Circles
Harry wanted to be surprised. Truly, he did.
The sky above his head was growing darker by the second, the pleasant breeze growing chillier the longer he remained outside of Hogwart’s walls. It was nothing new, the winter was always colder than those he had experienced in his younger years in Little Whinging. It was like the touch of death, as if the season itself wanted to sap up all the warmth a human body could harness.
It was cold enough that he shouldn’t have been outside at all, that he should have headed back inside because that was the reasonable thing to do. Harry was all too aware that it was the logical thing, but he also knew that he simply could not just leave things as they were. He couldn’t just ignore the reason he was even out there in the first place.
So Harry stayed, fingers on the verge of frostbite. They were stiff, nearly numb with how frigid the air was as it fanned across his cheeks, but he didn’t bring his hands nearer to his face to breathe some warmth into his palms.
Not when he was...potentially losing his mind.
Harry shivered when a passing breeze kissed along the nape of his nape, unable to resist the involuntary reactions the conditions seemed to evoke in him. It was another reminder of just how helpless he was in the grand scheme of things, he couldn’t fight nature even if he was magic nor could he fight the figure just beyond him, swaying in the dark like the light of a burning candle.
He wanted nothing more than to leave and abandon this, but he didn’t have the luxury of choice. He couldn’t simply turn his back and forget that the figure just an arm’s length away didn’t exist at all. It was not possible. It was certainly not an option.
At least, never for him.
Harry could no more leave the bright blue sky fading into deep purples and blues than he could change the past. He was no actor, he was powerless to change the outcome of things once they’ve unfolded. It was what it was, and now, in this moment, Harry was merely an observer to the scene unfolding before his eyes. Always watching, always waiting, that’s what Harry was sure of. He never did anything and--
“Harry…”
Harry tried not to flinch at the sound of his name, he tried to remain strong, to cling to the tenacity that he so often manifested when presented in a shite situation. He breathed in deeply through his lungs, catching how the faint hiss broke the thick silence that had settled between him...and the monster.
It was always this way. It was always his name first and foremost. The sound of it coming from such a weak and faint voice like a nail on a chalkboard. Weak, always so weak, but always enough to sent Harry in a frenzy.
Always enough to tear out emotions Harry didn’t want to feel.
Harry took another deep breath and clenched his fingers into tight fits. He felt each groove of his stubby nails cutting into the skin, how it brought some feeling back to otherwise numb fingers as he tried to settle the chaos that only this...creature could bring.
Harry thought of Sirius then, dragging the man’s laughter from out beyond the dark. Perhaps, if he pretended that Sirius was there with him now, with his curious black eyes and his sheepish smile urging him to speak, he could find the courage to keep going. He could turn his back, abandon the monster that stood several meters away in the tall, wet grass. He could find the strength that he needed to simply leave, to urge his trembling--when had they started shaking?--arms to clasp onto his wand and flee.
But there was nowhere for Harry to run, there was nowhere to hide. There was no Sirius to fall back to, there was no laughter when Sirius had done something particularly sneaky. There was none of that mischievous gleam that would flash in Sirius’s eyes when sharing stories of his days with the Marauders.
There was none of that now. Sirius was dead, taking with him every opportunity Harry could have had for a family.
Harry bit his lip, narrowing his eyes into a glare to stave off the burning in the corner of his eyes. This was too much, too suddenly. He shouldn’t have gone outside at all, he should never had followed the call of that familiar voice. He should have pretended the monster didn’t exist.
But how did one run when the creature was in one’s head? How did one swim up for air when the ocean was already drowning his lungs?
Harry watched the shadows melt around the monster’s shape, red eyes made more pronounced by the deepening of the sky and the oppressive darkness of the man’s robes. Harry could not help but think of how closely the creature resembled the grim reaper, of just how perfectly the title suited him in that instance. The monster was one with the black of the falling sun, the clouds hiding the purples and oranges of the horizon.
It was all too fitting. It would only make sense that he, a monster that scratched and clawed from out of a cauldron would be home with the very darkness that birthed him.
Vol--The monster, the nightmare, and the ghost--looked perfectly at home beneath the dying sun, and Harry wanted to laugh incredulously at just how fucked up this all was.
They were both silent for what Harry felt was an eternity. The sound of his name spoken from between those poisonous lips ringing in the back of his mind as Harry considered his options in that moment. He knew that the monster was not really there; knew that there was nothing Harry could really do in that moment to dispel the hallucination until it had run its course. It was best to simply wait it out alone until it left, until Vol--the monster-- faded from existence. He couldn’t simply head back to his dorm when he could still hear and see it as if it were alive and breathing.
His friends would ask him what he was staring at, they would ask him why he was lost in thought while in the middle of a conversation. It would lead to too many questions Harry was not prepared to answer, so Harry dug his feet into the ground in spite of his desire to flee.
Harry had to bear through this. It was never a good idea to interact with others when the hallucinations commenced. People already thought him unstable, the Daily Prophet doing little for his reputation even after the monster had exposed himself…
Harry clenched his jaw when the creature did not speak, when its red eyes trapped his own in an uncomfortable vice. Emerald and red. Poison and death. The color of the spell that stole the breath from his god father’s lungs and the monster that had whispered in his head to take his revenge.
Harry fought of the nausea the memory brought, the churning in his belly immediately stamped down in favor of speaking into the seemingly empty field.
He was already going crazy, what did it matter now that he was speaking to a ghost?
“Why won’t you just go away?” Harry asked, ignoring the discomfort that always came with speaking to air because the monster was not real. At least, he wasn’t to everyone else. He was a shadow, always lurking in between the spaces of his spine like blood dripping from open wounds. He was there, always there, but Harry knew the monster wasn’t real, knew that it was just the product of a distraught mind. Dumbledore had said as much, Madame Pomfrey had suggested the same as well.
They had said that Harry was simply tired, that the trauma he had experienced would permanently scar him. The imprint of Voldemort’s influence on his mind would never leave, even after he expelled him from out of his head. Yes, Harry understood it all but it didn’t stop the bile from burning up the back of his throat.
None of those explanations could cleanse the stain that only this monster could leave on his skin, that he had left in his head when he ripped his way through it back at the Ministry. Harry could feel the memory of his mind like a fine line cutting through smooth glass, like a crack in the dam that was almost near full capacity, its waters trickling from over the top.
Harry was barely holding himself together, but still, he held on for the sake of his friends, for the sake of this war that was brewing. This image was not real, it wasn’t Vol--the monster. Harry hated that he had to keep reminding himself of this fact.
The man was silent, and Harry felt annoyance flicker in the back of his mind, like a ripple in a placid lake. It was the first time in weeks he had felt anything other than viscous apathy and dread, the disruption almost enough to startle him. It was new, an explosion of emotion he had not expected at all to swell in his chest.
Harry forced his hand to his chest, smoothing cold fingers against the soft fabric of his T-shirt. He could feel his heart racing from between his rib cage, could almost sense it on his fingertips like the echoes of a loud scream.
Harry was alive, and he was there. Harry was feeling and he wasn’t sure what to make of it now. Not after spending so long drowning in absolute nothingness and terror; the abyss a cavern that devoured all his hopes before they even formed.
It was...nice to feel something other than nothing, even if was an unpleasant emotion. Annoyance felt nice tingling along his bones, felt better than the cold clawing at his fingertips...
Emboldened by the monster’s lack of response, Harry spoke again, the words thick on his tongue like molasses. It felt different than the almost thoughtless way that he would speak to his professors, his friends, and anyone that wanted a word from him. It was a conscious effort, a desire to speak that he had forgotten of in the nothingness.
It felt foreign, yet familiar. Harry felt more himself than he probably had since he had begun seeing the monster in his head. Harry clung to the small fragment of emotion, dreading that the faint heat would disappear as quickly as it had come.
All the better to fight down the nightmares, my dear...
“Isn’t it enough that I can feel you in my head when I dream? That I can see through your eyes when you crush the lives of others? Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Harry demanded, dropping his arm from his chest to point accusingly at the product of all his misery, of the manifestation of every nightmare he had ever had, and would soon have once the hallucination ran its course.
There was absolute silence before Harry felt the nape of his neck prickle, a static-like sound whirring to life in the second it took Harry to realize that the man had begun to laugh. It was a half-second, a blip in an expansive universe, before that static he had assumed he’d been hearing melted into a hiss, the shhh clearer as the seconds elapsed.
And then, the hiss became a choking sound. It was as if the monster was too weak for mirth, was too fragile for the explosion of amusement in that moment. Harry was almost tempted to step closer to capture the sound, to be sure that yes, the monster was in fact laughing and that its laughter grew clearer with each passing breath.
Harry stamped down the urge as soon as it came, killing the curiosity before it even came to pass. Even when Harry felt as though he was listening to the monster’s laughter from behind an enclosed room, the sound faint and muffled even when it rang in Harry’s mind.
Harry’s stomach dropped when the choking laughter grew louder, when the hitch of air was no longer a weak whisper but a more discernible chuckle. It grew louder and louder, the fuzziness between the vowels now so clear that Harry could hear the precise moments the monster took in air to laugh richly at him.
Harry had never felt more horrified in his life, his stomach twisting as though real snakes were writhing in his belly, desperate for escape. It was certainly a long time since he had felt this terrified these past few weeks, even with a slight tinge of dread buzzing right beneath his skin.
“...Harry…” The monster said, and Harry took a step back, too spooked to do anything else. He hadn’t anticipated that, had not expected the words to sound as...clear as they had in that moment. It was as if the monster were no longer on the other side of the wall, but standing inside the room with him. As if instead of pressing his ear into dense concrete in the hopes of capturing at least a whisper or a murmur of a conversation, he had had those very secrets uttered into his ear.
“It will never be enough. You can hide behind your headmaster’s coattails, you can hide behind your invisibility cloak when your friends turn the corner, but you can never truly escape yourself. You can never escape me.”
Harry pressed his hands into his ears, no longer wanting to listen. He refused to listen. He couldn’t, and he knew that he shouldn’t listen at all to what the monster had to say. He pressed his hands so hard against his ears that they began to ring, an ache forming now at either side of his head that he dutifully ignored.
He isn’t there. He isn’t there. He isn’t--
“It is your fault that Sirius is dead, that he fell through the veil, never to be seen again.” The voice purred, and Harry released a sob. The words cutting too deep, too close to the grief he’d been shoving to the back to his mind. He didn’t know when he had turned his eyes away, when he had ripped his gaze from the vibrant red to stare at the ground. Harry’s knees shook with the violent urge to collapse, with the oppressive weight of Vol--the monster’s words in his head.
Harry tried to ignore it, but not even the sound of his blood rushing through his ears could drown out the sound. None of it was barrier enough for the words, his hands were useless to overcome the voice.
“It was because of you that Bellatrix stamped out his life. How foolish of you to fall for my little trap, to let your emotions sway you and lead all those fools straight to me--”
“Shut up!” Harry shouted, but the voice continued on, undeterred.
“Does the truth hurt, Harry? Does the fact that you’re no different than I sicken you?” It said, and Harry’s legs collapsed beneath him, his knees smashing into the unforgiving ground. Harry grunted, a throbbing pain shooting up from his knee caps to the tops of his thighs. He could feel the pain pulse in time with the rapid beating of his heart, could feel the sting of a twig tearing through the thick black of his trousers to break skin.
Harry could feel the pain like a glass vase shattering in a silent hallway, but he did nothing. He was completely thrown, the disturbance tilting the world on its axis. He did not move from where he had collapsed, not when he could now see Sirius behind his eyes as he fell into the veil, eyes dimmed with death. The image was permanently etched into the back of his eyes, and Harry felt, for the first time in weeks, tears stream down his cheeks.
This grief never felt so oppressive.
“You may not have lifted your wand, your may not have uttered the words. But you were an accessory, you were the catalyst. They say I am a monster, but you, Harry, you are death.”
Harry felt himself shatter, felt the second his arms dropped from his head to lay uselessly at his sides. He had lost all the strength to keep them up, had lost the will to press them against his ears. Nothing that he did could possibly stop the monster from whispering in his head.
It was a poison, the words the creature said. The utterances, the disgusting truth of each of the accusations. The creature never lied in all the time it had appeared.
Never any lies, always truths meant to tear me down.
Harry wished all of it was a lie, that all of what it said was a filthy, stinking lie. It was easier to fight it, to resist if all it said were untrue, if all it did was cut through skin and bone with the sharp press of its tongue. But no, the wound only tore at the corners because all of it was true. The break in the skin only bled as copiously as it did because all of it was Harry’s fault.
Harry was the monster in his own head.
“Admit it. There is no worse fate than meeting you.”
Harry swallowed thickly, throat tight as the image of Sirius melted away to give way to cold, surprised eyes on a face Harry had once called handsome…A face Harry knew he would never see again.
“Poor poor Cedric. So young, and now he is nothing but fodder for the worms to consume…”
Harry felt his stomach protest, but he contained the screams that wanted to spill out. He wasn’t sure it would be the only thing he’d expel if he didn’t somehow contain himself.
“When will you learn, when will you see that I am not a mere figment of your imagination?” Voldemort--because this was Voldemort, not just a monster hidden in the dark--asked, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, ignoring the hot tears streaming down his cheeks before finding the courage to look at the black specter again.
Harry’s eyes caught the man’s vivid red, and felt true, visceral panic swell in his chest like an overinflated balloon. It did not stop him from saying what he needed to say, what’d been wanting to say since the hallucination started. Even when he felt as though something had been lodged in his throat.
“You...are not real. You are grief and anger. You are chaos and pain. You are the fear I refuse to face when I close my eyes.” Harry whispered, watching how the red seemed to flash a brighter crimson, as if pleased.
“When it happens to you enough...when these nightmares keep coming...you just learn to pick up on it. You just know when it is real and when it isn’t. And in a way, you are real. About as real as this hollow feeling in the center of my chest.”
Harry drew on, watching how the shadow cocked its head to one side. It was a curious gesture, but Harry paid it no mind. He needed to get this out of his chest or Harry was certain he’d choke.
It wasn’t real. Voldemort was not here and was not real.
“You are just a dark thought. It is why I can only see your eyes, why I can only hear your voice when I am most distressed and hurt.”
The shadow was silent, and Harry swallowed. He hated this, hated him.
But there was no one he hated more than himself, than his powerlessness and his inability to save all those that he loved.
“I...made you.”
That was the scariest thing of all. The most sickening thing to admit. It was a truth that weighed more heavily on his conscience than all the guilt of avoiding his friends and refusing to face the grief eating him away from the inside.
Harry had made him. Voldemort was there because Harry wanted him to be. He wasn’t an it or a monster. He was Voldemort as Harry imagined him. He was the form all of Harry’s unacknowledged emotions took, had chosen to take.
Funny how, in the end, he was always led back to Voldemort in the end.
“And is that not enough, Harry? I may be in your head, I may be the shape your filthy emotions chose to become, but that does not mean that I am not real...”
Harry remained silent, even as the sun completely fell from the horizon, plunging them both in absolute darkness. The cold an oppressive weight in the dark, its presence as absolute as the red of Voldemort’s irises.
“...Harry, Harry, Harry, you silly boy. Neglect me, and I can assure you that it will be the last thing you will ever do.”
Harry wanted to laugh because of course. That would be what Voldemort would say, in the end.