Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Harry woke up to a sore throat and damp bed sheets for the third day in a row. One might think that he had caught a cold on the train coming back hom-to the Dursley’s, but Harry knew better. Since the “incident”, he had screamed himself hoarse every night. At first, he woke himself up, but Dean had cast "silencio" on him every night before bed so that they all could catch some sleep. After a few weeks of casting it, they found a long-lasting version of the curse that would start every night around 22:00 and stop at 7:00 and had cast it at Harry. Now, his vocal chords would follow a schedule until someone removed the spell. This was all well and done, but it didn’t stop the nightmares of the sore throat Harry was waking up to every day.
This, combined with the crucio aftershocks that he could still feel more than two weeks after his encounter with Voldemort and the bruises from the beatings he had received from uncle Vernon and Dudley and his friends, made from a very rough morning indeed. The welts on his back protested when he got up and gathered his sheets to put in the wash. A quick glance in the bathroom mirror told him that he would have to wear long sleeves and a collar to be allowed outside since he could clearly see his uncle’s hand imprinted on his forearms and his neck. He had brought a few jars of bruise paste from Hogwarts, but his "family" would quickly become suspicious if he healed in only a few days.But he could use it on his torso, that was almost completely purple with a few spots of green and black where his first beating had started to heal, and had worsened respectively. Those kind of bruises hurt a lot as they healed and they took a long time too. He couldn't risk another “Harry Hunting” game in this condition.
Sighing, the teenager got into the shower and tried to wash himself without rubbing too hard on any of his injuries (which was a difficult task), before going back to Dudley’s second bedroom to get dressed and apply the paste. Harry was always in awe of how quickly this worked. In only a few seconds, his torso came back to normal, except for an area on his left where he had suspected one of his ribs was broken. It seemed he was right… oh well, it wouldn't be the first time! He just had to wrap it and be careful while doing his chores. The pain was something he had gotten used to after all this time…
But Harry had to admit that everything was a little harder this year. It seemed like the hits hurt more and that it took him longer to recover from them. Dudley had filled out a lot last year, it seemed like his bragging at dinner about his boxing successes weren't completely unwarranted. Harry couldn’t take his hits and stay standing anymore. Dudley also seemed a lot quicker (or Harry was a lot slower, he didn’t know), which meant that most of the hits found their target. But Harry still had managed to only get caught once while "Harry Hunting", and this was a victory in his book.
Harry quickly wrapped his ribs with an old rag that used to be Dudley’s t-shirt and got dressed in a long-sleeved shirt to hide the bruises that he couldn’t heal without suspicion. His aunt had given him a long list of chores to complete before their company arrived for the tea party, and he knew what the consequences would be if he didn't do them all. Harry didn’t even wonder about breakfast, he had learned of the years that the saying “Ask and you shall receive” wasn’t true in his case and that he was better off waiting until it was offered to him, even if it took a long time. And anyway, he usually received care packages from the twins at some point in the summer, which contained Mrs Weasley’s baking. He could wait until then.
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Harry was lying on his bed with his mirror fragment that night. He hadn’t finished all of his chores in time for his aunt’s tea party, so his uncle had been particularly vicious after supper. Harry still hadn’t eaten and he had grown accustomed to getting food every day while at Hogwarts, so his stomach was growling. He knew that he could wait a lot longer and that this could be a lot worse, but it still wasn’t comfortable.
“Oh, Sirius… How I wish I could be with you right now!” he whispered in the dark. “I bet you would let me eat anything I want and would have hit Vernon back for this evening!” Harry knew that Sirius couldn’t answer anymore, but he still spoke to the mirror as if he was still there.
As he continued to speak, Harry rested his head on his pillow and looked at the ceiling. He didn’t see the telltale light emanating from the mirror for a few seconds that indicated that the mirror was in use. He also didn’t see the pair of gray eyes peering curiously through the glass.
“I didn’t even do anything, that’s the worst of it! I had washed everything, done the gardening, the only thing left was the dusting and I had done it yesterday anyway! But no, he had to find a reason to beat the bloody shit out of me again. Honestly, I think I could have done everything perfectly, and he still would have done it.” he reflected. “But I hope that he slows down. I don't think I can take two more months of this...”
The eyes widened in surprise. They knew this voice, it was Potter’s! Potter, who didn’t look like he was having the perfect summer everybody thought he did.
“Merlin, I’m hungry. Can you believe I didn’t eat at the feast? Normally I stock up suring the last meal, but I wasn’t feeling like eating because… well you know why don’t you? It’s all my fault anyway. If I hadn’t gotten you killed, I wouldn’t even be here anyway, so what right do I have to complain? You’re dead because of me, and here I am, whining that I haven’t eaten in a few days and that I have a couple bruises. Please ignore me Sirius! And please, please, forgive me for not being smarter that night. I should have known it was a trap, I should’ve…”
As Harry started crying, the eyes watered too. They knew that Potter wasn’t well at the end of the year, had noticed that he was withdrawn but they figured it was because Potter’s friends had been distant the last couple of weeks. What was this about cousin Sirius dying? Because of Potter? No, it couldn’t have been his fault. Wasn't it aunt Bella that had pushed him through the veil?
He put the mirror into his nightstand and laid down in his bed, looking at the slytherin-green canopy that had decorated it since his first year at Hogwarts. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, trying to let go of the tension in his body. It was atrick his mother had tought him to go to sleep quickly. It wouldn’t do to be tired at breakfast tomorrow morning, especially since he knew they expected the Dark Lord. He needed to make a good impression, or else he might decide to punish his family for their lack of hospitality. With a last deep inhale, Draco closed his eyes and fell into oblivion.