(TW: Dark themes here, human trafficking and the insinuation of sexual abuse.)
Control, Halsey
They sent me away to find them a fortune
A chest filled with diamonds and gold
The house was awake, with shadows and monsters
The hallways, they echoed and groaned
I sat alone, in bed 'til the morning
I'm crying, "They're coming for me"
And I tried to hold these secrets inside me
My mind's like a deadly disease
I'm bigger than my body
I'm colder than this home
I'm meaner than my demons
I'm bigger than these bones
And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me"
I can't help this awful energy
Goddamn right, you should be scared of me
Who is in control?
I paced around for hours on empty
I jumped at the slightest of sounds
And I couldn't stand the person inside me
I turned all the mirrors around
First thing Saturday morning, Ginny was waiting outside his room. He prepared himself mentally, jammed on his clothes—opting for the Nurmengard set, probably his favourite if he were forced to choose—before he opened the doors. She swept past him and sat down while he put his glasses on.
"When they get back from Hogsmeade, you're going to talk to them," she said.
"Who?"
"Avalon and Eris."
He must have made a face because she scoffed at him.
"You're going to work this out. I refuse for it to go on like this. I'm furious at both of you."
"You do not understand," Tom said, while Harry shifted awkwardly.
"Oh, I understand plenty, Tom Riddle. You're both keeping secrets as usual, and Eris got it in his head to work a few out." She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.
Tom smirked and sat down smoothly, "Well, Ginevra Weasley, what do you envision will happen at this meeting you have organised?"
"You'll apologise. So will he."
Harry laughed, "And he's agreed to this?"
"Believe it or not, Avalon and I spent most of last night convincing him that he was an idiot."
"You're right I don't really believe you convinced him."
"You need to talk to him. You're not screwing this up. None of you are. Get over yourselves, please, I've-" she interrupted herself to swipe at a tear angrily.
Harry sighed and sat back in his seat; his annoyance steadily deflated by her discomfort. "Fine. I'll talk to him."
Tom added, "I will not apologise."
"I assumed," she half smiled and rolled her eyes before she was stern again. "I've seen Hermione… I haven't spoken to her—they won't let anyone close—you haven't really said anything? About what's going to happen?"
He hadn't because he didn't want to, but he readied himself to tell her anyway. "The chains that they used to hold my magic; he's re-creating them. Then he'll…" He gestured vaguely, hoping he'd said enough for her to work it out.
"He's going to turn them into Squibs? For how long?"
Harry shrugged with his eyebrows.
"That's barbaric," she said.
"Hermione used second-year students to throw the Dark Lord's Horcrux a Portkey," Tom said. He didn't say that he would have preferred to murder them.
"And Charlie?"
"I don't know. But Cassiopeia thinks that none of his hostages are dead," Harry said.
"She thinks? She doesn't know?"
"Apparently not. She wants me to ask you if you'd meet with Percy. She said she'd supervise it if you agreed. He's been sending a lot of letters, I think. Do you… Want your letters?"
She bared her teeth and winced. "Are they horrible?"
"I haven't seen them, but…"
She ignored his tone and his question: "I don't know what Percy wants. If I did see him, would you come with me?"
"Yes," Tom said before Harry could voice any objections.
She grimaced but nodded. He assumed she knew who agreed.
They headed to breakfast after she'd forced him into several meetings he didn't particularly want. The halls were fuller than usual for a Hogsmeade day. Most of the Slytherins were absent, but a good portion of the student body hadn't been cleared to visit the village.
Hermione, Seamus, and Lavender were at the Gryffindor table, surrounded by more Death Eaters than he was. All three stared at Harry and Ginny as they entered. Ginny averted her eyes, but Tom held Hermione's gaze, his face carefully blank, though Harry could feel the hidden smirk.
They took to the nearly empty Slytherin table, and Reed quickly appeared, sitting next to Ginny.
"I'm not allowed to go, obviously," the Hufflepuff said, spreading jam on toast.
"Hi, Harry," Luna's voice made them turn in their seats. She took the space beside him, a pale Neville joining her. "People are saying that Hermione tried to kidnap you. Is that true?" She was conversational as usual.
"Er, she succeeded," Harry said.
Neville made a strange noise and tried to get back up, but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
"That's not very friendly of her? Why would she do that?" She seemed genuinely hurt, twisting in her seat to look at the subject of their conversation.
"Well, I don't think she and I are friends anymore, Luna."
"Do you feel up for a walk, Harry?" Luna asked, standing before he answered. Her hand still held Neville in his seat as he stared wide-eyed at the pastries.
He glanced at Ginny, and she shrugged one shoulder, lightly frowning at the blonde. He shuffled out of his seat and followed her, regrettably into the viaduct courtyard, which made him walk suspiciously fast over the stones towards the boathouse stairs, holding his breath. Luna didn't say anything about his odd behaviour. She was silent until they began descending the stairs and Harry had finally inhaled.
He managed to leave his guard at the top by cajoling and mildly threatening, convincing them that he wasn't going all the way down.
"Did you know that your auras connect when Voldemort is near you? I've never seen anything like that before," she said once they were out of earshot.
"…Luna," he was already flinching.
"Is that why you've joined him? It's funny; it's almost like there are bits of yours in his and bits of his in yours."
Harry stopped halfway to the lake.
"What does- what does his look like?" He didn't like that he'd whispered the question and cleared his throat.
"It's the Same size as yours, so it's bigger than everyone else's. It's dark, like yours was. There are streaks of light that seem to like you."
"You still haven't told anyone about this, right? Because if you did, I can't help you," Harry said.
"Don't be silly," she said, looking at the lake instead of him. It's getting cold. I like that he keeps the Thestrals in the Vivarium—it's much warmer."
"Luna… What do you think of him? Of Voldemort?"
She shrugged, and her eyes floated back to him, "He's done a lot of awful things. Now, he's doing things that make sense. Do you know why?"
Harry shrugged instead of answering.
"Me neither," she said.
"You were standing next to him. In the courtyard…"
"I wanted a look. I've never seen him that close before. Have you noticed how long his eyelashes are? I thought he didn't have hair."
Tom snorted.
"Probably don't mention that to anyone either," Harry said.
"Surely I'm not the only one who's noticed."
"You are not," Tom said.
'Shut up,' Harry thought, narrowing his eyes.
They returned to his entourage at the top of the stairs, then made towards the hall, Harry holding his breath until he was dizzy and had to grip the doors. Luna waited beside him as though it was perfectly normal to panic about a courtyard.
Neville was gone from the Slytherin table. Luna seemed unsurprised and waved him goodbye as she left the hall, presumably in search of her boyfriend.
He retook his seat beside Ginny and took a pastry.
"What did Luna want?" Ginny asked.
Reed leaned in to look at him, her mouth full of food.
"Uh, weird Luna things. You know." He flinched as he lied.
He could tell she didn't buy it and that she was at the end of her patience.
When he and Ginny left the hall, Reed followed.
"Would it be alright if we went someplace… Warded?" she asked as they walked through the entrance hall. Harry intended to use the grand staircase as an extremely convoluted way of avoiding the viaduct courtyard on his way back to his room, not wanting to look at it again.
An awkward silence followed as they went all the way down to the dungeons and back up through the transfiguration courtyard, then into the defence tower. The entire process took over twenty minutes.
"I haven't been here long, but isn't there a way to get to this tower through the courtyard outside the Great Hall?" Reed asked as she and Ginny panted in front of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.
"I needed the exercise," Harry shrugged, then paced; at the same time, Ginny said:
"Yeah. The viaduct. That's where- someone died there."
He shot her a look as she spoke, and she stopped.
Once they'd sat down inside his extremely beige room, brightly lit by an artificial sky, Reed cleared her throat.
"I feel like we got off on the wrong foot." Her Scottish accent suddenly thickened, and she cleared her throat again. "It seems important that we get along."
Harry didn't say anything. Tom was on guard, his defences up.
"To resist my magic like you did, you'd have to be an impressive Occlumencer. Legilimency, too?"
Tom nodded once.
"I've… Seen the insides of a lot of people's heads. Only a few have managed to hide from me. I've learned a lot about humans. No one is ever who you think they are; underneath, there's always-" She frowned through him, "Anyway. Not much shocks me anymore. I think-" Reed cut herself off again, clearly uncomfortable with his lack of engagement.
"What I mean is, I know who you are. And I know who the Dark Lord is. Everyone does. Gods, this would be so much easier if I could use my brain mouth." She looked at him like it was his fault, twisting her long braid in her hands.
He glanced at Ginny, and she seemed as bewildered as he felt.
"I don't normally do this. I've never done this, actually. Ruby and Pollux… They know, but I've never shown them. I feel like showing you my mind might be the only way for you to trust me going forward."
Tom leaned in immediately.
She raised her hand, "Whoa, word of warning, it's not… Pretty. I mean that. My father—you'll see." She looked at Ginny, then back at him, and Tom dove into her head.
She caught him with no effort and redirected him through a series of dark tunnels, speaking to him with her thoughts as she moved them through her mind.
'My father sells people. On the face of it, I suppose it's not unlike what the Snatchers do, kidnapping for pay.'
Harry and Tom tried to catch glimpses of the thoughts outside the tube they whizzed through, only catching glances. Her influence was too strong for them to resist; she funnelled them like water until they landed in a bright room.
A much younger Reed sat alone on a chair too tall for her legs, swinging them nervously as she stared at the faded red carpet. Each time someone outside the room spoke, breaking the silence, her head would snap up as though she'd heard an explosion before she returned her eyes to the floor.
Her head was shaved, roughly and recently done. She traced her hand over her head repeatedly, smearing patches of semi-dried blood.
The older version of Reed stood watching her younger self, looking between her and Harry with a blank face and tightly crossed arms.
'I understood what this was even then. I haven't told anyone that. I knew what I was doing. I was forced, but I could have…' Her mouth didn't move as she spoke, her voice materialising in his thoughts.
The door swung open without warning and startled the young Reed off her too-high chair. She didn't make a sound as she hit the ground, on her hands and knees momentarily, before she scrambled to her feet.
"Out. Hurry up." A man in a set of expensive suit robes and greying red hair glared her out of the room, grabbing her as she passed him. The older Reed gestured for him to follow, her eyes on the man he assumed was Ironwood.
He held her by the shoulder, dragging her down an empty hallway, past dozens of old wooden doors.
'He is a powerful Occlumencer, but that wasn't what he wanted. Not after he learned what I can do. Then my mother died. I don't know if he had a hand in it, but it was an opportunity, regardless.'
Ironwood had stopped outside one of the nondescript doors. "Like I told you." He pushed it open and shoved her in.
Harry's stomach dropped as he registered what he was looking at: over twenty girls, none of them older than him, tucked in the far side of the small room, dressed in rags and holding their shaking hands up in surrender.
'A business model. Nothing more than that to him. A way to make a horde of willing slaves for sick bastards with enough gold.'
One by one, the girls stood and curtsied, then giggled amongst themselves as though they were at a party.
Ironwood held Reed by the back of the neck while silent tears streamed down her cheeks.
Tom stepped in front of the man, inches from his face. He stared into his sharp blue eyes, though Ironwood was looking right through them.
Reed pulled them out of the memory and shot them through her mind into another one. They stopped in a backyard, attached to a small two-story cottage, close to the middle of nowhere as far as he could see, surrounded by trees.
Ruby, Reed, and Pollux stood on the lawn, Reed gripping her mouth, Ruby holding her forehead, gushing blood, and apologising repeatedly, while her brother searched the grass, intensely focused.
'My father brought me here because he'd lost my usual minder. Their grandmother sold him potions, no questions asked.'
Harry watched the three of them, somewhat clumsily and definitely illegally, replace Reed's teeth and heal Ruby's forehead while Reed explained what had happened.
"I made you head-butt me." She told the confused, probably fourteen-year-old. "When people touch my skin… I don't know. Whatever I think just happens."
"One time, I gave my brother a brain haemorrhage," Ruby nodded. "By accident. We fixed it, he's fine."
Pollux stared at Reed, and she frowned.
"He kept stealing Mum's book, so I just busted a vessel. He kept taking it anyway."
"Can I have your blood?" Pollux asked.
"Can I see in your head first?" Reed asked in return. He nodded, and after a few moments, she smiled and extended her hand, allowing Ruby to take her blood and give it to her brother.
'This was the only time I've ever seen one of Pollux's visions.' Reed pulled him deeper into it, showing him a brief glimpse of her memory of his mind—hiding as much of it as she could. Then she brought him to the vision, a deep red, stuttering image of her father, screaming soundlessly, bleeding from his eyes and convulsing, choking on blood.
They whipped back to the memory of the backyard. The younger Reed was sobbing, fighting to breathe on the lawn, while Ruby glared at Pollux—who was entirely uninterested.
'She let me see her mind. When I stopped crying. She has a terrible fear of missing out. I didn't see them often after this, but we immediately knew what we were to each other.'
She shot him through her head again, once more without warning, to land in the same backyard years later, this time near morning, the sky purple and deep orange with the rising sun.
"It was harder than I thought. I don't know how long it will hold. You're freaking me out, Ruby; please tell me this is worth it," Reed said, wringing her hands and looking back at the cottage.
"As long as Ironwood thinks he's in there talking to my Nan—who is actually a lamp we put a dress on, it's totally worth it. Come on, past the wards."
Pollux followed behind the pair, more focused on the present moment than Harry had ever seen him.
"Are you sure this is a good idea; I've told you how much trouble I'd be in-"
"I don't blame you for not knowing; it happened like hours ago, but don't check my head. I need this to be a surprise, just trust. Trust me." Ruby pulled Reed's arms above her hands, and Pollux gently shoved her along until she was outside the wards, facing the house as though she expected her father any second.
"We're here! Hello?" Ruby called, startling Reed into running, stopped easily by Pollux.
A man cleared his throat—almost a wheeze—within the trees and stepped out, freezing all three of them.
"…Uncle Talpin?" Reed pulled away from Pollux and nearly grabbed her uncle, hesitating as she gave him a once-over.
He looked fresh out of Azkaban, his clothes ragged and threadbare, his face and body gaunt, sweat pooling on his brow.
"…How did you find me? How did you do this?" She was unsteady on her feet, and he caught her, avoiding her hands. She laughed and cried at once, squawking disbelievingly as she turned to Ruby. "Your mum?"
"She's out too," she grinned.
"The rest is for later. Do you two have a way out? You can never come back here." Talpin looked at the twins.
"A Portkey." Ruby held a fabric sack, pulled out of her pocket. "To Skulmadras."
He nodded and took Reed's arm, Disapparating and ending the memory.
Reed took him away from the tunnels in her head, zooming right out so he could see them all, thousands of interlinking tubes humming with her thoughts. He saw her magical core—not as much of a core, more of a glow that lit the entirety of the robust threads in her mind-scape.
Tom's attention was drawn to the neatly arranged section that held the memories of every mind she'd entered. It reminded Harry bizarrely of the Christmas lights in Privet Drive: hundreds of different-coloured bright spots varying in hue and intensity.
'You can look from a distance, but they're not my secrets,' Reed thought, directing him away.
Harry was more interested in her mind as a whole.
He found her guilt, as demanding in her head as it was in his. A mistrust of everyone she met but a deep, unflinching loyalty for those she did manage to put faith in. A caginess that rivalled that of Tom Riddle, secrecy and control paramount in her mind. A burning need to see her father, along with several others, bleed profusely. A confused gratitude for the Dark Lord that was growing into a steadfast conviction. It became an unspoken question that she directed at him. He ignored it.
'I appreciate what it took for you to do this, but I'm not going to show you my mind,' Harry thought.
'I didn't expect you to. This rule that I made for myself, it's new.'
He could see that she was telling the truth and had no intention of ever attempting to enter anyone's mind without permission or due cause. Harry didn't get the time to examine what she considered to be 'due cause'.
Tom pulled them out of her head, "You were eight," he said. "There was nothing you could have done."
She took a deep breath and nodded but didn't seem convinced.
