Save One Thing

Save One Thing

Chapter Three

Harry's in the kitchen listening to some news program on the radio. He looks at you curiously for a second when you enter and turns it off before you can tell him you'll pound him if he doesn't, but he makes no move to get up. He watches. He watches as you take a piece of fudge cake from the refrigerator and as you take the first few large bites. "Stop it," you say, but he doesn't. He watches, unsurprised, as the television turns on without you touching the remote and as it flicks off when you get up to leave. "What are you playing at?"

"Nothing."

"You-you'd better . . ." You stand there, trying to come up with something to say, but you can't think properly, and you don't know why, but your hands start shaking, and then you hear it-- wing-beats.

Harry's owl has turned from white to a dull, yellowish grey, and its eyes look foggy and sick, but Harry still lets it hop all over the table when it flies in through the window. He pats its head for a few seconds, and then he turns back to you and starts watching again.

"Quit it."

"What?"

"Quit being weird."

"Already have," he says, but your heart starts beating fast, and you can't concentrate to figure out what he means by it. The magic is getting brighter, so bright that you can see it even when you close your eyes. You can feel cool winds swirling all around you, and you hold a napkin between two fingers and drop it to see where those winds are coming from and where they'll carry it, but it falls straight to the counter. You chance a quick look at Harry to see if his mess of hair is blowing about, but it's perfectly still and just the same as always, except for a rather obvious bald patch in the back.

The winds blow harder, touching nothing but your skin, and when you shiver slightly, Harry tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes. "Stop," you say, but he doesn't, so you grab a grab a package of biscuits and leave. You can feel Harry's stare on the back of your neck all the way to your room.

~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry wasn't sure of it at first. He didn't want to let himself think it could be possible only to be disappointed in the end, but he's been paying attention for the past few days, and over the years, he's grown used to impossible things happening. He isn't surprised when Pig flies into the kitchen and starts trying to make a nest in his hair.

"I heard that," Dudley shouts from the lounge. "I'm bloody sick of your freak bird doing whatever it likes."

"Hedwig's sleeping," Harry calls back, trying to get the tiny owl untangled and vaguely wondering what made Dudley leave his room again.

"Don't lie."

"I'm not lying," he says. "You do know that owls are nocturnal?"

"What?"

Harry rolls his eyes and rakes a hand through his hair, trying to loosen Pig's grip. "They tend sleep during the day," he says with an exhausted sigh. "Day is what it's called when the sun's out and it's not dark. You know, I actually think we've been over this before."

"Shut your face."

Harry expects Dudley to come waddling in and start screaming at him, but instead the television gets louder, and he reminds himself that Dudley's never been one to do any unnecessary walking. A few minutes later, he manages to get Pig out of his hair but only by cutting quite a bit off the top. He absently wonders what state his head must be in now and if he should take Hermione up on her offer of a hat. Beside him, Pig hops excitedly over Dudley's placemat then drops a letter on the table and zips out the window. Unexpectedly, the writing on the envelope is Ron's, not Hermione's.

Dear Harry,

I won't yell at you for not writing to me, since you've obviously gone mental. The thing is I think Hermione has sort of gone mental too. But you shouldn't worry about that-- I mean it's all happening in a very Hermione way, all planed out and organized according to colored timetables and corresponding the growing season of mandrakes and the phases of the moon.

Maybe she's right, and I am just being thick headed like everyone tells me, but I don't think all the magic's gone. I think we would be able to tell if it really was. It's just not where you're looking for it, and you don't have to be looking, Harry. You've done what you needed to. You've done more than enough. It's like when you lose things, and they always turn up in the least expected places. Neville says if it's anything like Trevor it's probably scared and tired and hiding by the lake, lounging about and snacking on flies until it feels better. I don't know about the flies, but the rest seems to almost make sense.

Mum's worried about you. She thinks you should come over here and eat chicken soup and rest until everything's perfect. I think you should just stop trying to save the world, because you're going to drive yourself completely mad. I'd tell you to sit back and do nothing, but you have being a hero beaten so far into your brain by now that you probably can't. So forget about magic and the Ministry and all the great big messy problems.

Save one thing or save little things or come visit and save me from Percy's lectures on how bloody fascinating muggle money is. I swear, he sent away for something called a kedit card and nearly died of happiness when he saw all the forms to fill out. Then he made me go with him to a bank. I think there was something wrong with it, because there weren't any carts or goblins or anything, just velvet ropes and lines we had to wait in for hours, and he was giggling, Harry. Giggling.

We're fine, though, at least as fine as we would have been back at home. My brothers are all here, did you know? I don't expect Hermione's been giving you any real news. Everyone's trying to educate me on muggle contraptions or proper manners or the difference between molars and bicuspids. I tried to tell them I'm bloody finished school and don't need any more educating, but they won't listen to me. Nobody ever listens to me.

If you're lucky, Pig hasn't made too much of a mess. Sorry if he did. He's been a little jumpy lately, but I thought he would work better than Errol or Hermes on account of him being a normal owl rather than a magical one.

Hope your muggles aren't being too horrible.

~Ron

There's a reason Ron doesn't write letters often and tries to keep them short when he does. It's the same reason Hermione always seemed seconds away from screaming in frustration when she helped him revise his Defense papers and futilely tried to convince him not to include pages on the death of Uncle Bilius. Harry has to read the letter twice before he can get any information out of it and four times before it starts really making sense. He's still looking it over in mild awe when a stubby, pink finger reaches over his shoulder and pins it to the table.

"I know what this is," Dudley says.

"Really?" Harry turns his head slightly and looks up into Dudley's small, watery eyes. "Congratulations."

"It's a freak letter. It's from one of your freak friends."

"I underestimate you sometimes, don't I? Maybe one day you'll even learn how to read."

"I don't want to read that." Dudley says. "It probably has freak germs crawling all over it"

"You're touching it," Harry says absently.

Dudley's finger jumps for a second and trembles slightly but then pushes harder into the paper. "I-I'm not afraid of your stupid letters."

"Oh?"

"You're not allowed to have it here."

"Well I do."

"Get rid of it," he says, and Harry can't help but smile.

"Make me."

There are little beads of sweat popping up all over Dudley's large face, but he's shivering and his teeth are chattering, as if it's cold. Suddenly, all the burners on the stove flare up in swirls of blue-white flame, and Harry can hear Dudley's breath coming in sharp pants as turns and runs clumsily up the stairs.

Harry switches the stove off by hand. That's the only we he can do it now, and he picks up a pen and a piece of paper, and he writes.

Dear Ron,

You're right. You're right about everything, except that it's called a credit card, and muggle banks generally don't have goblins.

~Harry


At night, Harry sneaks into Dudley's room and watches Dudley sleep. Sometimes Dudley snores, and sometimes he screams, and sometimes he doesn't make any noise at all, but his shoulders rise and fall too quickly, as he jerks and shudders and pulls blankets up over his head. Harry doesn't move to wake him. If this is a spell, he does not want to break it.

Impossible things can happen-- he knows this, babies can defeat dark lords and foolish boys can pull enchanted stones from mirrors and swords from hats with nothing more than an unselfish wish. Their impossibility is not enough to stop them from happening, but it won't let them keep going, not long and never permanently. Charmed lives are not made from luck but obligation and responsibility. The magic that protected the baby wears thin as he grows older, and the foolish boy pays for his impetuousness with the lives of those closest to him. However these new shields were made, Harry knows it's only a matter of time before they too fail. It's only ever been a matter of time.

So he concentrates, and outside he can hear the confused voices of the Death Eaters, and through the window he can see their shadows passing through the lamplight. He closes his eyes, and he tries to feel for any faint hints of magic floating in the air, but it's too hot and thick and stuffy, as if there's really not enough left for both him and Dudley to breathe at once. But no matter how uncomfortable the room becomes, Harry doesn't leave it, and he silently wills Dudley to stay asleep and to not find him there and to keep doing whatever it is he's doing, however he's doing it, for as long as he can.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

You stumble into Harry in the hallway, and this time he doesn't move to the side to let you pass. "Out of the way," you say, and at first, you can't even tell if he heard you. His eyes are red around the edges, and he still hasn't changed out of yesterday's clothes. Even his hair is worse than usual, messy and noticeably shorter in some places. If you look close, the bare patch seems bigger, and you don't like having to see Harry's hair. It makes you think about the time your mum shaved it all off, and it makes you think about what she would do if she were here, if she would give you Harry's room back and whether your dad would start taking you along to work. "Move it," you say, but he only stares and takes a deep breath, and you miss the time he couldn't be bothered to look at you no matter how you tried to get his attention-- to prove that you weren't scared of what he could do. "Stop being such a freak and leave."

He doesn't leave, though. He takes a step closer to you, and he starts talking. "My wand fell apart days ago-- just rotted away like a dead twig, and I haven't bothered to get a new one. There isn't any point. No one can get into Diagon Alley anymore, and the wards around Hogwarts have all shattered. Everything that was once magical is either lost or broken."

"Get away from me!" you scream. The magic flashes everywhere in sight, and you try to save the image of the hallway in your mind, but it keeps slipping away, so you dig your fingernails into the panels of the wall and hold on as the wave of dizziness hits.

"You're such a pig, Dudley," Harry says. "I've been using my firebolt to sweep your crumbs off the kitchen floor. That's all I can do with it now, and my cauldron bottoms are so thin they're practically sieves."

You can't make any sense of Harry's words, and he seems closer than before. He seems all around you, but that's impossible. "Leave me alone," you say, trying to keep the shiver out of your voice as freezing winds hit you from every direction.

"Hedwig's forgetting how to deliver letters. My invisibility cloak disappeared, and the marauders' map is nothing more than a blank sheet of parchment."

"I-I don't know what you're talking about?"

He grabs your shoulder, and you don't know whether it's to hurt you or to keep you steady, but it doesn't do either, and you lean back against the wall, feeling like you're about to throw up. "I'm saying I'm not a freak," Harry whispers. "I would say I'm just like you are, but that's-- that's not exactly true."

Your hands are shaking now, and there's nothing you can do to stop them. Slowly, you let yourself slide down until you're sitting on the floor with your back still against the wall. "Get out of here!"

Harry moves his hand off your shoulder, but he doesn't leave. He speaks slowly, and his voice sounds like it's coming from very far away. "In the last few months there's only one person I know of who's been able to do any magic at all. There might only be one in the entire world."

"What do I care?" you ask. "Just one freak is a freak too many."

"No," he says, looking down at you strangely. "No, but it might be enough."

You don't know how long you stay sitting there, waiting for the world to come back into focus. The rest of the day blurs together. You remember brief moments-- turning on your computer, eating a candy bar, catching your reflection in the bathroom mirror and barely recognizing yourself.

There is something you're fighting, something that no amount of punching or kicking can bring down. Even if you know you can never win against it and the struggling makes you tired and sick, the thought of giving in and truly being defeated is much worse than anything you can lose in the fight. But it's only a matter of time, really, until your endurance fails, as it always has and you're forced to face the certainties of your own weakness.

Harry said something about magic going away, and that has to be the stupidest thing you've ever heard. Maybe even with his thick glasses, he's to blind to see it running through the air, but he should at least be able to feel it. You take a deep breath, and you begin to fumble through the bottom drawer of your dresser, tossing aside piles of shirts too small for you but too good for Harry until your fingers brush the sides of a seemingly ordinary shoebox, but you know that the things inside are anything but ordinary. You pick it up using both hands and carefully set it down on your bed before sitting down yourself.

Opening it is like taking the cap off a cola bottle you hear a faint crackle followed by a rush of cool air, and instead of bubbles, white sparks rise up towards the ceiling then flash and flicker out. Inside the box, everything seems just the same as it had been when you put it there. The twigs are still warm when you touch them, and the feather is still soft and white, and the Weird Sisters are still dancing. You take out the jar of armadillo bile, and you watch as the liquid sloshes from side to side, shimmering somewhere between bright yellow and sickly green, and you look at the address on the sixth letter.

Mr. H. Potter
Second Floor
Smallest bedroom
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey

And then you touch it.

Dudley Dursley
Second floor
Largest Bedroom
Broken bed
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey


You draw your hand away, watching as it shifts back and then touch it again see if anything happens differently, but you're interrupted by the soft click of your door being opened and by Harry's surprised voice. "You're awake!"

"You?"

"What's that?" he asks taking a step closer and trying to look over your shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing!" you say, scooping everything up in your arms and shoving it back into the shoebox. You wonder if he notices the rush of air as the lid shoots down, practically sealing itself on, but if he does, it doesn't put him off nearly as much as the fact that you're awake. "Get out of my room!"

He looks at you curiously then sits down beside you on the bed, pressing his fingers into the mattress as if giving it a careful examination. "This is broken, you know?" he says with a half smile and pokes you in the side. "Wonder why that is."

"Don't touch me," you say, pushing him onto the floor.

He rolls his eyes as he gets up and looks very close to laughing. "Awww, Diddykins, did I hurt you?"

He ruffles your hair, and the magic snaps against your skin, and you think about your parents and how they're trapped because of it and how none of that would have happened if it weren't for Harry. And you punch him. You punch him harder than you ever punched anyone before. "Don't touch me!" you scream. "Don't talk to me! Don't ever come near me again!"

"Ow 'ell!" he shouts. You can't really make out what he meant to say, but you know he's mad, and you step back to admire your handiwork. His face is buried in his arms, but you're pretty sure you managed to break something, and if the blood that's dripping down onto his shirtsleeves is anything to go by, it probably hurts a lot.

"You shouldn't be here," you say, not knowing whether you mean he shouldn't be in your room or your house or that a person like him has no right to exist at all.

"Ow 'urts."

"Good."

"Ow."

"Listen," you say, grabbing him by the shoulder and trying to drag him out the door. "You'd better not get your freak blood all over my room."

He doesn't move. "Ow, ow, ow."

"Get out."

"Ow!"

"Hey?" you ask, almost felling sorry for him. "You okay?"

"Is 'ou," he says, and as soon as the words leave his mouth, his skin warms beneath your fingers and then slowly becomes so hot it burns, and you pull your hand away fast and take a few steps back.

"W-what?"

"You, it's you." He looks up and wipes away the faint trickle of blood beneath his nose with the back of his hand. The rest of his face seems just as it was when he first walked in, right down to the look he's giving you, surprised and disdainful all at once, but you know that can't be possible, because you punched him as hard as you could, and just moments ago, he could barely talk. "You," he repeats clearly, pushing you back into the wall. "You can do magic, you fat freak. You're doing it right now."

"I'm not!" you say, but your answer comes too fast for it to be convincing. "I-I can't."

"You know . . ." Harry says, and it's not a question. He rakes a hand through his hair and gives a nasty smile. "You know."

"That's a lie!" you shout. "I'm not-- I'm not one of you! I'm nothing like you!" Your hands are clenched at your sides to keep them from shaking, but he manages to grab one, and somehow, he pulls it up to his face despite your struggling, and looks at it for a few moments and prods his fingers into the palm damp with your sweat and maybe some of his blood, and you stop trying to pull back.

He tilts his head to the side, and his smile fades. "No," he says, barley louder than a whisper. "No, you're not anything like me, Dudley." He shoves your hand roughly back towards you, and you press further into the wall, trying to regain your balance. "You're even worse." He walks calmly out into the hallway, half-smiling and laughing under his breath. The magic is everywhere, but it doesn't touch him.

You hear wing-beats outside your window and see sparks dancing through the air. The magic sends cold winds to freeze you, and it makes the air heavier as it tries to press you down onto the floor, but you shut your mouth tight, and you lock your knees to keep standing. You don't fall this time. You close your eyes, and you concentrate, and eventually, the winds die away, and the air gets lighter and easier to breathe. You stay with your back against the wall until you're ready to walk again, and you wonder how stupid Harry must be to think that you're the one doing the magic.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Thousands of years ago, there were far fewer witches and wizards than there are today, and it was said that because of their small numbers, the magic shared between them did not have to be stretched so thin-- that they were much more powerful in their art than the witches and wizards of recent years.

Voldemort had claimed that when the mudbloods and halfbloods were wiped from the face of the earth, there would be more magic to be divided amongst the most deserving. He promised power, and no matter what Harry claimed when he stood before the DA or beside Dumbledore, he knew there was at least some truth to that promise.

But not all magic is wrapped up in the cycles and places of the living world. Some is kept inside, renewed by every heartbeat and strengthened by the bonds of family and the love of friends. Dumbledore had said that was the greatest magic of all-- stronger than the ancient magics stored in stones in the deep places of the earth and the magics of the air, which were able to move freely and pass through all things. It is older than any known ceremonies or rites and more powerful than enchantments cast with symbols or in words. This is what Harry puts his trust in, not Dudley. His cousin is stupid and selfish and weak in every way that really matters. He tells himself this, and he tells himself that after all Dudley put him through growing up, he doesn't owe him anything now, not his respect, not his kindness and certainly not his life.

There's blood on Harry's hands, still, but hardly more than a smudge left on his face, now that he's wiped it all away. He squints up at the bathroom mirror, examining his reflection. Besides his hair, which has always been hopeless, and some red patches around his eyes, which can be easily explained away by lack of sleep, he looks completely normal.

He presses a finger to the side of his nose, finding it still sore to the touch, and he tells himself he's lucky nothing was broken, but that isn't true. He'd heard a sharp snap and felt something slide out of place, and there was blood everywhere, but for some reason, Dudley decided to undo it, even if he hadn't actually intended to. Harry didn't expect that, and he certainly didn't expect to tell Dudley everything. He just wanted to watch Dudley sleep, not out of any concern or affection, just to make sure that despite everything that was happening, Dudley kept going as he always had. If Harry didn't dislike him so much, he would have found Dudley's stubbornness rather spectacular.

It doesn't take Harry long to realize that the idea of actually being nice to Dudley is hopeless, especially since Dudley never saw it fit to be nice to anyone without being rewarded for his troubles. He can't see the point of it, really. Dudley still has nothing to hold against him. Even if he is doing magic, he has no real control over it. The least he can do, Harry decides, is try to see that Dudley doesn't have a heart-attack brought on by fear or too much chocolate and die before the summer is out, and otherwise avoid him as much as possible, but that doesn't go well either.

Harry spends his nights watching the Death Eaters as they traipse through the lawn with his head resting against the downstairs window, and when he can, he sneaks back into Dudley's room to watch him until he starts screaming and the movements of his sleep become more frantic. Then, he backs out slowly past the shadowed corners of his walls, shutting the door softly behind him.

Over the next few days, they run into each other more often, and he can see the hate in Dudley's eyes, and wishes never to find out what that hate could do with enough force behind it. Harry can't tell whether he's lucky at all or if there's even such a thing as luck anymore, and he knows that playing his life against the breaking point of Dudley's self control can only result in a loss, but the chance in his favor is better than the one he would stand alone and magicless against the Death Eaters, so he takes it, and he hopes that Dudley's fear will keep him in check for just a while longer.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~