5To Dance Alone
Chapter I
He woke up in the midst of utter destruction. Beyond his line of sight, the barrenness stretched, a smoky battlefield strewn with dead friends and the beaten ruins of his enemies. He tried to sit up, but found himself nearly incapable of movement. The edges of his vision blurred with weariness and pain as he pushed himself into a sitting position. The source of his paralysis made itself apparent - sprawled face-up across his legs was his greatest enemy and most hated nemesis, blank eyes staring up from the serpentine face.
In a fit of panic, he gathered his strength to free himself of the dead weight. He heaved, moving the corpse off of his trapped limbs. But his tortured body protested to the strain, and he lost himself to the fog of oblivion.
Radames el-Shazli leaned back against the low, dusty wall behind him and twiddled his thumbs, reflecting once more that he was there more for show than for any other reason. There was rarely any activity during the early morning watch. In fact, at the southernmost outpost of Abu Simbel there was rarely action at any hour of a normal day.
But this day was not inclined to be a normal one.
El-Shazli tensed and raised his wand at the sound of something crashing through the woods.
"Lumos," he muttered, shedding light on the intruder. His eyes widened with shock.
The bleary-eyed wraith before him could have been a ghost, except for the fact that his feet were quite obviously on the ground. A dark stain spread around a slash in the boy's trouser-leg, and two fingers of his left hand stuck out at an odd angle.
"What-" The lookout exclaimed. The harsh croak that answered him sounded more like the voice of an old man than that of a teenager.
"My name is Harry Potter," the boy said, "and I believe I'm about to faint." And he passed out cold, his nose landing right between El-Shazli's shiny black boots.
Harry tightened his grip on the wand in his pocket. While he didn't necessarily need it, the smooth wood had a calming effect on his nerves in the midst of all the shouting and carrying on.
The five-minute warning whistle of the train made him jump apprehensively, although the entire event had an air of joyous abandon, and nothing of hostility. It had been two months since the final vanquishing of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and the school was reopening for the first time since the Great Hogwarts Kerfuffle had forced it to close more than a year ago. Thinking of that battle, Harry grimaced. The fighting had inflicted great damage on both sides, but had left the Dark wizards of Britain in an uproar, wounded and scattered. But while the losses suffered were certainly no laughing matter, some crackpot had had the audacity to exercise his wit, and the name had stuck.
Standing on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, Harry dreaded getting on the train, where he would be trapped for hours with prying students, who would all want to get his autograph and hear the gory details of Voldemort's last moments. This was only his second time out in public since the battle, and he knew that the reaction would be the same once people realized who he was.
He flattened his bangs out of habit. At least that bloody scar was gone. He'd learned to hate it over the years, and could not for the life of him understand why he'd ever thought it was the best part of his appearance. Fortunately, his last encounter with Voldemort had rid him of the jagged memento, and he was glad of it. He had scars aplenty as it was.
Two whistle blasts sounded and Harry reluctantly swung his bag over his shoulder and climbed aboard. His unfamiliar face earned some curious looks from students, but they hurried by him without stopping to chat, for which he was thankful.
After a quick perusal of the Express, Harry cursed himself for not boarding earlier. Every compartment seemed to be chock-full of excitedly chattering teenagers. He neared the end of the train, still with no luck, and knocked on the last compartment. Hearing no response from within, he slid the door open. His cheeks flushed faintly when he saw the couple – ahem – engaged inside.
"Sorry," he muttered. He'd find somewhere else, then. There was no way he was sitting across from a pair of lovebirds the entire ride. "I was just looking for a compartment." He turned to go.
"Harry?"
Harry froze. He'd known this might be a possibility, of course. He knew his former friends would still be at Hogwarts. But he'd fooled himself into thinking it might be easy to avoid them.
A hand lightly touched his arm and pulled back as if burned. Then it grasped his elbow more firmly and turned him around. He stubbornly studied the ground.
"Oh, Harry." He risked a glance at her face. Hermione bit her lip, tears springing to her eyes. Oh, bugger.
"Hullo, Hermione."
The other person in the compartment stood up. Even without the trademark red hair, Harry would have known Ron Weasley anywhere. The gangly youth had grown, and he now stood about an inch taller than Harry. His face had lost that slightly rounded look of childhood, taking on the more defined lines of an adult. His nose was maybe a touch too long, and the tip was burned red – the souvenir of a summer spent out-of-doors – but in spite of all of this, he looked much the same.
Ron's expression was unreadable as he stepped up to Harry.
"Hullo, Ron." The redhead stared him down. Gone were the days when his every emotion was broadcasted on his face. After a long minute, Ron stepped past him without a word and left the compartment.
"Ron-" Hermione protested feebly. Harry closed his eyes and swallowed his disappointment as the door slammed shut.
"So… How have you been?" Hermione asked.
He smiled wryly and she blushed. "I-I'm sorry, that was a stupid thing to ask. Of course you must be feeling terrible, you've probably been through an awful ordeal. And there I go, reminding you of it, I'm sure you don't want to tell me any-"
"Hermione," Harry interrupted, suppressing a smile – the first time he'd felt the urge since before the final battle. "You're babbling." She gave him a wobbly grin, sat down, and promptly went to pieces. Oh, bugger.
Rather at a loss, Harry swung his bag up onto the luggage rack and sat across from her, waiting for her sobs to subside. Finally Hermione looked up, eyes red and swollen but dry, Harry noticed with relief. She twisted her curly hair up and secured it with a clip. With a start, Harry realized that the bushy-haired, buck-toothed girl he'd known six years ago was gone, replaced by self-assured young woman, who actually happened to be quite pretty.
They sat in silence for several minutes. Harry could tell she was working up the courage to say something and waited quietly, picking absentmindedly at a hangnail.
"Why did you do it?" He didn't think playing obtuse would be appropriate here. He took a moment to consider his answer. When he looked up, his bleak expression struck at her.
"Do you remember," he began, "after the business with the Sorceror's Stone, when Dumbledore pulled me aside after the feast to discuss the summer holiday?" At her nod, he took a deep breath. "When I reached his office, he wasn't the only one there."
He told her about the battle-hardened man with the magical eye and one leg, gruff and half-bonkers and tough as dragon leather. He explained about the offer the Auror had made to an eleven-year-old Harry, giving him the opportunity to train and become a great wizard. Harry, who had nearly lost his two best friends because of his own impulsive actions, had been consumed by guilt since the encounter with Voldemort and Professor Quirrell. The thought had crossed his mind that they would be better off not knowing him, and that, along with his own determination to prove himself, made up his mind to take the offer.
"I had to," Harry tried to explain. "I couldn't let you be killed."
After some deliberation, he told her the thing that had clinched, even verified his decision to leave Hogwarts as the right one.
"Dumbledore wanted to protect me, I guess, but Moody told him that the first step in any defense is knowledge. So he told me about the prophecy."
He saw the question in her eyes before she had the chance to utter it and headed her off. He recited the prophecy, that bane of his existence.
"So you see, I had to. If you had been killed helping me… or worse, protecting me, not knowing that I couldn't die at any hands but His… I couldn't have lived with that. If I didn't know it then, I certainly know it now. I've seen too many friends die."
Hermione opened her mouth to say something and he stood up, looking out the window at the trees whipping past. He was suddenly reminded of how little he knew the person sitting behind him. He wasn't ready to share that part of his life. He didn't know if he'd ever be able to. Even to think of it brought a wave of pain and guilt that could have driven him to his knees. No, he decided. He couldn't confront it yet.
The door crashed open and Harry spun around, his wand out and a curse ready on his tongue. Two faces stared back at him in startled confusion. He sheepishly straightened from a crouch, slipping his wand back into his pocket.
"May as well come in, then," he said resignedly, waving the door shut behind the newcomers. The display of wandless magic clearly surprised them, but surely, he puzzled, surely they must teach such things at Hogwarts.
He didn't miss the exchange of raised eyebrows between Hermione and the girl, or the mouthed "Who is he?" from the boy, but busied himself with a copy of The Daily Prophet. At least that Skeeter woman had been stripped of her license to report. She had been arrested on charges of magical coercion, endangerment of wizarding security through the illegal accessing of classified documents, and of course, of being an unregistered animagus. While she had been released shortly thereafter, she would never be published again. As a result, the Prophet had become rather less exciting, but considerably more reliable, since her departure.
A shadow fell across the page and Harry looked up at the boy standing over him.
"I don't s'pose you remember me, do you, Harry?" Harry furrowed his brow in concentration, and then relaxed.
"I do. Although you're a lot taller than I remember, Neville," he said. Neville Longbottom grinned at him good-naturedly. Like Ron, he had lost his puppy fat and he no longer looked as awkward as he had as a first year. He flicked mouse-brown hair out of his eyes, and Harry was suddenly reminded of the prophecy. If Neville had been the Chosen One… but he wasn't.
The other seventh year, unsettled by the strange look that crossed Harry's face, stepped back and the girl he'd arrived with moved forward. She held out her hand for him to shake. The first thing Harry noticed about her was that she was one of those blessed with a smile in their eyes. The second was the flaming red hair, so like her brother's, which gave away her identity immediately.
"I don't believe we've been formally introduced, Harry Potter," She said. Harry took the proffered hand, noting its strong, firm grip and cool smoothness. "I'm Ginny Weasley – I think you know my brother Ron?"
Neville noticed the glazed look in Harry's eyes and hid a grin. It was clear that his friend had managed to mesmerize the famous wizard, rather than the other way around. He cleared his throat.
Harry started. "Um? Oh, yeah. I met you that first year at the station. Ron was off to his first year at Hogwarts, and you were begging your Mum to go, too."
Ginny laughed, a hearty, genuine laugh – the hook was set, and Neville watched as Harry was reeled in by Ginny's unconscious charisma. "Not one of my finer moments, I'm sure." She plopped down next to Hermione. "Can I read that?" She asked Harry. He handed her the paper and shook himself. Why was he so easily distracted? Rule number one, he recited, distractions get you killed.
With that call to earth, he raised his guard and reminded himself that he didn't know these people. Sure, he'd gone to school with Ron and Hermione for a year, but Ron didn't seem to give a damn, and Hermione was practically a stranger.
So he sat down, distractedly rubbing the X tattooed on the web of skin between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand; X for Tenth Company of the Resistance – his unit in Sudan. He had known those people, and now they were gone. Harry wondered if he would ever know anyone in the same way again.
He was awakened by the sound of the compartment door opening again.
"Anything from the trolley, dears?" The witch asked. Harry, rubbing his eyes free of sleep, dug a hand in his jacket pocket and came up with a few silver Sickles. These he handed to the woman with the cart in exchange for a small pile of sweets. Neville, too, bought some candy, but Ginny declined, a faint tinge of red appearing in her cheeks.
Harry, who was aware of her family's poverty of six years earlier, slid half his pile over to her.
"Oh! Thank you, but I couldn't, I-"
Harry, his mouth full of Chocolate Frog, mumbled, "Eat it – go on." She smiled at him and thanked him.
Harry noticed just then that Hermione was gone. Ginny, seeing where his eyes had landed, said, "She had to go to the Head meeting, go over things with the prefects, you know. Or maybe you don't," she amended. "She left just a few minutes after you fell asleep." She unwrapped a Chocolate Frog and bit off its head with relish.
"Ron's one of the prefects. He wasn't very happy about sharing Hermione's time with that Malfoy bloke from Slytherin. He's Head Boy," she clarified when Harry raised an eyebrow in question.
Now both eyebrows went up. "Malfoy's Head Boy? Is Dumbledore mad? Unless he's suffered an epiphany, Malfoy's going to milk that job for all he can get. There's no way Gryffindor will win anything now." It was strange, how easily the old school competition came back to him.
"Tell me about it," Ginny sighed in frustration. "He'll book the best times for the pitch before the charts are even out, and we'll be stuck with morning practices all year long. Are you going to play? Everyone's always said you're the best Seeker since Charlie finished Hogwarts."
The swift change in the direction of the conversation took Harry off guard, and it took him a moment to catch up.
"I might," he said noncommittally. "I suppose it depends."
The conversation fell rather flat, and Harry was berating himself for not saying something more interesting when Hermione walked in.
"Finally," Ginny said. Hermione grabbed a pile of clothing from her trunk up above, saying, "You'd all better change, we'll be arriving soon." She and Ginny left together, and Neville, who was already dressed, stretched out on their vacated seats and went to sleep.
Harry had forgotten about this. He looked down at himself and sighed. After the battle, he'd gone directly into the hospital and a debriefing, and then went on to participate in the subsequent month-long campaign to round up remaining Death Eaters, then into a minor rehabilitation program for veterans. There had been no opportunity (and no inclination, on Harry's part) to go to Diagon Alley for his school supplies. Without any robes, he'd stick out like a sore thumb.
"Oh, well," he muttered. What he had on would have to do. Tapping his wand on the window, he studied the makeshift mirror. Black boots, khaki pants, and a black T-shirt. That would suffice, he decided. He stared at his face. His green eyes bore the faint signs of too little sleep. He had switched from eyeglasses to Muggle contacts years before for convenience. He touched the crescent-shaped scar by his left eye, then licked a finger and tried to straighten his hair just a bit. The result made him look like he had a small black animal on his head, so he gave up and ruffled it up until it looked suitably windblown.
The train jerked and began to slow. Well, he thought, he was as ready as he would ever be. The girls returned and stuffed their Muggle clothing into their trunks. The Express came to a screeching halt. Harry picked up his bag, an olive drab duffle, and slung it over his shoulder, though the worn canvas rubbed uncomfortably. It contained all of his material possessions; he wasn't about to leave it lying around.
The four of them left their compartment and joined the line leading off the train. Harry stepped down and stopped.
Hogwarts was just as impressive as he remembered. Turrets thrust up into the sky as lights from the windows shone brightly, as if the castle was welcoming him home.
"Come on, then, Harry – hurry up." He realized he was blocking the line and stepped aside so Neville could disembark.
They rode to the castle in thestral-drawn carriages. Neville heard a sharp intake of breath and looked at Harry, who seemed rather ill.
"All right there, Harry?" He asked. Neville, who had never seen death, remained blissfully ignorant of the carnivorous creatures who led the carriages themselves. Harry tore his eyes away and climbed in.
It was a short ride. Hermione had disappeared, ostensibly to ride with Ron, whom Harry had by now ascertained to be her boyfriend. They were all deposited in front of the school, barely clearing the carriage before it was trundling down the road to make way for the next.
Neville and Ginny dragged Harry up the steps before he could pause to reminisce again. The Great Hall was just as he remembered it – just as he'd imagined it over and over in his mind, on the rougher days when he'd had little more than water and biscuits to eat and nowhere to lay his head. Looking around, he watched as stars winked from the ceiling while golden plates shone on the long tables below.
The teachers were all seated at their table on the dais, and in the middle stood Albus Dumbledore. Harry caught the headmaster's eye and the old man winked at him before turning his attention back to the entryway.
Harry, now conscious of the curious whispers surrounding him, quickly stowed his bag under the bench and joined Neville and Ginny at the Gryffindor table, next to Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan. Once Harry's roommates, they now stared at him in disbelief. Harry nodded to them and hunched his shoulders against the attention he was beginning to draw.
Ron and Hermione came in near the end. Hermione gave Harry an apologetic smile, as if to make up for the way her boyfriend pointedly ignored the open space next to him. No matter, Harry deadpanned, shrugging it off. It wasn't as if he'd expected Ron's forgiveness right off.
Dumbledore raised his hands in a gesture for quiet. Professor McGonagall slipped out the door to collect the first years, and in a moment she returned with a line of apprehensive youngsters following her.
Harry paid little attention to the Sorting. The group of students to be sorted seemed particularly large, and Ginny gave him a brief, whispered explanation of how parents had begun holding their children back from Hogwarts as the war progressed, preferring to keep their dear ones close. Now that Voldemort was gone, however, many more parents felt it safe to send their children to school again.
"In no small part thanks to you, of course," said Ginny. Harry liked the way she said it, casually, almost offhand – no big deal about it.
Finally, Dumbledore rose and initiated the feast with a brief command. "Tuck in."
Harry gratefully followed orders, filling his plate and shoveling food in. It was his normal habit to scarf down whatever he could in the short amount of time allotted to a soldier, but the others watched this well-developed ability with awe. When he took note of their astonishment, Harry swallowed painfully and awkwardly blotted his mouth with a napkin. After that, he took pains to slow down and chew his food thoroughly, emulating the others. Table manners were rather lax in a military unit, and he found he was out of practice.
He was finished long before everyone else, and for a while he basked in the contentment of a full stomach and the prospect of a real bed to sleep in. In fact, several people began nodding off where they sat before Dumbledore once again stood up.
"I have a few words to say before you all skip off to bed," he said with the trademark twinkle in his eye.
"First, all students please remember that the Forbidden Forest is entirely off-limits. Also, no products from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes shall be allowed on school grounds – I believe Mr. Filch intends to punish offenders most harshly this year."
"Secondly, with the threat of Lord Voldemort gone, we will be holding a Winter Ball this year – dedicated to those who fought against Him." His eyes caught and held Harry's own as excited (and mostly feminine) murmurs filled the Hall.
"And lastly," Dumbledore cleared his throat, not releasing Harry's gaze for a moment, "Lastly, I would like to announce that a very dear friend will be completing his education with us this year, and I would like you all to make him very welcome. Ladies and gentlemen, Harry Potter has returned to Hogwarts."
Dumbledore dismissed them to their dormitories, and as Harry got up with his bag in hand, Ginny and Neville just behind him, the milling students parted and made room for him to pass. Worshipful glances were cast his way, and outstretched hands brushed him, making him stiffen uncomfortably. Even outside of the Great Hall, the hushed whispers followed him.
More than anything, Harry wished he could just run, as fast and far as he could. The attention was the least of it. If they had to worship someone, let it be the people who had given the ultimate sacrifice – their lives – to make the world safe again. All he had done was his job, and not even that, for the highest duty of a soldier was to die for his cause. The only reason they honored him was because he had survived.
The three of them reached the portrait-hole before anyone else. Harry looked at it as though mildly perplexed, recalling that he didn't know the password.
"It's pax," Ginny said from behind him. "Hermione told me."
Perhaps the simplest password he'd ever heard. Peace.
They climbed through the portrait hole and into the common room. To Ginny and Neville it must have seemed as though they'd only left it yesterday. To Harry, it felt like a lifetime and a half.
Harry said goodnight to Ginny and started up the boys' staircase, Neville behind him. He dumped his bag by his old bed and lay down on it, not even bothering to get undressed. Moments later, sleep took him.
Harry wiped sand out of his eyes, but the wind just flung more into his face. Black clouds boiled angrily in the sky, and if they were natural he'd eat his wand. The heat of the day had intensified, rather than cooling down.
"Bayouli!" He shouted over the storm. A dark-skinned man appeared at his elbow.
"Sir!" Ramses Bayouli, more accustomed to the moods of the desert, offered him a length of cloth, and Harry deftly wrapped it about his head until only his eyes showed.
"I want patrols to pull in!" Harry ordered. "If they stray too far they'll never find their way back! Hold the ranks – I want everyone to be ready when the attack comes!" Ramses nodded grimly, not questioning his assumption that an attack was imminent. He knew the Sudanese sands almost as well as the land of his native Egypt.
Harry heard a rumbling and the earth yawned open on his right flank. Several men plummeted over the edge of the abyss.
Then the dust cleared, allowing him to see the force against them, and he swore fiercely. The odds looked like three to one, stacked against his seventy fighters. A line of "cavalry" rode at the front, seated upon winged manticores.
The enemy began their charge, and Harry screamed for the attack, leading his soldiers into the fray. There was a moment when time seemed to slow, and then the two sides met in a confused clash of weapons, a spray of blood, and a cacophony of explosions as they both hurled their worst at each other.
Harry cut a swathe through the enemy's ranks, with his wand in his right hand and a long knife in his left. This was not a defensive mission – they had been specifically instructed not to take prisoners, and Harry struck lethal blows with both weapons, slicing across the throat of one foe while casting a cutting curse aimed at disembowelment.
As always, Harry lost all sense of thought in the midst of death and bloodlust, only coming to himself when he found no more enemies to fight. He had made it through enemy lines, and now had surprise on his side.
Harry saw Ramses and Ayana, his Somali curse expert, standing back to back, holding their own against their opponents. Not far from them, however, he noticed Seble and Arhet working to control a team of four wizards, while taking heavy fire. He started toward them, crashing back into the battle.
Immediately he lost sight of the twins, but he continued pushing in the direction he'd last seen them. At last he caught a glimpse of their telltale blue-and-white joint Protego, and then he saw the girls themselves. A moment later their shield broke, and a cutting curse struck Seble, severing her head from her shoulders. Arhet screamed her pain and lost control, letting out a pulse of pure magic that flattened everyone within a twenty-foot radius. Harry darted in and reached her in time to catch her lifeless body.
He lowered her to the ground next to her sister. Crouching over her, he touched her cheek in goodbye. Then he stood, eyes blazing, and roared out a challenge.
"My Lord! No!" Harry heard Ramses shout and he swung around. A burning line ripped through his side, and sparks clouded his vision as he dropped to his knees.
Helplessly, Harry watched his attacker advance. The figure raised his wand.
Harry was both too slow and too far away to act when Ramses stepped in front of the green jet meant for him, and for a moment he felt as if he himself had been struck. The force of the curse spun his faithful second around, and he caught the expression of surprise on his face as the body fell.
Harry woke up screaming.
He shot up in bed, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Jay-sus!" Seamus cried. "What the bloody hell was that?!"
Someone lit their wand and shone it around the room.
"Harry?" Neville rubbed his eyes blearily. "What's going on?"
Pale-faced and sweaty, Harry tried to keep his voice steady.
"Just a dream," he panted. "Sorry," he said, "I forgot to silence the curtains."
"Harry," Dean protested weakly.
He ignored their concern and reached for his wand and tapped the red velvet draped around his four-poster, then pulled them shut. Instant silence met his ears, the same empty buzzing you hear in a soundproof room.
Harry lay back and pressed clammy hands to his eyes, trying to erase the image of his friends' dismembered bodies strewn carelessly across the desert sands. The other boys probably thought he was a head case now… great, just what he needed.
Just a dream, he'd told them, but that was a lie. It was a memory, one of many that plagued him each night. He hadn't passed a single undisturbed night in over two years, but since the final battle the nightmares had gotten progressively worse. They were, in fact, the reason for his stint in rehabilitation. This particular memory was the one that haunted him most frequently, from the last conflict before the final battle. He touched the jagged scar along his side where the curse had cut into him, just before Ramses had died. He fought back a burning in his eyes at the thought of his friend's sacrifice.
Harry closed his eyes and began the deep, even breathing exercise he had learned from a Sudanese friend in the Tenth, but his mind was still unsettled.
An hour later, Harry gave up on sleep and took himself down to the common room. He sat on the floor by the fire and leaned back against the couch, thinking. Remembering.
I hope you're enjoying it so far. As a full-time college student and part-time employee, my writing time is severely curtailed, and I have to say, this story isn't my first priority when I DO get around to writing – that would be my KA fanfic, Peace of Mind, and it may illustrate to you how little time I have when I say I've posted only about one 10,000-word chapter a year for the last two years.
Another reason that posts for this story might be delayed is that, quite frankly, I have no idea where it's going. So once again, PLEASE, if you have any IDEAS or particular SCENES you would like to read, let me know and I will try to incorporate it. It might be a little while before you see it in evidence, but I think I'm going to try to limit chapters to 5,000 words, which means they'll be a hell of a lot easier and faster to write.
REVIEW! It's the only way I know if you like it or hate it or whatsoever it pleases you to write. I'll even take a 'Hey, you, get off your ass and post!' and be grateful. I look forward to hearing from you.
Much love,
Ribhinn Maraiche
formerly known as
Shpadana Zizais