Muse

He's a young man, for a psychiatrist. He's not good looking and he knows it. I see he does. His skin is all blotchy and his hair is dust brown. He has very few of it. He has big teeth and his glasses don't suit him like they suit you. I look pretty and he sees it too, but he doesn't look jealous. He's not a girl after all. He's married. He notices me looking at his ring and smiles smugly. It seems he feels sorry for me.

I feel very pretty.

He coughs. "Umm...Mark? Isn't it?" He's got an annoying voice.

I hesitate but nod then. It's no use to argue back.

"Well...how are you, Mark?"

I shrug.

"Um, okay. Let's...okay then. There's...you've talked about someone called Harry." It was sort of a question.

"Mmm..."

He takes it as a confession. "Yeah, cool!" He thinks he's funny. I smile a bit to make him feel better, although I don't know why. "Mm...so! Who is he?"

I raise my gaze to freeze him with my eyes. "Harry?" I taste the word as if it was my dessert, whipped cream on top of a ripen strawberry.

His expression is dull and empty. "Yeah, how is he like?" He looks at me with genuine curiosity. I wonder if he's curious because he's a psychiatrist or really interested in me.

I stare at my hands. "Well...he wears glasses..."

"Great! Great..." He's obviously happy to be the first one to make me talk. Or maybe he's happy to know that a boy who I'm mooning over wears glasses, too. "Go on, go on."

"His skin is maybe a little darker that mine...and his eyes...well...they are green." I speak so quietly I don't even think he hears me, but obviously he does.

"Mark, would you like me to talk to you as a normal person, not as a psychiatrist? Would that be easier?"

I turn my eyes up on him. I wonder if they still look like mirrors that reflect everything upside-down as they used to. It was partly my own opinion, although I find it a little awkward. I think if he really finds psychiatrists abnormal. Though I don't care at all, my comment turns out to be benevolent. "Maybe."

"Ok, cool! So who is he, exactly?" He leans forward. I find it interfering.

"My arch enemy."

"You're talking about the colour of the skin of your arch enemy??"

I say nothing. I stare at my knees.

"Um, sorry, maybe I'll be a psychiatrist after all, but I'll be a modern one."

I stare at my fingers now. Without thinking I raise them to my lips and kiss each fingertip as if licking cream from them after eating a cake. My fingers taste bitter and a little salty. I think that they have been inside you. The thought makes me close my eyes and put the index finger in my mouth. Not deep, just to the first knuckle. An image of your face flutters in my head and settles on the insides of my eyelids. I fold my hands in my lap and look outside. Asps are dropping their last leaves.

"Harry..." There's hidden rage in my voice. It makes the man frown.

"Tell me more about him."

I reflect for a long moment. What could I tell? About the time we both fell off our broomsticks while playing quidditch and were carried unconscious to Madam Pomfrey? About your eyes, the way they hypnotise me? About the time we went for a walk in the Forbidden Forest and you were bitten by a jarvey? About our first kiss? About the time you told me I was the one you would turn to if you were in danger? Or maybe I should tell about our best fuck in an empty corridor when you bit me so hard I could almost implode and I scratched you back and ripped your beautiful skin with my ragged nails and kissed the blood on countless bruises afterwards. How I smelled your sweat and stroked you and thought I could faint then and there. Once you tried not to cry out when I accidentally slashed a knife between your fingers in Potions class. Should I tell about your scar? About you being so good to me you didn't realise it was too good? About your mouth that felt like hot velvet around me?

I gulp. "There's too ... too much."

"Take your time."

"We used to fight." A pause. "We beat each other and bit each other and I always broke his glasses so he wouldn't be able to see a thing and then I broke his nose or jaw or hit him so hard he passed out."

The psychiatrist looks terrified. He swallows very loudly and hesitates for a moment before he says weakly, "Th... then what?"

I see that he's not sure he wants to know. "Then ... it depends ..." I slant my head slightly. "Then I usually carried him to a healer..."

"Healer?"

"Doctor. Harry was usually unconscious and the doctor healed us both for the next time."

***

Unbelievable light. I sit in a light blue room huddled up in an armchair that smells of aerosol spray. It's leather and light brown. The room in peaceful, cool and very practical, exactly the way it should be. The TV is on and a boy of twenty sits in front of it and mimics the animated characters shown on the screen. In one corner of the room there is a group of little boys who sit in a circle and stare into space. They scream like crazy now and then. Well, they are crazy.

Suddenly Brandy steps in the room looking like the owner of the place. He throws his jacket on a chair nearby and looks over my shoulder at the piece of paper I'm holding in my lap. I can feel his hot breath on my cheek.

"Holy fuck!" he says. "Who is that?"

I sigh inwardly and keep drawing.

"Hey..." I look up. My eyes are tired and I have to rub them in order to see properly.

"It's Harry", I say.

Brandy looks at the picture fascinated. "Wow, he certainly has glasses. You have a smudge on your nose, by the way."

I exhale heavily and draw the last line smoothly and slowly savouring every moment. I feel tiny muscles on my right wrist working as I work on Harry's calf. Done. I feel an arrogant smile on my lips.

"There." Then I notice something and frown. "It lacks something..."

"How about clothes?" Brandy suggests but I hardly listen. After a second I draw the scar to Potter's forehead and say again, "There."

Brandy opens his mouth as if to say something, remembers then where we are and closes it again. I can't take my eyes off the picture. I follow Harry's slim form and feel my mouth water. I feel extremely obscene. Then I look up at Brandy.

"This is how I remember him."

***

One day (or night) Harry opens the door of our room and steps inside. His eyes are white and they dart from one side to the other. He looks... well, crazy. His leg is broken. I stare at it.

"I still have my wand," I say, "I would fix that but I never learnt the bone-mending charm though I really tried."

Harry shrugs and limps over to sit on my bed. Brandy has looked up from his porn magazine. "It'll be fine in a month," Harry says.

He stays in another room, which in my opinion is cosier than ours but it doesn't satisfy him. I wonder why.

Next day a guy called Ethan rapes him on the first floor during the lunch and leaves him there. Brandy thinks it's sick. I put another cross on a piece of paper I keep under my pillow. Thirty crosses and Harry will be fine. Two days later Ethan is moved to another section. No one knows why and doesn't really care.

"What did he do to you?" I ask later. I have to restrain myself from jumping out of the window or doing something alike. Harry takes his time with waiting, keeping me tense. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye, follows my every movement. I start to sweat. When he can no longer pretend he's thinking he slowly turns his head and looks me in the eye.

"Jealous, are you?" He says, "You wish it had been you who I begged to stop, not to humiliate me and not to touch me. I can guess."

***

Three weeks left, Harry, only twenty-one days. Then we can go back in time and take it all back. We will fight them again and I don't fucking care if it's already happened and can't be changed. We will manage.

Time can't be meddled with, Draco.

I don't care! I'm not allowed to care at this moment. We will change it, Harry, say it with me. We will take it all back.

***

Harry's leg heals and he leaves, but I know he will be back and next time he will take me with him.