Help I'm Alive, Metric
They're gonna eat me alive
If I stumble
They're gonna eat me alive
Can you hear my heart beating like a hammer?
Beating like a hammer?
Help, I'm alive
My heart keeps beating like a hammer
Hard to be soft, tough to be tender
Come take my pulse
The pace is on a runaway train
Help, I'm alive, my heart keeps
Beating like a hammer
The headmaster had returned three days later, around the same time the pleasurable, concerning after-burn Liquida Tenebris caused had left him. He felt closer to normal than he had in a long time, with neither the hunger nor the vibration of the spell to cloud his head.
The summons from Dumbledore revived the anxiety he'd been beating down. He knew he was about to be interrogated, and he had no idea how he would hold up to the headmaster's scrutiny. He was thankful, at least, that the ache wasn't ravenous as he traipsed up Dumbledore's staircase.
"You'll need to forgive me for my absence Harry," The man said without preamble, "More pressing matters."
He gestured for Harry to sit, and he did, in his usual armchair.
"That's okay, Sir," he said in return, his heart in his throat. He gripped the arms of the chair and wiped his sweaty palms inconspicuously.
'Prepare yourself.' The voice had come from inside his head, making him startle in his seat.
He looked at Dumbledore for any indication that he'd heard it, but the man just smiled at him, before offering him a sherbet lemon. Harry refused, frowning. He could feel the thing, the hunger, shifting in his gut and his head. He felt the barest tugging on his memories, on his dreams, as they were gently pulled deep into the core of himself.
"I was sent word that you have been having a nasty time, Harry." Dumbledore said, "Is everything well?"
As he spoke, Harry felt the headmaster enter his mind through his eyes. It wasn't a sensation he'd ever noticed before, but he did now, feeling an unfamiliar thread whispering through his thoughts and memories of the months following the attack at the Ministry. He was subtle and deliberate, but there was nothing left to see. All of it dragged into the centre and covered by impenetrable darkness. Any thoughts he had about the man being in his head were also vacuumed up as they came, flitting too far from the headmaster's metaphorical sight. Harry noticed, numb, that the thing in his head was illuminating the thread that Dumbledore was creating in his mind. Pointing him out. Making him obvious.
"I've been having dreams about my parents," Harry said, fighting to keep his tone neutral. As he said it, a fully-fledged fabrication of a dream entered his thoughts. In it, he was with his parents, talking, before they turned to ash and were swept away in the breeze. Harry hoped the headmaster couldn't hear how fast his heart was beating in his head.
Dumbledore took the memory and examined it before he moved on to his pitiful attempt at retrieving the real memory from Slughorn.
"Any luck with Horace?"
Harry thought that the man knew there wasn't any goddamn luck with Horace, as fear, anger, and confusion built. These emotions were pulled away as well, and the Boy Who Lived just felt bizarre in their absence.
"Oh. No. I've been trying."
The memories of brewing potions with the man after hours, and Harry's continuous planning and rehashing, were all presented to Dumbledore. The outlandish sensation of his brain being puppeted by whatever was inside him made him uneasy, but the alternative may have been worse.
The headmaster let him go after he had been thoroughly invaded.
He made his way to the Common Room, skipping the rest of his classes. His heart was pounding, but he was devoid of emotion right up until the moment he closed his curtains and silenced the bed.
Then he screamed until his throat was raw. Until no sound came out.
In the week that followed his meeting with Dumbledore, the hunger returned. It was more insistent, but Harry pushed it away violently each time.
Since it had spoken to him, outside a dream or a delusion, a deep, pervasive fear had taken hold. The thing had moved his thoughts and memories as though they didn't belong to him. Self-preservation, Harry had figured later, when he dissected what had happened.
He still thought that this was some kind of trap, but now he had too many pieces of the puzzle for it to make sense. If whatever was in his head wanted to lead him on a wild goose chase, wouldn't it have been a benefit to show Dumbledore the trap? To show him the false memories? Harry could only deduce that whatever the plan was, the thing in him wanted to be hidden.
It felt far too late for him to unhide it. He'd done too much, assumed too much.
He'd pointedly avoided the headmaster's eyes after the meeting. He'd guessed he was going to be questioned, that Dumbledore would pry, but wouldn't push. Give him some sage advice, maybe chastise him gently. Instead, he'd used Legilimency to rummage in his mind, with no permission or regard. How many times had he done that without his knowledge?
He chewed his toast mechanically, eyes glued to the table.
The ache rattled in its cage, and Liquida Tenebris popped into his head. It had been incessant. Every other thought was punctuated by desire. He needed it, the ache told him so, but he also wanted it with every fibre. He wanted the peace that came with it. He had nothing else that could compare, no other spell or potion that could soothe him like that. But he knew where it had come from. He knew it fed something in himself that he had no business feeding. It wanted it as badly as he did. He was certain half the time the desire wasn't even his, that the thoughts had been manufactured and sent to him. So, he still hadn't cast it. It had felt worse than an unforgivable, somehow. Taboo.
The only other idea he'd come up with was to find some kind of vermin and curse it. The image of casting the Cruciatus on a cockroach had made him laugh despite himself. He found it as horrifying as he did ridiculous, and so he'd discounted the thought.
"How are you holding up, Harry?" Luna's voice said from beside him, startling him into dropping his toast. He hadn't noticed her sit down.
"Oh- Luna," He half shifted to look at her. Ron, Ginny, and Hermione were chattering amongst themselves, but at any moment they could turn their attention to the blonde Ravenclaw.
"I'm fine." He told her.
"That's funny. You don't look fine at all." She said, looking at the side of his head as though she could see into it. Harry wondered for the second time what exactly she thought she knew. He'd shushed her after that, eyes bugging out of his head in paranoia. She'd shrugged and reached for bacon.
"I think you'd feel a lot better if you didn't fight it," she said, mouth full.
"What're you playing at?" He hissed, resisting the urge to turn and face her fully.
"It's alright Harry, I'm your friend." She said as she took in the expression on his face. Her tone was still airy.
Harry liked Luna. She had been one of the few who had believed him about Voldemort's return after the Tri-Wizard Cup. She'd followed him into the Ministry, into a death trap. Despite her occasional self-deprecation -and the way she was talking to him now, like she knew- she had a soothing presence. He didn't know if that was enough to balm the suspicion.
"We're going to talk about this later. Alone." He muttered, and she nodded.
"Sure, Harry."
"And- Don't speak to Dumbledore." He'd whispered the last word. "Don't even look at him."
"Of course." She said like it was obvious; like there was no reason to question that logic.
'Careful.' The voice inside him said. Quiet.
Harry slowly put down the piece of toast he'd picked back up, swallowing nothing. He hadn't heard it since Dumbledore's office. He was happily pretending he'd never heard it in the first place.
He noticed he was holding his breath and tried to draw one in, struggling for calm. He looked up at his friends and saw that Ginny was watching him, her face expressionless. Ron chatted animatedly with Hermione, his hands waving in the air as he described something Harry couldn't quite make out over the din of breakfast. He was glad at least that he was holding Hermione's attention, as he fought hyperventilation. He stood up carefully and removed himself from the hall before he had a very public panic attack.
He managed to have a very private one, in a toilet stall, silenced.
The castle at large may have shunned him, but in Slytherin, he had thrived. His Housemates took his word for law, and a large group of them would sit around him in the Common Room at every opportunity, listening to him talk, laughing at his jokes, appreciating his plans.
Nott, Rosier, Mulciber, Lestrange, Avery, Dolohov, and a handful of the Black family members sat with him that evening. Lestrange was discussing a curse he'd found in the Forbidden Section rather loudly, the others chatting amongst themselves, paying Lestrange little mind. Harry watched them talk, content not to partake. Instead, he relished in the feeling he'd long been missing. Home.
He was in the Gryffindor Common Room in a blink, surrounded by Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Neville, in his fourth year, before his name had been pulled from the Cup and everything had gone to shit. Ron was gushing over the Beauxbatons girls, giddy, and everyone had lost it, laughing uncontrollably. He'd held his sides, his face hurting, and thought that this was nice. This was home.
Luna had found him, in the end. She came into the Gryffindor Common Room with Neville and asked Harry if he wanted to see something cool. He followed her out of the portrait of the Fat Lady, and she led him to the Greenhouse, where she presented vines, reaching lazily as though there was a breeze in the sealed building. The plants were too small to be aggressive, still seedlings.
"Tentacula," she told him, reaching for a vine and holding it gently. "Neville told me all about it. You said you wanted to talk, Harry?" She raised her wand to cast Muffliato and turned to smile at him, briefly.
"You said that I have- A problem. You spoke like… like you can see it." Harry's words tumbled out, blood pounding in his ears.
"I've always seen it," she said, kneeling to appreciate the swaying plants, looking at him from the corner of her eye. "The first time I saw you, I noticed it, here," She gestured at his head from her position on the ground.
"It was really small. Size of a Nargle. I thought, wow, what a strange little thing. Then the night at the Ministry, it got bigger." She stood and showed him the size with her hands, then put them on either side of his ears to show that it was slightly larger than his head.
"How- How big is it now, Luna?" He asked, and she stepped back, looking above his head and then down at his body.
"Huge. It's all around you, Harry." She nodded and smiled as the Boy Who Lived felt his face drain of colour.
"It's dark right now, but sometimes it glows." She added.
"Glows?"
"A brilliant gold. It's really nice." She'd returned to the plants, staring into the centre of them at their tiny mouths, snapping at nothing.
"What is it, Luna? Do you know?" He pressed, not comfortable talking about it glowing.
"Oh, I don't know, Harry. I figured you knew." She gave him a small shrug.
"But you said I'd… feel better if I didn't fight it?"
"You do feel better, don't you?" She asked.
He ignored that comment, "How is it… How can you see it?" He took a step toward her, looking between the twisting vines and the side of her head.
"It's just energy Harry, everyone has it." She told him simply. "Yours was very- broken. It seems a bit better now."
"Better?!" He snapped incredulously, then added, "How many people can- see it?"
She shrugged again, "I don't know. No one that I know. My father says it's a rare enough gift, but of course, there are others."
"You haven't told anyone, have you?"
She laughed, "No, Harry. It's not my business. People don't like when I talk about auras. I don't suspect anyone would believe me if I told them about yours, anyway."
Harry wasn't sure what that meant and had wanted to question her further, but she had smiled, given him a small wave, and floated out of the Greenhouse. He was confident in the fact that she didn't seem to know what it was, what it meant, or what he had been doing. He realised that he didn't know those things, either.
The start of March brought Ron's birthday. It had been over three weeks since he'd cast Liquida Tenebris, and he was constantly gnawing at the inside of his mouth. He was getting close to the limit, he knew. He watched Ron open an impressive haul of presents and cheered him on in what he'd hoped was a believable fashion while his insides writhed.
There had been a strange lull in Death Eater activity, with no movement since the kidnapping of Ollivander. This coincided with Malfoy frequenting the Room of Requirement less and less, spending only minutes of his time in the room every few days. Instead, the Slytherin had taken to patrolling the halls, always with Crabbe, Goyle, and Zabini. Sometimes Parkinson. They would sweep the castle most nights, till the early hours. Sometimes split into groups of two. Harry was suspicious, of course, but couldn't figure it out.
He looked around the Common Room, most of Gryffindor milling about, congratulating Ron, and chattering about the wristwatch he'd received from his parents. He couldn't see Ginny anywhere, so he stole up to the empty dormitory and took out the map wondering if she'd slept in. Something that she seldom did, despite their usual late hours.
She wasn't in the Gryffindor Tower. He quickly found her alone in the same classroom he had followed her and Ron to, weeks earlier. He frowned, tucked the map back into his pants and descended the stairs.
"Where's Ginny?" Hermione had whispered to him, looking around the Common Room. Harry had shrugged, eyebrows knitted together as he watched Ron showing Neville his new chess set. He wanted to go and see exactly what Ginny was doing, but the festivities held him in place until the start of classes.
He took the map out several times throughout the day, and Ginny remained in the empty room. Ron didn't seem concerned, but Hermione mentioned it several times, saying that she was hoping to have a cake for Ron after dinner in the Common Room and that she'd hoped Ginny would help her with it. By the middle of the day, the bushy-haired girl was ready to take it to the headmaster and declare her missing. Throughout this, Harry hadn't hinted that he knew exactly where she was. He felt oddly guilty ratting her out like that, so instead, he didn't go to lunch. He shirked Hermione and Ron, claiming he'd left something in his trunk, then collected the invisibility cloak and headed to the classroom near the Divination Tower. He didn't want his friends to join him, and he didn't want to bump into the Slytherins, visible, alone in the halls, starved as he was.
He hesitated at the door before he knocked. First gently, then a bit harder.
"Ginny?" He called, noting that it was silent inside. A moment later the door opened, and Ginny let out a shaky breath when she saw Harry's disembodied head. She stepped aside for him to enter and closed the room behind him. He removed the cloak completely and noted that her eyes were red and puffy.
"You've been in here all day?" He said, more of a question than a statement.
"I- Dean and I broke up," Her voice was flat, and Harry recalled her telling him that they weren't that serious. Serious enough to lock herself away?
"…Ron was opening presents this morning. Hermione wanted help with… A cake. We wondered where you were, I checked the map." Harry decided he felt very awkward having invaded her privacy. "I was worried."
"I know. Sorry." She swept her face with the back of her hand.
"You look pale," She noted. Harry had known how he'd looked but was displeased that he wasn't the only one to pick up on it.
"I know," he said, sighing.
She let him walk her out, though she seemed reluctant. The both of them moved silently to the Great Hall, Ginny wiping her face and struggling to appear neutral, Harry biting his tongue and struggling to appear neutral.
He'd seen Dean after Defence that afternoon, and Harry followed him down the corridor on a whim.
"Hey! Dean!" He called, and the other boy spun to look at him. He broke out of the group of Gryffindors he'd been walking with.
"Harry, what's up?" Dean said as they reached each other.
"I wanted to ask- uh, about Ginny?"
He looked defensive, and Harry shook his head, "I'm not mad, I just wanted to ask…" He wasn't certain what he wanted to ask.
"She's all yours if that's what you mean mate, she broke up with me weeks ago. Gotta warn you, though, she cries. Like, a lot." Dean's eyes bugged as he said this.
Harry let him go, the Gryffindor shaking his head as he went. Ginny Weasley had been fine, as far as he could tell, for those weeks that she and Dean had been broken up. She hadn't told him, or, as far as he knew, anyone, that the pair had split. Why then, was she crying alone this morning? Why had she been crying with Dean? Harry found that he had more questions than answers. He also didn't know how to broach it with her.