Hand in Hand
The lake looks beautiful in the setting sun, which sends its red streaks of light reflecting across it. Its surface gleams a deep scarlet, gleaming and glittering.
Looks like blood, he thinks, pushing messy ebony hair from his eyes, which once sparkled.
Looks like my blood, he muses. My blood, if Voldemort kills me…and he surely will, he thinks. He stands suddenly.
It is cold, he believes; though common sense tells him it is hot and humid as the last warm days of September melt into winter.
Dies, he thinks. The days are dying. Everything is dying. Everyone.
He starts suddenly and the pain overwhelms him…yet again. He feels angry at his weakness, at his foolish wishings.
He's not coming back and you need to suck in your gut and act like the man he would have wanted you to be, he berates himself. He chokes on his words and wetness courses it's way down his cheeks.
To hell with what he wants, he thinks, and because he can think that way he hates himself more. He hates the man he has become.
He runs, tripping on a tree root. The tree seems violently angry at him-like the rest of the world would be if they knew who he was now. The tree slaps a branch across his chest, throwing him back.
Oof, he mumbles. The tree lashes out again, this time slapping a long bloody scratch across his nose. He stumbles back.
"Bloody Whomping bloody Willow," he mutters.
Then he runs again. Runs hard and fast. Someone sees him, frowns and peers after him.
"What are you doing, Potter?" The voice floats into his mind. He is hearing voices now, he thinks.
"Potter? "That voice again. Why is it asking him questions, calling his name? He tries to focus…didn't he just see someone behind him? He turns, tries to see whom, trips.
Great, he thinks. Now he is making a fool of himself.
He tries to get up, can't. He wishes the world would stop spinning so dangerously.
"Great," that voice says. "Great, now I have a dead Potter on my hands. Half-blood twit and all." He recognizes that voice. It is Draco Malfoy. It he had the strength to groan, he would have.
"Potter?" The voice asks again. "You aren't even going to glare at me? I must be loosing my touch."
He is still insulting him.
"Not even going to get up? Oh, shit, you're not really sick or something, are you?" Malfoy assumes he is. He would protest that he isn't, except he can't, which leads him to believe that maybe he it.
I'm crazy too, he thinks. They were all right about me. I'm crazy and an attention seeker. I'll never amount to anything. Why even try?
"Shit," Malfoy mumbles again.
Things are getting black for Harry, dark and black. It looks like he could reach into the blackness and walk forever and never get anywhere.
Am I blind? He asks himself. No, he answers. Sick, tired, hungry, dehydrated, but not blind. He thinks he is being lifted and is surprised to find that there are arms around him.
"Don't squirm. This is awkward enough as it is." Malfoy is sneering his disdainful sneer, Harry knows without opening his eyes. Or are they open, he wonders? Are they open and he just can't see. Are they rolling back in his head, like Trelawney's do when she makes real predictions? Trelawney reminds him of bad things. He begins to mumble about the things. It suddenly seems very important that he explain why he is acting like he is, why Malfoy, his sworn enemy, has to do something nice for him. He can't remember exactly, though.
He tries to tell him what he can remember. He thinks he is mixing two prophesies.
"Hell, Potter, get a hold of yourself! What is this psychobabble?" Malfoy says. Harry slumped. He hadn't got it. Hadn't got it at all.
"Why are you so light Potter, don't you eat? You can't hear a word I'm saying, can you, you ugly scar-headed Lion. Don't have any idea, do you?" Malfoy was bumbling too. He thought perhaps he was doing it to cover his nervousness. He was dropped, quit meanly, on the ground.
"Ow," he works out. Malfoy is smirking, he knows it.
"How am I going to explain this one?" Malfoy mutters. "Oh yes you barmy old cooger I found him, but it really wasn't me that attacked the old thing, no really! He just started mumbling what sounded like prophesies and twitching. Yeah, so, can I go to dinner now?"
"Absolutely not, Mr. Malfoy." Dumbledore's voice, he recognizes. Harry manages a smirk. Odd moment to be worrying about one-upping Draco Malfoy.
"You will come to the hospital wing with me. You will tell me everything you know and then we will discuss what's going on. You will take a truth potion and answer a few questions honestly for me. And then we will see if you can have dinner. Fetch me Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, and Remus Lupin. Send him an owl…I believe you have quite a quick one? Then come to the hospital wing." Dumbledore instructs Malfoy.
He feels himself being lifted up and taken somewhere. Malfoy stomps off, muttering, but Harry knows he will do what he is supposed to. He relaxes.
"That's right, Harry." Dumbledore's soothing voice says. "That's right. You've done good things so far Harry, don't worry yourself about anything. Just go to sleep."
So that's what he did.