CHAPTER 63: The Devil's Greatest Trick (Part 2)

Grimmauld Place

January 17th, 1996

10:00 a.m.

As Harry sat in front of her, looking like a recently imprisoned animal trying to find the tiniest flaw in his newfound cage, the silence in the room was nearly tangible. Like a wall that had shot up between them and muffled any sound that came from the other side. She could hear more of the faded voices from downstairs than anything from within the room.

It had taken longer than she would have wanted to finally get him to agree to see her like this, though not for lack of trying. Harry had proven himself to be a stoic boy, shielding himself within a suit of armour. And not just from her, but from Moody and Dumbledore as well. Curt and distant, he wasn't the savage beast Lupin and Black had painted him as with how they spoke about him, and it soon became clear the challenge wouldn't be to make him listen, but to make him talk.

Her first attempts at conversation had all resulted with short replies and expressions that weren't outright glares, but were devoid of any attempt to look pleasant or interested in what she had to say. A trend that continued until she broached the subject of therapy, that was when he finally allowed the slightest hint of emotion as he scoffed.

"No," his look of abject disgust had made Moody bark with laughter. "I'm not mad."

Even after she had managed to convince Dumbledore to try and convince the boy to agree to at least a session, he remained firm in his decision, leaving the room without a word any time someone tried broaching the subject with him. Andromeda knew she was pushing, and with therapy, at least from what she managed to understand about it, it wasn't an instant magical cure or something that could be forced upon someone else. It was a long process, and for it to properly work, the person had to be open to the entire process.

And Harry Potter was as closed to it as a person could be.

But seeing the boy every day, living in the same house with him, eating the same food and breathing the same air, it was hard for her not to analyse him. And the more she did that, the more worried she got. Harry wasn't the first abused boy she'd met, they were a recurring aspect of her life.

Even before he reached Hogwarts, Orion and Walburga's displeasure towards their oldest boy was more than evident, something that got a hundred times worse after he was sorted into Gryffindor and began befriending the blood-traitors and Mudbloods in the house. And while she was there for her cousin in his earlier years, that all stopped once she was banished from the family for marrying Ted. But Sirius wasn't the last of them, her profession as a mediwitch had led to her meeting more than a few victims of abuse. Enough for her to start noticing the signs.

And yet, she'd never seen a case quite as serious as Harry's. It was everywhere. In how he flinched at any sudden movement from the other room. How he seemed to be aware of everything and everyone in a room, always placing himself near the exits as his eyes constantly roamed from person to person. His insistence on withdrawing from any social interaction unless it was fully necessary, even from Ginny and Molly, two people who he seemed to like more than everyone else. The haunted quality of his eyes and the look of anger his face could not get rid of.

With so many signs of his abuse, the scar on his back was the least noticeable of them. But worse than the signs was what they could mean for him. Dumbledore had refused to give her any actual information about what he'd learnt about Harry on account of his privacy - and while slightly infuriating, it was probably the right call given how she doubted the boy would be happy about learning that all the secrets he worked so hard to protect were being gossiped about by the people who imprisoned him - but the scar was enough for her to get an idea as to the brutality he must have faced in his life.

A person like that, one who'd gone through unimaginable trauma and been left to deal with it alone, could not possibly be expected to live a long life, much less a happy one, if they weren't helped in processing the myriad of issues left in the wake of the abuse. They wouldn't be able to trust anyone, maintain relationships, even have the slightest bit of empathy towards others. It was a wonder he was still alive, that he hadn't resorted to self-harm or suicidal attempts. Just surviving: alone, tormented by the trauma of his past and unable to even picture a life with happiness wasn't living.

It wasn't something anyone deserved.

"It's been a little over a week since you've woken up," she said, knowing the conversation wouldn't start unless she spoke first. "How have you found Grimmauld since then?"

"Oh, just dandy," his smile was wide, sardonic. Sarcasm was always a common coping mechanism. A different layer of his armour, but while getting some responses out of him, this was not how she was hoping for the conversation to go.

"You seem to be making friends."

"Am I?"

"Ginny speaks very highly of you."

"She should," he deadpanned. "I saved her life."

"That's not what she mentions when she talks about you."

"Then it must be my charmingly jolly personality."

The silence stretched, and Andromeda sighed. Continuing with the small talk approach would only lead to Harry using her as a practice dummy to keep his quick wit sharp. But she couldn't just ask about the scar or anything rather serious so callously and abruptly. Therapy was a process.

"What have you heard about therapy?" She asked and Harry shrugged. "You seemed very against the idea when I first breached the topic. Even now, you're hesitant about it. Why is that?"

"What's not to love about it? You sit down, spill all your secrets to a stranger, throw a little tantrum, whine about how shit life is, and you get a look of pity, a pat on the back for it all."

"That's not what therapy is."

"Then please," it was easy to notice how hard he was trying to hold back with his anger. "Enlighten me."

"Therapy is a process to better yourself. Just as the body requires medicine to heal after being damaged or suffering an ailment, the mind needs therapy to treat the lingering harm that's being done to it. It's the first step to a healthy, happy-"

"I'm not damaged."

"I never said you were."

"Yes, you did," he straightened in his seat, his face darkening. "That's why you've been pushing for this."

"The reason I suggested therapy was because of everything that's happened to you in the past month." She said calmly. "You were locked up in a cell, tortured by the man who's supposed to be your Head of House, sent to the brink of death. No one expects you to be fine after all of that."

"Well I am." He clapped his hands together, plastering a large smile on his face, before he jumped up out of his seat. "So no need to worry or nag about more therapy sessions. I'm cured. I'm fine. I'm rather peachy."

He walked across the room and right as he reached the door, Andromeda called out to him. "Harry, what's happened to you… it's not something any one person can bear on their own. There's no shame in letting people help you. And even if it isn't with me, you really need to open up to someone. Talk to them. You don't have to be alone anymore."

"I wish that changed things, Andromeda." He said, opening the door of the room. "I really do."

Grimmauld Place

January 18th, 1996

2:00 p.m.

"Here you go," Alastor grunted, the books crashing loudly against Potter's desk, though the boy wasn't even fazed by the interruption.

With the Dark Lord's large move on Azkaban, and the Ministry's insistence on avoiding the situation and remaining stubborn that it was Sirius Black behind this attack rather than accepting it as concrete proof of the Dark Lord's return, Alastor was beginning to grow anxious staying within the confines of Grimmauld Place. Albus remained steady in his insistence that the situation was being handled and that there was nothing that could be done about it at the moment. And though Alastor trusted his old friend's judgment, it didn't make it any less frustrating.

For the past seven months, he'd stayed at Grimmauld most of the time, keeping his skills sharp, researching whatever Dumbledore asked of him, and generally making himself ready for anything that might happen. People mocked him for his paranoia (Constant Vigilance!), called him a weathered old man who was halfway into dementia, but he didn't care. If they'd seen half the shit he'd seen, they'd be so much more than paranoid. For once, you stared into the abyss, saw all the cracks people missed in their ignorant bliss, there was no going back. No more putting back those rose-tinted glasses everyone else had permanently nailed to their temples.

Fucking ignorant cunts.

But even through all that, he hadn't actually stayed inside Grimmauld to sleep. He had his own place; a small, dingy flat, worn down by the years and a lack of maintenance. He rarely spent time there, he saw no use for it other than to have a roof to sleep under. A safe-house in case everything went to shit. It was strong, fortified, and when the Death Eater bastard had managed to get past all his defences and outwit him in a duel right before he was supposed to go to Hogwarts, he had taken two full months to triple the security on the place. Shy of the Fidelius charm, it was nearly as warded as the Minister's own house.

That was something that had changed ever since that night he found Snape torturing the boy in the cellar. While not his post or duty, a sense of responsibility for the comings and goings within Grimmauld had begun to settle on him after Sirius, Remus, and the Tonks girl decided to beat up Potter and toss him down into the basement. He'd fed the boy even as he'd spat on his shoes and throw the food on the floor, and he'd taken it in his stride. And while the Azkaban siege had been the clear priority that night, the attack on Potter was still on him.

He'd moved into the house that very night, only grabbing a couple of changes of clothes from his flat and settling himself in one of the upstairs rooms. And unlike with Potter, he was more than happy to let the greasy fucker starve. He even had to resist the temptation of going back down every day and beating the living shit out of him over and over again. His discipline saved Snape's life much more than the inherent value he brought onto the Order.

And when Albus had let him out of his cell and sent him to Azkaban, he'd almost wanted to tear Albus' head straight off. "It was Harry's choice," he told him, and at that moment he didn't know whether he wanted to growl at the stupidity of that sentence or bark a laugh at its absurdity. But it turned out to be true, and that was just one of Potter's most recent suspicious behaviours ever since he woke up from his near-death experience.

He was still the same boy he'd met in that cell all those times he went down there, but the impact the coma had had on him was clear. He was smarter, or at least had learnt not to run his mouth anymore. And though there was a hint of irritation and displeasure from him, it wasn't outright homicidal like it had been before. He'd finally started following his advice, he'd begun to swallow his pride and cooperate, just like he had told him he should do. And though he was sure Potter wanted more than to just stay out of his cell, and his paranoia would never allow him to feel at ease at this change of character, it wasn't something extraordinarily alarming.

Either way, as far as he was concerned, this was a good change. If he kept this up, he might just avoid getting thrown in more cells.

"Thanks," Potter mumbled without looking up from the book. The Unknown Intricacies of Wandlore. It had been barely two days since he'd given it to him, and the little bastard had already finished it. He couldn't blame the kid for his sudden interest in wandlore, after Sirius snapped his wand it was only natural for him to look for alternatives or ways in which he could fix it. Alastor knew too well he would find nothing, and though he'd repeated that to Potter many times, he'd just been brushed off.

"Don't say it," Potter said, as if reading his mind. "Don't you fucking say it."

"It's a futile search, boy," Alastor growled. "Don't expect me to praise you for wanting to waste your time over a lost cause."

Potter finally looked up to glare at him. "It's only a waste of time if it leads to nowhere. Which it won't."

"When a wand is snapped-"

"The core fucking breaks, and it can never be fixed again, I know. I told you not to fucking say it."

Alastor met his eyes, the determination behind them was clear and fierce. He would not stop the boy, and though their relationship was not one of warm words and hugs, continuing down this conversation would only lead Potter to silently fume for a couple of hours before speaking again.

"Suit yourself, kid."

"I mean," he said after a couple of moments, clearly wanting the conversation to continue. "It's just so fucking stupid. A wand for life and what… if you lose it or break it, then you're just fucked?"

"It's how Magic works, Potter. Even someone with as much of a God complex as yourself should surely be able to understand that you can't just bend Magic to your will on a whim."

Potter looked like he wanted to disagree, but his eyes slowly got drawn to Alastor's hands. "How does your staff work?"

He slammed it against the ground a couple of times. "This old thing?"

"The Fake Moody, he told me about it. He mostly used your wand - or his wand, I suppose - but he talked to me about his staff - your staff - in private."

"What did he say?" Alastor growled, feeling his voice hardening at the mention of the Death Eater bastard.

"He just gushed about the staff, mostly. Saying how much easier it was to use in an actual duel once you mastered it. He never showed it to me, said he didn't even bring it to Hogwarts. If I'm going to be teaching students, I'm not going to be doing so with a staff. I assumed he used your wand."

"My staff is my wand," Alastor said, standing up as he began pacing about. "Staffs, especially for those who have bonded with a wand, are bloody expensive. I only got one once I retired from the Corps and decided to learn how to use it since I would have had much more spare time than I could handle."

"What do you mean your staff is your wand?"

"I went to Gregorovitch, old bastard I knew from back in the Grindelwald days, and he did the whole process. He extracted the core from my wand - a rather precise and mightily complicated art - and using the exact wood of the wand, making more of it through another complex ritual, he had everything he needed."

"The same wood and the same core. It's still your wand in every way that counts, only it's-"

"In a different casing, aye." Alastor nodded. "Six months it took him to make, four years it took me to master using it in a duel. But no one ever knew about the staff until Albus pulled me out of that bastard's trunk and I showed it to him."

"But if I still have the pieces of my wand-"

"The core was snapped, boy," Alastor snapped. "Wasn't extracted, snapped. It's useless now. The wood's worth something, sure, but the core is the most important part. The wood ensures the compatibility is at its maximum, but the wand's core is what your magic is bound to."

"So it's a dead end."

"No," Alastor said, taking no pleasure in his words. "It means you're fucked. There's no fixing this. Plain and simple."

Grimmauld Place

January 16th, 1996

3:45 p.m

Speaking with Harry Potter had never been an easy task, not that she had actually pursued it much before he began staying at Grimmauld with them. He had always just been this rude arsehole that no one wanted to even get near. Just with a simple glare, he could stop anyone from even coming into the same classroom as him, and given what he'd proved to the school he was capable of, she didn't blame everyone for being afraid of him. Even back then.

As a Gryffindor, and a whole year below him, she'd never actually seen him more than just on the few occasions they'd bumped into each other in the hallways. But there had been one time when she had actively tried to reach out to him. Even with her family's animosity towards Slytherins, and how excessive his pranks against the twins had been back in her first year, she had tried talking to him because he was the only one who could have understood her.

For all the work Madam Pomfrey did with her, the weekly sessions and monthly medical check-ups, there was always something off about it. In a way, she knew, even back then, that it was all just talk. For as much as Madam Pomfrey would want to, she would never actually understand what it was like to be under the control of the diary. To feel Tom lurking in the dark corners of her mind, to still hear his voice and see his figure on one of the gloomier days of the year. It was something that, no matter how much everyone had tried to help her, no one would actually be able to.

It had been during her second year when she finally mustered the courage to seek him out. The cold of January and the despairing effect of the dementors around the castle had brought her to the library, where he used to hole himself up. Hunched over, pale and skinny, the mere notion of approaching his workspace made her gulp. But she was a Gryffindor, and more importantly, a Weasley. She would not let herself be cowed by something as trivial as a thirteen-year-old boy. Not when she had had to deal with Tom only last year.

At first, he tried to ignore her. Even as she sat down in front of him, he acted as if she wasn't there. She had cleared her throat various times to get his attention, even tried raising her voice to speak, but he would either shut the book too loudly and interrupt her or act as if she hadn't said anything. It was only when she physically grabbed the book he had laid on the table and tried to yank it away that he finally responded, clutching her wrist in his grip and turning to glare at her.

"What?" He spat, and for a moment, her conviction wavered.

"I wanna talk to you." She whispered.

"Okay. There. I talked. Now get the fuck out of my space."

"It's about the diary-"

His eyes grew and her mouth immediately closed. "Are you fucking retarded?" He hissed at her.

"I only meant-"

"I couldn't give three of Buckbeak's shits about what you meant. Why the fuck would I want to talk about the fucking diary? With you of all people."

"Don't… don't you still hear him? See him?" Her voice was small, weak, and she hated every bit of it.

"We're not talking about the diary," he gritted out. "Get the fuck out of here, or I'll make Tom look like a playful amateur."

That had been the last time she had spoken to him before she had joined the DA. Before the attack at the Three Broomsticks and now having him as a roommate at Grimmauld Place. He was quiet, serious, often asking random questions about how portraits worked and their connection to the people who they were before they died. Every day, it was just more questions about portraits, and she couldn't help but wonder if he considered them to be like the diary. To be able to possess a part of someone else's soul and be capable of doing unspeakable things like what they'd seen.

"They're not like the diary, you know," she couldn't help but say one afternoon as the two of them looked at the empty frame near the entrance of Grimmauld Place. "Portraits aren't dark magic, they don't really have a part of someone's soul in them. Just an imprint of them, of who they used to be when the portrait was made."

"But what does that mean? Imprint?" He said, his voice weirdly anxious. "I mean, what type of magic is really behind it all? We've seen they're conscious, Hogwarts uses certain portraits as guards for each of the House dormitories. What could they control if provided the opportunity?"

"I mean, I don't really know. I've never thought about it much," she shrugged. "But it's not Dark magic, like I said. I doubt they would be able to actually control someone. They… they can't hamper free will. Not like Tom could."

Harry stayed silent, his hands absently tracing the edges of the frame as his eyes went cold once again. She had mentioned the diary, and he hadn't entirely exploded like he had back at the library a couple of years ago. This was as good a sign as any. Besides, after talking to him a few times over the past week, it had gotten much easier to not be afraid around him.

"Do you… do you still see him sometimes? Feel him… inside? Especially now with… with him actually back."

Harry stopped, his hands clutching at the portrait as he did his best to avoid looking back at her. He took a few deep breaths, maybe to calm himself? Either way, it was a welcome move. She would much rather not cause a scene, especially with her idiotic brothers upstairs just waiting for the chance to jump on Harry.

"Yes," he finally said. "All the time."

"Has it… you know… gotten better over time?"

"The more you think about him, try to convince yourself you're overcoming him, the more power you give him." He turned towards her, his face weirdly without a look of discontent. "The best thing you could do is forget him. Stop allowing him to control you."

It seemed so simple, even with the cool tone with which he said it. It almost made her believe it was possible, that she could just… stop thinking. But his laugh would always echo in her mind, he'd built himself a room deep inside her. One she could not kick him out from.

"I don't think I can."

"Then you'll forever be his slave."

That's it for this chapter, thank you all for reading!

Next chapter Harry and Rufus meet again, and we get more background on the events of the First War. Be excited!

By the time I'm posting this, I'm TEN chapters ahead, and nearing the end of the following arc titled Irreconcilable Differences. In which the Winter Break is over and the return to Hogwarts brings a lot of tensions begin to boil over. If you are interested in learning how to get early access to them, join my discord server using the following link: discord . gg / jyPfbGqhJT

As always, thank you for reading, favouriting, and commenting! I appreciate all of you! :)