A Quick Warning: I had a really hard time writing this one. It's probably one of the emotionally heaviest chapters so far - the dehumanization is really intense here (see the chapter title), and Harry's really starting to struggle with it. If that's difficult for you to read, you can skip this chapter without missing much of the overall plot. If that's you, drop a comment and I can give you a brief summary of what happens here (if you're logged in). However, I will warn that this isn't going to be the last chapter like this and there's still a little ways to go before things start looking up - so read at your own discretion and take care of yourself.
A/N: This chapter is LONG at over 10k words (the longest so far!). Hopefully, that helps to make up for my terrible update schedule (or... complete lack thereof).
Thanks, as always, to whythehellnothavefun and AngstySnake for beta-reading!
Last Chapter: The DA discussed Harry's news about the danger to muggleborn students. Harry endured the second and final Care of Magical Creatures class with the seventh years, where the nature of mersong was discussed and Neville's application to HARP was approved.
Neville wasn't so sure his idea to join HARP was a good one on Saturday morning, standing outside the door to "the siren room" with a handful of other students he didn't know well. None of them were in his year or in Gryffindor. Two of the three wore prefect badges on their robes. They were Slytherin sixth years together - Diana Marcel and Hubert Delainey, if Neville remembered correctly. The third was a Ravenclaw, also a sixth-year. Neville didn't know his name. Either the group already knew each other or Neville had arrived after introductions, because the three were already wondering about what they'd be doing as part of HARP when he'd approached. He'd gotten brief nods from all three, and a curt "Longbottom," from Delainey, but hadn't been invited into the conversation - leaving him to stare at the door while they waited for Professor Braeburn to show up.
Braeburn arrived five minutes late, looking flustered and clutching a satchel weighed with unknown contents. He beamed at them all when he reached them, small wisps of his hair sticking out in odd directions.
"An excellent morning to you all!" he greeted. "Are you all ready to begin making history?"
The Ravenclaw bounced on his toes, grinning.
Braeburn unlocked the door and led the way into the room. It was quiet and empty, Harry not having been brought up yet. Neville swallowed against his nerves and stood to the side of the room with the other students while Braeburn set his satchel down on his worktable. He turned to face them and clasped his hands behind his back.
"Right! Welcome to the Hogwarts Aquatic Research Program. Nothing like this has been attempted in the last hundred and fifty years at Hogwarts, and no true academic studies of sirens have been conducted in nearly two hundred years, so we'll be doing a bit of learning by trial and error as we go along - which I hope your pioneering spirits will be excited by, rather than put off! We do need to go over a few safety rules because of the nature of our subject, however. Mr. Longbottom, I fear much of this will be repetition from what you have already learned in class, but it never hurts to review when it comes to safety!"
Braeburn was frightfully chipper. It wasn't making Neville's nerves any better, but he nodded along with the rest as the professor repeated basic tenets of safety while working with sirens. Braeburn would probably faint if he ever learned that Neville had stomped all over those rules by going ahead and jumping straight past the wards into the tank.
Braeburn then tested their deafening charms by having them cast it on him one at a time. They were all cleared, and then he finally began explaining more about what they'd actually be doing.
"Our focus will primarily be on the study of mersong, both its mundane properties as well as magical," Braeburn said, nearly breathless with excitement. "We aim to answer questions such as the one you asked in our last class, Mr. Longbottom: can sirens choose when they infuse their voices with magic, or is it something they use all the time? How do sirens produce mersong? Do specific notes or tones produce certain results or affect certain kinds of targets? Do sirens use their mersong for purposes other than killing humans? Are they susceptible to being enthralled by others of their own kind? And, ultimately, is it possible to capture and record magic-infused mersong and utilize it as wizards?
"While I could happily enjoy unearthing the secrets of mersong simply for knowledge's sake," Braeburn continued, glancing at the Ravenclaw with a conspiratorial smile, "it is practical application of our research that will ultimately enable it to continue in the long-term. In other words, our end goal will be to find ways to use what we learn to advance our own practice of magic as wizards because that is what will keep the Ministry interested in funding our studies! As such, we will be sharing our findings with experts in other fields, including the other professors here at Hogwarts. I know Professor Slughorn has already requested that we harvest any mer tears that we find in the tank for him to utilize in his potions - and we will acquiesce his request - but mere ingredient harvesting is far too unambitious a goal for what we can accomplish here. We could find the secret to new spells that could help people sleep better, or ease the mental anguish of those in permanent residence at the Janus Thickey ward in St. Mungo's!"
Neville's breath hitched, and he clenched his fists. Braeburn thought they might find something that could help Neville's parents?
Neville glanced at the quiet tank and pushed the traitorous hope away. Maybe mersong could help his parents, but it shouldn't be forced out of an unwilling research participant.
"Why don't you all spell your clothes and shoes impervious, and I'll get started on bringing Calder up," Braeburn said. It only took the students a moment to follow his advice, and then they joined him near the edge of the circular tank, where the large grates that usually kept Harry from surfacing were just finishing retracting. Neville had hoped that he might learn how to open them; it could be useful in the future.
They could hear faint strains of music coming from the water, but it was so distant it was nearly inaudible.
"How are you going to get him up here, Professor?" Diana Marcel asked.
"I have fitted Calder with a pair of bracelets spelled with a variant of the summoning charm," Braeburn said. "They are the most humane way I could conceive of to control him, as other methods cause pain and these cause none. The only downside is that he did scratch himself up a bit trying to get them off at first. In time, I hope to train him to respond to a sound transmitted through the tank, though it may take quite a while and will require considerably more positive reinforcement than he has had so far. Something else for us to work on."
Neville swallowed and distracted himself from Braeburn's speech by peering into the tank, trying to see past the shifting surface of the water to the details he knew were below. Aside from grayish shifting shapes, though, he couldn't tell what was what. It seemed so deep that it didn't have a bottom. Did it feel that massive to Harry? Or did it feel tiny; still a cramped cage compared to the complete freedom he should have had?
"I'm going to attempt transmitting the sound first to see if Calder will come," Braeburn said. "If he does not, I will activate the summoning charm on his bracelets."
Braeburn gestured to a sound crystal Neville hadn't noticed affixed to the outside wall of the tank. He tapped it with his wand, and a moment later a bell-like chime sounded.
Neville winced. He doubted Harry would come willingly; Harry knew what was waiting for him up here, and his stubbornness would keep him from cooperating with Braeburn's determination to treat him like a creature.
Sure enough, two anxious minutes passed without any sign of Harry, despite the continued, periodic chiming of the sound crystal. Braeburn smiled.
"Ah well, these things take patience. We'll reward Calder once he's here anyway, to begin forming the positive association." Braeburn lifted his wand over the water. "Venipescator."
"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…"
Harry flicked his tail to an improvised beat, his voice managing to make the strange children's nursery rhyme sound ethereal. The juxtaposition made him smile.
He was "sitting" on one of the lower-level shelves in the tank; low enough that he was within the bounds of the Entrance Hall. His position really felt more like leaning than sitting. He was pretty sure he no longer had hips to provide a stable platform for his weight to rest on. Instead, his body seemed to curve smoothly from his torso straight through his tail; all spine. Which was great for turning smoothly in the water, but meant he had had to do his best to wedge himself between corals and the glass wall of the tank in order to approximate sitting upright. It wasn't entirely stable, either, but Harry had wanted to be able to keep an eye on the happenings outside of the tank, and it was harder to do that lying down.
"… Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…"
Harry was perched high enough that students below had to crane their necks to see him. That didn't stop many of them from doing so. He'd done his best to be elusive since his arrival - hunting in the Great Tank when the Great Hall above was empty; spending most of the day hiding in the slightly more private upper reaches of the tank; and resting contorted in the twists of the tunnel between the Great Tank and the columnal tank. He was still spotted and seen - it was impossible not to be without permanently living in the kelp stand, and the leaves against his skin were too uncomfortable for that - but he'd never just hung out in such a visible, populated place. It was drawing attention from those outside, but after the little smiles and waves some of his old classmates had given him at the last Care class, the eyes didn't feel as if they were burning him.
"All the king's horses and all the king's men…"
He'd seen a few members of the DA, most of whom had seemed to make it a point to smile at him. Colin Creevey had waved rather enthusiastically, though he'd dropped his hand when he'd noticed a Slytherin prefect coming into the hall from the dungeons. There were still plenty of people who only stared or pointed, but it felt a little easier to bear knowing that he still had friends. Besides, he couldn't spend all his days hiding. There was always a chance he would see something useful, and he was worried about what was happening in the rest of the castle.
So many students looked sick and injured. They were pale, shaky, and exhausted. They clutched their arms to their chests, or had scabbed-over cuts on their faces, or walked with limps. They moved in tightly-knit groups, packed so closely together as if they were afraid of losing each other. The only students Harry saw alone were upper-year Slytherins, and even they preferred to stick together. Harry could only assume that it was because of the death eaters, the Carrows, Neville had called them. They must be hurting students. Why? As some form of punishment? Why so many?
"…Couldn't put Humpty together again."
Harry wasn't just watching students. His fingers darted around thick, leathery kelp leaves he'd sawed off from the main strands with his claws. He was tired of catching one fish at a time for his meals. He wanted a net. His original idea had been to use seaweed, but he'd quickly discovered that seaweed was both too slippery and too fragile to use. The kelp was harder to manipulate, but it held knots better, and it was tougher. Harry had to slice the leaves into smaller strips using his claws. Experiments with knots had finally landed a combination of twists that allowed him to form ropes of kelp that didn't pull apart when he tugged, and he now had several strands longer than his tail. He wasn't exactly sure how he was going to weave them together to form a net, yet, but he had some vague idea that more knots would be involved. He'd just have to experiment and figure out what worked. It wasn't as if there was much else to do.
If Braeburn was so concerned about Harry's well-being, couldn't he drop a Rubik's cube in or something? Merlin, Harry would even accept a water-proofed copy of Hogwarts: A History. It was certainly a massive enough tome that it would keep him busy for a few days. Or, failing that, he could maybe use it to knock himself out.
"Except I don't think I can black out anymore," Harry muttered to himself, twisting the kelp beneath his fingers into another knot. "If I hit myself on the head, would I just go to sleep? Could I wake myself back up? But humans can't do that, so being unconscious and being asleep must be different?"
But Harry hadn't blacked out when he'd been slammed with several dozen stunners the other… however long ago that had been now.
"Maybe Braeburn will figure it out," Harry lamented bitterly. "Since he knows all about what I can eat and how warm the water needs to be and how high I can jump."
Unbidden, his voice continued to warble after he'd spoken, filling the water with wavering anxiety. He didn't bother to silence himself. Instead, he closed his eyes and fed the song, letting his throat and chest work together to produce a wordless cry of fear. After a few minutes, it tapered off, though the echoes of the sound still stroked against his skin in the movement of the water.
He shifted the muscles in his chest and hummed softly, producing a smooth vibration that brushed pleasantly against his senses. His voice joined in a moment later, adding a lulling melody. His eyes drooped slightly as he relaxed into it, focused on feeling the vibrations against his skin and navigating gently through the scale of notes available to him.
Singing was starting to feel more and more natural. He didn't think he even knew what he had used to sound like trying to sing, back when he was human. And his voice still caught him off-guard, sometimes, with how inhuman it sounded. But he had started to admit that it was pleasant, both to produce the sounds and to listen to them and to feel them. When he felt as if he was going to implode with loneliness, or tear himself apart with worry, or cut his fingers bloody trying to fight with the grates keeping him trapped under the surface because he couldn't take one more minute of this of being so alone of being helpless being powerless of being an exhibit -
He could sing. It didn't need words. He could pour his emotions into sound, and the pressure within would slowly drain away until he could think again. And sometimes, if he caught himself early enough, he could concentrate on a calming tune or a happy beat and lift his own spirits.
He was rarely silent anymore. He didn't know if that was just what sirens were usually like, or if it was just him, trying to fill the lonely void of his shrunken world.
Harry itched idly at the band of metal around his left wrist, then squealed a short, high note of pained surprise when his claw bit painfully into his skin. He twisted his wrist to look and saw that he'd managed to scratch another small wound through the paper-thin scales there. Both wrists felt warm and enflamed, little flakes of scale hanging on to his skin by shreds and leaving dots of pink and red underneath. He was itching too much, but half the time he didn't even notice he'd started.
He warbled nervously and let go of his kelp rope for a moment to brush his hands and arms down his torso and tail. He repeated it once or twice more, unable to deny the reassurance of his own touch. Like the singing, it was something he'd found himself doing more and more to calm himself, though it seemed to work best to ward against physical sensations, like when a fish bumped against him or a crab managed to pinch him or he got a little too close to the kelp stand and leaves gently brushed against him like hands -
He found himself singing again, trying to calm himself while his arms made another pass over his body. His hands. His skin. His touch was real and the others weren't; he could feel the difference but sometimes he needed to remember what real touch felt like so he could remember that the other-hand-touches weren't real.
Bissell - or at least, Harry thought it was Bissell because Bissell was a little bit smaller than Hoover, but it was hard to tell when they weren't together - came sauntering up from further below. Harry relaxed slightly at the sight of the now-familiar freeloader.
"Hey, Bissell," he greeted. Bissell investigated the long strand of knotted kelp leaves still floating a few feet from Harry, then turned away from it and came up to bump against Harry's outstretched hand. Harry stroked down the length of Bissell's smooth body, careful to avoid the delicate-looking thing the fish used to suction onto things lest he accidentally hurt it. Bissell allowed it, then twisted underneath Harry's arm and rubbed against Harry's rumbling chest.
Harry sighed out a pleased trill of contentment, stroking Bissell once more before the fish turned away to nose around Harry's tail. Bissell quickly found a spot that appealed to him and latched on. Harry's amused "snort" sent a thrump through the water that startled a few smaller fish into darting further away.
"I'm still not sure why you like me, but at least you don't seem scared like most of the other things in here," Harry told Bissell. "I appreciate the company. Where's Hoover?"
Bissell stared at Harry placidly, face turned sideways with the top of his head attached to Harry's scales.
"A few too many butterbeers, huh?" Harry asked, smiling slightly. "That's okay."
Harry recaptured his floating rope and plucked a new kelp leaf from where he'd pinned a supply underneath a helpful sea star's arm. He glanced up out of the tank again as he began to cut the leaf into strips, but the only person there was Filch, sweeping piles of dust and dirt out through the great entry doors. Harry turned back to his self-appointed work and began singing the tune of the opera song Artemius had had on after Ginny's escape.
Harry managed to add another four feet to his rope when he sensed a disturbance in the water. He tensed, the opera tune quickly shifting into a wary warble, and looked up. Every time he'd felt something change, even if he couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, he'd been proven correct a minute or two later. And if the disturbance was followed by that cursed chime…
Sure enough, the sound Harry was quickly learning to hate rang through the water a moment later. Harry wound his kelp rope around an arm of a nearby coral to keep it from floating away, then looked frantically around for a way to keep himself from getting dragged up to that room. He knew, from Neville, that the Care classes about him were over; that meant this had to be for the research program.
His eyes caught back on the rope. He could try to tie himself down, but the drag on his cuffs had been pretty forceful last time - enough that it had managed to dislodge Harry's death grip on a rock shelf. Harry doubted a strand of cut-up, bruised, and knotted plant material would be able to hold up to the strength of the spell. Besides, if it did hold, Braeburn would just end up bringing that death eater - the male one - back to stun Harry into oblivion. And Harry would be a sitting duck for their spells, anchored to anything.
He… had to try, didn't he?
As quickly as he could, Harry grabbed the end of his rope and looped it around his wrist. He tied it off to itself, staccato pulses of mersong broadcasting his alarm. He yanked his wrist against the loop he'd made and it held. It was a little loose, but Harry wrapped his fingers around the length of it to strengthen his grip on it and prevent it from slipping off. He lurched toward the coral and fumbled for the other end of the rope strand. He'd just managed a loose first loop of the knot when his wrists were yanked upward.
The motion pulled the half-formed knot apart. Harry soared up against his will, the loops of kelp around the coral unfurling as he dragged the strand with him. Swearing, Harry scrabbled with his fingertips at the loop of rope around his wrist, trying to undo or sever the knot before Artemius could get it into his head to take Harry's project away.
Harry soared past Goyle, startled a small school of yellow fish, and narrowly avoided getting his side scraped by a bed of muscles clinging to a rock. Crabbe jerked away from him nearer the top of the tank. With a desperate lunge, Harry managed to get the loop of kelp around his wrist between his teeth. He pulled and gnawed at the tough fibers, feeling them begin to give way until one more yank severed them entirely. The rope was left behind, drifting forlornly in the middle of the tank, as Harry was pulled past the opened grates and into Artemius's domain.
Harry's thrashing sent water crashing up against the wards over the top of the tank as Artemius dragged him, without any fanfare, into the narrow and shallow off-shoot of the main tank. The small grate clanged closed past the tip of Harry's tail before the pressure at his wrists vanished.
Harry's heart pounded in panic as he looked around and confirmed that this wasn't a full class. There were only a handful of students, most of whom Harry didn't recognize at all, and one of whom was Neville. Neville's hands were clenched at his sides, and his expression was stiff.
Artemius was yammering on about something or another, but Harry hardly heard. This was the research program, it had to be. With his heart feeling as if it was going to beat out of his chest, his fins flaring in and out erratically and a high-pitched peal ringing from his gills, Harry realized that he wasn't just afraid. He was terrified. His eyes caught on a poster that had been stuck up to one of the walls, showing the muscular and skeletal structure of a siren. Of him. The high-pitched noise he was making went up even higher.
Artemius moved, and Harry's eyes snapped to him. But the professor only retrieved a somewhat familiar bucket and reached into it, withdrawing a small octopus as he had done in the first care class. He deftly pried it away from his skin and dropped it into the water in front of Harry's face, smiling in a way that made Harry feel sick.
"There, enjoy that for a minute, Calder. Nothing to worry about; you're okay. Hm. He's never acted this way before."
Harry pointedly ignored the "treat" and sank himself as far into the corner of the tank as he could - which wasn't going very far at all. He was still only covered by a few extra inches of water, shallow enough that his dorsal fin kept breaking up into the air when his muscles tensed. He glared at Artemius, but he couldn't seem to completely stop the scared keening he was making. He thought about how someone had to have seen a siren's insides to draw that poster on the wall, and images of scalpels and knives cutting him open like a butchered pig came to mind. They wouldn't do that to him, would they?
Then again, Harry couldn't forget that this was ultimately Voldemort's prescription of torture designed just for Harry's unique status as a hated enemy-plus-soul-container, and his frail hopes fell.
"The creation of mersong is a mystery to us," Professor Braeburn was lecturing, back turned to Harry, his focus entirely on the HARP students. "We do know that sirens - like other mer - do have vocal cords in their throats, although slightly different in form to a human's. The difference is supposedly what enables them to create clear sound in their aquatic environments, which also produces the ghastly sounds of mersong made above water."
Neville was only paying half attention. Harry, forcibly laid out in the narrow tank behind Braeburn, seemed to be attempting to curl up on himself. The close confines of the tank, however, were preventing him. His bent tail pushed against glass, making the scales there appear far more colorful than they looked when seen through even a few inches of water. The flecks of amber were more pronounced, and the obsidian-black reflected the light in a rainbow of greens.
Neville felt nauseated at the glazed look in Harry's eyes. Harry's clawed fingertips were scratching repetitively against the floor of the tank without any obvious force, like Harry wasn't conscious of doing it. Most tellingly was the quiet, high-pitched ringing barely discernible coming from the tank. The sound reminded Neville of when Great-Uncle Algie had dropped him from the window, and though accidental magic had saved Neville from getting hurt, his panic had been so high that he hadn't been able to hear Great-Aunt Enid talking to him - he'd only heard a ringing in his ears.
"The experiments conducted on a siren in the sixteenth century, which I have mentioned previously as being the basis for the development of the imperius curse, also attempted to find a way to silence a siren. Several methods were tried, each without complete success. Silencing spells were quickly broken by the siren's innate magic and gags did almost nothing to even muffle the sound. Even cutting out the siren's tongue did not ultimately prevent the siren from singing."
Neville clutched his violently twisting stomach, going cold. Harry didn't seem to have heard, which was probably for the best.
"Are you well, Mr. Longbottom?"
Neville wrenched his attention away from Harry and back to his professor. "Sorry, Sir. I… I'm not good with violence."
"Quite understandable," Braeburn said sympathetically. "The methodology of the researchers back then was quite brutal - unnecessarily so, especially in our era. We have access to more magical advances that - I hope - shall enable us to discover the means by which sirens produce their mersong without causing harm. And that will be where we begin our research today - how sirens produce their song and magic."
Neville relaxed slightly. It didn't sound as if Braeburn planned on doing anything to actually hurt Harry. Hopefully, this wouldn't be any worse than the Care of Magical Creatures classes Harry had "starred" in.
Neville glanced at Harry again. Something in the last few moments must have grabbed his attention, because his eyes were focused again, fixed on Braeburn's back. His fins were still standing on end and his eyes were still too wide, but at least he seemed present.
"We will be using linked runes to monitor magical concentrations near Calder's throat and gills. We will pair this with sound crystals, which together, will allow us to study both the sound and magical content of mersong. And, hopefully, we will learn more about how it is produced in the process!"
The Ravenclaw raised his hand.
"No need for that here!" Braeburn said cheerfully. "We're an intimate group; just go ahead and ask. What's your question, Mr. Roth?"
Roth smiled in return for the professor's friendliness. "I was just wondering if the sound crystals are the kind that will store the sound or the kind that will just allow us to hear sounds as they happen from another location."
"Excellent thinking! I plan to use both. That way we can monitor the mersong as it happens, but we will also have samples stored for re-listening."
"How will we place the sound crystals on the siren without him dislodging them?" Marcel asked, cautious but evidently emboldened by the professor's cheer.
Neville heard a warble in the whine coming from Harry and swallowed.
"Another good question! I have my ideas, but this is meant to be a collaborative research project. Why don't you all brainstorm for a bit and see what solutions you can come up with?"
No, no, Neville really did not want to do that.
But the others' faces lit up in excitement with the Professor's encouragement, and it only took a moment before ideas were being bandied back and forth. Neville cast another look at Harry, immeasurable guilt trying to drag him down to the ground for being here; being a participant in this thing that was causing Harry more fear than Neville had ever seen before.
"Oi, Longbottom, do you even want to be here?"
Neville snapped his attention back to the other students and realized all three were staring at him, impatient and unimpressed.
"Oh, um, sorry," he stammered. "I, ah, didn't sleep last night. Just having some trouble concentrating."
"I'll say," Delainey muttered snidely.
"Do you have anything to add?" Roth said. "We're all sixth years, so you've got to know things we don't."
Braeburn was looking on, arms crossed and leaning against the worktable, smiling as the students discussed. He nodded encouragingly at Neville, and Neville had to restrain himself from looking over at Harry again. His heart was racing; he was making too many mistakes. If the rest figured out he was only here in the hopes of helping Harry, there was no way he'd be able to keep coming. Braeburn might even report Neville to Snape, who'd tell Voldemort, and Neville would quickly fall under suspicion of "treason." He tried to think. He needed to participate, somehow; prove he belonged here even if he didn't. And Braeburn already had a plan for this, right? He was a professor and experienced researcher. This discussion was just to make the students feel like participants instead of onlookers.
"… Well…" There were the obvious solutions: sticking charms. Chances were, someone had already brought those up. It was possible to vary the strength of them, but the average one would lose its effect within a day or two without more advanced magic to strengthen and elongate its effects. There were non-magical glues, but Neville was pretty sure most would lose their holding power once exposed to water, and they could potentially cause rashes or irritation to the skin. They could try tying the crystals on, but that would require heavily charmed cloth strips to keep Harry from slicing through them with his claws. If they needed to affix crystals near Harry's gills, it would also be difficult to secure a strip of cloth in such a way that Harry wouldn't be able to simply wiggle out of it. Plus, getting it secure enough to hold the crystal even after being exposed to water and having to hold up to Harry's doubtless attempts to remove it would be difficult.
"There's the gludew bush," Neville hesitantly said, hoping no one had brought it up yet. Judging from the confused looks he received, no one had. "It produces a sap with an incredibly strong grip. It's nearly impossible to get yourself unstuck if you do touch it, though the sap itself is otherwise harmless. You've just got to watch out for the leaves; they'll close on whatever body parts they can reach and start eating at your skin…" At the disgusted, slightly terrified faces of the other students, Neville cleared his throat. "It's best to cut yourself free of it if you do get stuck. Certain substances can counter the sap, but most people don't just carry bottles of oil or sliproot infusion around… water doesn't do anything to it, and it doesn't break down for weeks."
"Aha! I think we have a winner!" Braeburn said, clapping his hands together in excitement.
What?
"Now that I think on it, I do remember Pomona mentioning that you were lined up for an apprenticeship with her, aren't you? Wonderful out-of-the-box thinking, Mr. Longbottom! This is why I love interdisciplinary research. There's so much more to magic than spells! Now, I must admit this is an option that I hadn't thought of, though I think it is a far more elegant solution than frequently-renewed sticking spells, which I had chosen for their ease of use and accessibility. So, you must tell us, Mr. Longbottom - is this gludew bush something we already have available here at Hogwarts?"
Neville's head seemed to spin a little at the sudden turn of events - they wanted to use his idea? But…
Right, they were staring, waiting, and he had to participate.
"Professor Sprout has a bush in greenhouse eight," Neville said weakly.
"Wonderful! Is it time-consuming to harvest? Could we obtain some by the end of today to use in our research?"
"Professor Slughorn might already have some in his stores," Marcel offered. "I think I've seen that sap used in some household potions recipes."
"Even better! Are any of you on friendly terms with Horace? I would go myself, but it would be best I don't leave students alone with Calder unsupervised…"
"I can go," Marcel said. "He invited me to his club last year."
"Perfect. We'll be waiting on your efforts then, Ms. Marcel!"
Marcel jogged out of the room. Braeburn's energy had infected the students, causing Roth to resume bouncing on his toes with a wide grin on his face and Delainey to tap his fingers impatiently against his crossed arms, making soft nonsense noises under his breath to pass the time. There was an excited spark in his eyes as well. None of them were paying much attention to the implications of their conversation - that they were doing something to another person against that person's will to study them.
Neville turned away and began to walk around the perimeter of the room. He needed a moment to turn his face away and breathe and why had he said anything, why would he do that to Harry -
"I am so excited for this program with you all," Braeburn was gushing behind. "Already, you're all so full of ideas. I think I'll barely have to do any teaching at all! Learn the basics of research and I think the four of you will surpass me by the end of the year!"
Neville did his best to pretend he was distracted by the anatomical poster hanging on the wall. Then he realized it depicted a siren and shut his eyes tightly, feeling sick with himself. The sticking charms would have been better. They would have been easier for Harry to overpower; more likely to wear off early and give Harry a break. But Neville had had to open his stupid mouth and suggest something more permanent and stronger and now Harry was going to have that stuck to his skin and it was Neville's fault. How had Neville come up with something Braeburn hadn't thought of? And how was Neville's idea worse?
Harry had gone quiet, and that was nearly as disconcerting as his earlier keening had been. Neville made himself look to the tank and saw Harry still at the bottom, anxiously watching Braeburn, Roth, and Delainey as the group conversed nearby. Harry's fins were fluttering strangely, as if they were quivering, though the rest of him was still save for his ever-moving gills.
Neville had come to see what he could do for Harry. To be a present friend while Harry was surrounded by people who didn't have his best interests at heart. Neville had been an idiot by bringing up the gludew bush, true - but he needed to stop bemoaning his own failures and figure out how he could help Harry in the middle of all this. Wallowing wasn't going to do Harry any good at all.
Neville forced his feet to move. Casually, as if his heart wasn't hammering in his chest, he wandered over to Harry's tank and crouched next to it so he was closer to Harry's level. Harry's eyes snapped to Neville immediately, blown wide. Their faces were no more than two feet apart, and this close, Neville realized that Harry's pupils weren't slitted like he'd first assumed. They were more like something between an hourglass and a rectangle, and they had a blueish sheen to them that made Neville feel like he was looking through tiny windows into ocean depths.
"Hey," Neville said as quietly as he could. His throat was dry. He cleared it, then swallowed to moisten it, keeping contact with Harry's gaze. "Did you… did you hear all that?"
Harry took a long time to respond. But then he shook his head, just slightly, and Neville let out a soft breath.
"I… I don't think it's going to hurt," Neville said hesitantly. "They just want to listen to the mersong and monitor the magic in it."
Harry blinked - which was disconcerting, because the eyelids that came down were more like clear membranes than anything else, and Neville had not known Harry had… what, a second set of eyelids?! - and then nodded slightly. His fins flattened against his body in a way that made Neville think of a scared kneazle kitten huddling in a corner.
"They… they're going to stick sound crystals to you," Neville made himself say, because maybe knowing more about what was coming would help. "Your neck and near your gills, I think. To record the mersong."
Harry made a nervous little whining sound, before his eyes darted up past Neville's shoulder and the sound became louder.
"I've never seen him so out of sorts," Braeburn said, his shadow falling over Harry. "I wonder what it was that got to him?"
Despite how much Neville knew he was already testing his luck that morning, he couldn't pass up an opportunity when he saw it.
"Don't you think, maybe, since… you know, he used to be human," Neville said carefully, tensing as Harry's whine went up in pitch at the words, "he can understand English even if he can't speak it?"
Braeburn hummed in thought. "That would require sirens to have the same mental capacities as humans, which is known to be false. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that it was quite inevitable that his human intelligence was lost alongside his human appearance."
Neville wanted to push. To ask why Braeburn was so sure. But he was also terrified that his pretense of being interested only in studying Harry was painfully see-through and the slightest moment of carelessness could cost him dearly.
"Be that as it may," Braeburn continued, "I do believe sirens are likely more intelligent than we, historically, have given them credit for. Many animals have proven themselves capable of solving complex puzzles, and it seems obvious to me that sirens share that capability. Their hunting habits are too calculated to be the work of a simple fish."
Neville glanced up at Braeburn, frowning. Braeburn smiled in what was likely meant to be an encouraging way.
"Keep talking to him if you'd like, Mr. Longbottom," Braeburn said, to Neville's surprise. "Many animals can also sense emotion through vocal tones and other biological signals such as our heart rates. I am certain sirens are no different, especially with their magic so tuned to sound. You may be able to help him calm down a little."
Braeburn went back to Delainey and Roth. Neville swallowed and turned back to Harry.
"I'm sorry," Neville said as quietly as he could. "I keep trying, but he's pretty convinced and if I push too hard, it could get back to You-Know-Who."
It took Harry a few moments, but he eventually nodded slightly in apparent understanding.
"I'm sorry I'm not of more help," Neville said.
Harry moved his hand to the wall of the tank in response. Neville placed his hand over the same spot, making sure the motion was shielded from the others by his back. He forced himself to smile for Harry's sake, and a small chirping noise came from the tank that told Neville that Harry was grateful for the interaction anyway.
Harry was barely holding it together. Seeing Neville's face on the other side of the glass and listening to his kind voice were the only things keeping Harry from mindlessly acting on his panic. There was at least one person here who didn't want to hurt him or humiliate him, and despite how little Neville could really do to change anything, just knowing he wasn't entirely alone helped.
It helped, too, that Neville had told him what was coming. Harry tried to keep his mind from careening off into visions straight from nightmares and focused on Neville's explanations of sound crystals stuck to his skin. Even then, images of crystals embedded into raw, bloody skin like glinting tumors continued to feed his fears.
Why were they waiting?
Finally, there was a knock at the classroom door, and Artemius went to open it, admitting the student who'd left. The student had a small bottle of something syrupy in her hand, glittering a vibrant blue.
"Ah, perfect!" Artemius said. "Thank you, Ms. Marcel. Now we can get started."
Harry's heart leapt into his throat, and his nervous humming spiked in pitch. Neville was still crouched next to the tank and tapped it lightly.
"It's going to be okay, Harry," Neville said quietly, though his own face was pale. "It's… it's a plant sap that's very sticky. But it shouldn't hurt."
Artemius began moving towards Harry along with the other students, and Neville stood up. Harry turned on his back and tried to wedge his fingers over the lip of the tank, but the magical "lid" was still unbreakable and he had no way to escape. Artemius had started chattering about their process, which Harry dimly thought he should probably be listening to, but his heart was hammering so loudly that he couldn't focus on anything but the most improbable means of getting away. His body rippled in a kick, pushing his head and shoulders up against the wall of the tank as if it might just break and let him out.
Then straps rose from the bottom of the tank like animated seaweed and grasped at Harry's wrists, torso, and tail. Harry screeched, trying to pull out of their grip, but they dragged him the few inches into the center of the tank and pinned him down on his stomach. Harry thrashed, his tail able to slip a little under the straps but not enough to wrench free. His wrists were pinned firmly to the floor, splayed to the edges of the tank to leave his sides exposed.
All Harry could see were two sets of black robes on the other side of the glass. Just hips and torsos; he couldn't lift his head enough to see their faces. When he turned the other way he could see the more colorful robes of Artemius and two more sets of black student robes, one of them clearly female. Which one of the others was Neville?
Harry's anxious humming had turned into cresting keens of distress that started high and loud and ended low and quiet, like gasping breaths or crashing waves. He was aware of it but couldn't make himself stop any more than he could stop his gills from filtering oxygen from the water.
A change in vocal tones drew the words being spoken above him abruptly back into focus.
"There, it's alright, it's alright," Artemius said, using that horrible, soothing tone he reserved for Harry. "We're not going to hurt you."
"That's what you said right before you pulled my scales out!" Harry accused, the words carried on notes that fired like darts.
"Ah, did you hear the change, there, when he used his mouth to produce the mersong instead?" Artemius said, no longer talking to Harry. "How much clearer the sound was, as if it were focused? That's part of what we want to study with this experiment."
"I'm not an experiment!" Harry shrieked, but no one understood him, and the straps weren't letting him go. He felt something oddly soft and warm touch the skin at his left side and wrenched his tail as hard as he could, managing to find enough give to brush it against the side of the tank, but it wasn't enough to get him anywhere. The touch became stronger, if anything, right as Harry heard an incantation and the water around the touch vanished. It was disturbingly close to his gills, and Harry kicked as much as he could, trying to get away from the horribly scratching dryness of the air against his skin.
"We need to clean the area first to make sure nothing is trapped between Calder's skin and the sap," Artemius was saying. "Mr. Roth, why don't you do the honors? A scourgify will do."
"Scourgify!"
Harry felt the tingle of foreign magic scrape his skin and hissed. Whatever droplets of water had been left beaded within the dry patch disappeared, leaving the entire section of skin itching furiously.
"He really doesn't like that," one of the students - not Neville - observed.
"Oh, you gathered that, did you?" Harry spat, still tugging futilely against the restraints. "What clued you in?"
"Is he trying to drown us?" another asked, a girl.
"No!" Harry answered. "Though Artemius would deserve it!"
"He certainly sounds agitated enough to be trying, but it's difficult to know for sure what the effects of hearing his current mersong undiluted would be," Artemius said. "I hope that through this experiment we can find correlations between magical effects and sound patterns."
"Like figuring out the mer equivalent of incantations?"
"Yes, precisely! Mr. Longbottom, as the resident expert, why don't you apply the sap? Here's the first set of crystals here - make sure not to overdo it. We wouldn't want to cause unnecessary irritation to Calder."
"How. Thoughtful," Harry spat towards Artemius's embroidered waistcoat. Despite the anger in his melodic words, the rest of his body was still singing harmonic distress, undermining the threat the melody would have carried alone.
"Are - are you sure I should?" Neville was stammering.
"Yes, of course! Don't be shy, go on." There was a pause. "Perfect, now go ahead and press them to the spot we've cleaned, just under Calder's gills there."
"I… I think someone else should," Neville stammered. "You know, so we can all participate."
"No need to worry about that! There's still another set of crystals to place as well as two sets of runes. Mr. Delainey is quite skilled with runes, I hear, so don't worry; there's something for everyone to do! Go on!"
The person nearest to Artemius shifted, and Harry caught a glimpse of red and gold at the bottom edge of a Gryffindor house emblem. Harry froze, not sure if knowing that Neville was the one about to touch him made it better or worse. He felt something cool and sticky gently push against his side under his gills. The sticky feeling quickly dissipated, leaving a hard, smooth object clinging to his side. Harry squirmed and it stuck with him, tugging against his skin with its inflexible grip.
Hot, gentle fingers brushed next to it for just a moment before withdrawing - a silent apology.
"Ah, perfect," Artemius said. "And see how much quieter he went when you interacted with him, Mr. Longbottom. As I thought, he responds well to you!"
Harry forced his eyelids shut in a vain attempt to block out the words. He wasn't… wasn't just some animal.
He wasn't.
"Your turn, Mr. Delainey. I've already created a sketch of the runic array we'll be using, here. Do you think you can copy this onto Calder's side?"
"Sure, that's not too hard. What are we using, sir? Ink?"
"A special type that seeps beneath the skin, yes," Artemius replied. "Non-toxic, of course. Here. You'll notice the applicator is a little different than a quill. It's similar to what is used to create tattoos."
Neville hadn't said anything about tattoos.
"Wait, is that going to be permanent?" Neville asked, evidently thinking the same thing as Harry.
"No, a specialized spell can remove it, just the same as tattoos you or I could go get," Artemius said. "Don't worry; if we need to alter the array or replace it with a different one, we will be able to. But good forethought, Mr. Longbottom! Go ahead, Mr. Delainey."
"Is there any way to make Calder stay still?" Delainey asked. "He's squirming and it will mess up the lines."
Because Harry didn't want a tattoo!
"Ah, good point, good point. I'll tighten the straps. I'm sorry, Calder, if this is uncomfortable."
"I'm not Calder! I'm Harry!" Harry protested - not that it made the slightest difference.
The straps pinning Harry's arms and torso clenched more firmly around him a moment later. Harry gurgled a sound of protest as they pinched across his back and shoulders and hips, grinding his dorsal fin against his spine. He kept reflexively trying to stand that fin on end but it was trapped, the slender spines and webbed skin of it not strong enough to pull free of the constriction.
Harry could only still move his head and wriggle his tail. He hissed futilely as he felt something wet touch the patch of air-exposed skin at his side, tingling with more foreign magic. Someone squeaked in fear.
"It's alright, he can't get to you," Artemius said. "He's just expressing his feelings about this whole thing."
"Not that you care," Harry spat, trying to wrench himself free of the straps one more time. He went absolutely nowhere. The wet touch came back. The echo of Harry's angry words disappeared under his humming fear again, and he forced his eyes closed, gritting his teeth and listening to his racing heart as whatever the "applicator" was was drawn over his side in complex lines.
The magic left behind in them was building, growing, small pieces becoming interwoven to form something more complete. It burrowed past Harry's flesh and bones straight to his magic. It felt like an incorporeal hand reaching past his ribs to gently cup around his heart, feeling its every beat and quiver; able to squeeze and cause harm but, for the time being, remaining just there. Impossible not to feel, impossible to ignore.
He wanted it gone. But it only grew more present, more firmly entrenched and entangled with his own magic. His entire body warbled with fear, and he felt the object lodged against his side - the pair of sound crystals - react. Their magical signatures seemed to buzz, happily storing the noise away.
"Leave me alone," Harry whined. The runes were still being drawn on his side, though from how invasive their magic felt Harry was convinced they must be nearly done. They had to be. "Leave me alone, I don't want you all listening to me, I don't want a tattoo, I just want you to leave me alone!"
The runes' magic flared, warming under Harry's skin and tingling as the magic in Harry's words triggered the foreign magic that had attached itself to him.
"What perfect timing! Excellent job, Mr. Delainey! The runes already seem to be working splendidly."
Harry convulsed with a helpless cry at being ignored. He wondered, if they could understand him, if they'd still do what they were doing anyway. What explanations would Artemius come up with so he could continue his "research" without feeling any guilt?
He felt something move the water around him, and his warble grew momentarily louder in fear.
"Mr. Longbottom!"
"…He's afraid."
Neville's warm hand landed gently on Harry's back, just to the right of his dorsal fin on his lower shoulder. Harry's muscles twitched in reflexive response, half expecting something else painfully intrusive, but Neville just held his hand there, rubbing his thumb a little over Harry's slick skin in an offer of comfort. Harry's body quieted (but not silent), and he swallowed, trying to focus on the proof that somebody cared, somebody saw him, instead of the knot of wizard magic entrenched under his skin.
"Ah," Artemius said softly. "Remarkable. Just be careful, Mr. Longbottom. Do not reach anywhere where he might be able to bite or claw you."
"Yes, sir. I won't."
"Ms. Marcel, why don't you handle the crystal for his neck?"
The tunnel of air near Harry's gills closed with a soft splash. Harry tried to tune out everything else happening around him as he felt another open around his neck and another strap was conjured over his head to keep it pinned down, too. Neville's hand stayed on his back. Someone else pushed Harry's hair, slicked against his skin in the absence of water, away to clear their work area.
Back and forth went Neville's thumb, trying to gently soothe away Harry's distress. Harry tried not to feel anything else, even as his neck itched and was scraped clean by magic. Back and forth, back and forth, even as another pair of sound crystals were pressed into the sensitive skin a few inches under Harry's jaw in the slight dip between bands of muscle.
The strap around his head disappeared, and Harry wrenched his head up and to the other side at the sudden bit of freedom, trying to prevent them from accessing their workspace. But the strap appeared and tightened around him again, his face pointed in the other direction, and Harry realized he'd only played into their needs as he felt the wet touch of the tattoo applicator touch the skin on the other side of his neck.
Harry choked on another whine, shuddering as a brand-new tendril of intrusive magic was drawn onto his skin in such a vulnerable place. He strained against the straps but couldn't pull away.
Harry opened his eyes and saw Artemius's colorful waistcoat and the student robes that should belong to Neville. Neville had a hand, with dirt crusted under the fingernails, pressed against the glass on the other side. It was trembling. His other hand was still on Harry's back. Still brushing back and forth, back and forth.
"Help me," Harry pleaded, even though he knew Neville couldn't. Not really.
Neville pushed a little more firmly against Harry's back as if he understood despite their current language barrier. A silent "I'm sorry. I wish I could. This is all I can offer."
Neville moved to run his hand from the top of Harry's shoulder to his mid-back, rubbing like Harry had seen Aunt Petunia do for Dudley when he hadn't been feeling well. Harry shuddered, pushing his eyes closed again, letting the pleasant sensation steal his attention away from the second magical parasite forming on his neck. Even if Neville felt hot to Harry's cold-blooded body, even if his hand seemed strangely coarse, it was soothing and gentle and well-intended and it felt like the only thing keeping Harry breathing despite everything wrong.
When they finished with his neck and the tunnel of air closed up, Neville pulled his hand away and Harry mourned it. The sound crystals and runes reacted, tingling and warming. Harry shuddered, humming in increased anxiety which only fueled the foreign magics more. He wanted it to stop. He felt like a bug pinned under a microscope, writhing in fright while giants observed with cold curiosity.
Artemius was saying something over the top of Harry, the words blurring into meaninglessness now that Harry had no kind touch to distract him from the ways his body and magic had been altered and tapped. Harry only noticed when the straps around him released, freeing his hands to reach for his neck and side. His own touch was tentative, fearful of confirming what he already knew was there.
The sound crystals were small, only a little bigger than the pad of Harry's thumb each. They were hard and smooth under his fingertips. Attempts to shift and tug at them only pulled on Harry's skin uncomfortably. Picking at their bases only sent Harry's claws sliding into his own flesh.
The runes couldn't be felt through touch. Harry could feel their magic, but not through his fingertips. His claws dug at his side where he could feel the knot of magic, pricking his skin, battling with the urge to tear at himself and try to dig the spell out. Pinpricks of pain sparked under his fingertips. He forced his hands to draw back and clenched them against his chest, trying to force the once-again rising panic down.
Neville had been right - it didn't hurt. But Harry could still feel wizards' touch on his skin and magic and he remembered hot hands stroking over him while his mind had been clouded with drugs and he wished he could tie himself into a knot to wring himself clean of the sensations. The memories were like oil against his skin, slimy and rancid, refusing to be rinsed away and forgotten.
Harry didn't realize that it was over until the magic capping the tank dissipated with a faint pop. Harry stirred, looking around for Neville, and saw him standing at the edge of the room with all the rest of them. Most were looking at Harry expectantly; Neville was the only one looking pained.
I'm sorry, Neville mouthed.
They'd probably applied deafening charms to themselves. Harry hadn't heard, and he didn't know how he would have responded to Neville even if they could talk. Neville was over there with them, and Harry was still the pinned bug even if he was grateful for Neville's comfort.
Fear and pain were rarely rational.
Harry made himself sit up out of the water, gripping the edges of the tank to prevent his body from sliding right back under. The air stung his eyes and sinuses and mouth, stealing away his ability to breathe. He dragged himself back over his tail as quickly as he could until he was able to fall back into the main tank with a small splash - Artemius and his students watching Harry's every move.
Harry didn't bother looking back. He ignored the tiny three octopuses lingering in the surface waters of the tank (Artemius must have dropped them in in some kind of pitiful attempt to make up for what he was doing, but Harry wasn't hungry after being experimented on) and darted past the now-open grate and then under the first shelf of rock where he could be hidden.
A wail built in his chest as soon as he felt sheltered. He clutched at his heart, sucking in water rapidly, trying to suppress the noise of his emotion. He didn't want to give them their research. He didn't want to allow himself to be studied. He didn't want to feel the sound crystals and the runes activating as they relayed Harry's every hum to the humans he'd just left behind so they could analyze him, as if his pain was simply data.
The stress of bottling the sound underneath his throat pushed a mournful note out from his chest, instead. Harry slapped his hand over his gills, trying to silence it, but all he succeeded in doing was making it more difficult for himself to breathe. He lost concentration on controlling his vocal chords and a peal of desperate grief escaped. The sound crystals and runes flickered with magical life and Harry convulsed with a sob, fingers scratching at his side in a futile attempt to win back what little shred of privacy he'd had. The floodgates open now, Harry's whole body was set gently abuzz with crying mersong emanating from his chest and throat. The sound crystals stayed alight, recording it all; the runes warmed further under his skin as they monitored the pulse of Harry's magic.
Harry's song stuttered as he tried to silence it. But it was like trying to dam up a river with just your hands. He could redirect the flow but not stop it. And in the few fractions of a second that he did manage complete silence it hurt, acutely enough that he couldn't bear it and released his mersong again with a helpless wail, louder than before.
He was stuck in a loop: hurt himself with silence or betray himself by singing. He'd never felt so powerless. The song that had come to help him calm his emotions now only stoked them higher until his vision spun and his chest ached and the mersong only grew louder, more full of pain and helplessness and betrayal, crescendoing into unbearable agony with no release -
- Until something in Harry flipped, unable to take the pain. He felt his mind shut down and he let it. His agonized wails quieted into thoughtless, gentle, self-soothing chirps while his gills hummed a lullaby. His body limp with exhaustion, Harry's left eye slowly slipped closed as he embraced the dulled awareness of sleep.
Neville couldn't bear listening to Harry's pain, even without its magical effects. Professor Braeburn and the others were listening to the sound crystals in fascination, watching the paired runic arrays light up with Harry's magical output. How they didn't feel their hearts breaking Neville couldn't understand.
Neville excused himself early, claiming a sickness born from exhaustion. He didn't even make it to the nearest bathroom before he found himself on his hands and knees, retching up bile because he hadn't been able to eat breakfast that morning.
As much as Professor Braeburn's treatment of Harry disturbed Neville… he was only disgusted with himself. As surreal as it sounded, Harry the Chosen One needed to be saved, and Neville was both the only one available and the one who was entirely useless.
What a worthless friend he was proving to be.
NOTES:
Okay, now go get yourself a hot or cold drink and pet a cat or hug a stuffie or something, because that was a lot. I know I felt it while writing this chapter and had to keep tabs on my own mental well-being, so make sure you take care of yourself!
1. There's not a good place to explain this within the fic, so I thought I'd go ahead and explain a little bit of my ideas about why sirens sing. Humans have several ways to "release" strong emotion (tears being a big one; they contain hormones that, when released, help us to calm down). While sirens are capable of human-like expressions of strong emotion, their primary way of calming themselves down is by releasing those emotions from their bodies through magic - which they accomplish exclusively through sound. Harry's conscious mind took a while to adjust to this method of processing emotion. It took his experimentations and attempts to take the edge off of his loneliness to discover singing as a coping mechanism. But singing/sound being an emotional release is the reason why it's almost impossible for him to stop now that he wants to. He's feeling so much that trying to hold it all in could actually have negative effects on his body (same as humans!) and while he has a certain degree of conscious control over his mersong, it's also heavily controlled by his subconscious. Imagine the worst emotions of your life, the worst breakdown you've ever had, and try to imagine forcing your body not to show any sign of distress (no tears, no trembling lip, no whimpers, no shaking hands, etc). That's basically what Harry was trying to do by trying not to make noise.
TL;DR: Trying not to sing "hurts" Harry because it's a siren's primary method of physiological emotional regulation, and he has a ton of emotions to regulate right now.
2. I keep asking myself, "what lyrics would Harry know to be able to fill his silence with?" and keep thinking, "not many!" He doesn't seem like he's exactly had a musically-enriched upbringing, but most people know nursery rhymes. Hence, why there are wonderfully ominous nursery rhymes in this story now.
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments (if you're logged in I love replying to comments as well)! Thanks for reading!