mindwipe
vi. mindwipe
Gwaine felt his blood go cold. "Lockhart tried to do what?" The words didn’t come out as words. They came out as a hiss, low and sharp, more snake than human.
Ron flinched, but he pushed forward anyway, his exhaustion making him flutter nervously around Gwaine. “He tried to Obliviate us, but you know my wand-it backfired on him. It was… what was that word you told me? Caramel? Caram-”
“Karmic,” Gwaine breathed, barely loud enough to be heard. His hands trembled as he reached for Ron, pulling him into his arms like a lifeline. His baby brother squirmed against him, muttering half-hearted protests, but Gwaine didn’t let go. He buried his face in Ron’s hair, clutching him like he could hold him in place forever. Ron stilled slowly, his small hands curling into Gwaine’s robes as he gave up, leaning his weight into him. A dampness spread through the fabric where Ron turned his face. Gwaine only held tighter.
For his part, Gwaine didn’t shake. He didn’t panic. He didn’t cry. No, he had moved so far past those things that he had looped around and reached a state of icy, blistering fury.
Garret had taught him what it was to be powerless. Garret had held him down and forced himself on him. He'd sealed his mouth shut and hurt him enough that he still couldn't speak of it. His body had been hollowed out for that wretched worm to puppet. But no matter how much had been taken, his memories were his own. His mind was his.
Your body was sacred. Gwaine had believed that, even when his own belief had been tested, shattered, mocked. But more than that, your mind was your last bastion, your only inviolable fortress. It was yours. And that was why the darkest magic went straight for it, twisting it, corrupting it, leaving behind nothing but shadows and ruin.
The idea that some lowlife, some petty, pathetic charlatan, had dared to tried to mindwipe—no, to mind-rape—his baby brother?
Gwaine was glad Ron couldn’t see his face. Whatever he looked like now must have been monstrous. It must be ghoulish because he could feel the way his face had locked up. It was not fit for human eyes.
Ron and Harry might think Lockhart’s punishment was enough. They were children. Of course they would. They still thought the world could be fair, that justice was a thing you could hold in your hands. But Gwaine knew better. What justice was there in a man who had no qualms about erasing children’s minds just to protect his ego? What justice was there in letting this man, who tried to strip away someone’s very identity walk free, his life intact? What justice was there in letting a parasite thrive?
Gwaine thought of his mother’s shelves, crammed with Lockhart’s books. He had counted them once. There were eleven. Eleven pieces of stolen glory, each one written over the erasure of braver people, on the backs of those far better than him.
What had Lockhart done? He had laughed his way to fame and fortune, fashioning himself into a false icon. And he had never paid for it. He had only prospered.
Gwaine almost laughed, hysterically. He was not surprised, now, that another monster had come to Hogwarts. He was not surprised in the slightest.
Gwaine didn’t think of himself as an avenger. He was a broken child, shattered by the hands of a beast, and half-mad from what he had endured. His literal only coping mechanism was pretending to be Percy, wearing his brother’s skin like holy armor to shield his fractured self. He was more ghost than boy, and rarely a night went without him crying himself awake.
But by Merlin, by Morgana, by his blood and bones, he would make sure Gilderoy Lockhart never recovered.