(TW: Heavy themes surrounding grief and death.)

PANIC!, Smith & Myers

It's a bottomless pit, if the straitjacket fits
Then go to the front of the line
It's a slippery slope wherever it goes
It's probably all in your mind

Did you name it yet?
Is it dangerous yet?
It's too late to forget
And here it comes

I start to panic, we need to go run and hide
I start to panic, because we're all gonna die
I start to panic, because the truth is a lie
I start to panic, you know, the kids are not alright

The first two weeks of June were the same strangely mundane rhythm. Run fast, avoid Hermione, be avoided, feed the thing in his head every five days. It was a Thursday, and the spell was due. He was still in class, one of the last for the year. He'd received no word from Dumbledore on the Horcruxes, and there was still no Death Eater activity that substantiated to anything. He hadn't spoken to Ginny, though he'd seen her. Mostly her back. Ron and Hermione continued to fight, Hermione looking ready to bite the redhead. None of his dreams had answered his questions.

In a little over two weeks, he'd be back at the Dursleys. Unable to use magic until his seventeenth birthday. A full month without Liquida Tenebris. A problem. He'd been pushing the thought down with all the others but as the date approached it was harder to do.

He'd asked the thing in his head about what it said to Cassiopeia, about what she had asked it, particularly in regards to their interest in Liquida Tenebris, but it deflected his questions by asking uncomfortable ones in return, until they squabbled like children. Harry had threatened to not let it take the wheel the next time they saw the vampire, but it had called his bluff annoyingly quickly.

When he cast Liquida Tenebris that night he noticed, as he had before, that it was growing more potent each time he unleashed it. The intensity constantly pushed some threshold in him further and further from a baseline that he didn't understand. Harry lost consciousness with that knowledge at the edge of his thoughts.

Cassiopeia was laughing, her face red, her outer robe shed and left on the floor beside her, tie loose. She kept her attention on Alicent, careful not to look at Harry, as though meeting his eyes would trigger him to flee.

She'd kept the wine flowing, and the three of them were quite drunk. It had dulled Harry's unexplainable nerves somewhat, but he was wary of losing his inhibitions with what he considered to be a stranger, though Cassiopeia had constantly presented Harry with the Ravenclaw over the last few months. He knew she was up to something; she had a whiff of a well-thought-out plan on her though Harry couldn't understand it.

As though she could hear him thinking about her, her eyes snapped to his. She grinned slowly, then crawled across the floor towards the couch he and the Ravenclaw were sitting on. The Chosen One's heart began to hammer as she used the arm of the chair to pull herself up to his face, alarmingly close. He didn't move, watching her as she inched closer to him, frozen.

She pressed her lips to his, softly. Though she'd never kissed him, it was familiar. Reassuring. She pulled away and searched his eyes, still smiling as she turned to look at Alicent. He was watching them, eyes hooded, cheeks red. Cassiopeia moved to him then, kissing his left cheek, then the right, then lightly on his lips, before she sat back and turned Alicent's face to look at Harry with her hand on his chin.

All at once Harry understood, and alarm flooded through him as Cassiopeia gently shoved Alicent in his direction. He'd never told her. Never even said it to himself in his head.

She rocked back onto her feet and slowly moved away as Harry struggled to tear his eyes away from him, to stop them from flicking to his lips. Alicent was moving closer, and something else was trying to overpower the fear in his gut. He heard the heavy doors of the Room of Requirement close, and terror and desire mingled at once, freezing him in place until one feeling won out.

"This can't- leave this room," Harry said, voice shaking. Alicent half smiled, leaning closer still.

The Ravenclaw nodded and the overwhelming want moved Harry, crashed him into the Ravenclaw's mouth while he shoved him back onto the couch and pinned his arms above his head-

Harry snapped awake, the thing in his head already in revolt, thrashing between his ears.

'Don't.' It kept saying, though Harry wasn't saying anything.

Wasn't thinking anything. Or he was trying not to. He sat up, trying to catch his breath and calm his heartbeat.

"Oh," he said as he shifted.

Harry went still as realized that the dream had aroused him. Substantially.

"No. Nope. No," he took a Calming Draught from under his pillow and chugged it. That wasn't…

He was yanked from the shock by a shuffling sound in the dormitory. He frowned, wondering who was awake. He wasn't concerned about them hearing him, silencing charms had become his bread and butter. He took the map out from under his pillow and squinted at the map in the dark, not wanting to announce he was awake with the light of Lumos.

Ron, moving around the dormitory while Ginny paced in the Common Room. He cast a Tempus. Three in the morning. He was going to follow them this time, relieved to have something else to think about. Wanting to find out what they were doing once and for all. He waited for Ron to descend the stairs and meet Ginny, then he crept out of bed to unlock his trunk and grab his cloak, ignoring the way his heart was still beating in a far lower position than usual. The thing in his head took a chance and destroyed Hermione's tracking spell, hoping she was asleep and wouldn't notice. It was a problem for later, but it would be a problem for now if they left it in place. Harry and the thing were pointedly ignoring each other.

Ginny and Ron had already ducked out of the Tower by the time Harry reached the portrait hole, but he watched them scurry away on the map. He followed at a distance; far enough away that he couldn't actually see them as they rushed through the halls. Headed toward, Harry assumed, the Forbidden Forest. Once they'd avoided Filch and absconded out one of the side exits, Harry jogged to get closer as the map became useless. He caught the door before it had fully closed, squeezing through.

The Weasley siblings were about ten metres ahead, jogging across the lawn, Ginny's head on a swivel. Harry matched their pace, heart racing. He was glad for the running training, suddenly. He'd gotten a lot better at not falling on his face. When they entered the tree line he sped up, anxious about losing them in the dark. They were around five metres ahead of him then, and he was careful not to snap any branches as he watched them and the forest floor, stepping when Ron did, eyes flicking between the dirt and the redhead's feet. Ginny had her wand raised, though she didn't create light, so the three of them moved in near pitch blackness until she came to a stop in a small clearing.

Ginny began casting privacy wards, muffling and silencing charms, and wards he didn't recognize, lighting the tip of her wand with Lumos. Ron, bizarrely, stripped his robe and pyjama shirt off, then lay on the ground and stared blankly at the sky. Once she was done casting, she came to stand beside her brother; close enough to Harry now that he could see the tears streaming down her cheeks as she took a book from her bag, sitting it and herself in the dirt. A burgundy, leather-bound tome with a title he couldn't read. The same one he'd seen Ron buy at Hogsmeade.

Sweat was pooling on the back of Harry's neck as he watched her open it to a bookmarked page covered in runes and markings that he'd never seen before.

'Closer. Show me the text,' it said, and so he inched toward the book, hyper-aware of himself as Ginny began to chant in a language he'd never heard.

He stared at the markings and the thing in his head said nothing. Harry felt a bubble of concern and recognition that it hid.

Ginny took a large, ornate knife from her inner robs. Her hands unsteady as she looked down at it. Ron still hadn't moved, perfectly still save for the minute rise and fall of his breathing. Harry fought to understand it, questioned the thing as his eyes grew wider. His heart beating painfully fast as he looked from the knife to the book, to Ginny, then back to Ron.

Only when she stopped chanting; raising the knife above Ron's chest and moving to strike it down, did Harry react.

"Ginny!" He gasped, grabbing her hands; still invisible.

She let out an unholy soul-rattling scream as she stumbled backwards, knife still in her hand. She was already hyperventilating; eyes bulging as Harry removed the cloak. She didn't look at him or Ron, instead she watched the ground, shaking, sobbing, muttering to herself. He inched toward her and realised that she was saying 'no' over and over until she was suddenly shrieking it and scrambling away from him, horrified. She'd dropped her wand, the clearing made darker by leaves obscuring the Lumos.

"Ginny? Ginny!" The panic was seizing Harry too.

He kept looking at Ron, not comprehending his lack of… Anything.

"No! No! NO! NO! No, no… No…" She'd screamed it so many times her breath left her; she tilted on her axis, face white.

'She's going to hurt herself,' it warned him when Ginny began to raise the blade in the direction of her throat.

When Harry was too shocked to react, it did, yanking the knife to them with a nonverbal, wandless Accio then stunning her still with its magic. Harry dropped the weapon and stood staring at the scene as though he was absent from his head, confusion and shock freezing him in place.

'Calming Draughts. In your pocket,' it directed him, and the Boy Who Lived remembered he had arms and legs.

He took the potions from his pocket with numb fingers, hoping two would be enough. His movements were jerky as he approached her, knelt beside her. The thing in his head helped the potion find her stomach and not her lungs with magic while she was under the stun. It waited a few seconds before releasing her.

She crawled away from him without hesitation, still sobbing, but not screaming.

"Ginny… What," Harry tried to form a question, but found that he couldn't find a coherent one. She didn't look at him, curling into herself, becoming small.

"I- can't. I can't. I can't," she whispered repeatedly as Harry once again tried to get close to her.

"You can't… What?" He tried to be gentle; it was clear that she was broken, but his panic and confusion changed the tone of his voice.

"Azkaban. It's Azkaban. Harry, it's Azkaban. For this its…" She gasped; a deep inhale, before she was sobbing uncontrollably again.

Unable to draw breath she fell into silence, shoulders heaving.

"Azkaban?" Harry returned his eyes to Ron, now behind them, still lying motionless, "Ginny. What is this."

She looked as though the pain was physical as she winced away from him, finally sucking in air, red in the face.

'What is this?' He asked the thing in his head.

It didn't respond.

"It's a- it's a life… Life sentence, Harry. If I- If they… If you tell them. If you tell them, Harry. In Azkaban. I'll- Don't. Don't tell them. Please," she finally met his eyes. In them, he saw devastation.

Harry thought about his own double life sentence as he looked at her, shaking, hiccupping, fighting to stay upright, sweating bullets. He looked at her brother again; then back at the knife he'd dropped in the leaf litter.

"Were you… Going to kill him?" He asked. Though it sounded ridiculous, that was certainly what it had looked like.

She shook her head vehemently in response but was crying all over again, unable to form words.

"Ginny, please…" Harry said, reaching for her. She flinched away.

"Don't make me- don't make me do this to you," she was weeping, shaking her head.

"I won't- I won't tell anyone," Harry said, realizing it was true.

"That's only… That's just part- telling you feels… Worse. It feels worse- than everyone else it's… I'm so sorry, Harry, I'm sorry. You have to forgive me, please forgive me. This wasn't your fault." She'd hidden her face in her hands and so he'd nearly missed the part where she'd said that it wasn't his fault.

He wondered why on Earth he'd be sat there thinking this was his fault when she muttered something else -something he missed the first time, when he replayed it the meaning flew over his head- made no sense…

"What." His heart thundered as he looked at her, the thing in his head suddenly very large at the rush of adrenaline. She hadn't said what he thought she'd said because it was incomprehensible. Impossible.

"He's… He's- dead," She whispered.

"What."

"At-" She swallowed thickly, shook herself as though she had to physically fight the words out, "At the Ministry… That night."

Harry's ears rang as her words landed, it was his turn to shake his head vehemently, "He's right there."

She was crying. Mournful; wailing. Then she was screaming into the dirt with all her strength, face so close to the ground she disrupted the leaf litter. Harry was standing, panting. And then he was suddenly next to Ron, shaking him by the shoulders.

"Ron! Ron!" He was screaming too.

Ron didn't flinch, didn't move his eyes, or bat Harry off. Limp in his arms.

"Ron! No. No, Ginny, he's right here he's breathing."

She wasn't paying any attention to him, rocking back and forward. He was next to her in an instant, holding her arms, making her look at him.

"He's breathing," he repeated, forcefully, gripping her tighter with each syllable.

She shook her head, "I- I- I keep him- breathing."

"What?!"

"I-" She stopped again, and Harry shook her, eyes bugging out of his head.

"It's… Necromancy." She'd breathed the word in disgust and looked down at her hands.

"Nec- Necromancy?" Harry repeated. Even though the word had no meaning, didn't make sense.

She didn't answer, instead let him piece the rest of it together with what he already knew. Ron's strange behaviour since that night at the Ministry. The way he never spoke a word to Ginny, nor she to him. The way she had quietly mourned all year, hiding away behind locked doors, in empty Common Rooms. Sat with him till the sun rose. The way she would say that none of it was Harry's fault, that night. The vast, empty white expanse in Ron's head, the sliver orb thrumming like a heart…

He looked at Ron and the weight came down; knocked the breath from him, closed his throat. A numbness spread through his body while his stomach fell out of his middle; tears already falling as he got shakily to his feet and stumbled to his best friend. Harry took Ron's hand and shook it, then shook his arm, shoulder, head. He kept repeating his name, grabbing both sides of his face and staring into his blank eyes; pleading with him, unable to comprehend it. He could hear himself sobbing, refusing, panicking, but he could hardly feel it.

Collapsed beside him he found that he couldn't bear it. He was breaking. The blackness was seeping from his fingers and chest as he sobbed; he could see it leaking from his eyes, obscuring his vision. It was building and he couldn't stop it. Had no capacity.

'You have to take over, you need to do this, I can't. I can't. Please,' he begged it, but he didn't need to.

It was already pulling him down into himself. Harry didn't fight it. It numbed him, tucked him away. He thought he felt like a pebble, rolling around. It corrected the curse, shooting what Harry had summoned into the trees. Then it turned to face Ginny, who was still crying in a heap.

"Come. Back to the castle," it told her as it approached.

The stark change in tone and demeanour snapped her slightly out of her state as she looked at them, blinking hard.

"We can get more Calming Draughts into you. We have been here too long, the sun will be rising soon," it extended a hand to her, and she took it, frowning, stumbling to her feet.

She caught her breath, wobbling on her legs and looking at them as though she was accepting her fate. She slowly approached Ron, shooting looks back at them as she collected the book, the knife, and her wand. When Ron began to move, -to stand up from his place in the dirt- it crossed the clearing and put a hand on Ginny's arm. She was crying silently.

"Leave him," it said, and she spun on them instantly.

"Leave him?!" She hissed.

It searched her face while she searched theirs; Harry watching its thoughts while a dark, blank realization came over him.

"Leave him. He died at the Ministry," it said.

Ginny cried with volume then, collapsing back into the dirt, "No… I can't- why would you say-"

"Do you want to carry him forever?" It asked, kneeling in front of her.

"I- no... But-"

"Then leave him. Come morning, someone will find him…"

Her eyes snapped up and she narrowed them, as though she'd just come out of a daze. She surprised them by trying Legilimency; a small tentative thread came close to the edge of Harry's mind before the thing shattered it, making her wince.

"Don't," it said, standing.

"Harry…" She was shaking her head.

"The sun is rising," it warned, "Leave him. Let go."

She continued to search their face as it helped her to her feet a second time. She gave a shaky nod, her face breaking as her shoulders shook.

Ginny and the thing in Harry's head watched Ron's chest stop rising and falling.

It had returned her to the Common Room under the cloak. Then it had fetched a large number of Calming Draughts from Harry's drawers and watched her take them; sat with her as the morning light filled the Common Room. All the while she watched them, silently questioning but too exhausted and erased by the potions to speak. Each time it felt for Harry, he resisted. Didn't want to go back to it, didn't want to feel what he knew he could feel beneath the numbness. At six-thirty, once Ginny had downed eleven draughts; it led her to the Great Hall for breakfast. Unwilling to chance a run-in with Hermione any longer and needing them to appear normal.

It had decided for both of them that they wouldn't be the ones to notice Ron's absence. Harry could see that it was thinking about Hermione and the tracking spell it'd broken. It didn't know if she'd noticed yet; but when she did, and Ron was found, their lack of a tracker was inconveniently timed. It sat Ginny at the table and heaped her plate with bacon while it churned through the details.

The youngest Weasley was silent, absent. Up to her ears in Calming Draught and recovering from shock. It was a Hogsmeade day, so, the hall was half full despite the early hour, which was good. More eyes to confirm them normal at breakfast. It checked for Harry again, and the Chosen One pulled away from it, refusing once more.

It looked at the staff table to do a count of the teachers, searching for any absences, when it noticed Dumbledore's eyes on them. Suddenly it was thinking things like 'last chance if things go wrong'.

The Boy Who Lived had begun to question the trains of thought before he watched it propel its magic from their head like a gunshot, travelling an unprecedented distance to reach the headmaster.

Harry could feel its fear as it hesitated; hovering above Dumbledore's eyes, before it went in with renewed resolution. The Chosen One could see that it was hoping the man's Occlumency was 'transitive', a term that it had used to describe those with situational protection. Throwing magic from this distance was neither expected nor regular. So, it hoped that while he sat at the head of the hall far from the students and not looking at the staff alongside him, his protection would be down.

While it entered his head Harry saw that it was half correct in this assumption. There was a dense white fog in the headmaster's mind, but there were shapes, and thoughts, partially visible within it. It slinked among them, searching fervently for something; checking the far reaches of the man's mind. Despite Harry being fully sedated in his head he felt like this was a bad idea, poorly timed. He was still not willing to take back control and feel what he was feeling, and so the thing took advantage of the opportunity. After a few seconds of searching, Harry watched it realise that it couldn't find what it was looking for because Dumbledore was actively thinking about the memory.

"-Born as the seventh month dies." Trelawney intoned, her head thrown back and lulling there as Dumbledore's eyes widened behind his desk. Harry realised what they were watching with a dulled spike of adrenaline. The thing shushed him, took it off him, but the fear kept bubbling.

"They will mark each other equal, both entrusted to those who revile their true nature."

The thing was rapt, watching it unfold with a mixture of horror and thrill at success while the Boy Who Lived began to struggle.

"Each will hold power the other knows not," Trelawney continued, her tone flat as Dumbledore scribbled on parchment.

The Boy Who Lived could feel his inner walls caving in.

The thing in his head too distracted by the prophecy to register that Harry was flailing, gasping under the weight of it, 'Please… Stop.'

"And each must die at the hand of the other, for neither can die while the other survives, the Dark Lord's equal shall rise as the seventh month dies-"

The Chosen One forced the thing back into its place with a crack, retracting its magic from Dumbledore's head with no grace. He realised he was standing, all eyes on him as he panted, chest rising and falling rapidly. The headmaster was standing as well, moving towards him.

'Stop. Harry, stop. Listen to me, you need to stop-' It was talking but Harry couldn't really hear it above the ringing in his ears. Couldn't really hear it above all the sudden blood-curdling screaming. Over Dumbledore's voice booming above all the other sounds, the scraping tables, seats, cutlery, and plates crashing to the floor; the sound of bodies hitting bodies as they scrambled away from him.

"STOP HIM!"

'Run. RUN.'

Harry had been trying to do that, but the blackness had exploded out of him. Filled the hall rapidly, blocked out the sun.

Seconds later there was eerie silence.

'RUN!'

The best Harry could do was stumble, tripping over bodies dumbly while his whole being vibrated. Spitting arcs of darkness almost without pause; pain tearing out of him with screaming intensity. The thing in his head desperately fought for control but Harry couldn't let go, as though he'd grabbed a live wire.

He felt for the doors by memory, sight useless. He tripped multiple times, his brain static as he felt for a pulse on the nearest collapsed student. Alive. He kept going for the door, sure he could hear movement, which only served to force the curse out with more aggression.

'Help me,' Harry managed to think, the effort colossal.

'I'm… Trying,'

He could feel it pushing, searching for purchase in his head while Harry moved his semi non-responsive limbs toward what he hoped was the Room of Requirement while he spewed Liquida Tenebris like a tsunami.

Somewhere down a hallway Harry hoped was in the right direction he lost the strength to hold on. His consciousness and magic frayed, fractured. The thing took over the shattered remains -the Boy Who Lived howling in their head- moving them toward the tapestry, pacing, panting, still spitting the spell like a stuttering cough.

It shut them in the room, fighting the last waves of the curse before it struggled for the cabinet -knocking random objects over as it went, causing avalanches of debris in their wake- fighting for breath as it fell into the cabinet then out into Borgin and Burkes. With the job done, it retreated. Neither of them moved to take control.

Narcissa had begun to say something when the cabinet opened but squealed in alarm when they'd landed without resistance onto their face. Harry's eyes were open, and they both watched, but neither had the strength or the will to pick it all back up. So, they saw the Malfoy Matriarch panic, Apparate them to the little house with the wards, panic again, pace, debate touching her Dark Mark with her wand, pace again, then Apparate them a second time to wrought iron gates that they recognized. Malfoy Manor. She levitated them along behind her while she moved as fast as her heels and dress would allow up the white gravel path.

(AN: They call that subverting expectations. I hope you had as much fun reading this chapter as I did writing it ;). I like to stay 10,000 steps ahead of you in word count, and posting this chapter early in the schedule likely means no chapter tomorrow xx.)