not real here and so the spell did not verbally manifest itself - instead Dubhán simply opened his eyes, seeing but not awake.
-Don't think. Don't think. Don't think. Just do what has to be done,- he was chanting, his whole body shuddering in the Mind Reader's grasp. He felt himself whimper for his boy as the trees disappeared and the grass grew a darker amber and the nothingness approached, eating it's way in from the edges.
He felt a growl grow in his belly, felt it rumble up his throat, felt it leave his mouth, teeth bared, at the nothingness. He wanted to lunge at it. Wanted to tear it to pieces his with his sharp teeth. Wanted to let it know that he wouldn't let it hurt them. He raced around Dubhán, keeping it at bay. Or at least, feeling as though he might be making a difference. A storm was brewing above their heads, making the air thicker.
The Mind Reader did not seem to notice. His dark endless gaze was on the child in his grasp. This time, the words came - the words they had heard so many times in his office. They were whispered now - soft and calm and soothing.
It was gentle. He felt the tug in his toes first, then his snout, and finally his tail. Suddenly they weren't in the meadow anymore, but in a room, dressed in greens and silvers and quiet tones of other colors.
-How interesting,- the Mind Reader commented, to him, when he had thought the comment ought to be about how he was in a mind within a mind, or that Dubhán was there in the bed in front of them, a little boy again. He stared up at the man, confused. -How interesting that you are here as well.-
He was always here - inside the boys head - and so he wasn't so sure what was so interesting. Unlike the boy, he did not feel an incessant need to ask 'why?', and let the Mind Reader hold onto his mystery.
-Just do what has to be done,- he said, trying to urge the Mind Reader onward.
The Mind Reader quirked his brow.
-Is that something the boy says to himself? When?-
He felt the growl growing in his belly again and it came as a great guttural sound from his throat.
-I answered your questions. You made a deal.-
If the Mind Reader had been the tiniest bit of afraid of him outside as the boy, or when he had first seen him in the meadow, he showed none of that fear now. He swooped down, his pointy nose near his snout.
-I am upholding my end of our deal. Withholding information from me will not benefit you. Why was the boy saying those words? Is it something he says often? Why?-
It was with a urgency that he replied - fast and as succinct as he could so that they could move on.
-It means different things,- he said, growling. -When he is out there and he says it he is trying to be stronger. When he is in here and says it, he is giving me control. But he's stuck. Can't you see he's afraid? I've already done what has to be done and he should know but he doesn't.-
-Do relax,- the Mind Reader said, dismissively. -He is only a child. A nine year old boy. There are some out there that have nightmares and still wet the bed. He's not thinking coherently.-
He strode toward the bed.
-He always thinks,- he said, earnestly. -He has nightmares and he wakes screaming, but he always thinks especially when he is in danger.-
The Mind Reader made a show of turning in the room, soft and quiet with Dubhán sleeping under the drowse of potions, if the vials in the bedside table were any indication. He looked small and sickly.
-What danger?-
It was almost as if the word stirred him into waking, because suddenly Dubhán was upright in the bed, eyes open. A healer came into view, almost as if he had appeared from nowhere, and began to fuss over him, trying to soothe the boy back into bed, urging him that he was not strong enough. Suddenly the sharpness remembered.
-The danger is behind the door,- the sharpness said, as it opened to reveal Voldemort. He remembered; this was the first tangle. The first web. The first knot. The beginning.
His wand was already drawn. His strides purposeful. His smile cruel. This was the monster of their nightmares. The uncaring, uninterested Lord Voldemort. "Were you dreaming of me?"
OoOoOoOoO
He did not say anything. Words were unnecessary. He lifted his arm, lifted his wand, and whispered the words. Just a moment, just enough; to make him realize that Lord Voldemort did not soften his blow for admitting to failure like a small child come to apologize for his misbehavior. Really, he should know better, but after all these years, Voldemort is unsurprised by the idiocy of others.
Even as a student, he can remember his mind working like a windstorm inside his head, showing him all the possible responses that his actions or words might in turn create. At first it had baffled him that others were not the same - that they said and did foolish things even after they should have known better - but then he had realized that he was different.
"You have failed," he said first, when he released the curse. He was on the floor, skin flush with pain, gasping for air even as his body fought against itself.
"My Lord-" he begged, attempting to get up. Voldemort swished his wand, and the man was back on the floor.
"You were so very certain this would work," he said softly, stepping close. His words were whispers, soft and sweet and calming. The footsteps that led him to the body were light and delicate. How much better he had gotten at this since his childhood. "Instead, you have made it more difficult to retrieve him. These were foolish mind games, best suited for a foolish person. The boy is not foolish. This was a game that caught you Potter, not the child."
He swept his wand upward and Malfoy rose into the air, lifted by his neck.
"What is worse - you have put the boy in the unfortunate position of possibly betraying me. You will clean up this mess. Figure out what the boy has told them."
He turned on his heel and Malfoy's body slammed against the packed dirt floor.