HARRY'S P.O.V

It was never going to be easy, Harriet Potter would be a fool thinking it would be. Still, as the Bombarda left her mouth, as the magic trailed from the pit of her stomach to the tail of her wand and out, that glimmer of foolish hope that it could be that easy burned bright and hot. She only had a few seconds to enjoy that sentiment, watching avidly as the flash of colour burst to life, zooming through the air and hitting Kilgrave right in the sternum. Then that hope died, crumpled and shriveled as her own feet lifted off the floor just as his did, as she too went sailing through the air, limbs askew before her back met gravel and mud in an almighty bang and flair of sizzling pain, never mind not having a spell cast at her.

"When one gets a paper cut, the other will also, in the exact same place…"

Bubbling pain erupted from the cavity of her chest, radiating out in sharp spikes and jolts, in the same spot she had hit Kilgrave in. Harry groaned as she flopped to her front, just knowing she had a broken rib or two. Apparently, it wasn't going to be just paper cuts they shared, but all the hurts and owies. Shitty-death, that meant Harry couldn't hit him with any spells, not if she didn't want the effects to befall herself too, which made the whole 'being a witch' thing pretty redundant in the first place.

Heaving herself up to a shaky squat, one leg bent awkwardly, her muscles stubbornly spasming when she tried to stand. Fuck, she had put way too much power behind that Bombarda and now she was reaping the benefits. Before she could try and stand once more, Kilgrave's voice echoed out from the great yonder, lost somewhere over the fountain.

"Sangria!"

Harry had no time to wonder what the fuck the maniac was talking about before reality hit her squarely in the jaw like a back-kick from a kangaroo. A code word. The newly engaged couple who had been dithering around each other and the elderly gentlemen pair lost in a game of chess froze before they stood in sync, all walking over to a quickly recuperating Kilgrave with blank, porcelain faces. It was unnatural, all fake and burnt plastic, their movements. No wonder they hadn't reacted to Harry's transformation or hers and Kilgrave's brief stint at being airborne… They had been under his power all along. As they lined up like little toy soldiers on the battlefront, they reached into their coats, their purse, their trousers and pulled out guns, the hammers clicking home ringing in Harry's ears as they all pointed the nozzles to their temples.

A set up. Trap. She had walked right into his spindly hand and had not the idea or intelligence to notice his fingers wrapping around her, squeezing. She was a Merlin damned idiot. Kilgrave had made a bloody fail safe and Harry had failed to see it. Of course he had, he had lived this long out of the long reach of the law, flying under her kinds radar, being tracked and hunted. He likely had contingency plans for his bloody bathroom breaks.

Even so, Harry wasn't down and out, not quite yet and if anything, she would make sure to give the sneaky bastard a run for his money. After all, she had stolen a prized stone, found a room lost for centuries, was an accomplice in a convicts escape, ran illegal classes right under the nose of a ministry official, fought as a child through a war, broke into the most secure bank in the world and left on the back of a dragon, deceived, cheated and finally killed a meglomaniac… She too had a deceptive, cunning streak a mile wide. It's time she put it to use.

Managing to stand finally, Chest still shaking and burning from the pain emanating from her ribs, Harry angled her body just so from Kilgrave and his line of meat shields, delving her hand into her back pocket and plucking out her phone. Blindly, she began to scroll through her contacts, or what she hoped was her contacts and not her picture gallery, hoping being hope that she clicked the right one when she pressed dial. The vibration from her phone let her at least know she was ringing somebody.

"Whatever it was you just threw at me, try a round two and these people will let their grey matter flutter into the wind with a bang and splat. Now Rhetta… Come here."

One heartbeat. Two. Three. Four. Five. Harry smirked at Kilgrave, where he came to stop just at the side of the fountain, his little fail safes trailing him, a dark, insidious little chuckle bubbling up and out her constricting throat. From her stance a few feet away from him, she could see the downward twitch of a lip, a tightening of a tendon in his jaw.

"I'm going to have to say hell no."

He scrambled then, not physically, he didn't seem the type to display such behaviour, but she could definitely picture the cogs in his mind grinding and smoking at the monkey wrench she just threw into them. He really couldn't comprehend that his power didn't work on her, not when he bit out through clenched teeth gnarled words and she could see his hands ball into fists as he tried to casually stand, shoving the limbs into the pockets of his coat to hide his frustration.

"I told you to come here!"

Harry sidestepped a few times, making sure to keep her front to him and her phone at her back, rubbing the salt into the wound as she showed him she could move, just not towards him… And that was her choice. She couldn't help it, not really, she could be an antagonistic little shit when the mood struck, and this was an opportunity to show this rotten thing that for once, he wasn't in control. Her gaze slid to the little lambs he was using… Well, not fully in control.

"Would you just look at that, your power doesn't work on me. Does it upset you? Make you angry? Do you feel like crying? I'm not one of your little toys Veela, your puppet strings won't latch themselves onto me."

His façade of casual indifference did fracture then, his lip curling into an ugly twisted snarl, all promise of vicious bite and keen words. No doubt Harry's own sharp smirk spoke of dark and ugly promises. He must have felt the walls closing in on his back right then, encapsulating him, cornering him. Harry knew that feeling all too well. However, that glint of challenge, glee and something fiery that took home in his eyes unsettled her. Deeply so. It spoke of games about to be played, cards hidden up sleeves, a new challenge to try and climb. Still, he cocked his head and eyed her.

"Veela? Can't say I've heard that swear before. Rolls off the tongue though, like many things can."

The innuendo was lost on her, especially when the truth of him began to become clear in her mind. He… He didn't know what he was. Now it was Harry's turn to blink like a fawn soaking in the sunlight for the first time. Subconsciously, she took a single step closer, only noticing such when he took one backward. Had he always been by himself then? How had he survived this long without knowing what he was? Was that even possible? What did he think he was if he did not know? To grow up, doing the things they could, never knowing… Harry physically snarled and growled as she adamantly stomped and battered down an emotion beginning to make itself present in her chest. No. She did not feel any sympathy. Not to a man like Kilgrave. Still, her inner questions birthed themselves against her will in the air that was hanging heavy between them.

"You don't know what you are, do you? You've never known? Just how lonely have you been?"

It was the wrong thing to say, especially the last part as his nose crinkled and a glint of fang pressed into his lip ever so slightly as anger took a hold of him. She heard the beep from her phone, a signal to get her head back in the game, just loud enough to alert her that the person she had rung had finally picked up. Mentally, she sent her thanks up to the clouds and to the people she was sure were still looking down upon her, looking out for her.

To make sure this was heard, Harry stormed forward, stopping short of Kilgrave, giving him just enough space to know she wasn't about to attack, Merlin forbid he gave the word for the shots to start firing and he went through with using his meat shield because she slipped and became hasty, she didn't need any more blood on her hands, but close enough for his voice to carry to her phone, still pressed at her back. Thankfully, use his voice he did as he nearly yelled at her.

"It doesn't matter, I know what I'm capable of and that's all that matters. Perhaps I'll give you a second-hand demonstration of it. Would you like that Rhetta?"

Harry's heart picked up as she looked at the people holding their death in their own hands, so ready to pull the trigger on the word of a stranger. One wrong word, one wrong move and they'd be gone, dead. Perhaps the thought hurt her because she was selfish, she just didn't want anymore ghosts to haunt her soul and creep into her dreams through her tears. Perhaps it hurt because she felt a kinship with them, having to sacrifice yourself on some other's orders. Perhaps it hurt because somehow, someway, her magic fit with a man who was so willing to do this. What did that say about her? Nothing, if she didn't let it.

"You're right, it doesn't matter. None of this matters. This place, central park near the western fountain, will be where your sick little sadistic games die."

He didn't question her weird wording, Harry only hoped her voice had carried far enough to be picked up from the phone behind her back. Now she only had to stall him long enough and figure out a way to incapacitate him without herself. Shit, how do you hurt someone who was physically linked to your own wellbeing? What could she survive but he couldn't… No… The risk was too high, surely she couldn't, wouldn't? However, when he spoke up once more, that glint shining brighter then ever, pushing at Harry's own determination as if daring her to follow through, that little voice in the back of her head who always told her to do the outlandish thing picked up in volume, cementing the little demented plan that was taking form in her mind.

"You really have trouble listening, don't you? One more bright flash from that little wooden stick of yours aimed at me and these people are dead. You don't want that, do you Rhetta? Not when we could be such good friends."

She really shouldn't… But perhaps, if she did, she could finish this whole fiasco before it went further. After all, death was nothing new to Harry and if this went south and ended how it very well might end, she would only be solidifying what should have happened back in her nursery, back in that forbidden forest. She had always been living on borrowed time, she knew that, always had. Maybe the clock had finally struck midnight.

"And you have trouble understanding consequence's, don't you? You should have ran. You shouldn't have looked me in the eye, but you have and now we both have to deal with the repercussions. The thing is, I won't ever have to touch you, fire at you to finish this. No spell will be aimed at you and this is still the end of the line. The clock has ran out Kilgrave."

He growled, something other in the noise rattling Harry at the core, opening his mouth to say something when Jessica's voice rang out, clear, bright, like a beam of sunshine through thick, grey clouds.

"Harry! Run!"

Harry could see her storming through the crowd, hair billowing in the wind, a tall blonde man and woman following close behind her. Kilgrave glimpsed them at the same time, eyebrows raising high before shadows painted his face black with unadulterated rage. When he turned back to face her, he spotted the phone she was now holding up, Jessica's name flashing on the phone screen.

"Game over."

Harry smirked sadly as she lifted her wand. Kilgrave went to grab her, only managing to wrap his hand around hers to pull the wand away. When their skin touched, Harry felt his magic, his calling, flare into her in torrents and waves, lapping and skimming over the surface of her own, melding and dancing. The world span, her heartbeat wasn't alone, her thoughts not her own and something unseen but oppressively heavy jabbed itself through her chest, like a chain, tying her to something… Someone. Kilgrave. The channel opened and swallowed her whole. Everything she was, had been, will be, gone, eaten.

It was like he was inside of her, under her skin, it was like she was inside of him, here and there and everywhere. For that split moment, his thoughts were hers and hers were his, what she was seeing was what he was seeing, his heartbeat shadowed hers and there was no hope in distinguishing where one began and the other ended. Fuck, Fleur hadn't mentioned anything about skin contact… Then again, she likely believed, like Harry, that there was no chance of Harry being the mate, and therefore, the information being redundant.

She managed to hold onto just enough self-identity, her own thoughts and feelings, to pull her hand close to herself, his still holding on tight, as she pressed the tip to the soft underside of her jaw. The world blinkered around her, she was him, she was herself and she was also something new, something mixed and alive and breathing and real… And she fought, by Merlin did she fight to find herself once more as she dug the wand in deeper, eyes screwing shut as she tried to grasp the slippery tendrils of herself. She always finished what she had started, this would be no different. She only hoped she would survive, you know what they say, third times a charm and the moniker of master of death was always uneasily held upon her shoulders.

"I always preferred the colour green. Avada Kedavra!"

Then the world flashed emerald and just as Sirius had said so many years ago, it felt just like going to sleep.

She was a child again, thin, starving, bruised and left in the dark where forgotten and lost things went to rot. Naughty Harry! Freak! Get in the cupboard! Her knuckles hurt from banging relentlessly on her door, voice hoarse and aching from her shouting. They wouldn't come. They wouldn't let her out. They never did.

"Please, Please! Let me out! I promise I'll be a good girl!"

Her six-year-old self sounded too old and too frail.

Suddenly, she was a boy, young too, in nothing but a hospital gown in a bleached out white room. Be a good boy! Stop screaming! This is for your own good! She was jerking, fighting, snarling and yelling and yet she knew it wasn't her doing it, like she was a backseat driver in this body, a phantom at the back of the mind forced to watch and endure the horror show taking place. Still, she acted as if this was her body, this was her dream, her memory. In a way, in this weird world she found herself in, it was hers. Her pain. Her voice. Her darkness.

The people restraining her, his, their wrists and arms slammed them down on a metal table, cold and frigid, just like their inquisitive eyes when they 'studied' them, wrenching their hospital gown open. They had just enough time to jilt their head to the side to see the mammoth needle heading towards their bared spine. Somehow, someway she knew, just knew, they wouldn't listen, they never did.

"Please Mommy! Don't! I promise I'll be a good boy!"

His, her, their voice broke like it was made from glass.

She was herself again, eleven years old and curled up in Gryffindor's dormitory. Only, she wasn't just herself, she could feel another inside of her, acutely aware of the presence this time. A part of her. There, right in the back of her mind… No, not just her mind, everywhere, watching, waiting.

Fear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself. That was what Hermione had said wasn't it? Yet, as she laid awake while all others slumbered soundly around her, no matter how many times she let the word slip through her lips and fog into the air, the word still held that same uneasy feeling that sank her gut and clogged her veins. After all, the name of an emotion wasn't a name at all, was it? It didn't have a name, didn't have a face to blame, only a feeling.

"Alone, alone, alone, alone…"

Drummed out to the pace of their heart beat and sleep did not come for them that night.

They were tied down to a hospital bed, wrists and ankles sore and red from chaffing, blood caking in some places. Something weighty and cold was clamped around the lower part of their face, tight and suffocating… A muzzle, silencing their screams, their pleas, their words. they, the hospital staff, they were afraid of their words.

The thin cotton sheet did nothing to quell the chill or quaking in their bones. The room was empty sans them and the bed, only a little window in the far corner letting in any form of light. They spent most of their nights looking out that window, watching the moon and stars twinkle and dance. They were their friend, the moon and stars, their only friend and when they were here, they weren't so alone.

However, it was not so this night. This night the sky was bare, empty, bereft. Alone. They were alone and the feeling wasn't something they ever wanted to feel again, but they would, oh, they would. It came every night in this hellish place. Sleep did not come.

Harry loved the colour green. Deeply. Irrevocably. So much so for such a silly thing as a colour. "Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign Harry, even in the wizarding world." They thought she was insane. Perhaps she was. Perhaps they were insane and she was the only sane one around. Perhaps she was Alice and they were all the red queen, come to stamp out her green roses and bleed them red. We're all mad here.

However, she heard the voice, with its curling vowels and hissing consonants and she thought of the colour green. She thought of the snakes in the Dursley's backyard, her first and only friends for a majority of her life. For something so silly, Green had shaped much of her life and would continue to do so, for good and bad, and she could not part with the colour in fear she would part with some large chunk of herself. Her eyes, the spell that took her parents, the colour of the door handle of her cupboard, the colour of those snakes, the colour that came to mean both death and life to Harry. Soon, even despite being in Gryffindor, Harry began to wear green socks, or vests, or corded bracelets. It made her feel safe.

They, however, loved the colour purple. It was the colour of the undershirt of one of the nurses, Freda. She gave him, her, them a smile sometimes. Gave them a bit of extra porridge and when the tests began once more, she would sometimes secretly hold their hand, or gently wipe their tears away before the others shoved them back into that vile room. It was the only form of human kindness, compassion and affection they had known for a long, long time. So long in fact, they couldn't remember a time out of the hospital, couldn't remember anything but this life. Perhaps there wasn't. 'I can't go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then' Alice said.

Purple was also the colour of the sky in dusk, right before the moon and stars came out and he, they would no longer be alone in their dank, cramped, locked hospital room. Purple wasn't blue, like the hospital gown they were forced to wear and the surgeons taunting masks. It wasn't red and dark like the blood spilled. It wasn't as stark and hurtful as the white hospital rooms and operation lamps flashed into their face. Purple was not being alone. Purple was kindness. Purple was safety.

Harry was herself again, running through the department of mysteries, but something was off. Weird. Wrong. She wasn't fifteen anymore. She was grown. She shouldn't be here, running… Again. However, she was always running, wasn't she? From the memories. From the ghosts. From the blood spilled threatening to drown her. So, she did what she did best. She ran, she ran and ran and ran until her muscles threatened to collapse.

Just as she turned a corner, scrambling to get away from the howling deatheaters, from the haunting of her own twisted mind, she bolted into a clearing that shouldn't be there. Nothing here was right. Nothing here was real. Or it was all too right. Too real. Too truthful. Harry couldn't tell anymore.

It looked like the forbidden forest, but inexplicably not. Her heart thudded in her chest as she eyed the place up, spotting another opening on the other side of the clearing. It looked like hospital hallways. A maze. A labyrinth. Just like the one she had escaped. Dank and grim and dark, so dark. Someone, very much like she had, came bolting down and into the clearing, falling short in the dewy grass at the change of scenery.

This wasn't a memory. It wasn't a dream. It was something… Other. Her legs started to move just as the other persons did, drawing them closer as if they had been negatively and positively charged. Magnets. North and south pole. Opposites, yet the same. She was only a few steps away when she got a good look at him in the dim light of the midnight forest. She knew those eyes, that sardonic twist of lips, that quaffed hair and yet, she couldn't put a name to it. She knew it as deeply as she knew herself somehow.

Right then, right there, he was made of moon dust. Stagnant. Cold. Alone in the sky with the only light being that which reflected off it from the sun. Just how lonely have you been? He couldn't generate his own light, he lost that ability a long time ago. He couldn't make his own warmth, only ever knowing the cold, void space they both called home. He couldn't stop being alone, because when things got too close, they fell into his gravity well and burned up, scarring his surface. He had tried to make friends out of asteroids and had only destroyed them.

Right then, right there, she was made of star fire. Hot and bright and burning herself out. Too fast. Too giving. She would explode eventually. Stars were pretty to look at, but their light was cold, too far away to reach and when they went supernova, they ate everything that was in their path. However, sometimes, when the skies aligned just right, the moon and stars danced together, not alone, not cold. An empty void filled with sparkling light.

Giggling broke out in the frigid air and Harry could only watch as two little beings manifested themselves into the clearing. One was a little boy, hair shaved short, scars littering the scalp. He was barefoot and clad in only a hospital gown, little electrodes stuck at his temple. Only, he was made of thick, decadent purple smoke. He smiled all toothily, crooked but innocent, as he danced around the other one.

The other one, well, that one stalled her. It was all green lightning and crackling emerald fire… You don't get smoke without a fire…And it was her, back in her seven-year-old body with knobbly knees, cropped curls, bruised skin and Dudley's too big and holey shirt. The boy picked up the girl's arm as they giggled and danced around each other, twirling and swirling and blurring into one mass until you couldn't tell where one began and the other ended.

Magic. That girl was her magic and that boy was the moon man's who was standing before her. Slowly turning to face him, Harry saw him raise his hand, placing it palm outwards and fingers extended. Yet again, Harry couldn't stop her own limb from mirroring the movement and just as skin brushed skin, the little dancing boy and girl exploded, swallowing them in a mushroom cloud of mauve and shamrock.

JESSICA'S P.O.V

Harry was laid prone across Jessica's torn up couch. The woman had been out cold for the last twenty-four hours, her shallow breathing the only sign of life as she barely moved, twitched or groaned. Wherever her mind had wondered off too, it was far, far, far away from here and Jessica didn't know whether to be thankful for it or to curse the young woman. What the hell had she been thinking? Then again… What had Jessica been thinking?

Sitting at her desk, Jessica poured herself another shot… Or three of rum, downing it as soon as the liquor settled in the glass. Just as her glass smashed back down on wooden desk, Harry Jerked up into a sitting position, hand outreached and mumbling something about moons and green children. Jessica only sighed as she poured herself a full glass of rum. Harry took in the room around her, only settling when she recognized her surroundings, hand dropping as the other rubbed at her forehead harshly, eyes screwing tight as she swivelled to slump against the back of the couch.

"I'm guessing I survived from the amount of pain I'm currently in."

Jessica scoffed.

"Yeah, you're alive, but you look like shit."

When Harry stood, she was trembling, violently, as she hastily dashed for the stockpile of alcohol Jessica had on her side table, not bothering with a glass as she snapped the neck of a bottle of vodka clean off and began downing the entire thing like it was holy water. Jessica winced. Whatever went down between her and Kil-… Him before she had shown up had rattled Harry, enough for her to be trying to drown herself in thirty percent. Jessica wasn't sure she wanted to know what had transpired. But she would have to, especially if she wanted to help Hope Shlottman anytime soon.

However, silence still reigned supreme as Harry drank her fill before anger took over her form, Jessica watching as she lobbed the bottle at the far wall, glass and vodka raining down. She began swearing then, cursing and throwing, even using that… Magic of hers to send Jessica's table sailing and crumbling into the very same wall she had sent the Vodka to die on. After a lifetime, when the fire and coal inside Harry died down, she began to crash, sliding down a wall, legs cramped at her chest as her eyes glazed over, voice deadpan and contrary to her behaviour.

"What happened? Is the Veela… Is he dead?"

Jessica told her the truth. It was the only thing she could do.

"No. He was for a while… So where you, but you both came around to breathing eventually."

Jessica remembered the green flash, running over to their crumpled forms, finding no pulse or breath in site and dammit, for one horrid, vile moment, Jessica had been glad. He was dead and it was over and nothing else mattered. Hope didn't matter. Harry's own suicidal death hadn't. Jessica had hated herself then, for feeling such a way. But that hadn't stopped her from feeling it all the same. Nevertheless, as she, Trish and Simpson began to drag Kilgrave away, under the pretence of a hospital visit, it took a total of twenty minutes before he began to heave in a breath, Harry likely mimicking him at the exact same time. Everything from there had gone to shit. No, that wasn't truthful. It had all been complete shit since the beginning.

"Shit… Shit, shit, shit, fuck!"

Jessica shook her head as Harry violently turned and punched the wall, her voice spitting venom. For one split second, in a way, she had celebrated Harry's death because it had meant Kilgrave's demise too and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't meet the woman's eyes, couldn't look in her direction. What kind of fucked up piece of crap was she?

"You did your mojo and it didn't work. The real problem here is how you went solo after him. You took a shot with that green blast-y thing and it did jack shit."

Jessica was deflecting again, it's what she did best. She couldn't admit she felt partially responsible for this. She couldn't admit that she was disappointed it didn't work, even if it meant Harry's life in payment and she sure as hell couldn't admit her own part she played in this whole failure. But she had to.

"I didn't aim the spell at him, I aimed it at myself! It's the bloody killing curse, it kills anything it is thrown at!"

Jessica's hand stalled as it reached for her glass, her eyebrows drawing down tight and locking into place.

"I'm not following… You tried to off yourself? How was that supposed to stop him?"

Harry pushed off from the wall then, pacing between wall to wall, looking all the more like a trapped, injured animal. Perhaps she was.

"Because we're linked!"

Jessica dropped her glass back down, running a tired hand down her face as she swallowed the burning liquid. They were going in circles, never-ending.

"Start. From. The. Beginning."

Harry stopped her pacing, shooting Jessica a keenly sharp look. Jessica knew that look, had seen it on her clients all the time. She was debating on whether to tell her or not. Jessica couldn't blame her, if Harry hadn't have screwed up today, Jessica would have. All because both of them had decided that secrecy would lead to a more peaceful resolution, a resolution without death… And well, look how well that had turned out. Harry must have seen something in her face that made her sequester as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Kilgrave… He's what is known as a muggle Veela. They need no wand but can still do… Unnatural things. They're notoriously unstable and emotionally volatile creatures. They always have a gimmick, a talent, we call it a calling. Us wizards and witches have a spell could Imperio, it practically makes us able to control another person, we say jump, they jump. Only, it's outlawed. Rightfully so. That's Kilgrave's calling. To have a creature with such a calling as a muggle Veela is highly danger-"

Jessica bit the inside of her lip until she tasted copper pennies, nausea tickling its way up her throat. Harry could, if she had wanted to, do what Kilgrave could do and the idea of more of Harry, more of the people capable of such a feat made her feet itchy, made her want to run. Maybe she should have stayed dead… No. That wasn't Jessica speaking, that was the fear. She wouldn't let it control her, not any longer. Harry could have done it, but she hadn't, not once, and that spoke volumes. Jessica fell back into her default mode. Sarcasm.

"I know just how dangerous it is."

Harry winced, looking apologetic when she had no need to be, stumbling through her words to try and switch back to the whole meaning of this conversation that was slipping through Jessica's grasp.

"Right… Yeah. Of course. Either way, these muggle Veelas, left unchecked and unmated-"

"Unmated? Are they some sort of fucking animal kingdom species?"

Harry's eyes grew hard then, yet, even as they were looking at her dead on, Harry must have been seeing something else, something only housed in her mind. The names of people where lost on Jessica, but the meaning was clear. Don't underestimate them. Don't assume. Don't guess.

"Yes. They're not human, not fully. I'm not human either. We look human, we walk, dress, talk just like you, like muggles, but never make the mistake of thinking that is what we are. The most important thing that separates us from muggles is feeling. Feeling is what powers us, makes us able to do what it is we do. Wizards and witches, Veelas, we feel deeper, stronger… More irrationally and we often became obsessed with a feeling. Tom Riddle, his fear of death became so strong, so extreme, he went to such lengths to eradicate that fear. He killed, maimed and did things only possible from your deepest, darkest nightmares. Snape's love for my mother lead him through decades of torture, darkness and lies that even till the very end, bleeding out in my arms, he could never let that love go. Dumbledore's need for control lead him to a life of using people like pawns with the only moral justification he sold himself being it was for the greater good. Look at me, really look at me, shit hits the fan and I automatically think self-sacrifice and suicide will fix everything. I can't help it, the feeling… It drowns me… Eats me…Till it's all I can do…"

She was lost somewhere inky and oily and Jessica didn't know how to drag her back. So, she tried to drag her back onto topic, hoping to get that foul shadow lurking in the corner of her vibrant eyes to wither away back into nothingness.

"So, Kilgrave isn't human, trust me, you don't have to preach that to me."

Harry shook her head, curls bouncing, as if she could physically push her thought away. Jessica knew what that was like. It never worked. It only held them at bay. Ire and wrath took the place of that shadow, and weirdly, Jessica was just glad that dank thing was gone.

"But you're not seeing the consequences here. Kilgrave is a Veela with a calling, normally, they mate young, in their late teens at the very latest, to a witch or wizard that has a magical core, something their calling can bond to and ground itself. If they don't mate, they go insane, they rampage, sometimes burning villages or towns down, other times more subtly, like weaving a pathway of used and abused people in their wake. Veelas have the innate need to physically manifest their inner world into the real one. It's instinctual for them. They feel sad, they make people sad. They get angry, they make others angry or destroy things. They feel used and abandoned… They… Well, just look at what Kilgrave has been up to."

Jessica bit back the sharp retort that what Kilgrave was, what he did, was anything but natural or instinctual. But now was not the time or place to nit-pick at wording choice, and so she let the anger simmer in the blackness of her bowels.

"So, Kilgrave is a Veela, an unmated one by the sound of it and because he's going off the deep end, he's trying to drag the rest of us down with him?"

Harry wouldn't meet her eye, not as she strolled to the window, peering out and down to the people scuttling below, none the wiser to just how big and how dangerous their world really was. Sometimes, most times, Jessica envied them and their ignorance.

"Was… Was unmated."

Jessica huffed and scowled.

"And you've lost me again. I thought you just said they go insane when they aren't 'mated', or whatever else it is."

Jessica could see Harry's shoulders tense, plains becoming rigid and hard, the trembling gone and all that was left was stone.

"They do, Kilgrave was falling down the rabbit hole… Until I walked up to him."

It took a while for the meaning to hit home, but when it did, Jessica exploded.

"No… No, no, no, no! You're not saying what I think you're saying!"

What did it mean? Was Harry under his influence? Could she hear him? Could he hear her? Harry whirled on her, face guarded but nostrils flared and words searing.

"It's rare! Do you know how hard it is to find a magical core that fits a calling? They need to be near identical. I had no fucking clue that his would fit with mine! Do you think I wanted this?! I've had one mad man in my mind already, and now I have one permanently glued in there! I know what he's done, what he's willing to do and somehow, he still fits in with my magic! Mine! Do you know what that realisation feels like?! Huh?"

Jessica stood up, fist clenching at her side. She wanted to punch something. To pulverize it. Turn it to dust.

"So what?! You two are, what was it you called it, linked now? Mated?! What the fuck does that mean?! Is that why the spell didn't work? The killing thing? Can he see what your fucking seeing?!"

Harry began pacing again and it took everything within Jessica not to trail her, not to slam her up into a wall and let her fists fly… But it wasn't Harry's fault. There would have been no way to know and now it was all too late. The two were linked, whatever that fucking meant.

"No, he can't bloody see me, or read my thoughts. It's more physical. What happens to me, happens to him. I… Well, death doesn't stick with me. It never has and as today has shown, likely never will. Those people… They were going to kill themselves if I threw one more hit at him and I thought, with being linked and all, if I hit myself with the spell, it wouldn't stick with me but would with him. However, it seems like I'm not the only one with upsides to this linking business."

Now it was Jessica's turn to throw her bottle of rum at the wall, the glass joining the graveyard at the bottom.

"Upside, what fucking upside?!"

Harry looked desperate, her curls seemingly growing bigger as she rounded on Jessica.

"His calling doesn't work on me. His power, his control… It's nothing to me. I'm the fire-wall to his little fucking virus!"

Harry couldn't be controlled? Well… That opened some doors and quelled some fears. If she wasn't under his control, if he couldn't see or hear her and this 'link' was purely physical like Harry was trying to sell her it was, then this could be helpful in the long run. Only, Jessica doubted it was only physical. Not by how distressed Harry seemed to be. Then again, how would Jessica like it if it turned out she had been tied to Kilgrave and there was no seemingly way out of the bond? She would likely off herself… Again, it looked like Harry didn't even have that option. Further realisation set in and Jessica felt cold, so very, very cold.

"But your inability to die has bled over to him in return… That's why he came back to life..."

Harry's pacing faltered, and Jessica could see her viciously chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"Meaning we can't off the bastard. And if somehow we did-"

"Let me guess, you would croak too?"

"Pretty much. Whatever happens to him, happens to me too now."

The fight left them both as they flopped onto the couch, one of the only surviving pieces of furniture in Jessica's apartment.

"Look, Jessica, I'm sorry. Really, I am. I thought I could finish it. I could stop anyone else from getting hurt and I've… I've only juiced him up, like I'm a hundred amp battery that his jacked himself into. I've messed everything up and I'm not sure how to fix it, If I can fix it at all. We're linked and no one has ever been unlinked before… But if anyone at all is going to be the first, it'll be me. I'll fix this."

Guilt gnawed and slobbered over Jessica's marrow and cartilage.

"You didn't mess it up."

God, she needed a drink, or ten. While Harry spoke, the question Jessica had been dodging finally reared its ugly head and Jessica had no option but to come clean.

"What do you mean? I've practically made the guy immortal, tipped him off that we're gunning for him and by the way I've woken up, I'm guessing he somehow got away. I mean, if you hadn't of gotten there so fast… Wait, how did you get there so fast?"

They were both staring ahead, both refusing to look at the other and Jessica's tongue felt like it was nothing but a swollen piece of useless flesh.

"I was already trailing Malcom. I was planning on jumping Kilgrave, drugging him and dragging him back to a cell I have set up. Only, as we got him out of the park and into the car, his goons we're already laying in wait and snatched him back. He had it all planned out. You see… Even if you weren't there today, he would have already been tipped off."

Jessica left the rest unsaid. How she wouldn't have told Harry she had got him if she had succeeded. How she had, in the end, used her. How, when she had died, her, Trish and Simpson had left her in the park, forgotten and broken, only dragging Kilgrave's body away, having only gone back and gotten her when the plan fell through. How Harry was sporting a bruised jaw from a punch Jessica had thrown at an unconscious Kilgrave. How Jessica had suspected the linking since noticing. Fuck. Jessica felt like a huge, steaming pile of shit. But Harry knew. She knew.

"Only, I was already masquerading as Malcolm and when my façade fell, you thought you would wait it out and slip in if I got him down and out? That's why it took you so long to pick up the phone. Planning to vulture it? Make me do the hard work and then come in for the spoils? You… You only came back for me when he got away, didn't you? You knew we were linked, you just didn't know how and how deeply... You only brought me back here because of that link, hoping to use it to track Kilgrave again..."

Jessica could only spit out two words.

"Pretty much."

Silence began to choke them again, digging its claws in deep prior to Harry's burst of half mad laughter. Catching up to Harry's thought process, Jessica couldn't help joining in. Harry had tried to screw her over, with the best of intentions as root and trunk, but still fucked her over. Jessica had screwed Harry over, not having set out to, but falling into that trap and while both had been busy messing the others plans up, Kilgrave had come along, flipped their board over and screwed both of them over. What a fucking mess they had dug themselves into. Finally settling, Jessica partially turned to Harry.

"Look, if we're ever going to work together, we need to start actually communicating, and this is a big thing coming from me. Separately, we nearly had him. Together, working as one, we might snag the bastard. We need this, especially now that he knows about us being on his tail, now that his linked-"

Jessica cut herself off, she didn't need to finish. Harry, unquestionably, knew what that entailed and what it meant to her and her life. Jessica didn't need to remind the woman, didn't need to dig the knife in deeper. Harry eventually made eye contact, staring intensely and almost serenely into Jessica's gaze. If she was a weaker woman, she would have looked away from the hefty look. But she wasn't and hold it she did.

"And when we do snag him? What will you do then?"

It was what was left unsaid that spoke the most. Would she kill him? In turn kill her? If it was possible to do such a thing. Jessica had dreamed of it, she wouldn't lie about that, fantasized about it. Snapped neck. Pummelled face. Immolation. Drowning. Stabbing. Only, as Harry looked at her, face wide and open and damningly not judging despite knowing full well what she wanted to do, no blame etching in her skin or face, Jessica fell short. Harry, no doubt, wouldn't blame her if she chose that road, in all honesty, Jessica thought the woman would still help her even if it meant her own demise and yet… And yet.

"I'm not going to kill an innocent, and trust me, I can practically smell your goodness oozing out of you. It's a bit sickening, really. I'll break a few bones though, if you can handle that."

Harry let out a dry chuckle that lacked all mirth. The sound felt like sand paper on her nerves, all gritty sadness and clustered grim resignation. Harry was too young to be able to make a sound like that.

"Trust me, I've handled a lot worse. Look, I need to talk to a friend, I'll be gone for a day or two. If there is a way to undo this, to cut the link or numb it, she'll now how or at least help me look for a way."

Jessica nodded.

"I'll fold in tight and try and think of a plan. Something. Anything."

The next words out of her mouth Jessica had not meant to ask, not really sure she truly wanted to know the answer, but as soon as the thought fluttered through her jumbled mind, they were out in the air and poisoning it.

"Have you… What's it like? Do you… Do you feel him at all?"

Harry's head lolled back onto the backrest of the couch, gaze staring bottomlessly up at the ceiling as her hand came up to idly scratch and rub at her chest, on the opposite side of her beating heart.

"I… I feel his heart beat, as if his heart is right beside my own. Only, it's beating at a different rhythm to mine, burning my lungs and making my blood feel as if It's going in the wrong direction. I don't think there's enough room in my chest. Shit, ouch!"

Harry lurched forward, bent over in half as she scrabbled for her forearm, more swears trailing off her lips in a litany of repressed anger. When Jessica leaned over her to catch a proper look, she had grown pale, well, paler and was clutching at her wrist, watching the bare skin of her forearm with wide eyes… Only, it wasn't staying bare.

Letters were beginning to slice there way down the unmarked skin, superficially light, but still deep enough to draw blood and sting. Like deep cat scratches. Jessica's breath hitched as the familiar scrawl finally ended, and Harry glanced up at her, teeth bared in either pain or anger… No, both.

Peek-a-Boo, I'll see you soon.

"We don't need to come for him… He's coming for you."

It was all Jessica could say. She had to look away from the mark, away from Harry as the vomit began to sting the back of her tongue. It seemed he knew about the link too, perhaps not enough as Harry evidently did, but enough to realize he could taunt her, them, through it, and yet his self preservation was the only thing stopping him from pushing it further, protecting Harry.

"You still got that cell decked out and ready?"

Slowly turning to face her once more, Jessica gave a one-word answer, not trusting her voice or gut in holding in the emotions she was really feeling.

"Yes?"

Harry's answering smile nearly made her feel as sick as the carved message her arm displayed. Yet again, the smaller woman lost her, but whatever she had cooking up in that brain of hers must have been as deliciously dark as her smile.

"Well, it would be a mighty shame for a good cell to go to waste."

A.N: I was originally going to cut this chapter after Harry cast the Avada Kadavra, then I was going to cut if after the death/dream sequence, but then I realized I've made you beautiful people wait a full on year for this chapter and so, I offer this up as a 'I'm super sorry' gift (Please accept it!)

I've been away from writing for a while now (Due to life being a bit shitty), but I'm hoping to slide back in and with all the lovely reviews for this fic, as well as inspiration hitting home, I wanted to update this first.

I know there wasn't much Kilgrave this chapter, but listen! This stuff just needed to be gotten out of the way so I can get down and dirty with this fic, hence why its all piled into the same chapter, and now that the two are officially linked, with him in her head and vice versa, there's going to be a lot more Kilgrave from here on out. Plus, we'll be learning there's a lot more to the Veela bond then Fleur explained. I don't won't to give too much away, but think of this as a roller-coaster and now that we've reached the precipice, the drop is going to be hard and fast! So expect more Kilgrave, more Veela juju, more mishaps, drama and over all, shit hitting the fan! This is going to be so much fun to write!

THANK YOU ALL! I hope this chapter was worth the monstrous wait, and I really am sorry about that. A BIG THANK YOU FOR ALL THE REVIEWERS, honestly, you guys and your words are the reason this plot bunny made it past chapter one, and why I keep getting drawn back to this fic. I really do hope you liked this chapter.

As always, please drop a review, they're the steam to this little engine!

Until next time, stay beautiful! ~AlwaysEatTheRude21