Caressed by Darkness

 “Again!” Kamir's voice sounded, his hands doing a movement that Harry could already figure out what it was, he was invoking his shadows, again.  

    Harry was already out of breath, they were doing this for a long time, every time he got up, Kamir would once again attack him with his shadows, and Harry still couldn’t see where they were coming from. 

    His face was sweating and his scratched hands and knees were holding his body up, so he wouldn’t fall on the grass. He was tired, but he still tried to fight Kamir, every time he would work harder than the one before. 

 “You need to focus on your power, you won’t be able to pull it from inside you if you don’t try harder,” Kamir said, his voice was softer than before as if he knew that Harry would get angry. 

 “I am. I’m trying the hardest that I can, maybe this is just wrong, I don’t know, I’m not as powerful as you may think.” His voice was shaking and he could feel his nose and eyes starting to burn, tears trying to come down to show how frustrated he was. 

 “You are. You just don’t know how to pull it off you, but you will, Harry.” Suddenly Kamir was kneeling right in front of him, his dark hands coming to caress Harry’s hair as one would do with a kid. 

 “Stop it, I’m not a kid,” Harry muttered under his breath but never moved to get away from the hands, which made Kamir laugh loudly. 

 “Never said you were one.” Kamir finally got up, helping Harry to do the same just as he said, “Maybe we should stop for today, take a break, we’ll resume the training later, you need to rest.” 

    Before Harry could say that no, he didn’t want to take a break, Kamir’s fingertip was again on his forehead, pushing it, making Harry feel as if his whole soul was floating, going back to where he indeed was, at his bed, back in Little Whinging. 

    Since day two, Kamir would train Harry on how to bring his power and Drakóns characteristics out, that was two weeks ago, but Harry still couldn’t do it and he didn’t know why.    You just need to focus,    Kamir would say, and Harry didn’t know a way to focus more than he was already doing.

    Just like every other day, before going to bed, he would try to clean his thoughts, as if he was still doing his occlumency classes, but again, he still didn’t know how to clean his head. Every time he tried to be quiet, it seemed like everything had decided to run around his mind. 

    With a deep breath, he looked at the closed window, seeing the light coming from behind the dirty curtains, meaning that it was morning already. Every time he went to sleep, his soul would go to meet Kamir at the ancient tree’s home. And even if they trained the whole time, his body would still feel rested the other day, as if he slept the whole night.

  Closing his eyes one last time, he decided to get up, knowing that he needed to do his usual chores before Mr. Weasley comes to get him in the afternoon.

“Harry!” A loud voice sounded, it was very high, but it was still pleasant to hear Hermione’s voice.

“‘Mione, hey.” That was the only thing he could say before his breath was taken away because of Hermione’s body that came into contact with his, on a tight hug.

Ron was standing just a few feet away from them and waved his hands while mouthing a ‘hey mate’ that was answered by a smile from Harry.

Hermione finally let him go, her hands now away from him “Did you finally grow up in the summer?! You’re around my height now. Well, it makes sense I’ve read in a book that a human’s body can still grow until they’re 18.”

“Oh, that… I guess so? I didn’t even notice, to be honest.” Harry shrugged.

    He had noticed the moment his head had hit the cupboard’s frame while he was getting his things so he could leave. And also when his shoulders had also hit the vase beside the door when he was getting out. He was lucky that he caught it before it broke, otherwise he was sure that aunt Petunia would at least leave him deaf with her screams.

“He’s still the smallest boy” A smooth voice came from behind them.

“In your year, isn’t he, though?” Harry didn’t even need to turn around to know who it was. “But it’s good to know that”

“You finally reached your puberty, Harrykins.” And there it was, a set of arms was placed around his shoulders with deep and loud laughs.

“I didn’t know you guys had moved back.” Harry looked up at one of the twins’ faces, noticing a playful smile on thin lips.

“You know how we are favorites, don’t you?”

“The moment we moved back she started crying and always coming to our place…” One of the twins, maybe George? Let a deep sigh, his face pretending to be sad.

“Saying we should come back and that the house wasn’t the same, what could we’ve done?”

“My mom said that they should come home at least twice a week so that she knows they’re fine.” Ron finally said, getting tired of all their twin talk.

    They finally let Harry go, their hands now doing exaggerated movements while they mouthed what Ron had just said, just to make fun of their brother and make Harry laugh at it.

Hermione rolled her eyes “Come on, Harry, you must be tired, let’s go to Ron’s room.” She said, her hands wrapped tightly around Harry’s wrist while pulling him to the stairs.

When they finally got there, Harry laid down on Ron’s bed, his eyes closed while he breathed deeply, his ears only listening to the soft sounds that Hermione made when she went to sit on his bed, “How can someone clean their thoughts?”

She seemed to be surprised by his question “What? Oh, you mean like meditating? I don’t know, I think you just need to focus on your breath and not let anything distract you?”

“I tried that already, but it seems impossible.”

“I don’t know Harry, I’m not the best to give you advice, I've never meditated. But why? Are you trying to learn occlumency again?” Her voice suddenly was higher, showing that she was excited by the thought.

    He just stayed quiet, not knowing what exactly to tell her, and for once she decided not to press him to answer her, just laying down on his bed, her head turning so she could look at him, her curly hair falling against his pillow and a little on her face.

“We could try it together, just staying still, focusing on our breaths and not thinking about anything else, maybe you need someone there for you so you can do it right?”

“Yeah, as if Ron could stop messing around, I think he would probably think about quidditch and will be noisy the whole time.” They both smile at that.

“Hey, a little bit of respect when you’re talking about the owner of the bed you’re sleeping on.” Ron’s voice sounded playful, showing the obvious, he was just joking. “What are the two of you talking about?” He asked, leaning against the door frame, just looking at his friends.

“Meditation,” Hermione said, her deep brown eyes closing, “but we don’t know how to do it.”

“Well, I gotta say I’m surprised that miss know-it-all doesn’t know something that I do.” His smile turned cocky, watching his friends' surprising reactions, both having to sit up at the bed so they could look at him.

“What?” Hermione’s voice was high-pitched, reminding Harry of his aunt.

“Well, I’ve been doing it for a year already. If you guys want to learn, we can try before we sleep.” Ron sat down by Harry’s side, that was now looking at Hermione, his head already hurting because of the argument that he knew was coming.

    Harry kept looking between his friends, not even paying attention to what they were saying, just watching them. He had missed it so much, even their little fights, staying locked in his room almost every day when he didn’t have a chore outside while having to worry about his future as a Drakón, it was refreshing to see them, and he couldn’t help but smile.

    After dinner with almost every Weasley beside the two oldest, Harry, Hermione and Ron went to the boy’s room so that Hermione could see that Ron indeed knew how to meditate.

“So, I usually just focus on my breathing, and of course sometimes my mind will wander, but I just focus again on my breathing until I only focus on it.” Ron sat on his bed cross-legged, and while Harry decided to sit just like him, Hermione was sitting with her legs to the side. 

"Let's try then!” Hermione looked determined to Harry, and the three of them closed their eyes.

    While it was hard, as usual, to Harry, every time his mind wandered, he would do what Ron said, and focus again on his breathing, and at one time, he started to feel as if it was working. His body was more relaxed and his breathing was slowly coming in and out, his mind indeed seemed as if it was empty, just focusing on his breath.

    And while he was on it, he could feel something burning inside of him, not as if he was angry, just a warm heat, and he didn’t know how to compare, the moment he noticed that heat, his whole body started to get warm, as if he was sitting right in front of the fireplace at the Gryffindor common room. 

    His eyes opened in surprise, looking at his arms to see if there was anything different in them, but he couldn’t feel the warmth anymore and worried he looked around the room, his eyes connecting with Ron’s confused blue eyes at some moment.

“You okay?” Ron whispered to Harry, their knees touching.

“Ye… Yeah, I’m fine, you… You okay?” Harry’s nails were digging his pajama pants at the end of the phrase.

“I’m fine too.” Ron closed his eyes once more, Harry doing the same, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to clean his mind again.

       And for some reason, Ron’s knees that were touching his, seemed to be just as warm as whatever Harry had felt inside himself, and this wasn’t comforting at all.