Prompt from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments).
Anapneo is a healing spell that clears the target person's throat if it is blocked; an example would be if one was choking.
Write a 500-3000 word story about a person who finds a way to breathe again.
"Kill the spare." A jet of green light flew towards Cedric, and before the older boy had even turned around fully he collapsed to the ground. Harry was unable to register much after that. He had perhaps screamed, or struggled, or even fallen much like Cedric had. He was unable to focus; he was unable to breathe. Ropes dragged his arms to either side and chilled, rigid stone was jagged against his back. He was certain that had his breath not already eluded him, it would have painfully left his lungs then.
The glistening and deformed being that had ordered Wormtail to kill seemed a poor imitation of a fetal child. His heart halted in its march as the creature lifted its head. Voldemort was here, and was presumably the reason behind their being brought to the graveyard. He-it- whatever Voldemort truly was- seemed, in that moment, to look into his very soul, and must have found something because he grinned. It was an unfinished smile, as if the man had not smiled for a long time. He could not have, given his half life had lasted for a multitude of years.
Harry's lungs felt as if they were collapsing, or perhaps rotting very rapidly. Breathe. How could one breathe, again? Not a single attempt was successful. Cedric's face, now permanently frozen in an expression of fear and shock, flashed in his mind's eye. Voldemort was dropped into a large cauldron with a effervescing liquid that could only be a potion. Everything disappeared for a brief of moment. The bliss of nonexistence was swiftly replaced with pure agony as a metal blade pierced his vein. "Blood of the enemy."
Voldemort had returned neither man nor whatever spirit he had been before. He had a physical body, but it was contorted and inhuman and wrong in every sense of the word. The ropes were sliced and Harry fell to the foot of the grave. 'Here lies Thomas Riddle.' The world snapped back into focus.
He yelled again, though not out of fear, as it had been the first time, but anger and confusion. He fought to escape again, not out of fear but of justifiable fury and a sense of righteousness. Harry defied Voldemort for a fourth time, but not for the benefit of anybody else. He fought for himself; he fought for his happiness, his friends, and his home. Because really, the Wizarding world was his world, Hogwarts his home, wizards and witches his friends, and magic his happiness. He would rather die than lose all that he had gained in four years without a fight.
He would not fight for Dumbledore, the Ministry, or even the good of the world. He was a rather selfish person he supposed, but he would only fight for what was his. "EXPELLIARMUS!" The red light of his life met the green light of death furiously. Golden apparitions of the victims of Tom Riddle Jr. flowed from the clashing of spells. Terror coursed through him- and strength and courage and something darker- and as he grabbed onto the prize that had cost the life of a boy, his tears were swept away in the wind.
He was home.
Even as chaos began to swirl around him- the judges, Cedric's parents, the students, the faculty- he began to laugh and cry and scream. Oxygen flowed back into his lungs. He survived. He was a fighter and the war had only just begun. A rough hand grabbed his arm. Mad Eye Moody pulled him back to the castle. Harry breathed.
"The Dark Lord- what did he say?" The air rushed from him again.