A/N: Please review if you have the time. Thanks!
Belladonna
The Lonely Ones
He could feel that something was...off tonight.
A dread crept through the corridors, down the stairs. Hovered in the air. Something was going to happen on this night. Something important, something horrible, something that would change the course of all their futures. While never putting stock into Proficiency or Divination, for they were something for the untalented hacks in the wizarding community to latch onto, he knew that if he ignored this feeling...all would be lost.
The night compelled him to patrol longer. Each step taking him down a unseen path towards the unknown.
Suddenly, sobs assaulted his ears. His chest clenched at the sound. The discordant melody wrenched at his heart. Ah the despair in that voice! It serenaded him, a tune so familiar to the one in his own soul. Ebony robes billowing, played a twisted counterpoint as he rushed to the source of the bitter music. He was lead to the door of the second floor girl's room.
Silence.
Terror enveloped him. Bursting through the doors, he saw his worst nightmare come true.
Lily's son, looking like no more than a rag doll carelessly tossed by a child, bleeding on the old stone tiles. His mind refused to accept the macabre image. He had spent his life trying to protect him, only to be thwarted by the boy himself. How could he have done this? How? How? What was... how?
A girl's scream thrust him into action.
Collapsing to the floor, ignoring the dead girls wailing, he murmured a spell to seal the wounds. The boy would always carry the scars. Two more to add to the collection...if he lived. And he would live. He had too. He had too. He had made a promise and by Merlin he was going to keep it.
Cradling tenderly the feather weight body in his arms, he ran from the bathroom, down the hall, to the dungeons. He had never been so swift, so sure footed. It was superhuman. But he had to, could do. He had to get his potions. He was going to save him. He was. Heart battering his chest, he shouted the password to his rooms and laid the boy on his dining table.
Rushing, fumbling, he pulled shining liquids from the cabinet. Gone in an instant. He prayed, he actually prayed that the boy would, could be roused.
The ticking of the clock taunted him.
tick. you're. tick. too. tick. late. tick. you're. tick. too. tick. late.
He couldn't accept. He couldn't. The boy would stir. He would. He would. Merlin, please.
Tears welled, swelled from the man whose heart was thought to be stone. He hadn't cried in years. Since Lily. He pulled the boy tighter to his chest. No. He couldn't lose them both. He couldn't be too late again. He couldn't. It broke him the first time. Shattered his already fractured soul. He couldn't bare to think what losing the son would do.
A small gasp.
Frantic jade eyes. Unfocused, panicked.
He rocked the boy, sighing, purging, weeping out his relief, making promises to any deity who would listen. He would do anything to pay this debt back.
He was alive. Harry was alive.