Potter47
Part Two
The Shadow of the Present
"Angels. They're everywhere...paintings and statues and stained glass windows.
They all seem to look alike.
Heavenly beings with amazing wings.
But even greater than the artwork, are the stories people tell,
about being visited by angels in visions, in dreams,
and even in person at the time when they really need it.
Most of these stories are about angels delivering messages of hope,
but sometimes you'll hear a different story—
about a dark angel, who foreshadows bad luck...or worse."
Chris Mack
Chapter Eight
Everything or Nothing
—the lights in the compartment dimmed now and flickered...off. Blackness engulfed the four of them and a sharp intake of breath was heard—none were sure whose it was.
Harry blinked and couldn't be sure that he had done so.
"What's going on?" said Ron, sounding quite clearly unnerved. Luna's hand grasped his, though no one could tell.
"Have we broken down?" said Luna curiously. "I know we haven't broken up."
"Shh," said Hermione, and she stood, somehow managing to step on Ron's foot as she did so.
"Ow, Hermione!" said Ron.
"How'd you know that was me?"
"I dunno."
Hermione slid open the compartment door and stuck her head out—all along the train, others were doing the same, though none knew that they were not alone, of course, because they could not see any more of what was going on in the corridor then they could have from in their compartments.
"Lumos!" said Hermione now, and her wand flared with light. Others did the same, and soon small specks of glowing brightness could be seen down the length of the train. Soft murmurs of questions filled the air and only Hermione actually stepped out into the corridor to better look round.
Harry followed, with Luna behind and Ron last in their odd line.
"How do we know which way we're going?" Ron said. It seemed odd to the four students that everyone else—the entire school, actually—could not seem to leave their compartments. It was as though some sort of spell kept their feet from stepping into the corridor.
"Towards the driver," said Hermione.
"But which way is that?"
"Don't you pay attention?"
"No," supplied Luna. "Of course not. He's Ronald."
"Oh, thanks, Luna."
"You're welcome."
"Will you all be quiet?" said Harry, an odd feeling in his chest. He was next to Hermione now and actually moved ahead of her, wondering how long the train actually was. It had never seemed this long before.
They continued to walk.
Madam Pomfrey shook her head. "There is simply no considering it," she said, sounding almost sad. "You mustn't return to school. For now, at least."
Ginny let out a groan of frustration. "But I feel fine. Really. I can't not go to Hogwarts—"
"You most certainly can. Not go, I mean. And how many recessions will it take for you to realise that it doesn't matter if you feel fine? You feel fine now but what about tomorrow? You simply mustn't risk it."
Ginny crossed her arms in defiance and blew a stray lock of hair out of her face. "Mum...!" she called to the next room, thinking that of course her mother could make it better.
"What is it, Ginny?" Mrs Weasley said as she entered the room. She had a dishtowel drying in the kitchen and thus kept her wand pointed behind her.
"Your daughter refuses to accept that she is not physically able to return to school with her friends."
"Ginny..." said Mrs Weasley, looking rather exasperated.
"Come on, Mum. You know I can't miss OWL year."
"If you treat yourself the way you're meant to be treated, you won't miss the whole year," said Madam Pomfrey. "Just continue to take the potion I prescribed, and—"
Mrs Weasley jumped in at this point, as though this was something she'd been meaning to ask about.
"About that potion," she said, "is it really as safe as it says on the bottle? I've always thought that Dreamless Sleep potions weren't meant to be used too often—"
"This is a variation, Molly," said Madam Pomfrey, sounding as though she'd said this a thousand times already. "It is perfectly safe for nightly use for up to six months—"
"And after six months?"
"She will not need it for six months. Now if you will excuse me," and Madam Pomfrey drew her wand and Apparated away without another word.
Ginny blew another errant lock of hair out of her eyes and snarled at nobody.
"I want to go to school."
The group walked and the whispering escaladed round them into a full chatter, a full hubbub, as such things have been called without particular explanation.
And suddenly Harry felt as if he were walking alone—it did not take much for the bystanders to fade into nothingness, though Ron, Luna, and Hermione surely were more difficult to miss—and the train was the corridor. The corridor, the one that had haunted his dreams all through the previous year. How long had it been since he'd thought of that, of the Department of Mysteries?
He shook his head to clear it of the thoughts of Sirius that arose. He had dreamt that Sirius had been caught by Voldemort that day, the day the bell jar fell. And then only a few months later...
He shook his head again, harder, more vehemently. It cleared, but he still felt alone. Maybe it's cause Ginny's not here.
An odd feeling rose in his heart as he thought it, and he knew at once that it was true. But why couldn't he see anyone else?
And then he could—he could see someone else. But not Ron. Not Hermione, not Luna. Not anyone that he could recognise.
A white light appeared in the distance—Harry couldn't tell when it did it...one minute it wasn't there and the next it was, but oddly so. Harry stopped walking and didn't feel Ron walk into his back, though he did do it. He didn't hear Hermione question as to why he'd stopped, didn't hear Luna state that it was dark out here.
The light grew, or perhaps it neared him...it was now as tall as Harry...taller, maybe. It was a person bathed in blinding white light. Harry wondered how he himself had not been blinded, for he could still see as clearly as ever.
The figure stepped towards Harry—who could now see that it was indeed stepping, though it moved with such grace that it seemed to glide.
"Who are you?" Harry said, and he didn't hear Hermione asking who he was talking to, didn't notice Ron looking back over his shoulder worriedly, didn't hear Luna state that it was cold out here.
It was Ginny's birthday today and she was in her bed, alone. What a surprise.
She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted, feeling dreadfully lonely. Her mother hadn't said a word to her all day, nor had Ron. Harry was probably in Percy's room, sulking as well because of Sirius. Of course, if she had really thought it through, she might have understood that losing someone dear to you is a bit more of a reason to sulk than being alone on your birthday, but she hadn't really thought it through, and she didn't want to. It was her birthday and she deserved not to be bored to death. It wasn't fair.
Glancing downward, she half-wished that the radio hadn't smashed, just so that the silence could be broken.
She hated being in bed all day, that was for sure. Perhaps she could...
No, her mother would kill her if she got out of bed. But, then again, that's why she wanted Ginny in bed, for her health, so maybe she wouldn't kill her.
And her mother had seemed busy today, not visiting and all.
And so Ginny threw the unnecessary covers off of her—it was August, after all: she had only had the blankets on for the comfort they gave—and stood up far too fast, so that she got a bit dizzy. Shaking her head to clear it, Ginny made her way to the door, and—
A knock sounded from the other side, jolting Ginny aback.
"Er, who is it?" she said.
"Me," said the voice that was Harry's. "Can I come—"
He was cut off as she threw open the door, immensely thankful that he hadn't forgotten about her after all.
"—in?"
"Of course you can—" She reached her head up and kissed him, taking him quite aback. He was still taken aback whenever she kissed him. It was amusing, sometimes.
"Should you be out of bed?" he asked, sounding quite out of breath. "You didn't have to open the door, I could have let myself in—"
"Oh, but I wanted to, Harry. You have no idea how boring it is to sit alone in a room, day after—oh, I suppose you do. Why is it that you always do have some idea of whatever it is I say you have no idea about?"
"We have a lot in common?"
Ginny smiled. Harry seemed rather uncomfortable. Ginny realised that the last (and only) time he had ever been in her room had been when he had fallen out of nowhere atop her when he'd arrived at the Burrow. An uncomfortable memory for sure.
But perhaps there was another reason.
"Uh, Gin," he said, sitting down on a chair that he had never sat down on before, "happy birthday." He pulled a small handful of flowers out from someplace Ginny hadn't seen, and they were slightly crumpled; perhaps more than slightly.
Ginny took them from him and sniffed them. "Thank you. Hang on—are these from..."
"...the front garden, yes. I didn't really have time to get anything for you. I just realised it was your birthday ten minutes ago."
Ginny glanced at the clock; seven forty-one.
"You heard the clock," she concluded.
"Yeah. I hadn't even realised that I didn't know your birthday. Feel kinda weird 'bout that. Did I know, and I just forgot?"
She shook her head. "No, I don't think you ever knew. Last year we were all preoccupied with your Hearing and I didn't even have a cake—"
"I'm sorry."
"Oh, did I just sound bitter? I didn't try to, honest, and I'm really not." She looked down at her flowers, and said once again: "Thank you."
"Do you like them?" he asked awkwardly. Again, there seemed some deeper reason for his anxiety than the obvious.
She nodded, and laughed softly. "Well, I planted them, I certainly hope I like them."
"Oh. Right."
She leaned into him and kissed him once again, and it lasted a while before he pulled back, a curious look in his eye. "You're not contagious, are you?"
"Who are you?" repeated the figure in a ghostly voice, a haunting voice, a voice that seemed more like an echo than a voice in its own right—perhaps it was...perhaps it was only an echo of what Harry had said.
Harry didn't know what to say to this thing, this creature, this—well, the first word that came to mind was spirit, but he wasn't entirely sure. He felt that something about this thing was good, was simply good. Antithesis of evil kind of feeling; an anti-Dementor of sorts. Another word came to mind, another thing that this thing could be:
Angel. And when he thought this word he could see that the being possessed shining wings that could hardly be told apart from its body—bent wings. Its wings were bent.
He trusted it. He didn't know exactly why, but he did. Perhaps it was the wings.
"Harry Potter," Harry said, and the spirit nodded, the angel nodded, whatever it was.
"The world is changing," the spirit said in its voice, chilling Harry's heart and causing the hairs to stand up on the back of his neck. "The world is changing."
Harry nodded, wondering what on earth was going on—he, of course, knew far more of this than the others, who simply thought he had gone mad.
Or maybe he had.
"What is changing?" Harry said.
"The world," said the spirit again. "Light is falling, falling, falling from the earth, and nothing is replacing it."
Harry wasn't sure he understood that quite right.
"What? Wouldn't darkness replace light?"
The spirit shook its head, and what a vaguely head-like head it was—part of Harry thought that it was covered by a white hood but the rest was not so sure.
"Darkness cannot replace light. Nothing can replace light."
"What?" said Harry again, simply lost in the being's words without hope of a way out.
"Have you ever felt nothing, Harry Potter?"
Harry shook his head, not really meaning 'no' but simply not understanding and not finding the words to say so.
"Nothing is what exists when all that exists is nothing," said the spirit. "And nothing is rising."
Harry was silent. And then something clicked in his mind, a word that he thought might be able to explain the spirit's words:
"Oblivion?" he asked, and the spirit nodded.
"What was it like?" Harry said, caressing Ginny's hair with his fingers and looking off into the black corners of the moonlit room.
"What was what like?" said Ginny, looking up at his chin, simply because this was the easiest thing to see. This was the second night they had been out here, in the living room, like this. Madam Pomfrey still had not returned. And tonight they felt like talking.
"The possession. When Riddle possessed you."
"I thought I'd told you. Just nothing. Patches of nothing in my memory, as though I'd skipped from one place to the next, or one day to the next, or—"
"But what was it like?" he asked again. "How did you feel?"
A cold wind blew into the room now, though the windows were secured and there was no wind that night (they were not aware of the second part, being indoors).
"Well," said Ginny, "I've grown to hate nothing. I mean, like, to hate oblivion, nothingness. Not to not hate anything. There's a big difference.
"Nothing tormented me, and still does sometimes—in my dreams, I mean. Sometimes I dream that I've disappeared entirely, or that I'm disappearing bit by bit. I just hate nothing."
"Is that what you see when—"
"—I face a boggart?" finished Ginny. She nodded. "Yes. And don't ask me to explain that part. I don't know how it turns into nothingness, but it does and it's just horrible. I would prefer a Dementor."
"So would I," said Harry, and he would wish that he hadn't said that before long.
"Evil has grown in its strength, Harry Potter. A great evil has just occurred here today, has begun here today—an evil greater than you will know, such an evil that the world now hangs in its imbalance."
Harry didn't like the sound of that one bit. The figure was fading now, but not fading in the sense that one thinks of fading—it was fading as a sound fades, stretching out into the nothingness, slowly and slowly.
"What am I supposed to do?" said Harry.
"You must fix it."
The figure was nearly gone now, and Harry felt a sudden surge of panic to go along with his haunted heart and numb skin.
"Wait! Who are you? What are you?" He felt as though he were running to keep up with the figure as it sped away from him, but his feet did not move, could not move, and it merely continued to fade.
"You and those around you, Harry Potter, are art—great masterpieces of art. Surely you do not believe that you have painted yourselves?"
And it was gone, along with Harry's consciousness.
Harry had a dream then, but he didn't really remember it when he woke up. He dreamt that he was in the Burrow, in Ginny's room, sitting on the bed. Ginny was there, looking at nothing—or at the ceiling, rather—and she was quite disturbed by the extra weight on the bed.
She looked up—"Harry! What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at school!"
Harry blinked, or thought he did, because you can't really blink in a dream or else you'd wake up.
"I dunno," said Harry. "I guess I fell asleep."
Ginny furrowed her brow. "What? How would that make you come back here? You left for the train hours ago—"
"Oh, I'm not here. I'm on the train. All the lights went out and an angel came on board. Then I fell asleep, and here we are in my dream."
"You're not dreaming, Harry," said Ginny, but of course he was.
When Harry came to, he felt the cold floor of the train corridor beneath him and saw three worried faces over him—Ron, Luna, Hermione. The lights were back, along with the sound of mystified murmuring from the other students.
"What happened to you?" said Ron.
"Did you have a vision?" said Hermione.
"What was your dream about?" said Luna.
Harry blinked a few times and opened his mouth to speak. He couldn't—so he tried again.
"What happened?" Harry said now. "What happened to the train?"
The faces paled and Harry managed to sit up, leaning on his arms for support. Ron held out a hand to stand the rest of the way, and Harry took it.
Ron didn't let go; first he spoke: "You're not going to like this."
"Like what?"
"Like nothing you've seen before," said Luna softly, sincerely.
"Harry, they found a body," said Hermione, who in particular seemed very unnerved at the moment.
"It was blond," noted Luna. "Something seemed funny, though. Not funny-funny, but strange-funny, you know."
And Harry sort of moved Hermione and Ron to the side, for he had realised that they were blocking something from his sight.
Harry's eyes widened considerably as his sight fell upon the prone figure, its blond hair falling waywardly over the forehead. Blood had pooled beneath it, as if it had been stabbed—perhaps it had. Something was wrong about it, yes, like Luna had said something simply not right. Perhaps it was nothing—perhaps it was everything. Nevertheless...
...it was Malfoy.
It was Malfoy, and he was dead.
And he was dead.
"Not now. Not now. When it's all over. When it's behind us—then—"
Agatha Christie
Coming Soon
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