Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Nope, not me.
A/N: Well, this wasn't planned, but it came about after I decided I wanted to play with imagery. You saw Hermione's point of view in Jerusalem, now here is a bit of Harry in Mecca. I've had this hanging around for a while, but then I realised that the last chapter of The Wasteland - going up tomorrow - would probably be better if you understood some of this. And, obviously, Harry and Hermione's issues over the Sirius thing didn't just disappear...
As you probably noticed, Jerusalem was laden with Christian imagery. Mecca is also full of religious imagery - but this time it's Islamic. I'm neither Christian nor Islamic, though I know a fair bit about all of the Semitic religions. If I have inadvertently offended, I apologise. I'll put a glossary of the Arabic terms used at the end.
Pillar One: Fasting
Harry wandered the halls of Hogwarts aimlessly. It was daybreak, and he felt… stuck. Stuck, and pointless.
Privet Drive is gone, he thought. It's… just not there.
It was surprising how much the loss of Privet Drive had affected him. If he had though about it before it happened, he didn't think he would have thought it would have bothered him much. Oh, if his aunt and uncle and Dudley had been hurt, he would have cared, but they weren't. It was just the house that was gone, the house that Harry had hated, that he had wanted to leave to live with Sirius, but now it was gone…
Harry hadn't realised what a stable fortress Privet Drive had become. No matter what happened to him in the school year, Privet Drive remained as a place that magic couldn't touch. Oh, it'd come close, of course, when those Dementors had attacked him and Dudley last year, but they'd never quite got there. Magic and Privet Drive were as incompatible as Sirius and Snape.
Until now.
Destroyed, burned, gone in the jihad against Harry Potter.
Voldemort had obliterated Harry's cupboard under the stairs, and now there was nowhere to hide.
Pillar Two: Profession of Faith
Harry sighed as he walked to lunch. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go. No hajj for Harry Potter, no pilgrimage, no hijra, no sacred city. Just the now, just the floating, with everything stable in his world thrown into confusion. No pillars to hold up the roof. Privet Drive gone. Sirius alive. Sirius's fiancée dead.
Sirius's daughter.
Harry didn't know how he felt about Hermione now. He knew, in his head, that it was not her fault that her parents were not, in fact, dentists. That they were Sirius Black and Regina Lupin. That she was more connected to the Marauders than he was - a province that used to be exclusively is.
How do you feel about her, Harry? a voice whispered in his mind. How do you feel?
But Harry could not profess it. Shahada, shahada, shahada. He was lost in an endless maze of pillars, pillars of emotion and confusion, and he was lost, lost, lost. Shahada, shahada, shahada.
How do you feel about her, Harry? the voice whispered. How do you feel?
"I feel…" he said aloud. "I feel…"
Shahada, shahada, shahada.
How do you feel about her, Harry? How do you feel?
"I feel… jealous," he said at last. "Jealous, and I feel bad that I feel jealous."
Shahada…
Pillar Three: Prayer
Harry sat in the Gryffindor common room in mid afternoon, alone. He drummed his fingers aimlessly on the end of an armchair. Ron and Ginny were out practicing Quidditch, but he had declined to go with them. Hermione was in the library - or so Ron had told him.
Hermione.
Such a tricky question. So many feelings, issues, people, lives. I feel bad that I feel jealous.
Praise be to Allah…
"She's still my friend…" he said, making his case to the open air.
The Merciful, the Compassionate…
"I think…"
Master of the Day of Judgment…
"Isn't she?" Harry had a momentary flash of himself on trial by the Wizengamot.
"Harry James Potter, you have been accused of feeling jealous without reason. Jury, how do you find?"
"Guilty… guilty… guilty…"
He got up abruptly and walked upstairs. I need a shower, he thought. I feel dirty. I feel stained.
And so he tried to wash away his transgressions.
Now turn to Mecca…
Pillar Four: Alms
It was evening, and the sun was setting. Harry stared out the window at the red and gold of the swirling cloud, and called himself a coward.
"Harry?"
He looked up. "Ginny?"
She sat herself beside him, smiling easily. "You look like you need someone to talk to."
"No… it's all right, I'm fine."
"No, you're not. You forget I've been living with Hermione. I know a screwed up person when I see one."
"Hermione?"
Ginny rolled her eyes. "No, the Queen of Sheba! Of course Hermione! She's so screwed up inside she looks like a ball of wool after I've tried to knit with it."
"Why?"
Ginny stared. "You must be as emotionally oblivious as Ron."
"No… I've just been… distracted." Piecing Sirius back together, bit by bit. I know how, but the right is not mine. It's Hermione's.
"You feel like Hermione's taking Sirius away from you, don't you?"
Now it was Harry's turn to stare. "How -"
"She feels the same way," Ginny continued, taking his hand. "Like she's taking him away from you, and it's killing her. You have to talk to her, Harry."
"I - I - but -"
"No buts," Ginny said, and she was so like her mother Harry could hardly repress his smile. "You need to talk to her, or you'll both keep on screwing each other up. Do you know that she cried on Ron's shoulder last night? Ron, he of the emotional range of a teaspoon?"
This time Harry did smile. "I didn't know you heard that conversation."
Ginny patted his hand. "I hear a lot of things," she said. "Now do as I say, or I'll fight you for the Seeker spot, okay?"
"Okay."
As he watched Ginny's retreating back, the red and gold light turning her red and gold hair to fire, he smiled. Ginny's easy truth, her endless giving, her zakat… it had set him free.
Pillar Five: Pilgrimage
Later that night, after dinner, Harry sought out Hermione.
"Hermione? Can we - talk?"
She nodded. "Yes, Harry. Let's talk."
And with one step, Harry crossed from Mecca to Medina.
He did not look back.
finis
Well, how's that for confusing? Have fun working it all out.
I never meant for Mecca to happen… it just kind of… well, happened, which is why it is underplanned and underwritten and not terribly brilliant… but Harry did need to clear the air.
So read, and review!
Hajj - a pilgrimage to Mecca
Hijra - the journey from Mecca to Medina, undertaken by Muhammad in 622AD
Jihad - a term of numerous meanings, one of which is military and refers to a holy war
Shahada - the profession of faith in Islamic tradition
Zakat - giving of alms
The piece of the Qur'an quoted in Pillar Three is from Sûra 1.