Disclaimer: Everyone else has one, so I guess I'll jump on the bandwagon!
It's not mine everyone! Nothing's mine! So there! *sticks out tongue*
Ha!
A/N: Hey everyone! This is the first fanfic I've ever posted, though not the first one I've attempted to write. I'd really appreciate any constructive advice you could give me in reviews. I got the idea from listening to a song, so if anyone wants to 'set the mood' or something, it's "Paradise" by Vanessa Carlton...though the part of the story that ties in with the song won't really come in until later...
~ Undead ~
Chapter 1 ~ Fire and Ice
Harry lay on his bed in Hogwarts, staring into space and trying fairly successfully to think of absolutely nothing. He had a vague feeling that he should be doing something, but he pushed it aside. For a moment he had almost thought that getting up and doing something would be a pleasant change, something to take his mind off of...whatever it had been on. He lifted a hand and stared at it vaguely. Movement wasn't so bad after all; it wasn't his body that was hurting – not as much, anyway. The blood-red light of the sunset was streaming though the window and tinting the room with fire. He watched the light play over his hand and remembered a fiery hue just like that, with the light and shadows playing over it in wild abandon...he let his hand drop.
He lay there watching the scarlet light fade into blackness, and thought it was fitting. As the last vestiges of light disappeared, so too did his consciousness, and Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, slipped into a fitful slumber.
~ * ~
"No, Ginny! You can't come with us! Go back to sleep or I'll...I'll...I'll sic Fred and George on you tomorrow and tell them I saw you kissing Malfoy!"
"Oh, Ron, come off it! I need to go to Zonko's and Honeydukes is just calling my name. It's not like I'm a baby you'll need to coddle or anything; I'm more mature than you, any day!"
"No! How did you find out anyway? It's just me, Harry, and Hermione going, and I can't see one of them telling you."
"You are so incredibly insufferable sometimes! Me, Harry, and Hermione also happen to be friends, in case you hadn't noticed. And Harry let it slip while we were in the library...I think he was distracted by the essay he was writing or something..."
~ * ~
"Sheesh, Ron, are you her father or something? Let her come if she wants. Yeah, yeah, she's your sister and all, but will it really hurt? She's a lot fun to hang out with...I like being with her..."
~ * ~
"Lets go to Zonko's now! I've been dying to get in there, I need to stock up on some dung bombs!"
"What, are you trying to follow in Fred and George's footsteps? Not that I mind, just don't team up with them when we're at home, ok? I'd never live!"
"Harry! What was that? I thought I heard something."
"I dunno, Hermione. I bet it's nothing, don't worry about it...."
~ * ~
Screams...
Something green shot at him from the vicinity of a dark robe and he ducked quickly, just barely hitting the ground in time...
He looked up from his vantage on the ground to see a redhead ducking another burst of green light, only to skid into the path of another killing curse...
A horrified denial sprang to his lips and he tried to jump to his feet but he was held in a peculiar paralysis that wouldn't let him up...
Just before the light connected, another redheaded figure transposed itself in the way of the curse. The light connected and a burst of evil flame blossomed...
Brown eyes staring into his, trying to tell him...something, too late as the light flickered and died, leaving him in absolute darkness...
He screamed a name into the void...
~ * ~
Harry sat up in his bed, soaked in sweat and trembling violently in every painfully taught muscle. He realized that he must have screamed out loud, as Lavender, who was sitting in a chair by his bedside, was looking at him with frightened and concerned eyes. He supposed that someone was anxious about him, and had sent her to keep watch over him. It was a kind gesture, but it went largely unappreciated as Harry scowled at her and promptly lay down with his back towards her. After all, he wasn't made of glass. He'd lived through quite a bit before this...he'd survived then, and he would now...Harry drifted back to sleep.
~ * ~
Screams...
~ * ~
When Harry awoke in the morning, he felt slightly more alive physically than he had the night before, but the horrible dreams that plagued his sleep had left him emotionally drained. He rolled over on his back and noticed that Lavender had fallen asleep with her head on his bedside table, her face tear-streaked. He raised a hand to his own cheeks and felt the gummy stickiness of dried tears and blood. He rubbed a little and looked with disgust at the flakes of dark red that came off on his fingers. Abruptly, he couldn't stand being dirty anymore; it didn't matter that the blood was probably his own, since he recalled having a rather magnificent nosebleed. He needed to get it off of him.
Harry scrambled out of bed rather gracelessly as his head and stomach both tried to turn themselves upside down and stumbled of to the boys' bathroom. Nobody would be there but him since those few others who had stayed at Hogwarts over Christmas vacation were usually all up by now. Breakfast was probably going on about now; he was guaranteed his privacy.
He steadfastly refused to let himself look in the mirror and slowly undressed despite the protesting of much-abused muscles. He lowered himself into a steaming tub and soaked all of the blood, sweat, and grime off. He maintained a studiously blank mind throughout his bath. After all, the last thing he wanted to think about was...
He winced and hauled himself out of the bath quickly, dressing as hurriedly as he could. As he made his way to the door, he couldn't help but glance in the mirror. The face that regarded him back was not the one he was used to calling his own. It was haggard and those sparkling green eyes that had been so widely admired were flat and hard. It reminded him of nothing quite so much as Sirius's face just after he had escaped from Azkaban. Sirius, however, had recovered somewhat and, at the moment, looked much better than Harry did.
"Harry! Having a good time admiring your reflection, are you?" a familiar voice sneered at him from the doorway. Harry slowly turned toward a face that was twisted in grief and anger. The fire of Ron's hair almost seemed to have extended into his eyes and the flames consumed all hint of reason.
"I'm so glad you've found some time for yourself this glorious morning. The reporters will be flocking to you later on, I'm sure, to get the story on how the Boy Who Lived has lived yet again and gotten another one of his friends killed! Maybe you'll get lucky and your own personal publicist, Rita Skeeter, will be there to get the 'exclusive story.'"
Harry stared at Ron with a vague sadness but didn't lower his eyes from Ron's fiery gaze. Fire could not burn ice, and just as Ron was erupting into flames, Harry was hardening into ice. He gazed impassively as Ron continued his tirade.
"Why did you do that? Or rather, why didn't you? You should have stopped it! It's all your fault, everything! You just lay there like a beaten dog, d'you know that? A beaten dog! You should have died instead of her!" Ron's anguished cry touched something deep inside of Harry, and he found the strength to respond.
"I know I should have died...believe me, I know."
~ * ~
"You stupid prat!" Ginny felt like yelling, so she tried, even though nothing happened. The dead don't really sound like much to the living and nobody heard her. Oh, she heard herself, but it was insubstantial, meaningless, if the person she was yelling at hadn't the faintest clue of what was going on.
She watched Ron as he paced back and forth in the boys dormitory, muttering derogatory things about Harry under his breath. How dare he say those things about Harry? How dare he think that her sacrifice was somehow Harry's fault? She had died to save him, but she wasn't getting the least bit of gratitude...she sighed. Ginny knew it was hard for him and that he missed her. Ron had always tended to express his really strong feelings as either embarrassment or anger; she supposed that the depth of his anger was a sort if backhanded compliment.
"Please get over it, Ron," she whispered. "You and Harry need each other, and Hermione needs you both to be strong...Please..." But Ron took no notice.
Just then, Harry entered the room slowly, cautiously, as if each movement might be the one that caused him to disintegrate into dust. Ron immediately spun on him and began to tell him off for coming into the room, for daring to show himself in Ron's presence, and finally, for Ginny's murder. Her anger mounted, but there was nothing she could do, so she held her tongue. There was a strange helplessness about being dead.
At first, she thought that Harry was just going to stand there and take it, head bowed, but then he raised his face, and she gasped at the look in his eyes. She had loved those eyes, loved everything about him. Those beautiful eyes were the windows into everything he was. As she looked into them now, she saw that all he was, all he had become, was grief and a terrible guilt.
"Please, Ron," he said gently and distantly, " I understand. I just want to be left alone. Please?"
"No, I won't leave you alone!" Ron snapped obnoxiously back, "It was your fault she did that, you were the one who gave her all those crazy ideas about heroism, only you never got killed. Why is that? I never was with you at the end, you know. For all I know, you could be in league with You-Know-Who, and you're just trying to cover it all up." Ron plowed on, oblivious to the mounting rage in Harry's eyes. Ginny had never seen that look on his face before, and it scared her. She hadn't saved her brother's life only to have Harry kill him. But Harry seemed to keep control until Ron crossed the line in his ranting.
"I bet you didn't care about her at all. She was just expendable, wasn't she? Death Eater fodder. Who cares about the little redhead girl? She's just another Weasley, and there are so many of them that people lose count..." He would have continued except that he suddenly found himself slammed up against a wall with Harry's hand around his throat. There was such madness in Harry's face that Ginny couldn't help herself – she screamed.
And Harry, living Harry, who shouldn't have been able to hear her, dropped Ron gasping to the floor and looked around wildly.
~ * ~
The ice in his soul was melting from the heat of his rage. Harry knew deep inside that everything Ron said about the cause of Ginny's death was true. He was the only one to blame, but how could Ron ever suggest that he hadn't cared for Ginny? What gave him the right to make accusations like that? He didn't know anything!
Before Harry knew it, he had Ron's neck in his hands and Ron was smashed up against a wall, his eyes dazed and shocked, but still hate- filled. Harry's hands tightened convulsively and Ron's face started to turn red.
A shrill scream shattered the air.
Harry dropped Ron and looked around wildly. There was no one who could have screamed, but it had sounded like it had come from within the room.
"Where did that come from? Who screamed?" Harry asked frantically, telling himself that he wasn't starting to relive that night even when awake now.
"Nobody bloody screamed! It certainly wasn't me, you were cutting off my air very nicely, thank you!" Ron replied. "I didn't hear a thing."
"Somebody screamed, I heard it! It was a girl, it sounded...it sounded like Ginny."
"Harry, you can't be serious. You know very well that she's dead," the last word was bitten off with a semblance of his former anger, but it wasn't as convincing since it was tinged with a significant amount of worry.
"Ginny..." he whispered, turning around on the spot and scrutinizing the room as if he though she was hiding in a corner. Oh, how he wished she was!
Ron was now looking at him as if he was seriously deranged. "Harry," he said hesitantly, and flinched when Harry spun to face him. He hadn't really given much thought to anyone's grief but his own until this point since he had been so wrapped up in his own mourning and anger, but the look in Harry's eyes was so lost that Ron was immediately more concerned for Harry than for himself.
"Harry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean all those things I said," Ron muttered, and when Harry nodded vaguely and continued to search the room with his eyes, Ron gave up his last hope that this had been a ploy to get him to apologize. "Harry, she's gone. Come on, let's go find Hermione, she'll need a shoulder, too, probably..." Ron grabbed Harry's hand and began to tug him out the door, but Harry resisted. Finally, Harry allowed himself to be led out of the room like a small child, still looking over his shoulder as if he was leaving someone behind.
A/N: Hey everyone! This is the first fanfic I've ever posted, though not the first one I've attempted to write. I'd really appreciate any constructive advice you could give me in reviews. I got the idea from listening to a song, so if anyone wants to 'set the mood' or something, it's "Paradise" by Vanessa Carlton...though the part of the story that ties in with the song won't really come in until later...
~ Undead ~
Chapter 1 ~ Fire and Ice
Harry lay on his bed in Hogwarts, staring into space and trying fairly successfully to think of absolutely nothing. He had a vague feeling that he should be doing something, but he pushed it aside. For a moment he had almost thought that getting up and doing something would be a pleasant change, something to take his mind off of...whatever it had been on. He lifted a hand and stared at it vaguely. Movement wasn't so bad after all; it wasn't his body that was hurting – not as much, anyway. The blood-red light of the sunset was streaming though the window and tinting the room with fire. He watched the light play over his hand and remembered a fiery hue just like that, with the light and shadows playing over it in wild abandon...he let his hand drop.
He lay there watching the scarlet light fade into blackness, and thought it was fitting. As the last vestiges of light disappeared, so too did his consciousness, and Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, slipped into a fitful slumber.
~ * ~
"No, Ginny! You can't come with us! Go back to sleep or I'll...I'll...I'll sic Fred and George on you tomorrow and tell them I saw you kissing Malfoy!"
"Oh, Ron, come off it! I need to go to Zonko's and Honeydukes is just calling my name. It's not like I'm a baby you'll need to coddle or anything; I'm more mature than you, any day!"
"No! How did you find out anyway? It's just me, Harry, and Hermione going, and I can't see one of them telling you."
"You are so incredibly insufferable sometimes! Me, Harry, and Hermione also happen to be friends, in case you hadn't noticed. And Harry let it slip while we were in the library...I think he was distracted by the essay he was writing or something..."
~ * ~
"Sheesh, Ron, are you her father or something? Let her come if she wants. Yeah, yeah, she's your sister and all, but will it really hurt? She's a lot fun to hang out with...I like being with her..."
~ * ~
"Lets go to Zonko's now! I've been dying to get in there, I need to stock up on some dung bombs!"
"What, are you trying to follow in Fred and George's footsteps? Not that I mind, just don't team up with them when we're at home, ok? I'd never live!"
"Harry! What was that? I thought I heard something."
"I dunno, Hermione. I bet it's nothing, don't worry about it...."
~ * ~
Screams...
Something green shot at him from the vicinity of a dark robe and he ducked quickly, just barely hitting the ground in time...
He looked up from his vantage on the ground to see a redhead ducking another burst of green light, only to skid into the path of another killing curse...
A horrified denial sprang to his lips and he tried to jump to his feet but he was held in a peculiar paralysis that wouldn't let him up...
Just before the light connected, another redheaded figure transposed itself in the way of the curse. The light connected and a burst of evil flame blossomed...
Brown eyes staring into his, trying to tell him...something, too late as the light flickered and died, leaving him in absolute darkness...
He screamed a name into the void...
~ * ~
Harry sat up in his bed, soaked in sweat and trembling violently in every painfully taught muscle. He realized that he must have screamed out loud, as Lavender, who was sitting in a chair by his bedside, was looking at him with frightened and concerned eyes. He supposed that someone was anxious about him, and had sent her to keep watch over him. It was a kind gesture, but it went largely unappreciated as Harry scowled at her and promptly lay down with his back towards her. After all, he wasn't made of glass. He'd lived through quite a bit before this...he'd survived then, and he would now...Harry drifted back to sleep.
~ * ~
Screams...
~ * ~
When Harry awoke in the morning, he felt slightly more alive physically than he had the night before, but the horrible dreams that plagued his sleep had left him emotionally drained. He rolled over on his back and noticed that Lavender had fallen asleep with her head on his bedside table, her face tear-streaked. He raised a hand to his own cheeks and felt the gummy stickiness of dried tears and blood. He rubbed a little and looked with disgust at the flakes of dark red that came off on his fingers. Abruptly, he couldn't stand being dirty anymore; it didn't matter that the blood was probably his own, since he recalled having a rather magnificent nosebleed. He needed to get it off of him.
Harry scrambled out of bed rather gracelessly as his head and stomach both tried to turn themselves upside down and stumbled of to the boys' bathroom. Nobody would be there but him since those few others who had stayed at Hogwarts over Christmas vacation were usually all up by now. Breakfast was probably going on about now; he was guaranteed his privacy.
He steadfastly refused to let himself look in the mirror and slowly undressed despite the protesting of much-abused muscles. He lowered himself into a steaming tub and soaked all of the blood, sweat, and grime off. He maintained a studiously blank mind throughout his bath. After all, the last thing he wanted to think about was...
He winced and hauled himself out of the bath quickly, dressing as hurriedly as he could. As he made his way to the door, he couldn't help but glance in the mirror. The face that regarded him back was not the one he was used to calling his own. It was haggard and those sparkling green eyes that had been so widely admired were flat and hard. It reminded him of nothing quite so much as Sirius's face just after he had escaped from Azkaban. Sirius, however, had recovered somewhat and, at the moment, looked much better than Harry did.
"Harry! Having a good time admiring your reflection, are you?" a familiar voice sneered at him from the doorway. Harry slowly turned toward a face that was twisted in grief and anger. The fire of Ron's hair almost seemed to have extended into his eyes and the flames consumed all hint of reason.
"I'm so glad you've found some time for yourself this glorious morning. The reporters will be flocking to you later on, I'm sure, to get the story on how the Boy Who Lived has lived yet again and gotten another one of his friends killed! Maybe you'll get lucky and your own personal publicist, Rita Skeeter, will be there to get the 'exclusive story.'"
Harry stared at Ron with a vague sadness but didn't lower his eyes from Ron's fiery gaze. Fire could not burn ice, and just as Ron was erupting into flames, Harry was hardening into ice. He gazed impassively as Ron continued his tirade.
"Why did you do that? Or rather, why didn't you? You should have stopped it! It's all your fault, everything! You just lay there like a beaten dog, d'you know that? A beaten dog! You should have died instead of her!" Ron's anguished cry touched something deep inside of Harry, and he found the strength to respond.
"I know I should have died...believe me, I know."
~ * ~
"You stupid prat!" Ginny felt like yelling, so she tried, even though nothing happened. The dead don't really sound like much to the living and nobody heard her. Oh, she heard herself, but it was insubstantial, meaningless, if the person she was yelling at hadn't the faintest clue of what was going on.
She watched Ron as he paced back and forth in the boys dormitory, muttering derogatory things about Harry under his breath. How dare he say those things about Harry? How dare he think that her sacrifice was somehow Harry's fault? She had died to save him, but she wasn't getting the least bit of gratitude...she sighed. Ginny knew it was hard for him and that he missed her. Ron had always tended to express his really strong feelings as either embarrassment or anger; she supposed that the depth of his anger was a sort if backhanded compliment.
"Please get over it, Ron," she whispered. "You and Harry need each other, and Hermione needs you both to be strong...Please..." But Ron took no notice.
Just then, Harry entered the room slowly, cautiously, as if each movement might be the one that caused him to disintegrate into dust. Ron immediately spun on him and began to tell him off for coming into the room, for daring to show himself in Ron's presence, and finally, for Ginny's murder. Her anger mounted, but there was nothing she could do, so she held her tongue. There was a strange helplessness about being dead.
At first, she thought that Harry was just going to stand there and take it, head bowed, but then he raised his face, and she gasped at the look in his eyes. She had loved those eyes, loved everything about him. Those beautiful eyes were the windows into everything he was. As she looked into them now, she saw that all he was, all he had become, was grief and a terrible guilt.
"Please, Ron," he said gently and distantly, " I understand. I just want to be left alone. Please?"
"No, I won't leave you alone!" Ron snapped obnoxiously back, "It was your fault she did that, you were the one who gave her all those crazy ideas about heroism, only you never got killed. Why is that? I never was with you at the end, you know. For all I know, you could be in league with You-Know-Who, and you're just trying to cover it all up." Ron plowed on, oblivious to the mounting rage in Harry's eyes. Ginny had never seen that look on his face before, and it scared her. She hadn't saved her brother's life only to have Harry kill him. But Harry seemed to keep control until Ron crossed the line in his ranting.
"I bet you didn't care about her at all. She was just expendable, wasn't she? Death Eater fodder. Who cares about the little redhead girl? She's just another Weasley, and there are so many of them that people lose count..." He would have continued except that he suddenly found himself slammed up against a wall with Harry's hand around his throat. There was such madness in Harry's face that Ginny couldn't help herself – she screamed.
And Harry, living Harry, who shouldn't have been able to hear her, dropped Ron gasping to the floor and looked around wildly.
~ * ~
The ice in his soul was melting from the heat of his rage. Harry knew deep inside that everything Ron said about the cause of Ginny's death was true. He was the only one to blame, but how could Ron ever suggest that he hadn't cared for Ginny? What gave him the right to make accusations like that? He didn't know anything!
Before Harry knew it, he had Ron's neck in his hands and Ron was smashed up against a wall, his eyes dazed and shocked, but still hate- filled. Harry's hands tightened convulsively and Ron's face started to turn red.
A shrill scream shattered the air.
Harry dropped Ron and looked around wildly. There was no one who could have screamed, but it had sounded like it had come from within the room.
"Where did that come from? Who screamed?" Harry asked frantically, telling himself that he wasn't starting to relive that night even when awake now.
"Nobody bloody screamed! It certainly wasn't me, you were cutting off my air very nicely, thank you!" Ron replied. "I didn't hear a thing."
"Somebody screamed, I heard it! It was a girl, it sounded...it sounded like Ginny."
"Harry, you can't be serious. You know very well that she's dead," the last word was bitten off with a semblance of his former anger, but it wasn't as convincing since it was tinged with a significant amount of worry.
"Ginny..." he whispered, turning around on the spot and scrutinizing the room as if he though she was hiding in a corner. Oh, how he wished she was!
Ron was now looking at him as if he was seriously deranged. "Harry," he said hesitantly, and flinched when Harry spun to face him. He hadn't really given much thought to anyone's grief but his own until this point since he had been so wrapped up in his own mourning and anger, but the look in Harry's eyes was so lost that Ron was immediately more concerned for Harry than for himself.
"Harry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean all those things I said," Ron muttered, and when Harry nodded vaguely and continued to search the room with his eyes, Ron gave up his last hope that this had been a ploy to get him to apologize. "Harry, she's gone. Come on, let's go find Hermione, she'll need a shoulder, too, probably..." Ron grabbed Harry's hand and began to tug him out the door, but Harry resisted. Finally, Harry allowed himself to be led out of the room like a small child, still looking over his shoulder as if he was leaving someone behind.