Hunger
Harry went back to the prostitute. It felt strange, being bedded by a man who knew something of his body and what would bring Harry pleasure. Unwanted reminders of Cedric. Like he couldn’t possibly fuck enough men to stop comparing them to Cedric. Still, the man didn’t have to ask before bending Harry over his bed and plowing into him. And Harry liked it. The man still charged too much, but Harry didn’t mind.
It was better than the alternative.
When Harry returned to the north he had stood back in that tower room. Lupin had cleared it out at Harry’s return. Probably in the hopes of talking through probably everything. Harry would rather go back to that camp and hear the hunting dogs tear apart Padfoot than talk with Lupin about everything. Cause when Lupin said “talk” he meant more than the exchange of words. More than the little exercises Harry had diligently pursued. Lupin would want to exchange feelings. Make amends. Express worry. Share. Things Harry had only ever done with Sirius, and never deliberately. He might have done it, if he could go back and see Sirius alive.
Harry had talked the only way he ever wanted to talk. Sparsely. Pulling no punches. He reported out like it was any other mission he’d gone on and the casualties were predetermined numbers on a page. Separate from the objective. Even though Harry had clearly also failed at the objective. Stealing supplies. Learning the ropes. Running away. Take your pick.
Like the complete asshole he was, Lupin had refused to judge Harry. He was in charge of this place but wouldn’t hand out declarations when you succeeded or failed. Wouldn’t punish you when you deserved it. He tried to cajole Harry. Clearly wanted to reach out and comfort the younger man. Lupin had wisely held back. For once uncertain. He looked strange without his encouraging smile. Older. Sad.
Harry went back to drinking. Not that he’d been a drinker. But he remembered what it felt like to spend those nights with Sirius, warm and fuzzy. He wanted to recapture that feeling. How he could float in space and absorb anything without pain.
He couldn’t get it back. He only got sad. Or angry. Even when Ron sat with him, drinking along and speaking enough for two, it wasn’t enough to pull Harry from his melancholy.
Ron was back now. Or rather here, in the north. He needed to be. King Voldermort’s strategists had noted their resources were targeted mysteriously and had decided to fish out the culprit. They’d supplied suspects with different intel, watching for which was acted upon in order to know who to take out. Lupin had known. Dumbledore had known. They’d been carefully cross referencing intel from across the kingdome to verify what was true before directing action.
Sirius had just been opening letters. No larger context to guide him. No awareness of the trap that lay ahead.
It was lost on no one that Ron was the only one Harry would talk to. Maybe because Ron didn’t act like Lupin had. He never told Harry that Sirius’s death wasn’t Harry’s fault. Ron never blamed Sirius for spying on his own side and misusing information. He tried to be there for Harry thick or thin. Even if Harry was a belligerent, angry fool. Harry could take Ron in a fair fight. But Harry only ever picked fights when drunk, and he suspected Ron was always dead sober.
Harry didn’t go back to his mental exercises. There were no journal entries or angry scribbles. No calming naming things he could see, feel, or hear. No deep breaths or meditation. He did try, once. His mind drifted. He imagined a recently cleared field. One where you could still see fallen leaves and tree stumps. Harry pulled away from the thought before he encountered metal claws that could tear skin and crush bone.
The nightmares got worse. Harry regularly woke up screaming.
Lupin tried to give him space, but he set Dennis to follow Harry. A fucking shadow Harry tried to ditch, but Dennis was cleverer than Harry. He knew the fort better. Knew the town. Maybe knew what a sad and lonely bloke would do when trying to get away from everyone and everything.
What was Harry to do but assume Dennis was ratting him out. Another part of his past, not living up in the present. Why wouldn’t he? Food was scarce and Dennis had two mouths to feed. Couldn’t be that much to buy yourself a spy.
Only, Harry spent more and more nights outside the fort with only his shadow Dennis to guard him. He drank more. Fucked more. Didn’t think so much about how or whether he was being safe about it. It must have gotten on Lupin’s nerves because he finally called Harry back up to the tower and tried so hard not to yell at the younger man. Harry watched Lupin’s face muscles twitch under his skin as he stayed forcefully calm. Listened to his superior practically plead with him to be more careful. On and on about trying to give Harry the time he needed, but too many people cared about Harry for him to throw his life away on booze and women.
Harry laughed. Scornful in a way it hadn’t been outside the inn when Lupin last said something so wild. He tilted his head so he could spot Dennis. Lurking Dennis. Shadow Dennis. Another boy soldier pretending to be a man. Pretending to ignore the conversation in front of him. Not meeting Harry’s eyes as Harry realized Dennis wasn’t telling Lupin shit.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Harry was drinking again. Dennis had declined Harry’s offer to share. Said something about not liking how Colin drank too much. Harry had squinted at him and asked, “Isn’t Colin like twelve?”
Dennis shrugged now like he’d shrugged then. His answer was simple. “Honestly thought he knew.”
Harry smacked his lips around another glug of ale. “You’d of told him if you hadn’t?”
“Nah,” Dennis said. He and Harry were sitting outdoors. It was crisp and icy. The promise that snow wasn’t far. Harry drank to stay warm. Dennis just huddled against the wall of the fort looking up at the clear sky. Boys from the north didn’t join the army if they had any sort of life that protected them from the cold. “He doesn’t really ask questions, you know.”
Harry scowled into his drink. “Don’t fucking care,” he muttered.
“Uh huh.” Dennis was too young and technically Harry’s subordinate. He shouldn’t be allowed to sound so dismissive.
“Why do you think I care?” Harry demanded.
Dennis shrugged again. He moved with an unrushed ease that explained how he could maybe wait for hours outside a whorehouse for Harry to wrap up his business. He also pulled no punches. “Thought you two were fucking.” Harry spat out the ale. Some lodged in his throat. Left him coughing. Dennis side eyed him. “Were you two fucking?”
“No!” Harry didn’t mean to yell but it’s what came out around coughing liquid out of his throat. “He’s like, ancient.”
Harry could see Dennis’s smirk as he shrugged again. “You’re ancient.”
Harry all but threw down his mug of ale in frustration. “Oh fuck you.” Dennis’s laugh was carefree. It was a marvel he could sound like that at all. Harry could hear how petulant he sounded as he grumbled, “That’s a stupid idea and you’re stupid for having it.”
There was no phasing Dennis. Not here in the cold under a clear sky behind tall walls that kept the enemies at bay. He said anything that came to mind. “You were sleeping with Diggory, though.”
Harry actually flinched. Everything phased him. The ale in his stomach hung sour. It never made him warm and fuzzy anymore. He hated how wrecked he sounded when he spoke. “Why would you say that?” It didn’t sound like a contradiction.
“Just how you two acted. It was like, you were aware of each other. And you’d spend hours together. And he gave you special treatment.”
“He never gave me special treatment,” Harry snapped, ignoring everything else that was clearly, unquestionably true.
This warranted more than a shrug. Dennis cocked an eyebrow and leveled an unimpressed stare at Harry. “That man was obsessed with you. He spent twice as much time training you as anyone else. That’s why I thought you and Lupin had a thing. He’s the same way, spending all his time with you. Sending you off on special top secret missions. If Diggory had a top secret mission you know he’d have sent you on it.”
Everything was wrecked inside Harry. He squeezed his eyes shut, forgetting that wouldn’t block out everything he felt on the inside. He swatted for his mug. He could numb this. He could numb everything. Only he knocked the mug over. He couldn’t do shit. Couldn’t even get properly drunk.
Dennis continued talking as if Harry wasn’t spirling into panic next to him. “If you’re not fucking, what do you two do with all that time together?”
What? Oh. Lupin. He was asking about Lupin. It was Harry’s turn to shrug. “Fuck if I know. I dunno. He, like, tries to help me get a lid on my anger I think.”
“Really?” This was different. A softer tone far too genuine for Harry’s comfort. “Does it work?”
Harry looked at Dennis, who never seemed angry about anything. “Don’t know,” felt like a cheap answer but Harry was drunk and had spitefully refused to name an emotion in days. He wouldn’t name it now. That uneasy feeling in his stomach was booze and nothing else.
“Oh, okay.” Dennis looked fucking disappointed. “Is that it, then?”
Harry licked his lips nervously. He was fucking disappointing again. “Um.” How the fuck could he disappoint Dennis. Dennis had lived through all the same shit Harry had. Maybe more. He had to see the mangled bodies of his parents after the factory accident and chose to take his brother, pratically a fucking baby, to fight and die in a war so they’d have fucking food to eat. “Well.” Dennis didn’t tell Lupin shit even though he could have if he wanted to endear himself to the man. He followed Harry around and kept him from passing out in gutters and gave Harry his own dirty rag whenever Harry sicked up on himself. “Sometimes we talk. About stuff. Feelings and stuff. He tries to help with my nightmares. Ya know. Keep me from getting stuck in my head.” Harry wondered if he would’ve dared to admit it sober.
Dennis had perked up again. “Does that work?”
The words buzzed in Harry’s head. Maybe he was a bit fuzzy, after all. “I think… sometimes.”
“Could you show me?”
Harry inhaled sharp and deep. Could he fucking show him? Dennis seemed fine. He was fine. He laughed like he could still be a child and never seemed upset at all. Like a stone fucking statue. A bit too much like Harry, come to think of it.
Harry groaned. He buried his face in his hands. He thought he might actually sick up any minute. Dennis didn’t ask again. Harry could let it go and Dennis probably would as well. They’d never have to talk about it. Harry slept in a different space now. He was with the officers. Well born men who never woke up screaming.
Harry kept his face hidden as he began to talk through all the exercises he’d abandoned. All the special assignments Lupin had doled out. All the orders Harry had followed because he was good at following orders. Good at not questioning.
Dennis mostly would ask if any of it worked. Despite the clawing wretched feeling inside Harry, he never sobbed in response. Never broke down again and whine about how he didn’t fucking know.
“It’s important to name your feelings,” Harry said. “Can you name your feelings?”
Dennis’s lips tilted down. “Feel cold.”
Harry shook his head. “Like, cold outside or cold inside?”
Dennis looked at him sideways. “Cold all over, mate.”
Harry shook his head again. Words caught in his throat, but they were the only way he knew how to explain it so he forced them out. “When I get angry, I feel cold.” He moved a hand over his chest, to about where he figured his heart was. “Right here. My heart freezes so I can’t feel anything else. Then I’m…”
“Bloody ruthless,” Dennis finishes for him. Harry tentatively nods agreement. Dennis’s lips twitch down again, but this time in thought. “I think I’m just cold, cold. If we’re talking about in here,” he taps on his chest, wherever he figured his heart was, “I think I’m probably just scared.” He said it so simply. Like fear was something you could be and know it was in you. Like it was something you could tell someone you felt.
“Right.” Harry gulped. “Then you can, like, say why. Or more feelings. Or whatever.”
“And that helps, just saying things?” Dennis asked.
Harry’s shrug wasn’t half as effortless as Dennis. “I’ve kind of been stuck on the saying things part. I don’t know what comes after.”
That carefree laugh. It was so unexpected. “Alright, well. Thanks for explaining.”
That was it, then. Harry’d done it. He’d talked to a person and it hadn’t hurt much at all. Probably wouldn’t make the list of things that tormented his mind if he let up on being vigilantly numb. Dennis had thanked him. Dennis didn’t expect any more. This would be the point to end any other conversation Harry had ever had, except for all the ones he ended much, much earlier.
Except Harry actually wanted to say something. It took him by such surprise he almost didn’t understand. But he cleared his throat and pushed forward. “Why’re you scared, Dennis?”
This shrug didn’t look half as haphazard and not remotely carefree. “We don’t got enough food for the winter.”
Harry’s face pinched. “Not in storage, but if we ration it with the incoming supplies-”
“There’s no more incoming supplies,” Dennis cut him off. Now Harry was frowning. There were always incoming supplies. Never enough, but rations to feed the workers in the north. The ones the south relied on. Soldiers and factory workers and the wealthier tradesmen who could pay outlandish prices for it. The shock of losing all this was nothing compared to Dennis’s next revelation. “So I’m taking Colin west, before the snow comes. There’s a call for soldiers on that front.”
“You can’t go west.” The words were automatic for Harry.
Dennis tried to share a lopsided smile like it was no big deal. “Gotta go west. It’s where the food is.” That’s why Dennis was here after all. Why Harry was here.
“You can’t,” Harry insisted. His mind raced through pictures of maps. He conjured up passages that were hard-fought to read through. The west wasn’t like the north, with the barbarian giants. Or like the East, boarded by sea. The west was… “Durmstrang soldiers will kill you.”
Dennis was still smiling. “Someone will always kill us,” he joked. He didn’t understand that this was different.
“No, Dennis, I mean it. Fighting Durmstrang is suicide. They’re like, better. Than us. Their soldiers are grown men trained from Colin’s age, and they’re actually armored and fed.”
Harry could see Dennis’s smile slipping, but stubbornly the younger man wouldn’t let it go. His shrug looked just as nonchalant as before, as if it was an act the entire time. “Thems the breaks, sometimes. But the recruiter will be back in a week or so. He brought bread last time. Promised three warm meals a day.” He said it like a joke because he knew it was a joke. The entire thing was a giant joke. A giant joke that would pull away too large a crowd because they all knew we’d soon run out of bread. Then the north would have no soldiers, and once again everyone Harry knew would be dead.
“You can’t go.” Harry sounded wrecked again. He wished he hadn’t drank anything because if he was sober he could have hid the wobble in his voice.
“It’ll be fine, Harry. We’re scrappy. And then there will be more food for you. Maybe you’ll make it through the winter.” The absolute fucking gaul of this child.
“We can get more food. I’ll find more food,” Harry recklessly insisted. It was so stupid because it was impossible but he promised anyway.
“I know you’d do it if you could,” Dennis said. It was patronizing as fuck how hard he was trying to comfort Harry. Harry hated himself for being so weak that Dennis had to carry his weight. He hated how Dennis was so good at it, probably because he’d had so much practice with his brother. “Wouldn’t we all being doing it, if we could?”
A lead heavier than all the others throttled Harry’s gut. If there was anything he could do… wouldn’t he be doing it? What had he been doing? Nothing. He’d done absolutely nothing. Everyone was working around him to save their lives. Everyone but Harry. Who, out of anyone, actually might have been able to do something.
He tilted his head back until it thunked against the wall. Harry stared upwards at the stars. He couldn’t remember any of their names. Sirius would never have the chance to teach him. How many more of his friends would die before they had the chance to do what they were meant to do?
“I can get us more food,” Harry promised. A drunken, desperate promise. Made to himself.