Title: Descent

Summary: When gravity does nothing but pull you down, the only choice you have is to delve deeper into insanity. AU, fifth year, 4 parts.

Chapter One: The Potter Boy

Notes: *nervously peeks head in* Hello, fellow Potter fans/fanatics! Wow, I haven't checked into this fandom in ages. Most of my stuff turns out mediocre for it. Anyhow, since November is Nation Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I've decided to participate in another writing related month celebration that I recently made up - Personal Fanfic Posting Month (PerFaPoMo). I have so many fics that I've written, but haven't posted. In fact, this was finished years ago and I started it a little bit after DH came out. This is a four part, ansgty fic inspired by the below quote in OoTP. I'd get tissues ready, just because I cried while writing it. Each part will happen not quite simultaneously, but around the same time. I have 4 different people I'm centering on, so that's one per chapter. I hope you find this piece... Hm. I wouldn't say enjoyable, but well written, at least.

WARNING: Character deaths. This goes throughout the fic, so I'm saying it now. There are several.

Disclaimer: I do not own HP. The wonderful JKR does.


Chapter 10, OotP, pg 361, US Hardcover Edition

"And as for Potter… My father says it's a matter of time before the Ministry has him carted off the St. Mungo's… apparently they've got a special ward for people whose brains have been addled by magic…"

-Draco Malfoy


1. The Muggle

"Do you know what happened to the Dursleys' nephew?"

"The Potter boy? I heard he was sent to a mental institution."

This conversation was common around Privet Drive. Newcomers were welcomed with terrifying stories about the boy that left one summer and only returned once a year. After a while, he didn't come back at all. Some said he died. Some said he was in jail. Others said he was crazy. The Dursleys refused to comment after the summer he turned twelve. At that point, he was attending a school for juvenile delinquents.

The Potter boy was something of a legend around Privet Drive, yet something of a joke. If somebody was absent from school for an extended period of time, they were "doing a Potter." If somebody was odd or disliked, we told them all about "Harry Hunting," as his cousin used to called it. If somebody wore glasses, we didn't call them four-eyes – no, we called them Harry Potter, the worst insult of all.

I grew up with Harry Potter. We were classmates for all of my childhood. He lived just a few houses down the block. He was that weird kid with glasses and baggy clothes, the one that looked as if a feather could knock him over. Of course, it took a bit more than that – we all had to admit that he was fast.

He never had a friend – not one. The first words to a new student would run along the lines of "Watch out for Harry Potter. He's a freak. Nobody likes him." That was enough to convince a frightened new kid not to befriend the one person desperate as they were to not be alone.

He was supposed to attend Stonewall High with me. I remember that summer well. I had been complaining all summer because my friends were all being sent off to these fancy schools while I got to attend Stonewall with the boring gray uniforms. When they promised to write, I encouraged them with the threat that I would talk to Potter. I told them that if they didn't write, I would tell him that they wanted to be friends with him. That convinced them pretty quickly.

But on the first day of school, he never showed up. Whispers spread among the classes. Where had he gone? Were we really free of the freak or was he just late? Was he skipping school? But when the teacher did roll call, Harry's name never came up, not in any class.

This was when the Harry Potter jokes began. He wasn't there to hear them, right? It wouldn't have stopped us if he could. Harry Potter was weird beyond belief and best of all, he was gone!

That fantasy was brought to an abrupt end during summer break. I had been sprawled out with my friends on the front lawn, giggling about their stories of school and our new crushes. I had been in the middle of wheedling out the story of my best friend's first kiss when the Dursleys drove up the street.

They pulled into their driveway and four people got out. I blinked – four? A boy, around my age, with messy black hair, was reaching into the trunk of the car and pulling out a large chest. Beside him was a cage with an owl. My mouth dropped open when I realized who this was.

Harry Potter had returned. He certainly had changed over the year. No longer was he scrawny little boy. Yes, he was still rather small, but he had filled out a bit and looked more his age. His hair had grown just as messy as ever, but he kept it over his forehead now, so it looked slightly less unkempt, not like a lawn that was parted. In fact, it looked perfectly unkempt. He had gained confidence over the year. His stance was apparent in that. Most surprising of all, he was smiling. I had never seen Harry Potter smile, not once.

Mr. Dursley yanked the trunk out of his nephew's hands and grabbed the cage roughly. The owl screeched and Mr. Dursley turned purple before shoving it into Harry's arms. The boy rushed into the house quickly, the others following. Not one of them noticed me watching.

I saw him a few times over the summer, mostly doing work around the house. He never smiled to the extent as he had that first day, but sly grins were common, especially when directed towards Dudley. They seemed to talk to each other, but these encounters were followed by screams of the fat boy for his mother.

Now, don't get me wrong! I'm not a stalker. Yes, I watched him. All of the neighborhood kids were interested in him. It's hard to ignore something so prominent, like the transformation of a freak. I was tempted to go over and say hi, just to see if he would know who I was. But I was frightened. Things tended to go wrong around him. Perhaps he was dangerous – a criminal, like the stories suggested.

One day, there were bars on his window. Three days later, they were gone – and so was the window itself. Glass lay in the Dursleys' yard and I was certain that Harry Potter wasn't coming back any time soon.

The year passed quite peacefully. I lost contact with some friends, gained new friends. I got my first kiss and my first boyfriend, along with my first breakup. My best friend had ditched me for some girl that I hated. Everything had changed, but there was one thing I was counting on to be certain. Harry Potter would not be back.

I was wrong. One morning, he was there, and slinking around the neighborhood with no apparent purpose. He seemed to be just trying to avoid home. I avoided him and he avoided me – all was good. Harry seemed preoccupied anyhow.

He disappeared again, in August. I heard rumors of where he attended – the Dursleys called the school St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. I made a mental note not to go near him.

He returned yet again the next year. By now, this was no surprise. We expected it, in fact. We spent ages concocting theories of what odd thing he would do this summer. This time, we staged a water fight every afternoon, in hope to get a glimpse of the boy arriving.

It worked. The car drove up the street just as I got hit in the face with a water balloon from my brother. After briefly smashing another on his head, we paused the game just for the purpose of gawking.

Harry Potter got out of the car and wheeled his trunk into the house himself, a large difference from two summers ago. I was fourteen and dying with curiosity of this boy. His owl, a pet, I had determined, hooted indignantly as he left her outside in the boiling sun.

"Shush, Hedwig," Harry said out loud as he emerged from the house again. "I wasn't going to leave you out here. Hey, are you up for delivering a letter to Serious? He wanted me to write when I got home." He sent a sly smirk over at his relatives, who had frozen. Who was Serious? Or was it Sirius? And why would his bird matter in that? Perhaps Sirius/Serious was an imaginary friend. Who would talk to the freak anyways?

However, I couldn't help but want to talk to him. It was an agreement among the neighborhood kids. We would all say hi at least once over the summer. We wanted to know his reaction. Would he glare? Would he say hello back? We never found out for, the next day, Dudley threatened to beat up anyone who went near his cousin without his consent.

Needless to say, we obliged.

It didn't stop us from watching, from spying. He had changed. No longer did he do housework all day or sulk around. Sometimes he didn't leave the house at all. Others he walked around at the park or up and down the street. I caught him sitting in the middle of the lawn once or twice, papers that looked like letters scattered around him as he pushed up his glasses and wrote scrawled responses on thick, yellowed paper.

If he had more confidence when we were twelve, it had multiplied several times by the time we were fourteen. He didn't cower when passing Dudley and his gang in the streets. He carried an odd stick in his back pocket. You could barely see it, making just a thin lump under his shirt, which was not as big and baggy as it had been a few years ago. He was still wearing the same clothes from when he was ten, which were the same ones from when he was eight. He never seemed to be able to grow into them. Either way, Harry had grown taller, much taller, and he had muscles now! Scrawny freak, no more!

The mail man went up to the door one day with a letter. It spread quickly. The letter was covered in stamps. Not one inch was free of them! It had been for Harry.

He was gone a few days later. We never saw him leave the house, but we didn't see him again, so we knew he was gone. That happened a lot with him.

The last time I saw Harry Potter was the following summer. The air was hot and thick. I had stayed inside on the phone most of the time, wiping the sweat from my forehead. I was dying for freedom from house, freedom I had denied myself for weeks. I decided to take a walk as evening fell.

"Yeah, Big D!" I heard chanted from around the corner. "Isn't that your cousin?"

I had forgotten that Harry had come back for the summer. I rushed around the block, hoping to get a glimpse of the mysterious boy.

He had changed once again, but this change was not for the better as the others had been.

His eyes were sunken and they had deep bags beneath them. He was not smiling. In fact, his mouth was set into a firm frown, a permanent looking one. His hair fell in his eyes and he didn't bother to brush it away. And there was that weird stick in his pocket, his fingers twitching towards it as he spotted the crowd of boys.

"Leave him alone," Dudley mumbled to his friends and I crinkled my brow in surprise. Leave him alone? What happened to Dudley, the leader in our hate towards Harry Potter? We all knew he was doing drugs and such, but to leave his cousin alone? That was odd, even for him.

Obviously, his friends thought the same thing. They stared in disbelief before walking ahead, towards Potter. I walked slowly, slower than Harry, hoping that I wouldn't reach a corner any time soon and have to leave the scene. Dudley, realizing that his groupies would not listen to him now, pushed in front of them, deciding to be the one to face his cousin. Harry did not back down like he used to. In fact, he stepped forward, a defiant expression on his face.

"What do you want, Dudley?" he asked and my eyes widened in surprise. I had not heard his voice since we were thirteen and for some reason, I expected it to be the same. But, no, it was deeper now, and not as happy. It sounded depressed, possibly. Dull.

"Brave, are you?" Piers, one of Dudley's friends, taunted. "You weren't like that last time we beat you up."

"You're not beating me up." Harry's voice lingered on annoyance and mock surprise. "Are you, Dudley? I'll tell your mum."

"Tattletale, are you?" one of them yelled.

"No, no, I'm not. Perhaps I ought to take care of it myself. I learned some pretty cool things in school."

"What, crazy school?"

Harry's head cocked sideways, and he smiled. It wasn't genuine, though. It was a smile that reminded me of the grin Dudley would give his victims. "Maybe. That's what a lot of people call it. But either way, I learn cool things. Want a demonstration? I can do magic now."

Dudley's face went pale. "Y-you're not allowed to talk about that stuff!"

"I'm not?" Harry's voice was shocked, but I knew that he was aware of the supposed fact. "Why not?"

"They'll expel you, won't they?" Dudley's voice cracked and his hands shook. Harry's smile grew.

"How do you know I'm even going back?"

"I'll tell Dad! I'll tell him you were talking about m-m-m - your school!"

I had stopped moving completely by now, watching the scene in terror. Despite the fact that Harry gotten taller and probably stronger, there was no doubt that they would pound him into a pulp.

"Oh." Harry stopped talking and stuck his hands in his pockets, watching the pebbles on the ground. "In that case… BOO!" He looked up suddenly and spread out his arms. Dudley held back a squeal and ran towards his house, his friends following closely behind. Harry watched them, his grin fading. I walked closer. Perhaps, just this once, I could say hello. Perhaps I would. Perhaps I wouldn't.

He spotted me and our eyes connected. His eyes were green, I noticed. They were a brilliant green, so green that I couldn't help but look at them.

"Hi," I greeted quietly.

"Did you see that whole thing?' he asked worriedly. I nodded, biting my lip.

He sighed. "Uncle Vernon is going to kill me when Dudley tells him. And if it gets around… I'm never going to see light again. And the Weasleys can't take their car to save me again…" He trailed off, thinking. "Maybe I could get Hermione to come down here. It doesn't make a difference, I guess. Haven't gotten any letters from them all summer."

I cleared my throat. He seemed to have forgotten me, for he jumped.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I haven't had someone to actually talk to since school let out. I'm used to seeing the words on paper now."

"It's alright. Where do you go to school?" Here I was, doing what no other had done before! Talking to Harry Potter! Having a conversation with the freak!

His mouth tightened and he hesitated before replying. "St. Brutus's. Ever heard of it?"

"A bit from your family."

He nodded and stared off into the setting sun. "I figured." He didn't say anything and an uncomfortable silence filled the street.

"They say you're crazy," I blurted and clapped my hand over my mouth instantly. He turned his head slowly and our eyes met.

"They do?" His voice was even – like the calm before the storm.

"Yes," I whispered. "Either that or a criminal. Or future criminal. Are you?"

"A criminal? Maybe. I've got a pretty bad detention record," he laughed. "And a habit for getting into trouble. But there've been worse. Much, much worse. Crazy? I don't think so."

"What do you mean, worse?"

He didn't break his gaze and I found that neither could I.

"I saw a classmate be killed in June. Right in front of me. How's that for worse? Dudley says I talk in my sleep about it and it's been haunting me for weeks. I didn't know the guy very well, but we had helped each other out in some… er, circumstances. It doesn't help that half of the school thinks I killed him."

"Why would they think that?" I breathed. A student had died at his school? I knew it happened, but I never knew someone who had witnessed it.

"I was the only witness. It couldn't help that we both liked the same girl – his girlfriend." Harry laughed, a bitter laugh. "That'll be a nice scene, trying to talk to her again. I wonder if she believes me." His voice trailed off and so did his eyes. They were looking at the ground. The light around us grew darker and night fell.

"I'm sorry," I whispered quietly. Maybe this whole encounter had been a bad idea…

"It's nothing. Really. I'm used to that sort of stuff, you know?" No, I wanted to say. No, I don't know. "I've lived here all my life. My parents died when I was little, but you probably know that. Unless Dudley tried to spread this story about how they abandoned me on the doorstep, of course." I could have sworn him mutter "half true" under his breath. His tone was light and chatty, despite the dark topic we had just touched on.

"You mentioned magic before," I realized.

"Magic tricks, stupid things. Illusions, card tricks… that sort of stuff. My friend has twin brothers. They're pranksters and have taught me a few things. I managed to convince Dudley that I could turn him into a frog if I wanted to." Harry's words slid smoothly off his tongue, so smoothly that I thought he might be lying. But I brushed it off. There was no such thing as real magic and even if there had been, Harry Potter would not be the type.

We had been walking without noticing it, unconsciously towards our homes. We were two from my house, three from his. The front door of the Dursleys' was pried open as we came into view.

"GET IN HERE, BOY!"

Harry cringed.

"Sorry to dump that all on you," he said quickly, glancing over his shoulder at his angry uncle. "I didn't mean to, it's just that my friends have been on their tiptoes around me lately." They're not the only ones, I thought. "They're afraid I'm going to blow up and start confessing my love for my dead classmate or something." He snorted. "Well, I think Ron is, at least. They said I changed over the end of school and they just didn't want to upset me. I think they're attempting to ditch me before they get killed, too. Or maybe they think I'm next and don't want to get closer. Even Sirius hasn't been writing much… Well, either way, I shouldn't have bothered you with that stuff."

"It's fine," I assured the boy who, until recently, had been a loner, a freak, with no friends and no life. He hadn't seemed real – he was just a thing that lived near me. Like the rocks that led the way to my door. They're there, what else matters? I never thought about how they got there, where they were from, where they've been… I never thought that they could have an interesting story to tell.

"BOY, I SAID GET IN HERE!"

"YOU LISTEN TO YOUR UNCLE, BOY!"

Harry cringed again and I gave him an encouraging smile.

"Oh, one more thing – d'you mind not spreading the fact that I have a life around to everyone else around here? It'll keep me out of trouble and it'll be a lot easier to survive the next few weeks if I'm not locked in my room." I nodded, acknowledging his request and he grinned, a real grin this time. "Thanks."

"RUDDY OWL!" his uncle shouted and Harry spun around and raced towards the house without a glance back. "Get it off me!"

"Pig!" I heard him yell from a distance. "Stop it, Pig!"

The door of Number 4 Privet Drive slammed shut and I was alone in the streets.


Harry Potter disappeared soon after that. I saw him in the streets for a few weeks more, but as usual, he left mysteriously. I waited anxiously for summer break, when he would return. I had thought it through and figured that, odd as he was, he didn't seem so bad. Maybe I could make up for my behavior so long ago and be friends. But Dudley came back, and Harry was nowhere to be seen.

When I asked about his whereabouts, people answered with the usual, "I don't know. Why do you care?"

He had said, "I think they're attempting to ditch me before they get killed, too. Or maybe they think I'm next and don't want to get closer." Did he mean this seriously, or as a joke? Had he been next? Had he been killed? The Dursleys didn't seem to care, if that was the case. They went about their regular lives.

My life went on, too. I managed to forget about that frightful conversation with the boy. But my view of him was never quite the same. I tuned out taunts towards his name, yet kept true to our agreement. I got married, had children, and had a career. My life was good. I thought of Harry Potter rarely, only in times of question, with questions of life and choices accompanying my troubled thoughts.

I visited my children's school for parent-teacher conferences many years later. We met with their teacher, and then their guidance counselor.

"Come on in," the counselor greeted when I knocked on the door. It was a male voice, which seemed sort of odd. I had never had a male guidance counselor. When I swung open the door, my mouth dropped.

It was Dudley Dursley. He was much slimmer, and much more mature looking. He looked sort of… nice. Sort of comforting. I was surprised.

"Dudley? Dudley Dursley?" He smiled at me.

"You grew up on Privet Drive?" he asked, chuckling a bit. I nodded. "I figured. I can't remember you, to be quite honest."

"You didn't remember anyone who you didn't beat up."

Dudley nodded. "So I'm guessing I never beat you up."

"Yes, that's a good guess."

After that, we had the usual conference. I asked a bit about my children, for I knew that my son had been in the office for fighting a few weeks ago.

"Ah, yes, I suggested that he sign up for the boxing team. They help with the pent up anger," Dudley explained. "I run it after school, actually."

We shook hands and I stood to leave. At the door, I couldn't help but pause.

"Dudley?"

"Yes?"

"What happened to Harry?"

"My cousin?" Dudley sat up a bit straighter. His body was stiff.

"Yes. Him. What happened to him?"

Dudley sighed and twiddled a pen in his hands. "He was sent to a mental institution when we were fifteen – they sent him in the middle of the school year. He never came back after that. They kept him in there for the rest of his life. I visited him when we were nineteen. He looked bad, like he was being tortured or something. At times I thought… well, I don't know. Maybe they did... Things weren't going very well in the hospital, from what I understand, and patients were being mistreated. But there's nothing to be done now, right?"

"The rest of his life? But does that mean…?"

Dudley nodded. "He died when he was twenty. I don't know what exactly happened. One of his friends said he was murdered, but the official records say that he starved himself to death. Or perhaps he had flung himself out the window… I can't remember. But the people that came to tell us about it told us he committed suicide." Dudley shrugged.

"So which is true?"

"I don't know. All of his friends died in an accident."

"Oh."

My throat went dry. I could only feel pity for the former bully, who would never be able to mend the bonds with his cousin. Maybe that was why he chose this job – to make up for it.

I rushed out of there as quickly as I could.


Now, when I meet with old friends, we talk about our teenage years. One topic comes up every time.

"Hey, do you know what happened to the Dursleys' nephew?" one would ask.

"The Potter boy?" I would respond, pretending not to know much more than they. "I heard he was sent to a mental institution."

They would nod and make comments such as "that was expected" and "he always did seem crazy." I would nod along and smile and laugh as we remembered the old days, when we were kids and he was just a weird classmate that nobody liked.

Just how did he die? Did he really kill himself? Or was he murdered like his classmate that he had mentioned?

When did he go insane? Was he already crazy when I spoke to him that summer night? Or was he just beginning to lose his mind, only to delve deeper and deeper into the pits of madness? Could I have helped him that one night? Perhaps if I offered friendship, or even just my name, he would not have gone mad.

Perhaps if someone had bothered to talk to him when we were younger instead of watch in amusement, or in the teenage years, when we observed with shock and fear, he would have turned out okay.

But it's too late to stop his descent now.


Note: Will the nameless Muggle's questions be answered in the next 3 chapters? Will we ever find out what happened to Harry? Maybe. Maybe not. Actually, I can't remember, I haven't read the whole story again yet. Feedback is always welcome. Next chapter is Arthur Weasley, it should be out on the 11th or 12th (My profile says 12th, but I may have to do an early posting). Thanks for reading!

Excerpt from Arthur Weasley's "Headlines":

"What did you do to Gilderoy Lockhart?" I questioned suspiciously. He laughed.

"I didn't give him any damage!" he insisted. "At least not lasting damage."

"What did you do?" I repeated.