Chapter Text
Harry was overwhelmed. Trelawney was a fraud who liked to act like he was living on his death bed. Hagrid was a great person, but an awful teacher (Harry had been looking forward to Care, and the first lesson had been brilliant, but ever since? Damn Malfoy). Snape was himself, as nasty a bully as ever. McGonagall was—she was just—so busy or so uncaring that she had no time for the students wearing her colors. Sprout was nice enough, he guessed, but she always blamed the “rowdy Gryffindors” (and especially Harry) at the first sign of trouble. When she even noticed them outside of the greenhouses, anyway. Flitwick was cool, but just sort of existed, and never stopped any sort of bullying. Sinistra was rarely seen outside of class time. Binns—enough said. Basically, the teachers were either cruel or negligent or. At least this year he wasn’t being accused of being Slytherin’s heir and hated by the entire school. Last year had been. Rough. Dumbledore hadn’t helped at all, and questioning Harry—whose blood was on fire, whose death still felt imminent through the pain—had seemed crueler than even Snape had managed with his cutting remarks. An impressive feat, that. And what was Lupin’s problem? The way he stared when he thought Harry wouldn’t notice was creepy, at best. He’d agreed to help with Harry’s dementor problem, except—
Harry had no happy memories that weren’t tainted. Finding out he was a wizard? Overwritten by the knowledge that his relatives hated him for it. That his magic drove their cruelty to greater and greater heights. Meeting his very first friend (who might love bacon more than Harry, but she was still his favorite human, he was fairly sure)? He was crowded by strangers and learned of his useless fame. Making his first human friend? Well, he also made his very first enemy (on his own terms. Voldemort didn’t count!). Gaining his very own wings? Well, it really was more of an escape, and unfortunately the game itself was tainted by Quirrell, and a crazy little house elf that probably still doesn’t know how to save someone without maiming them. Receiving Hermione’s friendship? He had to fight off a troll for it. Getting the actually really cool ability to talk to snakes? That one really speaks for itself.
He just—
There was—
Well. Harry really didn’t have any truly happy memories, did he? Even winning the House Cup, first year, was overshadowed by the feeling of a man’s face crumbling beneath his fingers, flesh turning to ash, dry and crumbling—
Harry gagged and moved away from the darkest memory he had. He shuddered, throat sour and stomach roiling as the smell—No. He squared his shoulders and stared at his textbook with unseeing eyes (burnished yellow, plucked out by fire and talons—)
No. Harry took a deep breath and let his eyelids fall slowly. He let out the breath, trying not to choke on it (corpse ash on his tongue, burning down his throat). He took another, of the clean fresh air from the open window he preferred sitting at to his too-soft four-poster. He took another. And another. Until his heart slowed, until his breaths felt less like knives jabbing into his lungs (a sword into the roof of a mouth, the agony of pierced bone and muscle tearing, of acid in place of blood), and more like—
More like breathing. In and out. Slow and mindful of every lungful of air he stole, Harry looked out over the grounds of Hogwarts. At the dark of the forest (red eyes and silver blood), at the edge of the Quidditch pitch (tossed through the air, new breaks atop older breaks on white bone, the feeling of rubber attached, of missing a limb), at the lake.
Harry took another deep breath. The lake was safe to look at. The surface was even, not even a hint of the long, roiling tentacles of the giant squid marring the moon’s reflection. He stared at it for a long time, until the moon slowly travelled the lakes surface and sank, making way for the pastel hues of early morning.
The stiffness in his legs was finally what convinced Harry to move. His textbook had fallen off his lap at some point. He could thank Ron for the silencing charms everyone learned to put around their beds by their second week in first year. It kept the others waking from what had to have been a fairly decent crash.
Harry looked once more at the sunrise, at the ribbons of pastel winding their way over the grounds. The quidditch pitch lit up, liquid gold and felted green unfurling. The light hit the tops of the trees, softening their cold anger. He watched the forest transform from a grave to a fairytale.
He took one last deep breath, in and in, until the point his lungs felt near to bursting, until his chest was puffed out enough he could change his name to Malfoy—and released, slowly, shoulders falling and tension easing, if not disappearing. Decision made, he turned sharply, got ready for the day with minimal fuss and walked down the stairs, each step deliberate.
He would manage a patronus. He would make the dementors leave him alone. Then he’d make everybody else leave him alone, too. He would force answers out of Sirius Black when the prisoner tried to murder him. And when Remus Lupin did—whatever he was inevitably going to do to hurt Harry (ashes on his hands, dazed eyes and an empty smile)—he would deal with that threat, too. Just like he always had (long red hair, fallen into a halo around the girl’s bloodless face).
Harry had basilisk venom instead of blood in his veins, and a phoenix’s blessing keeping his heart beating. He had hurt—no. He had killed a man at eleven. Nothing could phase him at this point, other than the cold fingers of the dementors clawing at his worst memories (a woman cries her love, ashes on his tongue). The dementors, he’d be able to fight back against soon. The silvery mist of his barely-there patronus would solidify if it killed him (cold tunnels, endless, a soft hissing crooning his death). Nothing else had managed at this point, so he figured he had good odds.
Harry saw Hermione (screaming, a club crashing into delicate porcelain), and walked toward her, forcing his lips to curl up at her expression brightening. He took the ache of his heart, the stinging of his eyes, the heaviness of his limbs—and he forced them down, away, hidden under a blanket less tangible than the silver of his invisibilty cloak. It was much easier with the sun’s warmth touching his face, with Hermione gushing about her newest discovery, bushy hair puffing up, with Ron’s stomach growling and the redhead's embarrassed laugh, to anchor himself to the present. To their laughter. He would do anything to keep their smiles.