Here Without You

Chapter 1 - Unexpected Apparition

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his bed. The thick rain bashed against the glass window deafeningly. It was the second week of holidays and Harry hadn't had yet a single full night's sleep. It was always like this, a few hours of light sleep, where the incessant rain and thunders seemed to be part of his slumber. Then he was hastily taken back to a place which felt strangely familiar. After having the identical dream almost everyday, he judged that it was his old house, the house where he lived with his parents, smashed to bits. Beside it, three graves, his mothers', his fathers' and one still waiting for a body, his godfathers'. And every time there was a flash of the lightning (it rained in his dream too) he saw the bodies of his parents lying beneath their graves. Sometimes Cedric Diggory dropped in appeared sprawled on the floor between the house wrecks. Bellatrix Lestrange also popped in once in a while, laughing menacingly of the Potter's corpses, a laugh that couldn't stay out of his mind.

Harry woke up, clutching his wand, by a thunder, followed by an indignant hooting Hedwig, obviously complaining with the racket the rain was making. Too struck by the images he had just seen, Harry threw the covers aside and walked to the window. He stared at the empty street, lit only by great flashes of white, blinding light. Harry thought of Ron and Hermione. Well, that was the only thing he had done all summer, think. He thought of Hogwarts, of the frustrating year he had just come back from. He thought of Dumbledore, and the horrific scene of the death of his godfather flashing in scenes in his mind; Bellatrix sending her stupid red jet of light hitting Sirius squarely in the chest, Sirius falling, and Lupin holding him back, and still Sirius was falling, and Bellatrix's euphorical laughter ringing through his head as if cutting everything it passed through. Harry tried to snap out of it, but he was already hurting himself for clutching his fingers so tightly and breathing hard through gritted teeth. The pain he felt was much worst that any pain he had ever felt before. The guilt that lay in the pit of his stomach was far more exhaustive and heavy than the pain he had felt when Voldemort had tried to possess him. Huh. Voldemort, Harry scoffed indignantly. It was because of him Harry was alone. Harry then thought of something that just added up to all the pain he was already feeling, the prophecy. Harry was the only one who could kill Voldemort and Voldemort could not live if Harry didn't. Victim or murderer. These words also seemed to be stationary in the back of Harry's mind, haunting him.

Harry walked back to the bed and sat against the wall. He tried to think of happy thoughts, and nothing that had to do with Sirius, which was hard to find. His quidditch victories didn't have the same effect as before, they didn't have much fun anymore, they seemed almost used up. He then thought of the DA. That was a happy thought, something that Harry really enjoyed doing. The expression on his fellow students faces when they had managed a new charm or jinx. The day Seammus Finnigan came to his first meeting after they had their disagreement, Neville's face after covering up most hexes, jinxes and charms they did, Hermione's and Ron's patronuses...

Hermione and Ron. Harry's thoughts made a full cycle and landed back where they had started. They were trying to convince Harry to go and stay with them, in Grimmauld place, but Harry refused. He preferred the long and silent hours he spent inside his room in Privet Drive than to return to that place.

00:17 the clock read. In a few moments, Hedwig will want to leave and go to collect Harry's birthday present, but Harry didn't let her go, not in this weather, he thought. But in reality, Harry was only finding an excuse to, for the first time in his life, not want to listen to Ron and Hermione's words of Happy Birthday. And with these guilty thoughts, Harry slept, waking every once in while by one of Dudley's snores, which were by now as loud as Uncle Vernon's and were constantly confused with a thunder.

***

Harry woke up the next day feeling a large weight on his knees and two voices arguing quietly. The lack of his glasses only allowed him to see the outline of two red heads, fairly the same size and shape. It couldn't be.

"Fred? George?"