Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A certain haze seemed to cloud Harriet’s gaze wherever she went, its foggy veil blanketing every aspect of her daily life. She longed to pull herself out of it, wanted to bring herself out of its embrace, but she also feared that the veil that separated her from the rest of reality was the only thing keeping her safe.
Keeping her sane.
Day in and day out, Harriet wandered the halls of Hogwarts like a ghost, her movements strangely robotic and automatic. She ate when she must, laughed at her friends’ jokes, and even hung out with them during their breaks. But even though she acted just fine in front of everyone else, the worst part of it all was when she was left alone with her own thoughts, in the privacy of her own bed…
Harriet curled into a ball, holding her pillow against her face as the veil that withheld her sanity blended with the darkness, the haze morphing with the gloom of reality. She could hear the voices through the undone seams left behind in their wake, whispers of her own mistakes keeping her up at night.
The voices often whispered to her about the Dursleys, the thought of them again sending a jolt straight through her heart, the lance of pain briefly searing through the haze which she was protecting herself with. The cloudy veil shifted around the emotional injury, revealing way more than she was expecting it to in such a short span of time.
She tried to focus on something else as the whispers started, their lilting voices crawling out of the lesion left behind by her unintended thought, their talons already carving blisters around the edges of her sanity. Even though she tried her best, they persisted, forcing her to acknowledge them or be driven insane by their insistence.
Harriet floated amidst the sea of terrors, not even knowing when she fell asleep…if at all.
‘It doesn’t matter anymore.’
...
“Say, Harry, are you coming to watch the match with us today?"
Harriet stilled where she was in the middle of forcing food down her throat, the momentary pause making the bile roiling in her stomach climb dangerously high up her chest, though she barely just managed to swallow it down and shoot a questioning look at Draco, silently urging him to continue as she didn't trust herself to speak just yet.
Draco quirked an eyebrow, staring at Harry as if she had personally offended him.
"The Quidditch match, Harry!" He exclaimed as if Harriet was being especially dense - which she had been, to be quite frank.
"Oh, oh right. Sure, I mean- yes. I'll be there."
Harriet couldn’t think of anything else to say beyond that, not even knowing if she should point out that she didn’t even know what Houses would be playing that day.
Draco smiled at her as she responded, and her mind gently reminded her that she’d rarely seen him smile in the past few days, and she briefly wondered why that was. Harriet spared him another glance, and saw that it was still there.
Thinking it'll be the end to that conversation, Harriet returned to her meal, having even less of an appetite now that she had had to stop for a few seconds. Her appetite did disappear, however, with what Draco said next.
"Good, 'cause Granger and I thought you could use the fresh air." Draco replied absently.
Harriet choked on the last bite of her pie at those words, hacking and coughing to clear her throat in her effort to question Draco.
Draco shot her another quizzical look, signaling Goyle to pat her on the back. His large hand was heavy, seemingly wanting to dislodge Harriet from her seat, but all that paid off when she hacked up a rather disgusting piece of crust.
Draco recoiled in horror and revulsion from the offending piece and his friend, a vile expression washing over his features. He dropped his fork, the utensil clattering gently onto his plate.
"Well, now I've lost my appetite." He announced grandly, scrunching up his nose as he peered warily at Harriet, as if expecting her to hack up another piece of pie.
What had remained of Harriet’s supposed good mood vanished, the smile that she had barely successfully etched into her face falling flat, the pull of her frown turning her lips ever downward.
"I- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." She quietly apologised, not able to look her friend in the eye anymore.
Draco blinked, startled at her newly sour mood as she muttered her apologies, the words unexpectedly making something squeeze in his chest. But all that had escaped Harriet, as she was pondering his words from earlier.
‘Why am I like this? Causing unnecessary problems like it’s a sport!’
‘Have I gone mad?’ She thought as she looked at her hands, her fingers digging so sharply into her palms that she could just spot the little crescent indents welling with blood.
Harriet’s mind went back to the previous week, to the day everything had turned into a disaster, a nightmare so horrible that the haze cleared up for a brief, specific moment:
‘It doesn’t matter anymore.’
She huffed a laugh that sounded terribly close to a sob, her sight blurring up with the beginnings of a new crying session. She hastily blinked away her tears, stubbornly telling herself that she was alright, but the tears seemed similarly stubborn, encouraged by her now persistent memories.
‘Ah,’ She thought, ‘perhaps I have.’
Like a jagged knife stabbing at her heart, the bleeding edge slowly morphed into the scenes she longed to forget, and even ones that she that shoved into the back of her mind, all of which were now surging like a wave toward that fragile haze that protected her broken sanity.
Harriet’s breath hitched as she squinted her eyes shut, willing everything to just stop, to just go away and leave her alone, but the wave reached its highest point… and crested.
The wave crested.
The haze shifted.
… And something unexpected happened.
“Harry ar- are you alright?” The voice floated in the sea of her mind, deftly making its way through the waves that had almost destroyed her.
There was something tugging on her person, the insistence enough to make her open her eyes a crack, and the view immediately made her brows shoot up.
There was a pale, slender hand on hers, the delicate appendage lightly grasping it. She slowly unclenched her fists, allowing the hand to fall into hers, the soft, white palm a sharp contrast to her own callused ones. Her eyes moved upward, past the flowing hem of a school robe, a green collar, and finally… a pale face with worried eyes of gleaming silver.
Harriet stared, hard enough for Draco’s brows to dip into a frown of confusion, which began to morph into alarm. But before he could do anything, Harriet blurted out the first thing on her mind:
“Pretty.” She murmured, only loudly enough for just the two of them to hear.
Draco’s expression froze between the borders of worry and alarm, the paleness of his features unable to cope with the transition between the two emotions. Harriet’s dull mood began to lighten up as she watched said transitions, her misplaced humour eventually pouring out as the poor boy spluttered:
“What the- how could you- I- I’m not a girl!” He finally managed to force out, his cheeks tinted pink in embarrassment.
As if compelled, Harriet suddenly felt laughter bubbling in her chest, which became a giggle, and in turn morph into full-blown laughter. Her laughter melded with the mingling of other groups of friends as they left the hall, already making their way to the Quidditch pitch. She then looked at her friend, who had overcome his awkwardness of touching just to comfort her, and smiled… a genuine one for the first time in a week.
Draco blinked at her swift change in mood, trying to puzzle out her new behaviour. He searched Harriet’s face for a while as if looking for something, before sighing heavily, like he’d come to a difficult decision.
“I knew it,” He said in lieu of her habit, “you really are weird, Harry.”
He stood up as he stretched out a hand toward her, Crabbe and Goyle following his lead and moving to the entrance to wait for their charge.
“Come on. You know Granger went ahead to find us good seats. I don’t want her to nag my ear off if we’re late.”
Harriet stared at the hand in front of her face, the same one she had called pretty, and slowly grasped at it, her own hands closing firmly around it like a lifeline. She forced herself to focus on the sole anchor to weigh her to the present, even as the haze settled back into place over her eyes.
Harriet took her time to stand next to her friend, who had been patiently waiting for her to move. She looked down at where their hands met, and the fog seemed to roll away from their clasped hands, allowing her to see him clearly, allowing her to feel for the first time in what felt like eternity. Her eyes made their way back up to his face, only to also see the fog rolling away from him.
Harriet offered Draco a wan smile, a small consolation it was, even as the waves of malicious thoughts rolled in the back of her mind, receding just shy of her veil.
“You’re right.” Harriet replied, forcing her scattered thoughts to focus on her other best friend.
“We best get a move on.”
…
They made their way out of the Great Hall, the relative silence all around them a welcomed one before their inevitable congestion in the Quidditch stands.
Harriet sighed in not quite contentment, but rather satisfaction, as she won’t have to force herself to think about other things during the game; the noise of the crowd would be more than enough to drown out all else.
She couldn’t help but let her eyes trail down to where her hand was held by Draco, inspecting the delicate appendage properly for the first time since they met. His fingers were curled gently around hers, the tips of his fingernails scraping gently along her palm.
An hilarious thought struck Harriet at that very moment, and she had to stifle her laugh so as not to appear more crazy than she already seemed.
‘Does Draco get manicures?!’
Harriet imagined Draco in a beauty salon, getting his hair and nails done while trading the latest gossips with the other witches present there. The idea was so outrageous, so ridiculous, but also made perfect sense to her in that brief moment, that she almost went into a bout of hysterical laughter.
She just barely, barely managed to choke on her intended actions and let out the most ridiculous bout of coughing instead, tears streaming from her eyes at the not quite suppressed emotions.
Draco paused and looked back at her with concern, and she quickly ducked her head down so he wouldn’t see whatever kind of expression she was making at the moment.
Harriet forced herself to take a few deep breaths to calm herself down, now feeling much better after her little dose of imagination. The treat put her in such a good mood that she knew that she just had to ask if he got manicures and hair treatments done regularly.
‘I wonder if he gets pedicures, too.’
Harriet leaned toward Draco, to speak to him privately so as not to ruin his reputation in front of Crabbe and Goyle, but the giggle was already present in her voice as she tugged on their clasped hands to get his attention and asked:
“Say, Draco, I’ve been thinking-” But her sentence broke off before she could get further than that, her good mood snuffing out with the chilling voice that sucked all the life out of the entrance hall.
‘How in the world did we get so close to his office? I never even noticed!’
Harriet felt like someone had punched her in the guts, her breath leaving her in one harsh whoosh.
“Harry, what are you-” But Draco’s words got lost in the turbulent path that marked her memories.
A truly horrible sense of deja vu washed over her, one that kept replaying like a broken record in her mind. The scene was all too familiar, too coincidental to be an accident…
And yet…
The horrid voice could be heard from the room beyond, snippets of muffled conversation filtering into her ears, latching on to her brain like leeches. The haze that withheld all her memories of the past week trembled, billowing in the storm of emotions waiting to be unleashed.
Harriet struggled to pull air into her lungs, her ragged breathing making her vision narrow dangerously into a single point. Her emotions and memories pressed against the veil, its form bulging and distending, pressing against what fragile control she had kept up until now.
The veil ripped, its surface forming tiny lesions of spider webs, and Harriet could do nothing but stare hopelessly in despair at the door in front of her, until…
The veil exploded.
Recollections of the last Saturday rushed through her head in waves, the unending tides battering against her sanity. She felt faint, and even more so when she remembered how this exact scene had played out, just a little over a week earlier.
Harriet could still feel the hand on her, digging into her scalp as she was dragged away. Her ankle stung in recollection of the long-since healed wound, ichor painted crimson on her sock, sticking to her sweaty skin.
Worse yet, she had been saved then, rather unexpectedly, by a saviour who now wanted nothing to do with her.
‘And now…now…it was just her and Draco all over again, in a corridor far from salvation.’
Harriet managed to raise her eyes and seek out Draco’s, only to see the same fear that she’d seen before reflected back at her, confirming her dread.
The voice drew closer.
The doorknob turned.
…And Harriet didn’t stick around long enough to see the monster emerge from within.
…
Harriet ran pell-mell through the corridors of Hogwarts, her gaze not comprehending the scenery as she passed. Each corridor resembled the next, the identical passageways not aiding her panicked mind in the slightest. The empty halls rang with the echoes of her footsteps, the judgemental portraits staring down at her in disdain.
There were eyes everywhere she went, staring daggers into what was left of her splintered soul. Her feet carried her farther and farther still, but no matter how far she ran, she couldn’t seem to escape from the corridors which had begun to close in on her. Her chest tightened, the stitch in her side from having run so far only seemed to add to the constriction from her fractured mind.
She ran and ran until she saw a light ahead of her…and she didn’t think twice before dashing into the open space, where she could finally feel herself breathe.
Harriet doubled over as she panted, the air rushing into her lungs fast enough to make her lightheaded. She collapsed onto the grassy ground, her head still spinning as she closed her eyes and breathed in relief. After catching her breath for a few moments, she opened her eyes and tried to scope out her surroundings.
It was an unfamiliar part of the castle that she’d never been to before. Her eyes squinted in the morning sun, taking in further details of her new discovery.
The first thing she noticed was how quiet it was, not even a hint of sound filtering into the opening. She thought it strange, how far away she was, that not even the noise of the ongoing Quidditch match could disturb her solace.
‘Oh, no, the Quidditch match!’ Harriet tried to sit upright, only to fall down flat on her back again when her arms failed to support her weight. After a few more attempts, she decided to wait until she was feeling better enough to head back.
The second thing she noticed was the spider web of cracked stone spiraling into a stone bench and beyond it. Her eyes followed the pattern, its disorder making her eyes trail farther until they landed on something that made her brows shoot up.
The third and final thing she noticed was the foot of some giant statue, its sandalled feet bearing the noticeable weathers of time. Mesmerized, her gaze moved upward in curiosity, passing over a wizard’s robe, and eventually stopping on the face. Harriet seriously wished she hadn’t looked too closely at it, because what little breath she had left her body sharply, her next inhale cloying up her windpipe.
The statue was of a bald man, his long, thin beard sweeping down his front. His hands were steepled in front of him, the long, bony fingers held perfectly in the stone facade. But that was not what had made her blood run cold. It was his eyes.
The hallowed eyes of the statue peered down at her, its gaze apparently locked on to her sprawled form, pinning her in place by the force of it alone. His stare looked empty and cold, which would not have been particularly alarming, but this statue’s seemed overwhelmingly so. His face was twisted into a cruel smirk, still staring down at her like she was a thing. Something annoying.
Something worthless.
Harriet quickly darted her eyes away from it, forcing herself upright to escape from the judgmental stare that she could feel was now burning a hole into her back, only for her eyes to land on another statue in her escape from reality.
Her eyes bulged as she stared at it, her breath coming now in shorter gasps. It was one of a man with a sword by his side, determination plain on his face. Harriet eyes darted around to look away, but they also landed on two other figures, which she was too far gone to observe too closely.
Harriet could feel the eyes all around her, burning into her soul as their presence weighed down on her. She could feel the weight that was pressing down on her earlier return tenfold, as if it wanted to trap her there forever.
She scrambled to her feet, her feet desperately fighting for purchase in the dewy grass. She stumbled as she eventually managed to pull herself upright, about to head back into the castle when she stopped abruptly.
‘No. No, he’s still in there!’ Her thinking ground to a halt as her mind went into full blown panic mode. Her brain urged her to move, to leave this blasted place behind and find somewhere safe to hide.
Harriet picked a random direction and ran, never once looking back at the dreadful place she left behind.
…
Harriet dashed like a headless chicken as she went, never stopping to even see what direction she was heading in. Her exhausted legs stumbled beneath her, urging her to stop, but the thought that something or someone would find her and drag her back was enough to keep her moving towards her undetermined location.
Harriet ran until her legs couldn't support her anymore, falling to her knees and heaving, gulping down fresh breaths of earthy air into her lungs. Her body shook as she fought to stand, only for her to collapse face-first onto the grass. Her vision spun, and all she could see was grass and the faint outline of the Forbidden Forest.
She ground her teeth in concentration and tried to stand again, only to topple over when she had just managed to get up on her knees. She closed her eyes, exhaustion winning over her alertness, although her heart pounded with anxiety. She must have fallen asleep, because she was jolted awake by the faint sound of cheering.
Harriet jerked awake, her consciousness returning to her body immediately. She panted as her vision swam for a few moments before coming into focus. She was still lying down in the grass, her breathing now no longer as harsh as it was before, although she was still overcome by heavy exhaustion. Harriet mustered enough strength to roll herself onto her back, and was met with the blinding rays of the late morning sun.
She squinted at it, blinking away the sharp pain that stabbed at her skull at the sudden flash of light, only to pause when she heard the heavy falls of boots heading in her direction. Her heart thumped in her throat as her earlier panic reawakened, the desire to run overtaking her senses. Though, no matter how hard she tried, her body wouldn’t comply with her request. So she just laid there instead, waiting for her inevitable fate of being dragged off by her hair again.
The steps got closer, and all she could do was close her eyes in resignation and let the man have his revenge, her mind running a mile a minute as she thought of all the threats she’d heard him capable of.
‘Will he really use the chains from his office on me, I wonder? Or perhaps, I’ll be flogged instead?’
The footsteps finally stopped as the owner stood over her, blotting out the intense rays of the sun, and letting a refreshing cast of shade settle over her before she could be dragged to heaven knows where and be subjected to whatever foul punishments the man had cooked up for her.
…That was, until she heard a voice that made a small hint of a smile appear on her face, for it was the last one she had expected to hear after her whole ordeal on that morning.
“You alrigh' there, ‘Arriet?”
Harriet opened her eyes as she took a look at the man, his kind, beetle-black eyes projecting worry from within his mass of beard.
“Hello, Hagrid.” She replied with a genuine smile.