Miss Moony would like to dedicate this chapter to kayly silverstorm for being the first reviewer.
Miss Moony would also like to thank mrs trevor, Blood-Covered-Ivory, peacockgal17 and Unknown-Dreams for reviewing.
To mrs trevor: Fear not! Things get better from here. And did I say undwerstatement? I meant understatement. Sorry.
To Blood-Covered-Ivory: No, Harry's not going to have to train to be a mage. He's not exactly going to have to convince them, either, though – they'll just figure it out themselves eventually.
To kayly silverstorm: Only one scene with Harry actually using his wand (I think), but, yeah, it's cool. And the bathroom scene is my favourite yet.
------ I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good -------
Chapter 13
As hard as he tried to sleep that night, Harry's past kept coming back to haunt him, and on the rare occasion that he did manage to fall asleep, he would wake up again in cold sweat, what felt like no more than two or three minutes later. Every small thing reminded him of something bigger – something worse:
His hair was damp, and he could see the pale, accusing expression on Ron's face as they dragged him out of the lake. The thunder roared outside, and he could hear Hagrid's roar of fury as he was brought down by three Death Eaters. Lightning flashed past the window, and Harry could see the green light of the avada kedavra curse hit Ginny in the back. The smell of cooked meat from dinner lingered in the air, and Harry was back in the Shrieking Shack, bound and gagged, and staring in horror as Remus' face sizzled and burnt underneath Wormtail's silver hand, while the knife twisted in the werewolf's gut. He could hear the creaking of ropes from the ships arriving outside the city wall, and he could see Hermione's corpse hanging by the wrists from the roof of greenhouse three, swaying slightly in the breeze allowed by the open door. An owl hooted in the darkness, and he remembered Hedwig and then he could hear McGonagall informing the Gryffindor Common Room that Neville had been killed by Draco Malfoy while he was searching the corridors for Trevor the Toad. Briar was muttering in his sleep, and Harry could hear the whispering voices behind the veil: the same veil that Sirius had fallen through only a few hours later. He could hear the floorboards creaking as someone moved about upstairs, and he was breaking into Grimmauld Place with Luna by his side, setting up a trap for the Death Eaters that had decapitated her almost as soon as they'd walked into it. He was cold, and he could feel Blaise's cool skin under his hands as he screamed, begging his lover to wake up, to stop pretending, to come back, because Harry didn't know how to live without him.
And, finally, he gave up, and tumbled out of bed, because there was only one way that he might be able to sleep.
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'Briar… Briar.' He muttered, and rolled over at the hoarse voice. It was too early to be waking up.
'Briar.' This time, something in the hissed words hinted at either desperation or urgency, and Briar opened his eyes half-heartedly, only to see that it was still very much the middle of the night, that there was a storm roaring outside, and that there was a slight, anxious-looking boy crouched by his side with eyes of the brightest green that he'd ever seen in all his eighteen years.
Harry, his mind provided him with the name as he slurred out, 'Wass'amadder?'
'What?' Harry asked, wrinkling his forehead slightly.
'What's the matter?' he managed to repeat his question, rather more coherently than it had been the first time he'd asked.
'I couldn't sleep,' he said, blushing in embarrassment.
'What's am I supposed to do about that?' Briar asked.
'Could I – um – I mean, would it be okay if I stayed here for the night?' His face was so red by now that it was practically glowing, and Briar, not wanting to have been woken up for no reason, scooted over a little, giving Harry space to climb onto the mattress next to him, and then wrapped his arms around Harry's small frame.
'What you said at dinner,' Briar began hesitantly after a moment's silence, 'did you mean it? That you already knew how to control your magic, I mean?'
'Yeah, for the most part,' Harry replied. 'Sometimes it gets a little out of control when I'm really angry, but there's not usually too much damage caused.'
'What's the worst that's happened?'
'I blew up my aunt,' was the answer, and definitely not the answer that Briar had expected. 'Not as in, I made her explode. Just like, I inflated her, and she started floating. It didn't do me any favours, though. The accidental magic reversal squad had to come and get her off the ceiling and obliviate her, and my uncle and my other aunt were furious.'
Briar didn't vocalise his answer, but instead tightened his arms around Harry, and watched as thee younger boy drifted into dreamland.
Watching him sleep, Briar found his mind drifting to the mouse and the panther tattooed over Harry's heart, and he leant down and kissed him lightly on his scar, growling quietly in a slightly possessive manner.
And, when he himself was drifting off, his sleepy head was filled with muddled thoughts and images of Harry, and he found himself thinking that, just maybe, Tris might have been onto something with all her talk of crushes.
