Chapter 25
“We have built cathedrals out of spite and splintered bone.
Of course they aren’t pretty;
Nothing holy ever is.”
-- Forgive Me My Salt, Brenna Twophy.
.XoX.
Harry enters the Great Hall, flanked by two of the people he cherishes most, with an unadulterated sense of dread. It is his first day of recovery and, on top of that, he’s had the most bizarre revelation.
Julian is a part of the Chrysalis Club -- probably a part of the Butterflies, too; something that is hard to tell but not difficult to assume. He’s a part of the Chrysalis Club… and he so obviously does not want to be. For, Harry reasons, what type of true-blooded cult member warns other people not to join? Faces its great leader with poorly masked fear, and somewhat sadden rage?
The Chrysalis Club prides itself on the fact that -- no matter how desperate they are, or they appear to be -- everyone who joins, joins willingly. Harry has always recognized it as the half-lie it is -- everyone is here of their own volition, but coerced consent is hardly consent at all.
And so it bears the question: why is Julian different? What is Julian doing here? And if he is so unhappy, what is stopping him from leaving?
And that is if he is unhappy there, a part of Mouton’s sick club. The thought that Julian wants, genuinely, to be a part of the organization that’s hurt Harry like it has -- that’s hurt so many people -- is… unappealing.
Harry tries to wipe the prospect from his mind. He is still up to his neck with unanswered questions and wracked with the anxiety of the possibilities of the answer.
Harry sits next to Cedric and cannot help the sweep of his eyes down the table. Across from Cedric sits Julian -- who Harry imagines dressed in orange, thinking, spiteful, that it’s his color -- and besides Julian is Luna, who had previously confined herself, for the sake of distance, to the Ravenclaw table.
And to Harry’s other side sits Tom. He has gathered the attention of a good part of the Slytherin table and is already in deep conversation with Draco Malfoy. He is back at it again, his lying. He is trying his hardest to make Hogwarts as a whole suspicious of Marvolo and it’s so easy for him, deceit, that Harry comprehends wholeheartedly how easily it was for Tom to fool him.
Tom tells Draco Malfoy that Marvolo is an imposter. He will tell the world.
Harry cannot understand it, where he’s coming from. He can’t understand most things about Tom lately, and it hurts. He wishes it didn’t hurt.
Cedric clears his throat loudly. “So,” he says, near conversationally, “Harry, are you going to introduce us to your new friend?”
Harry shrugs, eyes on his plate. He begins loading it, reminding himself that this is not a binge or restrict day, it’s a recovery one, and he has to eat like it. He points his fork in the air. “Well, her name is Luna Lovegood.” Luna beams brightly with a small wave. “She’s another champion, a fifth year honorary Ravenclaw -- oh, and if you haven’t heard, she does custom embroidery for a price--”
“That’s great,” says Cedric. “But you know that’s not the friend I’m talking about.”
Julian tries to catch his eyes -- mocking, lightheartedly, Cedric’s seriousness; the way he deals with taming some-two hundred Slytherins slipping into his casual conversations from time to time -- and Harry notices. He notices and then… he avoids them.
Julian frowns.
“Oh,” he says, like he wasn’t intentionally trying to avoid this conversation. “You mean Tom?”
Tom snaps his head toward them on instinct. His smile stretching wide, he sticks out his hand to Cedric.
“Tom Riddle,” says Tom.
Cedric doesn’t take the hand. “As in, Tom Marvolo Riddle?”
Tom smacks his lips together. “Yep,” he says.
“As in Tom Marvolo Riddle, the Dark Lord Voldemort’s son?”
“I wouldn’t say he’s all that paternal, but, yes, sure.”
Harry resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“You mean the Dark Lord’s son that isn’t a ghost? The one that is sitting seven seats down from us?”
So like Cedric to know where each of the Snakes sit. Rowena’s voice, for whatever reason, rings in Harry’s head.
(You are my champion. There are others.
You know one of them already.)
Harry takes a deep breath, ignores the way his skin feels too tight on his flesh, and then keeps eating. It is up to Tom to earn his place with the Snakes. Harry knows that if anyone can do it, Tom can.
“Yes, I’ve heard of that guy,” Tom says, humming. He tilts his head, retracting his hand. “Such a mystery, isn’t he? Like father, like son, is all I’m saying.”
Harry bites his tongue to prevent the chuckle from escaping his chest.
Cedric narrows his eyes. “I would say that the real mystery is sitting right in front of us,” he says, lowly, and now Harry can really taste the protective venom in his voice.
“Would you? Is it so unbelievable, my presence here?” And then Tom introduces a new lie, one Harry hasn’t heard before, which makes him wonder how many versions of the truth are in circulation -- and, again, wonder why. “To be frank,I, tragically, died before entering school this September. I am the ghost of ‘Marvolo.’ And whatever is sitting, seven seats down,” Tom says, mockingly, “occupying my corpse? My friends, it cannot be good news.”
“Right,” Cedric says, with obvious disbelief.
Tom has the gall to look offended -- although Harry would guess that it, like all of this, is performance. It is all risky, all improv, though Tom wants it to be thought of as something calculated, controlled. That is the difference between now and then: the sheer amount of chaos.
“I’m as light as the sun is bright, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“I’m not insinuating anything.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Because it sounds, to me, like you’re being suspicious.”
“Can you blame me, if I am?”
“Only if you are.”
“He’s a friend,” Harry interrupts tiredly, bored of the back and forth. Holding your own against Cedric Diggory is a feat -- and would sure as Hell be an interesting show, if Harry was in the right mood. He sees Luna watching intently, enthralled with the new dynamic, and is sorry to ruin her fun.
He is just… tired. Just tired.
He spears eggs onto his fork, ignoring the small voice in his head that screams that he’s been binging ever since he’s been revived and the best way to end a binge cycle is obviously to restrict, and shoves it moodily into his mouth. He swallows, and then continues, “And when I asked him to stay back, he told me he didn’t want to leave my side until he absolutely had to. So, here he is.”
Honestly, Tom’s idea of egregious publicity is tiring. It brings attention to Tom and to Harry by proxy. Harry has few experiences where he appreciated any level of celebrity.
Cedric looks at Harry, searching his face. Harry tries to school it into something flat and emotionless and is sure that, despite this, true emotion leaks to the surface.
Harry pictures what he depicts. I am cautious, his face might show, his heart does feel. I am endlessly attached. Is there more scary a combination?
I don’t know, Cedric. I am so uncertain, it is leaking out of my ill fitting skin.
Whatever he sees prompts him to ask, forcefully, toward Tom, “Do you care for Harry?”
Tom grins wider, holding his hand back out expectedly. Cedric looks at the scars staining them. “With all my heart and soul,” he admits in earnest.
Cedric has no idea the irony of the statement, and he doesn’t need to. He stews on Tom’s confession for a moment. But only for a moment.
He nods sharply, once, and returns Tom’s handshake firmly.
The rest of the group -- Julian and Luna -- relax visibly. Even Harry can hardly deny the small lax of his shoulders. And Harry has the hilarious idea that it’s not just Snakes that Cedric controls; it’s fucking Ravens, too.
Tom holds his hand out to Julian and, after an approving nod from Cedric, it is returned.
Tom grins smugly. Happy, he is, to be accepted in this part of Harry’s life. A smile graces his lips and eating breakfast is a little easier.
“What House would you describe yourself as, Tom?” Cedric says Tom’s name like it is bitter on his tongue; it is as if Marvolo would sound more natural.
Harry appreciates his restraint.
Tom cocks his head. “I wouldn’t know, exactly,” he lies, “as I went to Beauxbatons, and not Hogwarts. But if I had to guess, I would say I am either Slytherin or Hufflepuff.”
“Slytherin and Huffepuff,” repeats Cedric, dryly. “An unusual answer, if I might say.” He says this like he himself is not the least Slytherin Snake to ever walk the hall of Hogwarts. “I assume Hufflepuff in reference to your… friendship with Harry, yes?”
“My loyalty has saved me,” says Tom. “On more than one occasion. Who would I be, if I did not consider that instrigitic to part of my being?”
“So why Slytherin?” asks Luna, curiously. “If you’re a Hufflepuff because of Harry, why are you a Slytherin?”
“I have goals,” answers Tom, vaguely. “Ambitions. I’m a very focus driven person.”
“Do any of those goals involve the wellbeing of our dear friend Harry here?”
“Cedric,” Harry says, pleadingly. “You gave him your pass, didn’t you? For today, you gave him a pass.”
Cedric looks him over. He notes, perhaps, Harry’s plate. Him eating normally, for the first time in a long time, for the first time in forever. He notes, maybe, the tension in his shoulders. The way his heart beat is one note off.
He -- and Julian -- had wanted to visit Harry in the Hospital Wing. Given Pomfrey’s strict restrictions, they weren’t able to. But the fact remains that he was in the Hospital Wing, and they did not get to visit him. They did not get the privacy of asking questions.
Those questions… they do remain. They have to.
What is on the top of that list? That unuttered, unutterable list of questions?
Did you die?, perhaps.
But maybe, Are you okay?
And there answer here is an evident I am trying to be.
So Cedric turns ahead, back to the comfort of his best friend, of Julian, away from Tom. He says, “For today.”
Harry sinks back into himself, letting out a breath of well earned relief. Kindness feels good. This feeling is the very reason he is working on being less cruel -- if he can bring this sort of joy to anyone else, he will be a little less of a monster.
Cedric blinked. “Oh, that’s right,” he says. “Julian, didn’t you have something to tell Harry?”
Julian chokes on his tea, slipping it over into his cup. “Uh,” he says, wiping his face with a napkin. “Right. I do. I’d -- … forgotten.”
He’d forgotten. What a quaint way to say he wants to forget -- that he doesn’t want to say this at all.
… Or that he doesn’t want to tell Harry it.
Harry thinks of Julian starving himself under Mouton’s dutiful praise. He thinks of him saving his calories for alcohol. He is everything Harry does not want to be, and everything Harry aspires to be.
That he used to, at least. Everything that Harry used to aspire to be.
Harry thinks of Julian, and then he asks, quiet, calm, and he hopes with gentle patience, “What is it, Julian?”
“The champions -- us champions, I mean… we were called in,” says Julian, the words coming out of his mouth awkward and stiffly. “And talked to.”
“Is this about them voiding the points of the first round?” Harry asks despite himself. Voiding points would not cause this hushed guilt. It is not something worth hiding. (Everyone who lies has a reason.) “Because I’ve heard of that already, you know.”
“It’s not that,” says Julian.
“We were supposed to gather those golden eggs, right?” Luna has tired of Julian’s wishwashy-ness and has, apparently, taken it upon herself, as another champion, to move things forward. “During the First Task, that was the mission, right?”
“Right,” says Harry. He tries not to feel pleasure in the way Julian squirms.
“No one actually got their golden egg.”
“Because I got injured.”
Her eyes soften. “And in the eggs was the clue for the Second Task.”
Harry gets it. “Which no one got to hear.”
“So they called us in and told it to us.”
Julian sips his tea again. “Exactly,” he says. “That's it -- that’s all.”
But his hand shakes when he raises his teacup, and his tone is a tad too sharp.
And Harry… Harry does not think that’s it.
“What else?” Harry asks. “Hm? Julian?”
“Erm -- I just…”
“What, Julian?”
“Mouton,” says Julian, hushed.
“Mouton?” Of course. His nervousness, his hesitancy.
Harry reminds himself that Julian is just like him, a victim of his disorder. And, at a larger scale, a victim of Mouton, too, because Harry refuses to believe he has more than one morally ambiguous friend.
Julian is not an antagonist. His anger is ceaseless and uncalled for. This is his new mantra and it is much more useful than ‘bad person, bad person.’
Harry takes a bite of breakfast and tastes the remnants of change in his chest.
“She volunteered to tell you the clue herself,” says Julian. He is apologetic, and it is another conflicting sign that he is not a fan of the cult leader he follows.
“Not without opposition, I’d hope.”
“An understatement, I’d say.” Julian chuckles darkly.
Harry envisions the scene. Dumbledore, telling her that won’t be necessary. The Headmaster of Durmstang arguing against him, ignorant or uncaring of Moutons’ true intentions. And Dumbledore being either too cowardly to state his opinion of Mouton without a factual basis or too stupid -- and Dumbledore losing.
Because Mouton wants to talk with him, in private. She had dragged Harry to her last time. Had set out a honey trap for him to fall into -- an elaborate plan to get him willingly alone.
That had failed. This time, she is changing her tactics; she is dragging herself to Harry, and there’s little willing about it.
Harry wonders if the reason she is changing tactics is because of her failure, or if the thing connecting her to Dumbledore is more than Gellert Grindelwald.
Harry wonders if this is another ambush. If this has anything at all to do with his dying.
“It’ll be fine,” Harry says, shrugging, giving Julian the luxury of returning his prying eyes to his plate. “There’s nothing she can do I can’t handle.”
“Are you sure?” asks Cedric. “I could talk around, see if I could work something out for you.”
Always taking on the role of the caretaker. Sweet. But, “No,” says Harry. “She’s… Persistent, when she wants to be. It’s better to face this kind of threat head on, you know. ‘If I cannot control if, I can at least know when.’”
Tom perks up at the word ‘threat.’ “I could go in your place,” he offers.
“No,” says Harry immediately.
“Why?”
“Because,” Harry says honestly, “I think you would kill her.”
Tom does not even bother denying it. “You’re supposed to be listing reasons why I shouldn’t go in your place.”
Cedric snorts at Harry’s side. Harry huffs, rolling his eyes. “Tom. Listen very carefully. I am supposed to meet up with Mouton, right? And lots of people know I am supposed to go meet up with Mouton. And then Mouton winds up dead. I want you to think about this. Who are they going to assume killed Mouton?”
Tom says, dejected, “I don’t have to kill her.”
“I don’t care,” says Harry. “Whatever you do to her will be reflected unto me. I’m a big boy, Tom. I can handle myself.”
“You don’t need to,” says Tom, and he is right. Harry is not alone anymore.
But, “That doesn’t mean I can’t.”
Tom’s returned from the fire of his father’s home like a phoenix, being reborn from its ash. He’s returned feral and a liar -- and attached to Harry.
A part of Harry wants to revert into itself; after seemingly a lifetime of isolation, any touch of reverence is due to be fled from.
A still more rational part of Harry argues that Tom speaks like a man who is already dead. His plan -- his overarching plot of vengeance, of justice -- is a dangerous one and Harry’s not sure if Tom is uncertain of his chances of surviving it or what, but he knows that Tom speaks and acts with the reckless abandon of someone with nothing to lose.
It scares him. Being attached scares him. And Harry is constantly working against this mindset that is stuck to him like glue, but he knows he’s not quite free just yet.
Luna stands. “I’m ready for class, Harry. Do you want to walk with me?”
Harry taps his fork and knife against the plate. “I’m,” he says, trying not to sound sheepish, or, god forbid, ashamed, “going to finish up here first. Taking my time, you know.”
Something gives him away. The way he speaks about it, or the fact that he hardly ever, when binging, when eating, takes his time -- and her face softens.
She gets it.
She reaches over to him, squeezes his shoulder tightly, and says, softly, “Alright. I’ll see you in class.”
She leaves and when Harry is finished, he rises from the table. Tom instantly rises with him, placing his arm across his shoulder. Tom will leave, in a moment. He cannot accompany Harry to class and has loads, he’s said, of research to catch up on.
It will not last. But it is nice, for the time it is here.
“Hey. Harry?”
Harry blinks at Julian. (A boy, a man, a victim, a perpetrator. A friend. Harry looks at him and doesn’t know what to see.)
“I’m proud of you,” says Julian. There is no need to specify what about.
And… with Tom’s arm wrapped around him, Luna Lovegood’s squeeze of the shoulder still lingering in the back of his mind (with Luna’s forgiveness still fresh), Harry hears the words and thinks, impossibly, against everything he has learned, that they’re true.
Harry is not forcing himself when he says, “Thank you.” How can this kindness be anything, if not second nature?
.XoX.
“I can feel myself falling apart for tangibly,
You could grab the strings of my very being and pull
And I’d just come apart.
I feel the seams of my insides,
Run my hands along my sides,
Playing my ribs like xylophones,
And know that there is more to me than this.
I am more than this body.
I know this.
I just hope I start acting like it.”
-- Harry Potter, “Seven of Wands.”