Darker Days

Every step Harry took sent a lance of irritation straight up to his brain.

Irritation, not pain. Or, pain was a part of it, but it wasn't the whole thing. Something was trying to break out of his brain. Harry wasn't letting it escape. That didn't make 'it' stop trying.

He used the wall to support him as he turned into the living room. His bad ankle was dragging even worse than usual. He wanted to slip anonymously past this room, disappear through the far door, and climb the stairs to his room. He didn't want to run into Fleur, Susan, or even Fang. It wasn't to be.

"There you are," Fleur said. She looked up from the journal in her lap, the one she had him get her weeks ago. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

Harry leaned on the doorframe, bracing himself with his hand.

"Not particularly," he said.

"And why not?"

"Because things didn't go to plan." 

Draco had been supposed to stay and repair his relationship with Pansy, not run at the first hint of her moving on. Sex with Pansy was supposed to be no-strings-attached. It wasn't supposed to end talking about marriage and his past.

Fleur shut her journal. She set it aside and rose, approaching Harry. Even though they weren't his own, each step she took toward him made the irritation pound through his head all the same.

When she was close enough, Fleur touched a fingertip to Harry's face, sliding it along his cheekbone.

"You do not look well," she said.

Harry grabbed her wrist and forced her to lower her hand. When she winced, he forced his fingers to unclench. Red marks had been left behind where they gripped.

"I will live," Harry said.

"But you are not healthy. I can see it. Tell me— what is wrong?"

Harry's vision blurred for a moment. He forced it to clear with a moment of focus.

"I am the same as I always am," Harry said. "It's just irritation. I have not had a good day."

He waited — hoped — she would move out of his path. But Fleur simply stood there. She was beautiful in an impossible way— it didn't matter that her hair had been left in a messy bun after painting; her skin being pale only made it shine like a precious stone; the bags under her eyes somehow came off like elegant eyeshadow. Not even Narcissa could compare to her. And somehow, this girl was looking at Harry with concern.

"Tell me what's really wrong."

"Don't you ever give up?" Harry said.

Her head tilted sharply at his tone, but Harry wasn't finished. A fire had started in his chest, and it was causing words to flow from his mouth like smoke.

"Is there something wrong in your head?" he asked. "I bought you. You're a slave, captured in the bloodiest battle our kind has seen in centuries, and packed into a cage for some sick fuck to purchase as a toy. I am the servant of the one who captured you! I am that sick fuck! Yet I tell you that you can leave any time you want, and you stay. Is something broken behind that beautiful face?"

Fleur physically took two steps back.

"If you want me gone, why did you save me in the first place?!"

"To clear my own conscience! Why else would a selfish coward do anything?"

"You are speaking about yourself," Fleur said.

Harry laughed. "Picked up on that, did you?"

Each time he spoke, Fleur backed up further, and now he had finally bought himself enough space. Harry lurched through the gap, stumbling past Fleur and escaping that room. She didn't follow, which he was thankful for. When he reached his room he collapsed onto the bed. Sleep was impossible in this state, so he just lay there. 

Like that, minutes ticked by into hours.

Harry didn't move. He could count the time by the throbbing pain in his head. When a clock in another room chimed, he pulled himself back to his feet.

His head felt clearer, though barely. Rest had helped him pull himself together. He needed it to.

Because his mark was burning.

O-O-O

The summons was calling him to the ministry. Harry considered that a small blessing. That meant it was unlikely that it was Voldemort himself summoning Harry. Right now, Harry was in no state to face his master.

He picked his way through the house to the living room. When he reached it, Fleur was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she had left. Harry paused, losing the will to move for a moment, before powering through and approaching the fireplace.

In moments he was inside the Ministry of Magic. The Atrium was cavernous, far larger than the number of people required. Directly in the middle of the room, a statue towered over all who passed by. A stone witch and wizard sat atop thrones made from human bodies— some dead, some dying. Their emotionless eyes surveyed everything that moved beneath them. Harry paused long enough to study the statues, then turned sharply away.

He took a lift from the Atrium down to the floor below it. As the metal cube rattled and shook, Harry's head jerked nervously. The walls felt far too tight. The lift reminded him of a cage. And something inside him hated cages.

When the lift doors opened, he limped out as quickly as his legs could carry him.

He had entered a dark hallway lit by a bare minimum of torches. Light flickered across the walls and a door at the end of it, tall and imposing. Rather than approach that door, Harry turned to the side.

Another door was built into the hallway, branching off, and it was in this direction that his mark was leading him. Harry slowly descended flights of stairs that doubled back on themselves, winding deeper beneath the earth's surface. The air was chilly here. One sniff of Harry's enhanced nose told him just how long it had gone without reaching the light of day.

Eventually, Harry reached doors even more intimidating than the ones at the end of the first hallway. They were enormous, made of dark wood and studded with short brass spikes, and they opened on their own before Harry had even touched them. 

He limped inside the room, the sound of his limp dragging across stone echoing in the silence.

Somebody cackled.

"Someone's looked better! What's wrong, Harry? Summons catch you at a bad time?"

The room Harry had entered was large and extremely wide. Benches covered the far side of the room in ascending rows, angled so that they all faced a single point. In the middle of the benches was a podium, at least twenty feet in height, with Bellatrix Lestrange perched in a throne-like seat at the top. She had on an elaborate black dress, with a pointed black hat so tall that it looked almost comical. A variety of Aurors were seated on benches behind her, at least twenty in total. Harry spotted Mulicber among them, just to Bellatrix's right.

A single stool had been placed in the shadow of Bellatrix's tower. Harry approached it and took a seat, staring up at Bellatrix.

"Shall we get this over with?" he asked. "We both know what the verdict will be."

"Do we?" Bellatrix was grinning. "Do you even know what you're here for?"

"Given your presence, and the attendance of our esteemed Department of Magical Law Enforcement, this seems to be a test of my loyalty. Get on with it."

"No sense of grandeur," Bellatrix said. "Poor pitiful Potter. Always so dour, always so bland. We'll see if you can stay that way."

While Harry waited, Bellatrix unfurled a roll of parchment so long that it touched the floor while she held the top in her hands.

"We are here today to judge whether one Harry Potter is truly committed — mind, body, soul, being and all — to our great master's most glorious goals. A true servant has nothing to fear! However, if you harbor doubts…" Bellatrix grinned sadistically over her parchment. "What happens to you will be at my discretion."

"Ask your questions," Harry said.

"Very well. We will begin with an easy one. While still a mere student, our great leader discovered Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, a room Dumbledore and every headmaster before him thought to be nothing but a myth. Where was the entrance located, how was it opened, and what year was the Most Glorious One in when he made this astounding discovery?"

"A girl's bathroom," Harry said. "The key to enter was using Parseltongue. He was in his… fifth year."

"Was that hesitation?" Bellatrix asked gleefully.

"It was a correct answer."

"True. For now. We'll see if you do so well on the next ones. When the Chamber of Secrets was opened, one student was killed. This was not the first murder our Master enacted, but it was a particularly beautiful one. It marked the first Mudblood killed at his hand; the very first step to purging our society of the filth that clung to it. What was the sacrifice's name?"

"She was called Myrtle," Harry said.

Bellatrix leaned forward. "She, you say? You consider something like that a person?"

There were whispers among the Aurors seated on the benches. Harry's headache was beginning to come back, but he could manage it. Bellatrix was out to get him. He'd known she would be.

She would not find easy prey.

"I met her," he said. "Master showed her to me himself. She dwells in that bathroom, crying for the rest of time out of misery. I refer to her the way I do because of that. You would have me call her an 'it'? To do so would reduce all that lovely pain Master bestowed upon her in one fell swoop. I refuse to sell him short."

The Aurors in the gallery were silent now. Bellatrix leaned back in her seat. There was a brief pause before she read out the next question.

"When the Ministry was officially reclaimed for our pureblood cause, our leader personally led a culling of all unworthy staff. The Atrium floor ran red with blood! How many Mudbloods were eliminated that day?"

Harry's eye twitched. "Eighty-five." 

"Wrooong!" Bellatrix shouted. "All wrong! The correct answer is seventy-two!"

"I didn't know the number," Harry said, "I'll admit it. But I refused to underestimate my Master. If anything, I've displayed my faith."

"True faith is devotion," Bellatrix said. "It means living for him, and knowing everything about him. Idle flattery is not enough! Not only do I know how many stains he cleaned off of the wizarding race that day, I remember each one of their faces. As well as the way they screamed."

"You're asking trivia," Harry said, "while speaking of devotion. Aren't you embarrassed?"

"Trivia he says! Fine. You want a question that shows true devotion, I'll give you one. Every true-blooded servant remembers the speech our lord gave at the final moment of victory, as Dumbledore lay broken at his feet! Recite to me the final lines of it, here and now!"

Harry felt sweat on his palms. He forced his breath to stay steady, but his headache was roaring back. He searched for the right answer, desperate for a stroke of cunning.

"We're waiting," Bellatrix said.

"I wasn't there," Harry muttered.

"Repeat that. Louder."

"I wasn't there," Harry said, glaring up at not just Bellatrix, but at the Aurors whispering behind her. "Every single one of you knows where I was that day! Don't pretend like you don't!"

Bellatrix made a note on her long parchment. "Resisted the question… Signs of severe nerves…"

"Let me ask you a question," Harry said.

"That isn't how this works," Bellatrix said.

"Why not? Are you worried you won't be able to answer it?"

"Good try, pitiful Potter—"

Bellatrix paused. The whispers of the Aurors had taken on a different undercurrent. Whatever she was hearing, it made her stare down at Harry and say, "There is nothing about our Master that I cannot answer!"

"When he marched on Hogwarts, on the day he finally achieved victory, who did he want walking at his side?" Harry asked.

Bellatrix looked pale. "I walked at his side!"

"That isn't what I asked. Who did he want there, not who did he settle for?"

Bellatrix screamed. Despite being an expert and getting a rise out of others, her control of her own emotions had always been awful. She threw aside her enormous parchment and stood up so fast that her ridiculous hat flew off. She drew her wand, aiming at Harry.

"Is that your answer?" he asked.

She jerked her wand back, and Harry reacted. He jumped off of his stool, drawing his own wand. At the last moment Bellatrix bit her lower lip hard enough to send a trail of blood trickling down her chin. She used the pain to stop herself, just before the first spell could fly.

All around the room, there was a succession of swishing sounds as robes were shifted. Harry found all twenty-something Aurors pointing their wands… at him. 

Harry felt as if someone reached into his chest and tugged on something vital.

"She aimed at me first," Harry said. "You saw it. You all saw it."

"Put the wand down, Potter," Mulciber said. 

"YOU SAW IT!" Harry snarled.

Every single one of the wands moved higher, orienting themselves to begin casting. Harry looked over the room, scanning it from left to right. He found no allies. Mulciber, who had been so friendly and accommodating days ago, was looking at him like a dog in the street.

It settled in then, something that Harry had always known. He wasn't the same as them. No matter how much he tried, no matter how useful he became, this was what they thought of him. He was a half-breed and a half-blood. When the chips came down and the wands were drawn, they would side with the pureblood over him, even a psychotic sadistic bitch that couldn't act sane in a situation designed to favor her.

Harry jammed his wand into his pocket.

"Curse me if you think you can handle what comes after," he said as he limped from the room.

Apparently, none of them did. He reached those huge wooden doors. And this time, he was left to push them open by himself.

O-O-O

Harry lay on his bed again, staring at the white ceiling. His headache was gone. That wasn't because his symptoms were getting any better— his ability to resist them was just starting to fade.

His fingers had trembled the entire way out of the Ministry. He kept waiting to be stopped or cursed. It wasn't just that, though. Emotions were swirling through him.

He thought he'd forced himself to grow out of any stupid notions about 'unfairness' a long time ago. It seemed that was just one more way he had been deluding himself.

His bed dipped on the right side. Someone had sat down on the corner.

"I thought you left," he said.

"You would have liked that, wouldn't you?" Fleur asked.

He didn't look at her. He just kept staring at the ceiling.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You should be!" Fleur said, but her voice did not sound serious.

The tone was similar to ones Pansy used sometimes, but Harry felt it was different. He couldn't place what separated it. It was just teasing… but a certain edge was missing.

When he didn't speak, Fleur went quiet for a moment, before eventually saying, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me."

"Not even for apologizing?"

"Not for anything," Harry said. "I don't deserve it. Whatever good things you think I've done, I promise you, I've done worse things that more than make up for them."

"But I do not know about those, and you will not tell them to me. You were right, earlier. I was a prize to be bought and used. At the moment… I feel like a woman again. For that at least, you cannot convince me not to thank you."

Harry opened his mouth, but Fleur beat him to it.

"If you are about to say again that it is all about this mysterious past of yours, then save it. Unless you are finally willing to tell me who it is you have me pretending to be, I do not wish to hear it."

Harry shut his eyes. He was so tired, and not just physically. Draco was running away. Pansy was talking in ways that had Harry running away. He'd just been reminded that the very cause he was raised to spearhead didn't want him. He was superfluous; a used tool. Even the few people who remained charitable toward him — Lucius, Yaxley, Crouch… Narcissa — all had plans he was a cog inside of. He was sick of plots. They had finally, after so long, exhausted him to his core.

So he sat up. He sighed deeply. And then he began to talk about the person he promised himself he never would again.