Psukhe

Chapter Four

By Mell8

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"Ginny's such a wonderful girl, isn't she?" Luna Lovegood asked as she passed out teacups filled with a smoking green drink that no one except Luna dared touch. "She was just here earlier; we had a lovely lunch."

"Ginny was here?" Hermione gasped. "Was she okay? Did anything about her seem odd?" Asking Luna something about being odd wasn't the best of ideas, but it was the only lead they had.

"Ginny was so nice. She's had a subscription to the Quibbler for years, you know," Luna babbled. "It's really too bad about the nifter in her ear."

"Nifter?" Ron snorted. "Do you mean niffler?"

"No, Ron, nifter," Luna corrected with a dreamy smile. "It's a love bug. It finds people who are deeply in love and feeds off their happiness. I would hate for Ginny and Draco to lose some of their happiness because of a nifter, especially with their wedding so close."

Ron yelped.

"Wedding? They're getting married?" Hermione asked with a gasp. Were they really that serious or had Draco decided to force Ginny to take that next, final step with him? Ginny would never escape if they got married!

"Oh yes," Luna sounded pleased. "It was Ginny's idea because things are going to start changing so soon. She wanted to get married when they still had time for a honeymoon. But she seemed so sad, because she can't invite any of you lot, can she?"

"Why not?" Hermione asked as she discretely motioned for Harry and Ron to stay quiet. Luna was in a somewhat lucid and talkative mood right now. Hermione didn't want the boys to say something that would send Luna off into one of her vague tangents. It was already clear that the starry-headed girl wouldn't want to publish something for Harry. Luna's friendship was much stronger with Ginny than with Harry and she clearly believed Ginny's story over Harry's.

Newspapers were clearly a lost cause. In fact, it seemed that they were already losing so much to Malfoy. How was he always such a huge step ahead of them that he had already switched things to work for him before Hermione even thought about it?

"You'll try to capture Draco!" Luna gasped, pulling Hermione back to the conversation. "He's such a smart man and Ginny's worried that you'll take him away from her. Besides, she doesn't want her Mum to make another huge scene like that. Wasn't it nice to see the Prophet post something truthful for once?"

Ginny didn't want her family there or Draco didn't want her family there? It could be Ginny saying these things while under the Imperious Curse. Hermione didn't know what to think any longer. All she knew was that the Weasley family deserved to know the truth of the matter.

Molly Weasley was crying herself sick most nights and Hermione hadn't seen Arthur so haggard since that werewolf had attacked Bill. Only the twins seemed apathetic to Ginny's plight and the rest of the family was ostracizing them for their unwillingness to go searching for Ginny.

They made their excuses and left Luna's soon after, disheartened. Hermione had to return to work. Ron returned to the Burrow to comfort his parents.

Harry Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron. As the Head of the Auror Department he had the luxury of choosing his own hours, at least on paper. The reality was that he was swamped with work and couldn't really afford to be taking all this time off searching for Ginny.

Tom the wizened old bartender put a glass of fire whiskey in front of Harry and ambled off to go clean more mugs. The bar was empty this early in the afternoon. When work let out in a few hours Harry knew the place would be full to bursting, but right now he relished in the solitude.

The files were piling up on his desk, Ginny was still missing, and Harry really needed to think.

He had five cases of known Death Eaters who had somehow escaped the final battle that he had sent teams out to investigate. One of his teams was currently in St. Mungo's waiting for Harry to take them off the case and hand it to another team. The other four teams had reports on their findings for Harry to read and actions they needed Harry to sign off on. He was always on call for whenever they needed immediate action from their superior, like that one time the team after Rookwood had accidentally set off a trap that leveled a block of family homes in Muggle London and Harry needed to be there to facilitate fixing the mess.

Harry had reports of regular Dark Magic occurrences all across Wizarding Britain that he needed to check up on. For some reason, children found it exciting to reenact the final battle in their own back yards using sticks for wands. Accidental Dark Magic was way up because of this, and Harry had to take care of it.

Coupled with all that was the case on Draco Malfoy. The team he had sent out to capture Malfoy was the one in St. Mungo's. They were all seasoned Aurors with plenty of battles under their belts, yet they had been soundly defeated. There were spells on these Aurors that the hospital had never seen before! Plus, not a single one of the team could remember Draco Malfoy ever existing. They not only had the entire case wiped from their minds, they had an entire person wiped as well.

Harry had shown them Malfoy's picture from the Daily Prophet and to a man they all said, "He looks like a nice bloke. Who is he?"

"Now then, Potter. It seems that you needed some help so we came to win you this war."

Harry groaned. Malfoy's words at the battle still rang through his mind. It was why he hadn't reassigned Malfoy's case to another team just yet. Malfoy had been there fighting against Voldemort, Harry had seen him. Malfoy had somehow managed to hold Voldemort still so that Harry could cast spell after spell. Harry knew that he probably never would have defeated Voldemort without that help.

True, Malfoy wasn't a good person, but he had done a very good thing for the Wizarding World. In Harry's mind that deserved some recognition, or at least some respite.

But Malfoy had Ginny!

Or did he? Harry couldn't help wondering. Harry remembered those two images Malfoy had added to the love spell before Harry had cast it on Voldemort. Malfoy having sex with Ginny, who was clearly and loudly quite happy to be in that position, was the first memory. The second had been of Ginny accepting an engagement ring from Malfoy. Again, Ginny did not look displeased with the situation.

Plus the love those two small images infused into Harry's spell eclipsed every feeling Harry had ever felt for Ginny. Malfoy's love was the real reason Voldemort had been defeated.

It was difficult to follow Ron and Hermione about on their mission to rescue Ginny from Malfoy's evil clutches when Harry didn't really believe that Ginny was in trouble at all.

Ron had never been able to see the big picture. Back in school when Harry had became a contestant in the Triwizard Tournament, Ron had immediately thought that Harry had betrayed Ron's friendship. It never crossed Ron's mind that maybe something more was occurring. Without Hermione's intervention, Ron would never have reconciled with Harry.

Now Ron was refusing to see that maybe there was more to Malfoy and Ginny than just Death Eater and prisoner. There was clearly something more in Harry's mind, but Ron wouldn't even listen to reason.

Harry wasn't sure what was driving Hermione to such lengths, but had a sneaking suspicion hat it had to do with her relationship with Ron. Despite being unbelievably intelligent, Hermione was still a human with weaknesses. Her weakness happened to be insecurity around Ron; it always had been. Harry believed that Hermione thought that bringing Ginny back to the Weasley family would be a great way to cement herself as a future Weasley herself because no one would dare say she was anything less than devoted to the family. Harry was sure that her logic flowed slightly differently and that she was able to use it to rationalize this search for Ginny.

Harry had had enough.

He had work to do, work that didn't include running about the country searching for someone who didn't want to be found. It was time for Harry to settle down. He had a good job, an apartment, and a full vault in Gringotts. His life was exactly where he wanted it to be right now. Going off after Ginny could jeopardize everything that was working for him.

Harry set down his empty glass, threw a couple sickles on the table to pay for it, and walked out of the Leaky Cauldron. He was going to work today. He would be going to work tomorrow. Ron and Hermione could continue this fruitless search on their own.

III

"They can't get married without a marriage license signed by a high official in the Ministry," Hermione said with a laugh. "Most times the Minister just signs the papers without any problem, but I've just gone to warn him and he's promised not to sign anything with Draco Malfoy's name on it."

She stopped pacing in front of the couch where Ron was sitting with his head in his hands. It had been a week since they lost their last lead at Luna's house and disheartened was a good way to describe Ron.

Harry grimaced and left the living room to go to the kitchen. He didn't understand why neither Ron nor Hermione had gotten the message that Harry was done with it all. He hadn't gone out searching with them all week and certainly wasn't giving them any verbal help either. Still, they had decided to use his house for a base of operations and were here again to discuss Ginny's whereabouts.

"So Malfoy can't tie Ginny to him permanently then?" Ron laughed. "Alright, we have a little more time."

Harry thought about the paper Ginny had handed him this morning when she had walked into his office and then of Ron's exuberance thinking that there was no one to sign the marriage paper.

"Ginny came to see me today," Harry said, hoping for the best, rather than what he assumed would be the worst.

"What!" Ron gasped. "Why didn't you catch her?"

Harry had thought about it, at least for a few seconds. Closure to the Weasley family would certainly end this fiasco. But his Auror instincts wouldn't let him.

She looked beautiful. She looked more than beautiful, she looked happy. She was well dressed and she looked well cared for. There were absolutely no signs of neglect or torture, nor were there any signs of the Imperious Curse controlling her.

Ginny had stood in front of him calmly, letting Harry look her over and make his judgments about her well being.

He judged her healthy and hale and took the marriage license from her and signed it.

"Did you know," Harry continued, "that anyone in a high position in the Ministry can sign a marriage license to make it legal? Ginny wanted me to sign hers."

Ron crowed with laughter. "Malfoy thought sending Ginny to you would soften you enough to get you to sign it? He's more of an idiot than we thought."

"I signed it," Harry snapped.

The shocked silence let Harry know that he was in trouble.

"You what!" Ron screamed. He stood up from the couch and rushed at Harry, fists raised. "How could you?"

"I told you right after the final battle that Malfoy and Ginny were there, helping me defeat Voldemort," Harry said as he deflected Ron's fists. "Malfoy showed me something then that has always made me believe that your idea of Ginny being in trouble was wrong."

"And I told you that what Malfoy did was impossible!" Hermione snapped. "You can't control a person's body without controlling their mind first, like with the Imperious Curse. You must have been hallucinating because of all that power you were using."

"Ginny only confirmed what I saw then today," Harry continued over Hermione's rant. "She looked happy, Ron, Hermione."

"That can be faked," Ron snarled.

"Genuinely happy. And there was no sign of any coercion or Curses controlling her either. I had to take all those Auror classes specifically geared towards teaching me these things, guys. I know what I'm talking about."

"No!" Ron hissed. "You've betrayed us! You betrayed Ginny! But you can still take it back, right? It's just a signature, you can erase it."

"I couldn't. And even if I could, I wouldn't," Harry laughed. "Don't you see, you're wrong about Ginny and Malfoy? Just let them alone."

Ron Apparated out of Harry's house with a snarl at Harry. Hermione gave Harry the look before following after Ron. Harry collapsed on his couch and sighed.

At least now he would have some peace and quiet.

An invitation inviting Harry to Malfoy and Ginny's wedding arrived three days later. He sent back the RSVP saying that he was coming with the same owl that delivered the letter.

Malfoy and Ginny certainly had a lot of trust that he wouldn't bring a team of Aurors with him to the wedding to arrest Malfoy. Harry had already sent one team after Malfoy and, even though the mission was a miserable failure, it should have made Malfoy a bit more reticent to include Harry in the wedding.

But Harry was resolute in wanting to go. He was going to bring a camera and was going to slap the pictures of a happy Ginny right in the Weasley's faces even if he had to write a court order to do it.

He had spent the past couple days doing a little more research on Draco Malfoy's Death Eater activities and had come up short. There had been the fiasco in his sixth year when Malfoy had gotten Death Eaters into the school and had inadvertently gotten Dumbledore killed. Yet there was the fact that Dumbledore and Snape had planned the death themselves, which took the onus off of Malfoy for the attack.

There were unsubstantiated rumors of Malfoy becoming Voldemort's chief torturer but there was no hard proof. There wasn't any proof for the rumor that Malfoy had left Voldemort's service when he had been told to go after the Weasley family, Ginny in particular, either.

All together, Harry only had about half a page of misdemeanors on Draco Malfoy. It certainly wasn't enough to arrest him, let alone convict him. Malfoy was getting off for everything.

Harry signed a void on the arrest warrant for Draco Malfoy with a note on the bottom stating that an apology should be tendered to the Malfoy family with congratulations for the upcoming wedding.

Draco Malfoy withdrew from Harry Potter's mind with a smile.

"What's up, Uncle Draco?" Leslie asked as she saw him finally open his eyes. The skid marks up her arms had healed and the crazed, drugged, look and feel was completely gone. Her brown hair was vibrant and her eyes bright with intelligence.

"Oh, I just finished solidifying something very important for the wedding," he said with a smile. "Shouldn't you be home with your mom right now?"

"Nah," Leslie grinned. "Aunt Ginny wanted my opinion for her dress and I though I'd come bug you for a sec. I'm leaving in a few minutes, don't worry." She bounced out of the room with Draco watching her carefully.

His experiments with her had been more than a success. True, initially she had been merely a difficult trial to overcome, but what he had learned while fixing her had gone well beyond just mind control.

Dopamine was the most amazing thing the human body created, in his opinion at least.

Leslie had been taking crack cocaine, a Muggle drug that was highly addictive because it increased the levels of dopamine in the brain. The excess dopamine had made her feel so good, and that want of a euphoria made her crave more.

Draco had been able to make her mind forget about the drug, but never her body. She craved that ecstasy with an unconscious abandon. By reading more Muggle literature Draco had found that Dopamine, Serotonin, and a number of other neurotransmitters influenced the feelings inside the brain. The crack had increased the feeling of pleasure by making the brain create more dopamine and the body had grown used to those levels.

Through much experimentation, Draco had found the key to those neurotransmitters and had brought her levels back to normal, thereby erasing her need for a drug to get the high.

Then he had delved into Harry Potter's mind with the same intent. Every time Potter had a feeling of doubt about the quest to find Ginny and to "save" her from Draco, Draco had lowered Potter's dopamine levels, making the Boy-Who-Lived feel much worse about the situation.

Every time Harry had thought about abandoning the search and returning to work, Draco had increased his dopamine levels, making Potter feel good about that decision.

Draco hadn't added any thoughts to Potter's mind, nor had he made Potter move in a way that was opposite what he wanted. Every decision had been Potter's and soon Draco hadn't needed to influence his dopamine any longer, Harry's brain had done that on it's own because Potter truly believed that what he was doing was right.

The mind belonged to Draco. He could read thoughts, put new thoughts in place or take them away, influence good or bad feelings, and make a body move where he wanted it to.

Draco could make someone move against their will while putting thoughts into their head that this was normal and right while increasing dopamine levels so that it felt good. He could make a person do anything and make them want to do it too.

"We just got Harry's acceptance for the wedding," Ginny said as she dropped a piece of parchment onto the table next to where Draco was sitting. "I'm guessing that means your plan worked."

"It worked," Draco grinned at her. "The entire world is in our hands, or at least it will be as soon as I figure out how to teach you to influence the neurotransmitters. There's such a disconnect between actions and feelings that it's a much more difficult step to master."

"We'll figure it out," Ginny grinned back. "Now we've got cake tasting next, and you've got to be there."

"Fine," Draco grumbled as he found his feet. "But we both know it's going to be chocolate cake with chocolate chips and raspberry filling."

Ginny giggled. "Probably, but we still have to taste it first!"

Draco took her offered hand and followed Ginny out of the room. Today he had mastered total body and mind control. Next week he would be married. After their honeymoon he would begin with world domination.