Word count: 1557
Written for:
Hogwarts April Event Spring Themed Bingo - 07: (word) Breeze
Hogwarts Chocolate Frog Card Club - Prompts: Noise, Thunder, Reserved, Alone
Playgrounds and Persistent Memories
The afternoon was closing in on him as he shoved his feet into sneakers without untying the laces, stepped outside, and let the door slam shut.
Harry let a car pass by before jogging across the street to the sidewalk. Without much pause, he turned to the right and started running - faster than a jog, but not so fast that he would burn out too quickly. He actually intended to run, knowing it would keep him in shape this summer.
Then there was the side hope of keeping him out of the Dursley house for as much time as possible.
Before Harry left, he watched Vernon and Petunia talking in the living room about an upcoming family vacation. He wasn't included in the discussion, which suited him just fine, so aside from a passing remark by Vernon about getting back in time to clean house, Harry was free to go wherever he pleased.
By this time he had reached the first intersection. He waited for a few cars, unsure, then continued on. His footsteps hit the asphalt in alternating pattern as his pace steadied; he had forgotten what it was like to run, and run hard.
He had done the same just a few months before.
He was sprinting, digging his toes into the soft loam of the maze floor - A dark figure appeared in front of him - They raced, seeing nothing but the shining cup, sitting unguarded on a plinth only yards away -
It was quiet all around him, few pedestrians, and little movement at all, so Harry kept going for five minutes or so, glancing at his beaten, broken old hand-me-down Muggle watch every so often to check the time.
He stared at the body of the acromantula, collapsed on top of the nearby hedge - His own leg was bloodied - He knew he had lost, so why did Cedric wait? -
Then Harry stopped in front of an abandoned partially-repaired house, seeing the lights of cars and road signs. He hadn't reached anywhere interesting in particular, but he suddenly didn't want to run anymore where there were people. He was still skinny as ever, and the same old baggy sweatshirts didn't hide as much as they used to.
Take it, he snapped - You've got it, it's yours, you've won! - But the older boy did nothing, just looked sadly at the cup and back at him -
He walked, slowly taking in the sights and sounds of the neighborhood: the light glinting between the trees, the flags on neighbors' houses flapping gently in the breeze, the growl of distant thunder, the hum of vehicles on the freeway.
Then he was someplace else entirely - a cemetery, dark and desolate - The shadow of an old forgotten church loomed over him in the darkness -
There was a path to his side, away from the main street. It was more of a driveway, really, because at the end stood a children's school, the public one he and Dudley had attended when they were very young. Harry, surprised, decided to walk down the sloping paved path.
He waited for another horrible thought to flash though his head, but nothing did.
Looking all around at the playgrounds, the blacktop, the shed where balls and bits of chalk were kept, the garden beside the classroom windows... Harry felt strangely happy. He couldn't remember being happy there, not with his cousin telling the other kids tales of Harry's stupidity and oddness. But it had been so long since he had thought of it that something washed away the simple truth of the matter. Harry ignored what his brain was telling him about the old days.
He jogged, his pounding feet cracking the wood chips, stopping when he saw a park bench under a blossoming fruit tree. Harry stopped there, looking at everything around him with a hunger.
He sat down. He listened, hearing the things he never noticed.
There was a frog croaking in some pool made from the last rain. Its call split the chirps of birds sitting high in the trees, which alternated and echoed over each other in effortless harmonies. Somewhere amongst the trees, he could hear twigs snapping and leaves rustling as animals ran about.
Harry jumped, but after a while, he was used to the backdrop noise.
He walked over to the swings, sitting on a clean one, and swung gently, arms curled around the chains but hands resting in his lap. He precariously balanced as he moved back and forth, his feet scraping the ground over and over.
Creeeaak... Snap... Creeeaak... Snap...
Every so often he worried about someone coming upon him, some teens from the older schools, perhaps, and seeing him alone in the empty schoolyard. But nobody came, although he saw car after car go by on the road.
The chains protested, making a screaming noise each time he swung. The rhythm was comforting and natural, but in Harry's head he heard other screams. He tried to block his mind, block the images pushing their way into him, to no avail. Harry slipped off the swing, and crouched on the ground, clutched his pulsing scar in his hands.
Creeeaak... Creeeaak...
The swing, propelled by his fall, kept moving, leaving the screaming in Harry's ears. It grew voices, and he saw everything again as if it was happening in front of his eyes.
Cedric - watching the life fade out of the boy's eyes, and seeing the body hit the ground with a sickening crunch -
Wormtail - watching him shrieking in pain as he mutilated himself, his eyes bloodshot and wide with terror -
Harry - watching himself, as if from above, thrashing around at the effects of the Cruciatus curse, screaming inside his head if not aloud -
But the creaks stopped.
Harry reopened his eyes, which had been clenched tightly shut, and stared at the playground. He was alone. The swing was still. He could feel his heart pounding, the pulse still erratic and quick.
A minute before, it had felt like his own private place - a hideaway from everything he saw and did in the wizard world. No one could find him, no one could threaten him.
But the winds changed, literally. The sun was hidden behind a gathering of clouds, and the air chilled slowly, leaving Harry wishing he had brought a warmer jacket. He shivered. The playground was no longer beautiful, it was too still and too sad.
The pain of his scar faded, but he scoured the sky for signs of Death Eaters. What he had felt and heard could have been his imagination, or it could have been something real. He was back. He, Harry, had seen it all. The screams that day had been real.
Harry saw the playground, now cold and in shadow, and knew he had to leave.
He checked his watch. He had been out for half an hour or so, and he knew the Dursleys would be after him if he dared stay out past their dinnertime. Normally they wouldn't care where he went, but as they were leaving for vacation, Petunia was panicky about every little thing. Back to Privet Drive it was, then.
Before he reached the road, he turned back and saw the slope heading down to the blacktop. It was hardly steep, nothing he couldn't climb in a few seconds. But Harry thought back to the days when he had attended that school, and thought the hill was insurmountable. He used to drag his feet when he walked that way - unless Dudley was after him, of course. But now it seemed like nothing at all. A silly problem of another life altogether.
Harry knew it was foolish to think of years ago. He had been miserable, yes, but nothing compared to his current state of fear and frustration. If he could get a Time-Turner like Hermione, he would go back to when he was little and tell himself to be grateful that the dark wizard who killed his parents wasn't alive or kicking.
Or maybe not. That would be stupid. It would just make things worse. Harry shook his head; he was exhausted and ready to flop onto a lumpy mattress for the duration of the summer hols.
Running halfheartedly back to the house, Harry couldn't help but relive the moments in the playground when his brain had gone haywire. It was happening too often - he was losing control of the nightmares so much, they began to appear during the day. Most of the time, he stayed reserved, but occasionally, he had to let them out.
He arrived at the front step of Number 4 Privet Drive. The sun had started to set, but there was no fantastic show on the horizon. The darkness grew without ceremony, an ominous feeling lingering in the air.
Harry looked behind him, the back of his neck tingling.
There was nothing there, just scraps of trash on the side of the road, and a flickering streetlight. He turned back and hurriedly shut the door.
On the opposite side of the street, a completely black figure lurked in the shadow. The tattered edges of its robe fluttered in the breeze, but it was still and unmoving. No life beat in its chest.
Two soulless eyes watched the closed door of the Dursley house, as an ever-wide mouth longed to give a deadly kiss...