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As with most things, it started simple enough. After hours of writing I must not tell lies, Harry was finally free from his detention with Umbridge - for tonight at least. Wincing slightly, as the skin around the cuts pulled tight when he shut the door to Umbridge's office, Harry began the trek back to Gryffindor tower, feeling utterly drained. Sure, he’d had far worse before he came to Hogwarts and the pain was nowhere near the hunger pangs he suffered during the summer, but still, Harry felt as tired as if he had just walked off the quidditch pitch. And it would probably get worse. He still had another detention with her tomorrow (and the next day and the next). No matter what, Harry was sure Umbridge would make absolutely sure Harry missed Quidditch tryouts on Friday. There was no way she’d keep him in detention for only half an hour.
Honestly , who knew how long that toad of a professor would deem it necessary for the message to “ sink in. ” Two hours a night? More? Harry knew he was stubborn, but he wasn’t sure he could take much more of this before he gave her what she wanted - to see him crack.
However, Merlin knew he would never let anyone know what was going on; that was his shame, his cross to bear. Like his treatment over the holidays. And, in the big scheme of things, it didn’t really matter. It was their OWLs year, Ron and Hermione had prefect duties (not that Ron was taking his very seriously, Harry thought, allowing himself a weary chuckle), Harry was falling behind in his schoolwork because of the detentions, and on top of all of that Voldemort was back and doing who-knows-what while the Ministry and its toadies sat on their thumbs doing nothing at all! So yeah, it was for the best that the news of his detentions and what happened during them stayed quiet, he decided as he walked up a set of stairs leading to the seventh floor.
He reached the top, rounded a corner, and almost walked smack into Ron, who was lurking behind a statue of Lachlan the Lanky, holding his broomstick. “Ron?”
Said boy yelped and leapt a good foot in the air before whirling around, holding his Cleansweep behind his back, nevermind the bristles poking out over his head or that Harry had seen it before Ron realised he wasn’t alone.
“What are you doing?” Harry asked, bemused.
“Er... nothing. What are you doing?” Harry frowned at him.
“Come on, you can tell me! What are you hiding here for?”
“I’m hiding from Fred and George, if you must know. They just came past with a bunch of firsties. I bet they’re testing stuff on them again. I mean, they can’t do it in the common room now, can they? Not with Hermione there.” Ron said, in a rather shifty, rambling way.
“But what have you got your broom for? You haven’t been flying, have you?” Harry asked.
“I...well...well, okay, I’ll tell you, but don’t laugh, all right?” Ron said, face quickly surpassing the colour of his hair as the seconds ticked by. “I-I thought I’d try out for Gryffindor Keeper now I’ve got a decent broom. There. Go on. Laugh.” Ron levelled a glare at Harry that bordered between defensive and petulant.
“I’m not laughing,” said Harry. Ron blinked. “It’s a brilliant idea! It’d be really cool if you got on the team! I’ve never seen you play Keeper, are you good?”
“I’m not bad,” said Ron, looking beyond relieved that Harry hadn’t immediately shot the idea down or begun ragging on him or whatever worst-case scenario was running through his head. “Charlie, Fred, and George always made me play Keeper when they were training during the holidays.”
“So you’ve been practising tonight?”
“Every evening since Tuesday. Just on my own, though, I’ve been trying to bewitch Quaffles to fly at me, but it hasn’t been easy and I don’t know how much use it’ll be. Fred and George are going to laugh themselves stupid when I turn up for the tryouts. They haven’t stopped taking the mickey out of me since I got my prefect’s badge,” Ron scowled.
“I wish I could be there,” said Harry bitterly, as they set off together toward the common room.
“Yeah, so do-” Ron cut off abruptly and whirled towards Harry, making him pull up short, lest they both go down. “Harry, what’s that on the back of your hand?”
Harry, who had just scratched his nose with his free right hand, tried to hide it, but had as much success as Ron with his Cleansweep. “It’s just a cut - it’s nothing - it’s -” Harry felt a strange pulling sensation at his core, like that moment during a dive before gravity caught up with him, but then it was gone and Harry brushed it off. Ron grabbed Harry's wrist and practically yanked the offending limb towards him, inspecting the words carved into Harry’s skin. Harry swallowed thickly, not even bothering to pull his hand away.
“You said she just had you writing lines. This isn’t just writing lines. Harry .” Ron was looking at him so intensely, it honestly made Harry want to squirm or run. “What is going on?” The pulling feeling was back as Harry hesitated, intensifying the longer he took to answer. Then, after a few more seconds, Harry decided he could tell Ron. After all, Ron had been honest with him, and he was Harry’s first and best friend. So, he told Ron the truth. Gave details of all the hours Harry spent in Umbridge’s office, the week’s events spilling out so fast, Harry honestly wasn’t sure he could stop if he wanted to.
By the time Harry was done, they had reached the portrait of the Fat Lady and Ron looked about ready to Avada someone. “That old hag !” Ron seethed. “That vile, evil , hag! She’s sick, is what she is! You have to go to McGonagall, you have to say something!”
“No,” Harry said, “I’m not giving her the satisfaction of knowing she got to me.”
“Got to you?” Ron hissed, bordering on shrill. “You can’t let her get away with- with torturing you! That’s what this is, Harry. This isn’t scrubbing cauldrons for Snape. Please, tell McGonagall.”
Harry thought for a moment. Sure Ron was probably right and, yes, Harry knew what Umbridge was doing was wrong. But then again, the Forbidden Forest was a suitable place to hold detention and that place was far from safe for students. And even then, “I don’t know how much power McGonagall’s got over her.”
“Dumbledore, then! Tell Dumbledore!” Ron begged.
“No,” said Harry, feeling the almost-betrayal and bitterness towards the headmaster rising to the surface.
“Why not?”
“He’s got enough on his mind.” And, there’s no way I’m going to him for help when he hasn’t even bothered to talk to me since the end of June, Harry thought.
“Well, I reckon you should tell-” Whatever Ron was about to say was interrupted by the Fat Lady, who irritably demanded they give her the password or let her sleep.
-
Friday brought another night of detention with Umbridge. He knocked on the door and Unbridge’s saccharine voice called for him to enter. Any hope of getting out of detention early was dashed when Harry saw the malicious glint in the professor’s eyes when she looked at him. He steeled himself to endure another night of pain.
Save for a perfunctory “Good evening,” from Harry, no words were said and he quickly assumed his position at the writing desk, parchment and that bloody quill already waiting for him, as usual. Taking one last moment for himself, and quickly glancing out the window towards the quidditch pitch where tryouts had just begun, Harry began to write.
I must not tell lies. The words, which had scabbed up overnight, ripped open and dug even deeper into his flesh. At that point, Harry knew that, no matter what, he would have a new scar to add to his growing collection. Not as exciting as the scar from the basilisk fang, but better than the pock-marked scars caused by oil burns.
I must not tell lies. Blood began to spill across his hand.
I must not tell lies. Little drops of blood splattered on the parchment, mixing with the rush colored ‘ink’ on the page.
On and on it went, and by the time Umbridge called a stop to his writing, the parchment was soaked in blood. His hand was covered in so much red that the words weren’t even visible on his skin anymore. All that was noticeable was the steady and telltale pulse of new blood adding to the mess. As Harry put the black quill down on the desk, he absently noted that his hand was shaking something fierce.
“Let’s see if you’ve gotten the message yet, shall we?” Umbridge crooned. As she walked towards him, he looked out the window behind her desk. It was dark out and he could no longer see the quidditch pitch. Huh , Harry thought idly, I must have been here over three hours.
Umbridge’s short, stubby fingers grasped his arm hard enough to bruise and she turned it so the top of his hand faced her. As she moved to inspect the damage, a sharp searing pain lanced through him, focused not on his hand (which did hurt quite a bit, if Harry was being honest), but through his scar. He let out a pained gasp and wrenched himself from Umbridge’s grip, panicking just a little bit.
Umbridge grabbed hold of his reaction almost as hard as she had manhandled him. “Yes, it hurts, doesn’t it,” she said.
Still trying to work out the implications of what it meant that his scar had seemingly reacted to Umbridge, Harry barely registered a faint pulling sensation around his midriff before he replied. “Yes.”
A sickly sweet smile curled across Umbridge’s face and her eyes glinted greedily. Belatedly, Harry realised what he had said and horror settled in his gut. Why did he say that? Not even during the worst of the Dursley’s treatment has he ever let someone know they had hurt him, and yet this cow was the one who made him slip?
“Very good, then, Mister Potter. I think that is enough for tonight,” Umbridge said, releasing him and moving back to sit at her desk. “I trust there will be no more... outbursts or falsehoods in my classroom from now on, yes?” The pulling sensation was back and Harry felt a need to do... something , but the horror over his slipup was still very much present and he desperately needed to get out of her office before he did anything else he might regret. So, Harry simply replied with a stiff nod, feeling vaguely nauseous as he did so. With a wave of her hand, Umbridge dismissed Harry and he fled back towards Gryffindor Tower.
He arrived back in the common room exhausted to see a verifiable party going on. Harry hastily shoved his hand into the pocket of his robes, hissing as the ravaged skin made contact with the wool fibres. Ron rushed towards him through the crowd. “I did it, Harry! I made Keeper!”
“What? Oh — brilliant!” said Harry, trying to smile naturally, while his heart continued to race and his hand throbbed and bled.
“Have a butterbeer.” Ron pressed a bottle into his hands. “I can’t believe it — where’d Hermione go?”
“She’s over there,” said Fred, who was also sipping butterbeer, and pointed to an armchair by the fire. Hermione was dozing in it, her drink tipping precariously in her hand.
“Well, she said she was pleased when I told her,” said Ron, looking slightly put out.
“Let her sleep,” said George hastily. It was a few moments before Harry noticed that several of the first years gathered around them bore unmistakable signs of recent nosebleeds.
“Come here, Ron, and see if Oliver’s old robes fit you,” Katie Bell called across the room “We can take off his name and put yours on instead...”
Feeling decidedly not in the mood to party, Harry extricated himself from the rest of the team and hurried up to his dorm room. He changed into a ratty shirt for sleep, and spelled his curtains shut. Once settled, he cast a low-level cleaning charm on his hand and inspected the cuts. Clear as day, in his own spiky handwriting, the gashes read I must not tell lies . He thought back to the end of his detention. Had Umbridge really shaken him that badly, that he had admitted that she caused him pain? Could he chalk it up to blood loss? How much blood would you even have to lose before getting loopy? ‘Cause that had to be it; three hours of gouging his hand open with a cursed quill must have caused him to lose too much blood. Or maybe it was shock? Shock could make you not think straight, Harry thought he remembered. That must have been it. No matter what though, she wouldn’t see him crack again, Harry promised himself. He wouldn’t give her any more satisfaction.
Resolving to never give Umbridge a reason to load him with detentions again, Harry drifted off into a fitful sleep.
-
Monday brought Double Potions second thing in the morning. Despite his best efforts (and Hermione’s), Harry had barely made any headway on his homework over the weekend - Sirius’ impromptu appearance in the fireplace and their subsequent chat hadn’t helped his focus at all, either. So, even with having frantically tried to write something in History of Magic that morning, his potions homework honestly wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Of course, this meant Snape had to be in a particularly surly mood today and was looking for any reason to antagonise Harry.
“And where, pray tell Mr. Potter, is your essay?” Snape drawled, one brow raised.
“I didn’t finish it. Sir.” Huh, Harry had been ready to make a snappy retort, not... that.
“And why is it unfinished? Think you’re too good to put in the same effort as your peers, do you?”
Harry remained mulishly silent. No matter what he said, Snape would find issue with it and honestly, Harry was too tired to deal with him. Better to let the man run through his rant and doc points or give detention than engage. The pulling sensation at his core was back and the longer he stayed quiet the stronger it got. Snape looked at Harry expectantly, one eyebrow arched as if daring Harry to say something that would allow Snape to dole out a harsher punishment. If Harry wasn’t so drained from trying to keep his head afloat this early in the term or so distracted by the pulling that was just getting stronger , he probably would have easily given the man what he wanted with little thought to the consequences.
The pulling crawled up his throat putting pressure on his jaw and the base of his head.
“Well?” Snape said scathingly.
The pressure kept mounting, turning into pain, and then -
“I felt too tired and unwell after detention and I wasn’t able to catch up in time. I don’t think that.” It all went away.
That answer was enough for Snape to (as much as he would show it) gleefully give “detention for laziness and insolence, Mr. Potter.” Not that Harry cared much. He was much too worried about the fact that someone had obviously hit him with a compulsion charm or imperio ’d him, to make him say that. He had no idea how he hadn’t noticed when the spell was cast, but now he needed to shake it off, and fast. He didn’t feel any different, though, not like he felt when Fake-Moody or Voldemort imperio ’d him last year. There wasn’t that feeling of happy-calm-safe. It was just discomfort and the pulling at his midsection from friday night and now the pressure, too. What was going on with him?
Harry was so distracted by the sheer wrongness he was feeling and the racing of his thoughts trying and failing to find any sign of the feeling of being under someone else’s control, that he almost put five lionfish spines into his Herbicide Potion instead of the necessary four. Ron of all people, perhaps one of the only people besides Seamus and Neville who was more pants at potions than Harry, grabbed his hand before he could throw in the offending fifth spine, wide-eyed at the thought of the almost-explosion that probably would have landed them both in the Hospital Wing. Harry rather understood that look; Herbicide was a potion they covered in first year and they were reviewing the recipe since it usually ended up on the OWL exams.
In the end, the potion (and Harry used that term generously) that he had to hand in to Snape was closer in colour to vomit than the new-leaf green it needed to be, and if Harry was honest with himself, it deserved the vicious sneer Snape levelled at it.
-
Divination had, as usual, been a bust, made even worse by High Inquisitor Umbridge high inquisitor-ing and throwing her weight around like she was the queen of Hogwarts. Harry didn’t wish death on many people - Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort were honestly the only ones on the list full time, and Snape made an appearance if he was being particularly Snape -y - but he desperately hoped that the curse on the DADA position took Umbridge out sooner rather than later.
Hogwarts was supposed to be Harry’s place of safety and she was ruining it all . Sure, bad things happened at Hogwarts, but it wasn’t all the time. Having Umbridge here was like having a fun-house mirror version of Aunt Petunia, but short, squat, and toad-like instead of tall and horse-like. It sucked .
But Harry was to have no respite today. Immediately after Divination, Harry had to suffer through double Defence. And didn’t that just spiral into a mess right quick? They were, once again, slogging through reading Slinkhard’s book, while Umbridge watched them like a tyrant observing their supplicants. It was fine. They were halfway through class and then they were done for the day and Harry wouldn’t have to deal with this worthless version of his favourite class until Thursday.
And then Hermione had to go and criticise the Merlin damned book. And talk back. She was right, of course, but Umbridge still took five points from Gryffindor, causing outraged muttering to fill the classroom.
Harry, in all his infinite wisdom, could not keep his mouth shut. “What for?”
“Don’t you get involved!” Hermione hissed, looking like she wanted to strangle him.
“For disrupting my class with pointless interruptions,” said Professor Umbridge, eyeing him like a spider eyed a fly caught in its web. “I am here to teach you using a Ministry-approved method that does not include inviting students to give their opinions on matters about which they understand very little. Your previous teachers in this subject may have allowed you more licence, but as none of them - with the possible exception of Professor Quirrell, who did at least appear to have restricted himself to age-appropriate subjects - would have passed a Ministry inspection - ”
“Yeah, Quirrell was a great teacher,” said Harry hotly. The pulling sensation at his midsection felt like a reprimand. “there was just that minor drawback of him having Lord Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head.”
Silence reigned over the classroom. Umbridge’s face did a funny little twitchy thing, like it was fighting between a look of confusion and a scowl. Then-
“I think another week’s detentions would do you some good, Mr. Potter,” said Umbridge.
-
Things were getting bad. Not only with Umbridge and the stranglehold she now had on Hogwarts, but also whatever compulsion had been placed on Harry. Every single conversation felt littered with landmines and the pulling and the pressure had gotten to the point of pain.
Eight days ago, after his last night of detention, he had tried to lie to Ron and Hermione about how bad things were getting. The magic of the compulsion had hit him so hard, it felt like his ribs had cracked and he had almost vomited from the pain.
He didn’t want or mean to, but he noticed himself avoiding the other students in the week after his detentions ended and had taken to holing himself up in an abandoned classroom on the fourth floor, constantly trying to feel for the wrongness that indicated a compulsion or the Imperius. There was nothing. No foreign magic, no sign of tampering. Nothing. It was like this was Harry’s doing. Which was ridiculous.
He hadn’t been sleeping either, because of the dreams he kept having. Nightmares of Cedric and the Graveyard. His parents’ death had also featured a couple times, one dream morphing into another with flashes of green.
So yeah, Harry was feeling decidedly on edge. Which is why, when the door to his classroom burst open, he fired off a hex before he even registered who had walked through the door.
It missed, thank Merlin.
“Woah! That is not on, mate!” Ron cried as he ducked out of the way of the oncoming spell.
“Ron! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean- I just- Oh, Merlin. I’m sorry.”
“Harry, what is going on with you? We haven’t seen you outside of class or meals in weeks and you never speak more than a few words to us. We’re worried sick,” Hermione said, concern creasing her brow. “Is something going on? Is it You-Know-Who ?”
It hurt to even think about resisting telling the truth, especially when he was asked questions. “Yes, okay? Something is going on, and no, it has nothing to do with Voldemort.” The pain eased. “Now, will you please just leave me alone?”
“Harry, please. Just tell us why you’re avoiding us,” Ron said. “We can fix it together. We’re a team.”
That damn compulsion to speak, to just tell them why , was back. Harry grit his teeth, even though he had realised that it was useless to fight. And, would it honestly be so bad if Ron and Hermione knew? Maybe they had some ideas. And, Harry knew they wouldn’t abuse his newfound inability to lie. So, he gave in. He told them everything. How, sometime after Umbridge had forced him to carve I must not tell lies into his own damn flesh, someone had hit him with a compulsion or something to force him to be, well, unable to tell lies. How even thinking of lying now made him nauseous and how he was terrified of anyone finding out and making him spill his worst and darkest secrets to the world, so he had just decided to hide .
After he was done, throat scratchy from talking so much after his self-imposed exile, Hermione enveloped him in a crushing hug, whispering assurances and platitudes in his ear the whole time.
Ron, however, hadn’t moved since Harry had started talking and now stood with a pensive frown on his face, not unlike the one he wore when an opponent made a particularly tricky move in a chess match. “If I asked you to trust me and come with us to the Hospital Wing, would you?”
When Harry made to respond to that with a vehement “No,” Ron cut in.
“Look, mate, I know you hate the infirmary. I get that. But, I have an idea and we would need someone like Madam Pomfrey to test it.”
“Will you at least tell us what your great idea is?” Harry asked, Hermione nodding her agreement beside Ron.
“I- Just, please, trust me. If I’m wrong, great! But I really think we should go to the infirmary. Now.”
Harry had never really seen Ron act like this. “You’re kind of freaking me out, Ron,” Harry laughed nervously.
“I know and I’m sorry. Now, can we please go to Madam Pomfrey?”
“Fine,” Harry sighed. “Okay. Let me just grab my bag.”
The walk to the Hospital Wing was largely silent. When they arrived, Ron called out to Madam Pomfrey, who did not look the least bit impressed that Harry and his friends were once again in her infirmary.
“What is it this time, young man? I’m dealing with an outbreak of Fwooper Flu among the first and second year Hufflepuffs, and you look neither injured nor sick, and I know for a fact you are not a Hufflepuff, so this better be good.”
Harry and Hermione looked to Ron, who addressed the mediwitch. “We need to check Harry for the presence of Dark Magic, specifically that of a Black Quill.”
Madam Pomfrey sobered immediately and ushered Harry onto the nearest vacant bed. Once he was settled, she began waving her wand over him in increasingly complex patterns and chanting quickly in a language Harry didn’t know. Harry heard Hermione ask what a Black Quill was, but Ron quickly shushed her. After about five minutes, a slip of parchment appeared in front of Pomfrey and she snatched it out of the air. As she read the words on the parchment, she got progressively paler.
“Well, Mister Weasley, you were correct. Mister Potter, I have to ask, who has been subjecting you to the use of a Black Quill for, what, weeks?”
Before Harry could answer that he didn’t exactly know what a Black Quill was, Ron piped up.
“It was Umbridge wasn’t it? I should have realised sooner when I saw what she made you do. Not many magical artefacts can do that.”
“Professor Umbridge?” Pomfrey all but shouted.
“Sorry, but what is a Black Quill?” Hermione asked.
Ron sighed. “They’re these quills which use the blood of the user to write. People usually use them for magical contracts ‘cause the blood helps make it binding. Old Pureblood families will sometimes use them for marriage contracts to dissuade the people who sign from going back on their word. Unless the contract magic itself is, like, on the level of a Vow, it mostly just nudges the signer to abide by what they agreed to.”
“Quite right, Mister Weasley. However, prolonged use has a much stronger effect. During medival times, Black Quills were used as a means of torture and to bind serfs and vassals to a lord. The scarring it leaves cannot be removed by magical means, due to the scar’s dark origins. Speaking of, may I see your dominant hand, Mister Potter?”
Harry reluctantly held out his right hand. Madam Pomfrey gently took it in her own hands. A look of guarded sadness flashed across her face before she schooled her features into a more neutral mien. Her eyes still betrayed her emotions, glistening with what Harry could only identify as pity. It was the same look people gave Irma Sayer from primary school, when her mothers hair had fallen out from chemotherapy. It was the same look Mr. Campbell down the road received whenever he had one of his episodes and got lost in memories of the Falklands War. It was the look people wore when they saw someone broken, for whom life had been completely altered.
He hated it. And it terrified him to have that look levelled at him.
“How many times did you use the Black Quill, Mister Potter?”
“Er. Two weeks of detention Monday to Friday?”
“Around how many lines did you have to write during each detention?”
Harry did some quick mental maths before he answered. The insistent pressure built quickly to a dull pain in the time it took him to formulate his reply. “Probably about five hundred lines a night. I had to keep going until it sunk in .” Harry spat the last two words out.
Hermione stifled a gasp with her hands. Ron beside her looked like he wanted to commit murder.
“Madam Pomfrey, that cannot be legal!” Hermione cried. “Umbridge is- is torturing students.”
“I assure you, it is not, Miss Granger! However, given the political climate in the Ministry right now and the power Dolores Umbridge has given herself over Hogwarts and its staff and students, I honestly doubt that she would face any consequences greater than a slap on the wrist. And it would mean making Mister Potter’s condition public knowledge, something I would strongly caution against.”
Harry looked up abruptly at that. “My condition? What has she done to me?”
Madam Pomfrey seemed to age a decade in the moments it took her to decide on an answer. She heaved a heavy sigh. “I will write you a referral to Saint Mungo’s Artefact Accidents Department. They may be able to do something to lessen the effects of the Black Quill. However, given the frequency and level of exposure to the artefact in question, it is likely that you are permanently magically bound to what you were forced to write. I’m afraid, Mister Potter, that you may never be able to tell a lie again. If the magic is strong enough, I fear it could work like a permanent Veritaserum, compelling you to tell the truth.”
Harry thought he heard Hermione choke out a sob and Ron give a shout of outrage. He wasn’t sure though. His world had narrowed down to the words on his hand and the rabid pounding of his heart in his ears. He thought he heard Pomfrey telling him to “breathe, Mister Potter. You have to breathe!”, but all he could think, looking at the grotesque pale scars that had ruined his life , his own handwriting mocking him. To not only be able to not tell a lie, but to be forced to always truthfully answer every question posed to him?
He vaguely noted that the edges of his vision were greying out.
Harry was a danger to all those around him. He was a danger to himself . What if someone asked him about Sirius and his location? What if someone asked him about his connection to Voldemort? What if someone asked him about the Dursleys or his childhood?
Harry felt hands on him, shaking him, but it barely registered among the feeling of abject terror that had settled in his chest. He wanted to run. He wanted to fight. He wanted to disappear, for it to all just go away and let him wake up tomorrow and have it all have been a strange and horrible nightmare, cooked up by his stupid traumatized brain.
But that wasn’t going to happen, was it. Nothing good ever happened to Harry. Black spots danced in his vision. Like he was listening from underwater, he could hear his friends' voices shouting at him, but he couldn’t identify the words.
And then, finally, Harry pitched over off the side of the hospital bed. The last thing he saw before he passed out was his hand, forever branded with I must not tell lies , and then Harry was met with sweet oblivion.