What's at Heart

The Vanishing Glass

It felt as if a port-key had reached into their very souls and yanked them across the universe, pulled them apart at the seams, and reput them back together in as small a space as was humanly possible.

Seven screams of pain wailed into the cupboard under the stairs, as well as a dog howling bloody murder.

"Sorry," Hermione squealed as loud as Padfoot. "I'm standing on his tail!"

"Well get off!" Ron roared as loud as her, not one inch of him not in pain from being smashed up, now he was sure his ears were bleeding to boot. She did so by now stamping on his feet while Padfoot fought off the urge to bite everything within sight or change back, neither of which would help whatever was going on.

Remus and Tonks tried desperately again to magic the door open, but it worked no more on the physical one than the invisible one of before. They feared using anything more than alohomora for a blasting curse ricocheting back and killing them all.

After much pushing and shoving, general mayhem of shouting and wiggling, and even a bit of purposeful kicking with yet more shoving and pushing, breathing was attainable to all and Hermione found the book lodged somewhere she never wished something to be jabbed into again as she read faster than she ever had in her life The Vanishing Glass, a true feat on her part.

It was miserable for every reason imaginable.

Ron and Hermione knew some of Harry's home life from his few passing mentions of his rotten cousin being comparable to Malfoy and never speaking about his aunt or uncle if he could help it, getting the first hand account of why while trapped in the very cupboard he'd been forced to sleep in for the first ten years of his life truly put this on another level of torture.

Draco had never hated Potter and Longbottom more than this moment where he was crouched down just to have his own breathing space as he was forced to listen to this deplorable act of how brutish Muggles truly were. He'd always known they were a useless species and this was by far their lowest moment in history, somehow trapping him in here!

Harry was cursing his younger self for finally getting his bleeding childhood wish! The universe mocking him back as usual for finally having someone visiting him in his cupboard and he was having to restrain himself from killing the lot just to get air back in his lungs, he didn't know how Hermione was even managing to see!

Heart thundering in his chest from strain, all of his organs were not going to come out in the places they should be for staying squashed for so long, he didn't even get the luxury of mercy of everyone being so damn uncomfortable the words themselves were unclear. He could feel it in the air, the pity, the worry, how Padfoot's whines went from pain to concern and Lupin looked more likely to scream by the moment and it wasn't because Tonks kept headbutting him to get her face off the wall.

Neville was counting down the sentences desperately over Hermione's shoulder as every word only just managed to appear a breath faster than she could say them until finally the last one came with no new black letters appearing, and the door swung open behind them.

It's the next chapter I really want to get to, so I'll try to have it up this week!