attainmysuccession:

Harry couldn’t help but mutter some sort of disagreement to any mention of her so called understanding. It was so easy. So easy to deny that she grasped anything that he had said. It was much simpler to just say, “You don’t understand, you never will.” than to say, “Yeah, you get me.” It was much less of a promise to confide in a person when you keep them at bay of full comprehension. Or rather to keep yourself reassured that you never really confided in anyone. Either way it was a lie. He again went through the process of addressing her new inquiries.

“I do indeed, Doctor. I live by comparison.” Harry stated in a manner too nonchalant to flow with the conversation. “I can’t help it. I see myself in a degraded manner because of it, but I can’t stop. The judgement, the antagonizations. Even when they seldom come from someone else, they inevitably come from me twice as harsh.”

“I cherish Hermione as one of my wonderfully close companions, don’t get me wrong. I’d say she would call me something along the lines of stubborn, frustrating, and confusing.” Smirk. Frown. “You never know when someone will walk away. I choose not to blind myself with possibly misconstrued affection that will attempt to convince me otherwise. She’s great, we’re friends, she does way more than expected, and I appreciate it but… I won’t hold her to be there all the time. She’ll snap, one day. S’not like I want her to, but that doesn’t mean I can’t anticipate it.” He gazed around the room, not fixing his sight on anything in particular. “I’m not paranoid.” He constituted matter-of-factly.

“I am harsh with myself and I do judge every thought and feeling. It’s not like I want to.” His bottom lip quivered. “I can’t do anything without it passing through my mind with a self-made comment alongside it. Anything. I relay it all over and over in my head. ‘You’re an idiot.’ I’d say. ‘You’re pathetic.’ You don’t know how terrible I feel right now, throughout the duration of today; every day. Every word that has come out of my mouth has had an unspoken one nearby. It’s horrific.” He gave a shudder and a repressed cry.

“I appreciate your will to aid me, I do. I really wish that you could just wave a wand and fix me. I wish it were that effortless, that simple. What if I don’t have that power? What happens then?” He answered his own question with a sob. “I’m a lost cause, Doctor. There’s really no point in saying much more.”

“But why must you compare yourself?” she implored, knowing it was inevitable for anyone really, to live a life in which they gave no thought to the person next to them in relation. Even she herself, a woman of forty-plus years, found herself making unfair comparisons of her own situation to another’s. To say she didn’t understand would be a lie, but professionally speaking, it was unfair to make assumptions. “It’s human nature, yes, but what about it is helpful?”

“No, Harry. I don’t believe you’re paranoid,” Dr. Harcourt sat back, tapping a finger against her chin. “Have you had many friends? That is I mean… true friends? Friends like Miss Granger? Or family even? Anyone who has always been there?”

Harry’s own reluctance to accept help, to accept himself, was frightening. This seemed to be the last desperate attempt of a young boy, to determine whether or not he would stay or leave the life he’d been given. She was slow in her thought, not wanting to make the wrong move, ask the wrong question. It was such a delicate thing. “Have you always felt this way? Always had such a strong sense of dislike for yourself, Harry?”

“No, Harry. No one is a lost cause. Especially not you.” Dr. Harcourt nodded firmly, trying to comfort the boy. “We are all here for a reason, and you have all the power you need, Mr. Potter.”

attainmysuccession:

“It’s difficult for me to accept assistance from anyone, really.” Harry countered at her statement. “I’ve fallen helplessly into a reality where, as narcissistic-less as possibly said, I find everyone my inferior… but when looking at myself, I absolutely hate the image depicted.” A pause. “That didn’t really make sense, did it?” He added with a faint nudge of his facial muscles. He then moved to acknowledge the rest of the words she had emitted.

“Why does anyone feel the need to do anything?” Harry questioned ambiguously. “I tend to apologize more frequently than the average person. But if any consolation, I’m not an average person. I feel the need to do so because I understand that I can be a handful. I’m a nuisance. I’m a burden. I’m a hassle. Everyone who comes into contact with me realizes that I’m not what the signed up for. They come to the revelation…” Harry began to quiet. “And then they leave.” The words escaped him in an almost whisper. “Earlier today, w-when I told you what I did, to hurt me and all that,” Harry looked up apologetically. “Please don’t think that I was insinuating that you would, or that it’s in your nature to do so. I-I was merely, anticipating it. Still am…” The session began to take it’s toll on him. The tears, the anger, everything. Harry began to feel woozy, fatigued. He grasped the arm of the sofa he was seated upon reflexively and continued.

“I get it.” No he didn’t. “You think this is fine, all of this. You’re making the assumption, though probably rightfully so,” He was rambling now. “That this is me putting up the oh so cliched walls of protection, that this is me, simply helping myself.” Exhale. “Is it really helping myself when I can’t so much as grasp the faintest understanding of me as a person? When I can’t even withhold a normal relationship with anyone, romantic or platonic, because I’m so analytical, because I’m so difficult?” Inhale, exhale. “People tend to put up these walls for a sense of protection, they erect the barriers and are finally able to breathe. All they’ve done for me is asphyxiated me further, choking me with my own antagonizations.” The poetic nature of his words shifted the mood to airy. Lofty with edges. 

“Another question, or series of them, Doctor, if you please. What am I going to do with myself when I come to the realization that I don’t even want me anymore? What am I to do with myself if and when I realize that you don’t want to help me, that I’m to much for you, for a professional? You said you weren’t going to walk away so long as I didn’t as well, are you alluding to the point that no one will be there to run after me? Sometimes, or rather, all the time, I don’t feel the strength to stand my ground. I almost always want to go away, to escape, from everything.” His mind felt like a perpetual generator, his forehead overheated with the force of it. 

“It’s not okay!” He said, more to himself than anything. “It’s not! None of this!”

Another glance, this time in a more insidious manner. And with it two more words after the onslaught of hundreds.

“Help me.”

“It makes plenty of sense,” she nodded her understanding. “It must be difficult to try to communicate with those you feel don’t understand or hold much less insight to the world we’re living in, or you’re living in. You understand you’ve seen much more than any person, let alone any person your age, Harry. And on that same token, it makes it hard to understand yourself.” Dr. Harcourt thought for a moment, her hands stopping mid-gesture. “Do you find yourself comparing your own situation and intelligence to those of others?”

“It seems, Harry, that you see yourself in a different light than others.” Her eyes held understanding and her voice was calm and gentle. “When I spoke to Hermione, she expressed such a kindness and heart. She would never say you were a hassle or a burden, am I right? What would she say about you? How would she describe you? I don’t believe for a moment she’d ever walk away. It sounds like she cares so much about being supportive of you.” She nodded, craning her head forward when he quieted. “I know you didn’t mean that, and I don’t take it personally. I know I seem odd, myself, seeing patients and calling myself a doctor. It puts people ill at ease, they aren’t quite sure what to make of me. It wouldn’t be the first time, Harry. I understand your apprehension.”

She had seen the emotional barriers before, patients who had locked themselves away in stone towers, pushing away the realities of the world. She listened closely as Harry spoke, nodding every so often as she tried to understand further. “You seem so harsh with yourself, Harry. So willing to judge every thought and feeling.” Dr. Harcourt was merely observing, wanting to know if he had even noticed himself doing it.

He spoke so sadly, so quickly, as if he was laying it all out before his mind told him to stop. Rosalind allowed him to do so, wanting Harry to do whatever he needed to proceed, to step further toward understanding and accepting. His plea for her help sobered her and she nodded passionately. “Harry, I will do everything in my power to be helpful to you. But it isn’t up to me to save you or to save anyone, to fix everything, that power comes from within you.”

attainmysuccession:

I’m not here to hurt you. I don’t believe you’re as far from sanity as you wish me to think. I won’t walk away if you won’t. 

This made Harry genuinely smile for the first time today. He may not be willing to trust her just yet, but he was on the road to doing so. “Thank you, Doctor Harcourt. I truly appreciate that.” He delivered the words differently than any previous, they were accompanied with a sort of masked confidence that made his sentence appear brighter. He sat his hands in his lap and his head down at them, grinning absentmindedly. She said his name and he perked up like a puppy being asked to play fetch.

The mention of Hermione hit Harry strangely. “I do. I really do.” The words had a contemplative tone to them. “I don’t deserve her, really. She does so much, tries so hard to help me. I reply by coming off as a stubborn git that won’t try. I mean, look at this,” Harry gestured around the room. “She set this up. She called you, took the initiative I couldn’t. And all I’ve done is yell at you for trying to help me.” He let is hands cover his face as he muttered “I’m so sorry.”He looked up at her and continued. “I understand it’s your job. I know you probably sit here day after day and just listen to the sob stories of person after person. Back to what I said before, I’m more than a specimen. I want to be considered more than just another case of yours, okay?” He bit his lip at how snappy he sounded saying that.

“There are so many people who wanted to help me…” Harry trailed off in a recollective voice. “Everyone’s said, ‘oh well, do something about it, do something, do something, do something. Stop feeling so sad, stop doing this, stop being so mad’ and I want to tear something apart.” He let out a choked exhale. “I’m sorry I’m not happy, or have the motivation to change that. It’s pretty fucking hard to do something when you just ugh.” He wiped his face on his hands and carried on. “And they just expect me to snap out of it and do something about how I feel and it’s not like I can flip and switch and snap out of it and I’m tired of being expected to be like that.” Tears made another appearance in his dialogue, his voice was broken and raspy, he wiped them away with the sleeve of his trenchcoat and moved on. “God, I’m pathetic.” Harry added with a halfhearted chuckle. 

“I’m sorry.” Harry said again, and for what he didn’t know. 

Dr. Harcourt watched a genuine smile make its way across the boy’s face as he began to calm again. His tone had changed again when he spoke, and he sounded almost giddy in his own way. “Of course, Harry,” she nodded, her own hands folded in her lap as well. “I’m not just one of the others. You choose when you want to talk to me, not the other way around. I am available to you when you need me.”

She listened as Harry spoke about Hermione. Something changed within the young man again, he became taken with a new kind of guilt. It bordered on co-dependency in its own way and her brow furrowed in curiosity as Harry continued to speak. “That is the sign of a true friend, Harry. Someone who will help you find what is best for you even during the darkest of times. But why do you feel you don’t deserve her?” Dr. Harcourt brought one hand up to her chin, looking at Harry with a calmed expression of understanding. “It’s often hard to accept help from those closest to us.”

“None of my patients are just cases or nameless lab rats,” she leaned forward slightly, to show Harry how important this was to her. “Each of my patients is a human being, with their own thoughts and feelings, and each person is different. And if you feel I’m treating you in a less than human way, please tell me, Harry. It’s important to me that everyone feels safe in my office.”

She listened attentively to Harry as he spoke again and she paused for a moment to think, “I believe we never accept the help others are so willing to give, until we are ready to admit we need it.” She nodded slowly in reassurance of herself. “But what do you feel you need to apologize for? Every feeling you have is valid and I would hope you didn’t feel guilt about expressing them or having them.”

Dr. Harcourt sat back in her chair again, the gears in her own mind turning slowly with each word the young man spoke.

attainmysuccession:

She said quite a bit, Harry simply glossed over her words with a vague interest. Her points seemed valid, it was credible. Though when she arrived at her last sentence, he couldn’t help but let the most sadistic of smiles cut across his face. Of course, it made its way to trust. He let out a chuckle that could only be described as pained and forced, it scared himself. “I’ve never been one to trust, Doctor. I, like anyone, have had the need to, to voice myself, to expunge my thoughts. No, that doesn’t constitute as trust. I simply muse, sometimes I direct it aloud at another.” His voice began to break and it was all downhill from there.

Harry tried so hard to keep a smirk, to maintain some sort of humour, the most acute pulls of facial muscles, of laughs, but to no avail. When Harry Potter opens up, his emotions open up along with him, and that could be as devastating as opening Pandora’s box. He stood up, but sat back down just as quickly, he wanted to go, to hide in the confines of his room, of his mind. The aggravated breathing pattern of his reached a point that it hadn’t yet during the course of today. Harry was hyperventilating and it was terrible.

“What am I doing here?” Harry executed the words as steadily as they could fall from his mouth. It was more so directed to himself, and this was obvious by how he spoke into his lap rather than up at Dr. Harcourt. He continued to think aloud, speaking to himself as if another entity in the room. “I hate this, all of it. I don’t want this.” What ‘this’ was wasn’t clear, though Harry made reference to how he abhorred it in copious amounts. “I’m not crazy, I’m not. Yes you are. No I’m not.”

It was an internal argument out loud. Harry had so much to say, so much yet so little came out. He tried to find his voice, and something in him clicked, no, shattered, when he did. He shot up out of his seat and simply served as the tunnel for his mind.

“Argh! Why are you so nice? How can you seem so comforting, so peaceful and harmless? I know you’re not. Yell at me, be angry with me. Tell me I’m no good, that I’m a psychopath and then walk away. Tell me you’re disappointed in me, something. Hurt me.“ 

His words had a tendency to crescendo into tears, into a breakdown of sorrow. This time was different, he just stood there, enraged. His fists were balled up, his torso undulating with an attempt of breathing. The room was hot with anxiety and Harry was red with angry animation. But then things took a turn, a turn almost too offensive to take, when Harry let out a bellow of laughter. Not a hurt, boyish one like before, but one that showed insanity, one that said ‘I’m Harry Potter and I’m fucking psycho.’ 

Dr. Harcourt did her best to mask her fascination with Harry. He was unpredictable, yes, not to mention unstable, but there was something lying just beneath all of this. In a way he seemed as if he wanted to use whatever maniacal behavior he could to push anyone away, to push himself further into insanity for the sake of being alone.”Then muse all you wish, Mr. Potter. You needn’t trust me if you feel it would be unnecessary.” 

He seems to think, Rosalind thought, that anyone would be scared off or frightened by his behavior. He wants to scare everyone away, to isolate, to think no one cares. 

She watched the deterioration of what little bearings he had originally possessed, the cold, strong facade crumbling quickly as he grappled with himself. She briefly wondered if she would, in fact, need to call in extra medical assistance. Harry’s irregularities were stunning and his shortness of breath was frightening. She wondered for a moment if his panic attacks ever brought on seizures, or if this was more than a panic attack.

His laughter momentarily stunned the doctor, and she froze, wondering just how to proceed. His words echoed, even once the eerie silence had settled in her office. “Harry,” she spoke softly, cautiously. “I’m not here to hurt you. I don’t believe you’re as far from sanity as you wish me to think. I won’t walk away if you won’t,” her expression softened again.

Dr. Harcourt studied the teen, knowing this was no safe haven for the boy. Some sort of maternal instinct within made her want to reach out, to let him know he wasn’t alone. Professionally, she knew to keep her distance, to remind him of those around him without becoming one of them.

“Harry?” she stayed in her chair, looking up at him curiously. She thought maybe it best to try something new, to get him to talk about something that brought him some sort of joy. “You seem to have a wonderful friend in Miss Granger.” 

attainmysuccession:

Harry eyed Dr. Harcourt with suspicion, no one ever spoke to Harry so kindly, so patiently. His conversations were always blunt and rude, more so than not. “There’s not much to say really.” Harry delivered the words with a disheartened smile and chuckle, still looking down at his lap. “My name is Harry Potter, I turn 17 this July, and long story short, I don’t like myself.” He reached for a tissue out of the box on the table and resituated himself so he was facing Dr. Harcourt more directly.

“Diagnosis?” Harry questioned aloud as he pondered the word. “I’m not exactly sure what that entails, Doctor. Surely if you, as you say, want to work through what I wish to accomplish, you must decipher what you’re dealing with.” The way he spoke filled the room with a tense instability. “Even if you have not uttered your viewpoint directly to me, you still have some preconceived idea of what I am, who you’re dealing with. Am I wrong?” 

Before allowing her to respond, he added more fuel to his fire. “You say you don’t make goals for your patients, that you follow the goals of their accord. If I told you that I wanted to further hurt myself, to become more immersed in self-hatred, would you help me? No. You wouldn’t. Your job is to aid an individual in remedying an ailment, an ailment of the mind, psyche, et cetera. Yes?” Harry’s words were more pained than aggressive. He wanted to make a point, a point that he couldn’t formulate, but a point none-the-less.

“Why am I here, Doctor? What are you going to do to benefit me? From what I understand, I’m going to speak, you’re going to listen. You haven’t the patience.” Harry moved so that he sat up completely. He gestured to the door. ”You’re just like everyone else out there, relentless, unforgiving, trying to help what can only be hurt. The only difference is, you’ve got a title. Doctor Harcourt. You stick that six letter word in front of your surname and society accepts you not as a menace, but as an asset. It’s not poking and prodding if you say it’s not. Nothing’s wrong if you say it isn’t.” Shakily, he exhaled.

“Tell me why you won’t be like everyone else I’ve opened up to in the past.” The mood changed from heated to unsteady in a heartbeat. “Convince me that I can actually leave here content. Don’t judge me, don’t walk away from me. Save me from myself.” And with that the tears began to flow once more.

She nodded as the boy spoke, her hands clasped in her lap, elbow on the armrest of her chair. She had known Harry was young, but she hadn’t quite realized just how young. She’d never quite done the math, but her estimate was two years off. “And what is it about yourself you dislike, Harry?” her voice was gentle, her eyes understanding and kind.

Harry’s sporadic changes in mood would be difficult, she thought to herself. She was itching to jot down a few notes, but kept her hands firmly in her lap as not to distract Harry or frustrate him more. She waited until he had finished speaking entirely before she began, “Diagnosing a patient is never my first step. My first step is to learn more about the person sitting across from me, to understand them a bit better. Discussing your history and your life help both of us, in getting to know each other and my understanding of you. You’re welcome to ask me whatever you wish as well if that makes you more comfortable.” She paused for a moment, her response measured and careful, “Harry, if you spoke of wanting to hurt yourself, that’s something that I would help you with. I am legally bound to a code of conduct stating I must report it, but my job is to help you understand those feelings within yourself. It’s not all black and white, Harry. My job, my position, may hold certain… stigma, but it’s not so defined all the time.”

She couldn’t say she was shocked by the teen’s constant change of heart, but it was off-putting in a way Dr. Harcourt couldn’t quite pinpoint. She knew Harry had plenty of reason to mistrust everyone around him, his name known and his enemies in power. “I’m a very patient woman, Harry. I expect you’d like to hear I began my career as a therapist because I wanted to help people. I’ll be quite honest when I tell you that wasn’t the case. I was fascinated by the human mind, the way it could so quickly influence a person’s actions, their emotions, how each person thinks differently, feels differently. I always had a skill with people and it became an interest as well. I combined the two and eventually realized I wanted to help people understand themselves properly, in a healthy way… if that makes sense.”

“So I suppose Harry,” she paused, trying to decide how to continue, pushing the tissues closer to him in an effort to be somewhat helpful. “I’m different because I’m not siding with anyone, I’ve no reason to judge you or dislike you. I’m a neutral party and I would hope you felt you could trust me.”

attainmysuccession:

Her tone of voice was difficult to differentiate. Monotone with an edge, Harry concluded. So Dr. Harcourt had spoken to Hermione, that made him think, rampantly. What was discussed? Where did the conversation go? How did Hermione perceive me, and does what she may or may not have said influence how this woman’s seeing me now? He simply remained standing, in the middle of the room, nodding in vague understanding of the words just uttered. 

He wanted to say something, anything, but he was stuck. The next string of words that fell from her mouth, however, succeeded in making Harry feel ridiculously self conscious. I don’t look well? Harry idly pondered, Merlin, help me, I probably look all sickly and frail. She’s going to think, no, KNOW that I’m a wreck and just ugh. He again wanted to make a break for the exit. That is until she spoke again. Moving slightly closer to the desk at which she sat, Harry nodded and then proceeded to take a seat on the couch adjacent.

After quite a bit of more than necessary silence, Harry broke it.

“I-I’m more than a specimen, you know, doctor.” he snapped, trembling. “I unders-s-tand that you have e-every intention to help, or maybe not, I don’t know, but please,” Harry took a large breath inwardly and continued “please, be aware thatI’m not broken. I’m not broken, but I want to be fixed.” Harry at this point had began to tear up, voice breaking. “I have t-tried, for so long to grasp even the faintest of understandings of myself, me as a whole. It seems impossible, I’m impossible.” And with that Harry let his head into his hands and began to sob.

Berating himself for essentially opening up to a stranger, Harry could not stand to look up to see her reaction, or lack there of for all he knew. Pouring his saline-interpreted frustration into his hands, he began to feel hot. Boiling hot. His skin felt like it was on fire and Harry was livid. He realized then he didn’t simply want her input, he craved it. He needed to be aware of her interpretation of what she thought was Harry Potter.

His emotions zoomed from upset and weary to anxious and anticipatory in damn near two seconds. He looked up at Dr. Harcourt, tear-stained face and all and waited adamantly for some source of revelation. What he was truly seeking from her, he didn’t know. He wasn’t so daft that he’d be searching an answer per se, though he yearned for some sort of assurance.

Not wanting to wait for a reply, Harry punctuated his urgency with a wavering, not at all intimidating, “well?!” Cursing himself for sounding like a dog who just had its tail stepped on, Harry let out a groan of distress and let his head fall back in his hands.

Dr. Harcourt had been so busy trying to see into the boy before her that she was surprised when he spoke again. Once she began to listen, his words surprised her even more. The urgency with which he spoke and the way his pain seemed to practically drip from every word, they seemed so much for a person of his age. His sobs cut through the tense silence in the office and Rosalind moved to stand.

This may even turn out to be a better surprise than Antonin Dolohov. She thought to herself as she plucked the box of tissues from the corner of her desk. She strode over to where Harry was seated and offered him a tissue, the box dangling casually from a manicured hand.

He turned to look up at her and she saw anxiety and frustration far beyond his years, she wanted to give a small smile of reassurance, a hand to his shoulder, anything, but her professional instincts took over. She placed the box on the coffee table and sat down across from him.

“Well?!”

She raised her eyebrows as she watched Harry retreat into himself again, settling herself comfortably in her own chair.

“Well…” Dr. Harcourt took a thoughtful pause, “I do quite understand that you are more than a specimen. Perhaps you misunderstand the work I do here, Mr. Potter. I am not here to judge or… ‘diagnose,’” she paused again. “Unless diagnosis is what the patient wishes. I am simply here to help sort or to… work through whatever you wish to accomplish here. I don’t always make the goals, my patients make their own.”

She watched Harry’s face, looking for signs of resistance. “So let’s start somewhere a bit simpler, shall we?” Rosalind gave a firm nod, “Tell me a bit about yourself, Harry.”

attainmysuccession:

The air in the room seemed heavy, tense. Dr. Harcourt’s voice made Harry jump, the calm, eased tone of voice made him uneasy. No you can’t help me. Harry thought rampantly. Remaining in the doorway, his thoughts continued, What will you do, talk to me? Have me open up, expose me? You don’t have the patience. You don’t have the understanding. Hell, I don’t have the understanding. Never have… Harry let his thoughts trail off as he made his way to the center of the foyer-esque waiting room.

Looking around, Harry’s breathing pattern became short and shaky. Each exhale was paired with a tremble of the hands and every inhale with an undulation of the torso. The room he was in branched out onto many different hallways, which Harry assumed lead to different interrogation rooms. The structured, immaculate layout of the building made Harry contort in sickly emotion. He didn’t like this, any of it, one bit.

Making unintentional eye contact with Dr. Harcourt, it was obligatory that he answer the question presented what seemed like years ago. What was he supposed to say? How does one even present a coherent sentence? Harry was too socially awkward for this. He knew he couldn’t do this. His mind was screaming at him to leave, urging him to take the ten or so steps to the door, slam it behind him, and run away.

Maybe that’s why he did the opposite. For all these years of his life he has ran away from his ailments. Constantly pushing the antagonizations, the hurt to the back of his mind and the bottom of his heart. It did nothing for him except make him explode. Now, reduced to a quivering mess in the middle of a waiting room, Harry thought he might change that cycle of self harm. Taking a big breath and mustering up all available courage, Harry spoke.

“I- I’m Harry P- Potter, I was r- referred to you by a friend of mine. Her- Hermione Granger? She told me she spoke to you?”

Dr. Harcourt’s eyes penetrated Harry’s attempt at a statuesque facade. He wondered if she could see him, all of him. His mind, his being. Harry felt sick. What could she see? What has she deduced in the mere fifteen minutes he’s been in the establishment? Nothing was just as plausible as everything. Harry had a feeling he was in for an enlightenment. 

Damn the things I do to achieve self worth.

The boy’s manner and nervousness were unsettling, and she watched with mild curiosity as he struggled. He seemed far less than interested in a session and also too unstable to go without. Her brows furrowed as the silence grew, not sure whether or not she should call the authorities or offer him a warm beverage and an hour of her time. He couldn’t be much older than twenty, if even, and he was most definitely not a Death Eater. He didn’t seem dangerous, although, one never really knows. She was about to speak again but she had barely begun to open her own mouth when he spoke.

“Ah, yes,” she nodded, remembering her conversation with the younger woman. “I spoke to Miss Granger a day or so ago. I’m so glad you stopped by.”

She saw the way his hands shook and the way his face continued to pale, “You don’t look well, Mr. Potter…”

When Dr. Harcourt had spoken with Hermione, she had wondered if the girl was overreacting, surely this boy couldn’t be as truly ill as the girl had said. She had rambled for a great deal of time, constantly concerned and horribly upset. She’d done her best to set the girl at ease and had continued with the rest of her work, but it was now clear things were far worse than Rosalind had anticipated.

“Why don’t you come in and sit down. We can talk… or… sit in silence, whichever seems most comforting to you.”