Life and Love
Chapter One: Bliss
Disclaimer: These delightful characters belong to Joanne Rowling, who should let me enter her brain, steal the plots for the next books, and allow me to write the next ones with my own ideas in mind. Because if she doesn't make them Harry/Hermione, I might find that I don't like the books quite as much anymore.
Author's Notes: Well, now, let's see. Um…I'll apologize in advance for making Harry suicidal, but I didn't want to write a battle, and the direction I'm going in with this story sort of requires him to be lonely, injured and emotionally wrecked. It'll get brighter, though, I promise. This plot revolves around James in a bit of it, to warn you. And I admit: I used others' ideas. So sue me.
Summary: Harry Potter, sixth year hero, is still fighting against many battles. His alliances are trying all they can to keep him stable, but complications are coming up instantaneously. Voldemort is back for Harry's blood, the media is a living nightmare, and James Potter is back…
HARRY'S POV
Harry Potter sat stiffly in his bed in the Gryffindor boy's dormitory, trying to focus his eyes in the raven enclosing him. Somewhere beyond the back of his eyes inside of his head, a stinging pain surged through, throbbing and slashing until Harry couldn't keep himself from swearing. A piercing breeze slid through the room, gliding through the stagnant air.
He shivered.
The light wind seemed to reflect Harry's entire being for the past few months. Soaring hopelessly through a suffocative wall of confusion, nipping people's senses until things would calm down and he would feel human again. But he wasn't feeling human anymore, more like a mere spirit inhabiting someone's body and functioning without any kind of consideration or thought of the pain that he was feeling.
His friends and peers would comfort him without any knowledge of what he truly felt like and insisted that things would get better soon. How many times had he heard that? How many times had he told himself that?
Harry blinked. A stirring and vehement cloud shifted away from the moon, briefly lighting his bed to where he could make out the wrinkles in the rich fabric surrounding him. But all too soon, he was plunged back into darkness again. Harry supposed the blindness of night was good for him, because if his brain had to absorb anything else, he might just completely crack.
This night was just like any other. Harry would sit through dinner and pretend to eat while he really just pushed things into different positions on the plate to make it look like at least some of it was missing. Ron and Hermione would uncomfortably glance at him, look quickly away again, and then try to say something matter-of-factly. Harry would just nod and stare, not really listening at all.
After dinner, they would trudge their way to the Gryffindor common room, still sharing wide-eyed glances as if to say, "What's up with him? What do we do?" while Harry would trail behind looking at the floor to try to make out little patterns where feet had imprinted the rugs or carpet. Anything to quit analyzing memories and events of his life.
But there was something different about tonight, Harry realized as he thought about its previous happenings while listening to the rain start to slash around in his bed.
I talked about it.
FLASHBACK
"Harry, I – I wanted to talk to you. I was worried," Hermione said in a barely audible voice that shook with concern and terror that he might do something stupid. He just kept his focus on the bright orange flames that seemed to dance in slow motion before his eyes. The heat was burning them but he still kept them wide open.
Hermione's fear and nerves seemed to melt away and she looked considerably angry. Her voice was still pitched at no more than a hoarse whisper, but this time, venom laced her words.
"Harry, you have to talk. You're so selfish sometimes, and I don't understand it. Is it pride? Is it arrogance? I really don't know, but I don't think that you have that large of a head. And that's why I'm concerned about you. Because either you're a selfish jerk or there's something going on in your head that I don't know about and it's seriously altering your personality. What happened to sweet, polite, charming, funny Harry Potter? What's going on? Why can't you just tell me?"
Harry looked into her cinnamon eyes, tracing out each fleck of gold and studying her pupils, wondering what he could possibly say. No language could really describe his emotions, because they weren't like anything he had really experienced before. Words like "sad," "scared," and "depressed" flashed in his mind's eye, but they didn't even come close to representing his state of mind right now.
He watched Hermione still as tears welled up in her eyes, threatening to come spilling out. Their threats became reality, and she was soon sobbing on Harry's chest, frantically muttering things like "Why don't you trust me?"
He held her for a few moments and then spoke, his voice rough for lack of using it in such a long period of time. "Hermione, I do trust you. More than Ron, more than Dumbledore, more than anyone else in this world. I never thought I deserved much. What had I ever done for anyone? Caused them to have a topic of gossip?"
Harry paused, biting his lip. He was going about this all the wrong way. He changed his angle. "What I'm getting at is that I need something more than fame and recognition. I don't know what love feels like. How was I supposed to? When I was younger, Dudley would pummel people senseless if they dared be polite to me. People could come up to me and say that they thought I was really nice, but then they'd see Dudley coming our way and then they'd run before finishing their sentence. The Dursley's affection was about as much as a deer would have for you if you didn't shoot it. No, not even that. I was a rock in their shoes – constantly there and impossible to get rid of."
Harry sighed again, still wondering how he would properly get his point across. "I'm empty. I feel like a robot or a dense character from a book – I say things, I do things, but do they have any passion or heart in them? What's the use of a human life if you're just going to function without feeling?"
Tears were silently falling down Hermione's cheeks again.
"My past is completely non-worthy if it's not going to do any good for the future. Dumbledore once told me that the only way I could conquer anything would be if I wanted it that badly and loved enough to actually want it in the first place. But right now, I really don't care what happens to me or my future. And I don't know what love is, so how am I supposed to be able to recognize it even if it's slapping me right in the face?"
Hermione had been shaking her head, still crying. "You're so stupid, Harry. So stupid," she sobbed. He looked at her questioningly. She just glared and repeated her previous words. "Get away from me," she spat, pushing Harry's arms away. He felt like he had just stepped out from an extremely warm shower and into an ice filled room.
It was then that he realized that he had felt love for the first time. It wasn't the pang of nervousness you feel when you see someone very attractive, it wasn't the light-hearted ache in your gut that only came around when you were laughing with your best friend, and it wasn't the contented peace you got when you stroked your pet. It was the suffocation that you get when you know that one person could have the power to rip you apart with one single word or make you feel like the rest of the world didn't matter in the slightest.
Before Harry could say anything, he heard the girl's dormitory door slam. After staring at it for a few minutes with blurred vision, he gazed into the fire again, slowly drifting back to how he was earlier. And before he knew it, the comprehension of love had been forgotten and things became hazy and vague again. Slowly, the embers of fire had almost burned out completely, and familiar jittery exhaustion captured Harry's thoughts.
END FLASHBACK
Harry slowly lifted his body from the bed, his feet snagging the several velvet blankets. The hangings were eerily swaying in the breeze, waving in a gentle rhythm and lulling him to faintness again. The range of vision in front of him spun in circles, as if moving around his head. Suddenly, all became still and the previously stirring drapery hung around the window came to a motionless stop. He looked around.
Lying on top of the bedside table was an old and tattered book, which Harry hadn't remembered placing there. It was faded to a light blue from a rich navy color and its gold letters were peeling away and barely legible. It was odd, no doubt, but the book lured a strange comforting feeling and didn't seem to be dangerous. What he didn't realize was that his instincts were gravely wrong. Danger was luring around the corner like a particularly vicious Hungarian Horntail, silently waiting to attack.
The cover read Life and Love.
Squinting through the continual darkness, Harry slowly raised his arm to touch the book's bedraggled cover, and slid his fingers across the rough binding. A shiver ran down his spine, and his fingers tingled with an unknown magic. Images started swirling around in front of his face that made his whole body sag with sadness.
The bright green eyes of a fair woman closed, the moonlight illuminating her eyelids. Her soft pink lips were being drained of color and the image slowly faded to blackness. Then Harry seemed to be being pulled backwards by a mystical force. He heard Hermione laughing, as though in the distance. Trying with all his might to stay conscious, he saw deep blue eyes staring straight ahead, growing to a dusky color of gray. There was blood in the person's messy black hair.
Hermione was laughing at Harry cruel and mirthlessly. In his mind, he pleaded with her to stop being so brutal. She just continued to laugh and smirk, putting her face close to his.
"They don't care about you, Harry Potter. They're angry with you," he voice echoed tauntingly. She sounded almost inhuman. "You killed them. It's your fault, Harry. They're dead because of you." She glared. "Didn't you? Didn't you kill them? Wasn't it your fault?"
Harry blinked. There was a green tinge in the horizon, announcing the morning's appearance. The sky was velvet black, the stars were still visible and the air was crisp and cold. Everything was brewing with evil.
He knew what he was going to do.
Glinting in the moonlight was the pocketknife Sirius had given him for Christmas years ago. It too was seemingly laughing at him, as if knowing his perspicuous plans. He picked it up.
Gliding through the room to the door without looking back, he passed window upon window swiftly as he ran down the stairs. His black cloak was flying out behind him and the hair on his neck was standing up. He was taking in deep, ragged breaths, but he wasn't the least bit scared. Harry had wanted this for a long time coming, though not entirely consciously.
Harry paused at the portrait hole. Where was he going to go? Surely not anywhere in the castle…that would be like running into the enemy on purpose and allowing them to kill you right then and there. He didn't want to be found before he could carry out his plans. It would be cowardly and weak. He wasn't a coward or weak. No, this was going to happen whether anybody liked it or not.
He was going to die.
Harry paused and looked at the surreal landscape just outside one of the windows. The large, frosted orb in the sky stood in a sharp relief against the silky black behind it, where tiny pricks of white were visible. The Forbidden Forest was so dark that you could hardly tell it was there, and it almost looked like the sky had covered it up completely. It was a perfect place to find either terror or comfort. In Harry's case, it was comfort. It was freedom. It was relief. It was where home could be found.
Pushing himself to get the forest faster, Harry almost tripped over his own feet when he ran through the castle's glorious oak entryway. The biting air felt like a thousand knives going through his face, but his destination was getting ever closer. He could almost find pleasure in imagining the outcome. The looks of it were hideous and dark in his mind's eye, but the real quest was ethereal.
Harry was running so hastily that the ground felt like simply air, and colors were rushing past so quickly that the sensation of flying was engulfing his senses. His feet seemed to be floating above the ground; maybe he really was flying. He didn't think about this at all, but only focused on the trees that seemed to be gushing towards him. They soon turned into dusky blurs also, and the trail underneath him was like flowing, brown water. Harry told himself to keep going, and he did. His breath was coming in brief and low now, but he was a fighter. He really, truly was.
As the very energy began to drip away from his body, thoughts sprung up that bothered him greatly. When was little and locked up in his cupboard, being lonesome was not uncommon. He had always promised himself to never give no matter the situation, but now, Harry was unsure as to what he could consider this. It wasn't necessarily giving up; it was trying something different. No, Harry thought while changing his mind, this is the solution.
Harry scowled when he found himself suddenly in shin-deep, freezing water. His legs were already shaking from exhaustion and overworking them, and the shivering was surely not helping him in the slightest. His chest was now so tight from running that nothing but a faint wheeze came out, and his head felt strangely empty, like his skull had nothing inside of it. The vim from earlier was now completely gone. Any thoughts of moving were unfathomable, not worth wasting precious energy on.
Failing to get out of the numbing water, Harry just let his body weight fall, making water cover his clothes and face. It rushed outwards, and Harry felt faintly dizzy from watching the trees get much, much taller in an instant. He could hardly feel the solidity of being plunged in water, just utter insensibility and cold. Half of his body felt like knives were slicing through it, while the other half just felt pressure on all sides, forcing inwards and making him feel more stable than earlier in the day.
He almost wanted to find another place to wallow in misery, but couldn't get the nerve to do it. He therefore settled for just plain sitting there until he felt ready and content. It was a long five minutes, to say the least.
Harry reached inside his cloak to pull out the knife Sirius had given him. He felt strangely happy and finally convinced himself that what he was doing was not selfish at all. He was merely doing the world a favor. Simple as that.
The knife looked fairly new after having it all those years. The blade was as thin as paper. So thin, in fact, that it looked transparent at the angle he was holding it at. It was evil, in a way. The whole situation was quite funny to Harry. So typical, so easy, and lighthearted. He didn't understand why so many people were afraid he would do this, like Sirius, who had been keeping an annoyingly close watch on him. This wasn't dying – this was hope.
The blade slowly penetrated the skin around Harry's wrist, partially disappearing at the tip. Dark red came into view rapidly. The blood spread down his forearm, feeling like someone tracing his or her warm finger down it. It ran in slow motion, curving at different places. Soon, though, his thick cloak absorbed the blood, and the cycle would begin again. Now, however, there was thick liquid staining his skin everywhere. Any tiny activity and it would slip around arm and onto his hand, covering it like crimson paint.
He proceeded to the other wrist. Soon, Harry could feel the very life in him slipping away, not unlike the feeling he got when coming too near a Dementor. It was almost like sticking your face in incense smoke and feeling it wrap around your face and head, then slowly swirling around your body.
It was bliss.
Author's Note #2: Look out for chapter two soon! No more gross suicide scenes…