Looking Up Old Friends

“You have to try this, Harry,” said George, beaming proudly.

He held open the curtain door of a small booth tucked into a corner of the Wheezes’s Hogsmeade branch.

Seeing Harry hesitate at entering an enclosed space, Ron offered to go first.

“We’ve placed Silencing Charms on the booth,” a ghostly Fred explained, when observing the black curtain became boring so quickly.

“Hermione’s idea,” George piped up. Hermione preened a little as Luna and Ginny shot her looks of gratitude. They’d all tried the booth the previous Hogsmeade weekend, while the boys were still in Academy. “The gloves, too. Some Muggle invention called viral reality.”

“And the booth works on a combination of Pensieve principles and an advanced version of our Daydream Charm,” finished Fred, bobbing on his ghostly heels.

Fifteen minutes later, Ron stumbled out of the booth, blissful and dopey, and handed over the gloves to Harry.

Moments, hours, seeming years went by as he stood in the small space, feeling awkward and foolish. He flexed his fingers in the gloves, looking at the stretchy fabric covered in odd oval pads. They were shot through with fine wires that gleamed in the low light, hypnotizing him until a flash of movement caught his eye and tugged his gaze upward.

A milk-white arm shook as the hand attached pointed its finger at him, and Harry heard Pansy Parkinson exclaim, "But he’s there! Potter’s there. Someone grab him!"

The faceless students surrounding him melted away, and he smirked at Pansy coolly, opening his arms wide. “Yes, here I am, Parkinson. Grab me!”

She sucked in a breath and puffed out her chest, advancing on him with false bravado. When she was mere inches away, he reached out and snagged her wand, throwing it behind his back to clatter to the floor. She whimpered and his hand stung; a drop of blood clung to her lip where it had split open, and he realized he’d hit her.

He thrust his hand into her sleek black hair, a hollow parody of a lover’s caress, and jerked on her tender scalp, sending her to her knees with a muffled scream. Harry watch in horrified fascination as his doppelganger laughed at Parkinson.

What had Ron done in this booth? Fornicated with baked goods? The other Harry chuckled darkly at the shared thought.

“Please,” she murmured, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Please, what?” Harry sneered, unzipping his trousers. He smacked her cheek when her lips tightened and she tried to look away.

No! I don’t want this! She doesn’t deserve it! I am not a monster!

And yet.

And yet, Harry stumbled out of the booth, making up a story about Voldemort interrupting his honeymoon. Avoiding Luna’s knowing eyes, and Ginny’s smothering attentions; his mind whirling, twirling upon one fixed point.

I wonder, where does Miss Parkinson live these days?

~~***~~***~~

Originally written for round two of pphp_ldws on LiveJournal.

Prompt: Doppelganger, Hogsmeade, gloves

"But he’s there! Potter’s there. Someone grab him!" Deathly Hallows, US hardcover ed. p. 610