# Jericho Township - Dr. Kinbott's Office, Next Morning
Morning arrived in Jericho like an uninvited guest with terrible news and worse timing, dragging clouds the precise color of institutional porridge across a sky that looked like it had given up on joy sometime in the 1950s and never quite recovered. The town crouched beneath this gray blanket like a guilty dog, its buildings leaning at angles that defied both physics and good sense—Victorian houses with shutters hanging like broken teeth, brick storefronts whose facades peeled like sunburned skin, and church steeples that twisted toward heaven with all the enthusiasm of arthritic fingers pointing accusingly at God.
Everything in Jericho seemed slightly *wrong*, as if the entire town had been designed by someone who understood architecture only through fever dreams and German Expressionist cinema. Rooflines sagged in impossible curves. Windows sat at heights that made no structural sense. Doorways were just slightly too narrow or absurdly too wide, as if the buildings themselves couldn't quite remember what human proportions were supposed to look like.
Dr. Valerie Kinbott's office squatted atop its building like a very educated toad—second floor, beige brick that had been chosen by a committee that believed color was a gateway drug to dangerous thinking, windows so relentlessly practical they seemed to apologize for taking up space. A sign announced "Dr. V. Kinbott – Psychiatric Services" in letters so painfully polite they practically whispered, "Please feel free to have a complete emotional breakdown, but do try to keep your voice down, there are other patients waiting."
A crooked external staircase clung to the building's side like a skeletal spine, each step groaning with existential weariness. The railings had been painted white approximately forty years ago and had since committed themselves to a campaign of aggressive flaking, as if slowly disintegrating was their primary purpose in life.
The waiting room inside was a masterpiece of aggressive blandness, a space so determinedly neutral it had somehow looped back around to being deeply, profoundly disturbing. Chairs upholstered in a mauve so uninspired it seemed to actively drain color from surrounding objects sat in perfect rows, like condemned prisoners awaiting execution by boredom. Magazines from 2019 formed geometric pyramids on a coffee table whose wood grain had been manufactured to look like wood without actually being interesting in any way. The walls were painted in a shade of beige that could only be described as "please don't have feelings here."
A single painting hung above the magazine table—a waterfall cascading through a forest glen, executed with such aggressive serenity that it felt less like art and more like a threat. The water fell in perfectly rendered droplets. The trees stood in unnaturally perfect composition. A deer in the foreground gazed at the viewer with eyes that seemed to say, "I am tranquility incarnate, and I will not hesitate to destroy you with my peaceful energy."
Wednesday Addams occupied one of the mauve chairs like a small, elegant bird of prey—perfectly motionless except for the occasional blink, her black dress pooling around her with the dramatic precision of ink spilled by a very deliberate hand. Her hair hung in two immaculate braids, each plait so perfect it looked like it had been woven by someone with an engineering degree and a pathological attention to detail. Her spine was absolutely vertical, hands folded in her lap with ceremonial precision, and her eyes—dark as fresh-dug graves—fixed on some distant point that probably contained something more interesting than beige walls and motivational artwork. Like decomposition. Or elegant methods of architectural homicide.
Beside her, Hercules Black sprawled across two chairs with the boneless grace of a cat who had just knocked over a priceless Ming vase and felt absolutely no remorse whatsoever. His impossibly long legs stretched across the waiting room in flagrant violation of every principle of shared public space, crossed at the ankle with the kind of calculated nonchalance that suggested he'd spent considerable time perfecting the art of looking simultaneously elegant and completely disinterested in everyone else's existence.
Sunglasses perched on his nose despite the dim fluorescent lighting that made everyone else look vaguely tubercular. The lenses reflected the waiting room in tiny, warped crescents, transforming the beige mediocrity into something that looked like a funhouse mirror's nightmare. His Nevermore uniform—black blazer, crisp white shirt, perfectly knotted tie—fit with the kind of tailored precision that suggested either enormous wealth or a very intimidated tailor. Possibly both.
His fingers drummed against the armrest in a complex rhythm that might have been unconscious nervous energy or might have been him mentally composing a symphony about the existential horror of waiting rooms. With Hercules, it was genuinely difficult to tell.
"This," Wednesday announced suddenly, her voice carrying all the warmth of a mortician discussing inclement weather, "is institutional torture masquerading as healthcare. The color palette alone constitutes a war crime. I'm fairly certain the Geneva Conventions specifically prohibit subjecting prisoners to beige this aggressively boring."
She gestured minutely at the walls, her movement so small it barely qualified as movement at all. "Also, that painting. It's designed to pacify. To subdue the rebellious spirit through weaponized tranquility. I hate it on principle."
Hercules plucked a magazine from the table with two fingers, holding it at arm's length as though it might explode or, worse, try to engage him in conversation about wellness. "June 2019," he observed, his voice dripping with the kind of aristocratic disdain usually reserved for discussing peasant uprisings or particularly offensive table settings. "'Ten Ways to Find Your Inner Peace.' How delightfully optimistic. How breathtakingly naive."
He flipped it open with theatrical disgust, sunglasses sliding down his nose just enough to reveal eyes that glowed faintly in the fluorescent dimness—serpentine pupils contracting and dilating as they scanned the text. "Number three: 'Practice mindfulness through meditation.' Yes, because when someone's telekinetically dropping gargoyles on your head, what you really need is to sit quietly and focus on your breathing. Number seven: 'Embrace gratitude by keeping a daily journal of positive experiences.' Excellent advice for someone who was nearly murdered by architectural ornamentation less than twenty-four hours ago."
He snapped the magazine shut with a sound like a small bone breaking. "I'm grateful I wasn't crushed into a paste resembling chunky marinara sauce. Should I write that down? Would that count as proper gratitude journaling?"
"Inner peace," Wednesday replied with the clinical precision of a coroner identifying cause of death, "is what boring people call the emotional void they experience when they realize their lives contain absolutely no drama, horror, or interesting catastrophes. It's psychological anesthesia for the terminally bland. A voluntary lobotomy performed through aggressive positivity and strategic ignorance of life's inherent darkness."
"Brutal," Hercules said with genuine appreciation, tossing the magazine back onto the pile where it landed with a small, defeated sound, like a bird that had given up on flight. "Though technically accurate. I've met people who claim to have achieved inner peace. They're universally insufferable. They radiate the kind of aggressive contentment that makes you want to introduce chaos into their lives just to see if they're actually human or if they've been replaced by very cheerful robots."
"I suspect they're lying," Wednesday said flatly. "No one actually experiences sustained contentment without pharmaceutical intervention or severe head trauma. They're performing happiness because society demands it, which makes them both liars and cowards."
"Society does demand an unreasonable amount of performative emotion," Hercules agreed, adjusting his sunglasses with one finger in a gesture that somehow managed to convey both agreement and existential weariness. "At Hogwarts, they expected me to be perpetually grateful for surviving assassination attempts. 'Oh, Harry, you're so brave for not dying when Voldemort tried to murder you again.' As if survival was a choice rather than a combination of luck, paranoia, and other people's sacrificial gestures."
"People mistake survival for virtue," Wednesday observed. "As if continuing to exist in the face of adversity demonstrates moral superiority rather than simply... continuing to exist. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of causality."
"Exactly!" Hercules sat up slightly, his long frame unfolding with the kind of elegant precision that made the movement look choreographed. "And then they build entire narratives around it. The Boy Who Lived. The Chosen One. As if I'd chosen any of it. As if surviving a murder attempt as an infant demonstrated anything except that my mother was more magically powerful than anyone gave her credit for."
"Your mother performed inadvertent human sacrifice to save you," Wednesday said, tilting her head with the minute precision of someone examining an interesting insect. "That's actually quite impressive from a magical theory perspective. Most people are too emotionally compromised during moments of extreme trauma to execute complex protective enchantments. She managed to channel her death into a weapon against her murderer while simultaneously shielding you from harm. The magical focus required is extraordinary."
"Yes, well, it would have been nice if she'd also left instructions," Hercules muttered. "Instead, I got fifteen years of people expecting me to automatically know what I was supposed to do because apparently being protected by ancient sacrificial magic means you should instinctively understand your destiny. Which is nonsense. All it meant was I didn't die. It said nothing about what I was supposed to do after not dying."
"Expectations without instruction is just cruelty dressed up as faith," Wednesday said. "They wanted you to fulfill a role they'd invented without providing the script. It's methodologically irresponsible."
"Thank you!" Hercules gestured emphatically enough that his sunglasses slipped down his nose again. "Finally, someone understands. Everyone at Hogwarts treated me like I was deliberately withholding some heroic destiny when really, I was just a traumatized child with no context trying to survive a school where the staircases moved and the trees tried to kill you."
"The trees tried to kill you?"
"Whomping Willow. Enormous, violent, absolutely no sense of proportional response. You walk too close, it attempts to pulverize you into fertilizer. Second year, Ron and I crashed a flying car into it. The tree took it personally."
"You crashed a flying car," Wednesday repeated slowly, "into a violent tree."
"The car was stolen. Also flying. Long story involving platform barriers and house-elves with misguided protective instincts. The point is, Hogwarts was essentially an architectural deathtrap disguised as an educational institution, and everyone just accepted that as normal."
"I'm beginning to understand why you transitioned to Nevermore so easily," Wednesday observed. "This school's attempted murder rate must seem almost quaint by comparison."
"Positively restful," Hercules agreed. "At Nevermore, at least the architecture stays where you put it. Mostly. Yesterday's gargoyle incident notwithstanding."
"The gargoyle was telekinetically manipulated by a disturbed psychic, not architectural malice," Wednesday corrected. "That's an important distinction. The building itself remains structurally sound and non-hostile."
"How refreshing."
They fell into companionable silence, the kind of quiet that exists between people who've discovered they share the same fundamental worldview—namely, that the world is inherently absurd, most people are exhausting, and survival depends on finding the few individuals who understand that friendship is less about emotional support and more about finding someone who won't judge you for your coping mechanisms.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead with the sound of dying insects trapped in glass. The mauve chairs continued their campaign of aesthetic oppression. The waterfall painting radiated aggressive serenity like a weapon.
Wednesday's eyes drifted toward the window again—a large, institutional rectangle that offered a view of Jericho's charmingly decrepit downtown. More importantly, just visible below the sill, a drainpipe descended the building's exterior with the kind of sturdy construction that suggested it had been installed sometime in the 1940s and had been conscientiously maintained ever since. The pipe was thick, metal, painted a gray that matched the clouds, with regular brackets securing it to the brick at three-foot intervals.
"You're still calculating escape routes," Hercules observed without looking at her.
"Always," Wednesday confirmed. "It's basic survival protocol. Twelve-foot descent, adequate handholds, minimal visibility from street level. Simple egress avoiding main entrance surveillance and Principal Weems's disturbingly competent driver."
"Weems has you under surveillance?"
"She assigned a driver who reports my movements. He's waiting in the parking lot now, probably reading a newspaper and pretending he's not monitoring the building's exits."
"Clever," Hercules said approvingly. "Though easily circumvented if one were willing to climb down a drainpipe in broad daylight."
"The willingness has never been in question. Only the strategic value of the gesture. Escaping now would simply result in recapture and potentially less flexible therapeutic arrangements. Better to endure the first session, assess Dr. Kinbott's competence, and reserve dramatic escape attempts for moments when they serve a tactical purpose."
"You're playing the long game."
"Always."
Hercules tilted his head, studying her profile with the kind of focused attention that suggested he was cataloging details. "How long have you been planning escape routes from rooms?"
"Since I could walk," Wednesday replied without hesitation. "My brother Pugsley has been trying to murder me since I was born. Initially, his attempts were ineffective due to his poor motor control and limited understanding of structural engineering. But by age three, he'd developed sufficient coordination to pose a legitimate threat. I learned to identify exits, assess weapon potential of nearby objects, and maintain constant situational awareness."
"Your brother tries to murder you," Hercules repeated slowly.
"Regularly. It's how Addamses show affection. My parents have an entire dungeon dedicated to creative torture, and they use it exclusively on each other as foreplay. My uncle tried to electrocute my father at least twice per family gathering when I was young. Murder attempts are essentially our love language."
"That's..." Hercules paused, clearly searching for the appropriate word. "Actually healthier than how the Dursleys expressed their feelings about me, which was primarily through systematic psychological abuse and strategic neglect. At least your family's hostility is honest."
"Exactly," Wednesday said with something that might have been satisfaction. "There's no ambiguity. No pretense of love masking resentment. Just pure, straightforward violence between people who genuinely care about each other enough to make the murder attempts creative rather than efficient."
"Efficiency would be boring," Hercules agreed. "If you actually wanted someone dead, you'd simply poison them. The elaborate attempts are the point."
"Precisely. Pugsley once spent three weeks constructing a trebuchet designed to launch me over the garden wall. It failed catastrophically and he broke his arm in two places. I was so proud."
"That's remarkably sweet in a deeply disturbing way."
"Thank you."
The interior door—not the main entrance, which had too many expectations attached to it, but a smaller door that looked like it had been painted approximately seventy times and each coat had been a slightly different shade of white—swung open with a creak that sounded almost musical, like the first note of a symphony composed entirely of dying wood.
Dr. Valerie Kinbott emerged wearing a smile that had clearly been engineered in some laboratory devoted to Professional Warmth™—the kind of expression that suggested decades of practice in appearing simultaneously welcoming and devastatingly competent, like a kindergarten teacher who moonlights as an international spy or a librarian who secretly runs a criminal empire from the reference section.
She'd been assembled from what appeared to be a catalog called "Trustworthy Mental Health Professional: Standard Model (Now With Extra Competence!)," complete with earth-toned clothing that coordinated with mathematical precision, hair disciplined into a style that suggested it had signed a legally binding contract to stay in place, and glasses perched on her nose with the authority of someone who'd read every book ever written about adolescent psychology and remembered most of them well enough to quote relevant passages during dinner parties.
Everything about her radiated carefully calibrated warmth—not too friendly (that would suggest unprofessional boundary issues), not too distant (that would seem cold), but exactly the right temperature to make troubled teenagers feel comfortable enough to accidentally reveal their innermost thoughts while still maintaining the power dynamic necessary for effective therapeutic intervention.
Her clothing was earth-toned in that specific way that suggested she'd read multiple studies about how certain colors promote feelings of safety and trust. Her jewelry was minimal but present—small earrings, a simple necklace—just enough to seem human without being distracting. Even her shoes were sensible but not aggressively practical, suggesting someone who valued comfort but hadn't completely given up on aesthetics.
She was, in short, exactly what a therapist was supposed to look like, which made Wednesday immediately suspicious.
"Wednesday," Dr. Kinbott said, her voice carrying the kind of practiced warmth that came from years of coaxing information out of reluctant teenagers, "I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for being on time."
She turned her attention to Hercules, who had remained sprawled across two chairs like a particularly elegant spider, all angles and deliberate nonchalance. Something flickered across her expression—professional curiosity mixed with barely concealed fascination, the look of someone who'd just been handed a puzzle box labeled "Warning: Contents May Be Psychologically Complex" and couldn't wait to start taking it apart.
"And you must be Hercules," she continued, her smile widening slightly. "Principal Weems shared some of your background. I must say, your case is exceptionally fascinating from a clinical perspective. I've never actually worked with someone who's undergone the kind of... transformation you've experienced."
"'Fascinating,'" Hercules repeated, one eyebrow rising above his sunglasses with the precision of a drawbridge lifting to allow ships to pass. "How wonderfully ominous. That's the same word people use to describe particularly aggressive cancers and natural disasters. I'm delighted to be categorized with such distinguished company."
"I prefer to think of it as 'complex and rewarding from a therapeutic standpoint,'" Dr. Kinbott said, her smile suggesting she was enjoying this conversation more than professional protocol probably recommended. "Though I'll admit, depending on one's perspective on personal growth and identity reconstruction, that could sound equally threatening."
"I like her," Wednesday announced flatly, not looking at Hercules but directing the comment at him anyway. "She's not immediately trying to convince us this will be pleasant or transformative or some other therapeutically optimistic nonsense. That level of honesty is rare in the emotional manipulation industry."
"Therapy isn't emotional manipulation," Dr. Kinbott said with the patient tone of someone who'd had this exact conversation approximately four hundred times and had developed an immune response to the accusation. "It's guided self-exploration with professional support for processing complex experiences and developing healthier coping mechanisms."
"Which," Wednesday said, her eyes glinting like fresh-sharpened knives catching lamplight, "is exactly what someone who's very good at emotional manipulation would say. You've essentially described manipulation while using therapeutic terminology to make it sound beneficial."
"Fair point," Dr. Kinbott conceded, which seemed to surprise both Wednesday and Hercules. "Though I'd argue there's a meaningful distinction between manipulation for personal gain versus guidance intended to benefit the patient's psychological wellbeing. The techniques might look similar from the outside, but the underlying motivation and ethical framework are fundamentally different."
"Motivation is irrelevant," Wednesday countered. "Outcome is what matters. If you use emotional leverage to influence my behavior, that's manipulation regardless of whether your intentions are benevolent."
"True," Dr. Kinbott agreed, apparently unbothered by having her professional methodology questioned by a teenage girl in the first thirty seconds of their acquaintance. "Though by that definition, all human interaction is manipulation to some degree. Every conversation involves attempting to influence others' thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. The question isn't whether we manipulate, but whether we do so transparently and ethically."
"Oh, I *really* like her," Wednesday said, this time with the faintest edge of something that might have been approval.
"She's arguing with you using logic instead of appealing to authority," Hercules observed. "That's refreshingly competent. Most adults just tell you to be quiet and trust them because they're adults."
"Most adults are idiots," Wednesday said.
"Agreed."
"I appreciate the vote of confidence," Dr. Kinbott said dryly. "Though I should note that trusting me immediately because I'm willing to argue would be just as problematic as trusting me because of my credentials. Healthy skepticism is actually a good sign."
"Are you always this reasonable?" Hercules asked suspiciously. "Or is this a special first-session performance designed to establish rapport before you start trying to fix us?"
"I'm always this reasonable," Dr. Kinbott assured him. "Also, I'm not here to fix you. Neither of you is broken. You're both highly intelligent individuals with unconventional psychology navigating a world designed for more conventional people. My job isn't to make you normal—it's to help you understand yourselves well enough to make deliberate choices instead of just reacting to circumstances."
Silence fell across the waiting room, heavy with the weight of two extremely suspicious teenagers trying to determine whether this woman was genuinely competent or simply very good at faking it.
"Right," Dr. Kinbott said finally, gesturing toward her office with one hand. "Why don't you both come in? I promise the interior is only slightly less beige than the waiting room."
"That's not much of a selling point," Wednesday observed.
"No," Dr. Kinbott agreed cheerfully, "but I'm working with what I have. The building management has strong opinions about paint colors. Apparently 'dark purple with gothic accents' doesn't project the right image for a psychiatric practice."
"Building management is wrong," Wednesday said.
"Objectively true, but not something I can change without violating my lease."
They filed into the office, which did indeed contain slightly less beige than the waiting room, though it compensated by including more cream, taupe, and something that might have been described as "greige" by someone who believed in portmanteau paint colors.
But unlike the waiting room, this space showed signs of actual human occupation. Books lined the shelves—real books with cracked spines and dog-eared pages, suggesting they'd been read rather than merely displayed for aesthetic purposes. The desk was covered in actual papers rather than decorative objects designed to project competence. Two comfortable-looking chairs sat at conversational angles rather than in the typical therapist-patient power dynamic configuration, and a small table between them held a box of tissues that appeared to have been used at least once, suggesting Dr. Kinbott had actually made at least one patient cry.
The walls held framed diplomas and certificates arranged with precise spacing, documenting Dr. Kinbott's journey through undergraduate psychology, graduate clinical work, specialized training in adolescent therapy, and various professional certifications that suggested she took continuing education seriously.
But it was the window that seized Wednesday's attention immediately—large, institutional, offering a perfect view of downtown Jericho's charmingly depressing architecture. More importantly, just visible below the sill, that drainpipe descended with sturdy reliability, practically begging to be used as an escape route by a sufficiently motivated teenager.
Wednesday's eyes traced the pipe's path from window to ground, calculating: weight distribution, grip points, potential witnesses, estimated descent time (forty-five seconds if careful, twenty if desperate), and probability of successful escape versus probability of being caught and facing consequences that would make future escape attempts more difficult (sixty-forty split, acceptable odds if circumstances became truly unbearable).
Dr. Kinbott settled into her chair with the fluid grace of someone who'd performed this exact movement thousands of times and had perfected the art of appearing simultaneously relaxed and professionally attentive. She picked up a notebook and pen but didn't immediately use them—a subtle signal that she was observing first, judging later.
"So," she began, her voice carrying that carefully calibrated warmth, "Principal Weems mentioned you both experienced a traumatic incident yesterday. Something about a falling gargoyle? She was somewhat vague on the details, but she seemed quite concerned about your wellbeing."
"Someone attempted to murder us using architectural ornamentation as a projectile weapon," Wednesday stated with the clinical precision of someone reading a weather forecast. "The gargoyle was telekinetically manipulated over several hours to achieve optimal trajectory and velocity. The execution demonstrated impressive technical skill and admirable commitment to homicide. Our survival depended entirely on Hercules's unnaturally acute sensory perception providing sufficient warning to avoid being crushed into a paste resembling chunky marinara sauce."
The silence that followed this statement had weight and texture—the kind of heavy, pregnant pause that occurs when someone's carefully prepared therapeutic framework collides with a patient who treats attempted murder as a minor inconvenience worth analyzing for technical merit.
Dr. Kinbott's pen hovered over her notebook for exactly three seconds before she set it down with careful precision. "That's... remarkably specific. And you say 'murder attempt' rather than 'accident.' You're certain it was deliberate?"
"We identified the perpetrator, confronted him, and negotiated an arrangement wherein he provides research assistance regarding prophetic visions of my death in exchange for our discretion regarding his attempted homicide," Wednesday continued, her tone suggesting she was discussing a successful business transaction. "Exposure to precognitive evidence depicting apocalyptic consequences of my continued existence caused him significant psychological distress. His reasoning was deeply flawed. His methodology was admirable. The gargoyle's trajectory was calculated with impressive precision—it would have struck me directly in the head if Hercules hadn't pulled me aside approximately point-seven seconds before impact."
"Point-seven seconds," Dr. Kinbott repeated slowly, her professional composure showing hairline cracks.
"I'm very precise about time," Wednesday said.
Another pause, longer this time, filled with the sound of Dr. Kinbott's pen moving across paper with the desperate intensity of someone documenting what might be the most unusual case of her career while simultaneously questioning every therapeutic principle she'd ever learned.
When she looked up again, her expression had shifted—still professional, still warm, but now underlaid with the kind of intense focus usually reserved for unsolved mysteries or particularly complex crossword puzzles.
"Right," she said carefully, as if testing each word before speaking it. "That's... that's quite a lot to process. Let's start with the most immediate concern: You survived an attempt on your life yesterday. Both of you. How are you feeling about that?"
"Vindicated," Wednesday replied instantly, without the slightest hesitation. "Finally, someone recognized my existence as sufficiently threatening to justify premeditated murder. It's far more respectful than the social ostracism and systematic psychological torture I endured at my previous institution, where people simply pretended I didn't exist or spread rumors about my family's supposed involvement in organized crime."
"Vindicated," Dr. Kinbott repeated, her pen hovering over the page as though uncertain whether to record this or simply start a new career in a field with more predictable patients. "Most people who survive murder attempts report fear, anxiety, trauma, nightmares, hypervigilance—"
"Fear is counterproductive," Wednesday interrupted with surgical precision. "It clouds judgment and impairs tactical decision-making. Anxiety indicates failure to properly anticipate negative outcomes—if you've prepared adequately for disaster, there's no logical reason for anxiety. Trauma is for people who lack adequate psychological resilience to process adverse experiences. Survival provides valuable data regarding threat assessment, alliance effectiveness, and the importance of selecting companions whose paranoid hypervigilance compensates for one's own occasional attraction to mortal danger."
She glanced at Hercules. "Also, it confirmed my friendship selection criteria are methodologically sound."
"How flattering," Hercules murmured, his voice carrying genuine warmth beneath the aristocratic drawl. "Being valued primarily for one's paranoid hypervigilance and ability to detect architectural assassination attempts. It's like being appreciated for one's best qualities."
"You're welcome," Wednesday said seriously.
Dr. Kinbott's pen moved across the page with renewed vigor, her expression cycling through several distinct phases of professional recalibration—concern, fascination, mild alarm, acceptance, and finally landing on something that looked suspiciously like a therapist realizing she'd just encountered the challenge of her career and feeling slightly excited about it.
"And Hercules," she said, turning her attention to him with careful intensity, "how are you processing yesterday's events? Saving someone's life—particularly someone you've recently befriended—often generates considerable emotional complexity. Questions about mortality, responsibility, the fragility of human existence—"
"Dr. Kinbott," Hercules interrupted with exquisite politeness, adjusting his sunglasses with one finger in a gesture that somehow conveyed both respect and mild condescension, "I genuinely appreciate your concern regarding my emotional state following yesterday's architectural assassination attempt. However, I feel obligated to note that this represents approximately the... third? Fourth? Let's say fourth. Fourth time I've prevented imminent death through application of supernatural abilities and pathological attention to environmental anomalies."
He paused, tilting his head as though mentally cataloging. "Though if we're counting incidents where I prevented multiple deaths simultaneously, the number increases substantially. There was the Basilisk situation at Hogwarts—saved approximately fifty students through strategic intervention and willingness to stab a sixty-foot serpent through the brain with a sword while suffering venom-induced blood loss. Then the Dementor incident during third year—"
"I'm sorry," Dr. Kinbott interjected, her professional composure showing definite structural cracks. "Did you say Basilisk? As in the mythological serpent whose gaze kills instantly?"
"Oh, it wasn't mythological," Hercules assured her with the casual air of someone discussing weather patterns rather than encounters with legendary creatures. "Very real. Sixty feet long, approximately one thousand years old, capable of killing with direct eye contact or petrifying through indirect visual contact. Killed at least three students and one ghost across several decades before I stabbed it through the roof of its mouth with a sword that belonged to Godric Gryffindor. Received a fang through the arm for my trouble, which should have killed me within minutes via venom, but I was rescued by a Phoenix who cried healing tears directly into the wound."
He said all of this in the same tone someone might use to describe their morning commute.
"You were bitten by a Basilisk," Dr. Kinbott said faintly, her pen frozen mid-note.
"Technically, yes, though I survived due to Phoenix intervention, which is actually quite rare—Phoenixes are notoriously selective about who they help. Fawkes—that was the Phoenix—apparently decided I was worth saving, which was kind of him. Though it did mean I had Basilisk venom floating around in my bloodstream for years, which later interacted with the werewolf bite during third year—"
"You were also bitten by a werewolf," Dr. Kinbott said, her voice taking on a slightly strangled quality.
"During an unplanned transformation, which meant I didn't become a traditional werewolf but instead the venom combined with the pre-existing Basilisk venom and Phoenix tears already present in my bloodstream, catalyzing a transformation into a hybrid form that technically shouldn't exist according to magical theory—"
"Hercules," Dr. Kinbott said, her voice carrying the kind of strained patience that suggested her entire understanding of adolescent psychology was being systematically demolished by a teenager in sunglasses, "I'm going to need you to pause for just a moment."
She set down her pen with ceremonious care, as though it were a very delicate explosive device that might detonate if jostled. She folded her hands in her lap. She took a breath that suggested she was mentally composing a very strongly worded letter to Principal Weems about inadequate case briefings and possibly requesting hazard pay for sessions involving students with this level of trauma complexity.
"Let me see if I understand correctly," she continued, her tone suggesting she very much did not understand but was making a valiant effort anyway. "You've been in multiple life-threatening situations before age fifteen. You fought—"
"Killed," Hercules corrected helpfully.
"—*killed* a Basilisk with a sword—"
"Technically belonged to Godric Gryffindor. It appeared magically when I needed it, which was convenient. There was also a possessed diary involved, and Tom Riddle's preserved memory trying to return to corporeal form by draining life force from a student he'd possessed—"
"There was a possessed student," Dr. Kinbott repeated.
"Ginny Weasley. She's fine now. Mostly. Probably needs therapy, actually. You should suggest that to Principal Weems—there are multiple students who could benefit from professional psychological intervention following various traumatic incidents that the school administration consistently failed to address through appropriate channels—"
"Hercules," Wednesday interjected, her voice cutting through his explanation with surgical precision, "you're giving Dr. Kinbott the abbreviated version. You're omitting the part where you were raised by abusive relatives who kept you in a cupboard under the stairs for ten years."
"Ah, yes, the Dursleys," Hercules said, as casually as if mentioning distant acquaintances he didn't particularly like. "Took me in after my parents were murdered, spent a decade systematically undermining my self-worth through strategic neglect and psychological abuse, forced me to sleep in a cupboard until I was eleven, and generally treated me as a combination of unpaid servant and shameful family secret—"
"The part where you learned you were famous in a world you didn't know existed," Wednesday continued, building on his sentence with the kind of synchronized rhythm that suggested they'd had this conversation before.
"Right, yes—famous for surviving a murder attempt as an infant, which everyone treated as though I'd accomplished something heroic rather than simply... not dying when someone tried to kill me. Spent years being stared at, whispered about, expected to live up to a reputation I never asked for—"
"The part where your godfather was wrongly imprisoned for twelve years and you helped prove his innocence—"
"Sirius spent over a decade in Azkaban—magical prison guarded by Dementors, which are essentially depression demons that feed on happiness—for crimes he didn't commit while the actual murderer lived disguised as a rat in my dormitory for three years—"
"The part where everyone expected you to sacrifice yourself to defeat a dark wizard because of a prophecy made before you were born—"
"Sirius told me about the prophecy. It was actually quite vague and could have applied to another student entirely, but everyone decided it meant me specifically, which meant spending years being groomed for noble self-sacrifice without anyone considering whether I might have opinions about dying for the greater good—"
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