We Are Nothing
Part IX
By Ruskbyte
Title: We Are Nothing
Author: Ruskbyte
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: Snape’s Occlumency lessons have shattered the last defences of Harry’s mind. Now, unprotected, his dreams have become home to a nightmare other than Voldemort. A nightmare that has taken on a life of its own.
“We are nothing; less than nothing and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name.” - Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia, Dream Children
/oOo\
Part IX
All our best men are laughed at
\oOo/
Harry and Freddy stood in the short entrance hallway of number four Privet Drive and glared balefully at each other. Well, Harry was doing all the glaring. Freddy was simply matching his gaze with a bemused smirk.
The standoff was broken when a tumbleweed blew between the two, accompanied by the twang of a spaghetti western theme.
“Y’know, pardner,” drawled Freddy, “I reckon you’re not here for a pow-wow.”
Freddy’s impersonation of John Wayne was wasted on Harry, who had never had a chance to see many movies. Also, the crazed dream killer was still wearing a brightly coloured clown costume, which some distracted from it.
“Stop it,” commanded Harry flatly.
“Stop what?” countered Freddy.
“This. That,” said Harry, indicating Freddy and his overly colourful clothes.
“What, don’t you like clowns?” Freddy asked, making as if his feelings were hurt.
“Stop it, Krueger, you’re not fooling anyone,” Harry repeated his command.
Freddy waved his hand and obliged, his clown suit melting into his usual attire. Surprisingly, he seemed to have nothing to say for once. Instead he stood in place and waited for Harry to continue.
“You’re not going to kill anyone else.”
Freddy raised a brow at this proclamation, but otherwise did not react.
“You’re not getting into anyone else’s dreams.”
The beginnings of honest amusement sparked in Freddy’s eyes, but tempered with annoyance. Like a grown up confronted with a toddler that saw fit to order him around.
“I won’t let you.”
“Really,” drawled Freddy.
“I won’t,” repeated Harry.
“And how’re you gonna do that?”
Harry compressed his lips into a thin line at the casual dismissal. He reach behind and drew his wand front the back pocket of his trousers.
Freddy rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Please! You’re gonna wave your wand?”
“I won’t let you kill anyone else,” asserted Harry.
“Don’t be ridiculous, kid,” responded Freddy, moving closer to him. “You can’t stop me. No-one can, of course, but especially not you.”
Harry kept his wand focused on Freddy, even as his knees began to tremble. He could clearly remember his beating at the man’s hands and doubted that having his wand out would be enough to stop a repeat.
But he had to try, his conscience would accept nothing less.
Freddy came in close, ignoring how the tip of Harry’s wand was pressed against his chest.
“You can’t stop me, Harry,” he explained, “because you’re the one that’s letting me out - every - single - time.”
“Maybe I am letting you out,” Harry agreed, “but that also means I can stop letting you out.”
Freddy smirked knowingly and repeated his earlier question, “And how’re you gonna do that?”
Harry replied with a weak smirk of his own and said, “By not getting angry anymore.”
Freddy burst into raucous laughter.
“Well, you’re off to a terrible start, kid,” he crowed, backing away from him.
A pit formed in his stomach as he asked, “What do you mean?”
His answer was another vicious smirk.
“Seems you’re feeling a little angry at the know-it-all,” replied Freddy.
The pit in Harry’s stomach turned to ice at the mention of one of his closest and dearest friends.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and denied, “I’m not angry with Hermione. Never.”
“Oh?” asked Freddy knowingly, “not even that time she gave your new broom to McGonagall?”
“That was years ago!” snapped Harry, confident that he could disprove Freddy’s claim. “I’m not angry about that anymore - I forgave her for it long ago!”
“For that maybe,” agreed Freddy readily. “But what about something a bit more... recent.”
Harry narrowed his eyes and replied, “Hermione’s been a good friend this year. She--”
“Didn’t write to you during summer vacation.”
“Dumbledore and the Order wouldn’t let her.”
“She accepted everything the toad bitch did to ya. Said it was your own fault for letting her get to you.”
“What else could she do?”
“She was made a prefect and you weren’t.”
Harry openly scoffed at this last accusation. “You think she had control over that? The professors chose the prefects. Hermione had nothing to do with that.”
“Maybe,” agreed Freddy. His eyes gleamed as he went in for the kill. “What she did have something to do with was telling the cops about me and Springwood. You didn’t like that.”
“She did what needed to be done,” countered Harry, though he could not hide a grimace. “People needed to know and I was too afraid to tell them.”
“Well, how about how she practically blamed you for all those deaths, just ‘cause you didn’t tell anyone ‘bout little ol’ me... heh heh... that really pissed you off, didn’t it?”
The chill down Harry’s spine returned. “I’m not angry about that,” he said weakly.
Freddy bore a shark-like grin. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way... you’re angry.”
“No, I’m not!” asserted Harry.
“Of course you’re not. You... wait...” Freddy trailed off, staring into the distance.
“What?” asked Harry. “What is it?”
Slowly, a smile began to form on Freddy’s face. “She’s fallen asleep,” he muttered. “Hah! She’s finally fallen asleep! And - she’s - dreaming!”
“No!”
“Yes... This is perfect.”
Harry lunged forward, forgetting his wand and grabbing Freddy by the shoulder. “Don’t kill her! Don’t even try!”
Freddy looked at him with good humour, even as he easily twisted free of Harry’s grasp.
“Kill her?” he repeated, as if the idea were ludicrous. “Oh, I’m not gonna kill her! Not right away - after all, I can’t play with her all that much if she dies too quickly!”
As Freddy pushed his way passed Harry and to the front door, the young wizard finally remembered his wand.
“Krueger! No!” he warned, taking aim at Freddy’s back.
Seeing that he was being ignored, he fired the first curse that sprang to mind.
“Reducto!”
The curse slammed into Freddy’s back with everything Harry could put behind it. He may as well have been using a Muggle water pistol for all the difference it made. That at least would have made his opponent wet.
“Krueger!”
Freddy opened the front door and glanced back at Harry, looking over his shoulder. His smirk was cruel, triumphant and vindictive all in one. He cheekily waved the bladed fingers of his knife-hand before stepping out.
“Toodles!”
Harry’s Slicing Charm, usually used by magical butchers, cut deeply into the door as it closed behind him.
“Freddy, no!” yelled Harry, chasing after him.
He slammed into the front door and desperately pulled and twisted on the doorknob, but it was to no avail. Freddy had locked the door behind him, trapping Harry inside the house.
Harry beat desperately against the door with both hands, but the sealed exit held firm.
“Freddy!”
-oOo-
There was something about the Hogwarts library that resonated with Hermione Granger’s soul. It was the one place in all the world where she truly felt comfortable. Not her bedroom at home. Not the Gryffindor common room. Not the Burrow. Definitely not Grimmauld Place. Here, in the school’s library, she was where she belonged.
Looking round, she contemplated the rows and rows of bookshelves. This was perhaps the only problem she had with the library; it was so large that it was sometimes a little hard to decide where to start.
Now then, what to do, what to do?
“I think I’ll read a book,” she stated, though still undecided as to which book it might be.
“Now there’s a novel idea.”
Not really paying attention, focused on the library as she was, Hermione was only aware that someone was talking too loudly. Her response was perfectly predictable to anyone that knew her.
“Shh.”
Freddy, who was standing behind her and dressed up as a stereotypical librarian, complete with glasses and tweed suit, was both surprised and insulted by her unwitting dismissal.
Taking a moment to mull over her reaction, he then sucked in a deep breath and bellowed, “SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY!!”
The incredible volume of Freddy’s yell was enough to rattle the rafters and cause the book stacks to groan and creak as they wobbled in place. Hermione, caught entirely unprepared, fell to the floor with a cry of pain and clamped both hands over her ringing ears.
Freddy moved closer and waited for her to regain her equilibrium. It did not take long before she rolled onto her back and stared up at him. The look of mounting horror on her face, as she realized who he was and what was happening, prompted him to grin and wave down at her.
“Hello!”
Hermione swallowed thickly, fully aware that she was now in mortal danger. She had faced such situations before, but this was the first time since that first Halloween that she would be facing one alone.
“What’s the matter, Hermy?” asked Freddy. “Cat got your tongue?”
“I don’t suppose I could talk you out of trying to kill me?” she finally managed to ask as she cautiously backed away.
Freddy watched as she retreated and nodded amiably, “Of course you can.”
Hermione paused in surprise and then caution. It could not be that easy. “I can?”
“Sure,” Freddy nodded. “You can talk me out of trying to kill you.”
The emphasis he placed on the word ‘trying’ seemed important. It did not take Hermione very long to realize that he meant he would kill her without any chance existing for her to escape. He would not try; he would simply do it. For some reason her mind skipped to Star Wars and repeated Yoda’s little mantra; there is no try, even as Freddy stopped simply watching her and began to walk in her direction.
Scrabbling back up onto her feet, Hermione turned and fled quickly into the stacks of the library. This was a place she knew even better than the back of her hand; hopefully she would be able to hide from Freddy amidst the many bookcases until she somehow managed to wake up.
“This won’t save you, Hermy,” called Freddy. “Stay or hide; it makes no difference. In the end it’ll end the same way it always does... I never lose.”
It did not bother him that he received no reply from the dusty book stacks. That only meant that she was too busy running or too busy hiding to reply. That was fine; he had ways of making people talk.
He followed Hermione deeper into the library.
-oOo-
“Dammit, Freddy, you bastard! I’m not angry with her anymore - d’you hear? I’m not angry with her, so stop! Stop!”
Harry gave the front door a solid kick that sent a bolt of sharp pain shooting up his leg. Unfortunately, the physical approach seemed to be the only hope he had. Magic had proved a complete failure in forcing the door open. Spells to unlock it or even blow it to smithereens had all washed over its dirty white surface to no effect. He had tried conjuring a large mallet to try and bash the door down, but for some reason all his efforts kept producing rubber squeaky mallets instead.
“Buggering hell!” he swore, stepping back and considering the door.
Gritting his teeth, he abandoned the front hall and ran to the kitchen. If he could not leave through the front, then he would escape out the back.
Reaching the back door at a run, Harry literally bounced off of it as it failed to open. Quickly recovering, he gripped the doorknob and pushed as hard as he could. The door held just as firm as the front door had.
“Shite!”
He stepped back and drew his wand. Maybe he would have better luck with magic here. He fired off the first unlocking spell and was greatly surprised when he heard the lock ratchet open.
He almost broke his nose when he again tried to push the door open and found it to be unyielding.
“Dammit! Come on!” he cried in frustration.
His anger changed to momentary confusion and embarrassment when he pulled on the handle and felt the door swing inward. This was odd, he thought. The back door to number four opened out, not in. Pushing this anomaly aside, Harry flung the door open and charged through. He had to get to Hermione before Freddy and had already wasted too much time. He was so preoccupied by thoughts how to accomplish this that he completely failed to check exactly what the back door had opened to.
This time he did break his nose, or at least bloodied it as he slammed face first into a very solid brick wall.
“Sonuvabitch!” he swore, spitting blood from his mouth as he staggered back.
He glared balefully at the bricks as he pressed both hands to his bleeding nose. It was like something out of those cartoons Dudley had so enjoyed watching when they were younger. He immediately knew who had done this.
“Damn you, Freddy, you bastard!” he yelled to the heavens, knowing that the scarred man could hear him regardless of where he was.
Abandoning the back door as a lost cause, he suspected magic would be as useless against the bricks as it had against the front door, Harry considered the option of forcing his way out through the windows. A second glance, however, proved this idea to be just as futile.
“Oh, come on!” he whined, taking in the sight of the newly installed wrought-iron burglar bars that now framed the windows. Freddy had been busy, he thought unhappily, knowing who it was that had been doing so much remodelling to number four.
Cursing, he returned to the entrance hall, kicking the door to his old cupboard under the stairs as he passed. He stood before the front door and stared unhappily at it.
A crackled of static from the living room caught his attention. He recognised that sound; it was the noise made by the Dursleys’ telly when it switched on.
Harry immediately closed in upon the front door and began to hit, kick and otherwise pound on it with everything he had. Freddy was starting his show and that meant Hermione’s time was already running out.
-oOo-
“I really gotta thank you, Hermy.”
Freddy was walking slowly down one row, between the library’s many book stacks. He was casually scraping his knife-hand along one of the shelves, the sharp blades cutting into the wood with preternatural ease and leaving a trail of wood shavings behind him.
“Yep, I gotta say it again; thanks,” Freddy called as he reached the end of the row and turned into the next one. “If it weren’t for you; I’d probably be stuck in another boring ass dream, with nobody to play with - ‘cept for Harry, of course. And let me tell you; that idiot barely has anything worth calling an imagination.”
Continuing down the row, Freddy lifted his blades a little higher and started cutting into the spines of the books. He enjoyed how the paper was so easily shredded and made such a nice mess in his wake. It would have been better, he knew, if Hermione had been able to see him causing the destruction of so many books – she would have been wonderfully appalled by it. Unfortunately, their little game of hide-and-seek throughout the library prevented that.
“Yeah, this is all thanks to you, Hermy,” he continued. His lips twisted in a nasty grin as he elaborated, “If you hadn’t accused poor little Harry of helping me kill all those kids, he wouldn’t have gotten mad atcha and let me out to play with ya.”
He paused to listen, but Hermione made no reply. Resuming his trek, Freddy turned down another row. This one, he noted was the very last, at the far end of the library and as far from the exit into the rest of the school as it was possible to go.
“You know that’s what’s happening, right? That whenever somebody pisses Harry off, it opens a door for me to get into their dreams?” he called, walking until he reached the middle of the stack, where he stopped. “So, how’s it feel – know that you’re the one that caused this? That you pretty much sent me an engraved invitation to come visit?”
He waited, but again received no reply to his taunting commentary. Growing bored, he picked a book of the shelf in front of him. He glanced at the cover and smirked. Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He wondered if it was Hermione or himself that had dreamed it up. After a moment’s thought he decided that it was probably the girl, as he had never bothered to read the story - or much of anything else, really.
“To read, or not to read,” Freddy pondered theatrically as he leafed through the book’s pages. “That’s the question.”
Again he paused for a moment, waiting to see if Hermione had a comment. She remained stubbornly silent, despite his best efforts to provoke a response. He hated it when they were quiet like that. With a thump he closed the book and returned it to its place on the shelf.
Briefly he contemplated the old mainstay of simply changing his position within the dream so that he would appear right behind her. That was always good for a surprised scream, mostly because they always hoped he wouldn’t find them. What very few realized was that he always knew exactly where they were. It was impossible for him not to. They were the ones creating the dreams, after all. And as the dream’s source, he could sense their location with consummate ease.
Hermione was currently at the other end of the library; directly opposite him. She was obviously planning to either wait him out or sneak around him and escape out the exit.
Freddy stared in her direction, ignoring the dozens of book stacks arrayed between them. He thought about maybe animating the books to attack and flush her into his waiting arms, but then he looked the massive bookcase in front of him up and down.
“Y’know, I never was a big fan of reading,” he mused, stroking one of the wooden shelves with his blades. “I always preferred to play games... games like... dominoes...”
Rearing back, Freddy kicked out with all he had. The book stack remained perfectly and solidly in place, not budging so much as an inch. Then, heralded by a small sprinkle of loosened dust, the stack began to slowly rock back and forth. At first it seemed little more than a tremor, but soon the massive wood structure was swaying nearly a foot either way.
Freddy took a step back, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Timber!”
With that final prompt, the stack toppled over. As expected, it hit the book stack next to it; sending that stack toppling over as well. The effect was very much like a string of dominoes, which was exactly as Freddy intended.
On the other side of the library, hidden behind the last of the stacks, Hermione became aware of a creaking, followed by a series of loud thumps and progressively louder crashes. She froze in place, listening careful and wondering what Freddy was now up to. As the repeated thumps and crashes grew louder and nearer, she glanced around and took stock of her position in case she would need to flee. She was in the middle of the row, with a good twenty feet of bookshelves in front and behind her. Licking her lips, she resumed carefully creeping forward.
A sudden, monstrous crash caused the bookshelf next to her to jerk violent, nearly giving her a heart attack from its suddenness. Even as she turned to look at it, hoping that Freddy had not found her, she realized that the massive wooden structure was moving. She tried to run, but lost precious time having to change her direction and shift her momentum away from the rapidly falling stack. Not really thinking about it and acting purely on instinct, she ducked under the nearby reading table that was positioned between the last book stack and the library wall. She could only hope that the sturdy wooden desk would hold up against the falling stack’s weight long enough for her to crawl clear.
Sadly, the toppling book stack’s fall was not slowed in the slightest.
“Aaaah!!”
Hermione’s scream was just loud enough to be heard over the thunderous crash of the final book stack crushing the reading table into kindling and collapsing to the floor. The sound of her legs, hips and back being broken like twigs was entirely lost amidst the cacophony, further muffled by the noise of hundreds of books being dislodged from their places and also striking the library floor in a veritable rain of paper, parchment and leather.
At the far end of the library, where everything had been set in motion, Freddy balanced easily atop the first of the fallen stacks.
“Ah – there you are,” crowed Freddy, clapping his hand together in satisfaction as he spied Hermione’s trapped form.
The pain shooting through Hermione was greater than anything she had experienced and left her too shocked to fully realize her position. The only thing she was properly aware of at the moment was that she was in agony. She tried to move, both to relieve the pain and free herself from being pinned under the massive wooden shelves. Unfortunately, she was held fast and the fallen stacks were far too heavy for her to have any hope of moving by herself, not even with magic.
“This reminds me of the good ol’ days!” crackled Freddy happily. “The chase, the catch... the slaughter. Good times, good times.”
Slowly, making sure to savour each moment, he began to climb over the fallen stacks, heading towards where Hermione lay trapped.
“Watch closely, kid,” he said, addressing the observing Harry, “you won’t wanna miss a second of this.”
-oOo-
Harry slammed his fists against the door. He could already feel that his hands were bruised and some of his fingers either dislocated or broken. He ignored the pain and continued to hammer against the unyielding wood.
“Watch closely, kid, you won’t wanna miss a second of this.”
Hearing Freddy addressing him through the television, Harry rushed into the lounge. The sight displayed on the screen, of Hermione trapped under a fallen bookcase, with Freddy slowly advancing on her, threw Harry into an even more desperate frenzy.
Sprinting back out to the small entrance hall, he shoulder charged the front door. The only sign that his effort accomplished more than dislocating his shoulder was the soft chime of breaking glass.
Harry ignored the pain in his now limp right arm and stared at the door. It seemed utterly impervious, save for a single crack in one of the panes of frosted glass. He was so hysterical at this point that Harry failed to remember that the door at number four had no glass panelling.
“Hermione!” he screamed, ramming into the door again and again, despite the agony it sent shooting through him.
So distracted by Hermione’s cries through the telly, he nearly missed the soft crack of the glass fracturing a second time, this time enough that a sliver of glass fell loose. It was only chance that he fell to the floor and managed to slice open the palm of his left hand upon that tiny sliver.
This pain, totally separate from the agony of his shoulder, caused him to pause for a second.
Half collapsed in the entrance, he stared at his bleeding hand. It was a tiny and shallow injury, hardly worth bothering about. Harry’s eyes were fixed upon the shard of glass jammed into his flesh. He reached up, as best he could with a dislocated shoulder, and pulled the glass out. He held it up to the light and stared at it in wonder.
Another scream from the television spurred him back into motion.
Staggering to his feet, Harry stumbled unsteadily into the living room. With a strange sense of calm, underlain with urgency, he bypassed the television and approached the large French windows that looked out on the night-time street. He stared at the glass windows for a moment before turning to pick up one of the ashtrays scattered about the room. He looked at it and hefted it in his hand. It was carved stone and quite heavy. He hurled it with all his might at the window in front of him and smiled as the glass shattered impressively.
A few minutes ago the solid burglar bars that continued to bar his path would have left him feeling despondent, but not now. His plan was no longer to escape the house and rescue Hermione.
Stepping up to the now broken window, he searched the floor for what he needed. It did not take long for him to find it. It was a large shard; as wide as his hand and nearly as long as his forearm. Dropping to his knees, Harry scooped it up, uncaring of how its sharp edges cut into his palm.
He licked his lips and glanced back to the television. On it he could see that Freddy was almost upon Hermione, only a few short steps from her trapped form.
“Okay, time to wake up,” Harry whispered to himself.
He shifted the piece of broken glass and plunged its point into his right thigh.
“AAAAAHH!! Fuck!”
Pulling his impromptu blade out of his leg, Harry ignored the blood and pain. He immediately stabbed the glass shard into his left thigh.
“Aaah! Wake up, dammit! Wake up!”
He pulled the shard back out, tightening his grip as the blood made his fingers slippery. He looked to the television again, seeing that Freddy was almost there.
His free hand scrabbled blindly about the floor until it found another largish shard of glass. Now able to cut with both hands at once, Harry began stabbing himself again and again in a desperate bid to force himself awake.
“Either wake up or die, Potter!” he yelled to himself, slashing at his arms, legs and torso, “Hurry up and stop dreaming! Wake up, damn you! Wake the hell up!”
-oOo-
Poppy Pomfrey had always been a cautious Healer. It paid to be a cautious Healer, especially when dealing with children.
It was solely due to her cautious nature that she had placed a wide array of Monitoring Charms around her current patient’s bed. She did not want a repeat of what had happened after arriving at Grimmauld Place. While she could do nothing to stop Harry’s dreams and even less to protect him in them, she could at least make sure that he would not go unwatched while sleeping.
The moment large, deep and messy lacerations started to appear out of nowhere, Pomfrey’s Monitoring Charms went off like a Weasley twins’ firework. Anyone in the house who had not already been awake was roused from their slumber by a blaring alarm that succeeded in waking up the neighbours as well, despite the surrounding Fidelius Charm.
The situation was not aided by the fact that Pomfrey had neglected to mention that she would be setting up her Monitoring Charms and their accompanying alarms. As such, a significant number of the house’s occupants reached the erroneous conclusion that they were under attack. More than a few curses and hexes were fired before anyone realized what was really going on.
“Mr Potter! Something’s happening to Mr Potter!” yelled Pomfrey as she dashed out of her room. She did not bother putting a dressing gown over her nightdress. “Quickly - get to Harry’s room!”
The hallways were chaotic at the moment, making it difficult to move quickly. A clear path between the nurse and her destination only appeared when Sirius Black moved in front of her and charged forward like a rampaging bull. He knocked Hestia Jones flying and literally ran over Ron Weasley.
“Out of the way!” commanded Pomfrey, pushing him aside as he paused in the doorway.
“Morgana’s sagging tits!” Sirius exclaimed, as he took in the sight of his godson.
“Shit,” Pomfrey muttered, echoing his sentiment.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” asked Molly Weasley, peaking into the room. She was pulled back by Arthur, who knew to let Pomfrey work without distraction.
“That Krueger bastard must have him,” said Sirius grimly as he sat on Harry’s bed, opposite from where Pomfrey was already frantically working.
“Dammit, the cuts are forming faster than I can heal them!”
“Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“I’m already doing it, Black, so shut up!”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes - shut up!”
“Poppy, what’s going on?” asked McGonagall as she entered the room.
“Not now, Minerva!” she snapped.
“Dammit, how do we stop this?” demanded Sirius, clamping both hands over a large gash that suddenly appeared across Harry’s chest.
“He’s being attacked in his dream,” noted Pomfrey, tilting Harry’s head back and pouring a blood replenishing potion down his throat. It was risky, doing this while he was still suffering from the veritaserum poisoning, but he was losing too much blood for her not to.
“Then why don’t you just wake him up?”
The innocent question caused everyone to pause. They looked to the doorway, where Ron was standing and watching as they tried to save his best friend’s life.
“Wake him up?” repeated Sirius dully. The idea had just not occurred to him.
With a course of action now available to him, fire bloomed in Sirius’ eyes as he drew his wand. Alongside him Professor McGonagall did the same, while Pomfrey concentrated instead on trying to close the multiplying wounds.
“Enervate! Enervate!! ENERVATE!!!”
-oOo-
“Help! Please, somebody help!”
Freddy smiled as he listened to Hermione’s frantic cries for help. He was enjoying the sound of her fear so much that he slowed his approach so that he could take the time to savour it.
“One, two, I’m coming for you...” he sang, kicking a fallen book out of his way.
Hermione froze and stared up at him. He was now standing over her, having finally reached her position despite his slow approach from over the fallen stacks. As he had when she first saw him, Freddy smiled and offered her another little wave.
“Hello,” he greeted politely.
Following her encounter with the mountain troll in the bathroom during her first year, Hermione had sworn that she would never again act like the stereotypical damsel in distress that Hollywood had such a fascination for. She would not, she had resolved, devolve into a state of utter uselessness whilst screaming hysterically. Of course, all rules will have the odd exception and having a the terrifying form of Freddy Krueger looming over her proved to be just that.
She started screaming, not for help, but screams of pure hysteria.
Freddy was delighted.
“Oh, Hermy,” he moaned with pleasure, “you do sing the sweetest tunes.”
Any attempt at rational thought completely fled Hermione at this point, even as Freddy stepped away and began to circle round her. He easily ignored her continued screams; they were something he was long since used to, and began to ponder the important question as to what he should do to his latest victim now that he had caught her. At this point he was, mostly due to their surroundings, contemplating doing something with the many, many books that lay scattered about. A bonfire seemed like the obvious solution, but he had already killed Umbridge and Dudley by similar methods and thus wanted to try something else. Preferably something that involved cutting.
He was busy considering the possibility of using the books to create a maelstrom of razor-sharp paper to cut Hermione into ribbons when a sudden drop in the light caught his attention. He paused to look around. There were several windows scattered about the library and through them he could see...nothing? Freddy blinked in confusion. He was supposed to be seeing the forest and mountains surrounding the school; as that was the setting Hermione had dreamed up.
Then the entire room seemed to tremble, though it was not a physical thing. Freddy cursed.
Harry was waking up.
“Damn it, Potter! Why the hell can’t you stay asleep like a good boy?” Freddy yelled in frustration. He abruptly calmed down in sudden acceptance. “Ah, well... no use crying over spilt blood. Better make this quick.”
No longer having the option of drawing out his kill, Freddy strode back to Hermione with a few quick steps.
Even as she continued her struggles to pull free, he fell on her like the figurative lion moving to maul his prey.
Her screams of pain and terror abruptly cut off.
-oOo-
His eyes popped wide open and he jerked upright with such force that he almost literally catapulted himself off the bed and onto the floor. Whether it was a result of the multiple Waking Charms or sheer desperation to escape his dreams, no-one could be sure.
Suffice to say, however, Harry Potter made the transition from sleep to wakefulness in a remarkably short amount of time.
It was sheer luck that he missed cracking skulls with Madam Pomfrey, who had been leaning over him. As it was, the matron immediately grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to force him to lie back down. “Harry! Calm down, Harry, calm down!” she yelled, trying to get his attention. “It’s okay - you’re awake! He can’t hurt you anymore; you’re awake!”
“Harry!” called Sirius, leaning his own weight to help force Harry back down.
“HERMIONE!”
Once he had regained enough breath, Harry loosed a cry that was heard throughout the house and almost sent Sirius and Pomfrey reeling back. They managed to ignore the ringing of their ears, however, and continued to try and force Harry to lie down.
“Harry! Calm down!” yelled Sirius. “It’s all right! It’s over! You’re awake! You’re awake!”
“Mr Potter, control yourself,” added Professor McGonagall, a Petrifying Spell on her lips if Harry did not soon do as he was told. While she would not risk Stunning him, thereby sending him back into Freddy’s clutches, she would do whatever was necessary to prevent him from aggravating his already serious injuries.
“HERMIONE!!” screamed Harry, his struggles against Sirius and Pomfrey growing more frantic.
“Hermione’s fine, Harry! She’s fine!” Sirius told him. “Just lie down and I’ll go get her for you!”
“HE HAS HER!! HE HAS HER!!” Harry shrieked, not letting up for a second. He managed to pull his relatively uninjured left arm free of Madam Pomfrey’s grasp and punctuated his cry with a short hook into Sirius’ jaw.
“Gah!” exclaimed Sirius as he took a step back, surprised and shocked by the blow.
Harry immediately capitalised on this brief moment of unguarded freedom. He kicked out with his leg and managed to knock Pomfrey back as he rolled over and made a clumsy jump out of the bed. Professor McGonagall’s Petrifying Spell missed by an inch, as his badly mauled legs proved unable to fully support him.
“Mr Potter! Harry!” shouted McGonagall.
“He has her, Professor, he has her - he has Hermione,” repeated Harry, a little calmer now that he was moving but still desperate.
“Ms Granger?” repeated McGonagall, only now realizing why Harry was fighting them so stubbornly.
Forcing his legs to work, despite the deep stab wounds he had inflicted upon them, Harry pushed passed the shocked professor. He did not get far, however, as a recovered Sirius grabbed him by the shoulders. “Harry! Calm down! It was just a nightmare – Hermione’s fine!” he insisted, trying to pull Harry back to the bed. “Just lie down and let Poppy do her stuff and I’ll go fetch Hermione for you!”
“I’ll get her now,” offered Ron, who was standing in the doorway with his mother and father.
A high pitched scream, unmistakably female, rang out through the house. Everyone paused as they recognised the sound of Ginny screaming in what had to be terror. The only person not frozen into inaction was Harry, who tore free of Sirius’ grasp and charged out of the bedroom. For the second time that night Ron found himself being literally run over, as Harry shouldered his way passed the small crowd that had gathered outside his room.
“Help! Somebody help! Hermione’s been attacked!” screamed Ginny, running out of the girls’ bedroom. Even in the badly lit hallway, it was obvious that her hands and the front of her nightdress were stained red with blood. “Help her, please! She’s bleeding!”
Harry didn’t hear a word she said, or if he did he ignored them entirely. It was unimportant; after all, as he already knew everything she was trying to tell them.
-oOo-
If the door to the girls’ bedroom were not already open, Harry would have likely torn it off its hinges upon his arrival.
“Hermione!” he screamed frantically, charging into the room with a swirl of magic surrounding him.
Tonks and Hestia, who had been summoned by Ginny’s screams and arrived seconds earlier, tried to prevent him from approaching the bloodied figure stretched out on the room’s second bed. Harry’s wild magic lifted the two Aurors into the air and flung them across the room like rag dolls.
“Hermione!” exclaimed Harry as he climbed onto the bed and settled next to her. He turned to the room’s entrance and yelled, “Madam Pomfrey!”
The Hogwarts nurse, while not quite as fleet of foot as Harry, had still been chasing hard on his heels. She came charging into the bedroom even as Harry drew breath for a second shout.
“Shit,” she declared, taking in the situation with a glance.
Hurrying to where Harry was sitting, Hermione cradled in his arms, she had her wand out and casting even as she shoved him out of the way and out of the bed, onto the floor.
The room was soon swarming with witches and wizards, though Professor McGonagall quickly cleared out those that could do nothing to help. In the end, only herself, Pomfrey, Hestia and Sirius remained. Tonks and Molly made frequent visits as Pomfrey sent them back and forth for the various potions she needed.
Everyone, save Sirius, seemed content to leave Harry sitting on the floor. Unspoken mutual agreement was that Hermione currently needed their attention more than he did.
“Harry,” said Sirius, squatting down next to him.
Harry ignored him entirely, his own dazed attention focused solely on the frantic activity surrounding Hermione’s bed.
“Harry,” Sirius called a second time. He grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a gently shake.
It took a slightly firmer shake before Harry properly noticed him. Looking away from Hermione for the first time, he stared blankly at his godfather.
“Are you all right?” asked Sirius worriedly.
Harry nodded dumbly and lied, “I’m fine.”
The fact that Harry was covered in nearly as much blood as Hermione, almost all of it his own, told an entirely different story. It was the completely lost expression on his face that really drove the point home. Sirius cast an eye about and quickly latched onto Ron and Ginny, who were watching from the doorway. Molly was too busy helping Pomfrey, otherwise she would have shooed them off to the far side of the house.
“You two,” he ordered, “Get in here - quickly.”
The two redheads nervously entered the room, making sure to stay out of the way. Both tried to avoid looking at Hermione’s bed and the frenetic activity surrounding it.
“Harry? Harry,” Sirius called, gripping the boy by the shoulders and forcefully turning him away from Hermione and towards his other friends. He had a hard time ignoring the many injuries still dotted around his body.
Looking at Ron and Ginny, he motioned them to Harry as he stepped back and drew his wand. He was no certified Healer, but he knew enough spells to close up minor wounds. He would do what he could until Pomfrey was finished with Hermione and could turn her eye back to Harry.
Ron and Ginny approached the friend and kneeled down on the floor next to him. Neither was able to hide their reaction to his current condition. They had both seen Harry battered and bruised before, especially after his last encounter with Freddy, but this was beyond anything they had witnessed.
“Harry...” began Ron.
“It’s my fault,” Harry cut him off.
“What? No, you didn’t--”
“It’s all my fault,” repeated Harry, speaking mostly to himself. “I let him in, I got angry with her and that let him in... it’s my fault...”
Sirius was too busy casting healing spells to say anything, but a low growl began to rumble in his throat. He did not like the sound of this.
“You can’t believe that, Harry,” whispered Ginny, her freckles standing out in stark contrast to her pale skin. “This isn’t your fault.”
“Yeah,” agreed Ron. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
Harry stared at them, unable to speak as he began to cry. With his throat constricted and his breath coming in shorter and shorter bursts, all he could manage was to shake his head in denial. While he could not say the words out loud, his mind was more than willing to repeatedly state that this was all his fault.
Ignoring the pain of his many self-inflicted wounds was easy; his mind was currently so numb that he literally did not feel them - just as he could hardly feel Ron and Ginny’s arms as they held him in their arms and tried to comfort him as he broke down.
TBC...