The amount of ground-shattering events that had occurred in Britain over the past weeks overshadowed every single other topic of conversation.
The minister was in a coma, there had been a basilisk hiding in the Hogwarts sewers, professor Slughorn had been killed, Pettigrew had escaped Azkaban just a few days before the maximum security had all its prisoners killed in a freak cursed fire accident.
Any one of these things would have been enough to send tongues wagging for weeks, happening all at the same time Harry was surprised that the gossip mill didn’t simply explode from sheer inertia.
The amount of rumours being spread by the student population was staggering.
At one point someone had even claimed that Slughorn had been possessed by You Know Who, which had caused Fudge to have to kill the man before going to Azkaban to eliminate all the death eaters there, afraid of Voldemort’s potential return.
How the man was supposed to have done that while in a coma went mostly ignored. Chronological cohesion wasn’t the strong suit of any true gossip monger. The main point was hype hype hype.
Harry tried to remove himself from the student population as much as he could in those days. As one of the few who actually knew exactly what had happened the rumours had a detrimental effect on his psyche.
Or maybe it was the mass murder he’d committed, hard to tell.
“Blergh!” Chunks of food hit the toilet with unerring precision alongside a spewage of acid.
Harry, with dark circles under his eyes and vomit dribbling from his mouth closed his eyes and upon noticing that his stomach was calm again, sat back in the bathroom stall attached to his dorm rooms and leaned against the door with a bang.
The muffling charm provided privacy in the middle of the night.
The nightmares wouldn’t let him go.
He’d made a terrible mistake by executing the death eaters via legilimency. The memories. He’d seen footage of genocides, torture and war crimes in his past life. It was hard to avoid it really, in that interconnected world where news travelled faster the more gruesome it was.
It was different seeing it all from a first person perspective while feeling exactly what the perpetrator had in mind as they brutally tortured and executed their victims.
Hands covered his eyes, but no amount of artificial view obstruction could delete the memories looping in his mind.
It was only now that Harry had truly witnessed and had been haunted by the sheer depravity humans were capable of, that he stopped regretting at all what he’d done.
Death Eaters deserved to die.
There was no if or but about it.
Sure, in a world where prisons were unbreachable it might have been possible to remain on the high horse of morality, preaching that one shouldn’t sink to anyone’s level.
But with the fact that Voldemort had breached Azkaban and broken out his followers in canon, what Harry had done was necessary.
It was with the knowledge of how necessary this knowledge was however that Harry despaired.
Britain was just one small island nation and its wizarding population could barely fill a muggle town. The world was approaching a population of 8 billion people.
How many war criminals, how many serial murderers, how many genocidal regimes were there currently escaping justice?
The burden of knowledge was crushing his soul.
Ethnic cleansing was happening right now in the Balkans, dictatorships in Latin America were torturing civilians en masse, Africa was suffering from more civil wars than Harry had fingers on both hands and South-East Asians were enslaved en masse in mines and plantations from Indonesia to Laos.
In the past these had all been statistics to him, perhaps becoming more anecdotal upon meeting a Ukrainian refugee every now and again.
Now that he knew what a human head looked like after being blasted open by a blasting curse, how both women and men screamed while being sexually assaulted and how long the intestines of pre-pubescent children really were when removed completely from the body…
These cruelties that he’d now had a first person view of, multiplying that by the millions of tragedies that were happening all over the world simultaneously.
It was hard to even see the point of the human species persevering.
He knew there were even more moments of beauty happening at the same time, but the sheer burden weighing on his soul in that very moment was not only threatening to crush him.
It already had.
-/-
“Are you alright?” Snape asked brusquely after Harry entered the man’s office.
“I’m ok,” Harry said, looking for all intents and purposes as he usually did.
A series of cosmetic charms covered the redness of his eyes, the dark bags underneath and the haggardness to his cheeks.
Snape looked at Harry doubtfully, before suddenly pulling out his wand and casting a finite.
The true damage Harry was suffering under was bluntly revealed in that simple office.
“What happened to you?” Snape asked breathlessly, looking, for the first time, that Harry had seen the man, truly shocked to the core.
“I made a mistake,” Harry admitted.
He could have easily countered the man’s dispelling charm, but there was no point.
He and Snape were allied and he had to tell someone, there was crucial information to share as well.
The professor narrowed his eyes as he quickly calculated.
“You’ve been off since the Azkaban story broke,” the man muttered, leaning back on his chair and crossing his arms. Then his eyes widened.
“It was me, I killed those death eaters,” Harry admitted coldly.
Snape reacted suddenly and violently. “What have you done?” he asked, jumping up from his chair and slamming his hands on the table.
“Voldemort is still out there, the dementors joined him last time,” Harry explained slowly, refusing to meet the man’s gaze. “I did what had to be done.”
Snape’s nostrils flared. “You are fourteen years old!” he screamed loudly with a booming voice.
“Yeah, well, one kill per year,” Harry muttered awkwardly as he suddenly realised that if he counted Greyback, he really had killed fourteen people in this life.
The professor simply stood there, frozen as he stared at his pupil.
Then he did something that neither of them likely accepted, he jumped over his desk in a show of athleticism that probably surprised even himself and enveloped Harry in a hug.
Harry’s head disappeared in the professor’s chest, his red hair tickling the man’s chin.
“You should have told me,” Snape hissed quietly with narrowed eyes. “I would have killed all of them if you just asked.”
“It was a spontaneous decision,” Harry mumbled in a voice that was barely legible as sweat poured out of his eyes. “I was there for Rosier, then I just spiralled.”
“We really do need to wait until you reach your twenties,” Snape mumbled. “You’re too impulsive.”
Harry pushed himself out of the man’s embrace, wiped at his eyes with his sleeve and sat back down on his chair.
“Just thought you should know,” he told the professor who was now awkwardly standing there, seemingly at a loss of what to do.
“Thank you for telling me,” Snape muttered, shaking his head, before going back to his chair.
Both men pretended that the previous scene hadn’t occurred. British spirit for the win.
Harry for his part immediately felt relieved that he’d told someone.
“What you did wasn’t a mistake,” Snape eventually said. “I would have done the same in your situation.”
Harry chuckled weakly. “The mistake I made wasn’t killing those dogs. The mistake I made was that I executed them via legilimency.”
Snape froze for the second time. “Why in the name of Merlin would you do that?” he asked breathlessly.
The student shrugged weakly, refusing to meet the man’s gaze. Instead his eyes lingered on some of the pickled potion ingredients spread across the shelves of the office, fully displaying that this man was a potions master first and dark arts specialist second.
“It started with Rosier. I didn’t want to give him the opportunity to lie. He made it easy as well, called me young master and everything.”
“You mean…” Snape softly interrupted.
“The genetic material was provided by Voldemort,” Harry said succinctly. “Although this does not prove fully that it was his, it does increase the possibility to almost certainty.” He shook his head. “Not that it matters, in the end Lily erased all of the genetic heritage from that side of the family.”
“She was brilliant like that,” Severus said while palming his face.
Silence reigned for several seconds.
“But why?” the professor eventually asked.
“I imagine that there’s only one person who truly knows and leaving him alive for interrogation is too dangerous. The why doesn’t really matter anymore I guess,” Harry said softly.
“I’ll kill him,” Snape suddenly said in a clear voice and a far-away look in his eyes. “You had Rosier, I want Voldemort.”
Harry shook his head. “He’s too dangerous. He needs to die, whoever does it does it.”
Snape grimaced, obviously unwilling.
There weren’t many people who Snape couldn’t kill if he really wanted. Unfortunately the person who’d killed his childhood friend was one of the two currently active in the country.
“So you read Rosier’s mind, in his state, a decade in Azkaban,” Snape muttered.
“He croaked, but I got a lot of useful information from him. Death Eater tactics, spell repertoires, Voldemort’s modus operandi,” Harry muttered. “The information was too valuable. I had to keep going. It didn’t help that legilimency is one of the ways of truly killing someone without a trace if they’re already at the breaking point.”
He tapped a finger to his temple. “Safe houses, strategies, common spells, tactical preferences, I have a whole library in my head. If Voldemort ever makes a comeback…”
“You foolish child,” Snape said with a sigh while clutching his nose with two fingers. “You entered the minds of a dozen of the most heinous individuals in Wizarding Britain.”
“I saw things I would prefer I didn’t,” Harry agreed.
“Do you want me to obliviate you?” Snape proposed promptly.
Harry paused, furrowed his brows, shook his head.
“Familial love, the bonds of friendship and the kindness of saints. Contrasted with the sheer sadism, hatred, disregard for life I saw. I’ve fully experienced both sides of the human psyche. These things. I have to know these things…”
“You’re a child,” Severus said once again.
“The people I killed, killed dozens of children,” Harry replied softly. “Perhaps it is only fair.”
“Do you need anything?”
“Pettigrew escaped,” Harry muttered. “He is likely searching for Voldemort’s shade, wherever it may be. Fudge was the one carrying the locket, he freed him for that exact purpose.”
“So it was Fudge in the chamber, unexpected,” Severus, already in the know, muttered, shaking his head. “As for Voldemort, we can only wait. He will come to us regardless. We have to focus on increasing your combat effectiveness and letting you mature. Things are happening too quickly.”
“For combat effectiveness,” Harry suddenly muttered, an idea blossoming in his mind. “I think I know what curse I want to create.”
“You’ve been thinking for quite a long time, tell me,” Snape demanded brusquely. “I’ll help you the best I can.”
“The idea is simple. I’ve grown quite decent at legilimency, especially in the telepathic subsection of it, delivering memory packets. What if I created a spell that is the opposite of obliviate, rather than erasing memories, it inserts them and forces the victim to experience them,” Harry started slowly, becoming more and more agitated as he spoke. “The human brain, muggle scientists are just discovering its true power. Time is a subjective experience. There are drugs like Salvia Divinorum which can make someone experience a lifetime in a second at its most extreme. If we could combine these two concepts, pick even relatively minor sensory experiences… Making someone experience a lifetime in a second, they would shut down instantly.”
“You’re thinking of inserting those memories you took from the death eaters?” Snape asked. “That would reveal it was you who killed them.”
Harry shook his head. “There are countless people in the world who experience trauma we cannot even imagine. Victims of torture, ethnic cleansing, slavery. Maybe if I travelled this summer, collected their memories, dampened them. I could help them with their pain and gain something in return.”
“You’re talking of collecting traumatic and painful experiences, experiences that could break people, and forcibly having someone experience those memories from a first person perspective for a lifetime in a second of real time?” Snape asked slowly, catching on while idly rubbing his chin.
“Those animals I killed,” Harry muttered. “Wouldn’t it be fitting if they went out suffering the pain they caused multiplied by a thousand?”
“Do you know what you are suggesting?” Snape asked slowly.
“Retribution, from the victims of the world to the perpetrators?” Harry asked.
The professor shook his head. “You are talking about creating the fourth unforgivable. Whoever gets hit by this spell, sectumsempra and the killing curse are a mercy by comparison. The Cruciatus is a mercy. They will go insane, irredeemably insane. If this spell ever spreads you will become a demon, despised by the whole world.”
“That’s the trick isn’t it,” Harry muttered as he tapped his fingers on the armrest of his charo. “For this spell to truly destroy someone, the user would need to first experience all the pain they wish to inflict. Dark wizards will need to seek out victims and engage with their trauma, harvesting their memories.”
“The fourth unforgivable, Harry, you idiot child!” Snape exclaimed with wide eyes, banging a fist on the table.
Harry looked up and met the man’s eyes. “Some things aren't forgivable, some people are beyond redemption. With this spell you won’t need to choose between torturing someone who deserves it and cleanly killing them, leaving no chance of escape. You can do both at the same time.” he eventually said in a low voice.
“What would you call this… abomination?” Snape asked.
“The name?” Harry asked, shaking his head before stopping. He hadn’t thought that far yet, but there was one name that would fit. “Let’s just call it Project Tsukuyomi for now.”
-/-
AN: No, Harry can't actually name the spell tsukuyomi because it has to be latin, but I'm just throwing this one in there for the moment lol.Sorry one day late, got a cold