Mate
A day as grey as they come.
It was like having a calendar and ticking each day off until the final moment arrived.
A Birthday, Christmas, the champions league final, you know how it is.
In this case however, it wasn‘t anything that could be celebrated, of course not.
It was Harry‘s deathday.
Harry‘s deathday because he had to face Lord Voldemort eventually and everybody knew how a duel between the two would go.
It wasn‘t as if he had slim chances.
No, he had no chance against him.
Lord Voldemort would beat him every day of the week without even trying.
It was a horrible experience to know that one would die, most certainly sooner rather than later, but still having to do everything that the everyday life entailed.
Transfiguration homework.
It was as calming as it was enfuriating.
As much as it was an anchor that granted a feeling of belonging and safety, it was a heavy foot shackle that didn‘t allow him to move one bit and pulled him down farther and farther, deeper and deeper, darker and darker,
until the inevitable happened,
death.
So you see, Harry didn‘t have the best of times right now.
That was why he had his very own mechanisms to cope with the probably uncopable.
First of all, reading.
Reading always was helpful because if he read, he was in another world, not in this one where he could and would die.
Additionally, reading always granted him an irrational feeling of safety, since most of what he read were books about DADA, dueling and all sorts of battle magic.
It wasn‘t only that this aspect of magic was his strong suit, it was also that the constant improvement in this subject could give him the illusion of being able to stand a chance against Voldemort one day.
Second of all, all of the aforementioned in practice.
The room of requirement was ideal for this. It was the perfect method to vent frustration.
Shooting all kinds of recently acquired spellst at dummies and targets, that is.
And last but not least, walking.
Strolling around the Hogwarts grounds always was helpful to clear one‘s mind.
Especially calming however, weren‘t the Hogwarts grounds but the nature off the grounds.
First and foremost, of course, the forbidden forest.
All of this helped Harry to acknowledge the beauty of this world and how lucky he was to even be born.
Long story short, Harry was walking past Hagrid‘s hut just now.
As he stalked past the first trees, he wondered if he was going to get into trouble.
He had had an uncomfortable run-in with the Acromantulas once, but his well versed sixth year self, if he did say so himself, and the ability to speak parseltongue which the spiders feared like Lord Voldemort made it almost too easy for him to escape.
Harry didn’t even know if there was something in this forest that could overpower him.
Well, he wouldn‘t like to run into centaurs but they were a whole different story.
Weird folks the lot of them.
Anyway, he considered himself able to talk it out with them and at least get away.
That was the moment in which he heard a snort and felt it wooshing his hair up.
He slowly, very slowly, turned 180 degrees and found himself facing a demon.
Wait, not a demon, a Thestral.
A horse-like animal with no flesh and muscle whatsoever. Only bones and the skin that stretched above them was visible. Milky white eyes staring at him and a somewhat foul breath puffing in his face and blowing his hair out of his visage once again.
“Mate, you ever heard of personal space?“ Harry asked as he wiped the animal‘s saliva off his face.
The Thestral snorted as if making fun of him.
“You think this is funny, do you?“
The magical beast snorted confirmingly.
“Thought so. Well, if you didn‘t know, I‘m not someone to go down without a fight.“
The bat-like horse cocked it‘s head to the side.
Harry cleared his throat once, twice, held his wand at the ready aaaand:
“aguamenti“
The Thestral‘s face got drenched with water in an instant and it began whinnying and reared up, flapping it‘s gigantic bat-like wings surprisingly fast.
The jet of water turned around and hit the completely perplexed Harry full in the face.
Harry, drenched to the bones, looked glumly at the Thestral, which whinnied in a laughing-like expression. Harry was strongly reminded of some humans that almost had the same laugh.
“Alright, alright, you win.
I can‘t believe I was bullied by a horse.“