Out of the Night that Covers Me

Out of the Night that Covers Me

by Mephistedes


Previously:

But as Harry patted his breast pocket, he felt no hard surface answer in return. He couldn’t remember ever taking the rings out of their box since Ron gave them to him months ago, and he didn’t feel any hard loops beneath his fingers. It all added up to a single truth.

He was in deep dragon shit.


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XIII. The Voices

.:.


“Hm.”

“I’m familiar with that look,” Ginny quietly said, staring at him with wide eyes. “That’s not a good look.”

“D’you have the rings? You do have the rings, right? Harry? Harry, are you even listening to me?” Ron badgered, shaking his shoulder.

Stunned, Harry opened his mouth to answer but made a strained noise instead. He swallowed heavily, giving Ron an apologetic grin. “Ron? Mate? Don’t panic, but — ”

“Ohhh, Ron drew away from him with a horrified look. “You did not!”

“Wha — well...”

“Don’t tell me you ... Harry!”

“I’m sorry!” he winced, unable to look his best mate in the eye. Provided Ron even wanted to talk to him after this. “I’ve — well, work and I — I’m sorry, I can — ”

“Bright side to all this,” Ginny merrily chimed in, “You won’t have to worry about Hermione wanting to kill you, Ron.”

“I’ll fix it,” Harry determinedly said, standing up and grabbing a frantic Ron by the shoulders. “Don’t worry, it’s back at the house. I’ll Apparate there and back before Hermione walks down that aisle.”

A low whistle came from his left and he looked down at Ginny who was handling his battered pocket watch. “Well, you’d better hurry. The wedding starts in little over twenty minutes.”

Ron let out a long, low sob. “Okay, okay, I’m going,” Harry winced, hopping over Teddy’s kicking legs and nearly running into Percy. “Sorry! Ginny, can you — ”

“I’ll watch Teddy and make sure Ron gets sedated, go.” She waved him away, standing up herself and hauling a green-looking Ron and a laughing Teddy towards the house.

Harry quickly followed, making his way through the guests, hastily greeting Neville and Luna’s partner Rolf on his way to the front of the house. Ginny veered off toward the east wing towards the groomsmen chambers while he went straight, passing by Bill and Fleur’s family and fleetingly spotting Mr. Weasley asking Mr. Granger about his mobile.

He was at the door and pulled back when the knob turned beneath his hand. When it opened, Harry frowned as two of the last people he wanted to see stepped inside.

“Minister Shacklebolt,” he coolly greeted, still quite upset with him. Kingsley frowned, but civilly inclined his head. Harry gave his guest a cursory glance. “Didn’t expect to see you and Vivien here.”

“There’s still someone out there after the Gryffindors,” Cormac bristled, curling his lip in disparagement. “Or have you forgotten all about the investigation since your demotion?”

“We are not starting this here, gentlemen,” Kingsley glared at each of them in turn. “I’m here for Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley’s wedding, I’ve taken McLaggen as my plus one for security reasons. Prior to his promotion, he was assigned to watch over the Weasleys; covertly, of course.” Harry nodded stiffly, remembering the S.P.A.R.C. detail they’d deployed before he’d been suspended.

“But sir,” McLaggen protested, “Potter’s a civilian now. You’re not supposed to — ”

“Stay out of it, McLaggen,” Kingsley growled, lancing the former S.P.A.R.C. with a glare. “You’ve caused enough damage as it is. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your nose out of my job.”

“Right, as fun this is, I need to swing home to avert a disaster,” Harry interrupted as McLaggen looked ready to blow. The wedding hadn’t even begun and he already had a headache; he was not about to let Cormac aggravate it. “Excuse me.”

He left the two of them to deal with themselves and dashed outside behind a hedge to Apparate. Harry spun on his heel and suddenly found himself facing the twisted serpent knocker of Number Twelve’s door. As if a fire was lit under him, Harry entered the old house and dashed up the stairs two at a time, coattails flapping behind him.

Harry burst through his bedroom in record time, leaping atop the bed to land in front of his bedside table. As soon as he opened the top drawer, he spotted the black velvet box that held the rings. Harry sighed, relieved; of course he knew the rings were there, as he hadn’t moved them since. The ring box only left the drawer once, the night he’d hastily pulled open the drawer for his lubricant, for —

“BURK!”

Frowning, Harry whirled around and scanned the floor, hearing a scraping noise followed by an irritable grunt. Pash was awake already?

He found her just outside his bedroom door, hind leg furiously scratching at one of her large ears. “So now you decide to surrender? When I don’t have time? Unbelievable!” Harry groused as he walked back into the bedroom to pocket the ring box. If he forgot them a second time, he didn’t even want to think what Ron or Hermione would do to him.

Pash trilled crossly, and he could still hear her foot beating at her head. Harry absently wondered if she could give herself a headache that way, but pushed those thoughts out of his head. He needed to get back to the manor and assure Ron that everything was fine, that he had the rings and he was going to get married this evening. He didn’t think it was a good idea to leave him alone with his sister for too long; God only knew what type of ideas she was filling his head with.

“I’d better get back before he attacks Krum or something equally unpleasant,” said Harry.

As he crossed his room to the door, he called down to the grooming chin, “Don’t destroy anything any more than you already have, hm? As a matter of fact...” He turned round to shut his bedroom door. “In case you get any ideas. Don’t wait up for me.”

He’d made it to the first floor landing and started down the first stair when he heard a pained shriek followed by muffled thumps on the stairs, then a nudge at his shoe.

“Whoa! Hey!” Harry jerked away from the fuzzy creature, fearful of getting bitten. But Pash continued scratching at her head and rolling around as if possessed, violently thrashing her head from side to side while belting out shrill cries.

Somewhat hesitant (and he was allowed to be suspicious, given their past encounters), Harry approached the writhing creature. It was obvious she was in some sort of pain. Regardless of their past rapport, Harry wasn’t about to leave her to suffer. He had a little time before the wedding, right? It wasn’t much, but he could take a minute or two to check her over.

Pulling out his wand, Harry murmured, “Wingardium leviosa,” at the squalling creature. Like before, the magic bounced right off of her. Well, that only left one alternative. Harry exhaled sharply; as if he didn’t have enough of a headache already.

Slowly, Harry bent over the wriggling chinchilla and prayed that she didn’t scratch him too badly. Without hesitating, Harry grabbed hold of Pash and dashed into the drawing room to her cage ... which, of all days, wasn’t there.

His frustration was short-lived as he felt unimaginable pain lance, like a spear plunged through his head. With a startled cry, Harry clutched his throbbing head, barely managing to balance the wailing chinchilla in one hand. It felt like his head was being squeezed between the wheels of the Hogwarts Express and the railroad track.

Just as his knees collided painfully with the floor, Harry heard the tinkle of shattering glass somewhere in the room and hissed as some shards nicked his face. But Harry couldn’t even feel that as right then, the stabbing pain exploded tenfold behind his eyes.

The room’s light darkened as a massive, black cloud blotted out the early evening sunlight and brought noise, terrible screeching, chittering, ringing, shrieks of agony and confusion and hurt that went straight to his head. His body was wracked in pain, and he twisted and he jerked and he’d let go of Pash, couldn’t hear her anymore, and when did that happen?

But it didn’t matter, because he couldn’t control himself anymore, and there was pain, such fucking pain that he thrashed and writhed, tried to escape, to flee, because God, the noise, the ringing in his head just wouldn’t stop!

If he wasn’t screaming before, Harry certainly was now.

His head, it was beating, beating, like there were a million hands, all pressing on each corner of his brain as if those million hands were each playing reverse tug-of-war and trying to shove his too large brain in a too small box. A box like the ring box that was digging into his chest, and — nooo, he couldn’t die, not today!

Not like this, writhing on the ground and waiting for his brain to implode, just like the others! He wasn’t going to die like this. Not like this! He had to concentrate — Concentrate, Potter! — focus past the high-pitched chirping, focus-focus-focus on something other than the ringing in his ears. He couldn’t dwell on the fact that his brain felt like well-kneaded dough in the hands of a master chef. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t, and he was not!

Harry’s eyes shot open. It took some effort, and he could feel his eyes vibrating ominously in their sockets, but he opened them because he had to see, had to know who was doing this to him, to them, the Gryffindors.

It was a black cloud. A huge, blurry, living haze that swirled and squealed and he could feel its cries prodding at his brain, pulsing, focusing on it, willing to break bones to get to his mind. No wonder the Malfoys had gone mad!

And suddenly, the violent vibrations eased, just slightly, and his rattling eyeballs stilled, allowing Harry to see clearly for the first time. At first, he thought he believed himself dead. He had to be, because there was no sensible explanation for what he was seeing.

Hedwig, his long deceased owl, had just soared through the broken window and dived into the deadly cloud, sharp talons viciously clawing at the shrieking whirlwind.

Only the whirlwind seemed to drop like flies. Or, if Harry was indeed still alive and seeing things correctly, bats.

Although his ghostly guardian owl only managed to pick off a few squealing creatures before the piercing rings and white-hot pain shot up in intensity, Harry focused on only one word.

Transform.

The ringing echoed and stabbed and made his brain shudder in his skull. He thrashed about, kicking furniture, clawing at the rug and dust and wood in agony. Harry was positive his throat was down to raw strings of muscle from his screams.

But still, he focused on one thought: Transform!

And then, there were voices: the Voices. The Voices in the Veil, with their wails of sorrow and terror and celebration so ... beautiful, Harry almost gave in. Almost. But he wouldn’t go, not without a fight, not without saying goodbye.

Not like this.

Not like this.

Transform!

It started as a tingle beneath the surface of his skin. He was fairly astounded that he could feel anything with all the pain, but he’d felt this.

Harry also felt his thumbs bending back to touch his forearm, whether with or without pain, he couldn’t tell at this point. His fingers were elongating, stretching long and thin, some getting so slender they almost fused with others. And as Harry got smaller and smaller, the world around him became larger and larger.

The skin around his armpits seemed to melt into his morning coat, forming a leathery membrane between his arms and legs that his ever-lengthening fingers stretched across. Replacing his shaven face was a bristly snout complete with a wide mouthful of pointy teeth that he could put to good use. The screeching became a thing of the past, dimming significantly as great big ears shot from each side of his head like proud flags.

At once, the screeching came to an abrupt halt. There was still noise, but of a different kind; noises his human form could never pick up, but ones his bat senses could construe.

The ringing noise was still there, but it was faint and occasional, like sonar pinging. But before Harry could investigate, there was a soundless shift in the air ... movement. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t blind, but his vision wasn’t as sharp as he would have liked. If only he could just focus, just see what was going on, maybe he could ask —

“CHIK!”

It was like a camera flash capturing a moment before his vision went fuzzy again. He’d heard about it on one of the cavern tours: echo-spotting, or locating or something. When he tried to speak again, the sharp sound left his mouth, but it was strange and low in his ears.

As with before, the dull, colorless image of the drawing room rippled into a clearer picture before falling dark. This time, Harry caught sight of the tail end of the bat cloud leaving through the broken window. As quickly as his new body would allow him, Harry tried getting up for an aerial pursuit.

Of course, he’d never achieved a complete transformation before. Harry had managed to roll over on his stomach and wobbly scuttle across the dusty floor before the simple task of crawling became overwhelming. Besides, it was too late; the killer bats were probably halfway to King’s Cross by now, and he was in no condition to chase them down. He had nearly died but five minutes ago!

With a pathetic twitter, Harry gripped the area rug with his clawed thumbs and concentrated solely on turning back. He had to turn back, because he had to go to the wedding and tell Kingsley, and rub it in McLaggen’s face that he’d stared Death in the face again and —

“ARRGH!” Harry clamped his hands over his ears and howled. So the attack wasn’t without consequence, but Harry decided better his ears than his brain melting. But sweet Chocoballs, his head was pounding! And his ears, his ears were killing him!

Harry pulled a sticky hand from his head and groped around for his wand when he felt a cool rush of air on the back of his neck. Merlin, if they’d come back to finish the job, he didn’t think he could stop them.

Two off-white talons then came into his line of sight and Harry breathed a shaky sigh of relief. “H-Hed-wig,” he bit his lip hard enough to break skin as the vibrations of his words spiked the pain in his ears. Perhaps it was better to stop talking. On the other hand, he needed his wand, and for that, he needed to talk to the owl...

...The owl who appeared to be sprouting fine blond hair from its crown, long limbs from enormous speckled wings, and a pale face that looked remarkably like Draco. Oh, he hoped his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him!

“Dr — ”

But those long dry fingers pressed against his bleeding lips, stopping him. Harry watched instead as Draco pulled out his hawthorn wand, and reluctantly put his hands down when the Slytherin moved them away.

Draco had an intense look of concentration on his face as he tapped each ear several times, weaving complex runes along his skin. The comforting heat of Draco’s hand cupping his chin took the sting away slightly as his inner ears slowly mended.

Even as the acute pain lessened to a dull throb and Harry sighed in relief, his face was still in Draco’s hand. There was a lump in his throat the size of a Quaffle that he couldn’t seem to swallow. All this time had gone; what should he say? What did he want to say?

“Harry?”

Draco was staring at him strangely, waiting. He had to say something, anything!

“Pash.”


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