CW: Torture, blood

Harriet Lovegood sprawled on a chair facing Harry and Luna. Still bound, lying on his side, Harry strained his neck to see what she was doing to his wand. She was smelling it, from end to end, like it was a cigar.

"Phoenix feather?" Harriet said, her voice was ragged, rougher than you'd expect from a teen. "I pegged you as a dragon heartstring guy." She held it close to her eyes for a moment. "It's having some kind of identity crisis. What did you do?"

There was something wrong with her left hand, but it was hard for Harry to see lying on the floor with his glasses askew. He shook them back into place and squinted. Yes, there was something wrong with her hand, but he couldn't tell what. He looked around.

The Room of Requirement was surprisingly small. It had always been a large room, sometimes enormous, depending on what was needed. Perhaps it still hadn't fully recovered from being burned by fiendfyre. Maybe Harriet preferred small places.

It had a single chair, the one Harriet was in, and a small table. From the floor, Harry couldn't tell what was on it, but something crinkled like paper when she put his wand down.

The room's most prominent feature was the wooden rack and the poor creature strapped to it. The rack was a tilted table with crude manacles on the corners for wrists and ankles.

The creature was like nothing Harry had ever seen. It was humanoid, tall and muscular, but there was a blue cast to its skin. It had four iridescent eyes around its head like a spider. Two of those eyes were closed. One was swollen shut. It was covered in a sparse, spiky fur. It had short, stubby fingers and toes, and only three on each hand and foot.

It was bleeding blue from several places. Its wrists and ankles were swollen. There were gouges and scars all over its torso. Its mouth was covered in blood. A few gashes were still bleeding, and the blood came out phosphorescent.

"I'm sorry about your wife," Harriet said.

Harry stared at her, realization slowly coming to him. She was the dark wizard who attacked him and killed his wife. When his memory returned, he'd seen himself casting the three-layer spell. Looking at her now, seeing how much she resembled him, he understood his mistake.

Harriet recognized the look in his eyes. She frowned and stared at the ground.

"I never wanted to hurt anyone."

Harry looked over at the bloodied creature in the corner.

"Well, besides him, of course," Harriet said, "but he had it coming. Trust me. I wouldn't hurt you on purpose. I was only in your neighborhood because I wanted your help. I was working up the courage to talk to you, but you walked in on a spell I was trying and ruined everything."

There was the faintest sound, a thrum of magic Harry knew well. It was the noise the golden plates made in the Great Hall when food was sent from the kitchens.

"Oh!" Harriet said. "Sandwiches!"

She reached over and picked up a half sandwich. Her hand still had flecks of the creature's blue blood, but she didn't seem to care. She sighed, disappointed.

"Pimento cheese? Ugh. They must be trying to crank out food in a hurry."

Harry thought about what must be going on downstairs at that moment. House elves were taking as many children as they could through the school wards. They must also have been making food to calm those waiting for rescue while Wakefield closed in on them.

"I've been here ever since the spell went wrong," she said through a mouthful of sandwich, "trying to figure out what I screwed up."

Harriet stared at Luna, a puzzled look on her face.

"Mum, why are you crying?"

Harry turned as best he could to look. Tears spilled down Luna's cheeks and dripped onto the floor.

"Are you worried about him, too?" Harriet said, gesturing at the creature with her sandwich. "Sidhe can't die. Literally impossible. I've seen them cut each others' heads off for fun. They heal back no matter how bad it is."

Harriet stared at her mother again.

"Are you hungry? Is that it?"

Luna shook her head.

"Oh, it's the ropes. Sorry about that, but I don't know whom to trust anymore. You could be anyone. You could be one of them." She gestured at the creature. "I'll make you more comfortable, though."

She waved her wand, and Harry and Luna were raised into seated positions. From his new position, Harry could see the tabletop. On it was, as he expected, one of the golden plates from the Great Hall. When meals were served, the Room of Requirement must bring some portion of it here.

What he didn't expect was the piece of parchment next to the plate: the Marauder's Map. She'd been able to get the jump on them because she'd seen them coming.

He frowned. But how did she get it?

He thought he'd given it to Teddy Lupin. Maybe he'd given it to her at school. After all, they would have been at Hogwarts around the same time. An uncomfortable thought rose in his head. Why hadn't Teddy ever mentioned her? He and Ginny practically raised him.

Luna's head drooped. Harriet stepped closer, crouching to see her mother's tear-stained face.

"Okay, I give up. I'm just going to take the gags off. Please don't make me regret it."

She flicked her wand casually and the gags evaporated. Harry gasped in air.

Luna smiled.

"I'm crying because my daughter's alive. I'm crying because I'm happy."

Harriet's scowl deepened.

"Bullshit," she said.

"Baby," Luna said. "What happened to you?"

"You don't get to call me 'baby,'" she said. "And the sidhe happened to me. Wakefield happened to me. That monster happened to me. Then, after all that, you happened to me."

A strange ragged breathing came from the monster. As the three of them turned to look at it, the breathing grew louder, more rhythmic, higher pitched.

"Ah-ha! Ahahaha! Ah-hahahaha!"

A chill went through Harry. The creature was laughing.

Harriet jumped up, grabbing something from the table. He thought it was a wand at first, but it was a crudely-hewn stick with a golden point on one end. Without a word, Harriet strode over to the creature and plunged the gold point into its chest.

It screamed, silently. Harriet winced and covered her ears.

"The noises all the students heard from the seventh floor," Harry said. "That was you."

The creature threw up glowing blood and fell silent. Harriet pulled the stick out and went to a corner. Harry heard her washing her hands.

"Sorry you had to see that," she called over her shoulder, "but I have to keep it from recovering too much. If it gets to full strength, it'll escape and then Morgana help us all."

She returned to sit facing them. Now that her hands were clean, and she was so close, Harry saw her fingers more clearly. Two fingers on her left hand were missing. All that were left were strangely twisted lumps.

Harriet noticed Harry's gaze and put her hands on her lap. Her face softened. She sighed.

"You really want to know what happened?" she said.