Harry Potter & Melting Minds
“Mandatory meeting is a strong word for having a talk with your friends, mate,” Ron says, rubbing his neck, as he and Hermione follow Harry to the kitchen.
“No, it’s not,” Harry insists. “Strong would be emergency meeting. This isn’t an emergency, though. It’s just mandatory.”
“I’d hope not actually,” Hermione says weakly.
“Well, duh. I can’t force any of you guys to go and I’m not going to punish you if you have other plans.” Harry rolls his eyes, pulling his book bag further up his shoulder. “It’s just my way of telling you this is important to me. And I’d appreciate it if you came. That’s all.”
“So it is a strong word,” whispers Ron. Hermione huffs.
“Well, I think you’re sweet, Harry,” Hermione says. Ron sticks out his bottom lip. Hermione adds, sighing, “Though not as sweet as Ron.” Ron beams and Hermione smiles, endeared.
“Of course not,” says Harry absently, sounding muddled all of a sudden. He chews on his lip, eyes glazing. His footing is loose and he slows down, just a tiny bit. “No one can compete with Ron.”
“You good there, mate?”
Harry says nothing.
“Harry?” Hermione says. “Harry, are you alright?”
Harry turns around, his eyes suddenly snapping to her and he stumbles, glancing between the two of them. He backs up a bit, laughing nervously, putting space between them. Hermione frowns. She looks into his eyes…
And.
And there is no recognition there.
“Erm -- I don’t,” Harry says, groping for the wand in his pockets. “Why are you two following me?”
Ron blinks. “Harry,” he says, sharing a look with Hermione. She looks just as terrified and that is not reassuring so he looks back at Harry, trying a weak smile. “You… you invited us to the kitchen?”
“Why would I invite you to the kitchen?” Harry grabs his wand but does not raise it.
“You wanted us to have a meeting there,” Hermione explains, desperation leaking into her voice. “Instead of in the library, for whatever reason.”
“You’re -- uh. You’re really good friends with the house elves.”
“Okay,” says Harry, looking like he can buy that, less tense but still confused. “But who are you?”
“We’re your best friends!” Ron yells. He turns red when Harry skirts further away, and adds, quieter. “Don’t you remember?”
When Harry just ogles at him, Hermione suggests, hollow, “You could check your journal.”
“Oh!” Harry may not remember them but he remembers he can trust his journal. “Yeah.” Harry opens his bag, shuffling through it before pulling out his journal. He flips it over, eyes skimming the pages. Within moments upon the refreshment they become unglazed. He smiles. “Hermione, Ron! Yeah, yeah. I’m--”
“Are you okay?” Ron asks but he and Hermione both know he is not.
“Yeah!” Harry chirps, genuinely believing it, turning toward the kitchen’s direction and resuming their walk. “Yeah, just lost myself for a second. A bit embarrassing, I think, yeah, but--”
“But you’re okay,” Ron finishes. He does not buy it for a second. To Harry’s credit, he must be exposed to a person three to five (or, in extremely embarrassing cases, twelve times) before he is able to recognize them on the spot.
But Harry sees them every day. He hasn’t forgotten Ron’s name since their first year.
“Mione, I’m worried,” Ron whispers.
“Me too.” She twirls a piece of hair nervously around her finger. “He’s always had his problems--”
“And we’ve accepted them--”
“-- Yes, and accommodated him--”
“-- And have been patient--”
“Of course!”
“...But…”
“Yeah.”
“But he’s getting worse, isn’t he? I’m not crazy? It’s not just me?”
“No, Mione. It’s not just you.”
“Do you think it’ll get better?”
“If we what?”
“If we nothing. If we let him do his thing, keep accommodating him, accepting him and his -- ah, what’s the word--”
“He uses the term ‘disability.’”
“Yes. Disability. Will it fix itself? No recovery is linear. So what if it’s getting worse, right? It can always get better, can’t it?”
“You’re smart, Mione. What do you think?”
She grabs his hand, squeezing it harshly. “I think…”
He squeezes in back just as strongly. “You think?”
“I think it’s time to step in.”
Harry stops at the portrait and turns back to them. He does a mock-bow, one hand tickling the pear. It opens with a flourish. “After you,” he says, tightening himself. “Let’s talk.”
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Blaise enters next. Then Neville.
Tom, apparently, was already waiting on them.
Ron had groaned. “Do you even know the meaning of the word fashionably late?”
“Of course,” responded Tom, sounding oddly offended. “Harry invited me; I’d rather not be late to something so important to him.”
Harry had blushed and grinned.
Blaise watched with a glower. He catches Tom’s eye and mouths, Our deal.
It is not forgotten, Tom mouthed back.
“Uh -- Harry--”
“Yes, Neville?” He kisses him on the cheek.
“It’s -- the kitchens, I mean -- wonderful and, um, a great setting for our meeting, but -- but, uh--”
“Mhm? But what?”
“But--”
“There’s nowhere to sit, Harry,” Hermione says.
“Oh. Right. I was just planning on sitting on the floor. I do that all the time whenever I come here on my own time, so--”
“Harry, dear,” Tom says politely. “I’m not sitting on the floor.”
Harry chews on his lip. “I don’t -- I didn’t think -- I forgot--”
“Trouble yourself not,” assures Tom. “I can just transfigure us some; it’s no worry.”
“You can do that?” asks Ron.
“But of course.” Before anyone else has time to voice their disbelief, Tom waves his wand and in a display of wandless magic, transfigures a table and enough chairs for the lot of them; much like what would be seen in the library.
Harry takes his seat, still looking a bit lost. “That’s -- yes, thank you. That’ll do.”
After seating themselves, everyone looks expectantly at Harry. He clears his throat and pulls his journal out of his bag, placing it on the table. “So… due to the nature of recent events, it’s safe to assume that I’m a freak.”
Hermione immediately jumps to comfort. “You’re not a ‘freak,’ Harry; your magic is just different, and that’s true of everybody’s magic, to some extent, and that doesn’t mean it’s bad--”
But Harry puts up his hand, stopping her. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing. It’s not.” His mouth stretches into a smile and Tom sees that spark of bloodlust return; ever righteous. “It’s a great thing. But it is a thing that’s weird, isn’t it? Because it shouldn’t be possible.”
Ron laughs, folding his arms. “It’s gotta be possible, mate. Loot at yourself.”
Tom has little patience for stupidity. “Do not be deliberately obtuse, Ron. He’s right. According to all known laws of magic, stealing someone’s magic is nowhere in the realm of possibilities. Harry is, by all standards, a medical and magical mystery.”
Ron turns red. Harry sighs. “Don’t insult him. But Tom’s right; something with my body or my soul or my heart or whatever -- it’s freakishly freakish. So my current goal is to figure out one very simple question: what the fuck am I?”
Tom does not miss a beat. He holds out the letter -- written pristinely on Mafloy’s stationary, to his great distress -- and hands it to Harry. “I was thinking along the same lines, Harry,” Tom purrs.
“What is this?” asks Harry, but he sounds grateful even without knowing. Good, thinks Tom.
“It’s a letter to Gringotts.”
“Gringotts?” Hermione questions. “I don’t see how the bank system could conceivably help here.”
“Maybe he’s planning on robbing one of their banks,” Ron guesses, grinning.
“Which is quite possibly the most stupid, dangers, inane ideas--”
Tom forces a laugh. He does not like these people but he does like Harry, and they kinda come with the package. At least for right now. So he must pretend. (Blaise was right about that part of him; he’s part-time person and full-time actor.) “Hardly. It’s nothing that extreme, I assure you.”
“It’s a request for an inheritance test,” Harry says, grin wide and awe in his voice. “You’ve covered all the formalities and niches that usually prevent these kinds of appointments--”
“I’m sorry, mate,” says Ron. “But what the fuck’s an inheritance test?”
“A formal procedure, completely confidential, where your blood is taken and your ancestry, amongst other things, is revealed,” Tom explains. “Usually, this is reserved for parental tests or to prove that a wizard recently turned werewolf still has rights to their vaults. Harry’s ‘freakishness,’ as he so kindly put it, resides in his physical form, his magic, or his blood. Whatever it is, it’ll show itself.” Revealed then will be Harry’s two soul medical history problem, as well as the “I guess I can steal people’s magic” thing. This is good, because even though Tom knows about Harry’s Lily’s situation, he hasn’t informed Harry. He is afraid of the questions to come -- why didn’t you tell me sooner? And, of course, the longer he waits, the worse this gets.
This will work out. For both of them.
“Thank you, Tom,” Harry whispers, voice so full of joy and Tom can feel the sense of accomplishment rinse within him. “Thank you -- this is. Wonderful. Tom, it’s just wonderful. But I will need help with something, if that’s okay, too?”
“What is it you need?” Blaises asks, far too quickly.
“I guess I wanna know more about my family. It’s… inexplicable, to me, how little I know about them. Their lives and who they were -- the Muggle family on my mother’s side; who are they? Why haven’t they reached out? Do they know I exist? Do I have any living relatives on my father’s side? Were either of them magical, freakish like me; was I doomed by blood? I don’t know. I don’t know a lot of things. But I’d like to. To understand myself, I need to understand my roots. And that’s them.”
“I will write a letter to your Muggle side of the family,” Blaise decides.
“Thank you,” Harry says and Tom is startled by how angry Harry complimenting another person makes him.
“Do you need anything else, Harry?” Tom asks. “My schedule is by far the clearest. I know how busy OWLS can get you.”
“We’re taking NEWTS this year,” Hermione notes.
Tom waves her off. “So, so. I’m all set already, I believe.” Even if I wasn’t, I would always make time for Harry.
“Um,” Harry says, feeling oddly like he’s the center of a war he doesn’t want them to be fighting. “There’s just one last thing.” Tom and Blaise perk up and Harry’s smile thins. “But I think it should be a group project.”
“Need it?” asks Blaise.
“Blaise!” Hermione cries.
Blaise shrugs and asks again, “Need it be?”
“It’d be beneficial,” Harry gives.
Blaise relents. “So be it, then. What is it?”
Harry takes his journal and sets it very carefully on the table. “I need a review.”
“What do you mean by that, mate?”
“I need a fresh set of eyes. Surely, my power -- this is not the first time I’ve used it, correct?”
When everyone else stays silent, Tom says, “Correct. You used it slightly on us before. I did not think you noticed.”
Harry snaps and gestures toward ™ repeatedly. “See! I’m missing something. Missing pieces. I’ve got to be. And somewhere in this journal, there’s got to be little accounts that nod to something I should know but don’t. There’s got to be clues. Or signs. Physically, magically, or whatever -- with a Gringotts’ blood test, that’ll be established. But mentally? Why did my power choose to come out when it did? Why did I not notice using it before, but did then? Can I choose to use it whenever or what, or do certain circumstances need to be met? This,” he holds up his journal, “is likely more useful to answering those questions than my mind will ever be. I write down everything I see, hear, and experience as often as I can and even though the quality and context of such is consistent, it’s better than what we have now.”
“Harry…” Neville says slowly. “Isn’t that… not to be rude, but that’s thousands of entries, isn’t it?”
“I know,” Harry stresses. “I know there is a lot to look through and trust me, I’ve tried to do it myself a dozen times but… The very reason I have a journal in the first place is the reason it fails. Did this month of thought logs have anything important? Oh, what’s that? I don’t know? Even though I just read them an hour ago? Fun.” Harry gives a mirthless laugh and Tom frowns. It only strengthens his convictions to fix Harry. “So I can’t do it. And, even if I could, I need an outsider’s perspective. I lived this life once and everything I view, I view secondhand. But you haven’t done that. You can form new opinions and make notes I wouldn’t have even considered.
“Furthermore, it could provide me more context on my family, on what other people know of it, what they imply they do, that at the time I understood differently.
“I know it is a lot. I know it is perfectly understandable to reject it. I know it is unfair to ask of you. But I am asking nonetheless.”
It is Blaise who speaks first: “Are your thoughts not your own? You have a right to them. You have a right to privacy.”
“I do. I reject it. Learn about me from the inside out; learn about me in the only way I know myself. I have to hide because I have nothing worth hiding.”
“I will help you,” says Tom. He wants to see Harry’s thoughts on him, pure and untainted. He wants to see the skeleton of Harry’s character. He can only hope he doesn't sound too eager.
The others chime in, too, agreeing (though Ron sounds a bit more reluctant to do so than the others) and Blaise’s me as well sounds a little too pointed for Tom to ignore.
Harry’s journal can come second. They’ve got enough eyes to go around. First, Tom suppose, it is perhaps time to take care of that pesky Blaise Zabini problem.