Aftermath
An abandoned house, Unknown
25th september 2003
When the world settles down again, the first thing that I feel is… rightness, as if I’ve returned home or to a state that I’m supposed to be in. It’s far more intense, far deeper than what I felt… well, however long ago that was, when I first set foot in this land. It feels like ages since then, now.
The second thing that registers in my mind is a consistent burning sensation in my throat, as if I’ve just spent a long, long time screaming on the top of my lungs. It’s usually related to vivid nightmares or real tortures, as far as my experiences go, but I haven’t been asleep or tortured just now… right? Well, my head does hurt mightily, and I ache all over, and my mind feels raw and too open, but these symptoms can mean so many things, can’t they?
And then, my sight (Why is it so blurry now?) settles on two blobs hovering above me, jittering but not touching any parts of me. “Who are you?” I want to ask; but what comes out is an unintelligible croaky sound that hurts my throat further, and my head joins in the fun with alacrity.
“Harry?” That’s… Neville’s voice, right? But why is it trembling? It hasn’t tremble so much since Bellatrix Lestrange and her ilk broke out of Azkaban.
I groan. All the thinking hurts my head! Even the groan hurts it, and moving, and frowning, and… everything.
“I hope you don’t become the second sacrifice, Harry,” Luna’s concerned voice floats into my ringing ears, next. “You’re lying on where the last one did.”
“Lu!” comes Neville’s scandalised scolding. It sounds so loud – too loud – in my ears.
“Awwh….” But so far, I can’t manage beyond that. Damn. I’ve got to move! Luna’s proclamation is pretty alarming. I don’t want to be a sacrifice again! Once is enough. I want to live!
But… “Nguh!”
One of the shadows over me shrinks, and I can feel a big hand (So hot! Why’s the hand so hot?) tentatively landing over my own. A relieved sigh comes from the shadow, then, Neville’s, even as I let out yet another groan. What I can manage to say is only “Ne’… ho’…” though.
“We’re to hot for a blue-angel Harry, Nev,” Luna interprets my pitiful attempt, while her silhouette moves, creating rustles that I can somehow hear now that the ringing has mostly faded from my hearing. The statement only alarms me more, still. Have I… changed? What changed? When? How? Why?
Neville’s “Sorry, Harry” clinches it. That kind of apologetic tone….
I blink, blink, blink, and blink again. Nothing changes, however. Am I going blind? Is this what Luna alluded with her statement and what Neville just confirmed? But then what about Neville’s overly hot hand on my bare skin? (Thankfully it’s off me now!)
“Shall we help you sit up, Harry?” Luna asks, when I’ve exhausted myself trying yet again to move on my own. I hum, hoping it transcribes as “Yes” in her mind, resenting the fact that my throat still hurts.
My hope, for once, goes through. An invisible hand seems to gently guide me into a seated position, and stays there to prop me up, after a hummed spell (What kind of spell is it that needs to be hummed?) from the person who has slowly but surely replaced Hermione as my best female friend all these years.
Something – my spectacles? – slips down my nose and plops down – literally plop, with an audible sound – onto my lap.
And my sight instantly gets sharp. – Every crevice in the remaining wall, every dark stain that look like dried liquid droplets on the said wall, every colour that was only shades of grey to my perception before everything went into the huge, tautological blender, every little feature and blemish on Neville’s and Luna’s wide-eyed faces….
“I…,” I croak, gaping, disbelieving, even though I’m the one experiencing this ever-so-unexpected change.
But my sight isn’t the only thing that has changed, is it? I can hear well, all too well, down to the faint sound of three sets – no, four sets – of heartbeats and the louder one of breathing, three of which are more like little pants typical of fear or excitement.
And now I have to look up to meet my friends’ eyes, even though they are in a crouched position, while I clearly remember that I was taller than Luna, if a little shorter than Neville. No wonder my clothes now feel so baggy and cumbersome!
I swallow my saliva, wincing at the sting the combo of movement and saliva creates, and try again. “Ahh… wha’… whattt… hap’n?”
“Would you like to drink first, Harry? All that screaming can’t be nice for your throat,” is instead what Luna says. It does explain – or rather, confirm – part of the picture, though.
An Aguamenti later, as performed by Luna into a crystal goblet conjured by Neville, I only find something else that has changed on my own person.
My voice, to be exact.
“What…. Why…. I sound like a little child!”
Neville chuckles nervously. The indirect confirmation only freaks me out more.
Luna’s clinical assertion of, “Maybe nine years old? You look seven, really, under all those oversized clothes. What a pity, dragonskin can’t be charmed to shrink, and you’re wearing lots of dragonskin today,” in fact sees me throwing her a pleading gaze not to tell me the truth.
Well, but Luna Lovegood is a master of uncomfortable truth spoken so blithely, indeed. One can’t deny it, nor avoid it.
“Still black hair and green eyes, Harry, don’t worry. But the black hair is a little bit different, and the green eyes too. Your face and skin have changed a little, as well, but you’ll still be recognisable to the closest people in your life. You look like a mixture between James Potter and Stubby Bordman and someone else, now. Your eyes is actually nicer now, at least to me: brighter, and a little rounder.”
In short, I’ve turned into somebody else.