Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.
I have breached the 80 000 word mark! Actually this feels like a bad thing at the moment since my most recent, original novel is still 210 000 words long after cutting out sections. I need to get rid of more and every time I delete a word I feel like I'm killing one of own children, which is technically true in a rather morbid, metaphoric way.
Anyway, you guys came to read my ramblings not listen to me complain about the minor tragedies of my first world problems, so, without further ado, chapter 20.
Chapter 20
Harry had not seen Katie since convincing her not to attack Beauxbatons' champion in the middle of the Great Hall. It had only been a couple of days, but he was beginning to worry.
He didn't even know what he had done that had upset her. Fleur was a Triwizard Tournament champion and, though Katie was tough, would have demolished her with ease. Harry had not wanted to see her hurt, especially as there hadn't really been a reason for Katie to be angry in the first place.
Sighing, he turned to watch the entrance to the Gryffindor Tower, fingering the unopened letter from his godfather and leaning on the balustrade. Katie would come out for breakfast eventually, then he would able to speak with her and work out what was going on. If it was to do with Fleur, which was the only thing he could think of, then he would make sure Katie didn't feel jealous or threatened by her. He wasn't all that concerned by the french witch. She seemed haughty, proud and arrogant, though occasionally he glimpsed something more, like when he had leant her Hedwig to write to her sister and seen, for a moment someone that reminded Harry of himself. That instant had been a few seconds long and he had considered opening up just a little to her, then she had insulted him again, implying that his age meant he was somehow unable to have ambitions or dreams he could fulfil.
Harry had quite enjoyed throwing her own words back in her face to spite her. It had felt very justified. Fleur Delacour, then, was in no way a threat to Katie, nor had she done anything to enrage her. It confused him completely.
He would just have to hope that her anger, which might have been exacerbated by the Firewhiskey she had drunk at the Three Broomsticks Inn, had passed.
Not that there is a reason for her to feel like that in the first place.
It was several long minutes and many more neutral or cold looks from his housemates before she appeared.
'Katie,' he greeted her warmly.
'Harry.' She looked very upset for some reason. He hoped whatever had caused it was not because of him. Harry rather thought he could grow to like Katie quite a lot.
'Are you ok?' He asked the question very carefully, swallowing nervously when her face fell even further.
'I did something very stupid,' she admitted in such a small voice Harry could hardly hear her.
'If it's to do with what happened in the Great Hall then it doesn't matter,' Harry assured her. 'I don't know why you were so angry with Fleur Delacour, I just hope it wasn't to do with me.'
Katie gave him a shocked look. 'Do you not see how she affects everyone around her?'
'They all stare at her,' Harry remembered. He had found it amusing that for once he was not the one being stared at when he entered a room.
'She's part veela, Harry,' Katie explained. 'I overheard Hermione telling the other guys in your year. They all stare at her because she uses her magic to charm them into liking her.'
'I've never noticed it.' Harry had felt the affects of the Bulgarian veela at the World Cup, but felt nothing from Fleur Delacour. Hermione was probably right, she normally was, but Harry had never felt any affects from Fleur Delacour.
'I know you don't,' Katie smiled. 'In the Great Hall, after you laughed, she tried to use it on you even though we were clearly together. You didn't even flinch, but I was so angry...' She trailed off, whatever had upset her clearly resurfacing in her mind.
'I didn't realise,' Harry confessed. 'I didn't know why you were angry.'
'She tried to steal you with her magic and then,' Katie's lip trembled, 'then you defended her.'
'I'm sorry,' Harry apologised, guilt flooding through him as he realised how it must have seemed to her. 'I didn't know. I promise.'
He had hurt her feelings so carelessly, so sure he was right that he had never even tried to consider things from her point of view.
I should have paid more attention and known what was going on around me before jumping to conclusions. Salazar was right; there was still too much he did not know.
'I know you didn't,' Katie's eyes were gradually filling with tears, 'but I was so angry with you that when Roger Davies asked me to the Yule Ball in the corridor afterwards I said yes immediately.'
All of the guilt that Harry felt evaporated. Roger Davies. The one who Fleur Delacour rejected before trying to charm him had asked Katie to the Ball.
It was blindingly obvious he had done it to get back at Harry for managing to get Fleur Delacour's attention when he could not, and Katie had agreed to go with him.
How could she?
'I'm so sorry.' Katie's eyes overflowed and tears began to pour down her cheeks. 'After the Ball we can go on another date,' she half-suggested, half-begged through her tears. 'I really enjoyed our first one.'
Harry didn't understand. He would have never considered doing what she had, no matter how angry he had been, and surely she could just tell Roger Davies she had changed her mind.
He's considered quite attractive among the girls, a cold, spiteful little voice reminded him. Perhaps Katie is a little taken with him too.
Harry wanted to ignore the voice that sounded chillingly like Tom Riddle, to defend Katie and cry out she was innocent, but the little ball of cold had settled where his heart was and all the words he might have said froze somewhere in his chest.
When he didn't say anything Katie stumbled forwards and collapsed into his chest. He closed his arms around her to hold her up. Her tears were warm as they soaked into the shoulder of his robes, but they were the only warmth he felt from her. The comfortable, pleasant heat he had felt before had vanished completely.
'I was going to ask you to the Yule Ball,' he wondered aloud, the words coming straight from the cold ball in his chest. 'I sort of assumed we would eventually end up going together after you asked me on a date.' His voice came out very flat and devoid of feeling. 'I turned down Ginny for that and I was about to ask you now because I wanted to make sure you didn't worry about Fleur Delacour.'
Somehow Katie's crying had grown harder at his words and the warm, wet patch on his shoulder spread to encompass part of his chest and upper arm.
Harry waited for her tears to cease and then drew back as she dabbed at her face with the sleeve of her robes. Katie's eyes were red and her cheeks shiny. Somehow after crying she looked even cuter than before.
If she had looked like this yesterday I might have kissed her.
Harry had no desire to kiss her now. The idea simply seemed wrong.
'I think we could have made a good couple,' Harry told her with genuine regret, 'but I guess we'll just have to settle for being something else instead.'
He had a vague, desperate hope that he might somehow forget what she had done so they could return to the happiness of before, but he knew, even as he hoped, that it would never happen. It was a small thing really, a tiny, petty gesture made in alcohol affected anger, but it had been enough. Roger Davies' face hung in his head every time he looked her and he knew he would always doubt her fidelity.
Such a small thing and so much lost.
Harry's heart thawed and he choked on something that was part laugh, part sob, this was not how he had imagined his first relationship ending. It hadn't even really started, but he couldn't forget what she had done to spite him and he couldn't seem to forgive her for it either.
Katie's lip began to tremble once more and she whirled and ran back into Gryffindor Tower before her tears started again.
Harry felt hollow, as if someone had drive their hand into his chest and pulled out his heart. He might have believed they had if he could not hear its beating faintly in the back of his head. The sound of its rhythm was the only thing he could really focus on, everything else seemed distant and unimportant. Harry might as well have been back at the World Cup for all the ashes he could taste within his mouth.
It had not been until Katie told him she was going with Roger Davies that he had realised he had been looking forward to going to the Ball with her. Even the opening dance that just featured the champions would have been enjoyable with Katie. Now he would have to find another girl to go with. One of the ones who gawked at his scar, or dreamt of the limelight. A girl who would stand next to Harry to be seen while he felt like a silhouette of himself beside her.
Perhaps I just won't go.
He had been completely right in his assumption that the Yule Ball would cause problems for him, but he had severely underestimated how much they would hurt. It, Roger Davies' spite and Fleur Delacour's temper had cost him Katie, whose friendship had come to mean a great deal to him.
Harry was half-tempted to go and exact revenge on Roger Davies. His jealous, petty retaliation against Harry was what had caused this most of all. There were a thousand ways he could take his vengeance, but in the end he decided just to walk away. It was easier to treat them all as if they were strangers. Eventually they would all become strangers and he would not care.
Every time he got involved with Gryffindor Tower this year things seemed to get worse. Ron, Hermione and his first wand, and now Katie. It seemed to be his fate for everything to go wrong within his house, then he remembered what he was and smiled bitterly.
My fate is to die.
The thought was overly melodramatic and he laughed weakly before turning away from the portrait of the fat lady.
Harry would not be coming back here if he could avoid it. The Room of Requirement and the Chamber of Secrets, where he was now headed, were all he needed.
He sat down on the tip of tongue that spanned the pool across to the door to Salazar's study. Slytherin could wait until he had read Sirius' letter. Harry hoped it was good news, or encouragement, or praise, or just anything positive. He wasn't sure he could withstand anything negative at the moment. He'd reached out earnestly and been somebody to someone again for the first time he could remember. The someone, Katie, had betrayed him, left him so inexplicably, and now he was nobody to everyone again.
I hate it, he snarled to himself.
There wasn't much he wouldn't do ensure he did not become this person of nothing again. The feeling of emptiness, purposeless was unbearable. He had been flung into the void, the space between feelings and distractions, where the consuming whispers waited. They gnawed at him, eating away everything he thought was himself and if he could not escape them they would one day devour him completely. Harry would be left a hollow, apathetical shell of a person that the world could never touch. He could imagine no worse fate.
Fortunately, Sirius' letter was about as positive as anything inanimate could be, and harry felt a flood of affection for the man. There was concern for his well being, pride at his achievements, condemnation for his fickle, former friends. Everything and anything Harry could have expected from a parent was untidily scrawled across the cheap parchment in thin ink. Sirius may well have risked a fate worse than death simply to buy the materials with which to send this letter.
It was the last sentence that had brought the affection from Harry. Concern at his entering the tournament was to be expected and not unwelcome. He was glad his godfather cared about him, pride at how well Harry had done and how much better he was becoming, that was pleasing too, but the single line that contained Sirius' advice on the Triwizard Tournament was invaluable to Harry.
Prove them all wrong, it read, in letters that had been etched hard into the parchment's surface. Win the damn thing.
Harry would do exactly as his godfather advised. His former friends thought he was under the influence of a dark wizard, he'd show them he was too strong for that to be true, those who thought turning on him would let them step out of his shadow, would find themselves further within it, and Fleur Delacour, whose affronted pride had been part of the reason he lost Katie, would never forget being beaten by a fourteen year old. There would be a trophy with his name on it. A real, tangible thing that he had done himself and would be know for. That would make him somebody. It had to.
Harry gave the piece of parchment a small smile. For all of his godfather's flaws, and Harry knew there were many, he had earned as much trust as Harry had to give. A cold chill ran down Harry's spine at the idea of telling Sirius everything. It was not that he feared Sirius would abandon him like the others, Harry knew he would not, but how could he explain that he had to die to the only real living family he had. Salazar's portrait had been dead for a thousand years and Harry knew that it would never accept the idea that his heir should sacrifice his life.
So he could not write about horcruxes, or about the pain that Sirius would feel when he learned that his godson had to die. There would be no warning and no preparation for the poor man who had little else left to lose but Harry.
It is unfair.
It was always unfair. Harry had done nothing to deserve this. His parents had done nothing to justify their fate, neither had Sirius, or any of the others who had suffered at Voldemort's hand. Yet there was nothing that could be done.
He raised his wand from his sleeve and pressed the tip against the centre of Sirius' letter. The parchment browned where the wand's tip touched it, then burst into flames, curling upon itself and disintegrating into ash. The word win was illuminated briefly, surrounded by yellow licks of flame, then it was gone with the rest.
Harry hated having to burn the letters his godfather sent him. They were the only ones he got and watching them crumble to pieces twisted something jagged within him. Again, though, there was nothing that could be done. If the letters were discovered then so might Sirius be and his godfather's life and soul were worth far more than any regret Harry felt for destroying his letters.
Writing a reply would be just as painful as burning the letter. He would have to pretend everything was as it had been when he sent the first. The Triwizard Tournament would need to seem his main concern and finding whomever had put him in his second. Katie, horcruxes and the Chamber of Secrets would never appear. It was little better than lying to the one man who cared about him more than anything else and went so against the grain of Harry's nature it physically hurt.
He tilted his hand and let the ashes slip into the pool beneath the bridge. Somewhere down at the bottom of the cold, dark water they would join what little was left of the other letter Sirius had sent.
Harry watched them scatter across the surface, float, then eventually sink, with a clenched jaw and a heavy heart. Nothing ever seemed to go his way. The only consolation he would get in return for his hopes, dreams and life was that Voldemort would be coming with him into death.
It was very little solace to him.
Dying would make him nothing again, and this time it would be permanent. In an awful moment Harry imagined the nothingness that came after death might be the same as the consuming emptiness he felt when he stood alone amongst others.
If that is true, then I never want to die.
Salazar was still staring down at Tom Riddle's notes on Horcruxes, just as Harry had left him, when he eventually mustered up the will to stand up from the bridge and enter the study.
'I may have a solution,' he announced grandly the moment Harry walked in.
'Tell me,' Harry replied tiredly, wanting nothing more than to forget and escape from the yearning he felt for the warmth Katie's hand had gifted him.
'I believe that the piece of Tom Riddle's soul must have latched on to your own in order for it to survive being in the same body as another soul. A body cannot house two souls in conflict, one must be subdued or they must coexist peacefully.'
Coexisting peacefully did not seem a very appropriate description to Harry. He remembered all too clearly the lengths to which Quirrell had needed to go to house Voldemort. Drinking unicorns blood and subjugating himself to his phantasmal master. The man had tried to kill him twice, coming closest when he jinxed Harry's broom. Quidditch, of course, just reminded him of Katie.
Maybe I won't be seeker next year after all.
'And that means what for me?' Harry tried to focus on what the portrait was saying about horcruxes, crucial to him as it was, but the slowly cooling damp patch on his robes was a potent reminder of the girl he had thought he would allow him to remain someone.
'Since you are still in control of yourself and were unaware of its presence the soul fragment must be subdued. From the notes a connection must exist between the two souls within you.' The portrait drew itself up, face solemn. 'It should be possible for you to either absorb or expel it once the link is broken. The latter is more likely since I only saw a single reference to the absorption of soul fragments and it was in hypothetical reference to pieces of ones own soul.' The portrait peered down at the notes to refresh its memory. 'There it is. The author believed that true, complete remorse, the opposite of the intent used to fracture the soul, combined with an attempt to undo the creation of a horcrux might reverse the affects of one, transferring and absorbing the piece back to where it belongs.'
'How would I break the link?' Harry queried, finally forgetting about Katie in the hope of having a way to escape death.
'You would have to fracture your soul,' Salazar responded.
'No.' Harry knew exactly what the painting meant and he would not do it. 'Find another way.'
'I tried,' his ancestor confessed, 'I knew you would not agree so I kept searching.'
'You found nothing,' Harry deduced, a wry, regretful smile crossing his lips as his hope died once again.
'I found nothing.' The snake writhed agitatedly across the shoulders of the founder. Slytherin knew that he would fail and his family would end if he did not convince Harry, his desperation and determination were obvious, but futile
'Then I must die,' Harry decided with a hollow smile. 'Once we are sure there are no other horcruxes, I must die. There is nothing that can be done about it.'
'You do not need to be a sacrifice,' Salazar pleaded. 'You are my heir, the last of my family that I recognise.'
'So I should sacrifice someone else in my place?' Harry demanded.
'Someone must die,' Salazar said bluntly. 'It can be you, or someone of your choice.'
'I will not kill to save myself,' Harry declared vehemently, switching to Parseltongue as his emotional state fluctuated wildly between despair and anger.
'You can choose someone who already deserves death,' Salazar suggested. 'The Killing Curse will not change its affect and you, who deserve more, do not need to be sacrificed. A single, deserving death to temporarily fracture your soul, then a moment's pain to rip the piece of Riddle from you if you can find it. Tell me that it is not a sacrifice worth making to preserve your life. You are a good wizard in more ways than one, your death is unnecessarily noble, be selfish for once. In the end the wizarding world may profit from it too.'
'I will not do it,' Harry decided. 'It is not my place to judge others, or sentence them.'
'You have grown much since you first found me here, Harry, but you still let others use you for themselves without a thought to what it will mean to you. Nobility was Godric's curse too, but even he listened when I offered alternatives.' Salazar shook his head sadly. 'I hope you reconsider in the time to come,' he finished.
'I do not let others use me,' Harry denied. 'There are plenty of those who wanted nothing from me but friendship.'
'How many of them stand alongside you now,' the portrait asked. 'Your housemates have abandoned you, the few who you tell me have returned to you want things you cannot give them. Albus Dumbledore has kept you alive, but only to sacrifice you later when it best suits him.'
'My godfather,' Harry responded fiercely. A day ago he would have added Katie's name, but now, even if she still hoped to be with him, he was not so sure.
'Sirius Black,' the painting stated sceptically. 'You told me his story and for all his determination to stand by you now, which is both resolute and admirable, Harry, his first reaction to the death of your parents was revenge, not seeing to your well being. Sirius Black may care for you a great deal, but his past actions have been misguided. Vengeance rather than justice, a failing I know too well, wallowing in misery for thirteen years rather than trying to change things, then ignoring the lesson of the past and trying for revenge again. When he has to choose between being there for you and Peter Pettigrew what do you think he will do?'
Harry could not refute the implication his ancestor made. It had been the same as last year when he broke out of Azkaban to kill Peter Pettigrew. Sirius was his godfather, he did care, Harry cared for him, but his hatred of the treacherous Wormtail had been more important to Sirius than Harry before.
'There are alway things that are placed above you because you let those around you feel that you will always stand by them and help them no matter what they choose, so they choose whatever they want most and rely on you to sacrifice and endure. They exploit your nobility, your generosity and your tenacity, they always have, and they always will. I wish you would not let them.'
'I will find others,' he echoed Salazar's words from before, 'equals. They will stand alongside me, never let me down and never leave me alone.'
In the eye of Harry's mind he was standing next to Katie, a smiling, blushing Katie with one hand in his and the other lightly resting upon her stomach. One of his arms lay across her shoulders, a glinting band of silver adorning the third finger of his hand and hers. Equals, partners, bound together by more than magic. It was an image more bittersweet than anything the Mirror of Erised could have shown him.
'I hope you do,' the founder replied sorrowfully, 'but what good are such friends when you know their eventual role will only be to bury you.'
AN: Please read and review. A thank you to all those who do. I hope you all hate this chapter in the same way and as much as I do.
P.S. Somebody please re-read my earlier chapters and tell me if they're a bit better. Even if it's just a skim over them. I wanna feel appreciated ;)
