Hoarfrost

Unforgivables have unexpected effects when they work. Harry noticed immediately that the anger seemed to drain away through his wand. He shivered convulsively as though the temperature had suddenly dropped and his skin felt icy. Later, he put on an extra sweater but the feeling of chill remained.

Lying in bed that night he couldn't get warm at all. He lay very still in the bed, hoping that all his warmth would concentrate into the small part of the bed where he was curled. After a while, he crawled along the bed, reached into the trunk at the end and piled all the Weasley Christmas sweaters and his dress robes on to the bed. He turned, so that his face and knees pointed towards the only other source of warmth in the room. Facing Ron's bed, curled tightly into a foetal position and smothered with bedclothes and knitwear, the cold began to matter less but it didn't go away. He tried to think about it for a while as he hovered between sleep and waking and realised that the day's events didn't bother him as much as the feeling of blood congealing in his veins. It wasn't like the cold of a winter day, it was an internal coldness, as though the warm force that drove him had been tapped and was no longer there. He finally fell asleep, though it was the feeling of perilous warmth just before hypothermia that finally allowed his mind to rest.

Next day, he dressed warmly again and felt able to cope. His hands still felt cold, but Hermione didn't comment on it when their hands touched as he passed the milk jug to her. He looked around the Great Hall and his eye was caught by a movement of dark robes in the corner. Professor Snape had always seemed cold to him in a way that he couldn't describe. He looked up at the light reflected on his teacher's white face as he sat silently on the dais. The paleness of his face and long fingers seemed, on reflection, to be the result of an absence of warming blood. Harry wondered if the chill extended beyond his hands and face; conversation with him seemed impossible, because human warmth was missing.

The cold was beginning to feel closer to a vague fear, an anxiety that he carried around with him all day. He went from class to class, worrying about the worry, always searching for the warmest spot in each cavernous classroom. In the greenhouses, he felt he might freeze and looked up at the glass, expecting to see ice crystals forming at the point closest to him. Instead, outside, the afternoon sun sparkled on the glass and spring flowers extended their petals towards its heat. He moved closer to Ron and Neville but felt afraid to make eye contact. It didn't seem to strike them as odd, though he supposed he hadn't really connected with them beyond social banalities for this whole school year and a change now might not strike them as strange. He tried to remember the last time he'd spoken spontaneously and realised that it had been a long time since he had wanted to say anything. In fact, he thought, it had been about a year.

The day passed and again, sleep was slow to come. Nobody in the dorm mentioned the pile of cloaks and sweaters on his bed. In fact, nobody seemed to notice anything different about him. This, in itself, was frightening.

The next day passed and then the next again. He began to feel that he had been cold for so long that he was beginning to be numb. He hurried through the corridors and tried not to stop or speak to anyone since he was warmer when he moved. He completely avoided flying. Imagining the rush of wind against his arms and legs and the idea of the air sweeping past his eyes made him think of ice crystals forming on his eyelashes. He realised, though, that for ice there had to be moisture and he laughed quietly at how remote tears seemed.

One afternoon, after lessons, he went for a fast walk around the lake. It was the warmest day so far and he could see that there were a lot of people around, walking, reading, a few Muggleborn pupils attempting a game of football with robes as goalposts. He tried to plan his route to avoid them, because stopping was unpleasant and he really didn't know what to say to people at the moment. About halfway around, he stepped into the trees to avoid the Creevys and walked a little way into a sheltered copse. The sunlight entered in a shaft as if through a high window, lighting the sheltered, leaf-covered floor of the wood. Something silver caught his eye.

Under the trees, curled up on a rug in a patch of sunlight, two bodies lay entwined. Malfoy and Zabini were wrapped around one another, silver hair woven with bronze, limbs and faces relaxed in sleep. Harry walked up to them and looked down. Malfoy's hair had the softness of sleep and fell over his eyes, the passage of blood beneath the skin brought a faint blush to his cheeks and lips. His eyelashes swept down, his mouth curved up approachably in sleep. There was a small space between their bodies and Harry leaned forward, putting the back of his hand down gently to touch it. It felt warm with shared breath and intimacy.

In an overwhelming wave, he felt the urgent stirring of rage and suddenly wanted to kick out, to damage them with sheer physical cruelty, although the urge to use magic sang through his veins like a rush of flame.

As he straightened up violently, he felt a sudden rush of blood to his fingers. He froze for a second and concentrated on the sensation that fizzed around his hands and feet and up to his brain like champagne drunk too quickly. He swayed a little, felt dizzy and then the world rushed back into focus and his ability to think returned. His first thought made him feel a little sick and, with his wand still in his robes, he murmured to himself the word he had used before and felt the magic tug a little at his core. He thought of the compressed anger he could see in Professor Snape, the cold fire that he had seen in Bellatrix and the frustrated rage that he felt, almost daily, being experienced by Voldemort. He felt that anger ride through his own veins uncurbed for a moment, then thought about the new warmth in his body and the heat of the sun falling on the back of his head. He swan through a stream of thoughts as he recognized the cost of the power he had used and the emotion it used as fuel. He weighed up the outcome he'd achieved; now he found it unsatisfying. Turning slowly around, he closed his eyes, tilted his head to the sun and allowed himself to thaw.