"ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ꜱᴇᴇɴ ᴀꜱ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴏꜰ ʟɪꜰᴇ ᴀꜱ ɪ ʜᴀᴠᴇ, ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ɴᴏᴛ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀᴇꜱᴛɪᴍᴀᴛᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ ᴏꜰ ᴏʙꜱᴇꜱꜱɪᴠᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇ." - ʜᴏʀᴀᴄᴇ ꜱʟᴜɢʜᴏʀɴ
Chapter Nine: Hunting Instinct
"The Animagus Black has escaped."
The Animagus Black? Must she go to such lengths to feign the absence of a relation to her cousin Sirius?
"Yes, Bella," he said absently.
"My Lord," repeated Bellatrix, more forcefully this time, "the prisoner has escaped. It follows, then, that our location will be compromised. Shall I dispose of the threat?"
"Fear not. Sirius Black is a mass-murderer who will be Kissed the moment any witch or wizard lays eyes on him long enough to recognise him and alert the Ministry. Whispers, I hear, have been circulating about a mass breakout, given the presence of the Dementors. Some people are not so stupid as they look."
"But Dumbledore, My Lord—"
"Dumbledore believes Black a violent criminal, and besides, he will not go to Dumbledore, as that is an intelligent decision and Black is incapable of such a thing! Now, if you are concluded with the interrogation, Bellatrix, leave me in peace!"
She flinched at his outburst, lingering still in the doorway, yet transfixed. Something quirked at the corners of her mouth, and she stepped forward, unbidden.
Sometimes he was not certain what he saw; a stream of thoughts, yes, Bellatrix would never hide anything as simple as that from him, but to know was not always to understand. Some people are simple and others complicated; she was the former, and simplicity was not to be confused with stupidity, but instead purity of motives, and yet it was required of him to understand her motives to understand her... a puzzle of sufficient difficulty but little actual danger was a pleasant enough distraction.
"What is it? I could — I could help."
What is it? The fact that there was nothing left but the cold, comforting embrace of existential fear, occasionally and punctuated by the few things that gave him momentary bouts of rage, and euphoria.
He could feel her longing for closeness, as if she had forgotten, or at least forgotten it mattered, that all that stood between her life and the loss of it was his ability to control his temper. Her trembling fingers millimetres from his wrists.
Her heavy breaths. Lung damage from the damp air of Azkaban, or passion?
She is terrified of me.
It would be so easy.
It would be so foolishly easy to trust. Perhaps... perhaps I used to. Perhaps that is part of the problem.
Maybe I do not know all. His defeat had unsettled him. There is more I must learn. I rely too much on my strengths and ignore my weaknesses.
It remains to be determined: is Bella a strength or a weakness?
"You are frightened," murmured Voldemort, his fingers on her cheek pressing hard enough to bruise. And then he thought, but did not say: if you were not frightened, you would not love me. If you were frightened, you, like your mother, would regard me not with admiration but instead utter disgust.
Humans are fickle, and they only love unlovable shadows.
"You are troubled, My Lord." A faint waver to her voice. "But if you meant for him to escape..."
"I know where Black will go. He will do my bidding. No need for a command. He must not be suspected, and he will not be, because he does not understand what a favour he is doing for me."
"If not him, then who or what? There is nothing that warrants fear—"
"Do not imply that I am a frightened child!"
Do not press too hard, Voldemort reminded himself, half in a daze, or she will break, and then where would we be? He let go of Bellatrix and left her to stumble back slightly, the red marks where his hand had been stark against her pale skin. Not so easily bruised before her imprisonment, he thought. Or had he simply... pressed harder?
His skin was like stone since the Elixir; it never bruised, never flushed, never broke.
Bellatrix stared back at him; he could tell she wanted to heal the bruise, but she wouldn't until she was out of his sight. Perhaps she might even keep it. The Dark Lord did not touch others. She might want them to know that he touched her, that he had pressed hard enough to bruise.
She regarded him steadily, trembling, eyes wide in her gaunt, strange face. Uglier to most. More precious to him, each scratch, each sunken inch of flesh evidence of her sacrifice. Not like treacherous Malfoy, selfish Nott, or cowardly Wormtail. Yes, perhaps there was a silver lining to this small setback, ten years a mere blip in forever...
Yes, you love me because you fear me. I am right.
"No, My Lord," she said quietly. "I am the one who is frightened."
"For me?" The laugh that followed was joyless. "Well, you need not worry. The hunt is on, Bella. Aren't you excited? Smile. Look lively."
She did not look so frightened. Perhaps confused.
So not frightened for me, then. Frightened of me. The similarity is indeed confusing.
He supposed he had played his cards awfully close to the chest.
"Come closer," said Voldemort. "The walls have ears, I often find."
She did. Slowly. Not wary. But savouring the moment nonetheless.
And then, he condescended to bend his head and whisper into her ear; all the while he could feel the growing smile tightening her skin against his cheek.
But of course, she listened, so unlike the others, and so he would tell her things that they must not know. She had soaked every lesson up like a sponge — what was it the Mudblood Evans had said, taunting her as they fought, as Evans lost — "you fight like Voldemort, Lestrange, but sloppy" — it was a wonder the girl had survived the incident.
"NO! I will break her, blood traitor!" Bellatrix had screamed, pointing her wand at Evans's limp, almost lifeless body, inches from the corpse of an Auror. "Break her like a twig, Potter! And you will watch!"
Potter quaked too, as if he were the one being tortured, brought to his knees, face contorting. Pathetic.
Anyone could torture. Even children can throw taunts and kicks. But Bellatrix was a true architect of pain. Pain that made you lose yourself so completely...
"LILY! No, please, not Lily, take me instead, please! Please, stop hurting her!"
Enough, he had said. Longer and they may never be useful again, to me or to anyone else... but perhaps Bellatrix had been right, perhaps no mercy should ever be granted, perhaps enemies would never become allies. If he had let Evans scream and whimper her sanity away on that floor, if he had let Bellatrix dispose of Potter, there would be no prophecy, no uncertainty...
But the Longbottom boy. Perhaps it was fate that a shadow of himself should be propped up and puppeteered against him, regardless of his decisions, some pale imitation constructed by Dumbledore, a frightened boy...
And then her eyes fell to the desk, the inky scribbles that were meaningless scribbles no longer...
"Each obstacle removed..." murmured Bellatrix. "Each enemy playing their role, in perfect harmony."
Now, she sees. Sees the beauty of all this, like I do.
"How many deaths," said Voldemort, his eyes, and then his fingers straying again to the bruise, "will it take for the entire orchestra to be perfectly in tune? If slippery Lucius can be trusted, then it is very, very soon."
Desperation, I have learnt, from my years of exile, is a powerful weapon. It is time I wield it.
Bellatrix clutched the papers, her fingers still frail, but no longer as spidery as they were before.
"Now, listen carefully. Do you remember the Prewett squib, perhaps?"
Bellatrix's mouth twisted into a snarl. "I saw him only a few times, when he was a child. What of him?" she finished haughtily.
"He had a child with another Squib," Voldemort continued. "A child who works in... what was it? The Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects, Lucius tells me."
"And what of the child?"
"I observed her, through that troublesome Quirrell."
One of Dumbledore's? Voldemort could clearly observe her line of thinking.
"No, not quite. Now, Bella, have someone keep an eye on her, someone unsuspected, someone close... she does have a penchant for being in the right place at the right time. A talent which must be exploited."
Now, the expression that twisted her mouth was wilder. Freer. "I understand completely... My Lord."
The dead one, the betrayer, the werewolf, and the Death Eater. He repeated it under his breath, long after she had left to fulfill her duties. Yes, each would play his role.
The cold December air made to bite through the Heating Charm sewn into her blouse; why did the Ministry insist on letting the cold creep in during the winter? Mafalda shuddered.
"You're supposed to be writing that report on counterfeit nazars," said Hassan snidely, looking over her shoulder at the unrelated report on Dementor attacks shamelessly pilfered from the rubbish bin outside one of the DMLE offices.
She sighed, looking down at the pile of chipped, misshapen glass circles unceremoniously heaped on her desk that morning, each painted with a large blue eye. The only reason she even bothered coming in these days was to reduce her chances of running into any Dementors, especially since the incident in the library.
She thought perhaps she should tell someone that she'd seen Ruby Potter. But her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth whenever she seemed to have made her mind up to speak, possibly because of the steady whispers of murder and increasing curiosity about the Dursleys' fate, and of course about Azkaban.
Whether or not she liked the kid, Mafalda's heart was not quite hard enough to imagine committing her to years in that awful place, especially not when she thought about Harry Potter, turned to wind and dust and two glowing eyes, howling in grief and pain, a creature of utter destruction.
Compassion was not a familiar emotion to her.
And the boy — Puzzle — Riddle — whatever he'd called himself. She wasn't sure what to make of him. At least they won't have to worry about running into Dementors.
She tried not to think about it.
The Department of Mysteries was hard at work on one of their few public projects; making the Patronus Charm embeddable into an object.
Runic magic, which really did a good deal of the heavy lifting when it came to enchanting objects with complex spells, had never been one of her strengths, she reflected. It required a good deal of creativity and a bit of a romantic personality. For example, alu, a common charm word, literally meant 'ale,' but if you had the knack for that kind of thing, you could use it as a crude form of the Imperius Curse.
That must have been the boy's type, she thought, remembering how he'd screamed at the Dementor to simply go away.
But that kind of thing was hard to reproduce. Even if the Unspeakables came up with a working prototype, the chances of being able to mass-produce it were slim at best.
The real question, according to Ben Goldstein, was why the Ministry had lost control of the Dementors in the first place.
"The Dementors have left," he proposed, "because there are no souls left in Azkaban to feed on. There's clearly been a mass breakout, and the DMLE is covering it up! I demand an investigation into each and every member of the department!"
To which Fudge's response, was, essentially, that Goldstein was a fringe lunatic — at some point, Anthony had been referred to as "Ben's poor crippled boy" — which other than coming off as offensive, was an obvious distraction from the fact the Goldstein wasn't a fringe lunatic. People were dying. St. Mungo's had had to open a new ward for Kissed victims; Fudge himself had come to the opening ceremony to say a few pretty words.
At any rate, Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody, implacable and paranoid war veteran, has slipped back into retirement and obscurity after his stint at Hogwarts during the Quirrell incident, and with it, any integrity the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had. Some group of highly trained Aurors had been dispatched to hunt down and clear out the Dementors, to very little effect.
And no one had offered a solution. The size of the Kissed Ward kept growing. Mafalda had heard the whispers about it. Healers first force-feeding victims as they hung on to life, but later giving up, instead offering a steady stream of potions that kept the victims in the hopes of offering them a more humane death.
"It has to stop," she whispered under her breath to Hassan during their lunch break. "We can't go on like this any longer."
"Of course it will stop," said Hassan, drumming his fingers absently on the desk. He paused. The faint whirr of the Heating Charm was the only noise in the empty office. "When the Dark Lord gets what he wants, of course."
She breathed out. "So you agree he's back."
"Of course the Dark Lord has returned. Everything has changed. Don't you feel it?"
Mafalda did not respond. He did not need to know that she had stood in a dark corner of the Hospital Wing, as Harry Potter reported the exact circumstances of the Dark Lord's return.
"Of course," she repeated, her gaze flicking nervously from Hassan to the floor to the ceiling.
"It will stop," said Hassan with a brief nod. "When the Dark Lord gets what he wants, that is. Although he has yet to name his price."
"So Voldemort's controlling the Dementors?" And when she said it, she flinched; it came out too fast, too desperate.
Hassan coughed, and suddenly became interested in lunch again. Mafalda did the same.
It was ten hours to the New Year; a steady, cold two in the afternoon. A group of upper-year students were practising duelling in the Great Hall under Dumbledore's watchful eye; Snape had been relegated to lookout duty.
Harry, for his part, had taken up residence in the library, as he had since the beginning of the winter holidays, with Ron and Hermione having a whispered argument in the stacks.
"So," began Harry casually, as if he had not been aching to ask Lupin this very question since they had met, "what were my parents like? Really?"
Lupin, who had been sorting through returned books and muttering call numbers under his breath, paused.
"Lily and James," he said heavily. There was a sadness to his voice and Harry felt a twinge of envy, not being able to understand the grief of having known them and lost them. For them, they had always been missing.
"How do I begin? Well... James, he was... trusting to a fault. Naïve, even. Occasionally—" Lupin winced "—cruel with his humour." He gave a brief chuckle, as if remembering something. "Irresponsible, even, but he could get away with it. He was talented enough. Everyone said that they were the cleverest students in the school, him and Sirius, but they were biased. That was clearly Lily."
Harry realised that he was staring at Lupin too intently, and glanced down.
"It doesn't seem like you liked my dad very much."
Lupin paused, a strange expression having come over his face. "Oh, I didn't like James. We — we were closer than family, the four of us, or at least that was how it felt. You don't love people for their best qualities, Harry, but despite their worst ones."
"And Lily?" asked Harry, feeling greedy and half-ashamed.
"Lily was... spirited. Stubborn. Sneaky. She had a sharp tongue. She made people... uncomfortable, perhaps, mostly because she was Muggle-born, and easily the top of our year. It's hard to explain... some people have instinct, Harry. It's something purebloods think only they should have."
"She made them... angry?"
"She made a lot of people, angry, Harry."
"But not — not Dad?"
"James was always the type to run towards danger, in this case, a witch who could reliably produce defensive charms that only a Killing Curse could get through." Lupin's expression soured. "In fact that's where he was found. In the hallway. Trying to stop Voldemort, running towards the front door."
"Mum fought too?"
"Of course she did! Did no one tell you that she was a once in a lifetime talent?"
"Aunt Petunia told us loads of other stuff," said Harry dryly.
"Yes," said Lupin. "She always seemed to want Tuney's approval."
Harry nearly choked. "Tuney?"
He tried and failed to imagine Aunt Petunia with a cutesy little nickname. All he could think was that it was just an additional thing for Petunia to despise his mother for.
And another thing to despise him for. All those times when she'd look at him and tell him that she hated his eyes, he'd never understood. Never consciously put two-and-two together.
He recalled the years he'd barely spoke.
In his mind's eye, he saw Petunia's hand on Ruby's shoulder, his sister's head bowed in resignation. The half-empty bottle of vodka on the table.
"Boy!"
Shudder. "Yes. Uncle Vernon?"
A finger pointed. Some task set.
"Yes. Uncle Vernon."
Then the sound of breaking glass, Petunia's furious face—
"YOUR MOTHER WAS A WHORE!"
He saw, now. Together, he and Ruby were a reconstruction of Lily; one child with Lily's powers, another, a daughter with her personality. Lily's ghost haunted Petunia, and she'd infected Vernon with that fever dream, too, that something abnormal had subsumed their lives, and that it must be stifled.
And the harder they pressed, the closer he'd gotten to breaking point. Yes, he understood now. If only the sound of Vernon shouting would quiet in his brain— if only he could forget the cold clench of hunger, the cold, the shivering, Ruby's crying, wiping her nose on the corner of her giant shirt—
He flinched, but Lupin hadn't noticed.
And then Vernon's forever-frozen, confused face had stared up at him. How ironic. The large, imposing, terrifying man who had been nothing less than a brick wall of malevolence, killed by flowers.
He just — wanted to be — free.
You will not be intimidated by a dead man. You are storm and wind and shadow. No one can trap you, not ever again.
"Yes. Force of habit, that's all Lily ever called her. I'm afraid I referred to her as such when I met her on the platform after first year. She wasn't very impressed with my scars, I remember. She rather disliked having to associate with the magical world... although I believe she sent Lily a horrible vase the Christmas before... it. I believe you broke it, or at least, that's what Lily told us."
All of a sudden, there was a massive popping sound, like a firework.
A couple people in the library turned around but went right back to their conversations.
"House-elf," Lupin explained. "One of the pureblood students likely forgot something at home."
"Harry Potter!" something cried out, a mixture of child and old man. "Harry Potter?"
Oh no, thought Harry, I'd better answer.
"Here," he said quietly, and sort of waved, looking around for the 'house-elf,' who was the strangest creature Harry had laid eyes on yet, with large, sad green eyes like an insect's, and equally disproportionate, bat-like ears. The house-elf wore a dirty pillowcase, which Harry thought odd, but perhaps it was traditional.
"Dobby is pleased to make your acquaintance, Harry Potter sir," said the house-elf, bowing over and over again, but all the while flicking an evaluative gaze over him and Lupin.
"Just Harry's fine," he said awkwardly, his face burning.
"Just — Just Harry! Harry Potter sir is too kind, too great!"
He doesn't have to lay it on so thick. He twitched. Everyone's staring.
Lupin waved his wand. "Muffliato. Now we can talk without being overheard." Lupin gestured at the empty space in the booth next to Harry. "Will you sit, uh, Dobby?"
"Sit?" asked Dobby, tears welling in his enormous eyes. "A wizard asks Dobby to sit?"
"Why are you here?" asked Harry, once Dobby had sat down in one of the large armchairs, sniffling and straightening the wrinkles in his pillowcase.
"Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you, sir. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, sir —"
"Who's they?" Harry interrupted.
"The Malfoys, Harry Potter. Dobby works for the Malfoys; all the cooking and cleaning for them, Dobby does."
"You work for the Malfoys?" Harry couldn't keep the disgust out of his voice; yes, he could see Draco Malfoy kicking Dobby around. If they know he's left, they'll punish him, won't they? Poor Dobby.
He felt a sort of weird kinship with the house-elf; he could recall very well being locked up and forced to do chores. Harry wondered if they could keep him, and resolved to ask Lupin after. Surely enslaving house-elves wasn't common practice amongst wizards? But then he remembered what Lupin had said sort of in an offhand way and shuddered.
"Malfoys won't notice Dobby's gone, Harry Potter sir. Dobby is rarely noticed at all."
"So why have you come to talk to Harry?" asked Lupin. "I don't suppose you want an autograph," he said wryly, and Harry rolled his eyes.
Dobby turned to stare at Harry with unblinking eyes. "Bad things about to be happening, Harry Potter."
"Tell me something new," he said, and Lupin shook his head, frowning.
"Dobby spends most of his time in the receiving room in Malfoy Manor, Harry Potter sir."
"Most of the old families have them as an entry point to the house via the Floo Network," Lupin explained.
"Exactly, sir. Dobby's job is to turn away any unwanted visitors," the house-elf continued. "Especially because Dobby's masters—"
Dobby let out a piercing shriek and started banging his head on the table repeatedly. Harry grabbed the back of the pillowcase to try to stop him, but he slipped out of Harry's grasp.
"Dobby must be punished, sirs!" he bleated out. "What Dobby is about to say is very, very bad! Dobby is about to betray his masters! But Dobby has heard how Harry Potter stood up to the Dark Lord, how brave he must be, that he can be trusted!"
"Fine," muttered Harry, "fine. Just — stop banging your head, will you?"
Dobby nodded, and blew his long, floppy nose in the filthiest corner of his pillowcase.
"Dobby waited in the receiving room, Harry Potter, and overheard Mister Nott discussing with Master—" Dobby screeched again.
Harry was glad for Lupin's muffling spell; otherwise, he was sure they would be arrested by now for cruelty against house-elves.
"Dobby, will you please— " began Lupin exasperatedly "—please just— stop punishing yourself for a minute, alright?"
Dobby shot up, panting for breath and shivering all over.
"The Ministry is coming for the Muggle-born students, Harry Potter. Dobby heard they'll have them rounded up and sent to the Dark Lord to keep him from sending Dementors after the purebloods."
Harry's heart leapt into his throat.
Hermione, he thought, his stomach sinking. The Ravenclaw prefect. Colin Creevey. That kid from Hufflepuff, Justin Finch-Fletchley. Umbridge will round them all up and sacrifice them. I can't let her.
"A clever plan on Voldemort's part," said Lupin darkly. "All of the Muggle-born students will have to be sent home."
"They can't," said Harry, his heartbeat playing a staccato rhythm on his ribcage. "The manifesto, remember? They're on a registry. The Ministry will hunt them down in their homes and drag them back if they have to."
"Then they'll be safe at Hogwarts. Dumbledore—"
Dobby had begun to bang his head on the table once more, wailing and tugging at his ears.
"I suppose we should check on Dumbledore. Thank you for the tip, er, Dobby?"
Lupin got to his feet and Harry followed suit.
"What—"
But Lupin didn't respond. Quickly, he gestured at Ron and Hermione, and the three hurried after Lupin, who was striding out of the library as fast as his long legs could take him. Harry quickly relayed the conversation back to both of them.
"Lupin thinks Dumbledore's in danger?" asked Ron. "But what from?"
Lupin had stopped walking so quickly as they drew close to the Headmaster's Office. A small crowd had gathered outside already, which never boded well in Harry's opinion.
"Oh, what now?" asked Hermione anxiously, straining to see over the tops of everyone's heads. Cedric, who was in front of them, motioned them forward, and they pressed closer to the front of the crowd.
They were greeted by Umbridge, dressed head-to-toe in pink tweed, and practically sparkling. Harry saw Ron try to move an annoyed Hermione out of sight. He glanced through the frightened crowd; no one seemed to know what's going on.
"Where's Dumbledore?" Harry whispered to Anthony, who had come up on his other side.
"No idea," he whispered back. "No one's seen him since this morning."
There was nothing Umbridge could do to hold Dumbledore back. But still, his stomach turned.
More people had gathered. Umbridge cleared her throat.
"You must all be wondering why you have been gathered here... students... professors..." She let out her girlish, tinkling laugh. Harry thought it sounded like broken glass.
"The short answer, in fact the truth, is that Dumbledore is an enemy to the good people of Wizarding Britain."
"LIAR!" someone shouted. "LIAR!"
"Quiet down," Umbridge boomed, and Harry realised that she'd enchanted her voice. "The next of you to interrupt me will go directly to detention. Now, Albus Dumbledore has been found guilty of gross neglect of thousands of students over the years, failure to comply with the Ministry guidelines, along with many counts of fraud, conspiracy, and treason. As such, he is currently being held in Azkaban and awaiting trial."
Harry's heart dropped to his stomach, and he glanced at Lupin. We were too late.
"If Dumbledore would let himself get captured," whispered Anthony, "there must be a reason. He wouldn't leave us here in her hands for no reason."
"Now, Daphne, if you would read this out loud for everyone?"
Harry turned, with a sour taste in the back of his mouth, to watch Daphne Greengrass step forward with the utmost seriousness, holding an official-looking roll of parchment.
"Dolores Jane Umbridge (High Inquisitor)," she began to read in a clear, bright voice, "has replaced Albus Dumbledore as the Head of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Signed by the Minister of Magic, 31st of December, 1993."
Harry wasn't the only one to launch himself forward; but Cedric grabbed him and roughly forced him away, kicking and struggled.
"Get off me," he growled, lashing out at him with his elbows. "You bastard!"
"Harry, it'll only make it worse—"
From Ron, he would tolerate that sentiment — but him?
"Shut up!" said Harry hotly. "Shut up! Just because you're pureblood — you're not concerned about anyone else but yourself, are you? But when do we fight? When Hermione gets kidnapped and served up to Voldemort? It'll be too late then! You're sick, Diggory — big Quidditch hero, prefect, whatever else — you're a coward!"
Cedric finally let go of him, and the force knocked him to the floor. Harry got to his feet, snarling.
"Potter, don't— crazy bloody midget—"
"You want to know why I'm so short, then? Do you, Diggory?" He could hear people's voices, people pleading with him to stop but he just didn't care. "They starved me," he said, trembling with fury. "We were starved, hit, called names. Because of this—" He gestured with his wand, trailing sparks "—because of what I am, Ced. So don't, don't ever tell me what I can and can't care about, who I can and can't care about, because I've seen what people who hate people just because of what they are can do, and I'm not going to sit and watch Umbridge hurt people I care about. You can do whatever you like, just leave me out of it!"
Cedric was trembling, too. "Potter," he muttered weakly. "Potter, I didn't mean—"
"Save it," he bit out. "Ron. Hermione. Come on, we're leaving."
"I'll fight, alright?" Cedric called out after him. "I'll be there, Potter, alright? I'm not a coward!"
Yeah, right, thought Harry bitterly. Won't hold you to it.
"Harry," said Ron uneasily. "All that stuff you told Cedric... how come you've never told us before?"
Hermione nodded, fiddling with the ends of her hair.
He turned to face them and sighed. "Look — I — I don't know, really, I just..." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I want to go home, but I don't know where home is. I—I—" He trailed off, but finding the next words didn't matter anymore, because both of them were hugging him.