Getting Harry Back

Chapter 6
Harry's Fall

Lullay, lullay, lay, lay, lullay:
Mi dere moder, sing lullay (my dear mother)

'Sing, nou, moder,' said the child, (nou = now)
'wat schal to me befall, (what shall happen to me)
hereafter wan I cum til eld, (later on, when I grow old)
for so doon modres all.' (for all mothers do this, sing about this)

14th c. English carol
Recorded by Anonymous 4,
"On Yoolis Night: Medieval Carols and Motets"

"Hi Mum. Hi Dad."

Harry smiled at his parents who were standing in front of their home, his home at Godric's Hollow.

They smiled back and waved. From his photo album.

For a minute or two, Harry just sat there on his bed, looking down at his precious link with love. He had long since figured out that none of his pictures could hear him, and most couldn't see him at all. In a couple of pictures, though, his parents did seem to see a little, but Harry figured they saw him only as a blur. Mostly they seemed to sense his feelings. Especially the one in Godric's Hollow. In this picture they always listened, and Harry knew that they understood what he was feeling and that they cared, they really cared. He could see it in their faces and feel it deep inside. Seeing and knowing they cared, that meant a lot to him. More than anything.

"I love you," Harry silently pantomimed.

"I love you," his parents' words silently returned.

Right after Hagrid gave him the album, Harry had spent a long time with his parents in this picture trying to work out silent speech - lip reading, hand signals, big writing black- on-white. Nothing came of it but those three words, words communicated as feelings. But those words he could see. "Even if I can't hear them," Harry thought stubbornly, "I can see them."

He sighed and began to speak:

"Things are still better, they really are, ever since I told Hermione and Ron." Harry smiled and saw his mum and dad smiling back. "Hermione went off to the library saying she was going to learn every death curse that ever was. Ron seems to trust me again, he isn't watching me so closely or looking so worried. He knows that I'm going to be honest with him, that I'll tell him what's happening. And I will, I promised him."

Harry frowned.

"But... I keep worrying about how they feel about me. It's weird and I don't understand it. I go bonkers when they frown at me. I'm forever checking to see if they're all right with what I'm doing or saying. Mental."

He sighed.

"Ron and Hermione have backed off teasing me, too." He sighed again. "They know I can't handle it, and they're right, but...." Harry looked sad. "In a way, I sort of miss it, you know?"

From the photo, his parents looked concerned.

He swallowed. "We're talking a lot about killing. Hermione found all these death curses that are cast by more than one person. We've read them all, and we're trying to figure out where they'd work and how we can practice. But I don't like these curses, they don't feel good." Harry shrugged and looked down. "Learning them feels so wrong, so... unfair."

He looked up and saw his mum and dad nodding.

"I'm a bit embarrassed but... you know ever since I talked with Hermione and Ron, I just can't stand being without them. Each day when they leave it's like part of me goes with them, and I feel an even bigger hole inside with the wound." His eyes glistened and he said softly, "Like with Sirius, and with you."

Harry paused and sighed.

"I don't even want them across the room. I find I'm always sitting next to them, or walking over and sitting on the floor in front of them or something. They seem to want to stay closer to me, too, like they're protecting me. If the Dursleys even open the door and look in, Ron and Hermione get up straight away, and they stand right by me and glare."

Harry smiled.

"They're hugging me, and they're touching me more, too. Almost like they're telling me it's all right. Maybe telling themselves it's all right. Maybe...." He paused and frowned. "They're afraid of losing me."

"Losing me." Harry shook his head. "That prophesy and this war."

Harry looked sadly at his parents, who returned his sad looks.

"Mum, Dad... I'm scared.... I'm going to do what I have to, I won't let you down, or all the others who're depending on me. I know I have to, and I will, I promise. And it's better with Ron and Hermione, it's a lot better, but.... Sometimes I still feel... alone?"

Harry looked at his mum and dad, feeling the impossible, the impenetrable distance between them.

He said softly, "I wish you were here." He paused again. "I really wish you were here."

Harry could see his mum and dad looking sad and aching to be with him. For a while Harry and his parents looked at each other, silently sad together.

Then Harry smiled a little. "Thanks." His mum and dad smiled a little back.

"I love you," Harry pantomimed again, very earnest.

"I love you," came his parents' silent reply, just as earnest.

Harry reached out with both of his hands to touch his parents in the photo. His parents reached down to touch where Harry's hands were. When Harry tried hard, he could almost feel them. Harry always tried hard.

As always, too, his mum leaned down to Harry's hands and kissed where they were.

Again, Harry smiled a little.

Then he turned to the one picture in his album that included him as a baby. Here his mum and dad never looked out of the picture at him. It was as if they didn't sense him at all. Harry figured that maybe it was taken when his parents weren't looking. For almost an hour he watched his mum and his dad playing with baby-Harry, baby-him, all three of them smiling and laughing.

When he tried hard, Harry could almost hear their laughter, and almost feel what it was like to be baby-Harry.

Harry always tried hard.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Hah!" Harry smiled triumphantly. "Got your queen!"

"So you did," Ron agreed. He moved a knight, looked up at Harry and smiled. "Checkmate."

"What?" Harry stared down at the board, then up at his best friend, crestfallen.

Ron began laughing, Harry dove into him, scattering the remnants of the picnic lunch that Mrs. Weasley always packed, and they were off into horseplay.

Hermione was laughing, too, sitting on Harry's bed and watching her two friends wrestle noisily on the floor. On her perch in the corner, Hedwig flapped her wings and hooted. Once again, she was glad for the silencing charm their Porkeyed arrival activated.

"Oh, it feels so good," she thought, "to see Harry happy and playing. Almost like before."

With that "almost like before", she sighed and while her smile stayed, her usual thoughts and feelings returned. For over a year now - ever since Cedric was murdered - Hermione had found herself more and more worried, actually scared about Harry.

"I keep imagining Harry watching Voldemort murder Cedric, and whatever else must have happened, even though he's never talked about it. He must have been devastated, he must, and it really scares me that he's never talked about it."

At first she thought that he just needed some time, "because of course that would be hard to talk about. And Dumbledore warned us not to ask Harry anything. So I gave him time. I even made Ron give him time. Just imagining what Harry must have seen, what he must be feeling...."

She winced from the memory.

"At first I didn't want to talk about it, even though I knew that I needed to."

She shook her head.

"But when Harry came back from the Dursleys that summer, and he still didn't talk about it - he's never talked about it! -- I could see, I knew it was more than just memories."

She paused, not wanting to think that next thought, the scariest thought. "I knew he'd changed."

Hermione frowned.

"It wasn't that he was angry; he had a right to be angry. I'd be angry, too." She mentally nodded. "After all that, then to be sent back to live with those dreadful people, to be by himself and not told anything. Ooh!"

"That's something else Harry never talks about, really - the Dursleys. That's worried me from the beginning. Oh, he talks about how awful they are in a general way. He even sort-of jokes about it. But when I saw first saw them...."

She shuddered.

"There's nothing funny about them, nothing at all. They frighten me. Especially that Uncle Vernon -- he seems so mean, so angry, so unpredictable, like he could explode at any time. I'm frightened for Harry, too -- frightened about what's happened to him, and frightened about what could happen to him."

She shuddered again.

"Whenever I ask Harry about the Dursleys, he never answers me directly, he just makes more jokes to push me away. He can be so frustrating!"

Her frustration, however, was quickly shoved aside by her greater worry. "Each time I ask, I see something in his eyes, just for a second: fear."

Once more Hermione shuddered. "Harry's fear truly frightens me, especially since he won't talk about it. I'm sure he's hiding something."

She sighed, and then her attention was brought back to the room and its rowdiness.

"Hey! Gerroff me!" Ron play-fussed. "Gerroff me!"

Fast and monkey-like, Harry had maneuvered himself onto Ron's back, which they all knew was not only Harry's best move, but his only move. From there, Ron couldn't quite get at him. Harry had wrapped himself around Ron, alternating between pretend- growling and laughing, all the while trying to pull Ron onto the floor.

Hermione chuckled, part of her wanting to stay with their fun and just enjoy it. But her worry, her fear won out, and she returned to thinking: "Last summer.... It's not that Harry was angry; I understand that, I really do."

She shook her head.

"His fear grew and all his self-confidence, all the old Harry... disappeared. I think the Harry who was left got angry mostly to keep us from finding out."

"All last year the old Harry was gone. Not just the Harry who escaped Voldemort, who rescued Ginny and Sirius, who won the TriWizard, the Harry who takes charge, who has the most amazing courage and does the most amazing things. The Boy Who Lived."

She felt the loss in her heart.

"My Harry was gone, too. Who not only does amazing things, but who also does stupid and normal and funny and caring things. The Harry I have to take in tow to get him through Potions and to keep him at least passing the History of Magic." She smiled to herself. "Who loves to fly and play Quidditch. Who loves his friends more than anything in the world, and who would do anything and everything for them. The Harry," Hermione thought protectively, "who can be so helpless and who is so completely loveable."

She paused, feeling sad and determined all at once. "The Harry I'd do anything and everything for."

"I could see that he tried to be the old Harry. And sometimes it even seemed that the old Harry was back: when he taught the DA, when he fought those Death Eaters at the Ministry of Magic, when he was so worried about Sirius and Hagrid."

Hermione frowned. "But there were other times: when he thought Voldemort was possessing him, when so many students thought he was crazy, when he was taking Occlumency from Snape, when Umbridge was being so horrid, so cruel...."

"Then Harry was gone," she had to admit, "utterly gone. Not just The Boy Who Lived, but also my Harry. And the Harry who was left, his eyes...." Hermione paused. "Like a child, like an angry, scared, lost child."

Ron's howl yanked her attention away from Harry-brooding.

"I'll get you, I swear I'm gonna get you!" Mock-serious, Ron forced his way up to his feet.

"Never!" Harry shouted, bouncing on Ron's back, throwing every bit of his scrawny weight into bringing down his much larger, much stronger best friend.

"Hey! C'mon, Harry! Not so hard! Gimme a break; I can't take it!" Ron allowed himself to be pretend-forced back to his knees.

Harry roared with an approval that didn't fool anybody.

Hermione smiled but her smile didn't reach her eyes. "They're acting like kids. We've had so much work, and almost no time for fun." She wished, in a way, that she could enjoy their goofiness as much as they were. But she knew she had mental work to do, and Hermione was never one to put off any work, certainly none this important.

"After Sirius was killed, I saw right away that the old Harry was gone forever, shattered. I could see it in his eyes. Most of the summer, when I looked into Harry's eyes, I didn't know who was looking back. Sometimes I wasn't even sure there was any Harry looking back. Whoever was in there was hiding, afraid to come out. I didn't know that Harry at all, and I didn't even know how I could get to know him."

Hermione sighed.

"All I knew" - and she knew this with her whole heart - "was that my Harry was in there somewhere, and that I had to love him, absolutely love him and support him, no matter what."

Her face softened and saddened. "When I look at him now, after he's opened up and not hiding - well, I'm just as worried. Worried differently, but still worried to despair."

"My Harry is back in a way, but it's as if he's a little boy, a defenseless little boy. He can't even handle our frowns. His heart, maybe even his magic is still shattered; the old Harry is still gone. And I don't know how to get him back."

Hermione shook her head and sighed.

Again all she knew was that she had to love him and support him and - this was new: "I have to protect him until.... I guess until somehow he can defend himself. Not all by himself, but at least a little by himself."

"The way he is now, though, how will he ever defend himself? Even a little?"

"Ooh! this is so frustrating," she grumped. "I don't even know what to read."

"Hey!" Ron shouted, "I can't move, I can't move!"

Harry snarled play-ferociously.

He had finally got Ron on his back and had scrambled onto his chest, going for a wrestling pin. Of course, Ron had let Harry put him on his back, and was struggling with more motion and noise than force. As was typical since Harry opened up, Harry was going full-bore at Ron, Ron was giving Harry everything he thought that Harry could handle, and both were thoroughly loving it. Ron pretended to be exhausted, struggling less and less. Finally, Ron gave one last tremendous mock-heave, then:

"Okay, okay, I give. You got me, you win."

"Checkmate!" Harry declared, his triumphant smile re-instated and vindicated.

* * * * * * * * * *

"No!" Harry shouted. "We're not! No way and never bring it up again!"

For the first time since opening up, Harry was furious. If he'd stepped back, he might have reckoned he was getting better. But Harry wasn't in the mood for stepping back.

Ron slipped into teasing.

"You know, Harry, your biggest problem is you're too wishy-washy." He grinned. "Tell us what you really feel."

Harry stood up abruptly, to emphasize his point. Ron was still sitting on his bed, Hermione on his desk chair. He glared, filling the small bedroom with his anger.

"Harry--" Hermione trotted out her most reasonable, but unfortunately parental voice.

"I. Said. NO!"

"We heard you, mate." Ron was still grinning. "Doesn't make any difference, but we heard you."

Harry exploded: "What do you mean, doesn't make any difference?"

"This is about saving your life, right?"

Harry scowled.

The redhead put on a serious face: "Can it be about saving my life, too?"

Harry paled; fear flooded in leaving him speechless.

Eventually he forced out, "Well.... Sure, Ron." Yes there was a war, and yes he, Harry, had this prophesy - he could accept that. But Ron dying? No. Definitely N-O-T.

"Okay," Ron continued, "then we have to tell Mum and Dad about the prophesy."

"Why?"

"Harry." Ron sounded as if Harry was being dimwitted. "Think. You know how my mum feels about you, right?"

Harry nodded, he certainly did. Mrs. Weasley was the closest person to a mum he remembered. And ever since Sirius died, Harry found himself more and more thinking of her as his mum, sort of. And he was pretty sure she felt that way about him. At least he hoped she did.

"Well, Dad feels the same," Ron said, "he just doesn't show it like Mum. But you haven't heard the fights he's had with Dumbledore to get you away from the Dursleys. Every summer since our first year. Real stand up rows."

Harry was stunned. "Mr. Weasley, too?" he thought. "Like a dad?" Too much -- he couldn't take it in.

Ron was going on: "If anything, anything at all happened to you, and they didn't know about it and I did? You might as well save some money and dig a bigger grave, 'cause they'd be putting me there right beside you." Ron got softer. "Just like you can't protect me? You can't protect them. Except by protecting yourself and letting us help. Harry, you're family."

Harry didn't want to haul more people into this mess, he really didn't. But the family part was still true, or at least he hugely hoped it was true. And his hope felt so good that it ached.

"Harry?" He looked at Hermione.

"We need to bring in the Order, too. We need their help, maybe even some training."

Made sense. Sometimes Harry wished that Hermione didn't always make so much sense. But only sometimes.

"I think...." Hermione paused. "I think it's time that we became part of the Order. Officially. We need to know what's going on, especially what they know about Voldemort."

"But Hermione," Ron objected, "they don't let anyone into the Order until they're an adult. And with them that's not just seventeen, that's when you're out of school. For us, that's another two years."

"Things change, Ron. Wars change things." She looked soberly at Harry. "And so do prophesies."

* * * * * * * * * *

The three decided they'd wait to approach the Order until Harry came to stay at Twelve Grimmauld Place. That was only another week. They also decided that they had to tell Mr. and Mrs. Weasley beforehand. They were family; they had a right to know first. What with all that Ron and Hermione had to do at the Order's Headquarters, they couldn't find a time until the thirty-first of July. Harry didn't mention that this was his birthday, and neither did Ron or Hermione.

"Guess with all the stuff about the prophesy and the war and everything, they forgot," Harry shrugged as he told his photo mum and dad.

Then he half-smiled: "But if anyone's used to having his birthday forgotten, it's me, right?"

Harry saw his parents still looking sad.

"Bet you didn't forget," he said softly, seriously.

Harry's photo mum reached out her hand. Harry put his hand up to meet hers, touching the photo's surface.

"Bet you'd never forget."

For a while, they stayed quiet and almost touching.

Harry sighed.

"Ron's set up everything. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley invited me for supper, so at least I'll have a great meal. And...." Harry gave a real smile with shy hope in it. "I'll be around family. Please don't mind, Mum, Dad, but...." He paused again. "That's how I think about the Weasleys. With you gone and all, they're maybe really like my family?"

Harry looked down.

"At least I hope so."

He looked back up and saw his parents looking back. "That's more important than presents or cake: being around my family. My family that's here."

Harry paused.

"Wish you could be my family that's here."

He paused again, sighed, then went on.

"Afterwards I'm going to the Order Headquarters for the rest of the summer. When I told the Dursleys I'd be leaving, they looked relieved." Harry smiled. "I knew they would." Then he frowned. "But they looked angry, too." Harry felt his skin crawl. He shuddered, and his skin crawled again.

Then he smiled big, and his parents smiled back.

"I'll have Ron and Hermione around all the time. And I won't have to sleep by myself any more. Ron'll be right there, like always."

Harry blushed, and then spoke more softly:

"Ever since I, you know, opened up to Hermione and Ron, the nights... well, they've been really bad. I feel more alone than ever. And the nightmares...." Harry shuddered again. "They've been worse. I hardly sleep at all; I'm almost afraid to go to sleep. I stay up as long as I can and get really tired, but even that doesn't help."

His parents looked worried. Harry looked embarrassed-hopeful.

"Yesterday I asked to borrow one of Ron's and one of Hermione's books, and of course they gave them to me."

Harry blushed again.

"Last night I put them with my album, you know with you two, and I wrapped them all up in that first green Christmas sweater that Mrs. Weasley knitted for me. Then I took it to bed, and I didn't have any nightmares, no nightmares at all. I even had a rather good dream."

Harry blushed more than ever, his parents both smiled and his dad nodded.

"Mental. But I guess it helps, so I'll keep doing it."

Harry smiled sheepishly. His parents smiled back.

* * * * * * * * * *

Two days later and four days before leaving the Dursleys, Harry had that week's first nightmare. It was so horrible that it made up for the ones he missed. At the end, he was helplessly under Voldemort's control, forced to slowly torture the Patil twins to death, hearing Voldemort's shrieking laugh and Parvati's and Padma's begging, pleading with Harry to stop, please stop the pain, stop the pain, just get it over with, just kill us, kill us now, please, and be done.

Right before dawn, he woke up screaming. If anyone heard, they didn't bother to check. "If they found me alive," he thought, "it'd just depress them." He knew that thought had a lot of truth, the truth of being hated and on his own.

Awake now, silently crying, shaking with terror, and clutching his sweater-and-books, Harry needed over an hour to calm his scar and wound pains enough so that he could sit up.

He heard Aunt Petunia stirring.

"No puppy visit," he thought sadly, the first non-visit in a couple of weeks. Harry had come to depend on the friendly little furball as his heart-dose of loving, his lifeline to get through until Ron and Hermione came. He felt a stab of loneliness along with the last fear-spasm from the last shard of nightmare.

Dudley screamed.

Harry bolted out of bed. After a short pause, Dudley screamed again, and kept on screaming, if anything even louder.

Harry grabbed his wand and listened, his stomach knotting, his heart pounding, the wound and scar pains swelling. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia steps converged on the room next to his. He heard sounds of horror, sounds of anger, but no clear words. Then: Uncle Vernon steps to his door, the lock, the door crash open, the fury and, especially, the hate:

"Come!" his uncle spat. "Now!"

Harry, his wand by his bedside, braced himself against his pains, against their hate, against whatever he was about to see. He walked out of his room and looked through Dudley's open door.

There, atop a lower bedpost, was a severed puppy head.

Hanging from the curtain rod by its tail was a headless puppy body, its stomach and intestines ripped out and dangling.

And of course the blood. Puppy blood.

Harry closed his eyes, desperately trying to force it all away. As if at a distance, he heard his Uncle's shouts, his Aunt's screeches, his cousin's angry sobs. He realized they were accusing him of--

Harry felt his self split, painfully, in two.

Most of him went spinning off as fast and far as possible, gratefully plunging into a distant oblivion.

The little Harry remaining, eyes still closed though still seeing what was there, whimpered, "No. Please stop. Please."

He turned to leave, opened his eyes and staggered to the top of the stairs. Hate, loud hate, pursued him and grew. He did not see, he only felt the great fist suddenly crash into the side of his head. Then that last Harry-bit, too, left for another equally-distant but very painful oblivion.

With a thud, Harry's now-empty body slammed headfirst into the wall, then crumpled down the stairs.

Harry neither knew nor felt his next hit - one massive fist propping him up against the wall while the other fist smashed into his face, ripping his mouth against his teeth and starting the blood flow. Harry neither knew nor felt the other hits, the many, many other hits and kicks, the shouts and screams, the volcanic rages and hates. Nor did he know or see his Aunt Petunia, who never said a word, who just stood there, watched and silently cursed Harry and his mother for what they had done to her family.

No, Harry didn't know these things. But he knew these people, with whom he'd been forced to live for fifteen of his sixteen years. Harry knew these people well.

* * * * * * * * * *

Harry awoke to find himself on what felt like his bedroom floor, facedown in his own blood. He couldn't see, but by extending his hand and fingers, he touched a closed door. Even just that movement really hurt, so he decided to lie still and collect whatever thoughts were possible.

Harry figured he'd not only fallen, he'd been beaten. He could feel that it was worse than usual. Much worse. He gave several wracking coughs, which, though he had little choice, were still a very bad idea. The pain upsurging from his groin met the pain lancing down from his head at the agony that was his ribs and the wound. Harry's body involuntarily jerked and arched, doubling these pains.

Once more, Harry left.

Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Siegfried Sassoon,
"Suicide in the Trenches"