Safe

“Together?” Harry just wanted it over. Maybe sharing it would appease the older boy’s Hufflepuff sense of fairness. Please let him agree!

Cedric nodded and, to Harry’s great surprise, discomfort, and pleasure, snaked an arm around Harry’s torso, helping support his weight off his injured leg.

When they reached the cup, both held out their outside hands, pausing to eye each other for timing, silently counting down in synch in the sort of instinctive telepathic timing that all Quidditch players used to avoid collisions.

The tug behind his navel was unexpected. Harry could still feel Cedric’s arm around him, clenching him even closer as they were whipped through dimensions. But really, why wouldn’t it be a portkey? It would probably take them to the front of the maze, or a platform or something so everyone could see who won—not like they’d have any idea otherwise, right?

Except, when they landed hard—and thank GOD Cedric was holding so much of his weight and keeping him upright, because his leg was on fire—they were not at the front of the maze, or on a platform, or at Hogwarts, or even, based on the light in the sky, still in Scotland!

They were in a graveyard; a very overgrown and unkempt graveyard, with massive, ornate tombstones, mausoleums, and statues, all cracked, tilted and covered with lichen. It was darker than it had been so far north, and more humid.

“Where—?” Harry never got to ask. Cedric had only just loosened his death grip on Harry’s ribs, looking around in calm confusion—seriously, did the guy ever get actually scared?—and two jets of red light came shooting from Harry’s peripheral vision. Cedric was blasted away from him a heartbeat before darkness overtook him.

Harry had nightmares about what happened next for years. They were always vague, like his impressions at the time. It wasn’t actually that horrible objectively, as he couldn’t see anything more than faint blurs and shadows, vivid splashes of color, almost shapeless. Sounds warped around him, giving him brief snatches of voices and little, terrifying incidental things like footsteps, slaps, something that sounded like a blade being drawn or whipped through the air, fingernails on stone. He knew there were people, more than one. But was it two? Ten? Fifty? Were they enemies or spectators or just…people?

He couldn’t move. He wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t. His leg throbbed. His head ached and swam. His stomach felt hollow and queasy. He wasn’t lying down, he thought. And he seemed to be outside, and…it was night? There was…maybe, a fire somewhere? A big one?

How long had it been? Where was Cedric?

A vice gripped his shoulder and another his face. Cold! A sharp, terrifying hiss heralded a shocking descent of clarity. His eyes opened.

Before he could register anything, his vision was completely overrun by red. It felt like his eyes had simply rolled back and he’d fainted, but it wasn’t true. The throbbing in his head escalated briefly to something sharp and unbearable, like a knife in his skull, and Harry wanted to scream like he never had before!

But then suddenly the pain vanished, leaving behind a pressure that consumed him mind.

Vaguely, in a part of his conscious mind so small it may have been his imagination, or a fever dream, he registered the red as eyes locked on his own, glowing with triumph, rage, and possession.

But that pressure, that presence in his mind ravaged everything.

It was like an army ransacking a house, opening every single drawer, removing and examining every tiny nick knack. Tearing apart walls, and floors, slashing pillows and furniture, even food was torn open and exposed.

It was like a dozen hands gripping, prodding, pulling, pinching every inch of his body, even places he didn’t know he had, things he’d never thought could be touched.

It was drowning and burning and falling and crushing all at the same time.

Harry couldn’t move his chest to get a breath to scream. He couldn’t make his voice work to scream. But his mind did.

And he watched. He watched his entire life.

He relived every hellish moment in that wretched cupboard. Reheard every crushing word from his relatives. Felt, all over again, every blow. Saw every miserable scrap he was given to eat, alone in his cupboard, after preparing feasts for others. He knew again every moment of rejection, of lies, of betrayal from every person he’d ever met, his relatives, teachers, classmates, store clerks. He watched himself cook, clean, and garden. Take on tasks woefully complicated, dangerous, or too big for a child.

He saw those moments of brief joy. Every time he managed to get his hands on something to draw with; getting lost in a book; escaping for long periods outside—away from the house.

And then the Letters. The shack. Hagrid. The onslaught seemed to slow, to replay every moment of that first, glorious day. He saw that day three times.

Ron. Hermione. Malfoy!

The hat.

Snape. That first potions lesson was replayed twice as well.

Flying!

Quirrell. Harry relived that confrontation, relived Quirrell’s death, Harry’s first kill, three times, the second extremely slowly.

Then Dobby. The Diary. The Basilisk. Harry felt his mind freeze and scream in terror as the beast in his memory rose over him once again, and he knew that he was going to die. He felt the stab of the fang; the sweet relief of Fawks’ tears.

The summers between years were treated just as thoroughly as everything else. Harry felt a blazing inferno of rage alongside his own sense of impotence, of resignation at the memory of the locks, the cat flap, the stupid, fucking bars!

Sirius.

Remus.

The map.

A home! For three sweet, glorious minutes he’d thought he might finally have someone to take of him.

The moon. The werewolf.

Dementors. His vision of his mother’s death was replayed so many times, he lost count. It was like being back with the dementors, but with heat instead of cold. He was burning with a rage not his own, a fire of fury consuming his very soul, he was sure.

Then Prongs glowing, massive, commanding, protecting. Even in the memory Harry could feel the peace radiating off of his Patronus, cooling the fires of his mother’s death. He clung to that sensation as the torture continued.

Another summer of slavery and privation.

The World Cup! The Dark Mark. Fear. Fear of the moment and fear of the inevitable. Fear for his friends, for the world, for what he would be asked to do. But not fear for himself. Not fear of pain, or even of death specifically. Fear that his life was not his own. That every good thing would always be tainted or snatched away. Just…fear.

And hate. Hate for a stupid cup that was somehow able to fuck with his life once again! It ruined his first friendship; made him a pariah on top of a celebrity; put him in the clutches of Rita Skeeter. There was Cedric, his friend now, truly, through their mutual cheating and shared trauma, but they could’ve been friends through Quidditch. It was a hollow gain.

Hermione drilling him over and over. Working herself half to death to learn enough, to teach him enough, so he might survive.

Every moment of the last year was examined with even more thoroughness. Every conversation with every teacher, with Dumbledore, with Moody, with Snape especially.

Finally, they reached the Maze. The fear, the hope. Puzzles. Spiders! Unforgivable spells. Protecting Cedric. Cedric half carrying him so they could nobly share a victory Harry had no interest in. To live was the only victory that mattered to Harry; to live, to one day be free of his prisons, to belong. To be cared for.

As soon as the memory-Harry touched the cup the pressure in his mind slipped away like water through a broken dam. But instead of leaving entirely it swept up and around him, around his mind. Around, it seemed, his very soul.

And then it squeezed! It burned! It penetrated and twisted and folded him sideways and upside down and it HURT! Oh, God, it hurt like every molecule was being ripped apart and fused back together. Even if he had lungs, which he wasn’t sure he did anymore, he couldn’t have screamed enough to match this pain.

And then something ripped! Something inside him tore apart, melted, vanished—and it was such relief! Like a splinter you’ve forgotten about being finally removed, only a million times bigger. Before he could really process it,

something else cracked, shattered, and dissolved, and again, relief. And again, something jerked, popped, cracked like a crick in your neck that’s been there for weeks finally settling back in place. Again. And again. Each sensation was different; each excruciating, the pain matched only by what he’d already gone through in the past…minute? Hour? Month? No torture could ever match this. But each followed by such relief! Relief that was more intense each time, until it began to overshadow the pain.

His voice finally worked, and Harry roared as the alternating waves began to lessen in intensity. All his pain, his fear and anger, every betrayal in his life from the Dursley’s taunting over meals and holidays to Ron turning away after Harry’s name came out of the Goblet, every moment of unfair expectation and rejection, a lifetime of neglect and impotence poured out of his throat in wordless, endless cries.

He almost didn’t notice when it stopped, when the last waves, like the tiny laps on the shore of a still lake fell away and the pressure, the presence fully receded.

The hand—oh, it was a hand—that had held his face still, tilted up, released and Harry’s head started to slump forwards. But before the hand fully fell away it slid around to clutch the back of his head, tilting it up again.

Sleep, a voice hissed. In his ear? In his mind?

And Harry did.