Make Me a Monster, World's First Cinema
You wanna make a monster
Somewhere to you put your rage
Whenever you need to scream you can kick my cage
Breaking me into pieces
Building me up again
Breathing me back to life just to curse my name
Showin' me how to heartache
Tearing me at the seams
Sewing me back together to hear the screams
Something is in my soul now
Something I can't explain
I'm somebody less than lightning, but more than a man
Nagini gently led him into the dungeons; into the Slytherin Common Room, commanding the door open with Parseltongue while Harry's legs moved through mud; his thoughts suspended in gelatine as she sat him down on the green leather two-seater and took the cloak off his head, quickly resuming leaking her magic directly into his brain to prevent the occurrence of a thought. His body shook as though he'd been dunked in ice water despite her influence. She made him lay back and shushed him like he was a fussy baby, though he made no sound, staring out the large arched windows into the lake beyond them for hours.
The light grew dim before Harry heard a sound that wasn't Nagini's hushing. Cassiopeia, laughing down the stairs behind him. She and the Dark Lord came to stand before them, Nagini not releasing or allowing him to feel anything at the sight of him.
"Oh, he looks great Tom," she then got close to Harry's face, black eyes glittering, "Yeah, he's fine, I have no concerns."
She left without another word and Voldemort sat down across from them in an armchair, unmasked.
"Nagini, let him speak," he said, and she lessened her vice grip.
"Instead of going through the… Displeasing process of creating terms with you I have compiled a list of faculty I want instated here that I believe you will find acceptable."
"They are?" Tom asked, mouth full of cotton.
'…Tom.'
'Hold it.'
"Some will remain if they are… Amenable. Hooch, Sprout, Pomfrey, Binns, and Slughorn. Necessitates -at least temporarily- with breakable ties. Severus will be named headmaster. Firenze will teach Divination, Evan Rosier will teach Charms, Cedrum Widrich for Transfiguration, Augustus Rookwood for Magical Creatures… And Cassiopeia will teach Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"You will… Consult me- with any changes," Tom said, voice quiet.
The Dark Lord laughed but there was no humour in it, "Tell me, I must know… Who killed him?"
There was a long, uncertain pause in Harry's head. He could feel Tom's compulsion to obey; to answer, but he also felt him silently question.
"Release him," Voldemort told Nagini, and she hesitated slightly before she did as she was bid.
Altogether he felt the adrenaline land, full-blown advanced shock washed over him, and he shot upright, tearing his eyes away from the Dark Lord, gasping air, fixing his eyes to the blurred windows as his heart skipped several beats.
'Tom…'
'It will be over soon,' he summoned the curse as he soothed; coiled it up their arm; around their neck, bringing a cold, uneasy focus.
"It was me," Harry put enough malice into his eyes as he returned them to Voldemort, so there was no question who was speaking.
A genuine smile grew on the Dark Lord's face, before it extended beyond the normal range and became insane. He barked a laugh, loud in the silence of the chamber-like Common Room. He grabbed Harry's right arm from across the table without warning.
"I, Tom Marvolo Riddle, allow Harry James Potter to discuss the contents of his Vow and any correspondence with me, or my followers," he hissed, face red, eyes wild, "With anyone he pleases."
Voldemort pulled the sleeve of his robe up and pressed his fingers to Harry's upper forearm and before either could question, "Morsmorde Anima Protea."
Straight away Nagini caught his head, while he gasped, fought her and Tom. She slowed him to nothing before he'd had time to truly register the Dark Mark on his arm.
He'd fallen asleep that way, with Nagini reducing his mind to syrup while he resisted, unsuccessfully. When he woke, still in the darkened Slytherin Common Room, only Nagini was with him. Still dulling his thoughts and emotions.
"I leave soon," she told him, tightening her grip on his head, "Will Harry be alright?"
"Yes," Tom said it confidently, though Harry let him know he didn't feel that was strictly the case.
Tom put both hands on hers and held them on Harry's forehead, closed his eyes, "Tell me. What happened."
She hesitated only briefly before she began to whisper in Parseltongue, "The resistance was manageable. They didn't continue fighting on the outside once the wards had fallen… They didn't have the numbers. There were… Casualties, outside. And those inside… They were warned -Tom believes- but it wasn't enough. No one knew that you were a part- so, it was largely- it went smoothly."
"Those inside?" Harry pressed.
"They did not die. They are prisoners. Those that aren't to stay."
"How many? Who?"
"…Harry."
"How many?" He insisted.
He couldn't recall, hadn't counted, his focus had been savage and elsewhere.
"None made it within the wards before the attack. Most of the renegade Aurors and Order members Disapparated when the protections fell. Tom took Flitwick, McGonagall, and Hagrid."
Harry tried to sit up but neither of them let him, "He can't kill them. Don't let him kill them."
She removed a hand from under Tom's and began to trace between his eyes with two fingers, pulling his consciousness down once more with her magic. When he awoke the second time she was gone. It felt like he'd just missed her, as though she'd been there seconds before. He was alone in the dark of the empty Slytherin Common Room, reality falling in.
Tom automatically tried to summon the pain, but Harry stopped him, gasping as he pulled up the sleeve on his right arm. The size of a Galleon; a smaller, slightly modified Dark Mark moved on his skin; the snake so tightly wound on the skull it was fractured by the writhing of the serpent. He quickly yanked the fabric back down, eyes wide.
He was not private with the thoughts he suddenly had about testing the enchantments of the windows, concluding that surely, they were not as strong as the wards that protected the school, that he could break them and drown himself in the blackness of the lake without too much effort.
'Harry.'
'Don't start.'
'Tell me -Ignore the mark. The prisoners. The fallen. Do not say it was unexpected- how you feel. Honestly.'
He'd frozen at the question he had seen coming because he knew that Tom could feel the biting vindication that Harry kept violently shoving away. The sick satisfaction rolling his stomach over the top of the fear and the shame, colossal in comparison, the way he'd clench his teeth and close his eyes from the intensity of it…
'No.'
His heart was beating so hard it was difficult to draw breath, while Tom snatched at the emotions he was trying desperately not to feel.
'Is it those who have wronged you who have given you this denial of yourself? Will you not see this part? No more soluble than the rest. The discomfort you feel does not come from the darkness itself; it comes from your denial. Tell me you are saddened by his death; that your heart is broken, and I will know it is not true.'
"I- I killed him- I did… And you-"
"And it was spectacular, Harry."
"No… It wasn't-"
'Liar.'
Harry jammed his palms to his ears and shot the curse into his brain with both hands, dropping them to their knees, yelping, and definitively ending the argument. Once he could finally draw breath, red in the face, Tom did not resume it; though Harry knew that he was on a hair trigger, strangely feral.
He hadn't been told what to do with himself, after the fact. The castle would be empty of students for another two weeks. He'd created and been left in a power vacuum with no real instruction. The bizarre idea that he would just return to being a student after murdering the headmaster made bile rise in his throat while his heart raced.
"To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings."
'Shut up. I don't want to hear it.'
'Liar.'
Harry sat in uneasy, confused, occasionally broken silence until the light changed and he was collected by a pale Severus Snape, who had his wand raised across his chest as though he expected the Boy Who Lived to explode -which was certainly possible- lips white, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed as he directed Harry to the correct Common Room, speaking the password for him: "Golden Snidget," then telling him that the same castle rules applied while he was there alone before he swooped away at faster than regular speed.
Harry still had the cloak, the map, and his wand, which felt bizarre, Hogwarts and his belongings were suddenly alien. They didn't know how much the new headmaster knew, but he knew enough to show no huge surprise at his presence, and that he had been there in the hall when he'd seen the prophecy through Dumbledore's eyes.
"The one with power to rival the Dark Lord's own approaches, born as the seventh month dies," Tom almost made it a melody in Parseltongue.
"Shut up."
"They will mark each other equal, both entrusted to those who revile their true nature."
'Tom-'
"Each will hold power the other knows not, 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."
"I fucking hate you."
'Liar.'
'No, I do. I hate you.'
'You want to. You should. You do not.'
Harry growled, kicked the armchair in front of him and then sat down heavily in it, bewildered.
His trunk was still in the tower, -whether it had been moved while he was gone or not, he wasn't sure- but it was with a full suite of new school supplies and robes, including the book on necromancy that Tom had essentially stolen. Narcissa -he assumed she was responsible- had also left him a substantial box of sweets, which, unfathomably, put a lump in his throat.
He was reduced fully to tears at the sight of Hedwig, immediately he took her from the windowsill to sit and scratch her head on his four-poster.
Again, the strangeness washed over him. The last time he'd been in the dormitory he'd dreamed… And then Ron and Ginny… Then everything else. A lifetime away. It was unreal to catch his breath in what still felt like a safe place, even though he had defiled the sanctity…
"He was not a saint," Tom snapped, startling the snowy owl, "Nor are we."
"Obviously," Harry scoffed, letting the owl return to the windowsill.
"All that wanting, sour when you get it."
"I didn't want to want it!" He startled Hedwig further and she hooted; tapped the window. He let her out, frowning.
Tom was silent but Harry could feel that he was enjoying it -amused by taunting him- so he refused to engage any further.
He descended into the Common Room after bathing and changing, relieved to strip the gear he'd worn to the trial. The school robes Narcissa provided for him were, of course, nothing he would have ever provided himself. Perfectly tailored, enchanted for comfort and temperature control, as well as protection, which he was sure wasn't standard. Impeccable and likely worth a small fortune.
He'd avoided looking at the mark on his arm, but he could almost feel it moving, enough to make him sick, "Why would he… I'm not a- Death… Eater- I'm not going-" he realised his voice was shaking so he stopped talking.
'You are not a Death Eater,' Tom seemed almost bored with Harry's train of thought, like a Dark Mark was nothing; not a physical representation of every mistake he'd made up to that point, by accident or on purpose. Something that others could see.
"…Why wouldn't you leash your dog," Harry said when it dawned on him.
'You understand.'
He pushed out of the portrait hole after much deliberation, heart in his head for hours on end. Calming Draughts had been left for him, but there was no soothing the energy. He wanted to distract himself from all of it, but he was afraid that whatever lay beyond the tower would be worse than what was in his head.
He took the map, under the cloak. It showed a large group of Death Eaters at the edge of the grounds, some just standing there, some of them wandering the boundary. The staff that had been allowed to remain were in the Great Hall, huddled around the table at the head of the room. His interest was quickly pulled from the faculty to a gathering in the dungeons. The names were grouped so tightly together it took him a moment to sort through them. Tom Riddle jumped out first; words so familiar they were engraved in his brain, reading themselves; as familiar as his own name. Severus Snape, Evan Rosier, Pius Thicknesse, Augustus Rookwood, Cassie Bearstrom…
"Wait… Cassie?"
"Best to not call her that."
Two more names he wasn't familiar with, and a third that only rang a bell because he'd heard it the night before.
Cedrum Widrich, Eris Jager, and Avalon Delacroix.
"We're going down there," Harry whispered to himself, expecting resistance. When there was none, he moved faster.
He made it to the dungeon on what he thought must have been record time, desperate for a sliver of information. He silently questioned Tom's willingness to let him eavesdrop on Voldemort, but he got nothing in response. He approached the door of Slughorn's office, swallowing purposefully as he kept his breathing shallow and tried to hear the voices inside.
"-Stronger wards that were erected through the night. I will have a guard placed while the situation remains… Tumultuous. Cedrum, I will speak to you privately- one…Moment," there was a pause then the door swung open, slammed shut, the Dark Lord suddenly in front of them.
He grabbed Harry by the front of his robes and stepped him rapidly backwards, silent. He was masked, and Harry was cloaked, but the message was clear and received. Harry scrambled away as soon as he let go, heart pounding like a mouse just caught by a cat, rounding several corners before he questioned.
'How does he know… Where we are? All the time? I'm invisible? Does he have a tracker on us?'
'Not that I… Can feel,' he searched for any sign of his magical signature and came up with nothing.
"When the others… Get back… How much do you think- How much do you think people know?" Harry was lying in his four-poster, the curtains on his bed and the windows of the tower open.
'I doubt he would have put much time into stopping any speculation, but he would not have allowed the truth out. It is clear at least that people know about the trial and have assumed your guilt. Most likely that will persist despite your name being cleared.'
'Yeah, cleared by Voldemort and the Death Eaters.'
'You understand,' Tom summoned the green bubble and let it float, small, above their heads, washing the room in dull green light.
"They're gonna take one look at me and they'll know."
'Know what?'
'I don't know. That…Everything…' He let the thought trail off, "He freed us from the Vow," Harry said out loud.
'He did.'
"Why?"
"Do you remember when he said that you would be more useful at the school? That you held sway whether they liked it or not?"
Harry had noticed that Tom needed little prompting to speak in Parseltongue, as though it was his first language.
"Yeah… I- do you think he… Am I like a- an advertisement? A recruitment tool?"
"Something like that, exactly. Wicked clever suddenly, have you hit your head?"
"I'm not telling anyone anything. Neither are you. I'll… Warn Ginny and that's it," Harry hissed, rage bubbling at the Dark Lord and directed at his Horcrux.
"Your prerogative."
"I mean it."
"I see that."
He stood in the empty courtyard, eerily silent, with no breeze or animal calls punctuating the dark stillness, the stones lit by the waxing moon. Tom paced in front of him, a half-smile on his face.
Harry though that he looked much more like what he really was in the dark; shadows dancing on his face; narrowed eyes nearly black, glitters of green; pale face florescent in the dim light.
Tom stepped forward and yanked his head back sharply by his hair, making the Boy Who Lived hiss and twist as he tried to scramble free. He grabbed at his hands, tightly wound and unmoving, gripping harder as he fought.
"Will you say it here?" He asked, still smiling, eyes like razors.
"Say- what," Harry struggled against his grip, but he tightened it almost absently, stronger than him, searching his face.
"Tell me how it felt," he was whispering, closer.
"It- no- get off me-"
He pulled Harry's head back further as he spoke; he followed him down as he repeated, "Tell me… How it felt."
"Tom-"
"Say it. Speak."
"It- I… Please- don't…" Harry went still in his grasp, shame and something worse making his heart race.
Tom's mouth was touching his ear then, hushed, fierce, clouding his head, "Tell me."
"It- it felt... Good. I felt… Is that what you want- you want to hear that it felt- that I feel so much- so much… Better-"
"Yes."
(AN: Tom recites To Know the Dark by Wendell Berry.)