Natural Blues

And what is dark, but an absence of light?

Don't nobody know my troubles with God, don't nobody know my troubles with God.

I have no idea how I ended up like this. Does anybody ever have any idea of how they end up the way they do? Nobody predicted that this was how the Boy Who Lived would end up. This was the farthest thing from their minds.

As I said before, nobody predicted that I would end up this way, a prisoner of the all-powerful Lord Voldemort. And it was all because of one girl. One mysterious girl with amazing beauty who sacrificed herself to save me and I still ended up a shell of the powerful wizard I once was. She died in vain, and that wakes me up in the middle of the night, screaming her name. I sometimes imagine her here with me, and instead I find that it is just another vision, another dream she has passed along to me.

I don't remember much past being captured. But sometimes, the past reveals itself during the dreams she gives me at night. I remember meeting her for the first time, my first kiss, and my first true love. No, she wasn't my first true love. But she was my first kiss. And she opened my eyes.

Went in the room, didn't stay long...

I should've suspected something when during the summer after our fourth year. That was Ron's last summer. Ron had died that summer, in an accident in the Burrow. Apparently someone had cursed Pig and the energetic owl murdered Ron while the boy had slept. Molly didn't know anything was wrong until Ron wouldn't answer her frantic knocks on his bedroom door. And then, when she opened the door, she found Ron a bloody mess on his Chudley Cannon sheets, and Pig chewing on Ron's heart.

...Looked on the bed and Brother was dead.

Hermione was the one to comfort me, and she was the only reason I agreed to return to Hogwarts. The rest of the Weasley family was excused for a few weeks, until they felt strong enough to return. I don't blame them, and I was excused also, but I felt like it was my duty to go to Hogwarts on time, to continue on without Ron, like he would've wanted us to do.

And that's why I felt so guilty when Professor McGonagall brought Andraya Nichols into our train compartment. She was so beautiful and ahead of Hermione in body growth. As Andraya explained to us, she had been raised in New York City, in the US, and had moved to London with her older brother. And then she looked directly at me and told Hermione and me that she had both a gift and a curse. The train had arrived at Hogsmeade, and the subject was dropped, but as I wandered around Hogwarts lost in my thoughts, her comment kept popping back into my mind.

I finally arrived at Potions, my current destination for that day, and discovered that Snape had challenged Andraya to a potion-making contest. I was both horrified and turned-on by the look of pure defiance and determination on her face, her deep crystalline blue eyes frozen over, locking any emotion deep within their icy depths. Her brown hair whipping across her face as she whispered incantations to make her potion stronger, faster, deadlier. It was then that both the Slytherins and the Gryffindors realized that Andraya had multi-pierced ears.

It had always been against school rules to have more than one earring in an ear at a time, and here Andraya was with seven in each ear. We were sure that McGonagall or Snape would turn her over to Dumbledore, but no one ever did, and Andraya suddenly became even more mysterious. That mysteriousness was almost doubled, or maybe even tripled, when Andraya refused to reveal how she had beaten Snape at the Potion contest. She would merely shake her head and change the subject whenever somebody asked that question. But Andraya, or Andy as we know called her, harbored many more secrets than that.

Oh, Lawdy, my troubles so hard, oh, Lawdy, my troubles so hard.

It was towards Halloween that Andy finally revealed what her gift and curse were. It was purely my fault. If I hadn't been so damn curious, then maybe Andy would still me here next to me....

Don't nobody know my troubles with God, don't nobody know my troubles with God.

Hermione, whom I had begun to distance myself from, confided in me that once every two week,s Andy would leave the dorm at 11:30 p.m. 'Mione herself had no idea where the enigmatic beauty went, but I knew what she was hinting at: take the Invisibility Cloak and find out.

And so, I spent one week waiting outside the Fat Lady, going to bed at midnight. And on October 17, exactly two weeks before Halloween, my waiting paid off: I saw Andy creep out of Fat Lady, and quietly walk down the dimly lit hallways until she reached the infirmary. It was there that I got the biggest surprise of my then-young life.

Madams Pomfrey and Hooch were there, as was Professors Snape, McGonagall, and Trelawney, plus Dumbledore himself. Andy quietly walked in and sat down on one of the beds. Pomfrey readied a syringe of something, and Andy nodded, still silent.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this, my dear? You have been enduring this...treatment for several years now. Are you absolutely positive that this is the only way?" Dumbledore asked, genuine concern on his wrinkled face. Andy nodded at Dumbledore, then at Pomfrey and the syringe's contents were released into one of Andy's veins.

I should've left then. I should've never, ever been there in the first place, but my overwhelming curiosity convinced me to stay, and so I did, riveted to the floor. What I saw then, I shall never forget. And I can see the events so clearly in my mind, even now.

Andy sat still at first, but suddenly her hands began to convulse, shaking faster and faster. Then she started screaming, as if she was being murdered from the inside out, a scream that would curdle even Voldemort's blood.

When the screaming stopped, her eyes glazed over, until they appeared to be a feverish yellow with electric blue irises. She closed her eyes and the screaming stopped. But then the laughing started. The laughing...still haunts my memories...the laughing of a madman...it was Satan laughing, the deranged bastard. Her eyes flew open with astounding speed and were still a feverish yellow, but the irises were now black. I don't mean black as in the sky at night, but black as in an endless nothingness devoid of all life as you fall into its swampy depths. And she stared right at me, straight down into my soul. The laugh started again, but her eyes remained focused on me, stripping me of any courage or self-confidence I had ever had. For a good five minutes, her eyes never left me, never blinked. For five minutes, she laughed non-stop, without taking a breath. The faculty around Andy exchanged worried looks, and the professors took out their wands, rehearsing incantations and curses in their minds just in case.

And as sudden as it had all began, it stopped. Her eyes closed, and she fainted onto the bed. The laughing stopped, and the infirmary became a flurry of activity as the various staff members secured her with strong charms and assigned different watches based on the classes they had the next day. Eventually, Madam Hooch was the only one left. The other adults had chosen various beds around the school hospital and now slept peacefully.

I waited in the shadows, dozing quietly myself until I heard Hooch stand and leave, obviously heading for the bathrooms just down the hall. I crept closer to the bed. Andy wasn't even breathing. I got closer, just to make sure that she really wasn't breathing. I was maybe a foot or two away from her face, when suddenly her hand shot out and I felt cold slimy fingers wrap around my throat. I struggled quietly, not wanting to wake any of the slumbering teachers around me, nor wanting to alert Madam Hooch just a few brisk steps down the corridor.

"Confudo!" I muttered loudly under my breath. The incantation for confusing somebody only loosened her maniac grip on my neck. I was starting to lose consciousness, and, as a last effort, put all my strength into, "Oicca!"

Andy's hand shot right back down to her side, although I could tell by the murderous gleam in her yellow-and-black eyes that she knew I was still within her grasp. I coughed and sputtered, gathering back my breath.

Then her eyes softened for a minute, and in a voice that I am convinced was the Devil's, whispered, "Go. Now. Later." I got the point, and almost ran into Madam Hooch as she dashed into the room. I could hear the confusion arising in the small hospital wing as Hooch discovered the magical bond on Andy's right arm and wrist broken.

"I heard her talking to someone, Albus, I'm sure of it. I had to take care of some...business but I placed a Snorus Charm on the girl. I clearly heard her say, 'Go, now, later'. Someone was in here." I didn't stay any longer, knowing that Dumbledore's eyes would start to roam the area around the bed, looking for me.

For days afterward, I faked illness after illness, afraid to confront Andy or any of the staff I had seen around that bed. McGonagall had a knowing look in her eyes as she sent me down to Madam Pomfrey, as if she had finally found the student who had seen Andy's...treatment. Pomfrey gave me that same look as she gave me a bottle of Sleeping Potion and ordered me to drink it sparingly over the next few days.

That night, I sat holding the bottle in my hands, half prepared to throw it out the nearest window, when the door to the boys' dormitory opened and Andy stepped in wearing a gray sweater and red plaid flannel pants.

She had tied back her mid-back length hair into a ponytail, and now sat cross-legged on my bed running her hands over her hair over and over again. I could tell she was searching for the words to try and explain what I had seen. And I could tell that she was nervous about something.

"I'm sorry," she began. "Sorry that you had to see that. It's my fault, for mentioning my curse. No one should ever have to see that. I owe my life to the staff here at Hogwarts, and to my brother." She paused, then stopped playing with her head and looked into my eyes. "And you." She whispered. Andy moved so fast that the next thing I knew her lips were firmly planted on mine. But she moved away just as quickly as she had moved forward, and now she stared at Ron's empty bed.

"He was your best friend, wasn't he? That was a horrible thing Voldemort did to you, and to the Weasleys." She stopped and stared into my surprised face.

"That's my gift." She said quietly. "I can see things. I can see the future, the past, even things that are happening right now. But I have to endure that...change in order to keep my gift. If I don't...go through with it once every two weeks, then I lose my gift."

I thought for a moment, then said, "That means you'll have to do it next week." She nodded with a wistful look in her eyes.

"Tomorrow's my birthday. I'll be Sweet 16. And next week will make it 16 years of...I don't even know what to call it. All I know is that I wasn't born normally. I was born out of a cauldron; my parents' last hope at having another child. Dumbledore thinks that the man who 'made' me was Voldemort in disguise." I was horrified now, no longer scared of Andy.

"But that would make you his..." I trailed off, not able to make myself say it. She nodded. "That would make me his daughter." That's impossible, my mind screamed at me.

"How could someone as beautiful as you be Voldemort's daughter? It's not possible." I said, anger welling up in me at Voldemort for creating her.

"But it explains everything!" Andy protested. "The visions I have of death and destruction, the curse I have to go through every two weeks, the reason I can see the past and future, why I excel in Potions, and why I am so attracted to you." She looked down, obviously not intending to confess her true feelings. I saw my chance and raised her chin up gently, looking into her deep blue eyes before kissing her softly.

She smiled at me and I kissed her again, longer and with some tongue. My hands went to her waist and her hands clasped behind my neck. We stopped kissing only long enough to breathe and to climb under the warm sheets. It was almost midnight before we stopped kissing, exploring, touching each other and fell asleep. I remember drifting off to sleep with her head on my shoulder, her arms clinging to my chest, while I stroked her hair.

Seamus, Dean, and the others were certainly surprised when they woke up. I'm sure there was the usual envy and joke telling as they smiled at us. I was still half-asleep, but I remember Dean gently punching me in the arm, whispering, "Good luck Potter. We knew you'd find your girl someday."

My soul got happy and stayed all day...