House: Hufflepuff

Category: Short

Prompt: "Enochlophobia- the fear of crowds"

Word count: 1050

Title: Make Me Forget

Warning: Wow. I don't have anything to put here.

Note: As someone with germaphobia, sometimes things just get too overwhelming and I just— freak out, I guess. It just feels like ants crawling all over and they just want to rip, rip, rip and touch, touch, touch and I just get so scared. It feels dark. That's the best way I can describe it. Anyway, I tried to make Harry's enochlophobia make sense (I don't know if I succeeded). It's like if he has something to distract him, he's okay until he starts to focus on the people around him. (For me, if I focus on cleaning or reading, I can ignore the dark feeling I get a lot of the time.)

I also glossed over the parts of the club, obviously people aren't so civilized that all they're doing is jumping up and down, but this is not the time nor the place to describe that.

There is slash if you just look really, really closely. I can't just let you guys off without a hint of a pairing.

Disclaimer: I didn't write Harry Potter, I am not JK Rowling. I do not write this for profit and I don't think I'd make any money even if I did write it for profit, anyways. No fingers were injured in the making of this story.

~Blue Rose

Harry looked out over the crowd from his seat, watching the bobbing heads and writhing bodies with the familiar feeling of dread rising in his stomach. The music pounded in his ears and he wondered what he was thinking when he chose this assignment.

He was undercover, searching for a wanted Animagus who'd went unregistered from the Ministry. The form he was supposed to be looking for was a tabby cat, and the Animagi had last been seen in this club. It was worth a shot, Harry thought absently.

Unregistered Animagi had been taken more seriously since the end of the Second Wizarding War, as Peter Pettigrew had been one himself, using that to aid Voldemort.

He took the case, thinking that he couldn't have another Wormtail, even though he knew it was unlikely that this Animagus would be using his abilities like that.

And, if he was being honest, he was bored when he took it. There seemed to be a lull in crime—which was a good thing—but it left a lot of paperwork and sitting around in the Auror office.

Looking back on his decision, Harry realized that he probably should've let Ron take this one. The mass of people in the club were making him paranoid, and the sinking in his stomach just wouldn't go away.

Harry didn't have a good experience with crowds. There were too many people to tell if one of them was watching you; it was an easy escape for criminals to run into a one; and he'd always learned to associate danger with them.

As a child, a crowd meant Dudley and his lackeys. When he went to Hogwarts, they were full of secrets and people who could hex him behind his back. During the war, it meant Death Eaters, and now, as an adult, they meant adoring fans hell-bent on touching him anywhere and everywhere. It was also the perfect vantage point for an ex-convict or the spouse of a captured criminal to curse him.

Harry was not afraid of crowds, thank you very much, just wary of them. At least that's what he would tell you if you were to ask. It's not like the need to scrub his skin off was growing unbearable.

Harry sighed and stood up from the table at the side of the dance-floor, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste to get the crowd-search over with. Of course he couldn't actually search down every dancer, as he was undercover, but he could always just dance with people.

He considered for a moment the fact that he was only experienced in ballroom dancing, not in . . . whatever style that was. It looked like people were just jumping up and down and slamming into each other. It looked easy enough, Harry reasoned.

Harry ignored the prickling on the back of his neck that told him someone was watching him— he'd done this too many times to know that there was an actual threat. He had long since learned to ignore his fears, or to address them briefly before setting them aside for later. Entering a huge mass of people was just one of those things.

Harry wiggled his way into the throng, bumping into more than one person, before he was pulled into a dance—more like a see-if-you-can-knock-your-partner-out contest, in Harry's opinion— and got swept up with the people.

Every time someone brushed his shoulder, he nearly jumped. When the woman he was dancing with moved closer to him, he almost pulled his wand on her. He was too jumpy.

His partner eventually rolled her eyes and stalked off to someone else—much to Harry's relief. He didn't feel comfortable around her.

He felt like he was suffocating now that he didn't have anything to distract him except for the people surrounding him. So many people. Too many people.

Harry managed to get air in his lungs just as a few people took notice of his state of panic. One girl, around seventeen, worriedly put her hand on his shoulder and yelled over the music:

"Hey, mister, are you alright?" Harry nodded and quickly brushed past her, pushing other people out of the way in his haste to leave.

A few witches grumbled and muttered profanities, and most of the men just flipped him off and went back to their business. Harry didn't care; he just wanted out of there.

By the time Harry broke through the crowd, he was running. He burst through the doors and apparated on the spot.

Harry popped into his and Ron's office in the Ministry, panting. Ron was sitting at his desk, carefully peeling an apple with a knife.

"How'd it go?" Ron asked, not looking up from the fruit. He probably didn't want to cut his finger like he did last time he tried to have a conversation with Harry while peeling fruit. "Did you catch him?"

Harry groaned and plopped into his chair, his heart still pounding and sweat at the base of his neck.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said in a sigh. Ron clucked, somehow knowing what had happened—again.

"Mate, is this about that weird thing you've got with people? They're just people," Ron said, shaking his head. Harry shook his head in frustration.

"Ron, there's a spider on your desk," Harry said seriously. Ron jumped—cutting his finger in the process—and ran out the door, stumbling all the way. Harry snickered when Ron came back in three seconds later, scowling.

"Hardee-har-har, very funny," Ron said. He sat back down in his chair and popped his finger into his mouth.

"It's like that, Ron. It's like that," Harry said, and Ron sighed, so Harry knew that the redhead had caught onto what he was trying to prove.

"Fine, I'm sorry I asked," Ron muttered. Harry chuckled and stood, then made his way over to Ron. He pulled Ron's finger out of his mouth, causing Ron's ears to turn red, just realizing what he'd been doing.

"No, I'm sorry. That was cruel of me," Harry said, and brought out his wand. He healed Ron's cut finger with a flick of his wrist and a murmured incantation, and when he looked up, Ron's smile was enough to make him forget about everything that had happened that day.