Title: The Rise and Fall

Author: Kary Starr

Rating: PG-13/R (yaoi)

Summary: Harry is on his way to beginning his fifth year at Hogwarts but must confront all trials of doom and anguish; however, when he realizes his feelings from a certain someone, everything falls apart…

Pairings: Draco/Harry, Ron/Hermione

Email: sailorfreak6@yahoo

Categories: Angst, Romance

The Rise and Fall: Prologue

~*~*~*~

Harry Potter lay awake; his brilliant green eyes wide open despite the fact that it was just beginning on three in the morning. He'd been lying there for what seemed like twenty minutes, after awakening from his nightmare to the point of sitting straight up in bed, resisting the urge to scream. He'd bolted awake, staring at the bare, unkempt walls of his bedroom covering his mouth in vein.

The same pictures haunted his thoughts through the day and controlled his head throughout the night. No matter what he did, those pictures never seemed to go away. Ever since last summer, when Voldemort had risen and nearly killed him…Harry shook his head, willing these pictures shooting through his mind to leave him. His mum and dad coming back, out of the wand…watching, as Cedric died without him trying to stop it, as the breath was simply sucked out of his body…dodging the Cruciatus Curse and the Killing Curse…and all the while, Voldemort was standing there, laughing, after he'd risen….

"No," said Harry aloud, cupping his shaking hands to his head and squeezing his eyes shut, "I won't have it! I want these memories to go away!" Oh, what Harry would give for someone to obliviate these memories! He swung his legs over the side of his bed, and felt his bare feet hit the cold floor. His hands cradled his head, and his untidy black hair fell into his face. Without even realizing it, his face soon became wet with tears. Harry and stood up, feeling for the first time the breeze that raced through his cousin's old room and onto his bare back. Opening the door cautiously, he glanced down the moonlit hallways and creaked into the bathroom. Harry splashed his face with cool water, and put his hands at the edge of the basin, letting his face drip into the sink.

Moving swiftly back into his room, he put his glasses on and sat at the edge of his bed, his hands on his knees. "What am I going to do…?" he said softly. He'd tried to talk to someone about it, but the words never came out right. Harry didn't think he could express what was raging inside his mind, let alone know that someone else could understand what he was thinking.

He'd tried a letter to Ron once. Ron Weasley was one of his best friends at Hogwarts. After their jealousy dispute last year, however, when Ron felt that Harry got too much attention and Ron always was shoved aside, Harry felt like he couldn't truly tell him much anymore. His red haired friend just would not understand.

Besides, it wasn't like Ron was free this summer, anyway. One of the few letters he'd received from Ron was that all of the "boys"—and there were six Weasley boys, not counting Mr. Weasley himself—on a trip to Romania, to visit one of the elder brothers Charlie. Ron said it was all about "breaking Fred and George's spirit for hi-jinxes, seeing as it's their last year at school." Along with Ron, Fred and George (they were the twins) was Bill, on vacation from his Gringotts job, and Percy, who had been unemployed since the incident last summer.

Harry would have also liked to send post to Hermione Granger, his other best friend. But she was no where to be found this summer, either. After her second letter, she asked Harry not to send her post, because she doubted Hedwig, his owl, would find her. She, along with her family, was on holiday traveling with the Krum family, which included her boyfriend Viktor. "As much as I love post, Harry," she had written, "I don't think Viktor would appreciate it. I think you can manage one summer without me, can't you Harry? Besides, you've got Ron, too." Harry also thought that, even if she weren't on holiday, Hermione would never understand what was going on. For being the cleverest witch in their year, Hermione was awfully slow on the uptake.

That didn't leave Harry many options. He could post to Sirius Black, his godfather who was a convict on the run, but Harry didn't want to both him. Sirius was away for business about Voldemort himself, along with Remus Lupin and what Dumbledore, his school headmaster, called "the old crowd." Hagrid, who was the groundkeeper at Hogwarts, his school, was away for the summer himself, gathering supporters to "the cause."

So, without anyone to understand or really, for that matter, talk to, Harry was left to these thoughts all alone. They tormented him during the day; Harry was to the point when his cousin, Dudley, beat him up he didn't even fight back anymore. Everything had lost its flavor. The Dursleys, despite what he'd gone through, were as dense as a two-by-four. Aunt Petunia was as nagging as ever, constantly on him for his untidy appearance and making him do the bulk of the work for no pay and even less food. Uncle Vernon had resorted to physical punishment most of the time himself—apparently, the whole Sirius Black immunity deal had stopped working for him. If he wasn't being taunted by Dudley, or ordered by Aunt Petunia, he was getting the living daylights beat out of him by his uncle.

The only thing that got him through this all was probably the fact that he was returning to Hogwarts soon. Harry had just turned fifteen the previous month, and was only three days away from catching the Hogwarts Express. With Ron being gone most of the summer, and Hermione as well, Harry had no idea how he was going to get to the train station. Asking the Dursleys was about as safe as running with scissors. The previous three years he'd gotten a lift from Ron. But, somehow not surprisingly to Harry, no letters from Mrs. Weasley inviting him—he'd yet to go to Diagon Alley, as well.

Harry leaned back on his elbows. It made his stomach hurt in anticipation that he wasn't going to be returning to Hogwarts this year. Not unless someone comes up with an idea to get him out of here... Glancing across the room, he watching his owl, Hedwig, sleeping peacefully, with the occasional small "hoot" every now and then. His letter from Hogwarts sat on his dresser in between Dudley's old things, which found their way into Harry's room over the school year. His spellbooks and school supplies lay in his closet. This was a miracle in itself; if it hadn't have been for the Dursleys to be out for the afternoon, Harry would have never had enough time to pick the lock and drag his luggage upstairs without being noticed. He doubted the Dursleys even knew.

So, Harry lay there, mentally and physically exhausted with purple and red marks up and down his malnutrition torso; his homework done, and his Hogwarts school supplies yet to be bought; feeling quite lonely and anxious. Lying down, he tried to fall asleep again. However, his attempts were futile. His eyes burned with sleep when they were open and burned with sleep when they were closed.

The sinking feeling became more prominent in his stomach. Laying his hand on his abdomen, his tried to calm himself down. Harry felt his perhaps his worst nightmare had just come true.

Closing his eyes, Harry realized all he needed was Voldemort to appear on his street within the next three days, and then he would be quite satisfied he was in hell.

~*~*~*~

"Wake up, boy!" a voice roared outside his door, a pounding noise to match the headache that Harry was now getting. "Now!"

Harry's eyes flew open. He must have fallen back asleep, and looking at the clock, it was about seven-thirty. All Harry wanted to do was roll over and fall back asleep. His glasses were still on his face, and they felt like plaster on his skin. Harry cursed his uncle silently, and got up, pulling on a shirt. "Coming, Uncle Vernon!" he said back, quietly seething.

"Hurry up, boy! You're wasting time, I want my breakfast," he barked, giving one last bang on the door before storming downstairs.

Harry held his head up, until the world stopped spinning. His stomach growled threateningly, and Hedwig hooted angrily from Vernon's loud bangs. "Ah, Hedwig," Harry said smoothly, rushing to her cage, "Hedwig, you've got to be quiet, or Vernon'll fillet you. Shh." Harry put his hands up to the cage and tried to get her to understand him. He could hear Vernon's voice in his head boom from downstairs already: "That ruddy owl!" Harry made another "shhing" sound, quickly trying to calm her.

Finally, after a final hoot, she'd shut up; just as Harry could hear Dudley crawl out of bed and flop his way down the stairs. "Oh, great," he muttered. "Hedwig, we might not get supper, thanks," he said angrily, and rushed out the door and down the stairs.

"Where's my breakfast, boy?" Vernon said loudly. Harry hastily threw toast in the toaster and pulled out the frying ban, putting on four eggs.

"Coming, Uncle Vernon," he repeated, prodding the eggs with a spatula and checking the toaster. Stifling a yawn, he put the lid on the eggs and caught the toast as they popped out; buttered the four slices and put them on his plate. A sizzling noise told Harry the eggs were done, and beginning to burn.

Flipping them onto the plate as well, Harry set the plate in front of Vernon, who was reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee in his hands. He'd managed in it record time. Harry wiped his brow with the back of his hand, began to clean the dirty dishes, and heard his stomach protest the smell of the enticing food.

"Petunia had something for you to do this morning," he said spitefully. "I daresay it will take all day." Harry felt himself get a little angry at his uncle's malicious tormenting. Vernon's sneer was not hidden, however, from his big black mustache and seemed to magnify it, if anything. It was like he was back in school, in Potions with that damned Professor Snape, who always took delight in Harry's misery, and had a secret ambition to get Harry expelled.

Walking down the hallway (which was plastered with pictures of Dudley, his oversized cousin) Harry thought again of Hogwarts. Only two more days until he was supposed to get on the train, and he'd yet to figure a way to get to Diagon Alley. That anxious feeling overcame him again, as he entered the sitting room.

Harry stood there, waiting for Petunia to start barking orders at him again. Petunia was a horse-faced woman with a terrible spite of him; she hated magic in any form and was not afraid to show it. Over the course of the year she'd gotten, if anything, more bitter.

"You!" Petunia snapped, seeing him standing there. "You've got outside today." She ran her finger down the mantel as she was talking, inspecting dust from Harry's previous day's work. Dissatisfied with finding none there, she pushed past him and out of the room. Apparently, Harry must have known what outdoors meant. Glancing out the window, he saw that it was an overcast day, but it was going to be humid as hell.

"Oh great," Harry muttered under his breath, going upstairs to change. Glancing in the mirror, his reflection stared back at him: his tousled black hair, which never seemed to stay put but it simply refused to grow; his green eyes, which were overshadowed by the dark rings under them; and his tall, lean stature, which was glowing purple in various spots. Harry touched a particularly large bruise on his chest, and winced. He looked really bad. How was this all supposed to go away before Hogwarts? Won't people notice those spots on his arms and legs?

Pulling on a white shirt and a pair of fairly large jeans (like the Dursleys would buy clothes that fit him, let alone they should be new. Harry suspected that these were Dudley's old jeans; the legs were a little short and the waist was so large that it bulked up on one side when he put a belt on). Then he set off to clean the yard.

~*~*~*~

The ending of August meant more leaves and more rain. The grass was particularly long, and took him a good part of three hours to mow and rake up the piles of cut grass. When Harry got indoors around four, it seemed that he hadn't done enough. After a cold shower (because Dudley had used all the warm water and Petunia was screeching at him for his filth) he'd changed and went downstairs, only to find more work. When Harry got into bed that night, he was absolutely tired.

However exhausted he may be, the dread was continuing to grow. Harry knew he could not stay here any longer; it would be the death of him (his stomach grumbled loudly. He'd not gotten any food today, either. Harry wondered, could people waste away?) Harry also knew that if he used any magic, he'd be expelled, and that fact alone is what kept his wand safely in the bottom of his trunk. Imagine what it would be like to be expelled, and live here year-round? It'd been nearly five years since he'd attended Muggle school, and he doubted very much that he'd be able to continue with it.

Tomorrow the Dursleys were going out for the afternoon. Harry, as he lay there thinking anxious thoughts, began to wonder briefly why the hell he needed to remain here. Could he just get up and leave?

He hoped. Because with that revered decision, Harry knew that he was getting out of here—one way, or another.