Potter47
Part One
Living Inside
"With the falling sky and the rain, we're awakening."
Jonathan Foreman
Chapter Five
Wake-Up
It was raining on Privet Drive, raining and raining and raining. It was odd to be in the rain at night, Harry observed, because you couldn't see the drops as they fell--you could only hear them, and feel them on your skin and in your hair, beating, beating, beating down nearly as fast as your heart.
And you could smell it, you could smell it thick in the air. But Harry wasn't sure he was thinking about the rain anymore.
"This's giving me the creeps," said Ron, shaking his head. "All the houses are the same, you know? It like we're not moving."
But they were moving, down, down, down the street as the rain covered the sound of their footsteps.
"It's number four, yes?" said Hermione.
"Yeah," said Harry. They could just barely make out the numbers on the doors by the light of a street lamps. They passed numbers ten and eight and six and--
"This is it," said Harry, taking out his wands and hearing the others do the same. Then, for the thousandth time: "I'm going in first, to distract Voldemort and the Dementor. You guys get the Dursleys out of there, OK?"
"We know mate," said Ron. "We get it."
Hermione shivered. "This feels so wrong... We're not supposed to be here, you know? And... and it's so calm out here, I can't believe that Voldemort's in there, torturing your--"
"Let's go," said Harry, and he started up the garden path.
"Here we are," said Not-Myrtle.
"Finally," said Ginny, and Not-Myrtle gave her a look.
"Well, I got you here, didn't I? No need to be grumpy, Ginevra."
The three of them--Ginny, Not-Myrtle, and Not-Neville--stood before a stone gargoyle that Ginny knew very well.
"Well," said Ginny, "don't you know the password?"
Not-Myrtle hesitated, and then said, "No, I don't--I'm just the ghost of your school-girl crush, remember? Why on earth would I know the password to the Wizard's office?
Ginny's mouth dropped open. "So after all this, we can't even--"
"Of course we can get in," said Not-Myrtle. "I am the ghost of the crush, after all."
And in another moment, she was gone--through the gargoyle and the wall behind, as well.
"I don't like her," said Ginny, not caring in the slightest that Not-Myrtle was probably aware of everything she said. She'd thought it a thousand times already, and she must've heard those as well.
"I don't either, to tell you the truth," said Not-Neville quietly.
"You don't talk much, do you?"
Not-Neville shook his head. "That's my problem."
A beat, and then: "Do you really think I make a good courage?"
"Definitely," said Ginny. "Why do you think you're such a bad courage?"
"Because," said Not-Neville, and then, somehow, he got even quieter: "Because of what happened. It goes over and over again in my head..."
"What? What happened?"
"First year," he said. "It's all my fault, you know? I just sat there and watched... If it weren't for Harry, what would've happened?"
"Well, that doesn't matter, does it?" said Ginny. "That was a long time ago, and it wasn't because of you--"
"Hello, Ginevra," said a calm, deep voice, and Ginny and Not-Neville both turned to the stone gargoyle, which had jumped out of the way, revealing a tall slim man with a long silver beard.
"Professor--" began Ginny, but the Wizard–or Not-Dumbledore, Ginny supposed–shook his head.
"I'm not your professor," said Not-Dumbledore. "I'm your wisdom. And I do believe you wanted to ask me something?"
"Yes," said Ginny. "I want to get out of here--back out of my head, and to the Burrow. I'm stuck here--"
"I see," said Not-Dumbledore, who Ginny figured had seen long before she had told him. "Well, Ginevra. Tell me what you know about this place, where you're stuck."
"It's this place," said Ginny. "It's here, Hogwarts. I thought it was just the Chamber--the Chamber of Secrets, that is--but I guess it's the whole school. I've come here before, when I was unconscious... I think that's what's happened again, but I don't know how to wake up. It's been much longer this time..."
"You confuse me, Ginevra," said Not-Dumbledore, and Ginny didn't think that sounded very good, to have confused her wisdom...
"What?"
"Well, you said that you were stuck in your head... and then you said you were stuck in Hogwarts. Which one is it?"
"Well--I'm stuck in Hogwarts, in my head..."
Not-Dumbledore chuckled. "Surely you can't think that a great big castle like Hogwarts would fit in your head?"
Ginny narrowed her eyes.
"Well, I didn't think it was physically in my head... I mean..."
"No matter," said Not-Dumbledore. "Wherever you are, I believe I can help you find your way home."
Ginny lit up. "How?"
"Well," said Not-Dumbledore, "all you have to do, if I'm not very much mistaken, is go to the corridor of Barnabas the Barmy, walk back and forth three times, and say to yourself, 'there's no place like home.'"
Ginny thought on this a minute, and then: "Oh."
"There," said Not-Dumbledore, smiling. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I do have to get back to work... don't want to return home a fool, do we?"
He turned to go back up to his office, but then Not-Neville spoke once again:
"Sir?" he said.
Not-Dumbledore turned round again, a calm, curious look on his face.
"Yes?"
"Sir... I know you're sort of in charge of things around here. And I've been meaning to get up the nerve to ask for awhile. But, um... why, sir?"
"Why, what?"
"Why did you make me courage?"
"Ah," said Not-Dumbledore. "That is quite a question, isn't it, my boy? And like all the great whys of the world, it is best answered succinctly..."
A beat, and then:
"Why not?"
Harry knocked on the door of Number Four, Privet Drive. There was no response, and he tightened the grip on his wand.
He knocked again.
No response.
He swallowed, and then:
"Alohomora!"
There was a click on the other side of the doorknob, and Harry motioned for Ron and Hermione to move to the side.
He swung the door open, wand at the ready...
...and heard a very clear "oomph," which kind of took him by surprise.
"THE HELL--?" said Uncle Vernon, appearing around the door rubbing his head. He looked at Harry, a little off balance for a minute, and then:
"What the BLOODY HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE, POTTER...?"
Harry stepped past him, into the front hall, and Ron and Hermione followed, all three wands raised.
"I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS--"
"Vernon, what's going on?" came Aunt Petunia's voice. "You'll wake the neighbors--"
Vernon made a face, slammed the door, and continued in a slightly softer yell:
"What is going ON, Potter...?"
Harry looked round the front hall, peered into the living room, and then into the kitchen. Then he winced.
"Uh... sorry, Uncle Vernon. False alarm, I guess."
Vernon blinked. "What are you talking about? What alarm?"
"We, um... we thought you were in danger."
"Who the hell told you we were in danger?! We most certainly didn't, you can bet on that, and if we were we would not have called for the Weirdo Brigade to come rescue us--"
Harry felt incredibly stupid--had it just been a dream? He'd been so sure...
"Let's go, guys," he said, and he took off out the door. He didn't want to say anything else to his uncle--that would just make it worse.
Ron and Hermione lingered in the doorway. "We're terribly sorry, Mr. Dursley," said Hermione. "Believe us, we really did think you were in danger, we were only making sure you were safe--"
"I don't care in the SLIGHTEST, girl, just get out of my house this INSTANT...!"
Hermione blinked.
"All right then," she said curtly. She stepped onto the doorstep, following Ron. "Goodnight, Mr. Dursley."
The door slammed in her face.
"I cannot BELIEVE him..." said Hermione, shaking her head. "I mean, I know we disturbed him and everything but he could have been a little bit nicer..."
Ron wasn't paying the slightest attention. He took off running down the garden path towards the curb, and when he got there he looked back and forth, back and forth, and then turned back to Hermione.
He gulped, and then: "Where the hell is Harry?"
"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home..."
Ginny turned to the wall opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, and--just as she'd suspected--there appeared the door to the Room of Requirement.
She grinned to herself. Finally, this would all be over. She grabbed hold of the knob and flung the door open, not quite sure what was going to happen.
She blinked a few times, expecting to see the kitchen of the Burrow with each lift of her eyelids.
Instead, she just saw a dark room.
"Hello?" she said.
A moment passed in dark silence before a voice echoed through the room:
"Save me..."
"Harry!" said Ginny at once, running further into the room even though she couldn't see anything. "Where are you?"
"I need you, Gin... save me..."
"Where ARE you...?"
"You won't save me, you could never save me..."
Fed up, Ginny shouted: "LUMOS!"
And (despite her lack of wand) the room shone bright.
Harry was nowhere to be seen. However, standing tall and glittering in the center of the Room of Requirement stood a most familiar sight:
The Bell Jar.
Bright and unbroken, and something, something on the other side...
Ginny ran to the other side, because surely it was Harry--but no. Now that thing, what she had seen, was where she had been, on the OTHER side. She ran back around again... and now she realized the thing was neither here nor there, it was in the middle, it was in the Bell Jar.
Ginny's eyes widened when she realized she'd been right: it was Harry. He was trapped inside the Jar.
"Harry! I... I'll get you out of there--"
Harry shook his head, growing smaller, smaller, smaller--now he was just a baby, smaller still, till he was barely anything at all...
Then he began to grow again, and he spoke in the voice of a child: "Need help me!"
Ginny couldn't breathe, she could only watch him as he aged before her eyes, calling her.
"I need you, Gin!" he said now, teenage and familiar.
Ginny reached out, pressed herself against the glass, but she couldn't get through, she couldn't get to him... couldn't save him... just like in her dream, just like when he was falling and she could not get to him in time...
And suddenly the glass was gone, vanished into nothing and Ginny was in the Bell Jar with him. At first she panicked, tried to get back out--but then she noticed she was floating. It felt rather all right, and anyway--she was with Harry.
He took her hand now, and they were growing old together.
"Please, Gin," he said, no longer shouting, but soft, and calm. And she could see the wrinkles growing on his face, around his eyes and in his eyes, she could see everything. She saw terror, she saw Voldemort and Tom and the Bell Jar and the Department of Mysteries. She saw the flowing, tattered veil...
She saw everything in his eyes, and she was sinking.
--no, she was just getting heavier, falling to the depths of the Bell Jar and Harry was falling with her.
"Please, Ginny. Wake up. Save me."
He squeezed her hand, and Ginny opened her eyes.
END OF PART ONE
Next Chapter
Missing
"I've been alone in the dark, I've been dreaming
And waking up without you...
I've been waking up without you for too long."
Jonathan Foreman
Coming Soon
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
This story archived at