Written for Arithmancy class (prompt: Write a story which incorporates all five senses; 5:00 pm). Written for Caesar's Palace Prompts (prompt: back water). Written for Challenges by the Dozen at Caesar's Palace.


Harry could remember what happened before everything stopped. He could remember the wand movement, an angry slash before a controlled swirl; the incantation, whispered softly like a wave that curls onto the sand; the smell of thin smoke coming from his opponent's wand; the taste of the metal in his mouth. He visited that snapshot, and his mind roamed over and memorized the face of the caster so he would never forget it. Harry could almost relive the senses, get his brain to fire the same chemicals it would if he were seeing, or smelling.

The spell sunk itself into him on the day of the final battle around 5:00 pm, or what he hoped would be the final battle. Harry never denied that the Death Eaters were brilliant, and they didn't prove him wrong. This new spell that Harry now knew so well from replaying his memory had suspended him in a vacuum.

As the spell hit him, Harry felt himself jerking backwards before black enveloped him like a shroud. The feeling of his soft cotton against his skin or the slickness of his sweaty glasses disappeared until he felt naked as a mole. But instead of wind against his skin, he felt nothing. He tried to blink (perhaps this was a dream), but could not feel his eyelids against his cheeks. Slowly, he lost awareness of his limbs. He tried to trash them around, but the signal his mind wished to send had no response. Were they lifted above him, in a defiant starfish position, or were they curled up against his chest? Did he even have arms?

"I'm paralyzed in complete darkness," he tried to say. But he couldn't feel his tongue, or hear the words. He was unsure if he had said anything at all.

If he cried, he did not know it.

For the first few moments, Harry tried to measure time by counting seconds in his head, but he lost track of the numbers too quickly, and when he slept, he didn't know how long he napped, because his body wouldn't give him cues to what kind of rest he had.

Sleep became what he looked forward to. In the expanse of darkness, when he slept, he lived again. He could feel the sunshine warming his skin, pick up his wand, see his friends. Eventually, he would wake again, would die again.

Harry meditated often and thought even more. He began to know his mind more than he ever had, its fears, its kryptonites. He felt anger, but not in his stomach like he had before the spell hit him. If Harry thought hard enough he thought he could feel it tingling in his brain.

His mind made up limbs where there were none, enemies were there were none, conversations when there were none. He wanted to hurt himself or someone else. But how could he when wandless magic didn't work and he couldn't feel where he was?

And when perhaps days, or years had passed, he wasn't sure, he thought he could maybe deal with this death.