"Haven't you heard

That I'm the new cancer?

Never looked better

And you can't stand it."
-- There's A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought Of It Yet, Panic! At The Disco

.XoX.

"This was a terrible idea," mutters Harry under his breath. Tom would've told him that. Likely anyone would have told him that, but didn't. Probably , he figures, they're just as curious as to what I'd find.

Julian, dressed in all orange, grabs a cup off of the nearest goblin's tray "Dunno why you're saying that so soon," he says. He takes a sip and grimaces.

"So soon?"

"Oh, yeah. I reckon there's way worse things to come," he says absently, vanishing his cup.

"Like you'd know?"

"Mhm. I know these people."

Harry blinks. "What?" (Sick knows sick.)

"Their food, for example," says Julian. He shakes his head. "They remove the calories at the cost of the flavour. A shame, really."

"Not what I was--"

Julian points toward the front. "There's your girl," he says.

The Chrysalis Club had signed out a large side room for their 'meeting', though Harry would more accurately describe it as a party from the Twilight Zone. There's food and dancing and laughing, but something about it is all wrong. It is a room filled with so much orange it hurts his head to look at... and Harry wonders (perhaps unfairly) if it is purposeful.

Harry's getting attention. He moves through the crowd with thin patience and a death lock between his arm and Julian's, who seems not to mind. People ask if he is Harry Potter, the renowned author of their (bible ) shared text. He tells them repeatedly that no, he's just some random Jerry Ridge and he doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about, so sorry, but something in his voice, his posture, or the fact that Julian, the other Hogwarts' champion, is right beside him gives him away.

Katherine's name is tossed around more often than not.

For such a well-written, well-intended story, for such a good (in his opinion) character... Harry's really started to hate her.

Someone asks if Katherine is based on real-life events and Harry loses his shit. "Next person to ask me about Kath-freaking-ernie gets their teeth punched in," Harry snaps. Julian snickers quietly at his side. Someone in front of him opens their mouth to speak, but Harry doesn't let them. "You'd be first, oi, I swear to God. "

They put their hands up and back up a bit.

Getting to Mouton -- who is, as the Club leader, the very center of attention -- is a lot harder than Harry'd thought it'd be. He gets roped up in conversations and blocked at every possible turn.

It's like they're trying to get him to stay. On Mouton's orders, most likely -- and he wouldn't think her better than not to.

"It's a safe place, " someone is trying to tell him. "Normal people don't understand, and places like this give us a safe place to vent and be ourselves without the expectation to just... y'know, get better. "

And Harry can see how they got to that assumption. But he also sees anyone that does not have the stereotypical look of an eating disorder being pushed to the side. People who are fat or male or POC are sort of sectioned off as cliches inevitably form. Even for people who fit the look, there is not just venting going on.

Harry thinks that there is nothing safe about this safe space.

"Sell your lies to someone who can buy them," he snarls, dragging Julian by the elbow away from them.

"So you're... just always like this?"

Harry glares at the nearest vulture (a seventh year Slytherin who's never liked him, who Julian waves at). "Like what?"

"Hostile," supplies Julian.

Harry stands up straighter. "I," he says, tensely, "am trying not to be lately."

"It's hard to tell."

Your honesty is both refreshing and fucking not. "These people test my better nature."

"I thought it was personal," says Julian. "During the first time we talked, when you..."

Harry avoids his eyes. Go to Hell rings in his head. Fair. It wasn't a fair thing to say. "It... wasn't like that, Julian. I'm just..."

"Hostile?" finishes Julian.

Harry laughs, running a hand down his face. "Yeah," he chuckles. "Hostile. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, 'cause I'm just a salty boy."

Julian hums. They've stopped by the buffet tables.

Harry looks it over with a raised eyebrow. "I don't know what any of this shit is," he says, "but it ain't food."
"I know. What this food is, I mean," notes Julian, scouring the table with a small frown on his face. "It's... it's kinda like a staple."
"For what?"

"A stereotype, I'd say. A sterotypye of pro-ana groups. You've got your cucumbers and lettuce and celery. " He shudders. "And no dip. And then you've got black tea and coffee and water for drinks. Chewing gum. I mean, you see it right? They're supposed to be selling the image of a health and fitness group, but I look here and I look around and it's never been more obvious." It's never been more obvious. Like once upon a time, it was subtle.

Is that what you're saying, Julian?

(Sick knows sick.)

"You know a lot about pro-ana circles," notes Harry. He tilts his head. "I've never really been involved with them myself, so I'm not up to date on the dynamics."
"You haven't been involved with them... but they like to involve themselves with you, don't they?"

Harry turns his head away again. "I'd suppose."

"You get... defensive," is the word he settles on, "when someone brings up your book. But you got it published -- the writing contest people have been talking about had that as one of the rewards. You won. It was well written, like your class work is, but... but you're ashamed of it."

"I was stupid," says Harry. They begin walking away toward the front. "I was stupid and I made a mistake and now no one will let it go. That's all. That's the end of it."

Julian does not know how to take a hint. "But you got it published."

Harry turns towards him and unlatches his arm. He grabs the front of Julian's robe, balls them up in his fists, and insists, painfully, "I was twelve, Julian. I didn't know what I was doing or why I was doing it -- I was hurting. And I wrote what I knew -- because that's what artists say to do, you know: draw what you know -- and I hurt people. I hurt people because I was young and I was stupid and didn't know any better. I am not ashamed of my illness, Julian, I am afraid of it. Of what it can make me into, of what it can do to others." He releases Julian and gestures to the crowd of orange around them... some of them unabashedly listening in. He continues, quieter, "These people think they know what it is like. They think the side effects start at body weight and end at the medical effects of being underweight or purging or whatever. But it does not start there and it does not end there. They are alright with looking like monsters without ever considering they could become one."

"You aren't a monster, Harry," is said reassuringly, softly.

I am not a monster. Voldemort is a monster and Mouton is a monster. I am something else. I am complicit. There does exist grey morality... and most of the time, I fall on the darker side of things. "It doesn't matter. It's a mistake of mine. And I'm trying to make it better, to be better. I'm really trying, Julian."

"I know," says Julian. He grab both of Harry's hands and folds his arms in on himself until they ar forehead to forehead, a step away from a hug. "It's okay. And I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you so stirred up."

But Harry's not worried about that -- as far as he's concerned, Julian is forgiven and they're as good as even -- because Julian releases his hands and wraps his arms around him and. Harry's head settles in the crook of his shoulder.

Harry wonder when was the last time he was hugged.

"It's better if we just head out," says Julian. Harry feels Julain's chest rumble against his skull. Julian laughs a bit. "This place hasnt been good for either of us, really, and I think if we just asked the other champions, we could get some--"

"That," a voice rings out loudly, from ten or so feet away, "won't be necessary, Harry Potter."

Students murmur. It is almost like the parting of the Red Sea, the way people clear a path so quickly. The click of her shoes fills the room like water in the hull of a ship. She stops a few feet in front of them.

Harry releases himself from the hug slowly, soaking up the image -- and it is an almost angelic view; her, as something divine, and the people around her followers, if insignificant to her entirely -- with narrowed eyes.

"Mouton," Harry says, lowly, nearly a threat.

Julain says nothing.

"Harry Potter," she greets. She nods her head at Julian. "And Mr. Jackson, I see. A pleasure to talk to you again, sir, a pleasure."

"The pleasure," Julian says meekly, "is mine.

"It is lovely -- kind of you, yes -- that you would escort him to me. I'm so glad the both of you exell at following instructions. But me and Harry here," she smiles with teeth too white to be natural; her eyes the way a shark eyes its prey, as something cruel and predatory. "We have business to discuss. In private, I'm afraid."

The way she speaks about Julian is anafarious. Foul. The way Julian tells him, softly and sadly, that he has to go now, and the way that Julian leaves... that's all fucked, too.

Harry Potter's gut feelings and mysteries do not mix.

Someone is hiding something here... albeit, not very well.

But he is given no further time to explore it as Mouton turns on her feel, glancing behind her shoulder at him, and walks away with the implication he's to follow.

Students part in front of her and as Harry walks forward, people fill in the space he'd left. Yes, thinks Harry. There's nothing right here.

.xox.

Mouton's dorm -- a repurposed old staff room -- is too normal. A normal bed. A normal desk. A normal couch and normal books and Harry looks at the place expecting there to be, somewhere, a hidden butterfly or just a little too much orange to be natural. He is sorely mistaken.

She smooths down the front of her robe and sits at the kitchen table. "Sit," she says.

Harry, begrudgingly, takes his place. The chair is normal, too. There is nothing sinister about the home of a cult leader and perhaps that's the only abnormality here.

"You said you weren't coming, Harry." She places her arm on the table and her cheek in her head, looking at him intently. "I must say, it is a surprise you cae."

Don't cap. You knew I'd come. You knew I'd have to. He screws up his jaw tight and says nothing. If you do not engage in their bullshit, they'll be forced to get to the point eventually.

"You were the only one not wearing orange. I couldn't help but notice... it must have brought a lot of attention to you, if I had to guess."

You don't have to do anything. "I didn't get the memo."

"Julian did," she says. "And he didn't tell you."

"I don't get your point." He does, but that whole thing about not engaging in bullshit... "Tell me the contents of the First Task."

"Ah, yes, that. Our deal."

"You'd sworn an oath, so I'm told. So I don't really think you'd forogetten this."

"No," she says, smiling. "I hadn't. I had wanted to ask you something, propose something, Harry."

"Cool. Don't think I agreed to that, though."

"I ask that you hear me out, Harry, that's all."

"Tell me about the First Task," Harry repeats.

She shales her head, tutting. "So problematic..." Says you, thinks Harry. "But, alright. I am not a liar, after all." Harry raises a disbelieving eyebrow at that but says nothing. "Have you ever read the book series The Hunger Games?"

"A few years back. Why?"

"Well, it mentions directly the clue word -- don't know if you've forgotten -- Mockingjay. A mix of the mocking bird and the jabbery jay, known to repeat whatever conversation it heard."

"Dunno how a songbird relates to the Task."

"I was getting there. You're too impatient."

"So-so."

"The Task will contain the version of them in the second book. They will repeat phrases, sounding like they are from your loved ones -- not that you'd know anything about that -- being tortured."

"So that's why a gun wouldn't work," he mutters. He ignores Mouton's slight. It is meant to make him angry, insecure about the supposed reality in the statement, but there's nothing supposed about it -- it's just a lie. "So, then, I need to make myself unable to hear them and storm forward to do whatever I need to do to complete the Task? That about it?"

"You'll need to retrieve a large golden egg from within their forest," she says. "And, no. It won't be that easy. You are forced to listen to them, because within the birds will be one or more telling you the location of the egg."

Clever. Rewarding bravery. Also inconvenient. "Your suggestion, then?"

"Know that the recording are not real. They will sound real, feel real, but, in the end, it is all thematics. And I know a thing or two about thematics. Fold to the pressure and lose... or withstand, and win."

"No real danger, then? Even if I did lose." Not worth coming here, not if his life was not at stake. But it will be useful information regardless. He'll tell Luna in hs next letter. And Julian, too, because he escorted Harry here without reward and he deserves something out of this endeavor.

"No," she says. "Not physically. But I gather, for someone like you, this might prove tricker ground."

She knows what she's hinting too -- the wording is to percise not be.. And too vague not to be intentional. "Why do you do that?" asks Harry, exasperated.

"Mhm?"

"Talk like you know what you're referring to but never say anything exactly. It's tiring. It's obnoxious." He'd say it is a Snake thing to do, but all Snakes are regulated by Cedric. They are not this. She is not Slytherin; she's just fucking evil.

"May I be outright with you then, Harry?"

Harry doesn't like the inclination of her voice. "Depends what you're being outright about."

"Join my Club."

An obvious suggestion, but it is off putting that she would state it so, as she said, outrightly. "Bruh."

"I'm serious," she insists, standing up from her chair. "Normal people do not understand. The things that your mind produces should not be censored -- and here, they won't be. Why do you dim your creativity?"

"My creativity," snarls Harry, "is dangerous." And can you really call what is surface level creative?

"Don't you want to be understood, Harry? Loved, despite your illness?"

"You mean because of."

There is comfort in agony if it is all you know. The people in the party room outside are lonely. Their only friends are their despair -- and now, the despaired.

Harry gets it. He understands feelings he does not have because he's a writer, after all, that's his job.

But there is comfort in agony if it all you know and it isn't all he's known. He has Luna and Tom and Cedric and Julian. Someone spoke about how normal people -- and he hates the use of that word, normal, he really does -- listen to you talk about your illness and decide that you MUST get better RIGHT NOW. No one has ever done that to him. He's lucky, in a way, not to be this woman's target audience. He is lucky not to have fallen prey even when he was.

"Maybe I don't need to be understood to be loved," says Harry quietly. "Maybe I'm not like you."

Mouton is insistent. It is not like she has invested anything in him, in the possibility of him joining... but maybe she has. He has no idea what all she has promised her Club. Or Gellrt, for that matter."The work you have done for my movement, and the work that you could continue to do, if given the chance, the recognition you could gather--"

"I don't want the chance," says Harry, standing up. "I don't want any of these big accomplishments to come from the fact I am writing about my illness -- I want to be reconginzed from the pure merit of my writing. You're tainted. You've tainted me. And I'm done."

"I have so much to offer you, Harry. My people are not your enemy."

I know. But you are. "You don't want me," says Harry.

"I gave you a present, don't you recall? All for you. "

"No." It is said calmly. "All for the idea of me. All for this caticure of EDNOS -- the kind of EDNOS that I do not have -- all for Katherine. I need you to understand something: One of the main notions of a good writer is the ability for their main characters not to be self inserts. I am not Katherine. I am not like her. You want the reality of what I wrote? Then go fucking read it. It's the best you're getting. It's the best I've got."

Mouton sags in her chair. "You are valuable, Harry. There is nothing worthless to you."
People like you only value me when I am convenient to them. When I am not, Mouton... I wonder what you would think of me if I was not. "I fulfilled my part of our deal. You, yours. I do not think this be the last I hear from you. But I sure hope it is."

.XoX.

"You boring, repetitive, fucks

All you girls look the same

You do not think to think

That maybe life is more than empty a hole where your heart once sat

This one pulls the trigger

And this one says it doesn't hurt

You say Fuck the police

Without looking down at the blue you wear

And you will see that your illogical processes need some reconstruction

Or you won't

And you will die

Boring, repetitive,

Fucks."

-- Harry Potter, "Ace of Cups."