Safe and Sound

“So you’re telling me I’m mental.” My voice was very quiet. I was sitting on the beach in the sand, looking out at the ocean as it rolled in lofty waves towards us. The spray hit me lightly in the face, but I didn’t mind it much. “I mean, more so than usual?”

Of course you’re mental. You’re denying who you are. The voice was still in my head, but I was shoving it away, trying not to listen to the poison. Hermione was sitting next to me, trying to explain what she thought was wrong with me. Well, there were a lot of things wrong with me, but this one was the most recent. You’re mental for not killing her.

“I’m not calling you mental, Reagan,” she insisted softly, giving me a look of kindness. She was trying very hard to be calm and collected. She knew that I was no longer alone in my head. Somewhere inside of me, my doppelganger was speaking, trying to black out my more dominant half. “but you’re going to have a lot of trouble with this… like when you exploded? I’m not sure if it was you or… the other you.”

Hermione had explained the process of Duarum Mentiumases, to me. It seemed that Voldemort really had not taken chances when it came to me. She assumed he had placed the curse on me when I was very little, when I would not remember. It was a curse very similar to an unbreakable vow. Once you broke what was agreed upon, it affected your way of thinking, splitting your conscience into two.

When he did it, I would never have known what I was doing. Which is why is was perfect. He did not even have to worry about me for now; he knew I would be going insane, fighting with myself. You wouldn’t have to fight if you would just let me do what I wanted.

I sneered, looking out at the ocean. I was rubbing my palms together again, trying to ignore the headache that was forming in my head. It felt like their was pressure in my temples, and it was very uncomfortable. I felt the voice in my head snicker. “Stop being a bitch,” I growled. Hermione seemed confused but I gave her a look. She looked away, knowing I was having a moment. “Shut up and go away.”

“She… it isn’t real, you know?” Hermione offered. She was trying to be hopeful, but I could see through it. Hermione thought I wouldn’t last another day with this voice. I had to admit that I agreed. The only one who thought I could pull through this was Harry, and he wasn’t much help. “It’s just a figment of your imagination, if you will. So if you just remember that.”

I opened my mouth to speak when a feeling blasted forward from me. It was like an out of body experience, and I felt extreme pain in my entire body when I growled, “I am no figment, mudblood.”

My hand clapped over my mouth as the pain vanished. My breathing quickened and Hermione flinched, pain flooding across her fingers. I was shaking my head, babbling a string of apologies but she shook her head in an understanding manner. “I know, wasn’t you. It’s just. I don’t think it’s supposed to be able to work that strongly. At least I’ve never heard it coming out that strongly.”

I licked my lips, looking at the ground. “I… it’s not because it’s someone else, I think. I think that it’s just because this part of me is never really going to go away, Hermione. Deep down, even without this voice of mine in my head, I have moments of darkness. It’s just… fighting me back, this time.”
“It shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“This is You Know Who we’re talking about,” I pointed out sadly. It made me miserable. “He isn’t normal, and neither is anything that he can do. And there isn’t anything that you all can do.” She was silent. She could not disagree. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone for a bit. Sort things out.”

Hermione hesitated before nodding, rising from the sand and dusting herself off. She gave me one last look before turning and walking away. I watched as she left. You should kill her now, when she isn’t looking.

And you should sod off.

If only it were that easy. You said it yourself, we’re the same person. So why don’t you give up this pathetic game of yours?

Those words ran through my mind. I drew figures in the sand, contemplating them. The thought of giving up to the voice was both terrifying and very alluring. It was terrifying because I knew what I was capable in that dark mindset. I could rule the world, the way I had once been. I had been heartless, a monster, a soulless demon in the night.

And yet… the thought of just giving myself to that voice, to make it go away and for my own guilt conscience to fade out was so tempting, so beautiful. I would never feel pain again, I would never feel the guilt of leaving Draco drown me.

The feeling inside of me that was not my own started at his name. I was shocked, realizing that the other half of me still responded to thoughts of Draco very, very strongly. Something else stirred in my present self. Irritation?

What do you care about Draco? He’s not yours.

I am you. We are one. He’s mine too. There was an aggressiveness to the voice this time that was quite different than it had with Hermione. It wasn’t killing aggressiveness, it was territorial. A light went off in my head and I swelled with rage. Yes. I love Draco too. He is power. He is strength. AND YOU KILLED HIM.

“YOU would have killed him,” I growled aloud, clenching my hands. My fists were trembling as I did so. I was filled with rage at the thought that the other half of me, the dark half was still in love with Draco too. He was not for her to have. She could bring him nothing but a life of misery and darkness. “You would make him miserable.”

He fell in love with me. He grew to love you.

Because I didn’t know what else to do, I screamed loudly. I screamed at the world, I screamed at the ocean, the voice, the hate, the confusion. I screamed on top of my lungs, because it was the only emotion that my heart could convey accurately. The screaming hurt my voice, but it helped my heart.

It wasn’t long before Harry was running from the house at my scream. It was obvious he thought I was having an attack on myself again, but when he reached me I was standing, crying into my hands. I hated this, I hated crying, I hated this world that I lived in. But it was no ones fault but my own.

“Reagan?”

“Do you know what it’s like to hate yourself?” I asked him, looking at him with tears streaking down my face. I could not help the salty pools of water cascading down my cheeks the way rain does on a car window. “Not the hating yourself because you don’t like you’re qualities, the hating yourself when a part of you truly wants you to die, when a part of you tries to murder you. Because it’s exhausting, and it hurts.”

“Reagan… I…”

“There is nothing you can do.” I wiped the tears furiously from my face, sniffing. Crying was really getting to be quite annoying. My other half snickered and made cruel jibes at my emotion. She wanted me to cry, she wanted me to submit. “There is nothing I can do. My brain is fucked for life. Not that it matters, because I doubt I’ll live out the night.”

“Don’t you say that.” Harry grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me fiercely. I frowned at the intensity with which his eyes burned. They scared me. “Do not forget, that the voice in your head, that echo of your old self? You were her once, and SHE made the decision to change. She realized that it wasn’t’ worth it. It was her that changed.”

The voice in me slithered into a corner, coiling itself. If it were a rattle snake, the rattle would have been shaking at an all time high, warning Harry that he was agitating her very much. She did not like the truth to his words. “That voice is still you, and history repeats itself. In the end, it’ll still make the same decision. I promise you.”

“You’re fucking stupid!” she snapped through my own mouth. The snake had struck and I felt the pain all over my body again as I struggled between the two beings within. “I’ll kill you all, I swear it. She will give in.”

“Try and I’ll kill him,” Harry whispered, towering over me. It was like an outer body experience, watching Harry lean over the shadow that had taken over my body. “If you don’t leave her, I’ll kill Draco. I swear it.”

The voice was shocked enough for me to gain control, shaking her off like a skin. She retreated into a dark storm cloud of silence. “That’s what I thought,” he snapped, not at me, but at the other half of me. “Because despite your insanity, you love Draco in both forms. And if threatening him is what it takes, I will.”

He breathed heavily. I stared at him, and all I could thing to say was, “You do know if you hurt him, I’ll tear you limb from limb, right?”

He laughed at that, knowing that it was normal me talking. “I know, Rea. I know.”