Mental Mentality
August 3rd
"This place is nuts," Sam muttered. "Completely nuts. They're like a bunch of brainwashed robots."
"Thank you!" Harry hissed quietly, only half-heartedly working on the dish he was meant to be making. Regulus, who still wouldn't talk to Harry, gave Harry, Sam, and Bucky packets of clay powder and they had been working for an hour on making dishes for themselves.
Harry didn't have a problem with making his own dishes to use, Harry had a problem with everyone acting like it was normal and expected. Malfoy had a lumpy homemade dish, which meant he must have made one himself at some point. They were wizards, why couldn't they have their wands?
Was Harry in some bizarre psychiatric center or a bloody work camp?!
At least Sam wasn't acting like everything was normal, not like the others. All of the others, including Malfoy, walked around that morning like they were under an imperio, mindlessly going about their business. They made Harry sleep in a barn, they told him when to wake up, where to shower, and nobody answered any of Harry's questions.
It was mental, completely fucking mental.
If Harry could just see the doctor and check that Eddie was alright and convince Morris that there had been a mistake, he could go home. Harry didn't want to be sleeping in a barn and making his own dishes, he wanted to go home and take a hot shower and curl up in his bed until the whole thing became only a strange dream.
Nobody told Harry when he would get to talk to the doctor, Trent only said ‘soon' when Harry asked him that morning. Instead, Harry was told how he had to earn his keep and ‘clean his mind' through chores that morning and then sent to create his own dishes immediately after breakfast.
Harry wasn't having much luck in making a thin plate like Sam had, though his lumpy clay-thing looked much more like a plate than Bucky's did. Harry didn't bother offering to help Bucky, not when he was messing up his own bloody plate.
"How does this make people less depressed?" Harry complained when his attempt to smooth out the lumps in his clay only made it fold up into more lumps.
Sam chuckled and Harry was relieved when he offered to help Harry shape his clay. "I'll trade you," he said, taking the clay and working the lumps out by hand. "I'll help you make your plate, you tell me how you know the others here."
Harry could tell that Bucky wanted to know as well, he still didn't say anything, but he slowed down his spinning machine so that it was quieter in the room. Harry hesitated for a moment, not really wanting to share…
Why not though? Why couldn't Harry answer Sam's question and hope someone would answer his own soon?
"Charlie, the red-headed buddy, is my mate Ron's older brother," Harry said, explaining the easiest one first. "We met a few years ago, I haven't seen him in years."
"What's his deal?" Sam asked. "Is he on drugs or just completely insane?"
"No idea," Harry said truthfully. Charlie never seemed unstable, but he never seemed like he used drugs or potions either.
"What about the others?" Sam asked. Harry watched him shape the clay and wondered where Sam learned the ability to do it. Harry was alright at some things, but making dishes clearly wasn't one of his skills.
"Malfoy and I went to school together…" Harry explained slowly. Malfoy was more complicated, Harry wasn't sure where to even begin. The last that Harry knew, he had been released from Azkaban to undergo therapy for everything he suffered from after the war.
"We didn't get on very well," Harry said. "I heard he was being sent to a mind healer, I never thought much about it."
"Crazy or drugs?" Sam asked again.
"Crazy," Harry said confidently. "Definitely crazy."
Because if Harry sometimes worried that he'd been shattered by the war, unable to pick his pieces back up, Malfoy had to be almost as damaged. It left Harry sharp, uneasy, apparently unable to ‘be part of society'. Malfoy with his brand and all of the crimes he had been forced to commit would have been jagged too, jagged and sickened by the things he saw and did.
Which left Regulus Black to explain.
"Regulus… was my godfather's brother," Harry said. "Everyone thinks he's dead, my godfather died thinking his brother was dead."
And he was there, alive and… well, not well, apparently.
All Harry wanted to do was talk to him, ask him how he got there, how he escaped the cave. How did he end up in the States, in a psychiatric center on some horrible ranch? Who put him there and why?
Eddie had screamed and raved about being hidden away by the government, was that what happened to Regulus? But why wouldn't he talk to Harry? All Harry wanted to do was hear his story, tell him about the mission Harry finished for him.
Harry was hoping he'd get his chance soon. Trent told Harry that everyone rotated work on the ranch and Harry would be assigned jobs with each buddy every day. Harry didn't know when he would be assigned to work with Regulus, but he hoped Regulus would talk to him then.
"Maybe he did die," Sam suggested after Harry got lost in his own thoughts. "I was in Hell, my brother, Dean, went to Hell. It happens."
That would have sounded like the sort of thing a crazy person would say, except Harry died too, didn't he?
"You're a wizard too then?" Harry asked, sighing in relief. Harry suspected everyone was a wizard when he saw Charlie, Regulus, and Malfoy, but he wasn't sure until then. "Did they take your wand too?" he asked. "Where'd you go to school? Illvermony?"
"Wizard?" Sam's quiet voice sharpened and his hands flexed hard enough that the plate he had started to shape suddenly crunched up and became shapeless again. Harry inched backward in his seat and glanced toward Bucky for his reaction and only saw some mild surprise in his blue eyes.
"Is this… what are you?" Sam demanded from Bucky, his voice rising.
Bucky blinked and didn't answer. Sam stood up and Bucky didn't move in his seat, he only continued to stare challengingly. When Sam turned back to Harry, Harry threw his hands up.
"I thought you were a wizard, that's all," Harry said quickly. Sam was mental, he was connected to the devil or something, Harry didn't want to be in a fight with him.
"This is just perfect!" Sam laughed, an edge of something tainting it. "Dean dropped me off here with a bunch of wizards. Absolutely perfect."
"I… I kind of doubt that Eddie's a wizard," Harry offered helpfully. "I do kind of think he's dead, maybe they fed his body to the animals or dumped him in the lake, but - but I don't think he's a wizard. And you might have heard me, but I'm wand-less, no wand, they stole it, so I'm not dangerous. In fact, you're tall and more dangerous than I am."
Sam was very tall and he had very crazy eyes. Harry heard him talking all night, whispering to the devil. Harry couldn't be sure that Sam wasn't entirely dangerous, the way his muscles flexed and his nostrils flared in Harry's face certainly made him seem dangerous.
Harry didn't want to cringe, but he didn't want to die either. If curling up some and trying to look small kept Sam from killing Harry, who was ever going to know? A bunch of crazy blokes on drugs who may or may not be wizards?
It seemed like it took Sam a few seconds to calm down, but when he did, he calmed down all at once.
"I - shit, I'm not going to hurt you." Sam deflated and slowly sank back in his seat with the clay still clenched in his hands. "I'm sorry, alright?"
Right, right.
Harry nodded, even if he wasn't sure he believed him, and watched Sam carefully. Bucky hadn't said a word the entire time, but he was watching Sam just as closely.
"So… wizard," Sam eventually said. He placed the clay back on the wheel and Harry watched his hands shape it while they talked. "The others too?"
"The ones I know," Harry said. "I don't think everyone is though. I mean, if you're not then not everyone is."
"I'm a hunter," Sam said flatly.
And… good for him? Harry didn't know much about hunting, except what he and Ron tried to do with Hermione's help when they were on the run. Harry couldn't shoot a deer and Ron wouldn't skin a rabbit though, so they were rubbish.
The door opened while Harry tried to push away the memories of his failure at hunting, his failure at most things, and Trent walked in.
"Harry, the doctor wants to see you," Trent said quietly, the words reverberating in Harry's head.
"Why?" Sam asked immediately. "Harry didn't do anything wrong."
No, he didn't, not as far as Harry knew. He talked about magic though, which was a crime… but so were the Unforgivables and Kingsley never charged Harry for that.
Trent didn't say anything else, he only stared at Harry with his green eyes while Harry stood up on shaking legs.
The doctor seemed odd, but kind enough when they first met. But Eddie tried to sneak away during the night and was taken to the doctor and nobody had seen him since then. Harry didn't know why he was there, he didn't know what the doctor wanted, all he knew was that it felt like walking to his death again when he followed Trent through the house.
The entire house was huge, spacious. Harry couldn't help but think about how quiet the house was, considering the number of people who lived there. Harry and the others he arrived with had to sleep in the barn and ‘earn the right' to share the house, but Harry knew there were at least nine others who lived in the house, so why was it so quiet?
"Trent?" Harry tried to whisper to his ‘buddy' on their way up the second flight of stairs. "Did I do something wrong?"
"Doctor Morris will explain everything," Trent said. Trent himself was odd, really odd. There was no life in Trent's eyes, no emotion in his soft voice. Trent looked like someone who could fade away in the background and never be seen again.
"How long have you been here?" Harry asked instead.
"A while," Trent said evasively. "When Doctor Morris believes I'm ready to leave, I'll leave."
"Don't you want to leave?" Harry asked curiously. "Or do you like being here?" Harry couldn't imagine why he would, honestly. Everything was absolute fucking rubbish to Harry so far - sleeping in a barn, having to make his own dishes… the chores weren't bad so far, Harry surely did more at the Dursleys, but Harry wasn't a kid who could be stuffed in a cupboard anymore.
It felt worse than a cupboard, sleeping in a barn. It was as if Harry was less than human, only an animal who didn't deserve to even have a real bed. It kept him awake most of the night, much more than Eddie's whispered complaints or the sounds of the animals had.
Trent didn't answer Harry's question, Harry didn't really expect him to.
There were three doors on the top floor, each one as stark white as every other wall and door within the house. Trent knocked on the middle door and Harry hardly had time to start sweating before Doctor Morris called for Harry to enter.
"Good luck," Trent whispered, so quietly that Harry might not have even heard him actually say it.
Harry walked in the office by himself and was distracted immediately by a file in the center of the gleaming black desk that had his name on it. Harry almost reached out for it when Doctor Morris's tanned and wrinkled hand smoothly slid it out of grasp.
"Harry, hello." Doctor Morris was dressed casually, he only wore a black button-down shirt that would have felt nice in the cold air-conditioned office. "Please," Morris waved at the black leather sofa that took up an entire wall, "have a seat. Can I get you a drink? I'm afraid I don't have tea, a true crime in the eyes of your fellow classmate."
Morris was smiling kindly, he looked like a perfectly normal man. Somehow in Harry's head, he had built Morris up to be a monster, but… but he seemed like someone who could be rationalized with. Maybe Harry could explain the mixup, ask for his help, go home…
"Water, please," Harry said politely, sitting down where he was directed to. The other open wall in Morris's office had four bookcases covering it, each shelf filled with what looked like psychology textbooks and small trinkets. There was even a snitch on the shelf and Morris noticed Harry staring at it.
"A gift from one of my first magical patients," Morris explained. He handed over a bottle of cold water and Harry was glad it was in a sealed bottle. It tasted heavenly when Harry drank it, the air on the ranch was so hot and he hardly noticed it until he was in the air conditioning.
"Do you mostly treat wizards?" Harry asked Morris curiously. Morris settled in a seat on Harry's side of the desk, he crossed his legs and got comfortable with Harry's file and a yellow notepad on his lap.
"No, not at all," Morris said pleasantly. "It was an accident that I even discovered your world, Harry. I've since been granted clemency by both the British and American governments to waive the Statutes of Secrecy in my work, so long as I don't publish anything directly referencing magic."
"Oh." That was interesting, so Kingsley must have known of Morris before he sent Harry there, that was something at least.
Morris smiled knowingly, as if he knew what Harry had only just realized. And maybe he did, Harry didn't really have any experience with psychologists or whatever.
"I like for our first one-on-one to be more casual," Morris told him. "This is a chance to hear about you, from the most reliable source. I've heard from your boss, coworkers, your friends… Now, Harry, why don't you tell me why you think you're here."
"I think it's a mistake," Harry said, staying perfectly polite even when Morris's smile drooped. "I, er… I had a bad night, just one, and when Kingsley and I talked at the hospital, I wasn't really thinking straight." Morris didn't interrupt, so Harry kept going.
"I get sad sometimes, but that's normal," Harry said. "There was a war and people died, anyone would be sad."
"Ah, but there's a marked difference between ‘sad' and ‘depressed'," Morris said. "Do you think you ever crossed the line?"
Harry lowered his drink to his lap and turned his arms over, ignoring the tight knot in his stomach that called him a liar. "No."
"What if I explained to you the difference?" Morris asked gently. "Could we do that?"
Harry nodded and stayed still while Morris pulled a form from his file and began reading it.
"‘Sadness is a temporary emotion, something that fades with time'," Morris read. "‘It is a human response to pain, but it does not last forever. Depression is a chemical alteration in a person's mind, it is a persistent state that impacts a person's entire being. A person with depression will feel ‘sad' for extended periods of time, oftentimes even years without treatment. Depression can cause numbness, hopelessness, exhaustion, and, in extreme cases, a person could feel as if they have no reason to be alive.'"
Harry shifted uncomfortably, his thoughts circling the file on Morris's lap. Is that what it said? That Harry didn't have a reason to live? How much of Harry's own secrets, the thoughts that he never shared with anyone, were in that file?
"‘Sadness is an emotion, depression is a medical condition'." Morris lowered the paper and looked at Harry, directly in his eyes. "Does any of that sound familiar, Harry?"
Harry wanted to say no, he wanted to lie to Morris like he did everyone else and say he was fine. Harry wanted to be fine. Harry didn't want to be on a ranch in the States with Regulus Black or Draco Malfoy. Harry wanted to lie and he wanted to go home.
"Yea." Harry's throat swelled and he had to clear his throat then sip his water, looking away from Morris and out the window behind his desk instead. The ranch looked peaceful from Harry's view, and maybe it was.
Harry didn't want to like it, he told himself everything felt wrong. But… but just his one small admission felt right.
"Was that hard to admit?" Morris asked after he let Harry sit in silence for a minute or two.
"Yeah," Harry said. He looked back at Morris and didn't see any judgment there, so he grinned with a small sigh of relief. "It was, but… but it felt okay too. I don't know, sorry."
"No, please don't apologize, Harry," Morris said quickly. "You're experiencing a very normal reaction. Admitting that you need help is often the most difficult thing a person could do, especially a man such as yourself who has had to carry the world on his back for so long. What you're feeling now? It's relief, relief because your body knows that you're no longer alone."
That, for whatever reason, made Harry's throat clog again and he had to blink quickly when his vision started to blur. It wasn't wrong though; Harry did carry things alone, it was hard and it was lonely.
"You are not alone," Morris repeated firmly. "I am here for you, your new friends will be here for you. This ranch is more than a house for those in need, Harry, it's my hope that it becomes a family of sorts. And you need that, don't you, Harry? A family?"
Harry reached up and swiped at his eyes, nodding while he avoided looking directly at Morris. Harry didn't know that he needed a family, but… but, God… he'd always wanted one.
Morris told Harry that they didn't need to talk anymore that day, but they would soon. Harry was relieved by that, just as relieved as he was when Morris told Trent to help Harry move his bed inside that night.
"Doctor Morris?" Harry paused in the corridor, not wanting to push his luck, but needing to know that he had only been imagining that the ranch was some horrible evil place.
"Yes, Harry?" Morris asked, smiling pleasantly again.
"Is - is Eddie alright?" Harry checked. "He's not hurt, is he?"
"Edward? Munson? He's fine," Morris said. He pointed to the door on the left of his. "He's sleeping just in there, if you'd like to check for yourself. I'm afraid that Edward had many injuries and substances in his body, he wasn't quite ready to join the rest of you yet."
Harry hesitated and couldn't help but feel like it was a test on if he would open the door or not. Harry told himself that Morris was odd, but he wanted to help people… then he opened the door anyway, just so he could be sure.
It was a bedroom that Morris pointed to, a posh bedroom with plush white carpet and a giant bed that took up the majority of the room. In the middle of the bed, curled up small, was Eddie.
"I hope, with time, that your desire to champion others will diminish as you find your own worth," Morris said while Harry quietly closed the door, flushed with embarrassment.
"Yes, sir," Harry said politely. Trent was stiff beside him, apparently embarrassed as well by Harry questioning Morris. "I'm sorry," Harry added. "Thank you."
Morris smiled again and Harry felt his eyes on Harry's back the entire time that Harry walked down the stairs with Trent.
Trent didn't ask Harry about his appointment while they moved Harry's mattress and simple wooden bed frame from the barn to the house. Nobody talked to Harry at all, not until he went to lunch with Trent and the others were all there.
"Dude." Sam sighed as soon as he saw Harry sitting at the table, his hands washed and folded on the table like Trent and the others did. "I thought you were a goner," Sam said, taking the seat across from Harry. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Harry said honestly. "We just talked."
Bucky lifted an eyebrow at Harry, but Sam actually scoffed.
"So the good doctor is just some doctor?" Sam asked. "Pull the other one."
"No, really," Harry insisted. Morris didn't tell Harry he couldn't talk about his session, and Harry was supposed to make friends with the others… "He's sort of nice, actually," Harry swore. "And Eddie's fine, he just needed to sleep."
"Quiet, please." Charlie and the older bloke, the one with the brown eyes and neatly trimmed facial Harry, carried in plates of food. Harry didn't notice until they started passing them around in silence, but there was a plate in Harry's spot.
And Sam didn't have one.
Which Harry tried very hard to not think about, but it ended up being the only thing Harry thought about until lunch ended and he was told that he was being assigned a work rotation with Regulus until three pm.
"Hello." There was another bloke that joined Harry to follow Regulus from the dining room down another white corridor. He was tall, thin, attractive with his brown eyes and floppy brunette hair.
"I'm Spencer Reid," the bloke, Spencer, said, offering Harry his hand while they walked.
"Harry Potter," Harry said, shaking his hand briefly. Regulus didn't react to Harry's name, but Harry swore he saw his finger twitch at his side.
"I know, I heard about you," Spencer said, reminding Harry momentarily of Hermione. "Did you know that wizards make up less than ten percent of the total population of the world?"
No, Harry didn't know that.
"Oh," Harry said dumbly. "Are you a wizard?"
"Me? No." Spencer laughed. "I'm a behavioral analyst with the FBI, or, I will be again, when I leave here. I think that magic would be a much more interesting field. Where did you study at?"
Harry didn't know what a behavioral analyst or the FBI was, but he thought it sounded rather important.
"Hogwarts," Harry said. He hesitated when Regulus opened a door and led them into a library filled with half a dozen individual desks. "I'm an auror, actually." Harry tried to grin, he tried to not let his own worries show. "Or I will be, when I leave here."
"An auror?" Spencer sat in a desk automatically, so Harry sat at the one beside him and tried to not watch Regulus walk to the bookcase - his casual lope so much like Sirius.
"It's like a wizard cop?" Harry tried to explain. "Except it's a bit more specialized, I work assigned cases instead of general patrol."
Or he would… if Harry finished the program Kingsley recommended. The details of their conversation were fuzzy, but Harry thought he remembered Kingsley saying that.
"So you're an agent, or detective," Spencer said, visibly brightening. "What sort of cases do you work?"
"Quiet," Regulus interrupted. Regulus walked back to them and placed a book, notebook, and pencil on each of their desks. Harry opened the cover of his book and thought it seemed like a storybook, a novel or something.
"Today is silent reading," Regulus said, brisk and curt, never looking directly at Harry. "You will read, make notes as you go. Your notes should be thoughtful, insightful. Refusing to put effort into your words can result in a loss of privileges; diligent and honest efforts will be rewarded. Do you have any questions?"
Harry had a million questions for Regulus, but nothing about the book he was given. Taking notes on a story? It made Harry feel like he was back in school again. Spencer didn't have any questions either and it felt just like sitting beside Hermione again when he opened the book and got straight to work.
Harry opened his book more slowly, just as curious about the ‘work' as he was the book itself.
Lord of the Flies, Harry had never heard of it before. It pulled him in almost immediately though, it was hard not to feel like he was in the boys' shoes when they discovered the island they were on.
Harry had been there before, when he was taken to Hogwarts. Harry remembered being lost, confused, wishing that he had someone to guide him through everything. Ron and Hermione tried, but they were lost boys in their own way too.
Those were the notes Harry wrote while he read more and more of the story… Harry wrote about being lost, about feeling hated by others, like Piggy was Jack. Piggy wanted to find order, to stay safe… Harry remembered too many nights wishing for that.
Harry wasn't able to finish the book or ask Regulus any of his questions, but he marked the page he was on and hoped that Spencer was right, that Harry would get to finish the book on his next work rotation in the library.
"Does it have a happy ending?" Harry asked Spencer on their way to the living room for ‘free time'. Spencer had a stack of books that he had signed out of the library, Harry should have thought to grab a book for himself.
"Lord of the Flies?" Spencer asked. "It's an excellent read, but maybe not the most reassuring one."
Yeah, Harry should have expected that. Nothing in his life made him think that anything had any sort of a happy ending.