It's dark.
It's dark and the sheets smell funny, and this does not feel like her bed. There isn't a blinking clock beside her bed telling her it's morning, and Hedwig isn't chirping in the next room wanting breakfast.
Instead it's just very dark, the sort of dark that comes of no windows and no glow stars on the ceiling of a college dorm, and Harry thinks her ankle might be chained to something.
Can anybody hear me I'm hidden underground
Harry feels like she sits in the dark forever. She doesn't want to panic, but all she can think of is if the others are okay. She thinks she was taken from her dorm room. She can remember falling asleep there. What about Hermione? She wasn't there when Harry went to sleep. Is she safe? What about Hedwig? Hedwig goes nuts if someone she doesn't know enters their room, and Harry would have heard the parakeet and woken up. Unless they did something to the little bird. The thought sends ice down Harry's veins.
She sits and she waits and she worries, and she tries very hard not to cry. She's been in bad situations before, and while she's never been kidnapped, she tells herself she'll make it through. But she feels sick to her stomach and sleepy, and her nose and throat feel funny, and her own thoughts feel insincere and fake.
She doesn't know this will be okay.
How could she?
Finally, a crack of light appears somewhere about ten feet away, and rapidly expands into light shed by an opening door before a switch is flicked, and Harry is blinded by the flood of brightness that suddenly replaces the darkness she's been adjusting to.
"You woke up earlier than I thought," a voice says, as Harry covers her eyes with her hands and cringes. It sounds feminine.
"Then again, I don't know what I could have expected from the homemade stuff. Should have used more." There's the sound of the door closing, and Harry's heart jumps. Is it locked?
It takes her a few seconds to realise she knows the voice, though not who it belongs to, and she still can't open her eyes. It's all she can do to squint with her hands mostly covering her eyes. She's scrunched up into a sitting position, and the movement has made her stomach riotous; she feels nauseous, and her head pounds from the sudden light.
She still can't place the voice yet, even if its familiarity haunts her, but she hears footsteps approaching and fabric rustling as someone crouches by her. She can feel a presence, dull and foreboding, like the air beside her is resounding with danger. Her breath and her heartbeat quicken, and that odd sort of tension settles over her, like a rabbit in front of headlights, like a child convinced a monster is looming over them and afraid to peek out from under the covers and see it.
She doesn't have to work up the nerve to look; the monster makes her. Hands pry her own away from her face, and her eyes burn black and blue in the light as they struggle to adjust.
"Look at me, Harry," the voice commands, too soft and gentle to be natural.
She finally places it, just as her vision starts to work and she can make out long dark hair and perfect pale skin. The recognition floods her, giving her memories to match this person.
Shared classes, shared friends, shared projects that resulted in them walking and talking circles around campus on the sidewalks, shared ideas and plans and enjoying one another's company. The occasional party she goes to alone without her friends, and the other is almost always there, the social butterfly of the school, the humble queen bee. They've been in group studies before, and been roped into getting food for the group. They've been to the same concerts. The other girl has been in her room for god's sake, countless times.
"Tom," she whispers. Her first instinct is relief, to relax and think that she's saved now. She smiles at Tom.
But then, Tom smiles back.
And it feels wrong.
Tom looks as pretty as usual. Her hair is pulled back perfectly and her eyeliner is long and sleek, her skin flawless, and her earrings match her necklace down to the shade of the gold. Her dark red eyes are sparkling in the light and reflecting Harry like a mirror, empty like never ending holes.
She looks beautiful, and there is something about her smile, this particular smile, one that Harry's never seen her make before, that makes Harry's skin crawl.
How is she here? Harry wonders, at the same time as it occurs to her: Hedwig hadn't made a fuss. She must have known the intruder. And Hedwig would have trusted Tom.
"Awww. Glad to see the drugs haven't addled your brain."
Terror blooms in Harry's heart like a flower as she realises that trusting Tom may have been a terrible mistake.
Grabbed my hand, pushed me down
Took the words right out my mouth
Tom doesn't tell Harry why she's here.
The thing around her ankle is indeed a chain, and a sturdy one at that. It gives her just enough range to reach the tiny toilet off the room, but not the door. And there is nothing in the toilet except for paper, soap, and a single comb. There isn't even a shower.
In the room, there is the reinforced spot on the concrete wall she is chained to, the bed, a trash can, a cheap plastic compartment full of clothes that aren't her own, and a chair. The clothes aren'thers, but they're clearly selected to suit her; the colours are bright and warm, reds and browns and greens, clearly supposed to bring out the colour of her eyes and skin. They look comfortable but revealing, soft fabric but flattering fits. And they're all exactly her size.
Tom sits in the chair. Harry stays away from it.
Tom visits. She brings with her food from the convenience store or fast food chains, and the trash can fills with burger wrappers, cardboard triangles, and cookie sleeves. Tom leaves the light on after that first time, but sometimes it switches off. Harry thinks it's on a timer. She tries using it to tell time that has passed, but she quickly realises it's random.
Harry doesn't know how long she's been here.
Tom doesn't always speak when she visits. Sometimes she just comes in to sit and stare at Harry, or writes in a little black book. Harry can remember seeing it before, so she knows it's a diary of some sort.
She wonders what sort of sicko writes a diary about kidnapping.
And sometimes Tom does speak. Harry prefers not to think about that, though. When Tom talks, Harry starts to believe things she never did before. She never realised how manipulative the other's charm was.
At first, Harry can't believe this is happening. She knows Tom too well; they aren't best friends, not like her and Hermione or Ron, but they're friends. They're close.
Close enough that Harry told Tom about her childhood once. She'd been failing two classes and running on coffee and no food, and she'd broken down with only attentive and sympathetic Tom to hear. She'd told her about her dead parents, and about being a freak. Tom had told her she was the same. She'd held Harry's hand, and told Harry that she'd always be there for her.
Harry doesn't understand how this happened.
That doesn't mean it didn't happen though.
It isn't just telling Tom about her past that Harry thinks about. It's all their time together. And how everything she can think of is poisoned now. Each memory is suddenly tinged with something sinister. All the times Harry has gotten drunk and Tom has taken her home, when they studied together in the library over the same books because they constantly ended up in the same classes, how Tom always seemed to be going to the grocery store or the laundry machines at the same time.
Why did they share so many friends? Have so much in common? Why was Tom always at the same parties, the same study groups, the same concerts and fast food places? She'd thought they were just very alike, but maybe she's wrong.
How long has Tom been planning this?
Harry knows Tom won't tell her if she asks, so she doesn't. Instead, she just watches Tom when she comes in, tries to keep breathing if their eyes meet, and tries to keep her heart beating when she leaves each time and Harry is still alive.
She doesn't know why she's here, so she certainly isn't going to think she isn't in danger.
Your mother said to pick the very best girl
And I am
"You're not looking at me."
Harry buries her head between her knees and shivers. She doesn't reply.
"Harry." Tom's voice is right next to her ear. Hot breath puffs against her neck, and Harry feels like crying. She doesn't dare move.
"Look at me, Harry. I've got a present for you. It's our anniversary."
Anniversary for what, Harry cries out in her head. The days have long since blended together, but it can't have been a year since she was kidnapped. It can't.
Tom sighs, apparently not willing to fight anymore.
They fought yesterday when Harry refused to eat. It wasn't the first time and it probably won't be the last. Harry would rather starve than live like this any longer. Tom would rather Harry live whether she wants it or not, and enforces that by any means necessary.
Harry has food in her stomach now, but she also has a black eye and purple fingers on her left hand from when Tom stomped her fingers into the concrete. And Tom hasn't got a hair out of place.
"And I was so looking forward to getting to see you smile. It's been so long since you smiled for me… I'll leave it here, then," Tom says softly, laying something next to Harry. She picks up Harry's uninjured hand — Harry struggles, but Tom is taller and stronger — and lays it on whatever it is. It feels small and soft.
Harry feels Tom kiss her neck, and then hears the door open up and then close behind her. Harry counts to ten before she even looks up.
She looks towards her hand, and then she screams.
She flings the bundle of tiny white parakeet feathers across the room and cries herself to sleep.
Grabbed my hand, pushed me down
Took the words right out my mouth
"Harry," Tom croons, her fingers in Harry's thick black curls gentle as she slips the pink elastic over another bunch of hair before moving on to another. The scissors in her other hand start to snip cheerfully away again, and bits of black float to the ground like black snow.
How easily she could miss.
How easily she could make Harry bleed.
Harry waits patiently, knowing that isn't all. Tom doesn't start something and then not finish it.
"You look so pretty. Now, if only you'd smile for me..." Tom finally finishes with one final snip, before she tosses the scissors on the ground by the door. Out of Harry's reach.
Not that it matters. Harry hasn't bothered with an escape attempt in a long time.
"Shower?" she whispers the question, and Tom laughs in her ear, clearly in an indulgent mood.
"Sure, darling," she purrs, dusting off the shoulders of Harry's oversized t-shirt and starting to pull elastics from her hair. "You've been good for me recently. Let's take a bath."
Harry can't remember the last time she had a bath. She nods, and waits until Tom has already picked up the scissors to stand.
Her chain is unlocked, and she is led up the stairs with a too tight grip on her arm and a gun pressed against her side, and Tom makes her take a shower first. She gets a glimpse of herself in the mirror while she undresses.
She looks pale and nervous, and her hands shake and her skin jumps across her bones in a way she's sure it didn't before. But her weight is healthy again; Tom has taken to making sure Harry eats, even if force is required.
Harry’s hair is shorter than she realised, but it suits her. It frames her eyes in a new way and makes the green pop, instead of hanging in her face and covering them.
Somehow, it doesn't surprise her that Tom is apparently a master of haircuts as well as everything else she's good at.
The shower rinses any remaining stray hairs from her head, and Tom's fingers are on her scalp once again, now notably without scissors. They feel comforting now. The warm water, actual sunlight streaming through a window in the bathroom, and fingers rubbing her head make Harry feel almost sleepy.
She does fall asleep in the tub, Tom watching carefully over her. When Harry wakes up in her bed again, a cold cup of tea is on the floor by the bed and a silky new nightgown is laid out on the chair.
I love it when I hear you breathing
I hope to god you're never leaving
When the door opens, Harry looks up and smiles.
"Eager to see me?" Tom asks, and Harry nods, making Tom laugh. Harry loves her laugh. She can't believe it ever scared her.
Tom has brought her diary today. She'll be writing.
Sure enough, once she's given Harry her gas station sandwich, bag of chips, and cups of milky, thin chocolate pudding, along with a kiss as well, Tom then retreats to her chair, where she pulls out a pen and begins writing.
Harry eats slowly. The sandwich is a little dry, but little else can be expected of it. The chips are her favourite brand and flavour, though. The fact that Tom knows her favourite foods and deliberately gets them for her makes her feel warm and fuzzy inside, and she enjoys them even more for that than for the flavour. When she is finished with everything, she cleans up quickly, knowing Tom prefers it that way, before she crawls over to sit by Tom.
She doesn't think she can sneak up on Tom. Neither does she want to, at least not anymore. But she's still slightly afraid that any sudden movements will make Tom feel too distracted, and that then she'll decide this isn't a good place to write, and leave.
And being alone is so scary.
It can twist you up so bad.
Harry is terrified of being alone.