Chapter Warnings: despair

Clack

The bed feels irritatingly lumpy, soft surface only serving to make him glare silently with blurry orbs at the dark contours of the canopy's underbelly. Thoughts churn over and over in Harry's head for the millionth time. Questioning his illness and the fading future slipping from his hands every day.

A fear begins to claw at the inside of his ribs, it steadily increases its tormenting pace.

'I'm going to die...'

The simple and horrifying thought jumps into his restless mind. Death, actual death. Final, unforgiving, nothingness... the end of his existence.

Harry's body contorts viciously. Something imaginary seizing his heart and throwing it into a gaping black hole. It feels real. Stark and piercing. He turns his head into the feathered pillow and screams, fingers clenching sheets in terror.

For all the suffering this short life has offered so far, he doesn't want to die, not now, not ever!

Huffing, Harry's tries to soothe the mental agony. Pretend that it doesn't exist even if it hovers over him patiently, waiting for his guard to lower so that it may assalt him again.

'It's okay. It's okay. Everything's going to be fine!'

So why are there tears spilling from his eyes?

Harry lets out a tired sob, muscles easing until he falls utterly quiet and still again. For a moment he tries to forget his distress, tries to push the emotional pain into the far reaches of his mind-

-Not my Harry! Please no, not Harry! I beg you!-

He rips the silver blankets off and stumbles out through the emerald curtains, the fabric shimmers in the moonlight. Knees slam onto the stone floor as his legs give out. There is no pain. Where nerves send signals through an intricate system, it splits off track somewhere and only pleasure floods his body. That curse must have truly scrambled up his brain. Who can stab themselves and only feel an elation of sexual stimuli besides those mental?

"That's it..." A hushed laugh slips out, "I'm insane..."

'But surely this isn't insanity? Not yet.'

Slowly, Harry climbs back onto both feet. Dark splotches of blood dampen the green material of his pajama pants. Tugging on a long shirt curled at the end of the bed, he covers the cut on his wrist subconsciously. With a few blinks in the fuzzy darkness, the raven-haired boy takes note of the three other beds in the Slytherin dormitory. The other males still dream peaceful little dreams of political schemes and victorious duels.

'How quaint.'

Too bad he can't join them. Instead, Harry fumbles at the nightstand to place circular glasses on, making searching through his trunk easier. He drags out the invisibility cloak.

A gift from his father in celebration of receiving a Hogwarts letter. The man couldn't give him any of the things he needs, but count on the elder Potter to try and induce a bit of mischief. Trying to smile at the memory, it only melts off his face and Harry runs the pads of his skeletal fingers over the silky material. A glance at his own bed and he decides there's no chance for sleep tonight. So a stroll it is.

It takes him another minute to hunt for his holly wand hidding among the cooling sheets, before he slips on the cloak. Harry disappears completely from the bedroom. Tentatively, he makes his way out, passing into the Common Room and creeping by the black lounge chairs in front of a crackling fire. The stone wall leading out of the Slytherin Dungeons shifts and he leaves quickly before the green serpent, stitched into the banner over the hearth, can fully awake and realize that a student is leaving.

Thinking about what Professor Snape will do to him if he's caught, makes Harry cringe as he glides along the stone corridors.

Sound is amplified and twisted in the lower levels of the castle. During the day you can hear whispers echoing, and during the night the rushing currents of the Great Lake, as well as hundreds of other strange noises that seem to have no particular origin. Harry finds these sounds utterly ghastly and fascinating at the same time. Lately he'd do this, walk through the passages listening to the settling of the walls and moisture dripping from the ceiling-

"I can hear it..." An excited pitch echoes from down the hall.

The high and manic pitch makes the hairs on Harry's arms rise. Halting almost immediately, the youth strains his hearing. All that follows is the shifting air and the low curious sound...

Clack-clack, clack-clack.

"I can hear it!"

Flinching, his nerves now on edge and telling him to turn right back around, Harry fights within himself to dredge a bit of courage up.

'Whoever it is, they won't be able to see me anyway.'

Inching forward, the hall splits off to the stairs leading up into Hogwarts on the right, a dead end a bit further ahead. He can't see anyone in the hall or on the stairs. The odd noise continues from the back of the hall, where the shadows are darkest is deepest. That clacking, a dreadful and primitive sound. It causes his stomach to flip and breathing to grow shallow. As it sounds, it stops just as abruptly.

"I can, I can, I can! Ha-ha! Oh, can you hear it too?"

His heart beats rapidly in his chest as he takes one step forward at a time, into the arched area with the stone staircase. The candles flicker and paintings remain silent. Harry moves along the wall back into the darkness on the other side of the hall and forces his eyes to adjust.

"Oh! Oh! Hunching, crunching, munching! Its hunger is so endless~! Singing, humming, lulling! It's searching so relentless~!"

Peeking into the only room at the end of the corridor, Harry happens upon the strange sight of Peeves doing a jig above the Bloody Baron's head. The poltergeist seems to be having a raving good time by the look of his devilish smirk, but the other ghost naturally tunes him out.

"Can you hear it? Can you hear it?!"

"Oh, I can hear it you madman..." Seethes the Bloody Baron, his tone rumbling and irritated, "-but I don't understand."

From his angle, Harry can see the Baron's side profile, the ghost is scratching his beard and staring downward. Curious, the young Slytherin sidles up against the frame of the door, trying to get a better look at what the other is glowering at. There's nothing on the floor besides dirt and cobwebs.

'I don't see anything.'

Harry moves to enter the room just enough to sweep his eyes along the wall where the door resides.

Clack, clack, clack, clack.

The sudden queer noise sets off an immediate reaction in both himself and the phantoms.

A fearful gasp jolts from Harry's lips. He's drowned out by the sound of Peeves shrieking in half-fear and half-delight, rolling around in the air with hands covering both ears. The Bloody Baron only takes several steps back, milky eyes wearily watching the floor.

'But there's nothing there!'

Clack! Clack-clack, clack.

It's fainter this time, but it still literally drives Peeves up the wall, clawing off several abandoned paintings. "Down, down, down, down! Deep, deep, deep, deep! Can't get out! Can't get in! What to do? What to do?"

The horrible rhyme only serves to upset the boy huddled against the door as Peeves throws himself to the floor, jerking on the Baron's misty robes. "Down there! It's down there!"

Snarling, the Bloody Baron thrusts Peeves off of him. "I know little fool! Something is down there..." He whirls around, as if afraid to keep his back unprotected and for a startling second, Harry wonders what can scare someone who is already dead?

"But this is the lowest level in Hogwarts. You simply cannot go deeper."

Hissing and spitting, Peeves waves his arms wildly like an impatient child. "If we can't go down, let's go up! Bloody Bastard! Up, up! Up~!" Again the poltergeist tries to drag the thoughtful ghost away, until finally the Baron deems that the sound has finally retreated.

"Very well, let us go away from this accursed place lest we find ourselves trapped, waiting and listening for eternity."

The two specters drift across the room and through the back wall, the singsong voice of Peeves drifting in through the stones, "Hunching, crunching, munching! Its hunger is so endless~! Singing, humming, lulling! It's searching so relentless~!

Shivering, the room's sole occupant stares at the empty spot on the ground. Chest rising and falling, his flushed body prickles with adrenaline. A dull throb pulses near the crown of his skull. A warm tickles his forehead. Harry reaches up to scratch at it and to his dismay, he jerks his hand down in surprise... staring at his own blood. Fear blinds him and the Potter heir retreats, darting back down the halls in fright.

The clacking sound still echoing in his mind.

Chapter End.