Chapter Text
Dean Thomas was sitting on his bed, laying back and reading over his notes for Charms. It had been a strangely difficult class that day, and he wanted to read over the material once more to make sure he had understood the incantations and wand movements.
It was a quiet night, with his dorm-mates not speaking too much to each other. It had been tense, recently. Seamus was fully laid back in his bed, throwing a ball up and down and trying to keep it floating up there whenever he chucked it up. It wasn’t working too well, much to Ron’s amusement.
Neville was tending to one of his plants, and smiling to himself as the plant moved luxuriously in its pot. It was one of his passions, Herbology, everyone knew that.
Harry… no one really talked about him, at the moment.
It was the reason everyone had been so tense, and Dean didn’t particularly think it was Harry’s fault at all. He hadn’t paid much mind to the whole ‘Hate Harry Bandwagon’. It seemed cruel, and it was clearly taking its toll on the boy.
No one had seen much of him, especially with his brick-hard wards surrounding his bed to allow no one else entry aside from him. No one really talked about him, and bringing it up would endure a rant from Ron.
Dean had wondered when it would be fit to mention Harry, since the first task had passed not too long ago, and clearly Ron had been trying to fix his errors and mend his ways. Harry seemed to be having none of it, though Dean couldn’t tell if that was Harry not wanting to reconcile, or Harry just… not being present.
Speaking of Harry, he had glanced over at the gentle noise of something clattering onto the floor. Recognising it as Harry’s wand, he padded over and bent down to pick it up.
He flipped it over in his hand, examining it. Definitely Harry’s. He pondered for a moment, over a number of things. Why would Harry drop his wand from inside his own bed? Dean knew he had held onto it with a firm grasp ever since the night of the name picking, so how could he have lost the grip on it so carelessly?
His next question was how he was supposed to give it back to him. The wards encasing the four poster bed prevented literally anyone, anything from bothering Harry. Would Harry come out and ask for it back? Did he realise it was gone?
Amidst his pondering, Seamus had noticed him standing next to Harry’s bed, with a wand that wasn’t his.
“Dean?”
Snapping out of his thoughts, Dean turned to Seamus and motioned to the wand in his hand.
“Sorry, lost in thought. Not sure how I’m supposed to give this back to him.” He gestured, whilst shrugging helplessly.
“Oh,” Seamus said, with a frown on his face. He didn’t know how to feel about Harry, after all. “Just, I dunno. Try the curtains?”
“Okay..” Dean said, whilst drawing out the ‘O’. “Just gonna- Do this?”
He fumbled against the maroon curtains, to no avail. They moved with his hand, but showed no sign of breaking apart.
Dean sighed.
“Should I just wait till morning then? Leave it on his desk when he wakes?”
Seamus shrugged, and Dean popped and put Harry’s wand on his barren bedside table. As he was moving back to his own bed, intending to pick up his shortly forgotten Charms textbook, Seamus started.
“Ron, mate, you alright over there?” Seamus asked, looking at the bed positioned next to Harry’s.
Dean stopped his journey, and made a new one to see what Seamus was on about, as he too had stopped and stared at what Ron was frozen about.
Neville had perked up from behind his plant at all the chatter, and the stop of said chatter. Dean soon rounded to the other side of the room, curious as to what had quirked their silence.
“Guys? What’s up-“ He cut himself off, as following his friend’s gaze, he too saw what had shut their mouths and induced wide eyes.
From the left side of Harry’s bed, the one that met Ron’s, blood was steadily trickling down the mattress and pooling sweetly on the floor.
Amongst his frozen stare, Ron had started to shake Harry’s curtains violently, pleading internally for them to part so he could see what was going on.
Dean ran over, carefully avoiding the now rather large pool of shiny blood that decorated the floor. He joined Ron in trying to pry the wards off, though he knew it would be a difficult feat. He had felt the strength behind the wards before, and hadn’t even tried to challenge them knowing it would be a failed mission.
He begged for a successful mission, this once.
Dean and Ron eventually pulled the curtains open with a large crack resonating through the room, indicating that the wards had been broken. The two fell onto Ron’s bed due to the force, but they quickly got back up and looked inside the bed.
Laying on the red covers, Dean couldn’t differentiate from the bed duvet, or the blood that seemed to be pouring endlessly out of Harry’s left wrist.
His arms lay unmoving, with his wrists on both sides resting off the mattress and dangling delicately. Blood reached from the never-ending amount of deep gashes littering the skin, dripping from his fingertips and adding to the well.
Ron froze, and Dean cursed loudly.
“Fuck! Fuck, fuck fuck!” He said, scrambling to rush further towards the unconscious, and deathly pale boy. He grabbed Harry’s head, grasped his cheeks and shook.
“Harry? Harry! Wake up, please Merlin wake up,” Dean pleaded, whilst still shaking Harry’s head in his hands, before moving to pick up his limp wrist. “Come on, please-“
Dean choked, he didn’t know what to do in this situation. He felt deep, penetrative fear fufill him as he watched more, and more blood seep from Harry’s wrist.
He whipped around with blood stained fingers still grasping onto Harry, and told Seamus and Neville to go get McGonnagall immediately.
Seamus hesitated, and Neville stood up, shaking.
“Guys, now, please!” He said, trying to maintain a strong persona but his voice cracked and shrivelled with worry.
Eventually, it kicked in for the two and they scrambled out the room and almost fell down the stairs.
Left was Dean and Ron, and all he could do was stand frozen, looking at his best friend bleed out in-front of him. His mind was racing a million thoughts a second, as he watched Dean pull a piece of cloth out of thin-air and try to apply pressure to the cuts.
Cuts. Cuts on Harry’s wrist, his best friends wrists. Ron wondered if he could even say Harry was his best friend, after these past few months. His treatment of Harry came flinging back, and slapped Ron across the face and daggers into his heart.
He had been too blinded by anger, to realise the impact on what he had been doing to Harry. In his moment, frozen and unable to move or reach forward to help Harry, it all came back to him. All of it.
The sneers, the insults, the dragging and the isolating. All because he believed Harry put his name in the cup and simply didn’t tell him. Ron had known he was one to react with anger, or go a bit over the top. But he didn’t realise he was capable of this, was he really so blinded with red that he had pushed his best mate to the end? He really, really didn’t want to think about that.
It had became obvious to Ron after the first task that in no world would Harry have done that, just like Hermione had told him consistently. He wanted desperately to talk to Harry again, but every time he tried to, he had been met with dead eyes and no words. Hermione had been begging Ron to do something, that Harry was clearly not okay.
Hermione, fuck. He had dragged Hermione with him on his train of isolating Harry, and he was now realising how he had hurt her, too. She looked pained every time he had raged about Harry and the task, and the so-called attention seeking acts Harry was constantly pulling off.
Ron felt like he couldn’t breathe. The guilt was overwhelming, and was suffocating him as if a snake had wrapped itself around his throat.
Dean had managed to soak 3 pieces of cloth rich with blood, before Ron snapped out of it and knelt down to examine the scene and try help. He didn’t know what he could do, and he begged for help and for Harry.
He could only wish McGonagall would come soon, and quickly.
*
Seamus and Neville sprinted through the common room, much to a group of people’s surprise. To be fair, you don’t see two boys frantically running out of the common room unless it was Fred and George, and tonight it wasn’t.
The two couldn’t dwell on the opinions of others at the moment though, as they were trying to get to their Head of Houses office as soon as possible. They knew they were on limited time, which hurt to think about when they realise who’s time was limited, but they seriously couldn’t think about it as it would send them into a panic and distract from the task they had. They had to do this.
As they were running, they passed a very confused looking Cedric Diggory, who was walking in the direction of Gryffindor tower. He tried to speak to the two, but was cut off by them.
“Woah, what’s going on? Are you guys okay?-“ Cedric said, whilst holding his hands up as they shot past him, nearly knocking him over.
“Sorry, no time!” One of them shouted, Cedric didn’t really know their names, other than they knew Harry.
Cedric paused, as he watched them run towards what seemed to be McGonnagalls office. Harry. They knew Harry. And it was 11 at night, and they were running to her office.
That couldn’t be good.
*
The two boys reached her office, and started banging on the doors. A disgruntled Transfiguration teacher opened the door, ready to reprimand anyone who was knocking this late, but paused at the frightened and frantic looks plastered across their features.
“Finnigan, Longbottom? What is the meaning of this?” Her Scottish voice shrilled through the air, as she looked down at the distressed pair.
“It’s Harry! Please, you have to come help. Something bad happened.” Seamus said, voice cracking and eyes swimming in fear.
“What has happened, boys?” McGonagall said as she started moving swiftly towards the tower, feet picking up the pace as Seamus described the situation.
“Harry, he’s- His wrists-“ Seamus tried to say, but he couldn’t get the words out. Fortunately, McGonagall grasped what he was trying to put out.
“Oh. Right, follow me. Come on!” She snapped, not wanting any time wasted as she almost broke out into a jog towards her destination, night-robes billowing behind her. Her features were stony, but inside her resolve was breaking.
They reached the portrait, and the Fat Lady granted them entry without a password upon seeing the Deputy Headmistress. The few stragglers who were still in the common room jumped at the presence of McGonagall, and gaped slightly. She didn’t come in here often, only to break up parties or fights, and to them it looked like there was none.
“The rest of you still awake, return to your dorm rooms immediately!” Her voice rang across the common room as she approached the stairs to the boys dorms.
When most listened, and a few didn’t, she turned back and repeated her sentiment with a fierce anger behind her words. They left at that.
Climbing the stairs and seeing the entrance to the fourth year dorms, she stormed in. Determined. Upon entering, the scene she saw almost had her breaking her reputations.
Dean Thomas and Ron Weasley were standing over an unconscious Harry Potter, scrambling with red cladded pieces of clothing and various other materials and placing pressure on the wound points.
She ran over, and pushed the two boys apart. At once, she muttered a few spells to try stop the bleeding and put him in a stasis spell to keep him where he was, and to not allow him to deteriorate further.
She bundled him gently in the covers he was lying upon, casted a Featherweight charm on him for ease’s sake and picked him up bridal style. She then cast a Disillusionment charm on Harry so to not be noticed by prying eyes at this time of hour, Merlin knew he didn’t need that.
Once McGonagall had him in her arms, she turned and faced the four tired, scared and worried boys who had alerted her to this situation.
“Boys, I cannot thank you enough for informing me of this. As hard as it is, you must be off to bed now. Potter will be taken down to the Hospital Wing, and cared for there.”
Ron started to speak, though was cut off by McGonagall.
“You have done all you can, now off to bed. Sleep if you can, and by morning you can come visit if all is well.”
Those words hung heavy in the dorm room, and all read between the lines. ‘If all was well’, left room for the other option. They had been ordered to sleep, but none could. Not with Harry’s bed sat there, caked with blood and torn apart by Ron and Dean trying to get material to soak up the blood.
Dean was shaken by the thought that if he hadn’t seen Harry’s wand fall out of the warded curtains, they could’ve went about their night as their dorm-mate bled out beside them.
The thought was bounced around by all four boys, and none got a wink of sleep that night.
*
Harry was in a pool of darkness, and he couldn’t wake up. It was engulfing him, and he couldn’t swim. He couldn’t escape it, but it didn’t scare him. It made him want to sink deeper and deeper into the bath, and float mercilessly for centuries to come.
He could see dances of white light, pounding across his vision. He couldn’t tell what they were, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t choosing light or dark, he was choosing to remain floating in this world he caught himself in.
He felt no pain, and he felt no sadness. He felt no warmth, and no happiness. Harry decided he was okay with that, he hadn’t felt the latter in what felt like ages anyways. The sadness was gone, the emptiness was gone.
Replaced by a more, intensive version. It didn’t bother Harry. Nothing did.
He was being pulled in different directions, one was begging with him to come back, to surface from the black pool he was in. To reach for the light that was above him, not below him.
The other was soothing him further into the dark, hugging void he was dangling in. Encouraging him to take the light below, to swim deeper. Don’t look at the surface Harry, face down and reach. Come to the place you’ve dreamt about from one age to another.
Above him, he felt. He felt strums of magic, cooing at him. It was a difficult decision for Harry to make. So he didn’t.
If anyone could see where Harry resided, all they would see was a figure, resting with dark tendrils of magic and light, fuzzy orbs of pleading surrounding him and dancing to the tune of a non-committing heartbeat.
*
Cedric Diggory looked down at the body that was sat on the hospital bed. He recognised this hospital bed, of course. It was where it all started. Where he went to apologise about the game, and where they had sat for hours talking until Madam Pompfrey had shooed him out.
Where he had taken in Harry Potter, and taken him as his own.
The pale boy, strung together by stasis spells and potions forced into his body, was a far sight from the one he first met. His body was completely ripped of life, magical exhaustion and malnutrition ran rampant over it. Every day, for the past week he had sat, or stood before this bed and looked. Looked at Harry, and really saw what he had become.
Gauntly thin, bags seemed to have moved in permanently under his eyes, and a thrum of exhausted magic expelled his body with every shaken, supported breath. Thick white bandages wrapping his frail wrists, the cuts too wide and too long done to knit back together with magic.
He blamed himself, of course. He blamed a few others, but he could not ignore his role in what Harry had become. When he had gotten news from Weasley and Granger that Harry was in the Hospital Wing, due to a suicide attempt.
The words had rung in his head, as he rushed towards where he lay. Madam Pompfrey had said there was a chance he may never wake up, and had said ever so quietly Cedric could’ve missed it, that Harry himself seemed to be playing a part into not waking up.
Cedric had then sat besides Harry everyday, begging for him to make the decision to wake up. His body was being supported by potions and spells, but his mind was being supported by the gentle coaxing of Cedric and his friends.
Cedric knew Harry could hear him, and he was beginning to understand why Harry wasn’t listening.
He had listened to Ron sit beside him, and ramble and apologise for everything he’s ever said that hurt Harry, and for encouraging people to be “arseholes to the Chosen One”.
He had listened to Hermione apologise for never sticking with him, and only going with Ron. She said she never meant to, and didn’t realise how it was affecting Harry so deeply.
‘Brightest witch of her age’. Cedric wasn’t so sure of that, now.
He had listened in the corridors to people talking about it like it was gossip to be thrown around. As if a boys life wasn’t in danger of ending any time soon. Draco Malfoy was suspiciously quiet.
He recognised why Harry wasn’t waking up, and he understood why he did it. He just wished he could go back in time and change everything, from the moment he cursed off Harry in that corridor after the name picking.
He wished he could go back in time and force himself to look at Harry’s face, his emotions, instead of only thinking of the anger that had coursed through his body.
He wanted to shout at everyone laughing or making pitying eyes when crossing the Hospital Wing. Gryffindor as a whole was shaken up, talking about how they should’ve noticed it earlier, and helped him. Cedric wanted to cry. Couldn’t they realise what they themselves had done to Harry?
Couldn’t he?
It seemed that no one had taken care to notice that Hogwart’s Golden Boy was forever tainted with maroon now.