Ransom

Chapter 5: Truth

They were back in the Garden of the Kiss, as he liked to call it, though in reality it was only a secluded area in a local play park, where kids ran off their seemingly endless supply of energy until dinnertime, or later. There she stood, beautiful as ever, his first kiss and his first date, and the only girl he had ever loved. Her face was framed by long, straight dark brown hair, and her smile was teasing and playful as she walked toward him in a bright red dress and high-heel shoes that glittered in the misty darkness.

"Arlene?" said Jack slowly. He knew this was a dream, because Arlene was long dead, but she seemed so...real, so tangible. He stretched out a hand to touch her, slightly afraid of what might he might find, but she grasped his hand in response, and the strange thrills of physical contact ran through his body. "Arlene," he whispered.

"Did you miss me?" she asked, smiling and cocking her head to one side.

"Very much," he answered. "Oh, God, so much!" He wanted to throw himself at her and kiss her over and over, but he refrained.

Arlene's smile dropped from her face; looking closer, Jack could see her brow furrowed in worry. "What is it?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said, looking up and giving him a small smile.

"No?" He observed her darting eyes, and the way she avoided looking at his face. It reminded him of Harry.

"If you missed me so much," Arlene said, her eyes settling on a point beyond his shoulder, "why didn't you come find me?"

Jack's breath caught in his throat. "What do you mean?"

"You never came," said Arlene. "You never came to see me put to rest. I waited and waited for you to come to visit, but...there was nothing. Not even flowers. Not even a grieving letter left at the grave. Not even a phone call to my friends."

"I couldn't," Jack whispered. "I couldn't bear to go."

"No," said Arlene, shaking her head. "No, you see - I wouldn't be angry at you for that. You promised me." Her voice hardened, and she looked angry. "You promised me that you would always love me. For eternity. Always and forever. But I guess that you never really loved me, because your love for me ended with my death. You stopped loving me. As soon as you found out I was dead, I disappeared from your heart, your mind, your soul. Don't try to deny it," she said, as Jack opened his mouth to protest. "You forgot about me. You didn't even bother to try and keep a memory."

"That's not true," said Jack, "I did try." The words rolled off his tongue automatically, leaving a bitter aftertaste. He knew they were a lie. He'd forgotten about her, because he had had to. He couldn't go on with the past dragging him down. He'd already known the consequences of that, had known how far it would get him.

"But you haven't gone on," said Arlene sadly, as if she could read his mind. "You haven't. You're still stuck on your old hopes and dreams. You still read and study and pretend that one day you're going to get enough money or earn enough merit to go to uni. You still hope that people will take an immediate liking to you if you take an immediate liking to them. You still think," she said, her voice cracking as a single tear rolled down her cheek, "you still think that if you love a boy as a son, then he'll love you as a father. You think that this Harry will want to stay with you because you want him to stay. You believe that if you treat him well enough, then he'll like you enough to stay with you."

Jack gaped at her. "How do you...nobody knows that -"

"Sometimes," continued Arlene, as if she had never been interrupted, "I want to cry, because I know what this is doing to you, and I can't help you. I know that you could do so much better than this; I know you could be so much more. You could be working in an office right now, earning an honest share of money. You could be happily married, playing with your own son instead of kidnapping a teenager to be one. You could have real friends, friends that you don't have to pay to keep you company. But look at you now! Kidnapping boys for ransom, paying dirty guards who share a brain and have only loyalty to money, fighting on the streets to survive. You didn't need to do this, Jack. You don't need to do this. I know you're so much better than that."

Jack felt the beginnings of anger stir within his chest. What right did she - a ghost, a memory, a phantom from the past - have to order him about and lecture him? Who did she think she was, his conscience?

Arlene touched his shoulder gently. "My job here is finished," she said. "You can lead horse to water, but you can't make it drink." A great wind began to blow, scattering the leaves across the ground, and she turned to go. Her hair flew back behind her, and her red dress pressed against the front of her body.

"Wait - Arlene -" called Jack at her retreating back.

She paused for a moment and looked at him. "Good bye, Jack," she said. Giving him a small smile, she walked away, her figure quickly lost to the hazy night.

***

As Harry talked, he slowly loosened the ropes on his wrists until his hands were completely free. He shook them out gently and rested them on the table while finishing his account of the Chamber of Secrets.

It was strange to be telling Dudley, of all people, about his adventures at school. Dudley hated magic - well, he was scared of it - and Dudley also hated Harry (or was scared of him). But Dudley had asked for a story (more specifically, the story of Harry's life away from home), and so Harry was giving it to him. After all, he had nothing better to do except escape, and that was only an option after he finished untying himself and Dudley. Good thing Jack had tied his bonds loosely; otherwise it wouldn't be an option at all.

"Riddle tried to get Fawkes away from me, but it was too late. Fawkes brought me the diary, and I took the fang and stabbed the diary with it. Riddle disappeared, and Ginny woke up." Harry stood. He carefully tested his legs for a few seconds, and then went over to Dudley.

"What are you doing?" asked Dudley, alarmed, as Harry's hands scrambled at his back.

"I'm untying you, idiot," Harry hissed. "And talk softer, you'll wake Jack."

"Oh." Dudley paused for a moment, then asked, "Is Ginny your girlfriend?"

Harry laughed incredulously. "No! Why?"

"Well I mean...'cause you saved her and all. So wouldn't you...I dunno..." Dudley looked over his shoulder at Harry. "Wouldn't you go out with her? It's obvious you cared about her."

Harry looked at him doubtfully. "Dudley, I saved her because she was my best friend's sister, and because she was innocent. She didn't deserve to die. I was the only one who could stop Riddle, too."

"Oh...okay..." said Dudley skeptically.

"I don't like Ginny. Not in that way." He stopped himself before he could say exactly who he did like.

"Oh."

"Yeah." Harry gritted his teeth in exertion, pulling at the rope. Dudley's bonds were extremely tight.

"Well, do you like someone?"

"That's none of your business." Harry silently triumphed as he pulled one mass of rope apart.

"Do you fancy girls at all?"

"Of course I do!" said Harry indignantly. "Not Ginny, though. There's someone else -"

"Oh. I was beginning to think you didn't. I thought you fancied men."

Harry spluttered. "No!"

"Who do you like, then?" Dudley asked, sounding interested.

"Dudley," said Harry suspiciously, "why are you so interested in my love life?"

Dudley was silent for moment, and then answered, "I...I tried to ask a girl out once, and she said no."

Privately, Harry wasn't surprised. "Oh. That's - that's nice, Dudley."

"So I was wondering if you could tell me about your - your attempts to ask a girl out."

"Oh," said Harry, trying to find a way to get back to the previous topic. He did not want to talk about girls with Dudley. "Well."

"Well, have you?" Dudley asked.

"Have I what?"

"Have you ever tried to ask a girl out?"

"Um. Yes. But -"

"Did it work?"

"How do you mean?"

"Did she say yes?"

"No. She was, er, she was dating someone else."

"Who was she dating?"

"Cedric," said Harry before he could stop himself.

"Cedric?" said Dudley slowly. "Wasn't he the one who..."

"Who I saw get killed? Yeah."

"Oh. And you asked his girlfriend?"

"I didn't know they were dating," said Harry, annoyed. "When I asked her. He was - he was still alive then."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

There was a brief moment of quiet, before Dudley demanded, "Tell me more."

"Okay," said Harry, relieved that they were back on topic. "You remember how I ran away from home one summer? I met my godfather that night -"

"No, I meant more about girls and you."

"Well, there's not much to say. I asked a girl, and got rejected. The end." Harry really did not want to talk about this with Dudley.

"Was this girl pretty?"

"Yes, she's very pretty. So, I met my godfather that night - the convicted murderer, Sirius -"

"What does she look like?"

"Sirius is a man, Dudley."

"No, I meant the girl. That you asked out."

"Why do you want to know?" asked Harry, exasperated.

"At least tell me her name," Dudley whined.

"Her name is Cho, all right? Now can we please get back to the story?"

"Have you ever tried asking any other girls out?"

"No," Harry lied.

"What about that girl who kissed you at the train station?"

Harry blinked. "Who?"

"That brown-haired girl."

"Oh, Hermione," said Harry, laughing. "No, we're not dating."

"But she kissed you."

"What's your point, Dudley?"

"So maybe she likes you."

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes. "No, she doesn't. Don't try to tell me that she does, we already went over that last year. Rita Skeeter..."

"Who?"

"A reporter - she made up some story on how Hermione and I were dating, and we weren't, and everyone thought we were...but, we weren't. And I've never liked Hermione in that way. She wasn't even my date for the Yule Ball."

"What's that?"

"Oh -" Harry grinned, finding a way to get off the subject of girls. "It's a - a dance that we had last year for the Triwizard Tournament. The Triwizard Tournament, you see, is this competition...."

***

There were voices now, two strangely familiar voices, and Jack wished that they would go away and let him sleep. One could hardly get a moment's rest in the city nowadays - the walls of the flat were so thin - Arlene always hated coming over to his place for that reason. He wondered why he had dreamed that Arlene was dead...Arlene wasn't dead...the subconscious acted so strangely sometimes.

"Dragons? Wow! So what did they do?" The voice cut into his sleep, his rest, and he clenched his fists, wishing them to stop.

"Well, Krum used -"

"Who's Krum again?"

"The Durmstrang champion. He used a Conjunctivitus Curse..."

"What does that do?"

"Just what it says. It blinds the dragon, and..."

Jack could see a roaring dragon now, and a duck-footed boy shooting a curse out of a magic wand, and he thought it quite odd; he had never really liked fantasy, and besides, he hadn't dreamed about dragons since he was four, when his father had told him that story about Saint George and the dragon...

The voices stopped, and Jack let out a sigh of relief, keeping his eyes closed. Now he could go to sleep.

But his mind was racing, grasping at names and faces and figures, but he didn't know what they were and tried to meditate for a moment - just like that Buddhist person had taught him once. Breathe in, breathe out, focus on one word or object...what were those two words he had used when he tried it...?

Desire. Breathe in.

Love. Breathe out.

Desire. Inhale.

Love. Exhale.

Desire.

Love.

Desire.

Love.

Desire.

Love.

Desire...

Love...

His mind was quiet, yet tired; and finally he fell asleep once more, a peaceful smile on his face. He didn't notice the two boys creeping out of the room, or the pocket knife they had stolen from the bed stand, and he didn't hear the door close as his captives escaped from the room.

***

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as he and Dudley closed the hotel door behind them. He had grabbed Jack's knife from the night stand in order to speed up the process of freeing Dudley, and surprisingly, Jack hadn't woken up. He seemed to be having some sort of dream, mumbling in his sleep about someone named "Arlene." Harry vaguely wondered about Jack's dating history as he and Dudley quickly walked to the lobby of the hotel. Was Arlene an old girlfriend, or just a friend? Maybe Arlene had been Jack's wife. That is, if Jack had ever got married at all.

Mentally shrugging, Harry followed Dudley and stepped outside of the hotel.

"Um, Harry?" asked Dudley.

"Hmm?" Harry replied distractedly, looking at the surroundings. The hotel was located near an isolated rural area, with a pretty woods and a picturesque landscape. No wonder Jack had chosen to keep them there; it was probably the only haven for miles. The good thing was that they could hide in the woods without much trouble, but the bad thing was that they wouldn't be able to find any shelter or food. Harry hadn't yet formed a plan as to what they would to; all he wanted was to get as far away from the hotel as possible. He didn't dislike Jack or anything; he simply disliked being a captive.

"Harry, what are we going to do?" asked Dudley.

Harry sighed, and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "We're going to hide out in that forest, and try to get help. That all right with you?"

Dudley nodded.

"Come on then."

Grabbing Dudley's hand, Harry sprinted toward the woods, hoping that this would soon be over.

***