Trapped Behind the Window

Trapped Behind The Window

We are so young

Our lives have just begun

And already we are considering

To escape from this world.

And we've waited for so long

For this moment to come

We're so anxious to be together,

Together in death...

Would you die to not fall in love?

(Baby, join me in death)

Would you die?

(Baby, join me in death)

This world is so cruel, placing we're here

Only to lose

So before life tears us apart, let

Death bless me with you...

- Him, Join Me In Death

Chapter 8

"Locked them away where they should be, in the depths of the dungeons, but even five floors above them, I still smell the flesh of Mudblood-loving traitors, traitors to their own race and now I find myself bound to them, oh, my poor mistress would say, oh Kreacher, it would be best if you were given clothes or if you were told to kill yourself, but, no, I am bound, I have to come even if I am not called, I must come, I must come...."

Harry stared around wildly for a few seconds, before noticing that Ginny was tugging hard on his sleeve, pointing at something on the floor, with big, round eyes. He stared at the thing on the floor open-mouthed, hardly able to recognize who or what it was... it was too dark... but judging from the size and the bald head, it could only be a house-elf....

"Dobby?"

"No. It's not Dobby," Ginny said with unmistakable anger in her voice. "And I don't even know what this house-elf is doing here."

Harry froze. Now he recognized the cloth house-elf was wearing, tied around his middle. Dobby had other clothes; he was a free elf. Dobby wore socks and maroon Weasley-jumpers and tea-cosies. The skin of this one seemed to be hanging from its thin figure limply; white hair was growing out of its large ears - it was an old house-elf. Its snout like nose was sniffing the air apprehensively as it looked around the corridor with watery grey eyes. Words started ringing in Harry's mind as he recognized the elf. Kreacher.

Master has gone out, Harry Potter. Nobody here but Kreacher! Master will not come back from the Department of Mysteries! Kreacher and his mistress are alone again!

Sirius had not gone out. And Kreacher had lied to him. Why hadn't he bothered to check more thoroughly? Why hadn't he listened to Hermione's pleas not to go to the Ministry of Magic? If he had been more careful about trusting Kreacher's words, Sirius would not have come to the Department of Mysteries after him. Sirius would not have duelled Bellatrix Lestrange.

Sirius would not have fallen through the veil.

He felt Ginny's hand on his shoulder, holding him tightly, trying to calm him down. But it didn't help. Suddenly, without a warning, Harry leapt forward, towards the iron bars, passing his arms through the gaps and trying to get a hold of the house-elf who was staring at him in a bemused sort of way.

"You - killed - him-"

"Harry! No, stop it, Harry, that won't help!" Ginny yelped, leapt behind him and tried to pull him away from Kreacher.

"I - swear - I - will - kill - you-" Harry gasped and felt the cloth of Kreacher's clothing in his hand. He quickly tightened his grip around it and pulled Kreacher closer, laying both his hands around the house-elf's neck.

"Harry! No!"

"I - will - strangle-"

"Let go of him! Harry, stop it!"

"You - killed - Sirius! You - filthy - bit - of - scum-"

"Harry, don't! Ask why he's here, there must be a reason!" Ginny yelled. Harry vaguely felt her hands tugging at his shoulders, but was so full of rage towards Kreacher that he forgot about again it at once.

"Traitor - to - your - own - master-"

"Harry! Please!"

"Admit it at least!" Harry spat, hands still clenched around the old house-elf's neck, shaking him wildly.

"Yes, yes, master!" the house-elf managed to say.

"You killed him! You made me go to the Department of Mysteries!"

"Yes, yes, it was Kreacher, it was, master!"

"Harry! Harry! Let go!" Ginny cried again, and this time, she managed to pull him away from the house-elf, sending them both crashing back onto the dirty stone floor.

"Ginny!" Harry burst out, trying to scramble back to his feet, pushing her away roughly. "This is the reason-"

"No, Harry! Listen to me first, please," Ginny said surprisingly calm and still holding him tightly. "He called you his master."

Harry was still fighting to get away, when the importance of Ginny's words hit his mind. Master. He stopped struggling at once, staring out through the bars at Kreacher. Again, a wave of rage threatened to overwhelm him, but he managed to stay put and content himself with glaring at the house-elf dangerously.

Kreacher chuckled and turned around. "His end is near, oh so near, what a happy day it will be, then Kreacher is free! Kreacher will have the house and his mistress to himself again, oh it will be such a wonderful, wonderful day!"

The house-elf jumped into the air, laughing in a manic way and then started scurrying away. "His end is near, oh so near-"

"Kreacher!" Harry suddenly heard himself saying. "Come back here."

The house-elf stopped in his tracks abruptly. He seemed to be torn between leaving and going back to Harry, judging by the words Kreacher was mumbling to himself. "Oh, he is ordering me to stay, is he now, the Potter boy, the bit of filthy scum, no better than my mistress's son, no better at all, oh no..."

"At once," Harry hissed.

Kreacher turned around and made a few cautious steps towards Harry. "Yes, master," he said in a silent, defeated voice and stared at the ground, hands hidden behind his back, like a disobedient child.

"Tell me why you call me your master," Harry said calmly, although he was trembling with suppressed rage and quite sure he already knew the answer, clenching onto Ginny's hand.

"I is the servant to the person the house belongs to, not necessarily through family bonds," Kreacher mumbled as if he'd rather not witness what he was saying. "The ancient and most noble house of Black has been passed from my mistress to her useless traitor of a son (at this, Harry made a furious swipe at the house-elf, but luckily enough, Ginny caught his arm in mid-air before he could cause any damage) and the traitor passed it on to his godson, the person who defeated the Dark Lord once, yes, who defeated him once but who will be defeated by the Dark Lord himself soon!"

"What do you mean by that?" Ginny asked Kreacher.

Kreacher at once abandoned his intimidated attitude and started muttering under his breath darkly as if Ginny and Harry could not hear him. "Oh, and there's a part of the pureblood, redhead traitor family, oh I know her well, her and her brothers and her parents, I wonder where the Mudblood girl is, with the big hair and the big teeth, I wonder, I wonder-"

"She asked you a question," Harry snapped. "What do you mean by the Dark Lord will defeat me?"

"What do I mean, master, what do I mean? Kreacher knows nothing, Kreacher knows nothing at all!" Kreacher exclaimed, clapped his hands over his ears, whipped around and suddenly started running into the wall opposite their cell, banging his head against it, like Dobby used to do when he was about to reveal undisclosed information.

"Kreacher, explain yourself!" Harry ordered.

"Oh, Kreacher hears much when he walks around the house, master, many things, many things!" Kreacher wailed, kneeling down on the floor. "But some things he must not be forced to tell, no, oh no, my mistress would not be happy if I revealed this to the master, no she would not be happy, not happy at all, I must not-"

"Kreacher, explain yourself to your master at once!" Harry said impatiently.

"It is nearly one thousand sun's risings and sun's settings since the Dark Lord has come back to power, master, nearly one thousand times that the sun has started a new day since the Dark Lord was revived with the bone of the father, the flesh of the servant and the blood of the enemy!"

"So what?"

"One thousand times, master, one thousand! A ritual is planned, but Kreacher doesn't know about it, Kreacher only knows what he said, he does not know more, Kreacher can't help the master more, no, no, no..." the house-elf whined, his hands still clapped over his ears and shaking his head furiously.

"Kreacher. Swear that you won't tell anybody about this information!"

"Oh, he is vicious, he makes poor Kreacher swear, he makes him swear-"

"Swear!"

"Yes, master, Kreacher is an obedient house-elf, Kreacher swears, he won't tell anybody about anything, he swears, he swears-"

"Don't talk to anybody about it unless if I order you to do so. Do you understand? Do you understand me? And now get out of my sight," Harry spat and with a faint popping noise, Kreacher disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

~

"Harry! Why did you let him go?!" Ginny exclaimed exasperatedly. "He could have been useful, he knows loads of stuff!"

"Oh no..." Harry groaned. "I - I wasn't thinking.... I - I just didn't want to be reminded of Sirius even more..."

"Hey, I understand," Ginny said and put her arm around his shoulders. "It's okay. He might come back, what with you being his master."

"Hermione would kill me if she knew I had my own servant," Harry said weakly.

Ginny grinned. "Yeah, she would try and persuade you to free him."

"Shit," Harry groaned, serious once again. "Shit, shit, shit. Shit."

"It doesn't matter," Ginny said soothingly.

"Of course it does! Especially with what Kreacher said! This ritual... one thousand risings and settings of the sun... one thousand days after Voldemort came back to life..."

"So now we know what they wanted to keep you alive for then."

"Yeah, great. They kept me alive so he could kill me, what a surprise."

"The question is," Ginny said thoughtfully, "why would he want to wait one thousand days to kill you? Why not do it straight away? There must be some kind of benefit in it. Either it will make him even stronger than he already is-"

"Or it'll just be easier to kill me then," Harry finished her sentence. "Either way, it will result in my death and the end of the world we have known as such."

Ginny didn't answer straight away, but she knew that it was true. It didn't really matter what reason Lord Voldemort had to wait for so long, but it was certain it would end badly for them anyway.

"So what do you plan to do?" she asked him silently.

"No idea. No idea, Ginny."

"The only way to cross his plan, is to live up to your supposed suicidal tendencies," Ginny said weakly.

"I have no means of killing myself here."

"You are right, as there is nothing here to enable us to kill ourselves... no knives, no wands... no nothing."

"I don't want you to kill yourself, Ginny," Harry said softly and looked at her miserably. "I don't want you to do that."

"Oh, but I will. Don't you worry about that. I will," she replied and squeezed his hand, looking up at him with her big brown eyes. "I will."

"Only I have to die to-"

"I know, but I will die as well. If you die, Harry, you kill a part of me, too."

"Gin-"

"You know you won't change my mind about it, Harry. Just don't think about it anymore, okay?" Ginny said in a definite tone, meaning that the subject was closed.

"So what do we do now?" Harry asked after a while.

"What do we do now? We lie down and hope to die in our sleep," Ginny said silently, took his hand and leant her head against his cheek, closing her eyes.

Wishing for death.