Countdown (HP fic)

[a_fools_errand]

Title: Countdown
Pairing: SS/HP
Rating: PG13
Genre: Drama
Warnings: Dub-con; Chan (Harry is 15)
Spoilers: OotP
Disclaimer: They'd have much more fun if they were mine.
Words: 593
Summary: The summer after Voldemort's confirmed resurrection, Harry stays at Hogwarts.  He looks for a clock the night before his sixteenth birthday.
Author's Note: Written before HBP was released.  The quotes at the beginning and end are snippets from the Philosopher's Stone.

 

Well, well, well, we are in trouble.
… disgusted… out of bed…
…thought you had more sense…
…thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this.

Middle of summer, middle of the night, middle of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Warm night, thin t-shirt, and bare feet that keep getting caught on the bottoms of far-too-large pajama pants. A boy, six minutes from sixteen, walks the drafty, silent corridors of his new holiday home, and thinks that maybe he’ll skip the countdown this year. It’s not because he doesn't have a watch, because he’s sure he could find a normal clock somewhere in the castle. He just doesn’t have the energy right now. The figures in the portraits are all sleeping, and he imagines even Filch is making the most of the summer. The most that anyone can make, considering the Wizarding world is in a somewhat delayed state of panic after Voldermort’s confirmed resurrection. Although, maybe all Filch needs to be happy is the absence of children. Harry wonders whether there is any simple thing that could make him happy, could make any member of the Order happy. He doesn’t think it’s possible anymore.

*

Mischievous poltergeist peeps through walls to an occupied but unused classroom, and bare feet that keep getting caught on the bottoms of far-too-large pajama pants. Sheets of paper arranged neatly on a desk, completely white save for cobwebs, and a Potions Master appears seemingly out of nowhere. A boy, four and a half minutes from sixteen, jumps in shock, trips on his own feet, points his wand at the intruder from his spot on the floor. Blank sheets of paper are scattered on dusty stone, completely white save for cobwebs.

Recognition calms a pounding heart, returns a bit of lost breath, and both the boy and the man imagine they can hear the seconds tick by. Scrambles to bare feet, pulls down a thin t-shirt from where it’s flown up, dusts dirty hands on a dirty pair of far-too-large pajama pants. A boy, four minutes from sixteen, sets round spectacles straight again, turns large green eyes up, up, up, toward a pale face and smirking mouth and waits, resists the urge to rub a newly-bruised elbow. He doesn’t put his wand away.

*

 

A brief but fierce staring contest, a battle of wits, a warning. It would be wise to leave this place, he shouldn’t risk this. Hands curled into fists, one gripping a wand, muscles tense, eyes burning with feeling and itching for sleep. A boy, two minutes from sixteen, glares defiantly at his Potions Master, spits harsh words, plants bare feet that keep getting caught on the bottoms of far-too-large pajama pants firmly on stone, and doesn’t move. The poltergeist has long since become bored and moved on.

 

*

A large, wide desk, a small body, a tall one. A boy, twenty seconds from sixteen, gasps for breath, shuts his eyes and concentrates on air, and wonders vaguely how they ended up here and what will happen after. He is still clutching his wand in his right hand, long strands of inky black hair in his left. Bare legs curled around a slim waist, cream-coloured and honey-coloured skin, teeth on soft flesh and bare feet that are brown underneath. On the damp, stone floor, black robes and black trousers, a black shirt and a thin t-shirt, and a dirty pair of far-too-large pajama pants.

… nothing gives you that right…
Now get back to bed…
… never been more ashamed…