Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, but I do own this story in its entirety. I do not make any money from this fanfic.
Title: Petrified
Author: Stardust of Orion
Rating: T
Warnings: Mentions of blood; Suggestion of possible character death
Pairing(s)/Ship(s): None
Summary: Drabble set during Half-Blood Prince. There is more than one meaning to the word 'petrified.' Harry's ordeal after Draco cast Petrificus Totalis, broke his nose, hid him under the invisibility cloak, and left him alone in the train.
Author's Note: It seems like such a minor and fairly benign scene in the movie, but it definitely has frightening potential.
Petrified
It's a pathetic way to die, he thinks.
The last fragment of hope that Ron and Hermione will find him fades into the darkness of his enshrouded vision. The rumble of the carriages outside echo his silent groans of pain, the axles of their wheels grinding against the ground.
Hollow corridors sit silently around him – the silence more terrifying now that he can't speak; now that there is no one to hear.
He wants to move away from this hard floor – take up his place beside his friends in the carriage to Hogwarts – but he is frozen; immovable as stone.
His lungs draw shallow breaths, unable to fill past the constriction of the petrifying curse. He clings to each morsel of oxygen as if this were his last, savoring it until he is forced to seek out more.
Each second allows less and less room for the tiny leak of oxygen to make its bubbling way past the copper flood in his throat. Every breath pulls blood into the thin space of his inflating lungs.
The curse has gripped his throat muscles in a tight fist and he can't even swallow to save himself. He needs to cough – to shift any which way – and expel the red tide choking him.
Muscles straining, he tries to break free from the prison of his body and simply move. He needs to tremble – to give birth to the scream trying to find it's way from his mouth to the freedom of the air – but he is locked in perfect, rigid agony.
His smashed nose throbs ribbons of pain in harmony with the beat of his heart and that, he decides, is one good thing about dying: the tempo will slow until it completely fades away, leaving his body ache-free.
Trapped in this place of terror and despair, the tiny dark thought becomes a radiantly bright hope.
It's still a pathetic way to die, he thinks, but at least the pain – the feeling of being trapped in his body; in his life – will finally cease to matter.
Author's Note: Reviews are always appreciated. I've never written anything quite like this before.
Copyright 2012 by Stardust of Orion