I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good

[alt_terry]

Dear friends:

He's off getting drunk now, so it's safe to write. I am sorry I worried you all so much. I hope you won't be too angry at me if I tell you I've had my journal back for a week. I had the ink, and I could have written. But I didn't.

It's difficult to explain. But I'll do my best to tell you why. To do that, I have to be honest with you. Much more honest than I've ever been with you before, even Hermione. That's hard for me to do. But things have changed since I'm back with him, and I need to do that. To really tell the truth. What's more, I think that you deserve nothing less than the truth.

I'm sorry, but I'll warn you: it won't be easy to hear.

When I left Hogwarts, I was so angry. I was absolutely furious. You have to understand: I had never let myself get angry at him before, because it was so dangerous to do so. I mean, I had never ever even said aloud before that I hated him. At the same time, I was scared out of my mind. I still think I made the right decision to leave. But it was so terribly hard to go back to him. It had been a long time since I'd played the role of crawling boot. It was almost like I'd forgotten how. And going back to it, especially of my own free will, felt like...like deliberately crawling into slime and pulling it over me and smothering myself. To make things worse, I knew there was a real risk that he could kill me.

So for the first week, between the terror and the fury, I could barely move or speak. Fortunately, he was in a really good mood at first. Killing somebody always does that to him.

He got over it, though. The second week he just about tore me apart.

I'm sorry, I told you it wouldn't be easy for you to hear, but it's true. He hit me with a bunch of dark hexes, laid me up for three days, but that wasn't enough for him. A week after that, he beat the snot out of me. He broke every finger in my left hand, knocked out four of my teeth, and punched me in the gut so hard that I'm pretty sure he ruptured something inside me.

When I woke up, I found my journal beside me. He'd given it back to me.

Part of me wanted to die. Just to get it over with. I thought I'd never see any of you again, and I wavered a bit there, not even knowing the point of going on living. But I opened the journal and I read it. Maybe he wanted me to read it because he thought I'd see you were getting on with your lives and forgetting about me, but of course he didn't know about the secret entries. I must have read the stuff you wrote to me over a hundred times. Telling me to hang on. Telling me that you'd stick with me, that I was still a wizard and a student of Hogwarts, and that you wouldn't forget me. Thinking through all the ways you could try to help me.

You'll never know how much that meant to me.

I waited until he was drunk and I pulled out my wand and I used the healing spells that I'd seen Madam Pomfrey do, as best as I could. And I lay there and watched him snuffling and grunting in his sleep, drooling and stinking, and I thought it all out. Thought it out as cold and as clear as I could. He'd torn me apart, but I've spent the last week putting myself back together.

It's as if there's a boot part of me and a Terry part of me. I don't think there ever would have been a Terry part of me, the wizard, the human being, if it hadn't been for you. I'd sort of flowed between the two of them at Hogwarts, back and forth, because I had to. But the time has come to choose, and I choose this:

I decided that I wanted to live. I decided to take you at your word. That you'll help me.

From now on, I'll still play 'boot,' but I know and you know it'll only be a mask. The real me is Terry. I won't call him 'Master' in my mind anymore, nor ever say it to you. From now on, he's the git, the bastard, the monster. But he doesn't own me. He never will again.

I'll do what I have to do to protect Hermione, but when it's safe to get away, I'm going to escape him. Maybe by becoming an animagus.

And if I have to kill him in order to escape, I'll do it.

Now, to answer your questions:

The bracelet you have given me has worked really well. He stripped me of everything I had the first day I came back to him and forced me to stay naked for three days just to humiliate me, but the charm you put on it worked great, and I'm sure he never even noticed it. I'm forced to sleep on the floor beside his bed every night. He keeps me with me pretty much all the time, but every Friday night and Saturday night he goes on a bender and gets stinking drunk out of his mind. There's a window in the room I can open. I can't escape out of it because it's too high off the ground, but if you send an owl either early Saturday morning or Sunday morning, I'm sure it would be safe. He sleeps until noon on those mornings and nothing short of a dragon belching a ball of fire can possibly wake him. That's the only predictable thing about his schedule.

Here's what I need: a second bracelet like the first, yeah, and here's what I need in the beads. I need a basic book on diagnostic and healing spells. For both dark hexes and physical injuries. Like I said, I've watched Madam Pomfrey a lot over the years, and Merlin knows she's practised enough on me for me to get the gist of it. But I'd rather consult a book to make sure I'm doing it right. Particularly if I'm messing with my own insides. The thing worrying me the most right now is I do think he might have ruptured something inside of me because I can hardly walk without bending over. I managed to re-set and heal my fingers (I think), except for the fourth, because he really pulverized the bones, and I can't set it right. It'll all crooked. (Fortunately, my teeth aren't a problem. They always grow back the night after he knocks them out. It was my first sign of accidental magic when I was a kid. Some of my teeth he's knocked out over ten times.)

I'd like a second book about how to cast glamours. Madam Pomfrey used to heal me and then put a glamour over the spot so he'd think I was still bruised. It'd be a lot safer to heal myself if he can't tell I'm getting better faster than I should.

He's given me some rags, so at least I'm clothed again. The weather's warm so I don't need much in the way of clothing right now. He's not feeding me right at all. All I've had to eat since I left Hogwarts is bread and turnips and sometimes a little broth. If he goes on much longer, I'll maybe need some vitamin potions. But I'm hoping he'll eventually ease up and lessen the restrictions and I'll get to eat some of the better stuff from the kitchens.

Fixing the special ink's no problem. There's always sour wine around turned to vinegar. You can also send me George's journal in one of the beads, although I don't think I'll need it for now. But it'd be good to have it as a backup.

I just read this over and I'm sort of cringing at the thought of having you read it. It almost makes me feel a little ill, as if I'm stripping myself naked all over again, in a way.

But I'm trusting you by sending it anyway. I hope you can forgive me telling the truth and understand.

Your friend (and I really do believe that, and boy, it feels good to write it),

TERRY BOOT

Comments

[alt_neville]

I'm so glad you wrote to tell us everything you could. And I'm so sorry you've had to go through this.

It's better for us to know then to be worrying without knowing, honest.

I think I've got one of the books that can help you. It was in my dad's collection of auror books, and it's called Battlefield Healing. It's perfect for this, because it's written to explain things to people who aren't trained healers, and it also tells you how to fix things when you're in a tearing hurry, or in conditions that aren't ideal.

I'll send it by owl to the Burrow and they can add it to one of the beads. (Fred and George, I'll wrap it in butcher paper and shrink it and hopefully you won't get too many questions.)

[alt_sally_anne]

That book does sound perfect. I was thinking about whether I could borrow something from Madame Pomfrey and use a copying charm, but what you've got is much better.

I'll check the Strettons' books for a good one on glamours. The person who'd really have what we need is Daphne Greengrass's mum, because she's in the theater, but Daphne and I aren't exactly chums. If I can think up a good excuse to ask her Daphne would know a title, though, and we could send away for it.

There's a potion called Skele-Gro that might be what your finger needs. I'm supposed to get to do some Mediwizardry with the CCF so if I get a chance to nick some, I will. We could send it with Pig -- actually, come to think of it, I could write to Madam Pomfrey and say there was a muggle who'd had a crushed finger and was there anything she could send me that would fix it. Do potions work on muggles? Well, spells certainly do, and if she gives me good enough instructions... I'll have to think about this, sometimes she's good about not asking too many questions, but not always, and if she took it into her head to talk to the Strettons that might be a problem.

Turnips are very healthful, Terry, and you can live on nothing but turnips for a surprisingly long time. But if you lose blood due to injuries (or because Carrow is taking your blood) you might get anaemic. The simplest fix for anaemia is meat but Carrow's not likely to give you any. We could possibly send you something but let us know if there's anything you just can't bear to eat.

There are other things your body needs that you won't get from turnips but those won't be a problem as quickly. (There were years when I was little that I had turnips to eat and not much else, that's how I know.)

[alt_terry]

He has been taking my blood. Not so much that it's making me sick, but it worries me. I'm afraid he's using it to bind me to him so I can't escape.

I've been hungry before. It sucks, but I guess I'll get used to it again.

[alt_sally_anne]

Yes, that's the thing about living on turnips. Even when you eat all the turnips you can stand you'll still feel hungry.

If he's taking your blood we should get you something. There's a potion called blood-replenishing potion that would work best but I don't know what I'd tell Madam Pomfrey to get her to give me some. It would be easier to send you meat. Preserved meat, so it wouldn't go off while in the post. I'm pretty sure there's something the Strettons let their muggles buy with their scrip that would work, and I should be able to lay hands on it and send it to you. It won't taste very nice but it'll be a chance from turnips.

[alt_terry]

That would be good, if you could send some. It would help a lot.

[alt_sally_anne]

Alright.

I filched some mutton liver from the Stretton's kitchen. Mutton liver tastes foul but there's nothing like liver for anaemia. (Well, other than blood-replenishing potion. But liver is the next best thing.)

I went looking through the Stretton's books -- they don't have anything on glamours but they have loads of books on food, everything you could ever imagine doing with food. So now I have a bunch of knut-sized pieces of dried concentrated compressed shrunken liver that won't ever spoil. Eat just one at a time. When you swallow it it should sort of expand in your stomach a bit so you won't be as hungry PLUS it's liver. And if you can get it down without chewing you won't even taste it (but if you have to chew that won't mess anything up. Other than you might gag. Unless you like liver more than I do.)

DO NOT eat more than one of those liver-knuts at a sitting. You could have probably three in a day, one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But. They expand after you eat them. If you ate them all at once you could actually MAKE YOUR STOMACH EXPLODE which would be really bad. There were all sorts of warnings about this on the spells and I thought it was worth the risk, you're not stupid.

[alt_terry]

One thing about having experience being so hungry that you're practically starving is that you learn not to care too much about taste. As long as it's food, you eat it and be grateful.

So I won't care what it tastes like, but I'll be real glad of it. Thanks ever so much.

[alt_sally_anne]

Oh and someone will need to send me Pig so I can send the liver-knuts to Fred and George to send to Terry.

[alt_pansy]

I'll send him to you after supper.

[alt_gredforge]

We got the healer's book from Nev this morning. It's too late to send Pig for this week so we'll aim to have Pig trained and get the bracelet with all the stuff loaded into the beads to you next week, Professor.

[alt_terry]

I'll hang on till then.

My gut hurts a lot. But I reckon I don't have any choice.

Private message to Fred Weasley and George Weasley

[alt_lee]

If you have the healer's book do you think you can give him the information over the journals?

I mean if he's hurt real bad to the point he's bleeding inside or something, he could die waiting for us to send the owl.

Re: Private message to Fred Weasley and George Weasley

[alt_gredforge]

Don't you think we know that?

We looked over the book. The diagnostic spells are complicated, and it relies a LOT on the illustrations to make the instructions clear.

Re: Private message to Fred Weasley and George Weasley

[alt_lee]

Can your Dad get the stuff to him?

Re: Private message to Fred Weasley and George Weasley

[alt_gredforge]

Don't think that'll work, because he's not in a camp. And how could we explain to Dad that we want him to risk running afoul of Carrow just to deliver a manky looking string bracelet to Terry?

Bugger Carrow anyway.

(Just hang on, Professor.)

[alt_gredforge]

If you see Carrow getting real drunk any night this week, so you think he'll sleep in the next morning, let us know.

If you think...if you think it's important enough to risk Pig's making the delivery, even if we're not sure he's quite trained enough.

[alt_gredforge]

We just want to say how proud we are of you, Professor, and how touched and, well, honoured we feel that you trust us enough to tell us such difficult things (Oh, and also how much we want to chop Carrow up and feed the little bloody bits to a dragon, but let's just focus on you right now, okay?)

Where exactly in the castle are you staying? Does he keep you right beside him during the day? What's he spending his time doing? Do you have much freedom to move around? Are there any times that you can get outside?

It worries us that you're forced to use your wand even if he's asleep or drunk if you're right there in the room with him. Does he live in one room, or does he have a suite of them or something? It would be good if there was a way to turn your wand invisible, but we don't know of any way offhand. That might take more research, but we don't have any books here that could help us with that.

Maybe a trip to Diagon Alley is in order. Best not to take Mum along, because she'll wonder what we're doing in a bookstore during the summertime.

There are also sleeping charms. If you put a spell on him when he's already sleep so that you can guarantee he'll sleep for another twenty or thirty minutes for sure, that would be good. You could put a vibrate charm or something on your wand to give you a five minute warning.

[alt_gredforge]

It's a little thing, but we'll also put a cheering charm on the bracelet before we send it. Something to help things from seeming too hopeless.

[alt_terry]

He works at several different places, depending on his whim.

He has rooms in one of the modern prison buildings, and that's where we're sleeping. (The one we're in is called the Victorian prison building.) He keeps me pretty close during the day, and generally I'm in the room with him if he's alone. If he is doing something with a prisoner, sometimes he'll have me wait outside, but I'm not supposed to stray out of earshot.

Mostly, the prisoners are either there, in the Victorian prison building, or in the Georgian prison building. Sometimes he takes the prisoners to a place called Cobb Hall, which is a tower built into the outer wall. I think he does that when he's experimenting with the really dark spells on them. He'll take two or three prisoners and shove them down into the oubliette in the floor below, and allow them up one by one through the day.

Sometimes they're not alive by the end of the day.

When he works in Cobb Hall, he doesn't usually have me in there with him (maybe he thinks I'll get dangerous ideas). I'm allowed to walk on the outer castle wall then, but it's wide out in the open, with good views from the street, and he can stick out his head outside anytime and yell for me, so it wouldn't be a good idea for me to get an owl there.

Sometimes I'm allowed to walk on the wall on the other side of the East Gate, between the Gate and the Observation Tower. Once in the evening he allowed me to walk around inside the Lucy Tower. It's full of the graves of people who were hanged in the castle, centuries ago. It's actually kind of nice and peaceful in there.

He has a suite of three rooms together. He locks the outer door of the suite at night and sleeps with the key under his pillow. Like I said, I sleep on the floor right by his bed.

[alt_gredforge]

Well, he may lock the door with a key, but you've got a wand. If we can figure out a really good sleeping spell for you to put on him so you can be sure he's really conked out, you can open the door with 'Alohomora.' Then you can sneak out and maybe snitch some food from the kitchens, or practise your animagus magic or whatever else you need to do.

[alt_terry]

...

I can't believe I didn't even think of that. Wow. Do I ever feel stupid now.

It's real strange. Being back with him, but being in the mindset that I'm not going to obey him just because he tells me to.

[alt_gredforge]

Well yeah, and you don't ever want him to CATCH you disobeying him. But as long as you can fix it so you're sure he doesn't catch you, we think you should make it a point to obey him as little as possible.

[alt_terry]

I'll need you to tell me the RE-locking spell, too. So he doesn't suspect I've been out of the room when he wakes up.

[alt_sally_anne]

It's 'colloportus.'

[alt_terry]

Thanks.

[alt_sally_anne]

I asked Daphne about theatrical glamours and she recommended a book called 'Creative Theatrical Glamours' by Roberto Gorson.

It wasn't hard to give Gemma the idea of putting on a play for the family and now she thinks it was completely her own invention. I've already had Mrs Stretton's assistant owl for the book, though I don't expect it'll arrive until I'm off at CCF. Once I'm back I'll copy out the spells for bruises and so on, either in the journals or for Pig to deliver. If that's not good enough -- perhaps Lee could send for a copy? Or the Twins?

[alt_lee]

I have some pocket money and my family was going to be going to Diagon Alley this week anyway to do some shopping. I can duck into a bookstore and get it if they have it in stock. That way we could send it along to Terry if we send the owl next weekend.

[alt_sally_anne]

They definitely have it at Madame Pettiworth's Fine Books. I don't know if Flourish and Blotts has it or not but they might. If not you could see if they could recommend one -- you could probably buy one and no one would care or remember.

[alt_hermione]

Oh Terry I'm so glad you're all right -

I won't, I mean, I understand all about what you mean about 'stripping naked,' I won't say anything about that, except I never wanted you to be hurt, I'd rather be hurt much more than you, that's all. It isn't fair that you're out there sacrificing for me like that.

[alt_terry]

(Wish I could say this to you privately. But anyway...)

I am all right. I will be all right. I'm pretty tough, you already know that, and what our friends will be sending me will really help.

I'd rather not have to go through it either, of course, but you couldn't have possibly I'd do anything I'm willing to do it.

Surely we'll figure out something eventually so you won't be at risk anymore. And then I sure won't stick around. I'll get away somehow.

Maybe someday we can

[alt_sally_anne]

Terry.

I talked to Madam Pomfrey, both about treating a broken bone that wasn't set right, and about internal injuries.

Unfortunately I couldn't get her to tell me anything specific. You really need a proper She did say that Skele-Gro wouldn't help you unless you removed the bones first, and you definitely wouldn't want to do THAT. Honestly I'm a lot more worried about the pain that's keeping you from standing up properly. I could tell you a pain relief charm that will make you feel a bit better but here's the thing, you shouldn't use that charm and then walk around straightened up because probably if your body is saying 'hunch over, don't stand up straight' it's because standing up straight would make the injury worse. Do you see what I'm saying? So I'm going to tell you the charm because I think you have a right to be able to use it. But don't use it unless you really need it. It's 'remedia dolor' and you point your wand at the place that hurts and if you do it right it takes away most of the pain. It wears off after a while, or if you want, 'finite incantem' stops it. You might use it before you go to sleep at night, if Carrow's asleep or not there. You'll sleep better and it'll wear off before you get up in the morning.

Healers don't use this charm much because they know how to actually FIX what's WRONG and if you cover up the pain they have a harder time knowing what's wrong and whether they've fixed it properly. I tested it on myself just now and it works a treat on a bruise, though. (I slipped while running today and knocked my knee. I'm at the CCF camp right now.)

I wish we could even just get you to Mrs Weasley, if we can't get you Madam Pomfrey. Fred and George, maybe you could pry more information out of your mum than I got from Madam Pomfrey? I think I might have gotten more from her if I'd been talking to her in person. Anyway, your mum knows a lot of healing spells even if she isn't a HEALER.