REFLECT, REFRACT I
WRITTEN: 25.Jan.07
WORDS: 323
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter, and…I actually don't mind not owning it all that much… Seriously. I have my own world to play in, why would I need Rowling's? Well, okay, vacations are always fun… :::goes off to write more in her manuscript:::
Harry reached out to touch the image in the glass before him, fingers touching the coolness…
It was dark outside, dark inside too. The power had gone out, and his room was void-like, but for the line of candles he had sitting on his windowsill. The rain pounding down beyond the panes contrasted with the ribbon of fiery pearls within, and echoed Harry's feelings perfectly.
Inside, he was storming.
Raindrops beat their tattoo against his bedroom window, and the wind screamed at him to let it in. He didn't waste his breath in trying to tell it that it already was. There was a shrill voice racing through his mind, also shrieking at the top of his lungs, begging him to do something, anything, to stop the approaching darkness. The inner storm of his mind was pouring down sharp truths, again imitating the tempest that sought shelter within the walls of Number Four, Privet Drive.
It was becoming too much. Harry put his head against the windowpane, almost finding the vibrations of the storm on the glass to be relaxing. They drowned out his own thoughts, in any case.
The candle flames flickered as Harry exhaled, and he peered up over his glasses into the eyes of his reflection. He could see the fires in them, and the image frightened him.
In less than an hour he would be seventeen.
In less than an hour, the blood wards around Number Four would fall.
In less than an hour he would be leaving the Dursleys for good.
In less than an hour, Harry Potter would begin the search that would ultimately lead him to Voldemort.
And in less than an hour -- less than one single hour -- he would have to bring his inner storm out into the open, would have to let those fires consume his entire being, and would have to give up the remainder of his childhood.
Lightning cleaved the sky in two.