I decided to get my lazy butt to the computer and write the next chapter. Lol! Thanks so much for the reviews. Yaminy-grint4eva: thanks so much! I couldn't resist the apron thing. Dreamingmaggie: I'm glad you thought so. Aznxpiperxswann: I don't know if I'm going to have him spreading rumors but he's definitely going to ask someone. Pickles87: I'm glad you thought it was funny. In my opinion, Draco loves being in Slytherin but doesn't like being stereotyped as the next dark lord wanna-be. Oh and thanks for the idea, I think I might use it. Charmed Lassie: Thanks so much! Piper is my favorite and I find it really easy to write for her. She's so funny and I know she can pull off the sassy sarcastic comments. I don't think we've seen the last of Paige and Draco. SPASH Panther: I'll just say that he half learned his lesson.:).
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except a fluffy, frilly, lacey pink apron!
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Chapter 13
Harry sat up in his bed fumbling with a piece of parchment in his hands. It was very late, or very early depending on the way you looked at it, but Harry was far from asleep.
He looked over at his four roommates who were sleeping peacefully without a care in the world. He envied them. He wished he could just have the normal stresses of a sixteen year old boy. School and girls, not kill or be killed.
He looked wearily at he parchment again. Should he or shouldn't he? He couldn't decide. After all his scar was a part of him. His parents had died trying to save him and this is what he had to show for it. His scar had been a helpful warning many times. Helpful yes, but painful. However, his scar had also been the reason for the disaster at the end of last year. His scar and his damned connection to Voldemort. It hurt his heart just to think about it. Hermione almost died, Ginny had broken her ankle, Ron had almost been strangled to death by a brain, Neville had gotten a broken nose along with a broken wand, Tonks had to go to St. Mungo's, and Sirius…
He stopped thinking about it, it hurt too much. He fought back the tears that threatened to spill freely onto his sheets.
All of them got hurt because of me, he thought miserably. Because of me and my stupid scar. We'd all be better off without it.
He finally did what he had been threatening to do since twelve o'clock that night, he unfolded the piece of parchment and looked at the spell. Would it even work, should he even try it? There could be serious consequences if tried on such a powerful curse scar.
Great, now I'm starting to think like Hermione. Damn the consequences!
The truth was the scar had caused him more pain than he cared to think about. He could definitely do without a splitting headache every two minutes.
He looked at he spell again. He had to do it. He had to at least try. He did not want to be responsible for anyone else dying.
He reached into the drawer of his night stand and pulled out a small mirror. He looked into it while he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and whispered the spell. "Let the object of objection become but a dream, as I cause the seen to be unseen."
A small but bright glow appeared on his forehead around his scar when he had finished the spell.
He sat staring at the mirror with gaping eyes waiting for the glow to subside. When it did…
"HA HA!" he yelled triumphantly as he got up and jumped on his bed.
Ron fell out of his bed with a loud thump as the others woke up groggily to Harry's yell.
Harry quickly ran over to Ron's bed with a beaming smile on his face. "Ron look! I did it and it worked. My scar's gone!" he said as he pushed his hair back so that Ron could see.
"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed. "Harry…what did you do?" he asked shocked.
Harry instantly became annoyed at the tone of his voice. He's talking like I did something wrong. "I used the spell. The one we learned from Paige."
Ron opened his mouth to respond but closed it suddenly after he had gasped. He was gaping wide-eyed at Harry's forehead.
This annoyed him more. "Ron, what the hell are you staring at?"
He just pointed stupidly at Harry's forehead.
Harry went back to his bed and slowly picked the mirror up. He was almost afraid to look into it. When he finally decided that Ron was making a big deal out of nothing, he flipped over the mirror and looked into it.
He gasped.
It was back. His scar was back and it was…black. As black as if it had just been burned on. As black as the Dark Mark on a death eater's arm.
Harry touched the scar gingerly with his fingers. It felt fresh, new. How could this be?
"No," he whispered. He couldn't believe it. "NO!" This time he yelled which caused Ron to stumble as he tried to get out of the tangle that was his bed sheets.
Ron walked cautiously over to Harry's bedside and sat down next to him. He had his head in his hands. Ron put his hand on Harry's shoulder and gave him an encouraging squeeze. Harry violently shoved Ron, so hard that Ron actually fell off of the bed.
He sat at the edge of the bed gaping at Harry for the second time that night. Harry picked his head up and what Ron saw actually made him scuttle backwards a little.
Harry was angry, very angry. In fact he looked murderous. His eyes were blazing and he was actually shaking with rage. When he spoke his voice shook almost as much as he did. "Why," he started through gritted teeth, "why does everything always have to be so difficult for me? Why can't anything ever be simple? Is that too much to ask…IS IT?!"
Ron stared at his best friend who was apparently having a meltdown. "Harry, I-I'm sorry but your scar is, is," he was at a loss for words.
Harry, however, had plenty of words. "Is what? Part of me? A gift? The last thing I have to remind me of my dead parents? Don't you think I know that? This is a curse! You don't know what it feels like. No one does, so I don't want any sympathy. I don't want to hear 'oh Harry I'm so sorry and I understand what your going through' because no one knows and no on will ever understand. Not unless their whole family dies and they all almost get killed by Voldemort and end up marked for life! And to top it all off, as if I'm not enough of a freak already, as if this stupid scar isn't recognizable enough, it has to go and turn BLOODY BLACK!"
He thought his throat was going to tear from screaming so loudly but he didn't care. He didn't care that Seamus and Dean were looking at him like he was crazy or that Neville looked like he was going to wet himself. He didn't even care that he was crying, although he wasn't exactly sure when it had started. He'd had enough with the miserable mess that his life was at the moment.
"That's right," he continued savagely, "don't say anything because there isn't anything that you or anyone else can say or do that will make me feel any better. No one has to live with the guilt that people have died because of them and that more probably will and that they'll probably end up dead too! What are you three looking at?" he yelled looking at Dean, Seamus and Neville.
He had screamed himself hoarse and couldn't take their gaping eyes and shocked expressions any more. He went over to his trunk ripped the Marauder's map unceremoniously from within it and stormed out of the dorm. He was so heated that he forgot to take the invisibility cloak too.
As he pushed through the portrait, the Fat Lady gave a loud snore and woke up. "Where exactly do you think you are going at such a late hour, young man?" she questioned.
Harry whirled on her tears still streaming and was able to ground out, "None of your bloody business."
"Well, really!" she said shocked as she watched Harry storm down the hall.
He wiped at his tears, but he was fighting a loosing battle. He might as well have tried to dry up the lake. He walked quickly though he didn't really know or care which way he was going. He lifted up his hand to wipe more tears when he turned a corner and WHAM! He had crashed into something and quickly fallen backwards.
The something he crashed into had given a scream of surprise and also fallen backwards.
"Ow," Piper said as she rubbed her head which had hit the ground.
"Watch where you're going!" Harry barked in a raspy voice before realizing who he was talking to.
"Harry?" she asked getting up.
He looked at her with wide eyes and mumbled his apology.
"What are you doing up this late?" she asked. When he turned and the moon lit up his face, she could see he had been crying…a lot. She also saw his... "What's wrong? And what happened to your scar?"
He tried unsuccessfully to flatten his hair over his scar. "Nothing," he sniffled wiping his face again. "Everything's fine."
"Right, and Voldemort's really an okay guy. Come on, let's talk."
She put her arm around his shoulders and led him to the end of the hallway where there was a huge arch-shaped window. With a painful pang, Harry remembered the arch in the Department of Mysteries and started to cry again.
They sat cross-legged on the window sill facing each other. Well, Piper was facing Harry and he had his head in his hands again.
"Harry," whispered Piper gently touching his arm, "Please talk to me. What happened to your scar?"
He looked up, green eyes shining with tears and Piper had to hold back the urge to cry. The expression on his face was one of such utter misery that she had never felt so bad for anyone in her life.
Harry had to talk to someone. He felt like he was going to explode if he didn't get some of it off of his chest. He didn't want another repeat of what had just happened in the dorms.
He took a big breath to try and calm down. When he spoke it was in a hoarse whisper. "I tried to get rid of my scar with the spell that Paige used in class the other day. It worked at first, but then it came back and it was like this."
"Is that why you're so upset?" she asked gently.
"No, well yes, but that's not the only reason."
"Care to share the rest?"
"Not really. No offense."
"Offense taken," she said with a wry smile.
Harry gave a small chuckled that was drowned out by a cough.
Piper looked at him questioningly. "What did you do, scream yourself hoarse?"
He nodded. "I was mad when it didn't work and I took it out on Ron. I know he didn't mean any harm but I hate it when people say they understand. How can they understand, when everyone they love is alive and well? To me it's just empty words."
"Harry, I understand what you're going through," said Piper as she turned to look out of the window.
He gave her a look which she didn't see. A look that said: How can you say that after what I just told you? So he decided to ask her. "How?" it came out a little more aggressive than he had meant it. "How do you understand what I'm going through?" he said disbelievingly.
Piper sighed and turned to look at him. "A few years ago I lost my older sister, Prue. She was killed by a demon in an attack that nearly killed me too. I was mad at the world for a long time. I even almost quit my duties as a witch but then we met Paige and we had to start over. We didn't even know that Paige existed, let alone that she was our sister. But you never get over it. For a long time I kept thinking that it should have been me. I always thought that she was a better witch than me. All of a sudden I had to be the oldest and I didn't think I could fill her shoes."
Harry looked at her surprised and she continued talking.
"Our dad walked out on us because he disagreed with our mother and grandmother about raising us as witches. Our mother died after that when we were all still little; she was killed by a demon too. Phoebe was so small she didn't even remember her. Then, years later, we lost Grams. It was only a few weeks after she died that we got our powers. We were very new to the craft and very scared of what our lives would be like. We've made it through a lot. I can't even count the number of times we've almost died or actually died, but it wasn't without a cost. There's always a cost. Why did it have to be them?"
"I don't know," Harry shook his head. "I always ask myself the same thing. Why me, why my parents, why Sirius?" His eyes started to well up again but he didn't care. He didn't mind crying in front of Piper, she understood.
"Who's Sirius?" Piper asked.
Harry wanted to tell her but the lump forming in his throat wouldn't let him. He took a shaky breath and coughed. Then he began to tell her all about Sirius. After all, she had been very open with him and he knew it would help to talk. He started at the beginning and told her how at first he thought Sirius had betrayed his parents and was out to get him. He told her about finding out how it was really Pettigrew who was the bad guy and how he got away. He even told her about the Triwizard Tournament and Cedric, though it had been very difficult to get it all out. But not as difficult as it had been to talk about the events of fifth year. He told her about Umbridge, occlumency, his visions, Mr. Weasley being attacked, Grawp, and finally their trip to the Ministry.
He was crying the entire time he was talking about the duels. When he talked about Sirius going through the veil, he had to stop and take deep breaths because he was sobbing so hard. He finally got it all out and Piper was crying with him.
"Why? Why does everyone I love die? It's not fair. I'm never going to be happy!" he cried.
Piper pulled him close and he lay his head in her lap. She rubbed his back gently as he coughed and cried into her lap. "Shhh. It's okay. I know you're hurting but remember, we've all been through something," she said through her own tears. "We're going to get him. He's not going to cause anyone anymore pain. I promise."
"When will the pain of loosing him go away?" Harry mumbled into Piper's lap.
"It will never go away but I promise it will get better." She patted his head softly and stroked his hair.
They sat like this for a long time.
Until finally, Harry had cried himself to sleep in Piper's arms.
Piper whispered for Leo. He orbed to the window and looked at Piper and the now sleeping Harry. He orbed them up to the 'house' where they laid Harry down on one couch and went to sit across from him on the other.
Piper told Leo what had happened and by the end of it she was in tears all over again. "It's true Leo, why do we have to suffer so much?" she asked in between sobs.
Leo put his arms around her and she rested her head on his shoulder. He rocked her slowly until, just as Harry had done, she had cried herself to sleep.
