Quick little note before the chapter starts: I apologize for the lack of recent updates, but things will be slow from now on, though there are only a few chapters left.
A review pointed out something that I have been thinking for a while now, that things are confusing, the MC and the readers don't know what the fuck is going on, and there are no answers in sight.
I did want to write a more unorthodox narrative, but shit spiraled out of control long ago and only now am I considering doing something about it. For that I apologize.
I will be writing the rest of this with these faults in mind so I can remedy them and make sure you reading this right now, who has read this story up to this point, can get some sense of satisfaction out of the conclusion.
But keep in mind I've already kind of fucked it up and will be simply shoveling as much shit out as I can. Some things will be rushed, other things might come out of nowhere, but I will try my best.
Thank you for your time.
Chapter 27 - I've had these dreams so many times (Could there be an end to this? What I'm feeling deep inside)
"You can still do the right thing here. "The woman said assuringly, opening her arms wide, the gun in her hand pointing away from him. "She won't feel anything."
Her eyes pleaded for him to do the right thing, her words laced with conviction that she could sway him.
He hesitated for a moment, mind whirling with doubt.
He glanced down at the girl in his arms; the girl that had become his whole world by accident.
T̸̤̀h̵̩̀a̵̳͘t̶̖̆ ̸̹͗h̵̥̏a̷̖͋d̴̠̄ ̷͕̆s̴̙̀ṱ̵͗o̷̹̿ṗ̵̺p̶͚̀ê̴̱d̶̹̐ ̵̯͋ḩ̸̚i̴̭̍s̷͎̽ ̷̩̒ą̶͒ȉ̴̭m̷̳̒l̴̰̈e̴͈̕s̸̯͊s̷͍͒ ̷̻̚w̵̭͂a̵̠͊n̴̨͂d̷̬͝ḛ̸͆r̴̗͆i̵͍͋n̸̥͗g̸̼̐ ̵̲͒t̵̡͂h̸̙̆r̶͖͊ö̴̪́ŭ̶̪ǵ̴̯h̶͇̋ ̵̻͑t̷̮̀h̷̖͂i̶͕͆s̶̫̏ ̵̱͛d̶̩͂e̷̪̍s̷̝̈õ̶̺l̶̞̚ä̶̞́t̵̛̘e̵̞̒ ̷̝͌w̶͈͘o̷͆ͅr̷̗͗l̴͙͒d̷̛͎.̷̜̿
But he still pulled the trigger.
"Nathan!"
Nathan woke up to the sound of a gunshot, jumping up in bed, eyes swiveling everywhere. He let his head drop to his hands as he took greedy gasps of air to try and calm his racing heart.
His legs shook as he walked to the bathroom. His hands trembled as he splashed cold water in his face. His reflection was covered in blood, a kind of sixth sense telling him most of it wasn't his own. A small girl looked at him from the corner of the mirror, just as blood-soaked. He blinked, and the girl wasn't there anymore.
She was at his other side, smaller and intimately familiar to him in a way the other hadn't come close to being. Tears suddenly rushed to his eyes, forcing him to blink.
The girl had vanished.
With a weary sigh, Nathan walked out of the bathroom, a deep hole in his chest, growing and growing.
Nathan found himself in the room of requirements, looking through the veil of noise around him at the duel going on at the raised ring in the middle of the floor, spells flying about and hitting the walls of the protective barrier around the fight.
After various meetings of spell practicing, Professor Harry had made the executive decision of including dueling in the curriculum, his justification being that 'you need to know how to use these spells in stressful moments'. With how badly Nathan had been doing, he doubted dueling practice would make much of a difference.
Now, don't get him wrong, there was improvement. But it was so slow and inconsistent that any progress was tinged with bitterness. His movements were still stiff and clunky, his body still unnerved at how wrong it all felt.
Correct castings only started happening after words would be whispered in his ear and fill his chest with air, all the while phantom hands moved through his body, relaxing and tensing muscles as needed. His right hand moved to rub at the itching marks on his left arm as he remembered the sensations.
The more that it happened, the more anxious Nathan became. Because as much as the hands and whispers appeared, he could never see any ghosts. There was no flickering in his eyes, no double vision of people that shouldn't be there.
Nothing.
A 'thud' from the stage broke his daze, Nathan raising his head to look at the fallen student. He clapped along with everyone else as the triumphant dueller helped his defeated adversary from the ground, the two of them stepping down from the ring together.
"That was a good match! We still have time for one more." Harry said as Hermione looked at a clipboard from beside him, pointing something out to him a moment later. "Alice Tolipan and Nathan Winters, to the ring!"
Nathan winced hard at hearing his name, nails biting into the flesh of his arm. He shuffled onto the stage after a sympathetic pat on the back from Neville. He stood awkwardly across from his opponent, stiffly bowing to her, feeling his hands shake from all the stares focused on him.
He took a deep, shaky breath, static flaring around him as he took his stance, spectral hands settling his limbs in the correct position. It felt like he was holding a sword instead of a wand. His free hand, raised and shaky, burned at the words etched into his skin like veins.
A muffled noise sounded and his opponent moved, shooting a spell he couldn't hear at him. Nathan jumped to the side, wand slashing through the air with force, energy flying wide of the girl across him. The static grew.
His opponent kept throwing a barrage of spells at him as he kept dodging, sending a few ill aimed spells back. The girl barely moved from her initial position.
The noise flared around him,You won't break whispered into his ears encouragingly by ghosts. An opening appeared, Nathan immediately sending an expelliarmus at the girl's wand. She stopped it with a shield, Nathan taking the opportunity to send his own barrage.
One of his spells barely reached her, and his opponent turned the tables, advancing on him and forcing Nathan to take the defensive. He started jogging around in circles around her.
He could feel his mind fogging up as he kept dodging and attacking. There wasn't much he could do, not when he could barely hit his spells when he wasn't actively being attacked. Not when the veil of white noise seemed to get denser and denser around him, the hands previously pushing him now seeming to choke the air out of his throat. The scars in his arm burned.
A spell came at his feet and he jumped over it, his opponent sending another one in front of him, impossible to dodge even as he stumbled trying to do so.
Movement slowed, like he was sinking in water. The spell traveled towards him in slow motion. The static flared angrily around him, angry and panicked, fervent whispers all around him telling him to move move MOVE.
His body moved.
He fell to the barren ground in a roll, twisting his body by the end of it and bringing himself up in one fluid motion. He stood tall with the sword in his hand, facing the smirking man that would note leave his nightmares.
The crazed war hero swung his arms, fireballs and ice and lightning flying from his hands. Nathan dodged and weaved in between them, deflecting the magic with his enormous blade when needed.
He saw panic growing on the man's face as he gained on him, one last wide swing of his arm sending a wide wave of energy out. Nathan jumped sideways to evade it, swinging in place to face his enemy again, crushing the white flowers in the field.
The husk of a man swung his sword, blades of energy flying towards Nathan. He sent his own attacks back with his weapon, rushing forwards between swings.
In the back of his mind, Nathan wondered why the usually stoic man looked so scared. It didn't stop his advance.
The deteriorating man pointed his sword straight, both hands shaking as a beam shot out of the tip. Nathan was forced to roll to the side.
He slid on the sand stained red, stopping in a crouch, gazing at the viciously smirking king across him. Corpses spanned the horizon, all manner of blades impaling them. Nathan remembered every single one of the weapon's names. He couldn't remember the faces of the dead.
The man raised his hand, countless blades ripping through the fabric of the sky. Nathan felt his breath catch as he was surrounded. The weapons remained still, the man simply looking at him.
The king dropped his hand, the blades barreling forwards. Nathan jumped forwards, rushing through the barrage, ignoring the cuts around his body.
His enemy swung their arm, a blade materializing and cutting through the air. Nathan twisted into a roll, carrying the momentum as he came back up, swinging his blade with all his strength, sending the wind cutting forwards.
The king hastily summoned a shield, Nathan pouncing on it in the same instant. The shield shattered, both men falling to the ground. Nathan got back up immediately, intent on pressing his assault. He looked deep into his enemy's eyes.
The sudden, unadulterated fear on the man's wicked face looked so wrong that Nathan felt the world shift around him, air breaking like glass revealing…
…Reality right behind it.
The frightened girl stared back at him from the ground, wand far away and trembling arms barely keeping her upright, Harry standing almost in between them. Nathan forced his stiff muscles out of their offensive position, almost falling backwards as his knees buckled under his sudden lack of strength. The lines in his arm burned.
"I-I'm so—" Words failed as his vision blurred and swayed. The world returned to focus as someone caught him before he could fall backwards. His dull mind noted the girl scrambling away from the arena, Harry turning his eyes to him, before facing the crowd.
"Right, so," Harry piped up awkwardly as the dueling ring vanished. "That's it for this lesson…"
Nathan tuned out the rest of his speech, focused on keeping the darkness in the edge of his vision from spreading, leaning heavily on Neville as the boy helped him down the stage.
At one point they left the Room of Requirements, his friend still dragging him back to the common room. Nathan's consciousness flitted out to the point he felt like he was teleporting from place to place. The feeling became all the more vivid once he saw Neville had taken him to the hospital wing.
"N-no…" He weakly tried to push his friend away, only succeeding in making the hold tighter.
He heard the groaning of the doors opening and voices talking in hushed tones, but his blurry vision made it impossible to make anything more than colors and shapes. That's good, he thought sluggishly. I prefer it like this.
A sudden light shone in his eyes, forcing them to focus back as the static came back. Madame Pomphrey stared back at him, wand point lit up and moving in front of his pupils. Even through the blinding light he could see the lack of recognition from the woman.
More tests were done before the matron walked away, presumably saying what she always did: That there was nothing wrong with him other than exhaustion and stress. He snorted loud enough to hurt his throat.
"What's so funny?"
He startled, turning to the voice he heard through the ringing, finally noticing Neville wasn't the only one that had brought him here: Hermione stared with fury and concern at him, Harry had his intense eyes full of worry, all the while Luna tried and failed to keep her whimsical façade. He turned away.
Warm hands turned his face back to his friends. "What happened?" Hermione asked once more, this time letting her worry consume her anger.
"Nothing." He ripped his head from her hands."Just ended up zoning out during the spar, won't happen again."
"Is that why you almost fainted afterwards?" Came Harry's harsh voice.
Nathan sighed, "I've just been a little under the weather lately, It won't happe-"
*CRACK*
The words died in his throat at the deafening sound that silenced the ringing. Nathan twisted his head with worry to look back at his friends. There was no broken glass as the sound had implied, but his heart broke like it was made of it at the looks on his friend's faces.
Their eyes were impossibly wide, quickly glassing up with tears as their gaze flitted from his face to the rest of him, then to his arm, then back to his face. It was like they were seeing him for the first—
Oh.
It was a strange realization, an impossible epiphany to have with a mind so fogged up such as his was. But it was crystal clear to him that whatever magic, whatever curse, that kept people from remembering, seeing him, had been affecting his friends, even if in a minor way.
And it had just been broken.
"Nat-Nathan…" Hermione didn't continue as she reached forwards in a daze, hands cupping his cheek softly as her eyes were glued to the impossibly dark bags under his eyes. Her gaze turned to his scarred arm, the girl choking on a gasp as tears started falling from her eyes as her gentle fingers ghosted over the lines, until they disappeared under his sleeve.
Behind her he could see the others approaching, eyes just as pitying and terrified as her's.
Nathan felt such shame that he wanted it to choke him dead.
"What-when-" Hermione tried to ask, gaze going back to him while her trembling hands held his own. He could see the glow from his eyes reflected on her brown ones.
Nathan said nothing. He wanted to say something, anything, lie or truth. But his mouth wouldn't open, his voice wouldn't come out. Vaguely he noted the ache in his chest from every punch-like heartbeat.
"Is it the nightmares?"
Nathan cracked his neck with the speed he turned to Harry, watching as his eyes widened even more from his realization. "You woke up screaming that one time."
"Merlin! How-how did I forget th-that?" Neville cut himself off, hands coming up to tangle in his hair. "It was terrifying. And-and I just went back to sleep!"
"What!?" Hermione shouted, turning to pierce Neville and Harry with her gaze.
Luna approached him slowly, eyes glistening and impossibly wide. Nathan felt himself choke even more.
"On the second task," Her voice was a whisper that echoed through the silent room. "You looked like you were dying. It had nothing to do with sea sickness."
Her words were an affirmation that rang loudly in his ears, yet he still couldn't say anything. His eyes burned as he turned away from the group once more. Warm hands didn't let him finish the motion, bringing him back to face all four of his friends. The tears built up even more as he was unable to hide them.
"Nathan, please," Hermione asked, pleaded. "Talk to me."
But he couldn't.
His eyes flitted from friend to friend to friend, all of them more than willing to listen, all of them willing to believe.
But he couldn't.
"Please…" Hermione cried as he looked back into her deep brown eyes.
Nathan blinked, and he could see the ghosts, far away and all over the room, all looking at him just like his friends were.
"I have nightmares." The words tumbled out as Nathan felt control slip from him, his body going numb from head to toe. At the moment, he was thankful. "I can't sleep well at night."
No one said anything, but their eyes told him to continue. The ghosts whispered for him to continue. Nathan took a shaky breath.
"Sometimes I dream I'm being cut or stabbed or burned, and I wake up feeling everything in my skin." His friends gasped but the words kept spilling from him. "And I see ghosts, or—or visions of what I see in my dreams, and—and they—"
The words strangled him as the numbness faded completely, leaving only a cold tingling and the all consuming fear of being judged.
His downcast eyes were pulled to the ghosts, seeing their worried, but still encouraging eyes. His friends were looking at him the same way.
"They scare me."
Deafening silence reigned as he finished and sat with his head down. his chest was filled with guilt of not telling them all of the details, his gut roiling with the shame of finally acknowledging the nut job that he was. He could just imagine the heartbroken faces of the specters surrounding him.
"Why didn't you say anything earlier?"
He raised his head to look at Luna, her eyes accusing him of everything she hadn't asked. Why didn't you come to me? Why didn't you trust me?
In spite of himself, a wry smile twisted his lips. "How do you tell someone that you're going insane?"
"You're not going insane!" Hermione stated resolutely. "You're not! There has to be an explanation to all of this. A disease or disorder, or-or a curse, maybe even-"
"Thank you…" Nathan smiled genuinely, sagging with the relief of her easy acceptance.
Neville and Harry had gone to fetch Madame Pomphrey once more and were in the process of recounting what he had just told all of them. A pit formed in his stomach as the matron turned to him once more to run another round of diagnostics and found nothing.
Nathan almost started crying again as the woman apologized about not finding anything and promising to look further into things, and walking away after dropping a vial of dreamless sleep on his hand.
But then his friends were there, hugging him and holding him up as he rose from the bed, and it almost felt like hope took place in his chest once more.
They walked together through the deserted corridors in silence, all too emotionally drained. Lunna was left on the Ravenclaw's doorstep, parting with one last hug and distraught look.
The woman in the portrait of the Gryffindor common room gasped at him like she had done once before, and the Deja Vú made him smile and ache at the same time.
Hermione hugged him tight before she ascended to her own room, sending one last lingering gaze in his direction.
Neville and Harry helped him up the stairs and into the dorm, where Nathan made a beeline to his bed, falling heavily on it so he could take off his boots. One of his hands absently rummaged through his bag.
A hand on his shoulder stopped him from flopping down on his bed as he turned to Neville with Harry beside him.
"Don't-" Neville bit his lip before continuing. "Don't silence your curtains, okay?"
"Okay." Nathan said faintly, eyes roaming from boy to boy.
"Okay." Neville repeated back. "Good night…"
Both boys stepped away, still looking at him. Nathan let himself fall back on the bed, one hand closing the curtains only part way, the other holding Hermione's scarf limply.
Nathan fell asleep crying quietly and hiding his face in the warm fabric. Harry and Neville fell asleep only after they stopped hearing the sound of their friend falling apart.