Luna waved at him from across the common room before skipping away, back to Ravenclaw tower for the evening.
Harry smiled.
He sat in his armchair in the alcove, waiting. He knew that Daphne didn't want Luna to scare Tracy away, and was waiting to drag her over. Daphne knew that he knew of her plan. She was happy that he cared enough to know her thoughts, and would have opened her mind to him if he asked. Paradoxically and subsequently, he did not ask. He simply knew.
They were all his, regardless.
And his collection would expand again. It was the least he could do for his faithful Blade.
"My Lord, I have a present for you, if you have a moment." Daphne's smile matched his as she approached with Tracy in tow.
Harry almost laughed aloud at the brunette's expression. Her face was caught in a convoluted combination of terror, apprehension, incredulity, and indignant anger at Daphne's introduction. All the conflicting emotions bouncing around in her mind were delicious.
Harry's voice was smooth with just a hint of amusement as he bored into Tracy's eyes.
"Good evening, Miss Davis. I promise that I won't hold Daphne's proclivities against you."
Daphne made a show of being terribly insulted, although her eyes glittered and her smile never wavered.
"Please have a seat," Harry said. "Daphne tells me that you wish to join our merry gang of miscreants and scoundrels."
Tracy looked decidedly off balance. Harry knew that she expected a far more sinister introduction.
Fear was a poison; a little was enticing, a fine wine. A larger portion was dangerous, causing damage and pain as it flowed. And too much… Death.
All useful in the right situations. All sweet music to his soul.
But Tracy Davis would benefit from a lighter touch, at first. He didn't want to scare her too much, not until it was too late to run. Not yet.
His Blade would be sad.
Tracy sat in the armchair across from him and Daphne briefly ran a hand over her arm, giving an encouraging smile before wandering over to an open couch on the other side of the alcove.
Turning and taking a steadying breath, Tracy met his eyes.
"I do. I miss Daphne, and well… she told me, about her father. I don't… My situation is not as uncomfortable as hers was, but there are similar expectations. Pureblood families aren't exactly big on autonomy for heiresses."
Harry considered her carefully.
"And you wish to be free of these… expectations?" He asked, his mismatched eyes never leaving hers.
"I… I just want to be able to choose for myself. My parents aren't awful but… I hate the games that they play. That everyone plays. The politics and the galas and the networking. It's all just… insufferable, honestly," she said with a wry smile. "And I don't want to lose Daphne. Whatever you have going on, it doesn't seem like a 'casual acquaintance' kind of deal. More of a 'trade in your soul' sort of thing. So… if I want to keep up with her… fortune favors the bold?"
It was ironic, that the nervous, rising pitch of her voice turned the last bit of her monologue into an uncertain question.
Harry leaned forward and let the world around them fall away until they sat together in a wide sea of dark.
"You are correct that there is nothing casual about my chains, Tracy Davis. I am the silence that falls when the screams fade, and my Circle is a lovely symphony that lights up the night. You have great potential, far more than you give yourself credit for."
Tracy fidgeted as she peered into the surrounding dark.
"I am happy that you want to remain close with Daphne," Harry continued. "Daphne is exquisite, and deserves to be appreciated. However, I need you to steel yourself and look within. What you told me may technically be true, but you know that you have not truly given in to your desire."
Tracy's eyes widened as they stood in a grand ballroom, surrounded by glittering, finely dressed pureblood lords and ladies.
"Daphne wished for freedom from her father's cruelty, and the bleak future it foretold. But you… you don't just wish for freedom, do you? Your parents would probably allow you to pursue your dreams without duress, if you asked."
They wandered between the oblivious party guests.
"I don't… I'm not sure…"
Harry grabbed one of the pureblood lords by his greased-back hair and wrenched the man to his knees, darkness spilling out around them as the screaming began.
Crimson eyes opened in the dark.
Tracy's face paled and she stared at him in horrified fascination, even as something awoke behind her gaze.
Harry's voice reverberated within the dream, echoing in the screams as the imaginary party fell into chaos.
"I require honesty, both with me and with yourself. What do you want, Tracy Davis?"
The words burrowed deep into her soul and refused to allow her to lie.
"I want them to kneel," she whispered, the words slicing her even as they escaped her throat. Harry knew that she considered herself a good person, that dragging her desires from her would shatter the delusion she held onto even as she privately justified what she truly wanted.
"Give me more." He hissed into the dark, throwing the man down at her feet and stomping on his knee with a sickening snap.
"I want them to suffer," Tracy said, the words gaining strength as her own dark began to leak into the dream, the guests' shrieking reaching new heights as it began to consume them.
"They're PATHETIC, the lot of them!" She continued. "Scheming and talking, nothing but double meanings and double crossing and constant, constant games. Just words words words, all for NOTHING!" She screamed and brought her foot down on the man's head, his skull shattering with a beautiful crunch before his body dissolved into the dark.
Her wild eyes met his and he smiled.
"I want them to see," she growled. "I need them to know how pointless it all is. I want them to lick my boots and thank me for the privilege. I want to burn their stupid, infuriating facade to the ground and dance on the ashes!"
Harry's smile widened and emerald chains circled in the dark.
"Then join me, not just as Daphne's friend, but a dark power in your own right. Become morethan you have allowed yourself to be. Break the shackles of your propriety and together, we will burn the status quo until the so-called Lords beg for our pity."
Tracy gasped for breath through gritted teeth as she fell into his mismatched eyes. For a long moment all was still, her breathing slowly calming until a matching smile began to spread across her pretty face.
Harry held out his hand.
"Fortune favors the bold," he said with a mock serious tone.
She clasped his hand tightly, and her smile gained a positively feral edge as the chains sunk into her soul.
His Blade would be pleased, Harry thought.
…
"What did you do to Marietta?"
The stone wall was cool and soft against her back. Luna paused mid-skip across the field of golden flowers.
Oh. The wall wasn't soft. Right. She knew that.
Why was she against the wall?
Why why…
"...I know it must have been you, or those freaky Slytherins…"
It was talking. What was talking?
Hmmmm. Something was holding the front of her robes.
She giggled as she tripped and fell through the yellow petals into the ivory clouds below. The light blue sound echoed out and rippled the water of the stone.
Oh right. Noise.
She knew the Thing pinning her against the wall.
"Cho! It's so lovely to see you this morning."
It was late, just before curfew. Luna had been walking back to Ravenclaw tower when It cornered her.
"Just tell me where Marietta is, you freak! I know you did something to her. She went to find your stuff and never came back!" Cho's voice broke. She sounded scared, under her fury.
Maybe she should actually pay attention. Luna climbed up the warm wooden stairs. Was it still climbing if the stairs were upside down? Was she still going up the stairs, if they were upside down, and she was going down when she climbed up?
Her head hit the stone again. It was still shrieking.
Much too loud. Someone might hear. Someone might notice.
"Shhhhhh…"
Its lips moved, but now no noise emerged.
Much better.
Luna stepped from one color to the next, the sounds and chimes ringing beautifully as she hopped across a violet stream.
So easy, to get lost.
She looked with her mismatched eyes and realized that Cho had her wand out and pointed at her.
Luna could do something about that. Would Harry like it? He didn't want her to disrupt his current symphony, he said so. No new music if It had family in the ministry. Need to braid that majestic beard for as long as possible before it was cut. But she was bored bored bored, and here was such a lovely melody just waiting to be composed. Practically throwing itself in her lap.
Harry would forgive her. He loved her, she thought. Her Mad Hatter. She was interesting, to him, a bright slash of color in his empty world.
He might even be irritated with her. Would he write a little, tiny, concerto, of her, just for her?
Fun fun fun.
He was so pretty.
Blue eyes opened in the walls and Cho screamed as the world went white.
…
Cho Chang scrambled backwards as she looked around wildly.
One moment, she had been trying to get a straight answer out of Looney, and the next…
She looked around the endless field of golden flowers.
Something was deeply, terribly wrong. She was right, Looney was up to something. She had done something to Marietta. Cho knew that she should have gone to a teacher, but she didn't know how to explain, didn't want to admit that they were planning to steal Looney's stuff to mess with her.
It had taken her longer than it should have to summon the nerve to confront the strange girl. She kept putting it off, it was never the right time…
But Looney was just a first-year. What could she even do? She barely knew any spells and Cho was near the top of her year. The freak couldn't actually hurt her.
Cho wasn't so sure about that, now.
She tried to stand but her legs seemed to sink into the ground. She couldn't even see what was under the thick blanket of yellow petals.
The sky was an odd, bone white. Something was very wrong.
"Cho?"
A high voice called to her.
She looked around but didn't see anyone.
"Where are you, Cho?"
The sound echoed strangely.
Cho looked closer at one of the flowers, reaching towards it.
The petals suddenly opened to reveal a piercing blue eye at the center of the flower, the petals wreathing it on all sides like cursed golden eyelashes.
Cho screamed.
More and more flowers turned and opened, a sea of eyes and yellow petals all staring at her, unblinking and terrifying.
She tried to crawl away but she just sank deeper.
A high, giggling laugh echoed and rippled through the flowers.
The eyes began to cry. Black tears welled around them and fell in thick streams, hissing and rotting the golden petals wherever the cursed, opaque waters dripped.
Even as she struggled to pull away, the tar-like tears reached her and burned against her skin, the flesh smoking and shriveling as it peeled from her bones. The acid delved into her, through her, as the tears dissolved her skin and more, going deeper while she screamed and screamed.
The eyes just stared.
"There you are! I thought I lost you, for a second."
Cho shrieked in terror and agony as she drowned in the river of black bile. The tar flowed into her mouth and she could feel it eating her from the inside. There was a sudden crack in the world around her and she felt a horrifying kind of reliefas her mind broke and started to slip away.
"So easy, to get lost in here."
…
Harry stared at the empty husk on the floor of the Chamber.
"You know, Luna, that toys are generally more fun to play with before they're broken."
Daphne nudged Cho's still-breathing body with her toe curiously.
His Alice just stared at him with her wide eyes and twirled idly in place.
"It's hardly my fault that she broke so easily. I barely got to savor it," Luna said in a faux-innocent tone.
Harry raised an eyebrow, even if he couldn't quite keep the smirk off of his face.
"I also recall saying that I didn't want the ministry to interrupt the petrifications."
"Did you? That doesn't sound like you at all."
Harry paused. It actually didn't. He normally reveled in the chaos. Maybe Tom's more Machiavellian tendencies were leaking through.
Interesting.
"We could always petrify her and just see what happens," Draco suggested.
Hmmmm. No no no that would end the game early. Harry wanted good old Al to dig his own grave a bit deeper before the trap closed.
Harry knelt down by Cho's head and poked at her soul. She stared up at him with sightless eyes.
It was definitely interesting. She was gone, in every important way. Empty. Her body lived, her brain was still functioning just fine, but everything that made her her was gone. No identity. No ego barrier. Just an empty husk.
Harry stared into her empty eyes and fell into her broken mind.
There was no resistance. Her memories were on display, no consciousness to guide or defend against him. He was alone in her mind, a well decorated but very empty house despite the lights still technically being on.
A functioning vehicle with no driver.
Well isn't that interesting.
Harry had never considered utilizing the infinite eyes in such a way. Voldemort would never have been able to.
But Harry was more than just his own empty mind. He was the eyes and they were him. He contained multitudes, infinite iterations of self in an endless sea of eyes. So many shards of glass overlapping and deepening his insight.
He created false minds all the time. He did so unconsciously at this point, occlumency and legilimency combining within his Looking Glass without requiring focused maintenance.
Was this really so different?
Harry allowed himself to flood into Cho's empty mind, filling every corner of her soul with his darkness as the possession snapped easily into place. There was no one here to fight him for control, after all.
Harry rose, even as his infinite eyes expanded and he felt himself become more than he was.
Tracy let out a startled squeak as Cho suddenly arched and stood fluidly.
Daphne just laughed as she noticed the girl's crimson eyes, a very familiar smile splitting Cho's face.
Harry looked at himself out of two sets of eyes and spoke from both mouths in unison.
"Oh, this is fun."
…