Chapter 11
“I want, I want
To be a machine
And I want to be shiny,
Chrome,
And clean.
There’s something
(something, something)
Wrong with me.”
-- I Wanna Be A Machine, The Living Tombstone.
.XoX.
Time is a slow sludge over Harry’s too pale, too ragged body. Madame Pomfrey checks on him once every hour, her lips pulled taut in an expression that is not quite worry and is not quite disappointment.
He wonders what she thinks of him. He is not special, and she has seen boys and girls like him before. Are they a lost cause to her? A sinking ship, a car wreck? She can deal with only the physical side effects of an eating disorder. Despite everything she can do, she is no mind healer. Their conditions, the ability to help them… all of it is just out of her control, just out of reach.
He wonders, too, how that must feel. He is reminded of Cedric Diggory, another case of damage control. It hurts. The guilt of it all makes his already throbbing head ache.
He wonders how Luna Lovegood is dealing with this. All of this. Being here against Harry’s wishes. Being a candidate, hearing that Harry is hospitalized. He wonders if she blames herself. If she’s assumed the two are connected. Drunk and stupid, he’d told everyone he was in an arranged marriage with her. How idiotic can he be? How much more will he hurt her? It seems some days he will never stop.
He wonders how his parents are taking this.
Then he reminds himself Luna betrayed him and he does not (want to) care for his parents, and pulls his blanket higher up to his chin.
.xox.
After sending Tom off, there is no buffer for his destructive mind. With his friend (and is that not lovely? That for the first time in what seems like forever, he can say that in earnest?) not around, with no personified voice of reason, left all to himself, he realizes that even he does not want to be around him.
He has not been keen on living for a while. Among the many reasons for starvation is a slow suicidal tendency, a whisper that if he keeps doing this, he will die, and he is more than okay with that. One step of disordered eating after another, he imagines a slipknot slowly wrapping its way around his neck.
The night he sends Tom off, the first night alone in the infirmary, he questions what business he was doing here, healing. What business does he have getting better? A few days more of his drug-hazed, dehydrated shenanigans outside would have killed him, surely. Tom says he should have already been dead. Pomfrey echoes the sentiment.
So with the knowledge that he could have died -- something he has ached for for a long, long while now -- why the fuck did he allow himself to get talked out of it?
And he knows that if he left while Tom took the time and energy to help him, then nothing he had done before would prove him to be a bad person like this would. And he knows he let himself get talked into help because he wanted a friend, wanted someone to listen to him, to listen to them. Because he needs people even if he does not want them. Tom wanted Harry to heal, and Harry wanted Tom to be his friend… so he acted, and that’s that.
It is that simple.
But Tom Riddle is not here right now. Doubt creeps him and Harry lets it. He rips the IVs out of his arm -- one to rehydrate him, the other tube feed -- and starts staggering his way out of the infirmary.
He tries to open the door, but it is warded. With other patients, it’s not. When you are known for your suicidal tendencies, though…
Harry lets his hand drop and laughs, softly, to himself. He wonders if this was what Tom meant when Voldemort said he was special.
Pomfrey exits from her office, hair still undone, bathrobes on. The light from her room illuminates her, highlighting the creases in her wrinkled face. Her kind expression, her concern, her inability to do anything with it, is displayed so openly. She is the opposite of Marvolo Riddle, of the many supposed liars he’s been in contact with recently. The contrast is startling.
“Did I wake you?” asks Harry.
“You did,” she says, quietly. “The wards alert me when someone tries to exit them.”
“Oh,” says Harry. He knows he should say sorry, and he is, at least partly. But the words catch in his throat and the line badpersonbadpersonbadperson runs like a record in his brain.
“Go back to bed.” She moves toward his bed and picks up the discarded IVs, hastily thrown. Harry should apologize for that, too, but the ever unhelpful words continue in its place; bad person. (When you feel guilty and do nothing to fix it, your guilt is less than worthless. Stop feeling bad and start doing something. And Harry knows this. But the actions, too, get caught in his mind and the most he can muster is weak resentment.)
“You can’t keep me here forever. You have to release me sometime,” he snaps, head held high. Badperson. Badperson. I should not stand my ground. This hill is not worth dying on. Is not worth being rude to her for. But when you want to die, any hill will do.
“I know. But not now.”
Something in her voice is familiar. Compelling, too, and he allows himself to be walked back to bed, IVs replaced, blankets tucked in around him.
Only in the morning, forehead kiss still lingering on his skin, will he realize who she sounded like. She sounded like his mother.
(Harry rubs his fingers gently across his forehead, yearning still, and thinks, sadly, that there are some things he will never outgrow.)
.xox.
Harry awakes to a mountain of letters at the end of his bed. He hasn’t gained this much traction since the Butterflies incident. When he was announced one of Hogwarts champions, he received nothing other than the ignored letter from his parents, a few teachers wondering where he was. Less than a dozen over the course of a week.
Word, now, though, has got out. The reason why he disappeared for a week was supposed to keep on the DL, but people, Madame Pomfrey says, talk. “Someone at the infirmary when you came in must’ve overheard,” she’d muttered. “I’ll find them, dear, I swear…”
At the moment, she is more concerned with the content of the letters. “I should take these,” she tells him, voice tight, lips pulled taut.
“Why?” asks Harry, brows furrowed, pulling himself closer to them, blocking her path.
“A club has formed,” she says simply, but Harry can hear the tone, buried and hidden, in her voice. She is not like Marvolo. She is not so good at lying.
(Something infectious has wriggled its way into Hogwarts. There is rampant and constant refusal to die.)
Harry takes one of the letters out of the pile, ignoring Pomfrey’s wince. It is a soft orange color, almost beige, with a star shaped seal. “The Chrysalis,” he reads, turning over the letter in his hands. “This the club?”
“The Headmasters of the other schools had a meeting, while you were out.”
Already Harry can see where this is going. “What’d they say?”
“They wanted something to do, since they wouldn't be teaching or running their own schools.”
He is hospitalized, partly because of ED related reasons. Word gets out about it. Mouton is here. Then in the morning, he wakes to letters. It is obvious what has happened here and Harry feels rage bubble up in his chest. Chrysalis. Butterflies. Cults start fast and spread faster, huh? “So they were allowed to start clubs,” Harry mutters, throwing the letter to his side.
“This is from Moutons. A health and fitness group.” She pauses, “It was not without pushback.” Like that is any reassurance. The letters remain on his bed regardless. Mouton has a club regardless.
“Not pushback enough, huh?” he snaps. Her face goes still and Harry clears his throat. “Erm…” Just say it. Just say sorry. “I didn’t me--”
“No,” she says. “It’s alright. This all must seem like a lot to you.”
Harry feels nostalgic, his mouth going dry. He remembers his own mother, punishing him, but lightly, because she understands his anger. It is kind but… But Harry does not want the people around him to tolerate him in spite of. He does not need this misconstructed air of forgiveness. Does not want it. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
Pomfrey smiles gently. “Like I said, it’s okay. I should advise against reading these letters, though, dear.”
“Cause the Chrysalis is an eating disorder cult?”
She shrugs, stiff. “It appears so.”
Harry looks at the pile one last time. Part of him wants to trigger himself. Wants to have his mind fall back into that oblivion of don’t eat don’t binge don’t even think about it, and all he needs is a push. But he remembers Tom. Tom, who turned against the old version of himself, embracing the new. Doubt creeps in and Harry lets it. “Alright. But I’d like to sort out my friends’ letters first, if you don’t mind.” Cedric might have contacted him. Or Luna. And maybe Tom has been returned already.
Though her face betrays no emotion, Harry can sense her surprise. Throughout his many visits to the Medical Wing, he’s never received letters or had any visitors. Harry having friends must come as a shock to her. That’s fair. It is a shock to Harry, too.
“Okay,” she says. “But I will be with other patients. If you need me, do call.”
Harry allows himself a smile. It feels warm and odd-fitting on his face. But it is a nice ‘odd’. “Will do,” he says and he’s not lying.
Pomfrey wanders off, attending to the other few students and sorting potions for the day, and Harry begins the honestly fascinating task of sorting through his mail.
What strikes his attention first is that he did not only get letters -- yes, hidden toward the bottom of the pile are parcels. From the cult-now-club itself. Though Harry will not open their letters, he is too curious to resist opening their packages.
There’s vodka. A vodka bottle with a pink bow on it, a butterfly pattern covering it. Celebratory. Harry salivates over the idea of getting blasted -- even if not here, then when he’s released (she cannot keep him here forever) -- and then he remembers Tom. He remembers Cedric. Cedric, who carries around sobering potions.
He says it is because Julian is Severus’ Teaching Assistant, but…
But Harry thinks it is more than that. He thinks of the eating disorder to drug abuse pipeline and decides he will not fall down it. He will dig his heels in and refuses to.
(He thinks of Cedric and thinks of Tom and guilt creeps it. He slips the bottle back into its package.)
There’s chocolate, too. Harry is almost surprised at the absolute boldness of an eating disorder club sending someone chocolate, but then reads the low cal label and the word laxative, and realizes this is not bold but stereotypical.
There is no word from Tom or Cedric.
Julian, though.
There’s word from Julian.
A plain white envelope containing a single slip of paper. One sentence. Very simple, straight, and to the point.
Do not join the Chrysalis.
Harry reads it again. And again. Then blinks rapidly and begins looking frantically through the remaining letter because he knows what this means. He knows what a message like that is means. It means Julian somehow overheard something -- it means Julian is issuing a preemptive warning.
It means Harry has received an invitation.
Harry finds it easy. Unlike the normal light orange, this one is decorated with swirls of white, curling around each other in a warm hug. A small angel is depicted on the front.
Harry wonders if the irony is intentional.
With hesitant but curious hands -- he is a true Raven, if only right then -- he opens the letter.
Dear Mister Potter,
We, the Chrysalis club, a health and fitness group, officially invite you to join. We have seen your work in writing and are infinitely impressed. We believe you can be of great support to the cause -- though you’ve definitely already done so.
Glad to see you are putting Mouton V.’s gift to good use.
Eagerly awaiting your reply,
T.C.C.
Harry just stares.
(His family and thoughts of them trail him; a loose thread of his brain sticking out. But Katherine. Katherine, with her features described far too much, with her bones and starvation and purging and sick in a way that is unrealistic. Harry will never escape his parents. But it is Katherine’s Portraits that he is trapped by.
And gift? The years old unknown spell? If he’s putting it to any kind of use, then it is news to him.)
Harry balls up the letter. It’s a stupid offer and she must know it. And because she sent it anyway, Harry suspects that this will haunt him, too. She has something up her sleeve, some way to push or shove. To manipulate. To control. To coerce.
It, Harry, thinks, is all so fucking stupid.
Harry glances through the last of the letters. Orange, orange, Chrysalis. Nothing new. Nothing much.
And then the orange stops. At the very bottom of the pile, there is a pastel blue envelope. Flowers and bees and the like are drawn in what Harry assumes is gel pen.
From: Luna Lovegood.
He didn’t know why he had thought she wouldn’t contact him after her arrival in Hogwarts, but he is enraged at his own arrogance. She’d tried to seal the gap between them before -- a letter sent, hurried, filled with borderline begs for Harry to understand, to forgive, to forget -- and now she wants to try again.
Her message, printed in neat, small handwriting, is simple. I’m coming to talk during visiting hours. Please keep an open mind.
Harry vanishes it. He vanishes it and the orange letters and the parcels and then he lies down, wand cradled to his chest. She knows better, he thinks, than to bother.
What does she see in him? What does anyone? Heaven knows he is not easy company.
And Luna betrayed him. He opened up, just a little, and she fucked it all up. Why would he want to talk to her? Why would he keep an open mind?
But when Pomfrey informs him, half past noon, that he has a visitor, he does not send her away. He has been cruel to her for years and she has been cruel once.
He owes her, at the very least, this. He will listen. It is only fair.
.xox.
“I took my name out of the Cup,” is her strong start.
“Then how are you here?” He keeps his voice neutral, though he wants to be angry, righteous. He owes her an open mind. He owes her no snapped remarks, no bitter looks. (It is only fair.)
“I don’t know,” she says, exasperated. Harry notes that she’s received her own Hogwarts uniform. She has already started embroidering it; the cuffs and collars a work in progress. Hogwarts students are not allowed to make such modifications, but he supposes this does not apply to the newcomers.
She is taller than first year, but not by much. Harry begins to worry that she’s gotten taller than him before reminding himself that he has more important things to worry about right now.
“Julian Jackson said that, too,” he states blankly. “But there’s no way--”
“He said that?”
Harry raises his eyebrows. “Yes,” he says. “I don’t believe him, either.”
“It’s weird, though. Isn’t it?” Luna sits on the edge of his bed, hands folded on top of each other. Her voice is soft; demeanor a soft walk on omniscient ice. “Is what weird?” He tries to keep his voice restrained but is sure he fails.
“That two of the six champions,” she says, “claim they didn’t enter.”
Not weird. People lie all the time.
(A part of him whispers Cedric’s words about Julian and his own about Luna. The two very least likely people to lie. A part of him has thought this was rigged since the beginning, and that part is not any less loud because Luna agrees.)
“I wonder, if we asked around,” she says, voice barely audible, “who else we would find?”
Harry swallows. You’re trying to get in my head. “That’s nonsense,” he snaps, defensive.
“Tom Riddle’s here.”
Harry is flustered by the sudden change of topic. “He prefers Marvolo,” says Harry. “And what of him?”
“I just think it’s really convenient--”
He resists the urge to snap Oh, put a sock in it, because that’s rude. Luna’s a liar (maybe) and betrayed him (maybe) but she does not deserve Harry’s cruelty. “It is unlikely,” says Harry, slowly, calmly. “But not impossible.”
Luna’s will is not shaken. “I ask you, then; Why am I here?”
“Because you decided not to withdr--”
“No,” corrects Luna. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
Patience, he reminds himself, is a virtue. “What are you asking?”
“What good does being here bring me?” Harry must’ve made a face because she adds, “I mean, just really thinking about it. Why would I want my name in the Cup?”
Harry clears his throat. He gets it, or is starting to. But he doesn’t want to. “The same reason as everyone else. The prize money, the mystery prize. The fame. Pick one.”
“What use do I have for money? My career is paved by blood,” she says. “I will never have to work a day in my life, if I don’t want to. I have no need for money, and no want for fame. For that, would I risk my life? Would I risk coming here, endangering the fragile relationship we were just now starting to build? What am I doing here, Harry?”
“I…” says Harry. He comes up short. She’s… right. She’s right and Harry does not want her to be. She always has been eloquently spoken. But that means Harry has to forgive her, has nothing to forgive, and he has never been good at that.
He wants to fix things. Wants to open his mouth and speak so easily like her, so pretty like her, the way that Harry normally is able to write, but his throat contracts and he is stuck gaping aimlessly at the pretty girl in embroidery.
She stands, wiping the dust off her skirt. “Think about what I said,” she says, turning around. “And then… send me a letter.”
She leaves with those words and the very heavy implication that if Harry does not communicate with her, she will no longer communicate with him. Relationships work both ways. If they don’t work, they break, and Luna tires of simply bending.
Work with her or she won’t work at all. It is only fair.
.XoX.
“My hands sweat in your palms,
My heart splattered among your veins.
My breath is lost in the wind,
Torn from my lungs in the dead of night.
I melt your waxed eyes and hold them,
Mold them,
And wrap them around my fragile ears.
A stronghold; protection from the wind.
It has taken enough. And It will take more.
But never will it take this.”
-- Harry Potter, “Eight of Wands.”