Weapon

They were worried about him, Ginny could see. As he raised his hand in farewell, looking so heart-renderingly heroic and weary, she was surprised none of them broke down and bawled.

More than one of the group had tears in their eyes as they stood and watched Harry stride out of the station, looking more than ever like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. She wondered what he did at the Dursleys'. From the little Ron said of him and his letters over the summer, it seemed he did nothing at all. Just waited for the clock hand to go around, and around, and around. . . until he went back to school. How could he stand a summer like that?

How could he stand walking out of the train station as he did, with all the responsibility in the world heaped upon him? What made him tick, and keep ticking? How could he possibly stand being Harry Potter?

She hadn't any idea. From the looks on the faces of her family, the Aurors, and Hermione, nobody else had a clue in the world, either.

She'd have to ask him some time.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry's head swirled as he forged ahead through crowds of Muggles to reach the Dursley car. To see everyone there, everyone he cared about, all wanting to help him, well, that was something that would chase away the nightmares for quite a while. He concentrated on the image, tears stinging his eyes, all the way home.

He kept the image plastered over his mind as he heaved his school trunk out of the boot, and Dudley did the same with his own. He nearly broke his neck on the way up the stairs because all he could see was Mrs. Weasley's motherly face, and dropped his trunk on his foot because Ron's earnest voice was still resounding in his ears.

He staggered into his room, toes sore and knuckles bleeding, having wandered into walls and tables because his vision was so blurred. His glasses were perfectly fine, he knew; underneath them was the reason he couldn't see. Only after his trunk fell to the foot of his bed with a crash and Hedwig was safely on the dresser, his Firebolt stowed away under his bed and the door tightly closed, did he slowly sink onto the bed (still as messy as he had left it last summer) and wipe his eyes.

He hoped none of his friends has seen him cry as he hurried away. Really, he thought he might have been a bit rude to them, just raising a hand and practically running away. It was just a masculine thing, maybe, but he couldn't bear it if he cried like that in front of all his friends.

His family.

Of course, after he had thought that, he had to stem another flow of tears, and this time they really brimmed over and leaked onto his bed. They made soft little put noises as they hit the comforter, and pretty soon his room sounded just like a little engine.

Put put put put put put put put put.

Yes, he thought, the Weasleys really were his family. Hermione too. And Remus and Sirius-

Putputputputputputputputputputputputputptputputputputputputputput.

It still took a lot of getting used to, not having Sirius anymore. He carefully avoided contemplating exactly why Sirius had died, because that was a chasm he really didn't care to explore just yet.

He liked the feeling of having a family, even if it wasn't- well, wasn't a real one. At the moment it was quite a watery feeling, but he was enjoying it all the same. Finally, for the first time in his life, he realized he did have siblings, and Mrs. Weasley was like a mother, and Sirius. . .

For a while, the only sounds he could hear were the distant, meaningless clanging of the Dursleys and the soft put put put put put put put of his tears falling on the bed. He fancied he heard a slight sucking noise as the tank ran dry and the putting stopped. Out of gas. No more crying.

No more thinking about Sirius, treading on the edge of the canyon that threatened to envelop him each and every time he came close to stumbling upon whose fault it was Sirius was dead.

He wondered that it had been an hour since he'd gotten home. Hedwig was asleep, but he knew she'd want to get outside as night fell. She would swoop silently over the broad, square houses of Privet Drive and beyond, up into the night sky, terrorizing the rodents and other small mammals of Little Whinging, and bring back a disgusting little present or two for her master, in exchange maybe for a small Owl Treat.

He imagined what it would feel like, as he lay spread eagle on his partially damp bed, to be flying, unsupported, not sitting on a broom or in a plane, but really feeling the wind between his fingers and hearing it sing around his limbs. That was how Hedwig felt every time she took to the air, and suddenly he was envious. He wondered if she felt sorry for him at all.

That's right, Potter, he thought to himself. Distract yourself, just for tonight, from the one thought that's going to be driving you insane for the next long, miserable seventy-seven days.

Sirius. No tears this time, though. No more tears left for today. Nothing else for him to ponder without having to climb down and examine himself, from the inside, from within that gaping, bleeding hole in his flesh that Sirius had left as he collapsed through the veil.

He rolled over and went downstairs.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Even as he lay in bed that night, he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep. His stomach gurgled quietly and every once in a while a car whispered by, flashing rectangular patterns on the shadowed walls of his room. It was rather strange, sleeping in here after being in the Hogwarts dorms for nine months.

If he was afraid of things like that, he could have fancied monsters in the long, fuzzy shadows cast by mounds of broken objects. As it was, he only looked at the shadows because it was where his eyes happened to be pointing.

Was he thinking about something? Well, he was trying his hardest not to. His challenge was the lack of other things to think about besides Sirius. Anything he contemplated, turning over and over in his mind, always led him to Sirius' hollowed face, his bark of a laugh, a great black dog bounding down Mangolia Crescent to meet him. . .

Why did he refuse to think about Sirius? He certainly was avoiding thought of his godfather, avoiding that black hole he had used to occupy in Harry's mind. What was the point of avoiding that train of thought, when he knew he would have to go over every agonizing inch of it sooner or later? Wasn't he just putting it off?

To distract himself, he practiced the Wronski Feint in his head. One of the most important parts of the maneuver was convincing the opposing Seeker he had really seen the Snitch. Facial expression was paramount, as well as a sharp intake of breath that, if an enemy Seeker was nearby, would immediately send them plummeting alongside him. All the while he would keep his eyes trained on a specific spot on the ground, occasionally letting them dart around as if they were following a Snitch.

And then, and the last second, he would pull his broom handle back up, hook his feet over the broom tail and shove that down so his broom would be facing upwards once more. To dissipate the pull he would feel from changing direction so tightly, he would spiral off and perhaps even rocket in another direction.

He could see the sunlight spreading across the pitch, hear the roar of the crowd as his scarlet-clad figure went into a huge dive and Malfoy's white-blond head, which had been marking him tightly, tore after him. They flashed past a mob of Chasers and hurtled towards the ground. In his mind, he could tell Malfoy was looking all over for the Snitch, not concentrating on how to get out of his dive.

In the silence of his dark room, Harry allowed himself a chuckle as Malfoy's broom handle plunged through the soft grass of the pitch and Malfoy landed flat on his nose. He wouldn't have pulled a move like that on anyone but Malfoy, because only the scummy ferret deserved to have his nose broken during a Quidditch match.

Well, there certainly were others who deserved to have more than their noses broken, but that wasn't the point. He forced his head back into the daydream. The cold, bright air, cloudless sky, and he was floating back to his fantasy Quidditch match.

Madam Pomfrey mended Malfoy's nose fairly quickly, but looked reluctant to let him back into the air. Harry fixed her with a stern glare and she hastened to give Malfoy his broom back and gesture him to get flying. This was his daydream, after all, and nothing was going to stop him from kicking Malfoy's arse around the pitch a few more times.

Malfoy continued to trail Harry around, and he could see his mouth moving as he kept up a steady stream of cracks on the Weasleys and insults on Harry's parents. He knew Malfoy would just follow him around and try to nab the Snitch as soon as Harry spotted it for him. Malfoy, Harry could decide, was a Snatcher, and not a very good one at that.

All right, if he wanted Harry to catch the Snitch for him, he'd only be too glad to abide. Starting another Wronski Feint, Harry dove towards the goal posts. Malfoy couldn't afford to dismiss this as a hoax and tore after him once more, this time paying close attention to exactly how he was going to pull up.

Quickly, Harry looped around the goal posts and rose vertically behind the Slytherin Keeper. As the big, blundering oaf turned to see who was behind his back, Ginny Weasley darted in with the Quaffle and hurled it through a hoop. Grinning at her, Harry finally spotted the Snitch: it was at least a forty meters in the air directly over the center of the pitch and Malfoy, still rising up to mark Harry again, hadn't a clue.

Harry shot off to the left of the Snitch, at the Ravenclaw section of the stands, but slowly curved in an arc that took him further left, towards the Slytherins. Malfoy, who was still about twenty meters behind him, went on a direct course towards his own house's section, hoping to intercept a nonexistent Snitch by making a beeline for the target Harry was still arcing towards.

When Malfoy was well off to his left, racing him towards the Slytherins, Harry made a quick glance up to where the Snitch had been before: it had risen just a little higher and was flittering around tantalizingly. Suddenly, he swerved right and pulled his broom up so that it was pointing towards the Snitch. Like a fool, Malfoy was now hovering over his own section, eighty meters from where he needed to be, while Harry's broom was facing nearly vertically up as he rocketed upwards to the Snitch.

Harry clamped his left hand down over the top of the broom handle, hanging on tightly. He was pushing his Firebolt to its limits as he raised his right arm directly up, up, now in a standing position with his feet on the broom tail and his hand hanging on for dear life on the sweaty, rounded top of his broom. Accelerating upwards, he speared through the Snitch like an anti-aircraft missile, snatching it from below, and finally pulled back on his broom.

Completely upside down, he caught a glimpse of Malfoy hanging dejectedly over the Slytherin box and a sea of upturned faces, all pointing at him. As his broom pointed towards the horizon and he hung from its bottom, he could see the lake at the edge of the forest, which stretched on indefinitely towards mountain ridges. Continuing his loop, his broom slowly curved back until it pointed straight down.

He held it there for a little while, savoring absolute speed as he blasted back down from the heavens, an avenging angel with a glint of gold in his hand. Pulling back further on his broom, he finally swooped in, just a meter or two above the pitch, and dismounted.

His teammates flashed in towards him from all directions, hitting him with an oomph and reveling around the Snitch he clasped high above his head. The sun was just setting, and because of it the faces in the stands swam strangely. The Order of the Phoenix were there celebrating, too, and the leprechauns were still throwing gold from the dark sky.

Professor McGonagal approached with a golden Christmas bauble shaped like Dobby's head, and Wood held it above their heads as he sobbed with joy. The party lasted well into the night, and as Harry looked around. . .

. . .he finally noticed the stands were silent. There was just a room, an archway with a black veil ringed by rows of terraced seats. Sirius was there, but with a high, cold laugh he fell through the arch and came back out the other side with pitiless red snake's eyes, and slits for nostrils, and as he pointed his wand at Harry he felt pain like never before, and every single cell in his body was lit on fire and burnt down to nothing before he finally woke up, drenched in sweat, wrapped tightly in his bedsheets, with the eerie shadows of broken toys playing around him as another car whispered by.

He untangled himself. It was going to be a long, long night.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He awoke the next morning when the sun was well up above the horizon and groaned.

What a night. He'd awoken countless times in a cold sweat after terrifying dreams had scared him out of his wits. He had nightmares so often, he felt that he had underestimated the sheer terror of waking up out of one. All he could distinctly remember of the long night was the fear. Always present, but never really defined, never justified.

He wasn't afraid of anything, he was just afraid in general. Of what, he couldn't really say. Thinking back to his fantasy Quidditch match he had been distracting himself with the night before, he reflected that he ought to try a move like that sometime. It might work against Malfoy, the stupid thickhead.

He groaned again as he rolled out of bed and onto the floor. The sunlight stained the insides of his eyelids red, and his eyes ached when he fluttered them open to a squint. He was feeling lethargic today. Sluggish. Not really in the mood to get up, but not able to go to sleep in the glaring sun. He fully opened his eyes.

Sunlight was streaming through his window, and he could see individual particles of dust floating lazily around. He followed one until he lost eye contact and got up. Pulling a shirt over his head, he trudged out of his room with his socked feet dragging on the carpet.

As he thumped down the darkened stairway he heard Uncle Vernon's voice floating in from down the hall.

"Well, Dudders, my boy, why don't you finish off that bacon and we'll be off. You're going to need your energy today. Big day."

Harry stuck his head around the entrance to the kitchen and trudged in, still rubbing some sleep out of an eye that wouldn't open right.

"Hoho, Sleeping Beauty," Uncle Vernon snorted as he flopped down at a seat. "Finally decided to come down and join us, eh?"

He snatched the last piece of bacon from under Harry's hand and rose slowly, saying, "Come on, Dudders, you'll have this piece in the car. Better buck up now, I hear most boxers retire and can't even feed themselves. Too many head shots." He chuckled darkly as Dudley followed him out the door.

Aunt Petunia swept in as the men left and began cleaning up the remains of their breakfast. As he watched her, Harry asked, "Aunt Petunia, may I make myself some more bacon?"

She took a sharp, critical glance at his hollow face and nodded curtly.

"Of course, you'll have to clean up all this after yourself." She nodded around to Uncle Vernon and Dudley's eaten food. "And cleaning those dishes goes without saying." She swept from the room with pursed lips.

Slowly, he got up and began to fry up some more bacon. Looking over the mess of dishes spread out by his piggish brother and uncle, he judged about twenty minutes work..

At least it was something to do. The thought occurred that it was pitiful that he would welcome dishwashing on the first day of summer, just for something to do. He wondered what his friends were doing. Hermione might be doing something educational with her parents, and Ron might be playing Quidditch in the paddock near his house.

Maybe he would write to them later, he thought idly. He chewed his bacon thoughtfully as he finished drying the last cup, and trudged back up to the loo to brush his teeth and make himself respectable. He winced as he saw his reflection. He guessed terrified sleep was less restful than normal sleep, because he certainly didn't look very rested. The purple shadows were evident on his pale skin, arcing out from his eyes. His hair was tousled, which was not unusual, and his left eye was still half-closed.

All in all, he looked like crap. Felt like crap, too, for that matter. Looking ahead over his summer, he didn't see much to look forward to. He had at least fifty more days until he could go to Ron's, and absolutely nothing to do over them except ponder the meaning of his life (even though that had already been decided for him, stupid prophecy) and answer letters. What a pitiful existence.

After throwing a few handfuls of cold water in his face and brushing his teeth, he felt slightly more awake and went to put on some clothes. He decided on a plain white shirt and a pair of denim shorts, some of Dudley's older clothes that had been passed on to him five years ago. They, at least, fit.

He walked out into the heavy sunlight, turned around, and walked back into the house. Who was he kidding? What was he going to do outside, besides aimlessly waste time? He dashed back out and around the house a few times to wake himself up completely. As he padded back up the stairs to his room, sweating slightly, he wondered if he'd be able to fall asleep by pulling the shades down over the window.

He decided to try it. Hedwig hooted from the closet as he passed, and he stopped to open the door and pull her out. Once the room was relatively dim, the only light being that which filtered through the plastic slats, she calmed down a bit and settled next to her cage on the dresser.

Harry flopped down on his bed. It was cool and felt nice against his still-sweaty face. He had an uncomfortable, slightly nagging feeling. He pushed it away and resumed his vegetating.

His brain moved slowly, and it was a while before the nagging feeling bobbed back along to him and hit him with a bump. It took another while for the realization to float to the surface that he didn't particularly enjoy being lethargic.

He pushed that thought away too. He remembered how all his family/friends were on his side, and that made him happy for a bit.

Hedwig hooted.

Hedwig hooted again.

There was a lawnmower going somewhere.

The grandfather clock in the hall was ticking as time went on.

A car hissed by on the hot street below.

Hedwig hooted.

A child shouted somewhere in the neighborhood, sounding distant.

The lawnmower stopped.

The grandfather clock donged once.

A car door slammed.

A car started up and hissed away.

Hedwig hooted.

Hedwig hooted.

Hedwig hooted.

And so, Harry Potter's summer began.