The Changing Lights by lazywonderland

chapter four

His heart was a drum against his ribcage.

It seemed to Harry that he should have been able to see its shape beneath the skin of his chest, for it felt as though it had begun taking flying leaps in an attempt at escape.

He felt his pulse in his fingers, his temples, his throat.

The sounds of the world were muffled by the rush of blood in his ears.

Skirting around the edges of his consciousness, a panic attack was being just barely held at bay.

He knew why he'd come here. It was just that, now that he was here, Harry wasn't all that sure he'd be able to go through with it in the end.

Before him, the Forbidden Forest loomed like a living entity. Harry's frantic, racing thoughts were that of the last time he'd stood here, facing the tangible inevitability of death. Seventeen years old, he'd entered this forest with his hands shaking, his heart in his throat, and a Snitch clutched in his sweaty palm. Knowing that he was about to die. Knowing he wasn't ready yet to give up his life, and that he was mere minutes from doing so anyway.

It was afternoon, and the early autumn sunlight that beamed down through the ceiling of leaves helped to keep Harry in the present, from becoming fully engulfed in the nightmare once he'd stepped inside.

The nightmare wasn't why he'd come.

He'd come for Sirius, for Lupin.

He'd come for his parents.

For as vivid as the memories were, Harry had realised when he came out here that he didn't in fact know exactly where he'd gone in. He couldn't remember. He'd been so inside himself that the details of his surroundings had become nothing more than a blur.

He knew that the Resurrection Stone was forever lost in these massive woods, and he hadn't come here to find it, nor had he come here because any part of him believed he would see the ghosts of Sirius, Lupin, and his parents ever again.

He'd come because it was where he had seen them once, and he was hoping desperately that being back here would make him feel closer to them again.

For fifteen minutes he walked, feeling his anxiety heighten with each foot he put in front of the other as the canopy of leaves became denser, allowing in less light, and all too aware that the only thing he wasn't feeling was connected to any of the loved ones he'd ever lost in his short life.

All he felt was lonely and strangely hollow.

Finding a clearing and having no inkling as to whether or not it was the one where Voldemort had cast the Killing Curse on him five months ago for the second time, he picked a small stump and sat down.

The past couple weeks, the anxiety that had been slowly but surely creeping up on him since the day the war had ended had seemed to retract its tentacles the smallest bit, and Harry knew very well that this was because he'd been distracted by Malfoy. However, after the arrangement they'd made, Harry had decided to let Malfoy be the one to come to him this time simply because, quite frankly, he was beginning to feel bad for having harassed him. He wasn't sixteen anymore, he'd had to remind himself - the mature thing to do now was to back off, for he'd left the ball in Malfoy's court and if Malfoy decided to renege on their unsteady truce, well ... there wasn't much Harry could do about it.

And he was starting to think that was the case, because it had been four days since they'd spoken. He'd caught Malfoy's eye a few times in the Great Hall, in the corridors, and in classes, but Malfoy never approached him, not even in private. And without that to hold his focus, everything had started to close in on him again.