Madness ***Complete***

Chapter 10:
Solitude

(((…Alone…)))

‘Draco?’ The thought was only that…a thought. No answer to the silent summons came to Harry’s mind. He was empty.

‘Draco!’ still no more than silence. Empty within. Alone.

“DRACO!” If he couldn’t hear his cry aloud then…

“Draco…” there was nothing. Empty.

The door to the dorm room slammed open. Hermione and Ron’s worried faces stared the weeping boy down. How could they be worried about him when Draco was the one who was gone?

“Harry?” Hermione whispered. Afraid to come near the broken shell, afraid to touch the one who was alone. “We heard you scream…”

“Scared the shit out of us. Sounded like you were screaming about Malfoy,” Ron said, cutting Hermione’s soft voice off with his harsh words.

Harry said nothing. He knew he was crying. Once he might have been ashamed of having Ron see him like this. But nothing mattered now. He was alone.

“Harry, why are you crying?” Hermione’s voice again, soft, kind, naïve. It was to kind not to answer.

Against every notion of logic Harry may yet have possessed he whispered, “Alone…”

“Who’s alone?” Ron asked. His voice was to loud. How could he be speaking when Draco was silent?

“I am…I am alone…again…he…” Harry had to stop. The sobs were coming to hard to speak. He had to stop talking. He shouldn’t have a voice when Draco wouldn’t hear. It wasn’t right.

“Harry, please tell us what’s wrong!” Hermione was loud now too. The noise was to much. The sound was cutting into Harry like a blade. It was carving his soul into tatters. Blood of his love was painting his insides red.

He tried to stop them. Tried to make them keep quite. But his voice was gone. He shouldn’t speak when the other was silent.

Ron and Hermione didn’t hear his silent pleading. They saw only his tears and the pain that was on his face. Their questions were driving him mad but they didn’t know. They didn’t stop.

Harry curled on his side, hoping, wishing for the voices to dry. For Draco to come back to him…tell him it was all a joke.

Though he had thought himself empty somehow his voice found life once more. One last testament to the tears on his face. “It’s not real. He can’t be dead. He wouldn’t leave me…not like this…”

(((…Scream…)))

“HARRY! HARRY! HARRY!” His calls weren’t answered. But still he screamed. He cried and struck. He kicked the white door until his foot went numb. He punched the white brick walls until his fists were bloody. Each scream ripped through his chest, making the cut on his stomach burn.

“Harry!” His voice was growing horse. How long had he been screaming? How long had Harry been silent? He couldn’t be dead. Perhaps Draco was dead. Was this were the dead went? To tiny white cells?

“Har…” Hardly even a word anymore. A whisper into the bright room. Where was he? Why was he here? Why wasn’t the other with him?

“’ar…y…” His throat hurt. Burned.

“Ha…ry?” He fell silent. But even as his voice died the fear came. He was alone. Would anyone come? Was he dead? Where was the other? The other half? Where was Draco’s other half?

(((…Rejoice…)))

Tom couldn’t help but twist his malformed lips into a disfigured smile. It had taken far to long to discover Potter’s weakness, his true weakness. True, the boy had only had this weakness for a few months. However it had still taken to long. But now he had it. He had the Malfoy heir in his possession and Potter would break.

The spell he had cast had severed their link. The cell would soon drive the Malfoy insane so that even if Potter found a way to reform the bond he would find nothing but madness. Potter would crack with the loss.

Tom’s laughter filled the air as he gloated in his glory. Potter would be wrecked, easy prey. He would have his revenge and then the world would fall at Voldamort’s feet.

(((…Truth…)))

Dumbledore stood at the head table, motioning for the student’s attention. His face was solemn as he spoke.

At the Gryffindor table Harry Potter listened with a sinking heart. Draco was gone. Presumed dead. His blood was in his bed. His body was missing. Draco was gone…presumed dead.

Dumbledore’s sentiments passed over Harry like a breeze of warm air. His soul was shriveling in his chest. The emptiness of his mind grew into a bottomless void. He didn’t feel the fork slip through his numb fingers. He didn’t hear Ron’s gloating. Nor did he see Hermione’s worried glances.

He felt nothing. But as he let the blackness of his mind consume him he found a single thought in the hole. ‘Voldemort is to blame. Kill the bastard…avenge the other.’

Without sight or hearing Harry stood from the table. In a blind surety he strode from the Great Hall. He had no idea where he was going. All he knew was the solitude of his mind and that single thought.

“Kill the bastard…”

(((…Find…)))

Harry pushed a bit harder, digging his nails into the soft flesh. Draco had long ago told him how to reach his home and now Harry stood in the Malfoy’s library, his finger around Lucius’s throat.

“Where is Tom?” Harry growled at the older man. He used his free arm to shove Lucius up against a bookshelf and loosened his fingers.

Lucius coughed drematiclly before spitting upon Harry’s face.

Harry growled low in his throat and shoved the taller man harder into the bookcase. He had no idea where this strength came from but he did not question it. “Where?”

Still the man did not tell him. Harry squeezed the throat one last time, almost crushing the man’s windpipe. He then released him, allowing him to fall onto the carpeted floor, gasping and hacking.

Harry aimed his wand at the man. He didn’t speak, only thought the word, ‘Crucio.’

Lucius Malfoy writhed on the floor. This pain was far worse than any his master had punished him with. Screams ripped through the air. After no more than ten seconds of the exruciating pain Lucius felt his fingers begin to curl backwards until they snapped. Soon every bone in his body was twisting, bending.

Harry released Lucius the instant before every one of his bones snapped like dry twigs. “Where is Tom?”

Lucius could hardly even gasp his answer through his horse throat and his pained sobs but Harry heard.

Harry Potter left the weeping man without a backwards glance, he wanted Riddle.

(((…Revenge…)))

Tom stared at the glowing boy before him. When had Potter become so strong?

“You,” Harry whispered at the monster before him, “killed him. You die.”

Tom hardly even had time to realize his mistake before the pain drove all rationality from him.

(((…Left…)))

Harry stared down at the bloodstain that had once been his mortal enemy. Was this all Lord Voldarmort had been worth? A few pained screams before his feeble body destroyed itself from the pressure?

Harry turned away. He felt nothing at this revenge. He felt nothing at vanquishing his enemy. He felt nothing because he was alone. Nothing was worth anything anymore because Draco was dead.

“Dead?”

It was the final word Harry spoke before he fell forward, out cold from to much energy having been spent at once. He never did feel the mental connection return. Tom’s spell was broken but Harry could not know this, he was unconscious for Draco’s last thoughts.

(((…Found…)))

Draco Malfoy was found in his white cell only a day after Harry had been taken to St. Mungoes. But even a day was too late. Harry had remained unconscious since his initial fainting and with the silence his only companion it had taken no time for Draco to escape reality.

They found him raving mad. They found him broken and bloody. They found him too late.

(((…Lost…)))

Harry never did speak. Three days in the hospital bed and he never once opened his mouth, not even to eat. His friend questioned him again and again but Harry never heard them.

Harry knew he was mad. He kept hearing Draco’s voice in his head, but Draco was dead. Draco was gone. But still that voice spoke in his mind. Insane rambling the blonde spoke. Perhaps it wasn’t Draco at all, maybe it was all Harry. He truly was insane, but in time he wouldn’t even acknowledge that fact.