Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, its characters, or anything associated with it. The others are mine. Resemblance of any character to an actual person is completely accidental. Please don't sue *shows pockets* look no money.

" Thus said he, weeping freely; you know not my woe, fair one…"

"Harry, would you please stop reading this sappy nonsense out loud?"

"…lady of mine heart, whose beauty knowest no bounds…"

"Harry, please."

"…indeed, my heart is troubled, and woe plagues me freely…"

"You do realise that woe and freely has been repeated twice?"

"Leave him alone," another voice snapped at the first, " he's been like this from the first day school started. If he wants to be a git, then let him."

"I've had enough of this!"

Hermione stomped up to the corner where Harry was curled up in, idling reading out loud.

" Harry, please. Talk to us. What's wrong with you? Let the dead bury the dead. Cedric's dead, you've got to go on with your life."

That cursed word again. Cedric. Bane of my life. It's all my damn fault. Damn you.  

He ignored her.

" Harry, please." She seemed close to tears, wringing her hands like that. " Talk to me, to Ron…"

A muffled retort from another corner of the room. " Ron doesn't want to talk to him. Harry can go find some other people to talk to."

A cry of distress of Hermione. Suddenly hands grabbed his shoulders and shook him, " Harry, please. Don't be like this. You've been like this for ages. Please. Shout or something. Are you mad with us? Is it something we did? Harry? Harry?"

Harry felt a sudden detachment from this scene. It was as if he was watching a bushy-hair girl shaking a boy with black hair and a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, while a red-haired lanky boy deliberately tried to ignore them.

Harry-who-was-watching looked on silently.

Harry-whom-the-girl-was-shaking just stared the girl down. She held his gaze for a minute or two, and then dropped it. Weeping, she tore out of the room.

The sense of detachment faded, the weird sense of being split into two faded. Harry blinked rapidly.

Then returned his attention to the book he was previously reading from.

Ron tried to continue to ignore him. But after a minute or two, he stood up and said, in a voice trembling with anger and hurt, " You are such a bloke, you know? Hermione's worried about you, damn you! You hardly talked to us since school started, you never answered my or Hermione's or anybody's letters during the holidays and now you just read horrible prose out loud, annoying the hell out of everybody and ignoring them when they speak to you. You hardly do your work – now I'm starting to sound like Hermione, you skip classes and you broke your goddamn broom into two. You never play Quidditch anymore. What's wrong with you? What's your freaking problem? It's like you're in this freaking little world of yours and no one exists except you!"

Exists. But Cedric doesn't exist anymore. My parents don't. What right do I have to do so? I try not to and here you are, screaming that I think that no one exists except me. Oh yeah, I forgot, I'm the Boy Who Lived, right? Oh silly me, the Boy Who Lived must carry on existing huh? Isn't it going to be ironic when I die?

Ron continued his rant, " I try to talk to you. Hermione tries to talk to you. The professors try to talk to you. Man, even Snape tried to have a word with you! He hardly got past two sentences before stomping off and deducting forty points off for disrespect! Gryffindors are going to come in last for the House Cups because of you. Even Neville doesn't get as many points deducted as you do. And you

don't

bloody

care!

No one's speaking to you anymore, only Hermione and me. But you don't even talk to us, you just natter on, burying yourself into those stupid poems and prose. I don't even know how much longer I can carry on like this! And every time Hermione tries to talk to you, you just stare back at her and I don't know what she sees in that gaze of yours, but it always ends with her crying her heart out."

Heart. I tried piecing my heart once. I tried to die many times. I think Dumbledore has put a spell on me. I can't kill myself. I tried, but I never get wounds. It's freaky, when I see the knife passing through me and leaving no wound. Like I'm a ghost.

Harry shuddered.

Ron saw his shudder and took it to mean that he was disgusted by Hermione's crying. It only served to enrage him more, " You horrible bastard! Hermione cares for you! I care for you! And you're disgusted by her tears? Man, what's happened to you? Face up, Harry, you can't be like this forever!"

He paused to draw breath again and caught sight of Harry's expression: cold yet sad, unmoved but vaguely interested in what he was saying, like he was talking about the weather. He stood there for a moment and did not speak. Then he too turned his back and walked off.

Leaving Harry to his book. Harry cocked his heard to one side, still hearing echoes of Ron's rant ringing in the room. He then pushed what happened to the back of his mind as he had done many times before and returned to his book.

"…for if I cannot have thee for my wife, I shall perish! Woe oh woe!"

~*~

It was night. Not midnight, but nearing it. Harry sat on his bed unmoving. Next to him, he could see that the curtains around Ron's bed were drawn, and hear snores emitting from there.

Slowly, he padded to Ron's bed and drew apart the curtains silently. He wanted to see Ron one last time before he left Hogwarts. He wanted to see Hermione too, but she was in the girls' dormitory and he did not want to be caught there.

Ron was sleeping, his limbs askew; one arm thrown over his head, another on his stomach, one leg tangled in the sheets and another almost at the edge of the bed. A slight frown furrowed his brow, one that had not been there before this year. Satisfied, Harry drew the curtains together and padded back to his bed.

Harry knew that something was not quite right with himself. Fine, he would be honest. Harry knew that something was downright wrong with himself. He didn't know why this happened to him. It was just that stuff started catching up with him while he was with the Dursleys. He just knew that something happened.

Suddenly, nothing seemed to matter anymore, how could it when every single time he was unoccupied he was assailed with waves and waves of dark emotion, crashing into his soul. Grief, guilt, loss, pain, sorrow, anger, rage, hurt, all coming out from nowhere but inside him. At first, he wanted to owl Dumbledore, Sirius, Hermione or Ron, just somebody. But what could he say?

Dear Dumbledore/Sirius/Hermione/Ron, I think something's wrong with me. What was wrong with you, they would ask. I don't know. Just something, I don't know how to put it into words properly. They weren't mind readers – telepaths belonged to a period long forgotten already.

Then the dreams. Dreams of people dying. They started nearing the end of the holidays. But his scars didn't hurt. He still owled Dumbledore at once. He could still remember what he wrote.

Headmaster, I keep having these dreams. Dreams of people dying. Sometimes I'm awake while I'm having them. But my scar doesn't hurt. I don't think Voldemort's the cause of their death. They die normally, not from magical means, I mean. I'll give you some example; women dying from rape, or just usual street muggings or murders, an old lady being robbed by some punks then later stabbed to death. Those sort of deaths that people die from when they are in a bad neighbourhood. Harry.

He had reread the letter twice before sending it, hesitating, not wanting to raise a false alarm. The reply was comforting, for a while anyway.

Dear Harry, I have never heard of such happenings before. Rest assured that I will try and find help for you. I will be contacting one of my old friends, a contact. It will be difficult to trace her. But I am sure that she will be of help. Take good care of yourself. Sincerely, Dumbledore.

But by the time the term started, it became worst. The number of dreams increased, those waves of dark emotions started pounding him, also increasing in intensity. He hardly spoke, fearing that those ugly demons would find an outlet there, causing him to start screaming or worst babbling non-stop. Then he remembered something he learnt last year. Control. If he could resist the Imperious; surely he could repress all those things.

So he found an outlet of control. It could not be something that he liked. There was a chance of him forgetting in the heat of his enjoyment and lose control. It must be something that was shallow yet needing much concentration to follow and something that he could immediately draw out of, never getting too submerged in it.

He found his solution by chance.

A pile of books left in the Common Room by Parvati– romantic prose and poetry – flippant and nonsensical, written by a love-struck poet who had a horrible sense of rhyming. So, he bought those books from her, reading them aloud to himself everyday, inwardly cringing. He focused on those books, and for a while, those inside demons were repressed.

He stopped listening to Hermione and Ron or the professors, he couldn't afford to. He got so good at it that he could almost detach himself away when they were trying to talk to him, or counsel him. He did not dare to unburden himself to them, unsure that he could regain his control after that.

He knew one thing though.

If he couldn't regain control, he would go mad.

He then thought about Professor Dumbledore. When term started, he had gone to the Headmaster's office quite often. Sometimes, four days a week. But Dumbledore was no help. He could see that the man was trying though. Harry realised then that the Headmaster that he had so idolized was out of his league – Dumbledore had no idea what was happening, and that contact he promised had yet to arrive. Those inner demons continued to torment him and with his newfound knowledge of limit of Dumbledore's power, their efforts redoubled. When his visits ceased and when Dumbledore made no comment about it, he also lost hope in Dumbledore's promise.

It was then precious contact he had awaited for finally arrived. He met her. He did not want to judge her from mere appearances.

He dared not hope for any success.

It was too much to risk. 

 Author's Note: Okay. This is going to get a little confusing. Let me put in some points first.

Harry is still grieving for Cedric. He has not recovered properly from that yet. Harry is suffering from something else also:

"every single time he was unoccupied he was assailed with waves and waves of dark emotion, crashing into his soul. Grief, guilt, loss, pain, sorrow, anger, rage, hurt, all coming out from nowhere but inside him"….that and the dreams.

Dumbledore has misunderstood Harry. He thinks that the dreams are caused by an after effect of Harry's grief. (He's not that all knowing =p) Therefore, Dearbháil has the wrong idea about Harry, because she only has information from Dumbledore. So both of them have devised a means of treatment and therapy, which will limit the range of Harry's emotions and also sped up his "healing". But because of this speed 'healing', he will never recover fully. Harry's inability to kill himself will be explained in later chapters.

So yes, there will be some confusion between everyone, then the big realisation. That will come in the later chapters. You can email me if you have any questions or queries. *grins* As usual, reviews will be loved, appreciated and cherished like precious treasures. Thanks for the earlier reviews; they were very, very encouraging. Seriously. And yes, dear Anon, there are such things as lynx coloured eyes.