9. Breakfast and Hellfire
Ice cold water gushed down over Harry, and it felt like his heart stopped in shock and his lungs squeezed, but he tipped his head back and felt the cold water pelt his face. He was supposed to show up for breakfast in less than thirty minutes, and naturally he hadn't had a worse night in months. Even with the restless sleep and nightmares he had had since the whole debacle with the marriage proposal and peace treaty started.
He wasn't sure how many times he had woken up screaming, but he did know that his throat now hurt from it. He had been up twice to try to calm down after some particularly nasty nightmare, and once more to shower and change when he woke up drenched in sweat. Between all this he didn't think he had gotten more than two hours sleep, and none of it restful.
Harry switched the water to warm, washed, got out of the shower and dried off before brushing his teeth and getting dressed. He wasn't going to shave when he was this exhausted and neither would he allow anyone else to shave him either.
Dobby showed him the way to the breakfast room. The normally chatty elf must have realised that Harry wasn't up to talking, for he hardly said a word, just bowed Harry in the door and left.
"Hello," Harry said with a voice full of gravel and pain. He winced.
"Here, as black as possible while still tasting like coffee." Draco poured him coffee and handed him the cup.
Astoria nodded at him, and Voldemort said a simple good morning.
"Thanks." Gods, his throat hurt! Harry took a gulp of coffee and almost spit it out again. His throat was on fire! He grabbed a glass of orange juice and swallowed half of it. Tears popped up in his eyes and he coughed when the pain lanced down his throat and threatened to choke him. He struggled to breathe and every time he tried to swallow it felt like swallowing hot shards of glass. Finally, he was able to stop hacking and leaned back in his chair with a deep breath.
"You weren't kidding when you said mornings are difficult for you," Draco said in a low voice.
Harry growled at the intrusion into his pain and misery, making the pain worse again, and looked up. Silver-grey eyes blinked at him, and Astoria's ice blue was now much more alert, and the red pair of eyes looked a little astonished. He sighed, took a piece of toast, and buttered it without a word.
Harry tried to nibble at the bread, but every time he swallowed, pain lanced his throat. The pain made him more and more grumpy. The desperate screams in the background and the sound of roaring flames in addition to the stink of burned flesh made his stomach churn.
It was not a good morning. He shouldn't even have tried to get up for hours yet, and absolutely not tried to meet people. Being around people in this state of mind was begging for trouble, and he knew that. One little slip up right now and things could go very bad indeed.
It wasn't worth it. Sometimes it was pure luck that made Hermione able to deal with the consequences of a bad morning. Other times it was a power and knowledge that in this room probably only Voldemort could rival, and he didn't know what Harry's accidents could do. So, it wasn't worth it.
"I can't eat yet." His voice was as low and gravely as before and he didn't see the use of trying to raise his voice when there were so many voices in the room begging, screaming, crying. Some part of him knew that the voice's weren't real. Not anymore. But he was too tired to take that into account right now. So tired of the screams from the dying and the laughter from some insane Death Eater and the jeering and threats from others. The heat from the flames cracked against his face. Black shapes watched him from bone white faces.
His body was too heavy, but he got to his feet and walked towards the door. There was a room that would be relatively safe, because people would stay away if he barred the door. They would stay away and be safe.
It hurt to move. Hurt not to pay attention to those who died in the flames. It wasn't his flames. He could feel that. They weren't powered by his magic. This wasn't his fault. But people still died. He wished he could talk to Hermione right now. Often, she could tell him what to do when his own mind refused to let go of the memories, let go of the old hurt and despair.
Someone screamed right in his ear, and he jerked to the side and was hit in the face. He fell on his back, the pain from his forehead pushing the voices and the flames farther away.
He blinked. Somehow, he had walked right into the door frame.
"Harry!" He recognized Astoria's voice.
"Don't touch him if he can't see you coming!" Draco hurriedly said and Astoria stopped a little way away from Harry, her eyes on his face, but she didn't come any closer.
"Are you alright?" she asked. "What happened?"
Slowly he sat up. "I told you that I'm not good in the mornings. Granted …" he got to his feet, "… I can be just as bad at other times, but mornings are always bad."
A door now right in front of him and to the left of the doors to the hallway, opened and several Death Eaters with billowing, black cloaks and bone white masks with ugly grins stalked through. The fire and the screams snapped him in the face again, the stink of burning bodies, the knowledge that good people already had died in the flames and that he and Hermione were separated from their allies and heavily outnumbered.
He grabbed Hermione's hand and swung her behind him. Safest place to be when he let loose, as he had to, to get them out of this. Even though he hated it. He wasn't going to let the bastard's take them down, not while he could still breathe, still cast a single curse. And only one curse was truly necessary. Fire bloomed around them and took shape. Big cats, a basilisk, smaller serpents, a gigantic wild boar with vicious tusks, a pack of hungry wolves and a dragon. They cavorted all around him. He smiled. All his to command, to keep him and Hermione safe, and the Death Eaters were already screaming.
"Harry, please listen to me, please stop this! Please listen! You must stop! Harry! There is no need for this!"
The voice wasn't Hermione's.
Harry turned and blinked, and the ice blue eyes set in a deathly pale face stared back at him.
"Please don't do this," she whispered. "I love Draco so much; I don't want to lose him. Not now. Please stop it."
He turned around and looked at the Fiendfyre he had conjured. The big beasts slowly burned their way towards the Death Eaters. The door they had come through was guarded by flaming serpents now. Before reaching the Death Eaters the flame beasts had to burn through the breakfast table, Draco and Voldemort included. The flame beast licked their snouts and howled or hissed or roared.
"No!" Harry's voice rose above the rumbling from the flames. It hurt his throat, good gods, it hurt! The flame beasts didn't react, he had lost their leash when he looked at Astoria, a moment of distraction was all it took. He held out his arms and felt his magic hook into the Fiendfyre again, re-establishing control. They were his, his magic and his to control. The beasts turned to look at him with shimmering flame filled eyes, and he knew that it wouldn't be possible to simply stop the curse. He had lost control and they would fight him for it.
But the magic was still his.
"I said no!" he roared. "You are mine and You. Will. Listen!" The last few words came from behind gritted teeth.
He sucked his magic back into his core. Something that shouldn't be possible, but that worked, if he paid the price. He felt the beast's rage inside him and closed his eyes to focus on quelling them. He felt sweat pour off him, felt his body shake and that he swayed on his feet. But he held the Fiendfyre back. Held it inside him and slowly, beast by beast, he extinguished the flames.
The world tilted on its axis when he opened his eyes again and he went to one knee, gasping. Now his chest hurt in addition to his throat. His hands shook visibly.
"Draco! Are you alright!" He heard Astoria rush past him and he looked up in time to see her hug Draco fiercely. Both Draco and Voldemort were up and standing in the middle of an unburnt island.
Harry's gaze went towards the group of Death Eaters. He wasn't truly surprised when he saw that there were only four, Malfoy, Snape and two others he didn't know the names off. All of them were in robes and cloaks that came close to the Death Eater ensemble, but only Malfoy was in full regalia, mask included. Harry looked at the mask now in Malfoy's hand and felt flames lick out of him, carried on years of hatred and the anguish of one single night.
The mask glowed red, Malfoy screamed and let it go. The mask fractured and by the time it reached the floor it was only dust.
Harry got shakily to his feet and turned towards the door. The world was quieter again now. Some of his waking nightmares had burned away in the flames, but he also had adrenaline pumping through him like he had been in a fight. Which, in a way, he had.
"Wait, Harry!"
He didn't turn toward Astoria, even if he recognized worry in her tone.
"No, Astoria, I think it is best to let him go for a while." That was Voldemort.
"But he might be hurt. Doing that kind of magic, nonverbally and wandlessly … That can't be healthy. He cast one of the most difficult curses there is, without a wand!" Her voice rose in agitation. "It's asking for trouble! It's madness!"
Harry was out the door and on his way down the hallway.
"Has anyone seen him use his wand at all?" Draco's voice was tentative.
Harry began to run. He needed the movement with all the adrenaline in his body and with the horrid memory of how close he had come to burn that room of people alive.
Voldemort might have been able to stop it or survive. Might. Astoria might have survived behind Harry. Might. But Harry himself could have died when he lost control of the flames.
As for Draco and the others … Some of them did possibly deserve to die for the horrible acts they had committed during the war. But Harry and Hermione had agreed that being burned alive with Fiendfyre was too horrible a way to go, even for war criminals, and they only used Fiendfyre to destroy property or when they had no other choice.
The exception had been Godric's Hollow.
The massacre at Godric's Hollow. Barely a year past now.
That had been vengeance, and even if they hadn't caught the two they most wanted in their web of fire, neither of them regretted the actions of that night. They had both been a bit mad with loss and pain and rage. And if their actions established them as no longer Light, then that was a road they had started walking years before that fateful night.
Harry ran.
From the fresh memories and from the old.
From the questions and troubles that undoubtedly awaited him when he stopped running.
From the consequences of his actions this morning.
From his fear.
From his confusion.
From his rage.
Harry ran.
A/N:
Hope you liked it! Please tell me!
Thank you to Ladylillalove for beta reading! Any and all mistakes are, as always, mine.
I do not own Harry Potter or that universe. I'm merely barrowing it for a while.