Weightless

Harry was tired. So, so tired. The tugging in his chest pulling him towards the ministry kept getting stronger and stronger until he couldn’t fight it anymore. He gathered up his friends like a good little Savior and rushed off on a herd of Thestrals.

And then absolutely everything went to shit. Bellatrix showed up, and so did Lucius Malfoy. And a bunch of other Death Eaters Harry didn’t know the names of with the creepy masks and horrible laughter. He lost Hermione somewhere in the chaos. Heard Ron shouting for Luna somewhere far to his left. Harry himself was busy stunning two of the no-name Death Eaters after being separated from Ginny and Neville.

It was a race out of the Department of Mysteries, or maybe a deadly game of tag. The prophecy was already gone-he had no idea where-and Sirius was nowhere to be found. Bellatrix was right behind him throwing all sorts of curses he had no desire whatsoever to be hit with if the exploding wood and glass was anything to go by.

Glass was shattering all over the place. Wood splintered with big sparks of magic on either side of him as Harry ran and ran through the maze that was the cursed Department of Mysteries. He came out of the labyrinth of disaster into a more open looking chamber with four doors opposite him and some kind of clear green fluid spilled all over the place.

Harry wanted to be cautious and walk around whatever the green stuff was, but he didn’t have time with Bellatrix so close behind him. He threw a Stunner and a Tripping Hex in quick succession over his shoulder as Bellatrix rounded the last corner separating them and crossed his fingers hoping for the best as he bolted across the room for the purple door nearest him. It didn’t seem to have any loud sounds or smoke emerging from beyond.

He was turning the knob and throwing himself through the door just as Bellatrix sent a Cutting Curse at him, catching his shoulder as he slammed the door closed behind him and locked it with every spell he could possibly think of. The one upside of being in the Department of Mysteries was that the walls and doors were resistant to destructive magic, meaning Bellatrix would actually have to dismantle all the locking mechanisms he put in place before she could continue chasing him.

It cost him a precious few seconds to cast the spells and catch his breath enough to move on, but he needed the rest. His lungs were not happy with his current level of running for his life. He gave himself until he could hear Bellatrix’s footsteps on the other side of the door before taking off again, feet pounding against some kind of squishy floor-not quite rubber but definitely not carpet. He passed what looked like metal-made dinosaurs for a good minute before he caught sight of Ginny and Neville overcoming the Death Eater that was holding Hermione by the hair and all three taking off in a different direction than his current one. Just a handful of seconds later Bellatrix broke through the door and screamed his name.

Harry broke through another door and took a series of quick left turns before he tripped over his own feet and lost track of his glasses. His frantic searching for them actually saved his sorry arse from a Hex of undetermined type coming from Bellatrix’s wand.

He found them in the next moment, a bit crooked and with a crack in the left lens, but good enough to see what he needed. He ducked out of the way of a vibrant orange curse and called out a loud Protego for the royal blue curse rapidly approaching.

“Expecto Patronum!”

He used his stag to distract Bellatrix and started pounding up the stairs. One flight, then two. The stairwell was unbearably hot, though whether that was because of a spell from Bellatrix, a protective charm of some kind, or his adrenaline-fueled imagination he couldn’t say.

The blood from the place Bellatrix hit earlier was wetting the front of his robes too quickly for his liking and filling his mouth with the unpleasant taste of iron. It was burning something hard.

He could feel movement from others on the rickety stairs and hear Ron and Luna shouting back and forth somewhere above him. Another voice-Lucius Malfoy-somewhere in between himself and Ron-and-Luna was calling out incantations Harry had never heard before.

Bellatrix was a flight of stairs below him shooting Stunners and Crucios and Cutting Curses liberally, though they were all hitting walls just shy of Harry. He threw himself up flight after flight of stairs, losing track of how many. They continued on like that until suddenly Harry was exiting the stairwell and crashing bodily into Neville, landing them both in a heap on the floor.

Only their training in the D.A. together had them both shrugging it off and getting up in a somewhat fluid motion. This wasn’t an area of the Ministry Harry had seen before, but Neville seemed to recognize something as he pulled Harry off towards a corridor to their left.

There were dozens of snoring portraits on either side of them, missing the chaos of battle somehow. Harry envied them as he ran for his life beside Neville having no idea where they’d end up next. The portraits didn’t have to fear for their lives or the lives of others. Voldemort’s actions wouldn’t affect them, not really. They weren’t in any danger of pain from a mad Bellatrix running after them. Damn portraits.

A Blasting Curse sends the two of them hurtling away from each other. Neville crashes into a table, landing among the shards of a shattered vase. Harry slams against a wall rather painfully before landing in a heap on the floor. Bellatrix catches up, evading a Tripping Hex Neville sends her way but not the BombardaHarry sent at the same time. The move buys them the distraction they need to take off again, both going down the hall closest to them.

A right turn where the corridor he took broke off three ways and Harry is quickly in the lobby of the Ministry. The others weren’t there yet, but it sounded like they would be soon. He could hear them yelling. Unfortunately for him there were Death Eaters already waiting, cursing him before he even realized they were there.

Harry was in pain, and time seemed to move differently. Too slow and too fast all at once. Seconds and hours and years getting mixed up in his head. And then there was Voldemort, and Harry was forcing himself up, body moving on its own. Like it was compelled to fight, a puppet acting at the whims of a master that was not Harry.

He began with a strong Incendio and a Petrificus Totalus as fast as he could manage right after. Both of which Voldemort brushed off rather quickly before returning with spells Harry had no hope of knowing the purpose of. He ran around, shooting Stunners and Disarming Charms between ducking and rolling and running out of the way of whatever it was coming from Voldemort’s wand.

It was a short-lived duel. Harry was lying flat on his arse in just under five minutes with the distinct impression that Voldemort was playing with him. There was something different about the air surrounding him from the graveyard. It could just be that they were no longer in a graveyard, but that didn't seem quite right. The pressure from his magic was different. Less chaotic as it raced across his skin. There was purpose in the whorls of energy pressing against him.

And something in Harry broke as he was restrained by this familiar-and-terrifying-but-also-different-than-before magic. He wasn’t in pain, but he couldn’t stop the tears leaking from the corners of his eyes into his knotted hair. He couldn’t quite stiffle the sobs slipping past his lips and echoing around the open lobby.

No, that other thing wasn’t true. He was in pain, he just didn’t realize it until just then. His shoulder was on fire, and there was something wrong with his entire left leg. His feet were bloody unbearable. And he was just so unescapably tired. He felt as though he could pass out from exhaustion right there in the arms of his enemy.

And wasn’t that something? Being crushed to death in the arms of a Dark Lord. But that wasn’t really right either, was it? No, because he wasn’t being crushed at all. It felt more like he was being cradled. Like a precious treasure that needed protection. That thought alone almost enough to force a snort, but he was too tired for even that.

There was no adrenaline left. No survival instinct, no puppet strings forcing him to move. Harry gasped again, loud in the otherwise quiet hall as the shouting of his friends no longer cut through the silence.

And then there was a soothing voice quieting him. “Shhh, it’s okay. It’s okay.” He said, sounding more like Harry’s Tom, the one he lost from the diary, than the madman he watched resurrected last year. “You are doing so spectacularly, little lion. So very, very well. I couldn’t be more proud. But it’s time to stop. TIme to rest. You have done enough. It was unspeakably cruel of him to make you fight me, build you up as the Light’s great weapon. You could never have won. You are just a child. Maybe, in another fifty years. But now you are just a child. You could never have won. It isn’t your fault, little lion, don’t fret. Shh.”

Harry felt something in his chest settle as he listened to the words of his enemy. Maybe it would be okay to rest now. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to just stop. The voice muttered something he couldn’t quite make out and his fingers, which had at some point without his knowledge gone painfully numb, suddenly rushed with warmth and a refreshing, tingling sensation.

There was a crashing boom somewhere nearby, but it felt a thousand years away to Harry. He felt the room rattle and something warm brush over his forehead, lingering on his scar, before all the warmth left him. Still, the shouts, the crashes, the bangs and booms and clangs all seemed incredibly distant from where he floated, somewhere just above his body where he couldn’t feel the pain anymore and clung on to the memory of the warmth that had suddenly left him.

He heard the distant calls of Ron and Hermione, whisper-shouting his name to see if he responds, but he just can’t bring himself to go back and feel all the pain again. It isn’t worth it. Let the world burn, if that’s really what it’s going to do.

He knows that his body is being moved-dragged-across the floor. Can see the duel happening now with his changed position as Ron and Hermione sneak him across the battlefield of Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix. Voldemort and Dumbledore clashing in a terrific display of magic. The whole lobby in filled with the bright, dazzling colors of spells Harry only sometimes knows.

He recognizes the tug of apparition that lands them somewhere else.

Hogsmeade.

Then a spell that has him floating. It also has him wondering why they didn’t use that before. It would have been faster than dragging him the muggle way. And less damaging to his already bruised and battered body. Perhaps they were too panicked to think of it at the time.

He recognizes, what feels like a second later, the pure white ceiling of the hospital wing. The squeak of Madam Pomfrey’s shoes against the floor. The worried mutterings of his friends. The Mediwitch’s muggle curses barely audible to his cotton-stuffed ears. He picks up the familiar scent of Snape, like dried herbs and metal. The taste of some hideous disgusting potion. Potions.

And slowly, he recognizes the irresistible pull of darkness that sometimes takes him away from the pain that comes from summers at the Dursley’s.