The Blood Moon.
Vote for who flirts with Harry:
Cedric & Victor- 4
Fleur & Victor-1
All three striving for a polyamorous (sorry that I spelt it as polygamous before, since I searched it up and it means a totally different thing) relationship-1
A/N: Readers! Yay! Sorry if its a bit short, but I've got to try and work myself up a bit for this. The sequel has finally begun, not that I really know when I will be able to keep updating, so sorry about that. I know it has been a while (cough cough *3 months* cough cough) but I've been writing other stuff and I thought for a while I might have lost my inspiration for this story.
Why am I rambling?
So... yeah. It looks like Cedric and Viktor will be flirting with our suicidal protagonist at some point in the future. (lol I should do it when Viktor is at the ball with Hermione and he says "Yo Harry, you fine!") Sorry. That probably won't happen. I might make it an omake or something because I can't seem to stop laughing.
I'm very tired.
Really I've been sleeping badly for weeks. But. Anyway. Thanks for reading this, it means a lot that some people are actually interested in my work, and thanks if you've reviewed the prequel to this or 'The Boggart'. Reviews make my heart sing and soul soar. :)
…...
Harry was still suicidal.
It was like an itch at the back of his brain, a constant skin shedding itch which took its toll on him. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, it followed him around like a back seat driver, called for him to just end it and go back to that wonderful place he had been before. The wonderful feeling that was there, the wonderful touch of an angel's skin as she promised him the world.
Harry had visited the afterlife. He had known for sure that such a place existed. He had felt what it was like. He knew that death was nothing to be afraid of, that there was something after his heart fell silent and brain stopped its continuous buzzing. Harry knew...
And being alive was such a torture to him. For he knew that there was something better out there. Something which he was barred from reaching. Something greater than life that he had only touched once, once for so short a time, and then wrenched back into the painful reality of life.
He had the sick thought of killing all of his friends so that they could experience it. So that they could understand why he wanted to die so badly. To end all of the suffering that had been in his life. So that Harry could leave it all behind him. He wanted to bring them with him.
He wondered what crime he had committed to be fate's chosen one. To be singled out like he was to defeat a monster. Why was it that they thought, that the angel thought, that he would want this? That Harry would want to return to such a cruel world? He knew he had friends, and an insane godfather, and perhaps a future boyfriend, who he couldn't even stand to look at for whenever Draco looked at him he could only see himself as a victim.
He had people. Harry did. They cared, so deeply for him, but it was maddening that they couldn't understand how broken he was. Even Neville, Neville who shared his own past with Harry, in the hope that Harry could trust him with his secrets. Even Neville, his Neville, his best friend, couldn't see how much it pained him to breathe every second.
Harry had slit his wrists almost ten times, jumped off the Astronomy Tower twice, tried to drown himself in the lake only to be saved by the Giant Squid. He had tried to learn how to cast the killing curse, and when he had failed had cast a number of 'light' spells to kill himself. Like Wingardium Leviosa to lift himself and drop himself again and again and again until his bones cracked and he bled deep crimson blood onto the thin battered mattress with Neville sleeping only five steps away.
Harry trekked into the Forbidden Forest late at night, left himself open to be opened, only to find that no creature could kill him. That he was alive through all of it.
Harry wondered if someone could get addicted to pain, since he tried to die so often in such painful ways.
His eyes opened, he gasped, sweat dripping down into his eyes and making them burn. Harry didn't dare scream, didn't ever dare scream.
Phantom hands followed him out of dreams. Whispered promises snuck their way into his ears, cemented his value, and cooed to him to accept the everlasting darkness. A promise was so much worse than a threat, for a promise was meant to come through, a promise couldn't be empty, a promise was concrete.
Harry had to remind himself that they were dead.
His uncle was dead. No hands could find him in his nightmares. No shouts could wrap their way on his door and force him. No welts would appear on his skin. No ghost would come and search for him, for muggles didn't have ghosts. Harry would not wake up one morning, aching inside, and know with a horrified certainty that he was completely ruined. That the blood between his legs was the last of his innocence, gone, just like that, on the whim of a drunk man who longed to break him.
Harry almost couldn't breathe.
And he had to close his eyes and grip his bed sheets tightly, just to stop the blackness from swallowing him whole. To stop himself from simply going back to sleep and never waking, from lying in that bed forever and letting everything that wanted to happen happen. Harry had to grit his teeth and clench his jaw, to open his eyes and face the world that morning.
He pulled the blanket with him, feeling lingering doubt that he would be safe with so few clothes on. Even though Luna was there, precious Little Moon, living with him and Sirius, he felt the tight twist of the knife in his heart.
Could Sirius be trusted?
His godfather had seemed like more of a pet up and until then, spending most of his time as a dog, and Harry had gotten used to that. He had familiarised himself with the feel of dirty black hair to comb a hand through and the gentle growls in his godfather's sleep.
He had forgotten that inside that dog was a man. A large man who might not be completely sane. And Harry had to wonder what would happen to him that vacation, and whether it would be like so many in the past.
He tried to tell himself it wouldn't as he entered the grimy bathroom connected to his room. He tried to tell himself that Sirius was not like his uncle, or even Dudley, as he clicked the lock shut and walked soundlessly to the glass frame of the shower. Harry tried to convince himself that Sirius was Sirius, not a true man, for Askaban had taken that for him, and instead he was a dog-man, who only really wanted family.
Family, the word left an acrid taste of rotten wax on his tongue. He only knew the taste from when he had asked his aunt so long ago if she were his mother, and she had forced the candle she was throwing away into his mouth, as if he had swore and the candle were soap.
Harry breathed deeply, pulling out his wand from where it was always with him, and casting a privacy spell on the window of the bathroom, and the door. Sirius had told him that the Fidelius Charm, and an innumerable amount of wards were on the house, since his grandfather had been a security nut, but he didn't trust it completely.
He didn't trust him completely.
Harry paused, stared at the shower door for a long time, knowing he needed to open it and turn the handle. He hadn't had a shower in almost a week and a half. He hadn't truly connected with anything for almost a week, ever since the finality and oppressive nature of his living arrangements set in.
It wasn't that the house was grimy and filled with a sticky dark aura that made him shiver. It wasn't even that Sirius' mother often screamed at them, for some reason having a soft spot for Luna. It wasn't that Harry spent most of his days cleaning up the rooms, making sure Sirius didn't throw everything away, and barely saw the sunlight.
No.
It was as if everything was settling inside him, like sediments in a river bank. All of his problems had swirled around him, out of his mind, repressed by Occlumency and meditation, distracted by time with his friends and plots against the headmaster. Now his mind had settled, barriers had come falling down, all but one of his friends had left to their own house.
Harry had come to realise the magnitude of everything that had happened to him, everything that had overwhelmed him, all the pressing issues of despair which tried to suffocate him on a daily basis. Everything was... Flashing by him too fast and too painfully. He often felt like his heart was beating too fast, that there was a sense of impending doom about him as if everything were about to do wrong, he felt weak and dizzy, and tight pains in his chest.
Sometimes Harry could close his eyes and make it all stop. Make everything stop chasing him down into the depths of self hatred and anger. He felt so... so... angry at the world, for everything it had put him through. Harry had set beds on fire in his rage, had shattered all the fine china, had made the wards shake in his fury. He had smashed mirrors, cut his hands to pieces, added to his already many scars.
Sirius was looking for a light ritual to get rid of all of his scars. Harry didn't want them gone. He wanted to see them, for them to remind him, so that he could remember what happened even if Dumbledore tried to mess with his mind. They had tried to get him to take down the glamours in Snape's former therapy. Harry was glad he had taken up his Lordship, and hadn't been forced to continue going.
On his first day there he had tracked down all the belts in the house and burnt them in a big pile. Luna had danced and chanted around the bonfire, they had danced together like madman while it rained, and Sirius had watched from the window inside, stuck in his own mind for that afternoon.
Harry, on the first day there, had tracked down all the belts in the house, because every time he saw one of them they reminded him of his uncle's belt and caused his breathing to become harsh and his chest to hurt in the way it hurt so often now. He had burnt them all in a big pile, so as to try and kill them like his family had tried to kill him. Luna had seen the sorrow in his eyes and had danced and chanted, with him, around the bonfire, no matter how many times he flinched.
Harry had tracked down all the belts in the house, within the first half hour he arrived. He didn't know why, just that he had to, and so he did, so as not to be consumed by the ultimate darkness inside of him. He had taken the fifth belt into the bathroom with him, and had used the sharp silver buckle to cut his arm open, wondering if he did so that if he would finally die.
Luna came into the bathroom, saw his cut arm, and did not look shocked, not even when his arm healed itself on its own. She said nothing, simply took his other hand which did not have a pile belts in it, and searched with him around the house for more.
That evening, when they burned the belts together, so that Harry would not cut himself with them again, she took his hands, so that he would not try to set himself on fire. Luna danced with him until he was tired enough not to try again, and did not say anything to the dissociated state that Sirius was in from his mother's insults.
Harry, as soon as he arrived, tracked down all the belts in the house, because the first belt he had seen had sent him into a memory of his time at Privet Drive. Harry, had stood there, meek and pathetic as he was, back there, and had simply shut his eyes soundlessly, waiting for tears to come.
He did not dance at first, when Luna asked him to, for he didn't feel like he could move, for he still felt like he was waiting for the pain to come. Eventually he did, trying to remember that his family was dead and he didn't have to go back there. Trying to remember that it was Luna's hands in his grip, not his uncle's holding his hands above his head as he...
Harry took a breath, stepped into the shower, and turned on the scolding hot water. Hoping it would burn away the memories in his mind, hoping that if he scrubbed himself enough, poured enough crusted soap on his skin and shampoo in his hair, that he would be able to scrub off those phantom hands which he could still feel, brushing fingertips like knives across his skin.
Harry walked downstairs, smelling cleaner than he had in a long time, not expecting anyone to be awake since it was so late, and could only blink as he saw Luna sitting cross legged on the table.
She opened one eye, and asked with no dreamy tilt to her lips, as if she were being as serious as she ever could,
"Did you have a nice shower?"
Harry could only smile fakely, hoping it would convince her, but knowing it wouldn't.
"It was fine."