And the Adventure Begins

I sat up with my heart racing and head throbbing in protest at abruptly being yanked from my self-induced blackout. The stiff joints in my arms popped back into place as I hurriedly rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Even in the dark, they burned. Shadows played in the corner of my vision and no matter how much I squinted, I could only make out murky, nondescript blobs whilst I waited for my world to sharpen. Whatever they were, they were dancing just out of my reach and seemed to be staying there. For now. My back ached like mad and my mouth was dry but I groggily did my best to figure out what demented nightmare I was in this time around. It was only then I realized that the grime on my skin felt too real to be a figment of my overactive imagination, no matter how vivid it could be at times. The gnawing in my stomach was also a clear indicator that I was awake. And hungry. Starving, really.

I couldn't tell you when I fell asleep the night before. Most of the time I couldn't even tell if my eyes were closed or not. As far as I was concerned, my life itself was a night terror, one that I couldn't wake up from no matter how many times I sat up. The only upside is that I could go back to sleep, where I'd rather deal with the inner demons than the outer ones.

Late. That's all I could gather from the lack of light. It was late. Or early. Maybe both. Instead of my bed at home, or a bed at all, I found myself in a barn with nothing between me and the ground but a thin sleeping bag and layers of tattered jumpers. The chill must have kicked in hours ago, because my nose was stuffy and the farm animals were whining in their stalls.

I nearly gave into my reasonable need to lie back down before I noticed, with a start, the heavy breathing beside me. I don't know how I missed it and I didn't know how long he was like that, but it didn't take much to guess. He was half in and half out of his sleeping bag, with his back turned to me and his chin pressed against his chest. His arms were tightly wrapped around his knees and I could see his shoulders rising and falling with each deep, shuddering gasp for air. He was shaking; wholly caught in a never-ending tremor that I doubt was caused by cold. I was suddenly wide awake.

"You all right?" I asked. I kept my voice down in case I scared him, even though I knew he knew that I was awake and watching his lapse in composure. Privacy was a luxury we hardly ever had, but I could imagine that he probably craved it now more than ever.

"Do I look all right?" I could imagine him asking. Or maybe he'd do me the honour of turning around, sneering, and telling me to mind my own 'goddamn' business. Surprisingly enough, neither scenario occurred. In fact, he didn't so much as blink. I could hear, not see but hear, how hard he was trying to not lose it, right then and there in front of me and the sheep and the Gods. I didn't know whether to let him be or not but the insatiable need to do the latter won out in the end, and I found myself crawling over.

He was covered in sweat. No, he was drenched in it. I knelt, hooked my arms around his sides, and starting muttering the mantra of "It's okay, Harry. Calm down. It's over," that had become a nightly routine so practiced that the words rolled off my tongue like the blood rolling from his scar. I barely got past the third one before he snapped at me to back off. I let him go like I was burnt.

"Please," he added. He didn't need to though, because I was sure he already figured that I would acquiesce to any reasonable request for the sake of keeping this an argument-free farmhouse. A bad word hadn't passed between us for a good while, so I'd say, in some twisted sense, my approach was working. I was tired of being yelled at and he was tired of yelling, so we just bit our tongues and bother with the bare minimum of pleasantries.

They started about a week ago, the night after the fire, and they came hard, and fast, and without warning. The terrors, I mean. We were camping out in the dense trees around Caerphilly when the first one struck, only that time he woke up screaming at the top of his lungs, probably waking half the village with him. I didn't know what brought them on, and I hardly knew what they're about, but sometimes, on the wobbly verge between sleep and sunrise, he lets a couple of details slip. He was tight-lipped by morning, and any talk of his parents, or vivid, bloody slaughters were the stuff of my own fantasies.

And after tomorrow, we'd be out of dreamless sleep, again. Not that it was working much anyhow. I didn't mind not having any for myself, but unless he could find a way to do without sleep, the nightmares would eat away at him until there wasn't any of him left.

"The usual?" I asked after his breathing evened out and he stopped making those sad, wet sounds. I cautiously rested a hand on his shoulder and shifted a bit closer when he let it stay there.

"No," was the short reply. His eyes were down, drawn to a pebble on the ground. He flicked it and watched as it skidded across the dirt. Distractions, distractions, distractions...

I didn't press my luck any further but he continued without prompting, rocking slightly. "I can see them. Their faces...Piles of bodies. I–It's..."

He shuddered and took a deep breath, as if saying it made it more real. I could tell that half of him wanted to scream and wail and rage but the other half, the sane half, knew that any such thing would be a waste of time and energy. I didn't know what to say or if I should say anything at all, because if I thought my life was a nightmare, his must be a living hell.

"Did I wake you?" he finally asked. He was looking up at me with a half-smile on his face, alluding that he was trying to lighten the mood.

"Like it matters," I replied. He was worried about me, as if I was the one who couldn't shut my eyes for one second without being mentally scarred. It was ridiculous, inane, and irrevocably, undeniably, Harry.

I lifted the edge of his sleeping bag before slowly slipping inside. The material rustled softly against my skin. I shifted over a bit in a vain attempt to make room, folded an arm under my head, and closed my eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"Going back to sleep."

I waited for him to catch the hint and get in with me. The longer he waited, the more I thought he would sit there all night.

But against all odds, he didn't, and a blush rose to my cheeks when he draped an arm tightly around my middle and pressed himself flush against my back. It was a snug fit, but we managed. He softly placed a kiss on my skin, just below my ear. My toes curled and I shivered. The wet spot quickly cooled, raising goosebumps in its wake.

"You read me liked a book sometimes," he whispered. I could feel his breath on my neck and our feet hopelessly tangled together. A prideful smile warmed my face at the fact that I could pick up on what he needs even when he can't, or won't, say it himself. Sometimes, it was a few choice words or a reassuring push in the right direction. Other times, a touch or a simple nod. I'd like to think I gave him a feeling that he wasn't alone, that he wasn't doing this entire thing by himself, and that maybe things could get worse but when they do, at least we've got each other to help lighten the mood.

That was only half of my delusional world, the half that I'd like to believe in the most. In reality, I couldn't bear to let him know how much of an enigma he had become, how much he had barricaded himself off from me, or how we could be spilling our souls out to each other one moment and the next, I'd know nothing about him.

It was not a coincidence that the nightmares started right after the fire, but I hadn't brought it up yet. I didn't want to because saying things out loud made them more real. It was easier to pretend that nothing was amiss and that we weren't the martyrs in this plot. It'd be easier to pretend that his dreams were nothing but sugar-induced lapses in sanity and that we'd wake up tomorrow to a shinning sun and a million more ways to love each other.

I clasped our fingers and relished the feeling of his body heat chasing the chill away. The barn animals had hushed at some point, and I could hear a cacophony of winds outside. No more words passed between us and it was hard to keep my mind clear enough so that sleep would mercifully take me. It was moments like these when I forgot that we're upset about something.

"The next Horcrux," he rasped. My eyes snapped open. I could feel his erratic heartbeat going a mile a minute through his soaked shirt. Mine was doing the same. "It's near Azkaban."

"Near?"

"Underwater."

The words sunk in.

Angry bees of thought began swarming in my mind, bumping and buzzing louder and louder with each passing second. They came one after the other and pretty soon I had so much that I thought they'd burst from my head. That's how it went for the 'rest of the night', with me trying to whittle everything down to one question and with Harry not saying anything at all. And by 'rest of the night' I meant about five minutes, give or take a few.

I heard the farmhands coming down the trail. They were trying to talk to each other above the wind.

We both panicked and tried shimmying out of the bag at the same time which only gave the comical effect of us looking like a pair of worms. After much cursing on both our parts, I slipped my hand out and unzipped us. Then began the frenzy of us grabbing our things as quickly as we could. Belongings were haphazardly stuffed into my beaded bag and Harry's backpack. I nearly lost a boot in the mad dash for the backdoor.

We were out of the area before dawn and spent most of the sunrise huddled around a makeshift fire near the wreckage of a dam. The ground was littered with empty cartons, shiny plastic packaging, and other rubbish left by the last group of tourists that were there before whatever disaster hit. I'd like to think it was something natural, or the result of some human error in design. But in times like these...well, you never knew for sure. The area looked desolate, like some ancient city in ruins.

It was early January and snow should still be coming down in torrents, but I didn't have time to brood over global warming. Thankfully the frozen precipitation was at a minimum and the ground was turning to slush at our feet. The pinkish orange light from the sky was reflecting off the white landscape and almost made the place look picturesque. I had an empty notebook on my lap with a freshly dipped quill poised on a blank page. Harry was absentmindedly munching on an apple, gazing at nothing in particular. I had finished mine a while ago.

"There's the diary," I said a bit too loudly. My voice bounced off the slabs of concrete.

"Hmm?" Harry mumbled, looking up at me. He swallowed his mouthful.

"I'm trying to get all the facts down on paper, and the first one I thought of was the diary. It was destroyed by a basilisk fang."

Harry nodded, even though I didn't ask a question. I could tell he wasn't a hundred percent present.

"If only we had more of those, eh?" He took another bite and chewed.

"But then it'd be too easy."

"Isn't it always, though?" he asked drily. He continued, "The ring. Marvolo Gaunt's ring. Dumbledore... He wore it just before he passed. I think he used the sword and got rid of it so if there are six, then all we've got to do is find the other four."

"You're forgetting the locket."

"Oh, right." He impulsively reached for the metal around his neck. Its silver chain gleamed. He insisted on wearing it this morning despite my warnings. I vowed to wear it at night for obvious reasons, so he made it a point to wear it during the day to make things even. "Right, sorry. That's three down, three to go. I knew that."

"Might be more."

"Well, we'll deal with that ship when it docks."

"When it docks?" I asked, trying to contain my laughter. He playfully shoved me.

"Oh you know what I mean. You use stupid similes all the time."

"That was a metaphor."

"Same difference," he replied. I shook my head.

"Stick to being a hero, not poet."

He stuck his tongue out at me.

"Fine, then let's get back on topic, shall we? Dumbledore and I talked about this. He said...thought that Vold –"

"– would use something from the four houses!" I said, cutting him off in excitement. "Right, of course."

"And we've already got Slytherin's locket. Another could be Hufflepuff's cup."

"Helga," I muttered, scribbling ferociously.

"Yeah, her. We've got no idea what the other two are, though. Besides that blasted snake, maybe."

I looked at my notes, realizing that it was mostly what we already knew and not expecting any different.

"We're looking for maybe three more: the cup, something from Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, and maybe Nagini?"

He nodded and finished his apple, dropping the core near our feet. It was a lot of maybes but at least it was something.

"He did have an odd number of shield charms on her," I said aloud, thinking back on how her scales shimmered when I hexed her.

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"Not surprising, considering that you were knocked out most of the time."

"True. Okay, let's say the she-beast is a Horcrux, more likely than not."

I placed a star next to Nagini's name and pushed the quill into the spine of the book.

"How are your bites?" I asked. He looked confused for a moment before realizing what I asked.

"They were fine the last time I checked."

"Well since when was the last time you checked? Have you been using the salve –"

"Yes, Mum." He rolled his eyes and it was my turn to playfully shove him. "You want to take a look at them?"

I nodded. "To make sure they're not infected."

Harry shrugged off his jacket without complaint and pulled the neck of his jumper across his shoulder, exposing an expanse of skin. I leaned forward and stared at the raised reddish mark that immediately jumped out at me. It looked less inflamed than I remembered. I reached out, letting my fingers graze it. I was regarding it so intensely that Harry's voice startled me.

"You know, if you wanted me to undress you could've asked back at the barn."

I matched his smirk.

"Would you do it now?"

"In this weather? Not a chance."

"I could start first. A heating charm never hurt anyone."

"I'd rather wait 'till we're somewhere nice and warm."

"Liar. Scared of a little cold, Harry?"

"Stop tempting me or I might just take you up on that offer." The smile disappeared as mysteriously as it came. He sighed, placed his head on his knees, and nestled into his folded arms. "Finding her, or any of the Horcruxes for that matter, would be useless if we don't have the sword."

I went with the unexpected change of topic without asking to see the bite on his forearm.

"Dead end at Godric's. Can you think of anywhere else it could be?"

"Of course not. And who says it's even hidden? He could've gotten it from Bathila before setting the trap."

Good point.

"All right, let's pretend it wasn't there in the first place and he has no idea what it does. Then what?"

"Then we're right back where we started."

I turned to a new page in the notebook. Looks like circles were the shape of the day.

"Leads then. What do we have?" I asked. Harry rested his chin on his arms and glared. His eyes were nothing more than slits but their intense green still burned a hole straight through me. I was simply trying to make conversation, important conversation at that, but obviously he wanted me to either stop bothering him with things we already knew or get to the point that I've been trying to avoid. I answered my own question. "Er, Luna's Dad. Definitely worth checking out."

"And the Ignotus grave. It has the symbol too."

"Yeah. And the thief," I offered.

"And the thief." He replied curtly with a nod.

I wrote down what we just said and looked back up to find him still staring me down. I caved.

"Harry, your dream. Do you think –"

"That it was planted there? Probably. But what else can we do?"

"I don't know, but walking into a trap doesn't sound like such a good idea."

"Neither is sitting around and doing nothing."

Which was, in all honestly, exactly what we were doing. I wanted to get into some action as much as the next sidekick but I also had to be the one with the leveled head here.

"Think about it –"

"I have. I figure if we get caught, he'll lead us right to Nagini."

"But we're not even all that sure she's a Horcrux yet."

"But you said it yourself that he's got her shielded to the nines. If we get there and find a Horcrux, great. If we don't, oh well. And if we get taken, we'll think of something then. What have we got to lose really?"

'How about our lives?', I thought. He seemed to have an answer for everything and I was starting to wonder how much he's thought this through. I knew by the look on his face that he had already convinced himself and I was the last constraint.

"…You do realize neither of us have gills, yeah?"

"Gillyweed. It'll work just fine."

"Well how are we going to get there, Mr. Clairvoyant?"

"We'll think of something."

I squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze.

"You're serious?"

"As a heart attack."

"We're really going to do this?"

He nodded. I handed him the notebook and quill.

"Write down every detail you can remember from your dream. Even things that seem unimportant."

"What for?" he asked, but the grin on his face told me that he already knew the answer. I grinned back.

"The least we could do is be prepared."