(AN: I'll be updating and editing the front end so future me doesn't invent time travel to come back and kill me. If you see me doing that, sorry, no you didn't. They are mostly grammatical clean ups no need to go back 3)

Pain, Three Days Grace

You're sick of feeling numb
You're not the only one
I'll take you by the hand
And I'll show you a world that you can understand
This life is filled with hurt
When happiness doesn't work
Trust me and take my hand
When the lights go out, you'll understand

Pain without love
Pain, I can't get enough
Pain, I like it rough
'Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all

Anger and agony are better than misery
Trust me, I've got a plan
When the lights go up, you'll understand

Harry awoke the following day to the sun piercing his brain, worsening his pounding headache. There was a blissful moment of non-knowledge before it landed like a ton of bricks.

"What the fuck," Harry hissed, sitting upright, groaning at the state of his skull, "What the fuck," he repeated when Tom didn't answer.

"Tom. What the fuck?"

"You will need to be more specific?" Tom said in the serpent's language, sounding nonplussed.

"Ahh," Harry couldn't elaborate and decided to bathe instead, his entire head bright red.

Afterward, he checked the map and took two calming draughts while he searched for Ginny. He found her at the Slytherin Table in the Great Hall with Avalon and Eris.

"Well, now," Tom said out loud.

Harry threw on his school robes and his bag, lamenting his pounding head and wishing he'd never decided to go to Defence Against the Dark Arts.

'…Liar.'

Harry ignored him and exited the room, holding his back straight even though he wanted to crawl down the corridor. As he walked, he saw more Death Eaters than students.

'Why are there more than usual?' Harry wondered while Tom counted the masked, hooded figures.

They saw twenty on their way to the Hall and another ten inside it. By the time he spotted them, Draco had joined them. Harry sat next to Ginny. All of them looked terrible, hungover, and glaring at their breakfasts.

"Harry," Ginny said when she saw him, "Here," she passed him a Pepper-up potion as he sat down.

"You all look worse than me," he said, drinking it and putting bacon on a plate.

"We were up all night," Ginny whispered, holding her head.

"You missed it," Avalon grinned, "Draco punched Blaise, dramatique."

Tom immediately locked eyes on the blonde. He was next to Avalon, looking as hungover as the youngest Weasley, frowning into his orange juice. When it became clear no one would tell him why he'd hit his friend, Harry turned to Ginny.

"You're at the Slytherin table this morning?" He whispered. Avalon was holding Draco's attention, but Eris' eyes were fast becoming irritating lasers.

"Well… I came in with Avalon and Eris, and the alternative was…" She turned to look over her shoulder at the Gryffindor table, where Neville, Hermione, Luna, Lavender, Seamus, and Padma glared daggers of assorted volumes across the hall, apart from Luna, who was looking at the ceiling.

"Right. Yeah." He returned to watching his bacon, "I'm sorry, Gin. Everything is…" He took a deep breath as he trailed off.

"Yeah…" she said, glancing at Eris and picking up her tea, "…If they can't accept-"

"…You left the grounds last night, Potter?" Snape's voice asked behind him, making him groan internally and accidentally externally.

"You're not allowed to leave the grounds?" Eris asked.

"I was told no Hogsmeade," Harry said, turning to look up at Snape.

"…No absconding should have been inferred." the headmaster drawled.

"Someone should have said it," he bit out.

"And where were you?" The man insisted.

"You can tell Voldemort that I was hanging out with a Horned Serpent while holding Grindelwald's hookah," Harry narrowed his eyes as he spoke.

"That's not true; he held the hookah after he met Ekeer," Eris told the headmaster, stabbing a sausage.

"He was telling the serpent poetry," Avalon added, "She let him touch the jewel on her head. It was magnifique."

Snape had frowned, deepening as they spoke, before he strode away, robes whipping.

"He thinks you're having him on," Draco said, "He didn't believe a word."

"That's fine," Harry sighed. In truth, he had not inferred 'don't leave the grounds' from Cassiopeia's words.

'Is the extra security because I left?' Harry wondered.

'I don't think so.'

He continued to frown at his plate until Ginny asked:

"Have you noticed there's more this morning?" As she spoke, Pansy sat down with Daphne, next to Draco.

"Well, good morning, Harry! Draco! Ginny Weasley, for some reason! Eris, Avalon," Pansy got more formal at the end of her sentence. She did not look away from Ginny, elbowing Draco as she said the redhead's name.

Harry was busy trying and failing not to look at Daphne, who was looking at him like a deer caught in headlights.

"I've been meaning to tell you, Daphne," Harry paused, waiting for Tom to stop him, "I'm sorry about the hall. It was an accident. I have it under control now; I'm not going to…" He mimed an explosion before he trailed off, screwing his nose up.

"Right. Draco said the same thing." She looked away from him, then at the blonde, then at Avalon, before she said to Pansy, "I'm actually not hungry. Catch me up later."

"Uh oh," Pansy whispered at Draco, who scowled at his hands and shook his head.

"Ils n'étaient pas ensemble, ils ne faisaient que s'amuser, ne me regardez pas comme ça." Avalon said to Eris, who'd been staring at her.

'What did she say?' Harry wondered.

'Draco and Daphne had a 'casual' relationship that Avalon ended. She's defending herself.'

"Mhm," Eris said, still stabbing and not eating his eggs and sausage.

"So, what happened last night? You all look like wrecks. And Ginny Weasley is still here, and no one has said anything about that," Pansy asked. Crabbe and Goyle sat beside her, Goyle giving Harry a nod and an ''a'right?". Crabbe didn't meet his eyes as he piled up his plate and watched Pansy talk.

"She came with us last night, stayed at my house, and we came in together this morning," Avalon said, winking at Ginny.

"…And where did you all go last night?" Pansy asked the blonde through gritted teeth.

"Château Delacroix," Ginny answered, reaching across the table to refill her tea.

Harry had been valiantly resisting the thought of the night before. What had happened had been bad enough, but the dream coiled his stomach into knots as he stared at the pooling bacon grease on his plate. He shoved it away, feeling ill.

"We drank, we hung out with some extinct animals. Harry knows a lot about hookahs for—some reason. Avalon showed me all the dead people in the lawn, and Eris showed me all the…" Ginny trailed off, and Eris smirked for a fraction of a second before it was gone, "Draco isn't so bad after all, apart from the kidnapping of my best friend and taking him to You-Know-Who."

Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, and the Slytherin flinched collectively. Their eyes were on her, then Harry, who was still bugging at his bacon.

Avalon laughed, one short, loud bark echoing in the relatively quiet hall. "You did what?" she nudged Draco.

"They didn't have a choice, Gin." Harry looked at Draco as he spoke, "I don't blame you anymore," he genuinely didn't hold the Slytherins responsible; they were cogs in the Dark Lord's machine, just like he was.

Instead of relieved, Draco looked suspicious.

"Is that how you wound up with a Dark Mark?" Eris asked casually, finally biting the sausage.

"No," Tom said, matching his tone.

Eris nodded, pursed lips, and overall looked bored.

"What happened last week? When the Dark Lord caught Dumbledore's Army?" Pansy asked, whispering, leaning across the table.

"…Pansy." Draco sounded exhausted.

Harry glanced at Ginny, who was already looking at him, then shook his head no.

As soon as he was alone, heading to the forest for Divination with the Hufflepuffs, he was fighting off thoughts about the dream. Tom was silent but watching his mind, which made anger bubble in his gut.

'Are you Pleased with yourself?' Harry snarled in his head as he avoided the gaze of half a dozen students, glaring straight ahead.

'Why would I be pleased with myself? So vague this morning.'

Harry was one of the last to arrive; Firenze indicated that he take a stack of Tarot cards and a rug to lay them on, stomping a hoof in the dirt and frowning; Harry assumed it was because he was late. Lavender, Hermione, and Seamus were particularly intense in their staring, difficult to ignore as he put his back to a tree and sat down to absently lay out the rug and cards, not intending to read them.

As soon as he was done with the task, his stomach fluttered, and his brain brought him back to the night before, making his heart skip a beat. His hands shook as he turned over the cards and pretended to look at them, and a duel anger and desire rose.

'It doesn't make any sense. It's twisted.'

'What does not make sense, Harry?'

'You know what, stop being-'

'Tell me what you think is twisted…'

'That. Last night, that was… The whole thing, and you made it happen.'

'Oh? I gave you several opportunities to stop.'

'…But…' Harry tried to think of a but, tried to understand why he hadn't stopped, why he'd been so…

'But?' Tom asked.

'It's twisted. It's sick. I know you know it is. It makes me…'

'It is twisted. We are sick. I know it is. It makes you so hard...'

'…. No.' He refused in his head and gasped out loud, cards blurring as he gave up playing make-believe that he was looking at them. Tom left him alone then, with wide eyes, red-faced, his heart beating furiously, low in his abdomen.

Tom didn't bring it up again in the next lesson, Potions with the Ravenclaws, his least favourite by far; Carrow might as well have been absent, and the stares and sneers were constant.

By lunch, he was exhausted. He met Ginny at the Room of Requirement, and they agreed to call it a day, asking Dobby to bring them lunch.

"So, how was your night?" Harry finally asked her.

"Avalon is great. Don't you think? She knows so much. I told you about the people in the lawn, right? There are hundreds under there. And in the walls, there's… Eris showed me, while Avalon… Um," she went red, "She and Draco were —busy, so… He showed me the walls. They're filled with… Um."

"Ginny…?"

"I don't know if it's going to gross you out or not," she said.

Harry shrugged, "Honestly, at this point, I think you'd have a hard time grossing me out."

"Rat skeletons. Like thousands, maybe more, they come out of dozens of little built-in trap doors."

"For defence?" Tom asked.

"Yeah, they've got gnarly teeth, and they're enchanted. He said, 'They never stop'."

"He was good to you?" Tom watched her carefully.

"Yeah. He's quiet, though, isn't he?"

Neither Harry nor Tom could get a read on Eris, only able to tell for sure that he was always watching, seldom speaking.

"What happened with Draco and Zabini?" Harry asked, remembering breakfast.

"Oh, Blaise would not stop talking about you as soon as you left. He said—he brought up Ron and the morning in the hall. He said to me, 'You were there, why the- why would you be sitting next to him still?' Basically, and I don't know, Draco was trying to shut him up the whole time, but I guess he decided to do it with his fist."

"He brought up Ron?" Harry frowned, and Tom clenched his jaw.

"Yeah. That was about when Draco punched him, I'm pretty sure. Avalon sent him out after. She didn't ask. About Ron. None of them did; they just pretended Zabini was never in the room."

"So overall, you… It was good?"

"Yeah. I think I really like them, Harry. Did you talk to the vampire?"

"Oh, no, not yet I-" Again, the dream popped into his head, and what happened afterwards, how intense… "-I went to bed."

He could tell he looked too severe for such a benign statement, but she didn't comment.

Tom paced outside Cassiopeia's office that night until she called him up the stairs.

"You left the ground-"

"Is this a safe place to talk?" Tom interrupted her.

"Well, that depends; do you see the portraits?"

"Yes, we will leave, then." He hadn't sat down and turned on his heel as he spoke.

He heard her sigh as she followed him onto the grounds and then towards the lake, where he sat at the edge. She did the same, still sighing as she corrected her dress and sat gingerly on the rocks.

"What is it; why are we out here?" She cast privacy wards wordlessly as she spoke.

"How much do you know, Cassiopeia…?" Tom began, then sighed, knowing she would not give an inch, "The prophecy? Do you know of it?"

She'd turned to face him, eyes hungry, "What prophecy?"

"There were two. One was a fake. The first one said that Harry would be the one to defeat the Dark Lord. It was the reason I—the reason he sought him out as a baby. That was the fake. It was planted by Dumbledore. I found the original, the real prophecy, in the headmaster's head on the morning of June fourteenth."

She didn't say anything; she was leaning closer, mouth slightly open.

"The true prophecy foretold that we would be equal, that neither of us could die unless at the hands of the other."

"What does it say? The whole thing? Tell it to me."

He did and waited for her to digest it, her eyes flicking wildly while her eyebrows drew inward.

"This next part, Cassiopeia... I need you to listen. It is delicate information; you must be careful what you do with it."

Her eyes snapped back to him, and she nodded quickly.

"He is Harry's Horcrux."

There was a beat of silence, then another, "What."

"That night in Godric's Hollow, two were made. We believe we gave the Horcrux strength when Harry cast Liquida Tenebris the night of the Vow. He is sentient in his head, Cassiopeia, like me. Screaming, wild, vicious; he is sending him insane."

She wasn't looking at him again, her black eyes locked wide on the stones.

"Now… Now I need you to tell me what you know, Cassiopeia, because the only reason he would not tell you this is…"

"Oh, I already know what he's going to do; he hasn't said it out loud, but I can guess now. Jesus Christ, are you… Serious…" She looked baffled, her eyebrows shaking with the force of her frown.

"What is he going to do?" Tom insisted, desperate.

"He's… He's gathering up all his little objects and…" She heaved a sigh, "Oh, this is awkward. He's… Once you're no longer useful, he's going to… Cut his loss."

"He is going to kill us."

"Yes."

"And you believe he will have us kill him at the same time?"

'What? What? Hello? What?' Harry thought, repeatedly sidelined.

"Yes… Then, use his Horcruxes to… Undo it."

Harry's arms and legs had gone numb, partly due to the creeping cold of mid-September, primarily due to the talk of his impending murder, 'you don't seem surprised?'

'No.'

"…Cassiopeia, has he told you… What the Horcruxes have done to him?"

"What do you mean?"

"That day in Annecy was a week after I created the third and the fourth Horcruxes. Honestly, Cassiopeia, it was easy to leave you there because I lost the ability to love… You, or anyone, along with most of my mind. That is what they did. They… Broke me into pieces. In hindsight, it is something I probably should have anticipated. Harry's Horcrux repaired at least some of the damage. If he does what he plans to do…"

She was crying as he spoke, her face breaking as she struggled to reign it in, fury and pain fighting on her features.

"You MORON!" She was standing in an instant, "Fangs are 'Unappetizing' better go and FUCK EVERYTHING UP INSTEAD! Give me strength; I'll kill you here and save all the trouble. What the fuck is wrong with you? I cannot goddamn comprehend…" She paced rapidly.

"Cass…" Tom whispered, and she stopped dead to glare murder, "Please help me."

She screamed at him, so loud he was sure they would hear it in the castle, bent over so she was level with his face before she marched towards the edge of the grounds, where they watched her Disapparate.

"Did that… Go well?" Harry asked.

"Too soon to tell," Tom said as he plunged them into Voldemort's head.

The words were swimming, and he realised that he'd had too much to drink, another problem for his problems.

"Nagini… Would you read this aloud?" He asked her, sliding the paperwork across the table. She moved her drawing and charcoal sticks, clearing her throat to recite legislation in Parseltongue while he lowered his forehead to the wood and closed his eyes.

There was a soft knock at the door, and he sat bolt upright, eyes bugged, head wobbling on his shoulders before he got control of it. Nagini stopped reading.

"Enter."

Cassiopeia did; she hesitated fractionally in the doorway, then she sat down at the far end of the massive table, "Drunk out of your mind on a Tuesday, I see."

'She hates you can you see she hates you it's in her eyes It's in all their eyes look you can see it you can see how much she HATES YOU LIKE I HATE YOU monster monster-'

"Is something… Wrong?" He asked her, shaking his head as though he could dislodge it, brain rolling inside.

"Just wanted to look at you. You've been sneaking around and lying, so."

"Not lying… Omitting."

"Sneaking around and omitting," she corrected, "A lot of big ideas for someone who can't get out of the bottle."

"…If you do not need anything, I am busy, Cassiopeia."

"I want your plans. For Azkaban and for Enos. You're not inspiring confidence in me."

He sucked in a long breath, clasped his hands together tight and pressed his thumbs between his eyes to steady the room, "Azkaban will go ahead sooner, so long as what I suspect is true: that he can tear down the wards. If so, we will head to Bulgaria directly. The schedule is out of my hands once we arrive; I will call them all to me there. At the first opportunity."

"…And after that?" She pressed.

"Afterward, I will enjoy the show, Cassiopeia."

"Specifically?"

He narrowed his eyes as he watched her, "I am busy."

She nodded sharply, glared, and then stood to exit the room.

'Hates you see she HATES-'

Tom pulled them out and watched Cassiopeia reappear a few moments later at the edge of the tree line.

She stomped over to him and sat back down. "If anything, he seems to want to do it faster."

"I was watching," Tom said.

"You can do that at will now?" She squinted at him.

"We figured it out. Best you do not tell him that, Cassiopeia. He wants us to break the Azkaban wards?"

"Yes."

"And what is Enos?"

"Who, who is Enos. He's a fucking asshole; clown shoes of a man. Managed to find himself at the head of the metaphorical European vampiric table. A political venture, but especially dangerous because organised vampire politics is…" She made a cut-throat gesture.

"…I don't want to break the Azkaban wards," Harry finally said.

"Well, tough, because if you don't want to die, you will have to put on your most obedient boots. He expects you to be more subservient than the rest of them. He wants you to know his rules, and he wants you to fail at them. He really wants you to fuck up, kiddo. Now it makes sense why. How bad is it?"

"It is incessant; it despises him violently."

"How would we even… Keeping that Horcrux in will lead us right back where we started, no matter what we do?" She asked, shaking her head, "He's barely functioning."

"It is quiet when-"

Harry snapped his mouth shut, heart pounding, 'Please don't say that please don't tell her that-'

"-When he touches Harry."

"Fuck," Harry hissed, glaring at Cassiopeia, "I'm not doing that," he snarled at both of them.

"I believe the Horcrux could be bribed or conditioned with it," he said, ignoring Harry.

"I don't think he's going to go for it either, to be perfectly honest with you, Tom," they both froze momentarily when they realised that she'd called him by his name.

Tom recovered first, "It is either that or…"

'I genuinely don't think I'm capable of… Touching him. Or him touching me- I can't— seriously, it messes with my head. It messed with my head. And it messed with yours.' Harry thought.

'The alternative might well be death, Harry.' When even that didn't budge him, Tom thought, '…If I told you, I needed it.'

His chest hurt with the pace of his pulse, and along with it, his own anxiety rose.

'…How… badly do you need it?'

'It is…'

Harry felt it then, yawning like grief. A rabid homesickness. Tom retracted it.

'My main concern is still that he plans to kill us, Harry. I have examined every angle; I did not arrive at this solution lightly.'

Harry groaned into his knees, "You're the worst."

"Well… It is a plan; I'll give you that. I'm not going to suggest it to him, so you can piss off with that idea right now," she told him.

"Nagini knows. That he is Harry's Horcrux."

"Are you saying we should use that poor, innocent, sweet thing to do our bidding? Because yes, good idea. I can slip her a note in a book or something. He will know this idea had to come from someone else. If no one else knows…?"

"Yes. From me."

"He's going to go absolutely ballistic…"

"There is no way around it."

"It's like I'm watching you organise your funeral…" she said, half smiling and half frowning.