So this is the penultimate chapter of the Gibbon Percival part of the story - I honestly never intended for this to even happen and I'm not 100% sure it worked out but, oh well!
Thank you, as always, to anyone still taking the time to read/follow/review this. It is always appreciated.
Apologies if updates are coming slowly at the moment - I have a lot on at home and this is one of four stories I am currently writing.
Enjoy :)
17. Come Home to Me
24th March 2006
Harry awakens slowly, his body stiff with cold and his head feeling as though someone has taken an axe to it. His first thought is that this is the worst hangover he has had in a while. His second thought is that he cannot remember drinking at all. He cracks open one bleary eye, wincing as the action sends a shooting pain across his skull.
The hall is dark and quiet, cold in that unsettling way that that makes it seem as though the place has been deserted for some time. Harry groans loudly as he rolls his aching body until he is lying on his back, staring up at the high ceiling. He does not know how he got home, or why he would be lying comatose on the cold and unforgiving floor.
He vaguely recalls apparating into the square outside of the house, but then…nothing. Slowly he pulls himself up using the door, his legs unsteady and weak beneath him. He edges his way down the hallway and into the living room, the clockface on the mantelpiece shows it is a little after one in the morning and he wonders how long he has lain in the dark. As he turns away, he spots two mugs on the table; strange, he ponders, briefly, Hermione is usually such a stickler for tidying up before bed.
He finally drags himself upstairs, pausing uncertainly outside Hermione's closed bedroom door. Since they had taken their relationship to the next level just a few nights prior they had barely spent any time together. He ponders, with his hand poised over the door handle, how annoyed Hermione would be with him if he invaded her room in the early hours of the morning, disturbing her sleep, because the thought of sleeping alone one more night makes him feel desolate.
After a few moments' consideration he finally carries on to his own room, rationalising that Hermione's sleep is more important than his own confused feelings at the moment. He wonders whether the second cup downstairs had been his…had he gotten drunk afterwards? Had Hermione seen him in such a deplorable state and left him to stew in the cold hallway?
He crawls under his quilt, fully clothed, trying to bring some warmth into his icy skin. He plunders him mind trying to traverse his memory for any indication or hint of how he came to be lying facedown in his hallway in the middle of the night. The more he tries to pull those memories to the surface, the more they slip from his grasp. He growls in frustration, burying his face in his pillow trying to make sure the noise does not disturb Hermione who he knows to be a ridiculously light sleeper.
As the tantalising pull of sleep works on him, Harry stops trying to push for answers and allows his mind to descend into the uncertain fog of dreamland; his mind fluctuating between moments of strange, unconnected figures and the more blissful periods of empty solitude…
Harry bolts upright in bed, the sheets twisted around his trouser-clad legs and his upper torso drenched in cold sweat. His eyes scan frantically around the dark room looking for the figure that had just assaulted his dream self. His naturally blurred vision and the shadowed gloom of his bedroom make it impossible to discern one shape from the next.
He lays back on his pillows, trying desperately to calm his wildly beating heart as he tries to convince himself that it was just a dream. But as the pain in his head returns and the image of Percival looming out of the darkness becomes clearer, he starts to wonder whether it was just a dream after all.
Cautiously, he stands from the bed and reaches for his glasses. As he exits his room onto the chilly landing, he touches his hand to a tender spot at the base of his skull, where he can feel the definite beginnings of an unsightly lump forming. He pauses outside of Hermione's door once more – his heart rate now accelerating at an alarming rate as he turns the handle and pushes the door gently open.
His mind struggles to process the sight of the empty room before him; Hermione's neatly made bed mocking him with its barrenness. Harry startles as something brushes against his leg and he looks down into the wide, accusing eyes of Hermione's cat, Crookshanks.
Harry quickly searches the rest of the house with the ginger furball dogging his every step; he tells himself that Hermione must have been called into work, that she will have left a note somewhere telling him not to worry and that she'll be home for lunch or tea. His search is futile.
He goes back to the sitting room, to the two cups left half-filled on the coffee table, and he wonders: Who does the second cup belong to? Is that person responsible for Hermione disappearing? Or are they a victim as well?
He curses himself for thinking of Hermione as a victim, tries to shake the image of her scared or injured out of his mind before the dregs in the second cup catches his eye. He brings the mug up to his face, taking a quick sniff of the remaining liquid and, as the minty scent washes over him, he realises just who Hermione's mystery guest was.
Desperate to get some answers, Harry wastes no time in throwing his shoes back on and leaving the house. The rain is lighter now than it was earlier, but his shirt still becomes plastered to his body within seconds of stepping outside. He apparates quickly, not even bothering to check whether anyone might see him disappear into thin air.
Seconds later, Harry arrives outside of an imposing, Georgian manor house – the grey façade partially covered in green vines and moss. There are no lights on in the house and Harry falters for a moment, wondering whether he might be about to wake a pregnant woman in the middle of the night for no good reason. He dismisses the thought quickly, as he strides across the perfectly mown lawn to the front door; Ginny will understand, he thinks. He hopes.
It takes a few minutes of increasingly loud knocking before he manages to rouse anyone's attention and, before long, he finds himself face-to-face with a bare-chested and tousle-haired Draco Malfoy. Anger flares briefly in Harry's chest as he registers the thin layer of sweat glistening on Malfoy's bare skin and he wonders what he may have been interrupting. The anger disappears as quickly as it comes, however, and his original panic takes over once more.
"Potter?" Draco asks, with none of the usual bite he put into the word during their school years.
"Malfoy. I know it's late, but I really need to speak to Gin; it's urgent."
Draco scratches his blonde head, a look of tired confusion on his pointy face.
"Um…Ginny's not here. Apparating is too dangerous for her at the moment, so she said she would floo back to the Burrow for the night because…well, our house isn't attached to your network…obviously."
"When was the last time you spoke to her? Did Molly know she was going to be staying there?"
Draco's face twitches in surprise at Harry's frantic questioning, clearly wondering whether the man in front of him is drunk or mad.
"I…I spoke to her this evening before she left – she was getting the Knight Bus to yours. She…well, she didn't say whether she had spoken to her mum, I guess I just assumed she had. Look, Potter, what the hell is this about?"
Harry stops his pacing, which he had unconsciously been doing since the door had opened.
"I think…I think something bad has happened but…I can't be sure."
Quickly, he regales Draco with the events of the night, as the other man hovers like a pale spectre in the doorway, his bloodshot eyes widening in alarm as Harry talks.
"Come in, we can floo over to the Burrow now," he says, as soon as Harry finishes his tale.
Harry only has to wait for a moment as Draco throws some clothes on before the pair are flooing over to the Weasley family home. Stepping out into the familiar cosiness of the Weasley's kitchen Harry feels a calmness wash over him, until his eyes catch sight of the family clock in the gloom. While the other family members are all pointing at 'home', Ginny's hand points firmly at 'mortal peril'. Harry feels sick to his stomach as his worst fears are all but confirmed.
As Draco steps into the kitchen Harry wonders what their next plan of action should be. Should they wake the family, sending them all into a panic? Or should they try and find Ginny and Hermione before alerting anyone to the danger they may be in?
"What is it?" Draco whispers, jolting Harry from his thoughts. Harry merely points at the clock, uncomfortable at the dawning horror that spreads over Draco's usually impassive face.
"Wait here," he whispers back to the blonde, before quietly sprinting up the rickety stairs to the top floor and a bedroom he had spent countless hours in as a teenager. He can hear Ron's snoring from the landing, so he knows the redhead is, mercifully, not staying with Luna tonight.
Ron is groggy and confused when he wakes to find Harry leaning over him in the dark, frantically shaking his shoulders.
"Get up, Ron. You need to get up now!"
"Wha- Har – Whatisit?"
"Quick, Ron! I'll explain downstairs, just move yourself!"
Thankfully, years of being an Auror have improved Ron's ability to get himself out of bed, and soon the three men are standing back in the kitchen eyeing one another wearily as Ron is brought up to speed.
"So, let me get this straight," Ron finally speaks, looking between his best friend and his sworn enemy, "Hermione and my sister were having a cuppa in yours and now they have disappeared off the face of the earth? And you think Percival is responsible? Because you think he attacked you when you got home? And now we need to find out where the hell they all are before he hurts them, when we have had no clue as to his whereabouts for the past two weeks? Is that about right?"
Harry can practically see the steam billowing out of Ron's ears and nostrils and he knows he needs to keep the redhead calm so they can figure out a plan. He realises with despair, though, that his friend is right; they have absolutely no way of knowing where to even start looking for the trio.
Before he can think of anything to respond with, however, Draco pipes up with his own thoughts.
"I don't understand why he is doing this. What could he be getting out of it?"
Harry sighs before sitting himself at the kitchen table – the past two weeks have been filled with questions like this, and he is still struggling to find a definitive answer.
"As far as I can make out, Gibbon has a grudge against me because his brother, Claudius, died in the Battle of Hogwarts. He was a slightly younger Gryffindor, but I can't say I remember much about him. Gibbon was in Ravenclaw and, having spoken to his classmates, it seems he was quite popular initially – but he had a peculiar interest in the Dark Arts, and people suspected he was behind some of the snitching to the Carrows and Snape, although no one could prove anything at the time. I think he blames me for his brother's death and this whole thing…becoming an Auror and allowing me to mentor him, it's all been a ploy leading up to this moment. He wanted to learn my weaknesses and let me get close enough to him to ensure I would be the one sent to track him down."
"But, then why not just finish you off when he had the chance? He caught you unawares – he could have killed you without the girls even know what had happened until it was too late. No offence…"
"I don't think it's about just killing me. He wants me to suffer, as he has suffered. Taking Hermione is the easiest way to do that," Harry admits, his cheeks burning slightly at admitting something so personal to a man he has always despised. "I don't think Ginny was supposed to be a part of this – he couldn't possibly have known she was going to be there."
"Do you think he will hurt them?" Ron asks, the haunted look in his eyes making Harry painfully aware that he is thinking about the agony of potntially losing a second sibling, a best friend and a future niece or nephew all in one go.
Harry can do little more than shrug helplessly as his own mind battles against images of his loved ones in danger because of him, again.
The three lapse into a pained silence, each lost in their own tortuous thoughts. The rain ceases and the room starts to brighten as the grey dawn light spills through the windows, and yet the group remains trapped in their inertness.
A sharp tap at the window brings all three men to their feet; a tawny owl with orange eyes stares balefully at them through the glass, a scroll attached to its leg. Ron quickly lets the bird in, feeding it some scraps from the bird bowl by the sink, before it flies back off and out of sight.
There is no name on the outside of the scroll, so Ron unfurls it and scans the page whilst the others look on. His face darkens with every line read before he passes the note to Harry. As Harry begins to read, he feels Draco hovering at his shoulder trying to get a good look. With each word, Harry feels his anger at Gibbon Percival bubbling up inside him, ready to explode.
He reads the letter, then reads it thrice more. He feels guilt and shame and anger. Most of all, however, he feels helpless. He does not know how to find Hermione and Ginny. He thinks he will prove Gibbon right.
He will fail.
Harry Potter.
The Boy Who Lived.
Hero.
Friend.
Liberator.
That is the drivel I have had to listen to for years. The lies that have boosted your life and your career. The lies my dear brother believed until his last breath.
He worshipped you, and you could not spare him the time of day. He died for you, and you tossed his dead body on the floor like he was rubbish.
Well he was my hero. My friend. But he did not get to live. So why should you?
What makes you so special, Harry Potter?
I have had the privilege of your training and guidance, and I am still none the wiser as to why you were the one deemed worthy of being the Chosen One.
You are nothing special, Potter. You are nothing at all. Soon, certainly, you will be but a memory; I will make sure of that. That will be MY legacy.
Just killing you, as tempting as it has been, would be too easy. I want you to feel my hatred, feel the pain that you have caused me and my family. I want you to know my loss.
You will know by now that I have your girlfriend. The second woman complicated things, I admit, but even a double loss for you would never match the loss of my brother.
I will not make empty promises to trade their lives for yours – I have no interest in letting you be a martyr.
What I will say, is that if you think you can save them, you are more than welcome to try.
Prove yourself to me, Potter. Prove to me that you are everything they say you are.
I will be where monsters are said to have roamed; where ghouls are told to scream; where death took a villain and a saint to draw his last.
You have until midnight.
G.P