On the Ride Away

'Kind of.... Funny, isn't it?'

Harry Potter, not yet seventeen, lifted his head up from the smooth surface of the table, its cool swerves of wooden patterns forgetting his cheek. 'Funny?' he said to this voice, not thinking.

'Yes... Funny, that you've decided to escape, practically run away from the place you once called home, that is your only home.'

He smiled humorlessly. 'Hogwarts, you mean? Yeah, I'm not going back there, not next year...'

'Why?'

He sighed. 'I don't know... how will it ever be the same without Dumbledore there?' Immediately, he dearly wished that he hadn't spoken, even thought his name... It spurred more than a million emotions in him at once and they all threatened to overpower him. 'He kind of was the heart and soul of Hogwarts, wasn't he?'

'Not Hogwarts without its headmaster... interesting...' The voice, or whoever the voice belonged to, seemed to be pondering. 'Yet, Dumbledore had not always been the headmaster of Hogwarts.... There had been others... Although for you, I suppose he was the only true one. Interesting...' He trailed off into the silence, which rang in the empty area. 'Dumbledore wasn't the only reason for you returning to Hogwarts for five years already now, though, was he?'

'No... but I'm older now. I feel I've outgrown needing to have a home.'

'One can always use a home... or... something like it.' Again, the voice paused in its musings. 'Why didn't you want Ginny to come along with you?'

Harry started slightly at the abruptness of this question. This was another topic he would have rather avoided. 'Don't change the subject.'

'Why is it so important that Ginny, Harry, should be apart from you and the path you take, and yet you allow your friends to stay by your side? Why is Ginny's safety more important to you than your friends'?'

'They're all important to me!' said Harry indignantly. 'It's just... I suppose that Ginny's important to me in a different way than the others.'

'You care for her.'

'Of course I do,' he said automatically.

'And you care for your friends.'

This was true... but his friends had always been with him. Always, for years, longer it seemed sometimes. They swore not to leave him. 'Look, Ginny and I have an understanding. That's all there is to it right now.'

'Will you miss her?'

'Who are you, anyway?' he said, becoming slightly irritated. Who was this disembodied figure to ask him personal questions at random, anyway? The least that he- or she, it was strangely difficult to tell- could do was state their name and purpose.

'Who do you want me to be, Harry?'

'What kind of answer is that?'

The voice seemed to be chuckling. 'You have a sense of humor. That's good. It will come in handy for when you're tracking down those Horcruxes.'

A small smile made a pit stop at Harry's tired face. 'Yeah, I suppose it will.'

'Did Dumbledore want you to do it?'

'To do what?'

'Search for the Horcruxes.'

Harry's shoulders slouched. 'In a way he did.'

'By yourself?'

He shook his head- the air seemed to prove thick, slow breathing. 'We were supposed to do it together...' He fought back the lump in his throat.

'I don't think he's really left, Harry.'

'What're you talking about? He died, I saw him die-'

'You said it yourself, Harry.'

He was about to open his mouth for more, and then it hit him- "He will only be gone from the school when his students are not loyal to him."

If the voice had a body, Harry assumed that it would be nodding its head wisely. 'You understand now.'

'The thing is, I'm not sure if I do...'

'You understand more than you realize.'

Harry blinked. Weren't realizations and understanding one in the same?

'Are you ready to leave yet, Harry?'

'To leave?' Leave where?

'To wake up, Harry. Just to awaken....'

His heart jolted to a standstill, shoulders jerking. Trying out his eyelids, he let them fly open so that he could see a fuzzy outline of a red-haired somebody, his hand on arm. "Harry? You awake?"

It seemed to be early evening. A train, which he apparently was gliding on shakily, drove past fields of sheep and other livestock outside that was all barely visible in the darkening sky. The figure of the red-head moved closer. "Harry?"

"What? Oh, yeah, I'm awake," said Harry, yawning. It took him a moment to become accustomed to the new environment. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Not long... Neville, Ginny and Luna must have run off somewhere, but Hermione and I just came over here from the Prefects section. That's when I found you here."

"Oh."

"You were mumbling something..." said Ron, suddenly lookng awkward. "Something about-"

"Dumbledore?" said Harry, glad that he finished the sentence before Ron did. Ron nodded uncertainly. "And Ginny, I think."

Harry bit back a groan. It wasn't exactly his objective to hint to everyone that he couldn't detach himself from her... that had been the whole point of the breakup, after all. He wasn't to let her get too close... not so much that she was a potential target...

'Ahh, but what about Ron, and Hermione?'

Not that again.... Was he going insane? He would have wanted to believe that the voice would stop bothering him once he woke up... But maybe that was just him talking to himself. He didn't know what to think anymore.

Slipping into almost-serene exhaustion, he let himself slide an inch or two down the back of the seat, inhaling the smell of red leather and listening, feeling the train rumble across the track, the beckoning night on its back.

It was only minutes later that he was broken from rest again, although he noticed that the voice hadn't come upon him in his sleep that time... Perhaps it was just a tiny being that bounced along from person to troubled person, challenging them and their motives or releasing pent-up energy from within. Opening his still-closed eye a crack, he noticed Ginny sitting across from him, staring out the window like a soul searching for a purpose. He couldn't help but grin a little- it seemed that the voice had found a new subject.

This is more or less my own funny way of commenting and musing after HBP had finished. :) I hope that I made Harry IC enough, didn't leave anything out, ya'know. Fairly short.

Harry and his friends are travelling home from Hogwarts on The Express, and an odd little voice decides to pop in and give Harry a visit.