CW: torture, blood, suicide

Harriet sat facing Harry and Luna. She held the gold-tipped stick aloft like a wand.

"So, when that sidhe," Harriet said, pointing the stick at the creature chained in the corner, "came back, I stabbed it. I hadn't planned on escaping. I just wanted to kill it for what it did to Carl. What it did to me. Didn't go as planned. Wouldn't die. Couldn't die. However, I did learn three things."

She put down the stick and held up the thumb of her left hand. Harry suspected she picked that hand because it only had three fingers.

"One," she said. "You know how dragon blood has twelve uses? Sidhe blood has one, but it's a doozy: it grants massive power. When it flowed out over my hand, I realized I could do almost anything. I'd been trying for days to make a mushroom ring, a return portal. They wouldn't last a second, just withered. With sidhe blood, I made one that stayed open just long enough to get through. Brought him by accident."

She gestured at the Sidhe again. It didn't move.

"Two," she said, raising her pointer finger. "Sidhe don't die. Nothing kills them. Believe me I tried. They just heal back."

"Sidhe are strong," the creature said, suddenly. "Sidhe last forever and ever. Long after you are dust, the sidhe will live. Long after your stars go black, the sidhe will live. We will live and we will sing revels of your pain. I will tell of how I wore Carl's skin and gave you a first kiss. And we will laugh. I will sing it again and again. I will sing it a billion billion times over a billion billion years. I will sing it for longer than you ever were alive, longer than your whole world was alive. And sidhe will laugh. We will laugh forever and ever and ever."

As if to demonstrate, it laughed. It laughed on and on, and Harry wondered if it would ever stop. Harriet raised her last finger.

"Three," she said. "Sidhe feel pain."

She picked up her stick again, and the laughter stopped. She stood.

"See, they love torture," she said, walking over to the creature, "but they don't enjoy it when it happens to them. They react to pain. They fear it, like we do."

She jabbed the gold point at the creature, and it flinched away, whimpering. Harriet smiled and gestured like a saleswoman showing off a product's best feature.

"I realized, if they suffer trauma just like us, they can have a post-traumatic stress disorder just like us."

She leaned her elbow on the creature's chest and aimed the stick at its nearest eye. She moved the gold point slowly forward, and it flinched away. It closed its eyelid, and she rested the point against it.

"The sidhe will live for eternity," she said. "When everyone else in the universe is dead and gone, they'll still be singing the song of how they killed Kara and Geraldine. But Carl? Carl was special." She pushed the tip harder against its eyelid. A faint trickle of glowing blue leaked out. "Fooling me was so cruel, the sidhe let this one have a solo song. That's a high honor." She pushed harder, and it screamed that soundless scream again. "But it won't be able to enjoy the song. It won't be able to remember the right words. All it will remember is this." She pushed harder, and the stick went inward. "It will remember the moment I shoved a piece of cold-wrought gold through its eye and into its brain." The creature was screaming silently, but somehow loud enough even Harry had a headache. "Remember me, when you sing, asshole. Remember this pain for ever and ever."

The creature collapsed. Harry assumed it was unconscious. Any other living thing would have died. Harriet pulled the stick out and went back to wash her hands again.

"Baby," Luna said, "why didn't you come to me?"

Harriet was suddenly facing them from across the table. She slammed both her blue, wet palms down, shaking the table.

"I did! I came looking for you. You know what I found? You forgot me!"

"I never forgot you!"

"You did!" Harriet said, slamming her palms down on the table over and over like a child having a tantrum. "You abandoned our house. The only home I ever knew! You moved away. You replaced me!"

Harry really thought she'd cry. He almost cried himself, imagining what she'd seen. After all the horrors she'd survived, Harriet came back to find her mother adopted three children. She saw her mother happy without her.

"It was ten years!" Luna said.

"It was three weeks!" Harriet said, stabbing the stick into the tabletop so it pointed up like an accusing finger. "It was for me, anyway. So, I went to find Dad." She looked at Harry. "He didn't know who I was, either."

Harry tried to remember if he'd encountered Harriet before. Wasn't there a girl who looked like him who tried to approach him? Didn't he wave her away because he was late for work?

She sat down facing them.

"After a while, I realized how awful it is to forget. How awful it is for someone to make you forget. Think about it. We can do anything we want to muggles and then make them forget about it. We can beat them, rob them, kill them. We can kidnap their children and make them forget they were ever born. How many pregnant girls wake up one morning not remembering who the father of their child is? How many muggles die from wandering too close to the giants, or the dragons, or just from yanking up a mandrake root by accident? We don't warn them. We don't teach them. We just clean it up and move on. This Statute of Secrecy we adhere to… It's abuse."

She leaned over to pick her wand up off the table. It was thick, heavy, but she twirled it in her right hand like it was weightless.

"Now that I had enough power to do a three-layer spell, I decided to eliminate all memory charms everywhere. The first layer was to jump into a host, bury itself deep in there so it couldn't be found and removed."

She let go of her wand, but it didn't fall. It rose gently into the air, spinning, until it hovered above her head. She picked up Harry's wand and twirled it in her fingers the same way.

"The second layer was a straightforward counterspell. Only for memory charms, though. I didn't want to risk dispelling anything beneficial."

She released Harry's wand. It rose to spin and hover under Harriet's. She picked up Luna's wand. Luna winced. Harry remembered Olivander making that wand especially for her. It wouldn't be easily replaced.

"The final layer was my favorite part," Harriet said, smiling. "Something I heard the muggles talking about: going viral. Whenever the spell encountered someone whose memory had been altered, it duplicated itself."

Harriet released Luna's wand, and it spun under the other two.

"That new spell would jump into the host, repair their lost memory, and lie in wait to do it again. If I got it right, it would start slowly. People here and there would regain their memories. Nothing big. Nothing to alert the obliviators. Then it would suddenly be everywhere at once."

She held her hand out. The wands dropped into her palm one at a time.

"And wizarding kind would have to own up to their crimes. It would have been great."

She looked over at Harry.

"Again, really sorry Dad. I don't know what happened."

Harry remembered Viktor Krum saying something about the spell encountering unusual resistance when it went into his mind.

"Anyway, I've been trying to figure out what went wrong ever since."

Harriet looked at Luna's face and froze. She was clenching her teeth, scowling. Harriet frowned.

"What is it now Mum?"

"I never forgot you," Luna said, her voice brittle.

"WhatEVER," Harriet said, crossing her arms.

"NEVER," Luna said. "There's a pocket I sew into all my skirts. I keep two things in there, always. One is my wand. Please fetch the other thing."

Harriet stared at Luna for a moment.

"This had better not be a trick," Harriet said, but got up and searched. After a moment, she found the pocket. She took out a wooden ring, the size of her hand. "I… I don't know what this is. Is this supposed to mean something?"

"It's your teething ring from when you were a baby. Your grandfather made it for you. He was holding when he died."

Harriet, not taking her eyes off the ring, sat down heavily in the chair.

"Xe-xe is dead?" she said, her voice tiny and sad.

"Broken heart."

Harry was sure she'd cry then – he certainly was – but her eyes stayed dry. He wondered what else she'd removed when she cut off her fingers. She opened her mouth to speak, but the Marauder's Map caught her eye. It had unfolded itself.

Harry thought he'd been mistaken. The Map was always just a single piece of parchment. Now it was longer, as if it had been previously folded in half. Harriet picked it up, and it unfolded itself again. The Map was now three times as long.

All the blood rushed out of Harriet's cheeks.

"Oh no," she said, jumping to her feet. "Oh, no no no no no."

"Baby," Luna said. "What's wrong? We can help. If you untie us, we can-"

Harriet held the Marauder's Map up. In the middle, clearly heading their way, was a dot with an impossibly long name. Harry thought it was a glitch in the map. The name was hundreds of random letters long.

"That's a sidhe name," Harriet said, dropping the map on the bloodstained floor.

"Wakefield," Harry said. "That's what made us come here. He's attacked the school looking for…" He looked over at the sidhe in the corner. "Looking for it, I guess."

Harriet stared at the ground, yanking at her hair. "But the Room of Requirement. It's not on any maps. I told it to hide us! There's no way. How could…?"

"Wakefield said 'Father, mother and child,'" Harry said. "I thought it meant Malfoy, but-"

"Ohhhhh," Harriet said, and a calm smile of understanding spread across her face. "The bloodline. All the old stories say sidhe track people based on heredity. They'd just show up to family gatherings a hundred years later. The three of us here, together. It was enough for them to find our world."

"Baby," Luna said, "we have to get out of here. We can use this room to make an escape route. First, we have to—"

Harriet held up her hand, stopping Luna.

"It's okay. I planned for this. I knew they'd come after me again some day. I made sure the Room of Requirement provided what I needed."

She walked across the room and picked something up. She brought it back over so they could see. It was a giant, devastatingly sharp knife. Harriet tilted her head back and brought the point to her throat.

Harry gasped and tried to think of something to say to stop her.

"Harriet Pandora Lovegood!" Luna said, with a sternness that made Harry wince. "Put that knife down now!"

Harriet jumped, poking her neck with the knife's point. She touched the pinprick of blood and frowned at it.

"Mum, what the hell?" she said, then realization dawned. "Ohhhhh. Sorry, selfish of me."

She strode over to Luna and raised the knife.

"I'll kill you first, then me. You want me to cut your throat or stab you through the eye? I can do avada kadavara, but I don't know if that would work on him." She gestured at Harry. "I mean, he's survived it twice, right?"

"No, Harriet, baby," Luna said. "I want to live. I want you to live. I want all of us to live."

Harriet lowered the knife, shaking her head, sadly. She reached out and petted her mother's hair, like she was trying to calm a terrified kitten.

"I'm sorry Mum," she said. "You know what they'll do."

"Splitzies," said a voice from the corner of the room. The sidhe raised its head and smiled at them. "Or twisties. Or fill you with broken glass. Or drown you in acid. So many choices! So many, many choices!"

Harriet raised the knife. "There's only one way out of this."

"I know a second way," Harry said.