The Poet
:: narrated mostly by Harry Potter ::
:: Authored by just a bit potty ::
Harry's slowly losing himself, and a surprise at dinner doesn't help matters.
Rating, disclaimer and warnings back in chapter one. I HOPE YOU READ IT.
REVIEW THANK-YOUS: Victoria May; UnKnown; craft; Allesa; n0b0dys-ang31; Wyall Jared; Benjis VIP; Y401-F4N; Tinanit Enozym; Dragenphly; Fate; anewlymadefan; Lina Metallium (HARRY—err, I mean—HAPPY belated BIRTHDAY).
Snake-Boi: Thank you so much for your advice! I took in all into consideration and I think you're right about Harry and Draco, rather than Harry and Snape And also, I like the idea of Harry spiralling into complete apathy—it will probably happen soon. Something Draco does in this chapter will trigger it, but that's all I can say ;)
Thank you all so much for your helpful advice and your reviews (I wonder if I can make it up to 80 with this chapter? Eh? Hint, hint?) And I hope I live up to your expectations! Oh and remember how I said it will get worse before it gets better? Well... this chapter is the beginning of the worseness!
Chapter II - Psychosis, classes begin.
I dreamt of hands.
Hands... thick and intrusive sliding over my skin.
Over me, into me, under me, through me.
Ripping me...
"He wakes up screaming
The dark receding
The missing pieces
Falling all around
His breath is laboured
A dream not savoured
Inside the memories
Are breaking him down
'I ache for peace,' he says
'For happy dreams,' he says
'I want to heal,' he says,
'Save me from this pain—'" [1]
When I woke, screams stuck in my throat, the dream clung to my consciousness like a suffocating serpent, squeezing the life from my body. I felt so tired, as if I hadn't slept at all. A bitter pang of nausea stayed with me for rest of the day, hanging like a foreboding cloud.
The morning passed with rolling leisure, filled with my sloth-like dorm mates loudly voicing their complaints that Potions would be the first class of the day. Their tongues dripped with vulgar insults about Professor Snape's greasy hair, his sallow skin and perpetually sour mood.
But I remembered from last night, and the way he plucked impotently at his food, and again thought... that maybe that wasn't all there was to him. Hiding deep inside himself, behind his scowling face and scathing tongue. He sparked a morbid curiosity that I hadn't felt anything like in a long while...the same kind of fascination that enveloped me as I imagined just what it would be like if I took a dive of the astronomy tower. Would I fly, or—
My train of thought wobbled of its rail and diverted to another track with Ron's loud protests, "Honestly, it's like they're punishing us just for leaving for the summer—sending us to Potions class first thing! I just know we'll lose millions of points—"
"Millions, Ron?" interrupted Seamus, arching a brow.
"Well... you know what I mean," Ron offered a cheeky grin and rubbed the back of his neck, "Anyways, I'm just saying we're bound to lose heaps of points! I bet he gets off on it, slimy git. Picking on us Gryffindors. I bet it makes him all randy just to see us get upset. I can just imagine him after class, sneaking back to his rooms for a quick wank before the next load of victims arrives!"
"Ron, you sick sod, that's bloody disgusting!" I had to agree with Dean—that was disgusting... it made my stomach roll unpleasantly, and I had to swallow rapidly to keep the bile from rising up my aching throat. But... why did the thought of the professor—or anyone—getting horny make me feel so... so sick? God... I just don't even know anymore... why does my throat still hurt? Maybe I'm ill.
"Yeah, you just watch his face when he takes points next," smirked Ron, though looking a little green himself, probably more at the thought of Snape jer...jerki... p-pleasuring himself, more than anything. "Can't you just picture it?" he ploughed onward, "Snape sitting there with his hand in his pants: 'Ohhh, ten points from Gryffindor... twenty... thirty... Great Merlin, one hundred points from Gryffindor!'"
Ron's vulgar impersonation had the boys bursting with raucous laughter, rolling on their beds with their arms clutching their sides. Even shy Neville had trouble containing himself.
It had me fleeing the room and the dizzying thoughts pushing at my mind. I found myself face down in the nearest toilet of the Gryffindor boys' bathroom. The minutes crawled by as I collapsed there in a sickly heap, my body quivering, too tired to care that vomit was spilling down my robes.
I felt filthy, unclean, curled up on the cold tile and soiled with my own rejected food, but I just... didn't... care. As if... as if it wasn't happening to me.
"Crikey, Harry, didn't realise you thought Snape was that disgusting," came Ron's uncomfortably concerned voice from outside the stall. The door swung open and there he stood, avoiding the sight of me for as long as possible. I'm vaguely relieved the others hadn't trailed along behind him. The bathroom was, luckily, not too far away from the seventh year dorms and I shuddered to think of the prodding questions they'd poke me with if I'd vomited in a more public place. It wasn't their business.
"Sorry, mate," that same cheerful stranger that had inhabited my mouth all of yesterday made himself known again, "Just been feeling a bit ill today."
"Maybe you should go see Madame Pomfrey? You look like crap, Harry," Ron suggested, twisting the fabric of his hand-me-down robes, seemingly disquieted to be standing here while I painted a pathetic picture on the bathroom floor, my cheek pressed against a toilet seat.
I wanted to take his advice and shove it back down his throat, but what would be the point? It would just provoke more unwanted questions.
"Yeah, maybe," I said.
If the world just left me alone, it would be a much better place.
"O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy." [2]
The alliaceous aroma of potions long since made alerts me to the fact that I'm already in class. Time seemed to pass so quickly once Ron had helped my sad existence of the bathroom tile. I hardly remember anything that has happened between now and then.
Hermione's unruly nest of curls bobs up and down beside me, as she alternates between squinting intently at the chalkboard and scribbling furiously in her Potions notebook. Snape's stormily silent self shadows the front of the classroom, hovering back and forth like a deathly wraith. My hand is gripping a ruffled quill, and I glance down to realise I've been mechanically copying down notes, like a good little student. But... but I don't remember any of it. I've come from sprawling on the Gryffindor boys' bathroom floor to being cleaned and seated in the Potions lab. A strange panic grips my chest—I... I hadn't even realised. How had I gotten to Potions? What... (my vision clouds; a blow to the head...) what is happening to me?
A harsh puff of air escapes my suddenly dry lips, and I glance down again to find a messy scrawl darting from left to right at incredible speed. I'm... writing... that is my hand, writing. My eyes are glued to the script rapidly appearing as my quill races across the page.
"...Forget this rotten world... [it] is but a carcass; thou art fed by it, but as a worm that carcass bred... why shouldst thou, poor worm, consider more, when this world will grow better than before, than those thy fellow fellow-worms do think upon that carcass's last resurrection..." The words drive on, spiralling down the page in a frenzy of rambunctious print: "...Forget this world, and scarce think of it so... to be thus stupid is alacrity..." [3]
Forget this world.
Forget this world.
"...Forget this world... forget... forget... forget..."
The word bleeds out over and over, bolder and bolder, crowding my page in blotted black ink. My breath flees my lungs desperately, spills into the air as a harsh gasp. I stare numbly as the knife-sharp nib of my quill tears a gash in my parchment... a giant 'X' of denial, slashing the page into near-quarters.
Oh, god...
"Mr. Potter," a silky voice purrs, spiked with venom, "If I had known that revising the Draught of Peace would distress you this much, I might have issued a warning beforehand—or a sample of the potion itself, as it seems you need it. Ten points from Gryffindor—I trust this is acceptable to you, Mr. Potter? I wouldn't want to..." pausing, his glare pointedly darts over the torn parchment before me, "...provoke your temper."
As his insidious tones slide over me, I try hard to summon up the righteous anger that I should be feeling. But... what would be the point? I'm just... too exhausted to care. My body aches annoyingly, a dull throb that pulses through my veins with each thud of my heart. Even the knotted tips of my hair seem to sting. I manage to nod slightly at Snape's sneering provocation, not even bothering to make a show and take the bait. Instead I cast my eyes to my hand, curled around an abruptly crumpled, ripped piece of yellowed parchment, and refuse to acknowledge the words that soil it. It's funny... yesterday morning, I could have sworn that my hand was a twisted, ugly thing, deformed and bruised in a deep purple. Now, the pale skin is flawed only by a pale freckle, smooth and creamy, only aching dully. Was it... all in my head? That horrid, sallow face I remember seeing in the mirror? Was it... all a dream?
The skin between my brow wrinkles uncomfortably as I frown and trace an invisible pattern over my slender wrist. So soft...
Snape's overbearing presence floats away in a flourish of black robes, his knife-like voice cutting through the tense silence, and I sink low into my seat. From the corner of my eye, I catch Hermione's worried glance, but I don't really care what over-analysed thoughts could be buzzing through her brain right now. Ron's long fingers brush against mine briefly from my right, a simple touch conveying a loaded apology; for Snape's obvious targeting of me. I know he must be worried about me but... I'm not really sure if he really did find me in the bathroom this morning. Was that a dream, too?
Have I dreamed it all?
Tingles rush over my body, the kind of feeling you get when someone is burning their eyes into you, and break the circle my thoughts are running.
I flick my gaze upward, and meet a pair of fierce silver eyes, glistening with intense curiosity.
"Free of memory and of hope,
limitless, abstract, almost future,
the dead man is not a dead man: he is death.
Like the God of the mystics,
of Whom anything that could be said must be denied,
the dead one, alien everywhere,
is but the ruin and absence of the world.
We rob him of everything,
we leave him not so much as a colour or syllable:
here, the courtyard which his eyes no longer see,
there, the sidewalk where his hope lay in wait.
Even what we are thinking,
he could be thinking;
we have divvied up like thieves
the booty of nights and days." [4]
Throughout the day those eyes stayed with me. Ever watching, ever searing into the back of my head. Cold, aluminiferous eyes. In Transfiguration, they drilled holes in the side of my head. At Lunch, their carnassial stare stretched across the hall. In Charms, I felt their chilly gaze raking down my back, until I itched to crawl from my own skin and slither away into a dark corner.
Hermione noticed it, too.
It's dinner now, the Great Hall flooded with tired, hungry students, ready and eagre to wolf down their meals so they can simply forget the day's troubles and play until bed. Hermione eats delicately beside me, nibbling on a plump leg of chicken. Her small hand taps my hunched shoulder, politely asking for attention. I slide my vision toward her, still distracted by those same eyes that have been heavy on me the entire day.
"Draco Malfoy has been watching you all day, Harry," she mutters quietly.
I whip my gaze to the Slytherin table, in time to see Malfoy duck his head in the pretence of studying his meal.
"If he wants to watch me, let him," I say softly, bowing my head. Who cares what Malfoy does? He's always up to something; he may as well just do it already. Why does he even bother?
"I'd just be careful, if I was you. Who knows what he might be planning?" that's Hermione, ever willing to offer good advice... or shove it in your ear if you're not listening.
"Maybe he's in love with you, Harry!" Ron laughs, grinning ear to ear.
I realise I should be affronted, insulted even. I go to laugh, to deny, to do anything, but as soon as my heart comes to that gaping emptiness inside in me, all I can do is slump further down. I just don't care. All this laughter... it just makes me feel so tired, and old. The wide smile stretched across my lips burns and wavers, so hard to maintain. I feel my eyes drooping.
"Honestly, Ron, is that all you think about? Malfoy could be thinking up something positively horrid and that's what you automatically think of?"
"What?"
"Sex."
"Hermione!"
"Well, it's true."
"I wasn't thinking about sex... not just then, anyway. I said love, actually."
Hermione snorts.
A foul sickness rolls in my stomach, and I curl my body protectively. Hurts...
"You look tired mate, maybe you shouldn't have stayed up so late last night," Ron says seriously, a frown tugging at the corner of his mouth. I sit up a little straighter, eyeing him with dull curiosity.
"What makes you think I was up late last night?"
"Well, we found all that paper around you this morning while you were still asleep; figured you stayed up studying or something."
I place my eyes on him slowly, peering from beneath my lashes. "You didn't read them, did you?"
Ron's face scrunches up as if someone had just shoved rotten fish into his mouth, "As if, mate. Why would I want to read homework first thing in the morning? Tch... I put them on top of your trunk."
I drop my gaze, "Good."
Suddenly my meal seems even less appealing than before.
The low drum of voices in the hall dies from my hearing, leaving only the white wash of silence behind. Their mouths still move, heads still thrown back mid-laughter, but it's all... so quiet. A silent Ron shrugs and turns across the table at Seamus, whose mute laughter has made him choke on his drink. To my left, Hermione's lips shape aphonic syllables as she dictates to Lavender Brown. So quiet...
I look up, and meet Draco Malfoy's eyes across the hall. Slowly, a peculiar smirk twists his lips, too forced to be genuine, and he holds up a crumpled piece of parchment, slashed almost to quarters in a telltale 'X'... stained with Never-Spill Impervious ink, coloured black, number thirty-four: obsidian...
My breath quickens.
At that exact moment, an inconspicuous little owl flutters down from above, dropping from its claws a small note. Right onto my plate. I feel all the curious eyes pin me down like a helpless insect, itching to pry and poke into my life. Why would Harry Potter be getting an owl at dinner?
I stare and stare at the letter, sitting innocently against the cold silver of my plate. As if it isn't there. As if my eyes alone could make it disappear. I don't want to know what is on that note. I don't. Don't... want to...
(Please—I don't want to—No!—don't make me—please—)
"Harry. Harry! Aren't you going to open your letter? Harry! Are you all right? Harry?"
The noise floods back in a dizzy rush, washing over me in a wave of nonsense. I'm not even sure who spoke, but I find my hands reaching for it. Unfolding...
To be continued...
I'm not entirely pleased with this chapter; I may come back and redo it at a later date. It's not as long as I would have liked it to be, and I would have made it longer, except I thought that would be a good place to end it. I try to make them about 10 or 11 pages in WordPerfect, but this one sadly only made it up to about 7. :( Nevertheless, I hope it lived up to your expectations and was enjoyable to read!
Thankyou!
NOTE: Reviews inspire faster chapters! I had this one done for a few days now, but I was waiting to see how many reviews I could get. I'm very greedy. See if I can make it up to 80? Or 90? Heck, even a 100? :P Pretty please?
[1] An untitled poem that I wrote specifically for the purpose of this story, since I couldn't find one that fitted written by a more classical and better-classed poet. No stealing (as if you'd want to ')!
[2] 'The Sick Rose', by William Blake
[3] From 'On the Progress of the Soul' written by John Donne. (I keep wanting to write 'Don Jon' LoL --)
[4] 'Remorse For Any Death', by Jorge Luis Borges