Harry sat on his bedroom floor, his toes playing with the frayed rug. Back at Hogwarts for a fifth year. He had been anticipating his return for weeks, so excited to come to the castle ready for a year of exploring the secret passageways at night under his dad's invisibility cloak, playing wizards' chess with Dean and Seamus, even the prospect of Potions with Professor Snape had seemed relatively tame as long as he had his fellow classmates. But the fight with Seamus earlier that evening had shown him that, while he was safely tucked up in Privet Drive, the majority of the wizarding world had been slowly turning against him.
He realised that, in his anger, he had been gripping the snitch so hard it had started give out tiny shrieks of protest. Being quidditch captain, (something that had brightened his mood marginally) it was his responsibility to look after the set of balls before and after practices and matches, and tonight he didn't really feel the long trip down endless stairwells to the draughty sports lock up. The rest of the gryffindors were down in the common room, regaling long awaited tales of their summer adventures to avid listeners. He could hear the bangs and pops of Fred and George's indoor fireworks and squeals of delight as they made spectacular dragons and centaurs below the high ceiling.
He let his head loll back onto the downy bedspread.
What had he come back to? Usually when he returned it felt like he'd never been away. There was a marvellous warm embrace ready for him embedded in the cold stone of the castle. This year it wasn't there.
He let the snitch fly out a few centimetres, and then caught it again, delicately stroking its wings.
The summer was over, and the length of the year stretched out at his feet, twisting and entwining itself back and forth like the strands of wool in his rug. If he pulled one, would the whole thing come unravelled? If one person turned against him, would everyone else follow, falling like dominoes?
The snitch's wings beat furiously. They were a mere blur in the sharp contrast of the room that surrounded him, as if it defied the very essence of time. What if Harry could do that? What if he could just speed through the whole year? Through all the taunting and jeering and judging until it was all over and done with?
But the emotions would still be there. He would have travelled so fast through all the atrocities that he would be weighed down with sadness and anger and pain.
And, sometime, and some point, far of in the indeterminable future, he was bound to explode.
A/N: Just a drabble, I just had to write something. Currently working on a Tonks/Lupin Fic, so one day that'll appear. Title of this is from the Mamoru Hosoda Anime film "The Girl who Leapt Through Time".
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