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Author: Mangykneazle Story: There and Back Again Lane Rating: Teens Setting: AU Status: WIP Warning: Violence, Adult situations Reviews: 6 Words: 87,756
—(Harry's POV)— I dream of corridors... My eyes are covered with gauze. The fabric enveloping me blends the walls into abstraction. I’m walking swiftly under a coat or something, someone’s hand, slightly smaller and finer – a girl’s? – in mine. Was I ever this young? Portraits, busts, and the occasional suit of armour line the halls through which we scurry. I’m reminded of my grammar school, though the hallways resemble those of a medieval cathedral. One portrait in particular looks disconcertingly familiar. We’re lost. The girl pulls hard on my hand to stop and berate me. We trade insults, playfully. Something about her is strangely familiar, even as her features shift. We know each other well. Am I her brother? We fall into laughter. A faintly menacing male voice sends us scurrying for an alcove. We laugh silently, shaking so badly we have to cling to each other to muffle the sound. Something about this girl registers a welter of emotions and sensations, not all of which are fraternal. Definitely not my sister. The male voice had trailed off into the distance, and I and my accomplice have stopped quivering. She looks up at me, worried and uncertain. Who is she? A name on the tip of my tongue, burrowing inward despite my best efforts to reveal it. Try as I might, I can’t draw it out. I’m stuck between hilarity and shame, neither resulting directly from my present circumstances. One of her hands reaches timorously around my neck, another tentatively wraps around my waist, pulling me closer. She kisses me, gently, passionately. I’m pleasantly stunned. So much so I can scarcely respond. Her hands no longer hold me but force me back. She’s crying but her eyes burn furiously into me. Within an instant, I’m shouting as hard as I can but noiselessly at her retreating back, her flowing hair the cruellest two-fingered salute I’d ever received. I can almost make out her name... I awake with a start, the name caught between tongue and teeth. I hate dreams like this. Worst of all, I can scarcely remember them. What is it they say about questing dreams, that you are trying to comprehend subconsciously something that’s eluded the waking mind? If only the images stayed long enough for me to analyse them, but the mere thought of starting a dream diary makes me shudder. Some peace of mind is restored with the knowledge Ginny’s sleeping soundly on me, our arms still entwined about our bodies. My watch on the side table reads one o’ clock. Sodding hell! Ginny stirs with a groan when I tell her the time. She stumbles to the shower barely avoiding the furniture. We get to Ron and Hermione’s flat just on time. Ginny seems much more relaxed now, which worries me. She’s not calm but detached. When I ask her what’s bothering her, she smiles and replies that it’s just nerves before meeting the family. She’s lying, a little voice says, the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. Considering the circumstances, I decide not to press the point. Her brothers and their wives are waiting to greet us at the door. They’re big. Fred’s a little broader than Ron, who is slightly taller, and both of them look pleased enough to meet me, but they are intimidating, nonetheless. Red hair is definitely a Weasley family trait. I give Ron and Fred each a fresh bottle of whisky with a smile and a firm handshake. Angelina takes Fred’s bottle and appraises it to be adequate for consumption. From Hermione’s demeanour, I appear to have given Ron a recently deceased polecat. Ron, however, claps me on the shoulder and leads us into the good-sized sitting room. I note Fred’s expression is guarded. Ginny gives him a little glower out the corner of her eye. He just shrugs and follows her into the room. Within minutes, the whisky’s flowing and I’m milling with the brothers. Hermione casts the occasional anxious glance in my direction making me wonder what other gaffe I’ve committed. She’s barely touched her glass of orange juice. Ron behaves strangely nervous around me as well, but is friendly enough. I think the drink is helping. Fred and Angelina are hilarious. They operate a joke shop somewhere in the city that, judging from his outlandish but well-tailored clothes and her flattering dress, is doing very well. I spend most of my time with them as Ginny talks to Hermione and Ron. All three of us are nursing our drinks carefully. I have no desire for an extended hang-over. Suddenly Ron and Hermione spit their drinks on to Ginny’s dress. Shock and astonishment cover their faces. Ginny, however, grins back at us other three, a devilish gleam in her eye. Fred and Angelina start laughing while I’m confused. ‘Sit down, Harry,’ Fred insists, ‘and enjoy the rest of the show.’ Hermione glares at Ron who blushes enough to shame a tomato before polishing off his glass. A firm female hand then guides a still smirking Ginny to the loo. What have I gotten myself into? ~~~***~~~ —(Ginny's POV)— I dream of a wasteland... My body’s shattered: at least two ribs are broken, as is my leg. Ears ringing. When I manage to sit upright and look at my surroundings, I empty my stomach. Bill lays lifeless beside me, bearing a shocked expression. Other faces come into focus as some of the effects of a concussion dissipate. Another bout of dry retching ensues. Eventually, I rise to my feet and limp towards the centre of devastation. I keep my eyes down, not wanting to see any more faces, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. My blurred vision helps hide some of the horrors. A gentle column of smoke rises in the midst of a charred copse. That must be it. I steel my heart, knowing what I will find. The stench of death no longer registers in my mind, except from the origin of the smoke. It’s a man-shaped creature, hideously thin, blackened by fire. A silvery blade is sunken into its chest where its heart should be. Flame erupts around the wound. Ten feet away a young man lays supine. His legs are bent at odd angles, his arms charred, one bearing the remnant of a wand, his face blistered, but he is still familiar. A young woman sits next to him repeating the same refrain. ‘He did it, he did it.’ I chant a similar refrain before pain and grief overwhelms me. ‘He’s dead, he’s dead.’ I had that vision during the summer before my fifth year. Under a year later, it came true, of a sort. For Harry lays beneath me, enfolded within my embrace. It may be the last chance I have. I’m spent. There are no tears left in me. He whispers softly into my ear the time. More from a sense of duty than a desire for cleanliness I scramble to the shower. I despise this day already. We try to make ourselves as presentable as we were before we left Edinburgh, but a certain amount of wrinkling and creasing was bound to remain. It’s an imperfection that makes us more beautiful. I smile fully, honestly, for what feels like the last time as we vie for the mirror. Once more, he holds me and tells me how pretty I am, how much he loves me. I can’t bear it. But I pretend that these words are comforting rather than heartrending. Ron and Hermione’s Muggle flat away from home is in a beautiful neighbourhood with several parks and many trees. The black cab drops us off at the appointed hour and Harry walks, I trudge, our way to their door. Ron, Hermione, and Angelina welcome Harry heartily while Fred hangs back, lips ready to release a stinging barb. The gift, however, soothes Fred’s temper somewhat and enlivens Ron’s. Harry might as well have brought poison into the room as he gives Ron the whisky judging from Hermione’s expression. Despite the annoyance I occasionally feel towards him, I can understand his nerves. Noting Fred’s angelic mien forewarning a particularly cruel prank is on the way, I glare at him out of the corner of my eye. One potential disaster is quelled. As Hermione predicted, Ron’s trying to drown his anxiety while Fred and Angelina take the occasional sip, determined to remain aware. Harry wisely follows suit. He also avoids his two oldest friends, likely misinterpreting their concern and repressed pleasure at seeing him as disapproval, or simply unnerving. Unintentionally, this means I’m stuck talking to Ron and Hermione. ‘How’s Harry,’ she asks before quaffing a mouthful of orange juice. Ron’s well on to his fourth shot. The opportunity is too good to deny. ‘He’s quite good in bed.’ As expected, they both perform splendid fountain impressions on to my dress. That’s when I turn to look at the other three. Harry is concerned that my dress is ruined, but for Fred and Angelina the tension is gone. Hermione drags me into the loo to clean me up, and possibly my mouth as well. Ron, regrettably, seems quite attached to the bottle. She whips out her wand immediately from a hidden pocket in her dress to remove the stains on mine. I can’t read her expression for a moment until she looks up, smiling. ‘So he’s not a fumbler?’ I never thought she had it in her. I’m impressed. ‘Well-trained by previous owners,’ I affirm. ‘That, er, doesn’t bother you?’ Despite the pause, she isn’t truly embarrassed by the question or concerned about my response. She should have been. ‘We’re both adults.’ I hear my voice begin to harden, my chest to heave in preparation for a good shout, but I keep my calm and aim for sarcasm. ‘Besides, until two years ago, we were dead to one another.’ She flinches. ‘You know I... we... all of us... what we thought was best...’ In the past the spluttering may have moved me. Now that I am on the verge of losing him again and possibly forever, I let the rage course through my veins. ‘Five years of hell you lot’ve put me through, and that’s you’re best explanation?’ It’s coming out as a whisper, but its harshness and my scowl bring tears to her eyes and buckle her knees. ‘And what about him?’ I demand, leaning towards her retreating frame and pointing towards the closed door. ‘How do you think he’ll feel about living a lie for that long?’ Oh, bugger. She rounds on me immediately. I’m against the sink and her finger’s bouncing off my chest with every syllable. Her gaze could vaporise a glacier. ‘You still haven’t told him?’ My scowl hasn’t softened, though. ‘No.’ I say it with enough menace to ensure an end to this discussion. At this, we both exhale heavily and look in opposite directions. Calm down, the day’s bad enough as it is without losing your best friend. ‘Er, Ginny?’ This time she looks genuinely panicked. ‘I’m pregnant.’ She has the gall to smile. ‘Bully for you,’ I answer as I open the door and head for one of the open bottles. The rest of the evening follows without major incident, which is enough of a novelty in my family to warrant mentioning. The last time I came south, the three of us argued with such vehemence Angelina and Hermione left and didn’t return until the following morning. Even then they walked around the flat expecting to find one, or all, of our bodies splayed on the floor, dead. A double to calm my screaming nerves was enough to push me through to eight o’clock. Fred and Harry shake hands and slap backs, while Angelina and Hermione shake his hand. Ron surprises us all by enveloping Harry, and later me, in a bear hug, failing to utter a single word. As we wait on the pavement for the cab to come, I practise how I’ll tell Harry that we’ve been living a lie for the past five years, that the last two years have been a sham. I hope it never comes.
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