IWSC2 round 5 grammar school

Beauxbatons 2nd year

Technique: flashbacks

Prompt: [sound] ticking

WC: 954

A Time to be Born and a Time to Die

Harry felt his eyelids drooping. He forced them open and looked enviously at Ginny. They had given her something for the pain and she was drifting in and out of a doze. But he was too anxious for sleep—and too uncomfortable, too, sitting slumped in a St Mungo's bedside chair.

It had all started nearly thirty-six hours earlier. Like most couples, they had eagerly anticipated the arrival of their children and no thought of complications had crossed their mind. Ginny was, after all, Molly's daughter, and Molly had given birth to seven children with no difficulty at all. James had been born easily, and when Ginny's contractions had started for their second child, they had again called Molly to act as midwife, and Harry had assumed he'd soon be a father to two.

But the hours had passed, one by one, with no sound of the indignant cry of a newborn. Molly's face had become more and more worried, and finally she had taken him aside and said, "I think you'd better take her to St Mungo's, Harry."

The bustle of Healers around Ginny made him feel like a spectator at his own child's birth, but he could see that they, too, were anxious, so he kept out of their way as much as possible. Straining to hear their undertones in the hope of getting some idea of what was happening, he finally heard, "She's too exhausted. Perhaps if we give her a Pain Potion and let her rest for a while, she'll be better able to push."

So here he was, huddled awkwardly in an upright chair, having had no sleep for two nights. He was almost hallucinating with tiredness, his mind losing its grip on reality and floating in a dream world. He tried to focus on the grandfather clock in the corner opposite him. He watched blearily as its pendulum swung back and forth and the sonorous ticking marked the passing minutes.

TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK.

The ticking worked its way into his brain and echoed there.

TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK.

It reminded him of something he couldn't quite remember through the tiredness. Something unpleasant and frightening. He forced himself to focus on the present. He was in St Mungo's. Ginny was holding his hand. They were there for her to give birth. The frightening times were long past.

He gripped Ginny's hand a little tighter and stared at the flask he held in his other hand. It was ready for their memories at the moment of the birth, so that their child could look at them in a Pensieve when he or she was grown up.

TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK.

The ticking became more insistent. It seemed to Harry to be getting faster, more anxious, more threatening. He clutched the flask, willing himself to stay in the present. But the flask itself was somehow linked to the frightening memories, and St Mungo's faded away as Harry's tired and vulnerable mind jerked back to that terrifying time...

He was staring at the silvery swirls in the flask which Hermione had conjured up. He didn't know why Snape had given them to him. What could Snape possibly have to tell him? Did Harry even want to know what was in Snape's head?

He looked with a mixture of revulsion and pity at Snape's empty eyes and lifeless body. Snape was a traitor; he deserved to die. But not like that, so callously and pointlessly. Harry had a burning wish to tell Voldemort exactly how pointless that murder had been—to fling it in Voldemort's self-satisfied face and see if it made him squirm at all.

Voldemort's echoing voice had just given him an hour to give himself up. The clock was ticking.

TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK.

Harry knew that time was short. He knew he must make his choice very soon—fight or surrender. But despite the insistent ticking away of the minutes in his head, he was suspended in a timeless horror. People were dying—had died—for him. Each and every death was pointless, but Snape's death seemed so unutterably useless.

He looked again at the flask of Snape's memories and made up his mind. He had no time to bury the traitor, nor did he wish to, but he could at least see his memories. He desperately craved someone to tell him what to do, what decision to make, and he hoped that somewhere in the flask might be a glimpse of Dumbledore, or his parents, or even Sirius.

His vision sped forward to the moment he had lifted his face out of the Pensieve. His thoughts were a tumultuous mixture—shame for having so misjudged Snape, admiration for his astonishing achievement in deceiving Voldemort for so long, respect for Dumbledore's ability to direct such a remarkable sequence of events, but above all, finality. He knew, now, what he must do. And, thanks to Snape's memories, he knew why he must do it.

TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK.

The clock in Dumbledore's office showed him that the allotted hour was almost gone. His time was running short. His very life was running short. In a few minutes, he would see the green light aimed at him, and then—what?

His sob of resistance, of fear, was echoed by a gasp from the bed beside him, and his thoughts jerked back to the present. Ginny's eyes, wide with pain, were fastened on his face. She knew the signs of his flashbacks, and she gave his hand a consoling squeeze. He marvelled that even in the midst of her contractions, she had room for concern for him.

"What was it?" she whispered.

He did not answer directly. Instead, he stroked her hand, avoiding her gaze, and said, "If it's a boy, can we call him Severus?"