April 10, 2004

Disclaimer:  Don't own it… "You don't have to a Nazi rocket scientist to figure that out."  (Down With Love… Ewan McGregor, Renee Zelwegger… what more do you need?)

Authors Note:  Hey all!  More Procrastination Writing Camp!  Hurray for putting off three big assignments!  So here's to you and you and you! Go forth and read! Usual notes at the end!

~

"But he's okay, isn't he?" I ask worriedly.  "They don't know?" I trail, shaking my head apprehensively.

"No, Harry, he's fine.  Just calm down, he'll be just fine.  There's a meeting tonight, remember?  I'll see him then and tell you what happened in the morning."

"But you won't see him, remember?" I ask with a little emphasize.

He closes his eyes regretting for the millionth time that he is one of the cursed.  His head drops and he shakes his head, only disappointed in himself.  "One of the others will tell me in the morning.  If something has gone wrong, they'll come to you, I'll make sure of it."  Raising his face again, he looks in my eyes saying, "I promise."

Now it is my turn to look down, rubbing my eyes with my fingers.  I wish I didn't feel so tired all the time.  But then again, there are a lot of things that I wish.  "Do you think he'll ever get out?" I ask, downcast.

"I don't know.  Maybe when he's older," Remus replies.  "Maybe never, maybe tomorrow.  In any case, it won't be pretty and it will be very difficult for many people."

"What do you mean?" I ask.  His face reads a different shade of thoughtful, as if he's thinking of something that nobody else knows.  The look contorts into his normal expression after a moment and he says, "Well, the other Death Eaters may come after him for not being honest and the Ministry likely will as well for the same reason.  He's been on their list of wizards to keep an eye on ever since he was put on trial after Voldemort's first fall 16 years ago. Professor Dumbledore will be helping him in trying to hide from the remaining loyal Death Eaters and start a new life, one that is empty of hostility and fear and I for one am not going to make them fight for that on their own.  They are going to need all of the help they can get."

"Do you think it will ever happen?" I ask sadly.

He takes a deep breath, pausing to think on it for a moment.  "I don't know," he finally relents but I'm sure he's thinking the same thing I am.  That's all dependent on whether you can kill Voldemort or not...  And that in turn depends on whether you are going crazy or not, I finish. 

ﻬﻫ You are not going crazy, baby, you just need to let it all out. ﻬﻫ   Again, I whip my head around, eyes darting through the corners of the room, desperate to find the voice that keeps saying these things to me.

"What's wrong?" Remus asks, starting to look around the room as well.  "What did you see?" he says a bit more forcefully.

Continuing to gaze around, my whole body trembling, I say, "Nothing.  I didn't see anything…" but still my eyes wander and I pull my blanket around me even tighter.

"Harry, look at yourself; you're scared," he says.  "There is something bothering you.  Please tell me what's going on," he says. 

I bite the corner of my lip and try to take a deep breath.  He's the only person that doesn't think I'm crazy right now, but this is definitely the inner-mind workings of somebody that's gone off the deep end.  "It was nothing," I lie.  "I thought I saw a shadow or something.  It must have been a bird flying past the window."

"Are you sure?" he asks pointedly.

"Yeah," I say, "I'm sure."  But my fear is only growing as time passes.  What if there really is somebody in my room?  What if they found me and they are standing right next to me underneath an invisibility cloak, just waiting for Remus to leave and for me to be alone again.  They'd take me back, but this time they wouldn't delay putting an end to my life.  A shiver runs uncontrollably through my body and I hug my knees again.  I feel so childish sitting like this all the time, but I can't suppress the feeling of needing something to hold on to, the feeling of needing something close to me that won't hurt me.

"It's not healthy to keep this inside anymore, Harry, that's why you are here," Remus says.  "Whatever is bothering you…" he starts but decides to go a different direction, "I'm not going to think any less of you whatever you tell me, you know that."

I nod a little, still trying to look around the room without being obvious, but finally just dropping my head to my knees in defeat.

"Will you tell me what's going on?" he asks quietly.

But again, I shake my head no.  "There's nothing," I say again.  "It was just a shadow," and faintly I hear Remus sigh.

~

The scent of lightning is slowly seeping through the cracks of my windows, through the gaps underneath doors and I inhale the scent contentedly, watching the clouds roll by through my once-more unshaded windows.  The once dappled sky is now covered in a grey fluff reaching high into the atmosphere, higher than the eye can see.  The wind is beginning to howl and branches of trees differentiate between easy sways and violent whippings.  Lying on my side, my head resting on my arm, I gaze at the incoming storm with a simple attitude.  I have no emotion for the darkness, the lightning, and the thunder; they simply exist and I exist to observe it. 

I wish my life wasn't turning out this way, but I guess that's a wish that everybody has and is one that nobody can escape.

I wish I wasn't afraid to let my friends know where I am at, but on the surface I still hold some of the resentment that was gathered from last summer when their letters held nothing but broken phrases and shattered hope.  At the surface only because I need the resentment to not miss them as much as I do deep down.

I wish Remus hadn't left in such a mood.  He was angry with me.  I know he was and most likely still is, but how am I supposed to tell the last person that really cares about me that I think I'm turning into a madman?  I wish I could just tell him everything that is on my mind without the fear that he'll reject me and leave me behind, too tired and fed up to deal with a stubborn sixteen year old with more issues than Time magazine.

Sometimes I think about what it would be like to lose him.  Would I be upset?  Would I be impartial?  He's been one of the few people to try and help me through this, he's been there every step of the way and I'm sure he never deserved some of the treatment he received.  So many nights I woke up to feel him sitting next to me on my bed, wiping the sweat from my face, assuring me that I was far from danger; so many nights he never let sleep take hold, he supported me through sickness, and he never let fear or fatigue grip his heart.  His generosity and compassion I have rarely seen matched and his stoutness of heart this past month I have never seen.  I think it would be wrong to not be upset.

Still other times, I think, he was nowhere to be found.  For the first thirteen years of my life he was conspicuously absent, only to appear for year and then return only in short grasps for the next two.  Does he even care about me?  I wonder.  Am I just a job to him, something to do to pass the time and serve The Order? 

I shake my head and close my eyes where I lay, erasing the thought from my mind.  If he didn't care then why would I still be with him?  He would have sent me off to the Weasley's house or back to Hogwarts.  He has to care, he just has to…

There are steps outside my door, the door my back is facing, and I can hear the shoes beat ominously on the linoleum, a door opening and closing close by.  A thunderclap rumbles through the air and a voice calls out to me.

"Harry?  Are you awake?"  It's Ms. Rainer.

I take my eyes away from the rain clouds outside and roll over to see her, resting my head on my other arm giving a sort of forced half-smile in the process.

Smiling back, she sits across from me so I don't have to look up and politely asks, "How are you?"

I shrug in return and start gazing around the room.

"Harry," she says again to regain my attention, "I don't rightly know ho to start this, so I'm just going to jump right in.  You are not alone in this like you think you are.  Did you know that there are other people going through the same thing you are right now?  That you're not the only one who thinks they are living only half of a life?"  I only look up to her face at her words; I have once again resorted to not speaking.  "You may have post-traumatic stress disorder and you can overcome it.  Maybe if you can tell me what happened exactly, we can get to the bottom of it faster and you can get better and go back home.  That's what you want, isn't it?"  I pause to think.  Is it really what I want?  Do I really want to trouble Remus with more of my problems?  But then again, if it's over with then there won't be any more problems to be dealt with.  In the end, I give a half-hearted and very doubtful nod, unable to look her in the eye.

"Maybe we could start with you filling in the gaps.  You've told us some things about what happened when you had been kidnapped, but there are still a lot of holes in the story.  Would you like to start with that?" she asks.  I don't reply, there are too many thoughts going at once in my mind for that and my eyes travel blindly over the room in front of me, not really looking, not really seeing.

"We'll take it slowly," she promises.  "Since you just got here this morning, I won't make you go places that you don't want to go, but we will hit them all sooner or later, understood?"

I bite the corner of my lip again and nod; I clear my throat but don't say anything.  She's going to have to lead the way.

"I talked to Kevin when I got back and he said that you've had two dreams already today?"

I nod.

"Tell me how they connect to each other."

No, I inwardly moan.  It's a road block.  Remus used to use it on me all the time; it's a direct statement made so that I can't back out of speaking and I can't answer with a simple yes or no.

I bite the corner of my lip even harder before I literally force myself to start talking.

"They were in the wrong order," I say quietly.  "The second one happened first."

"The second happened first?  Do you mean immediately beforehand, or some time far in advance?"

I really don't want to say anything else.  What if something slips that I'm not supposed to let other people know about?  I don't want to lead them to me again.  I turn my head back towards the window and watch some of the clouds roll closer, the lightning becoming more prominent, the splatters of thick water droplets beginning to patter on the window glass, pushing to get into the room.  I pause once more, just watching, just hoping that she'll leave.

"Kevin told me what the two dreams were about, that you dreamed of being taken into a room with The Dark Lord, and that the other one had another person helping you before he came back to hurt you.  What happened after Lord Voldemort left, Harry?"  She's trying to bring me back to her side, to her world of help instead of the soul cleansing scene before me; the scene of rain rivulets splashing up the pane of glass before their inevitable fall into the puddles that lie below.  The miraculous rain that cries for me and the thunder that screams when my voice is too weak.  The lightning, so fast and so angry that releases my hatred; it is nature that expresses me when my voice is too soft and my fears too great.  It is nature that has kept me going.  Only amidst the storms could I cry without waking my guardian, release the self disappointment and self-sickening thought that I brought this upon myself.  Only the storms; only God's fury.

"Harry?"

Fully lying facing the storm, against my own wishes, I start to speak.  "After Voldemort left and the guard apologized, all I remember is blindly lying on the floor, my professor trying to convince me to stay awake, but the pain was so great, my mind so totally unfocused.  I was shaking very badly and my professor forced me to lie on my side, hoping that it would keep me awake and away from Voldemort's power.  It hadn't worked.  The very last things that I can recall of that afternoon are my professor's hand on the back of my neck and him repeating over and over and over again, "Just breathe, Potter.  Slow, deep breaths; just let them come," before blacking out.  I woke up some time later, it was night and I don't think my body has ever felt so damaged.  That was when another Death Eater came and led me to him, but deep down, I knew somehow that during that time that I had blacked out… I knew my lost time was only lost to me.  I had to have been out for a long time, I'm sure he got into my mind.  There was nothing I could do and I was being led right back to him."

She's still sitting behind me.  Unlike everyone else, she hasn't come around to see my face while I talk, she hasn't told me to roll over and talk only to her. 

"What are you afraid of him knowing?" she asks sincerely.

'What am I not afraid of him knowing is more appropriate,' I think, but outwardly I simply say, "Everything."

"Everything?"

"Who my friends are, where they live, the professors I like, who I consider family, the subjects I'm good at, what spells I do and don't know…" I trail. "The list goes on for ages."

There is a long moment of silence before I hear her speak again.  What she says is one of the last things that I ever expected.

"Harry, have you lost somebody close to you recently?  A family member, somebody that you cared about very much?"  I close my eyes tightly.  Why this again?  Why?

"Why?" I ask, the single word holding so much emotion it is overflowing.

"Because the first four things you listed as thoughts you didn't want him to know all had to do with people you care about.  What happened?"

"It was my godfather.  It was my fault."

"Do you want to-"

"No," I say quickly, perhaps too quickly.  "Not right now, if that's alright," I amend and I can hear her hum her agreement behind me.  Wanting nothing more to change the topic, I ask, "What time is it?"

There is another moment while I listen to the thunderclaps grow louder and the patter of the rain become more regular, less distinct, more forceful.

"It's almost seven thirty.  Are you getting hungry?"

I shake my head and press the palm of my lower hand against my temple.  It's starting, the headaches just like the previous times.  It seems the night has begun early and without my being prepared for it. 

"Can you tell me where you were?  What you're surroundings were like?" she asks.

Massaging my neck with my fingers, I think back to the prison that I was captive to and shudder visibly from the memory.

"Anything?  I'm sure there wasn't anything pleasant about the place, but maybe there was someplace that made you feel at least a little safe, or less nervous?  When somebody specific was with you?  You mentioned another prisoner, a professor of yours."

I take a heavy swallow and will the pain in my chest to go away.  Another rumble issues from the sky, but I missed the bolt of lightning.

"The bathroom."

"Excuse me?" she asks, a bit confused I'm sure.

"I felt safe in the bathroom.  They wouldn't follow me in there, but they guarded the door.  The window was always magically locked and the glass was frosted.  They wanted to control when I could see freedom and when I was to belong solely to them."

"They were even trying to discourage you like that?"

"Mmm hmm.  I guess when you have a lot of time on your hands to think about the person you hate the most, you start focusing on the details."  I roll onto my back again so that now I'm facing the ceiling.  "They thought of just about everything."

She pauses for a moment of respectful silence, but doesn't know what to say.  It's understandable.  "Was there any other place that made you feel a little better?  Any people that comforted you at all?"

I sigh.  "There was the girl… the girl in the blue grass outside."

"The blue grass?"

"Sometimes they let me go outside, usually on the really beautiful days, only to pound into my head that I would never get to live in it again.  They would put this spell on me… it was like a leash almost.  Nothing visible or physical, but they could still control where I went over a distance if they wanted to.  With the spell on, they would let me sit on the sea cliffs because they knew that if I tried to jump, they could stop me, if I tried to run they could hold me back.  I would sit there at sunset watching the colors on the water and when I would be forced into going back in, I would look down at the grass and it would look blue because of the sunset."

"Who was this girl that you mentioned?  Was she a Death Eater?" Rainer prods.

"I don't think so."  I shake my head.  "No, she wasn't.  She would appear out of the fog.  She was like a mist, but something about her just reinforced me to keep fighting.  I could go back into that house because she told me I could make it."

ﻬﻫ And she was right, sweetheart.  You did make it. ﻬﻫ   Again with the voice, but it doesn't sound bitter and hateful like I imagine a hiding Death Eater would sound.  It seems to be more supporting, but a voice in the head is still a voice in the head.  Crazy is as crazy does.  I sigh in frustration, not knowing where it's coming from or why I'm hearing it.  Number 863 on the list of things that I wish weren't happening.  

"Where do you think she came from?" she asks carefully, but I can't quite place what context she's being careful in.

I shake my head with my eyes closed and resort to shrugging again.  

"Have you seen her since?" she tries again.  So you do think I'm going insane.

"I thought I saw her the night that I was rescued, but never since."  Unless you count that one time that I was hallucinating in the backyard just after the sun went down.

"Have you told Remus about this yet?" she asks pointedly.

Again I shake my head.  "I think he knows, but I don't remember telling him.  It must have come out in a dream sometime."

"Did she have a name?" she presses.

And I think back to the fourth time that I saw her, sitting next to me on the cliff, my hands forced into the gravel bits and renegade blades of grass that lingered this far out from softer soil.  She was older than me, but how much older I don't know.  She seemed to rise up from the sea smoke, condensing in a sitting position to my left, a blue glow emanating from her form.  

'Who are you?' I had asked.  'What's your name?'

And with a simple gaze into my younger eyes she had replied,

"Cara."

~

Wha oh!  I've done it again! Heehee!  I know it's not really a place to stop, but I liked the cliffie aspect so I stopped there! (Ha! "Cliffie…" that's like, a double meaning!) Anywhoo! 

No worries, Wiccan, Kate, Leggo, and nadezhda… I know where you're going, I just haven't got that far yet! (and nadezhda, good to have you!)

Jaycee… I'm sorry I've confused you… if it doesn't get better, then drop me a line at amimegan@sailormoon.com and I'll try and help you out!

Paranoia: Yay! I was really worried that the last chapter kinda wasn't liked, but your review made me feel good about it again!  Thank you!

Mybacktotheshadows:  Thank you for telling me what PTSD is… as soon as I read it I was like, "OH YEAH!" and you're right… it screams my Harry; I didn't even think of that when I started writing him! So thank you!

I think that's all that I've got for now!  Hope you enjoyed the Harry chapter!  See ya!

~Tini :D