I started writing this one a few years back and have returned to it every once in a while. I've completed five chapters in my first language, finnish, and I'm now in the process of translating them into english. The plan is to write ten chapters or so depending on how people react to the story. Now, the first chapter's a bit short but the following ones will be longer.
Review.

Frostbites
by
Sad Wednesday

Chapter 1: Autumn

Lips are turning blue
A kiss that can't renew
I only dream of you
My beautiful

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A dried up rose, once so vibrant red - now dimmed with the shades of brown - was placed in a simple vase. Its petals still seemed strong and thick, but with closer inspection you'd notice how easy it would be to reach out and crush the blossom into scented powder. The small veins crossing along the surface were now more visible than when the flower had still been rooted into the nutritious, luscious ground. It was funny how something now so dead and fragile could have once been a thing that grew and was alive.

Harry hated the stupid, ugly rose; every single time his eyes settled upon it he reached his hand to throw it away, but every time there was something that stopped him - and today was no exception. Insted of fulfilling his urges, Harry just settled for staring at the flower engulfed by mild revulsion.
He remembered perfectly well the day he'd gotten the rose as a gift; it was a common, muggle-type of thing to give yet the triviality of it spoke of deep, heartfelt emotion. The rose was from Hermione. Hermione. The name didn't stir any feeling in Harry, only some tepid memories that slid out of his consciousness the moment he almost got hold of them. Hermione was just a name without a face, like a part of a story he'd read long time ago. She was just one more added to the list of people whom Harry had first betrayed, and then forgotten. He didn't want to remember. They were ugly, purposeless, inevetable - was this the word Dumbledore had used? - events following each other with accumulating speed and finally exploding into a circus of horror and despair.
All this left Harry feeling agitated and confused; he couldn't grasp the emotions flickering inside his chest while thinking about these things, he couldn't press his fingers on them and make them stay. He couldn't make sense of them. He wasn't sure they were even quite feelings and emotions; not quite grief, not quite hate... Just something that made the insides of him feel strangely detached. He knew it couldn't be right, that it couldn't be normal not to feel all those strong, vivid things inside him.

Maybe he didn't have it in him to care.

Harry absentmindedly tugged the pendant hanging on his neck; a habit which had left his skin raw and tender.

Harry didn't bother to look into the mirror before opening the door of his small room and disappearing into the dark corridor, he knew the face looking back at him all too well; pale and gaunt, cheeks nothing but a pair of shallow dints and additionally some sort of shadow had taken over Harry's once beautiful and boyish features. He was like an ancient sculpture of some glorious god, decayed with time. He appeared years older than he truly was. His luminously green eyes seemed ridicilously large against the canvas of bone and skin. Even though almost everything in Harry's appearence had changed, was his hair - due to some ironic twist - still the same; just a tad too long and always ruffled. Sirius had always affectionately teased him about his hair, saying his head looked like the end of a mop. Even the memory of Sirius - whom Harry had considered the next best thing to a father - engendered that peculiar feeling like when you forgot to do something important for instance take the kettle off the stove before leaving home.

Harry strolled along the corridor illuminated by a few torches; behind the stone walls the world was still dark, it was still few hours until dawn. It was cold in the castle, a draft penetrated through the poor fabric of Harry's cloak making him shiver. It was only early September and not one frost-afflicted morning had yet dawned. Autumn was slowly advancing towards the inescapable winter; the first rainy days, the fresh nothern winds running across the callused grounds of Hogwarts, the oaks and maples gradually changing colour, and finally windows frosted over with the bitter cold. Harry'd always liked autumn, ever since he was little.

Though of course in the Dursley residence the changing of seasons was barely noticed let alone appreciated.
A shiver of repulsion shot through Harry's body. He hated the Durleys. Although Petunia had sometimes had the decency to be distantly polite towards him - of course only because they were, unfortunately, related - and since Dudley wasn't much of an opponent as he grew older, slower and dummer, there was still Vernon, and unlike his son, he had wits. He mangled Harry both physically and mentally, and he enjoyed it. Punishing and humiliating Harry was like some perverted, twisted game played by Vernon's rules - and he always won.

Harry passed many deserted, darkened classrooms on his way; for the past four months Hogwarts hadn't been a school anymore. After Dumbledore had gone missing only McGonagall and a few others from the faculty had stayed; the rest had quickly packed up their belongings and left. Naturally, all the pupils had left long before that, during those few chaotic days after Dumbledore's disappearence - no parent wanted their children in the same school with Voldemort's main target - which was Harry, of course - now when the only wizard Voldemort had ever even remotely feared was gone. Suddenly Harry had found himself in the middle of a nasty turmoil, and somehow people seemed to think he was now the head of everyhting, the mastermind, the commander-in-chief. He found himself giving statements to various newspapers, shedding the details of his so called plans and reciting meaningless, encouraging dictums. He felt like a fool. He didn't want the resposibility shoved into his arms, he didn't want to answer questions he had no answers for.

Harry was quite sure that if someone offered him the chance to go back to living in the cupboard under the Dursleys staircase, he would happily consent.

A forceful wind pressed itself against Harry's body at the front door, he adjusted his cloak to cover his delicate figure better. The trees in the distance, just barely visible in the twilight, were swaying from one side to the other as if in slow-motion. Harry trailed down a narrow path sloping down towards the lake.
Blades of grass crackled under his shoes and his breath steamed in the cold morning air. Far in the east the first pale rays of sunlight were almost translucent against the sky; Harry stood still for a while examining the horizon with a scornful expression on his face.

'You're late.'