I know it's been a while but I've been incredibly busy with my final exams (which I'm still in the middle of!) I'm not entirely certain about this chapter but I thought I'd get it out there for you guys, so be gentle. Please review, it's what keeps me going! Thanks to all of you who reviewed for the last chapter!
Here's a little plot synopsis for those of you need a little reminding: Harry's come back from Snape's to find Hogwarts infested by the evl Umbridge. Ron and Draco (who is still getting bullied by a few Slytherins and who is bitter at Snape 'abandoning him') have formed an alliance to save the possibly still alive Hermione. Seamus and Draco have been 'set up' by Harry. Harry's been feeling a bit like the odd one out.
Part 2: Chapter 4
"How do I know if I'll ever be normal again?"
The scratching of quill on parchment paused. Harry picked at the velvet on the sofa. It was coming away from the polished wood of the armrest and threads frayed dangerously around the edges. He wondered why Severus hadn't repaired it. One wave of his wand and it could be brand new. Maybe if other things were like that…
"Normal?" Harry didn't have to look up, he could hear the raised eyebrow in the man's voice.
Normal. Normal was some boy in London, with the perfect parents, the perfect home, the perfect marks, the perfect life. Or at least that was what it was supposed to be. Harry didn't care anymore about that kind of normal. It was too far out of his reach, too improbable for him to think about. Instead, he just wanted to not feel like the world was pressing down on his chest every second of every day. He'd read about men being pressed to death in the middle ages as a punishment. Harry wished he knew what he was being punished for.
The quill was carefully set on the table as the professor leaned back in his chair, fingers resting from marking as he crossed his arms. "Is there something you want to tell me Harry?"
"No. Yes." He thought about it for a moment. "We have fifteen minutes before this 'detention' has to end. Anything I want to tell you is null and void in fifteen minutes. What's the point?" Severus looked vaguely upset, Harry thought. He felt guilty but that washed away as bitterness took over. He hated Umbridge so much it hurt his head to think about it.
"The point is that if you don't say it, the wound will fester." Severus had told Harry that he felt he had personally invested so much in Harry that it would be difficult not to care for him. He'd said that when Harry asked if their relationship was going to go back to the way it was before when they were at Hogwarts, if everything Harry had felt in the past 6 months was going to be erased. Harry had thought at the time that it would feel like someone was ripping his heart out. Now he realised, it just felt like his stomach was heavy.
"Yeah, well, that's I'm used to isn't it? Wounds." Harry felt the overwhelming urge to hit someone. Not just throw a punch, but really lay into someone. It felt like his temperature had risen a hundred degrees and he felt a bit detached from it all.
The silence was long and deafening. Harry opened his eyes again, letting the air expel from his lungs in a great whoosh. "I don't even know what to say anymore." The look on Severus' face made Harry's stomach turn and he examined the creases on the other man's forehead instead. Furrowed. Frown lines. Shadows. Worry. He couldn't do this.
"I can't do this." He spoke the words with a calm that contrasted the overwhelming sound of blood rushing through his veins that resonated in his head. The sound drowned whatever reply Severus made and the quiet thud of the door shutting behind him was inaudible. Every step he took towards the Common Room was one step away from the only person he'd felt safe with in a long time. It was another step away from control.
Every second he lay in bed ticked away, counted in his head, every one seemed to last forever.
When Ron came back to the dorms later that night he ducked his head between Harry's bed curtains. The moonlight that crept in the crack made Harry squint up at the red-head.
"We're meeting Draco by the portrait in ten minutes." He whispered. Harry stared at him. "So get dressed," He urged. "And be quiet."
Harry nodded dumbly, his mind elsewhere. More useless talk about saving Hermione no doubt. The futility of it made Harry furious. They were no closer than Malfoy had been at the beginning, alone in his certainty that Hermione was alive. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the sick feeling that haunted him.
The stones were cold under his feet and he squinted at the light in the bathroom. His glance went immediately to The Place. Why he'd put them back he didn't know. In case. In the event of an emergency, go here. That sort of thing. He splashed water onto his face, the half-asleep feeling that came from being woken up at one o'clock in the morning wouldn't dissipate. Not having slept well for a few weeks now, Harry sighed at the developing bags under his eyes. He looked exhausted. His face was gaunt and his eyes were sunken back into their sockets. The emerald of his iris looked brighter than usual in contrast to his sickly complexion. Harry's gaze continued to travel back to The Place. He left the bathroom before that thought could travel further.
The Common Room looked different at night time. Peaceful. Serene. Lonely. Ron was already waiting for him at the entrance, impatient, awake. More lively than Harry anyway.
"You look like shit, mate." Ron said earnestly, opening the portrait hole quietly, so as to not wake the Fat Lady.
Harry just glared at him. Draco looked like he thought the same thing but was tactful enough not to say anything. Maybe grateful enough. His 'date' with Seamus had gone well, Harry had surmised. If date involved Seamus not coming to the dorm at all that night. So much for virginity. Harry had decided he had to lose his as soon as possible. He was beginning to feel ridiculously out of place and it made him uncomfortable. He was all fixed now, so there was no reason not to… jump in the deep end, as it were. He tried to focus on the whispered conversation the other boys were having.
"…tracing's not working. Book from the library said that I could try a combination of blood magic and a tracking spell but we'd need her here to get blood and I think that's out of the question. Maybe-"
"It might not be." Harry interrupted. There could be a loophole there he thought.
"What?" Ron asked, two sets of eyes on him, confused. "What might not be?"
"Getting her blood. She gave marrow at the hospital for her cousin last year in the summer." The blank looks were frustrating. "She gave bone marrow when her cousin got sick. They froze it. It might still be there."
"Can they do that? Muggles, I mean?" Malfoy this time, a little bit of awe in his voice.
"I think so." He wasn't entirely sure how it worked but he remembered Hermione talking excitedly about the whole procedure. Only Hermione could think such a thing exciting.
"That could work." Harry could almost see the cogs working in Malfoy's head. "We'll need to wait until the holidays but that could definitely work."
"Why do we need to wait?" Ron demanded. Harry agreed, the nightmares were wearing him down and the thought of Hermione in that much pain made him sick to his stomach.
"Well, I need to find a way to get to the hospital for one. Do you even know which hospital it was?"
"Er, Saint something." He remembered her telling him but the name hadn't been important at the time. "Saint Timothy?"
"Merlin, Potter. Either you're sure or you're not."
"Saint Thomas, that's it. I think." He cringed. "We could always tell a teacher. Severus or someone."
"'Severus or someone'" Malfoy mocked him in a falsetto that made Harry's face flush madly, his fingers curling. "You call him 'Severus'?"
Ron seemed to use his eyes for once and noticed Harry's distress. "Lay off, Draco. We can't tell a professor, they don't believe us. And besides, Umbridge's a real dragon, no meetings of more than two people, nothing private, that sort of thing. Remember what I told you about Dumbledore? The ministry's trying to shunt him out."
"Fine, we wait then." And the nightmares would come, Harry added silently.
Breakfast the next day was particularly uncomfortable. He could feel the burning gaze of the Potions Professor on him but he refused to look up at the High Table. Harry hadn't been lying when he said he couldn't do it. He could either depend on Snape or he couldn't. It was that simple. Meanwhile his breakfast tasted like cardboard in his mouth and his pumpkin juice bitter. Ginny sat opposite him with Neville. They did go together well, Harry thought. They weren't like Lavender and her boyfriends, all over each other, they were just… comfortable…
That reminded him of his mission. If he couldn't save Hermione he could at least save himself from languishing in the hell of all teenaged boys: virginity. If nothing else, it was a distraction, he admitted. Catching sight of Seamus and Malfoy exchanging what they thought were discrete bedroom eyes across tables, Harry almost choked. It was as if they liked the idea of 'star-crossed lovers' a little too much. He nearly gave himself whiplash turning away. He was resolved to look straight ahead, keep his eyes to himself. However, Ginny and Neville were having another one of those 'comfortable moments' together just as he did. Next to him Dean and Lavender were publicly expressing their affection to an extent that Harry was tempted to tell them to get a room. Ron was missing altogether and so was Luna Lovegood. That was it, he was officially the only virgin in his dorm. The mission suddenly became ten times more important.
There was no way this week was ending without something changing. As if awakened to the idea all of a sudden, Harry spent his morning classes scoping out the female half of Hogwarts. Every option seemed wrong. Either they swooned when he came near, which was stupid now that he looked like the walking dead and hadn't done anything spectacular in months, or he found some irreconcilable fault in them. Too tall, too short, looked too much like Hermione… the list went on. Every class involved cataloguing the opposite sex. He had lists, for Merlin's sake.
Even in Potions he couldn't escape the urge to examine the problem. It was only fortunate that Snape still seemed reluctant to ask him questions and Harry certainly wasn't about to volunteer himself. Pansy Parkinson sat in front of him and he was almost ashamed that he was categorising her as well.
"Stay behind after class, Mr. Potter." He braced himself.
After everyone had left he turned to face Snape. He was surprised to see the man looked relieved.
"I must say, Harry it was a bit of a relief to know you're thinking about girls, but-"
"Did you use Legilimency on me?" Harry stared at him suspiciously.
"I'm not blind," He sounded almost amused. "I did see how your interest in Miss Parkinson drove you to distraction in my class." Harry was embarrassed that the professor thought it was interest but didn't correct him. "As I was saying, I don't know if you're ready for a relationship yet. You've been-"
"I'm ready."
"If you're-"
"I'm sure." The mild frustration visible at Harry's interruptions did not deter him. "Trust me, I'm sure."
"If you insist." Snape conceded after Harry refused to look him in the eye.
"I do. Thanks Professor." He fled, walking calmly out of the classroom and then making a run for it as soon as he was out of earshot. Sometimes in discussions with Severus he got the oddest feeling, like the man could see right through him - which Harry now knew he could. He'd become quite adept at evasion over the months though, and rightly so, he definitely did not want the man knowing about the whole 'virginity' thing. He could sense the disapproval already. But this was one thing a professor just could not understand.
Lunch was torture, it was like breakfast all over again. Harry kept his gaze firmly on his bowl except for short scans of the other tables. He skipped dinner altogether, deciding the ordeal was not worth it, but by the end of the day there was one girl who stood out in his mind. He almost dismissed her altogether because she was a Slytherin but Tracey Davis kept popping up in his head anyway.
Of course there was one, huge, gaping hole in his master plan (which was shaping up to be more of an obsession but was there a difference?). If there was one thing Harry knew about girls it was that they wanted a relationship before they wanted sex. And it was the word 'relationship' that really threw Harry. Girls weren't just a different gender, they were an alien race, they were mysterious machines of giggles and whispers. That was where Tracey came in. In all the opportunities he'd had to interact with her (which were very few, he'd be the first to admit), she had been unbelievably straightforward. Blunt even. It helped that she had a pretty face and bright blue eyes that sparkled, just a little bit like Dumbledore's. Like she knew something he didn't. He had no doubt that she did but instead of putting him off, she became the focus of his mission. She seemed simple and like a girl who knew exactly what she wanted. She seemed in control. Harry liked that.
So, he decided in bed that night, he would approach her. He would approach her and see where it went from there.
It turned out it wasn't that easy. Firstly he chickened out. Several times. Over several weeks. When he had finally worked up the courage to say something to her he found himself tackled by the duo of Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley. Literally a duo, these days whenever Harry saw one, he saw the other. Strangely, with other things occupying his mind, he didn't mind so much. In fact, every now and again he found himself feeling part of another trio. What the two had wanted to say had held his attention for the next several days. Malfoy had wanted to research more into the idea of blood magic and tracking. So Harry's weekend was spent in the library reading through tomes so old they ought to have crumbled into dust. Occasionally Malfoy would hand him a book that Harry instinctively knew he shouldn't be reading. The black cover usually tipped him off. And titles such as 'The Art of the Blood: One hundred and one ways to maim from afar' (complete with illustrations) made his fingers itch. He didn't even want to know where Malfoy got them, and, after hours of poring over them, he didn't want to know why Malfoy thought they'd be useful either.
Then there was the covert Seamus/Malfoy affair. Of which, because he was the only one to know, he had become the mediator. Who knew setting up one date (if one could call it such a thing) would cause him so much trouble? They were surprisingly compatible, in that after a nasty fight was finally patched up one would hardly know they'd had one. Until the next one, that is. He was beginning to think he'd made a terrible mistake.
One thing he could be grateful for was the ease by which he slipped back into classes. He had no trouble catching up, if anything, everything was easier. That may have been due to his learning of Occlumency, he supposed. It did help tidy his mind a bit. Transfiguration had become less of a challenge, he had begun to pick things up at a rapid pace. In Potions he worked harder, concentrated more, mostly due to the influence of Severus, whose glare somehow meant more now.
However, all those distractions meant he had little time to work up his courage to approach Tracey Davis. It was also slipping close to the holidays, at which point their plan of action would come into play. It was a Thursday afternoon after classes that he had his opportunity. He was determined to let nothing come in his way this time.
She was alone in the library, reading what looked to be a magazine. It was only when he got close enough to see which magazine it was that he realised he had no idea what he was going to say. Of course at that point he was way too close to pretend he'd been doing something other than talk to her.
She looked up before he formulated an appropriate starter. "Oh, Potter." That was discouraging. At least it wasn't 'ew, Potter' he supposed.
"Er, yeah. Well, I just wanted to ask you if you'd maybe like to go somewhere with me… sometime…" He could have kicked himself. It figured that this was the one part that he forgot in all his obsessing. No matter how straightforward a girl was, he doubted she'd go for that.
She cocked an eyebrow and stared at him like he was a particularly interesting insect. The kind that one examined for a few seconds before killing it with the new issue of what looked to be Witch Weekly. "You want me to go somewhere with you sometime?" She repeated.
He just gulped and nodded. Perhaps a tactical retreat was in order. He'd been preoccupied, he hadn't thought this through.
"You tried to kill yourself last year, didn't you?" He should have known it would come back to haunt him. He should have seen this coming from a mile away.
"I wouldn't call it that, exactly…" Harry stuttered his way through a response, feeling that his ship had already struck the ice-berg, he was a goner.
"What do you call it then?" A statistical error? Kind of like the one that led him to think he could ask Tracey Davis out at all, much less sleep with her.
"Er, trying to check out early?" He joked with a wince. He could see the edge of her lip twitch just the slightest bit at that. It was a relief, he supposed, that he could joke about it. The memory had lost its immediate pain, it was just a residual pain now, like the ache Mad-Eye got when it rained.
"Okay."
"… what?" He felt lost.
"Okay I'll go out with you. Somewhere. Sometime."