It's raining when she leaves the house. It's not a frightening storm with lightning and strong wind, though. It's a thin, silent, cold, and almost impalpable rain that soaks her hair in a few seconds.
Somehow it feels right.
It's a funeral rain.
Harriet takes two steps at a time and apparates just as she feels Regulus's wards falling behind. She's suddenly in a hurry to get to the heart of London. She doesn't want Tom to catch her. By now, he'd get her to abandon her responsibilities too effortlessly.
Her actions are robotic, Harry feels on autopilot, and her Patronus fails three times before Prongs leaves with a message for Ron and Hermione. The girl watches the silver light rapidly fade into the dark as her shaky breath sends small clouds of smoke into the freezing air. It's almost over.
She refuses to look back.
[..]
She meets her friends at a twenty-four-hour coffee shop she used to hang out with Granger during school break. Despite the confused and slightly suspicious expressions on both their faces, they seem relieved to see her alive and alone . Resenting it would be absurd, given the situation, and that's why the girl decides to focus on her happiness for the reunion.
Still, she has the impression that she left a vital part of herself in that house with the boys. Otherwise, how could she willingly walk to her own death? Potter wasn't familiar with the concept of selfishness because she'd never been able to afford it, but the last few weeks had given her a taste of what her life could be, what it should be.
A twisted part of her conscience wonders if maybe Dumbledore hadn't left her with the Dursleys on purpose. Sacrificing yourself when you don't value your life is much easier than doing it when you desperately want to live. Ron and Hermione look at her so expectantly that Harriet hates herself for thinking that way, even if for a brief second. Besides, that would be an all-too-convenient excuse in the end. It's easier to see Dumbledore as a manipulative monster and not the flawed man he was, with too much power and little sense of what to do with it, like so many others who came before him and will continue to come after his passing.
Harry knows she owes explanations, and her friends stare at her silently as if expecting her to start acting crazy again. The girl tells them that Tom is dead, that she used him to get the cup and then destroyed the locket.
Potter is aware that her story seems insane. But Ron and Hermione are so desperate to have her back that they ignore it. They both apologize for the forest incident and hug her, ignoring all the inconsistencies in the girl's lies.
She feels like the worst kind of liar.
[...]
That moment of lethargy dissipates with dizzying swiftness when Harriet tells her friends why she called them there. Hermione summons allies, old and new, through the same worn coins she crafted for Dumbledore's Army in fifth year. Everything involving that small troop of children seemed to have happened a lifetime ago.
They were completely different people now.
Harry receives handshakes and reverent greetings as if more than half of those people hadn't accused her of being crazy and the next Voldemort just a few months ago. The team of Aurors who left the Ministry to join the rebels put a plan together, handing out orders. The only waitress inside the cafe seems confused by the fact that the once-deserted establishment has suddenly filled up.
Harriet stops paying attention to her surroundings. Let them take care of how . She has a date with Voldemort, and that's all that matters to her.
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Triad
FanfictionHarry can't remember anything of the past few months. Death eaters everywhere are still out for her blood, and her only chance at surviving rests in the two strange boys that saved her life for some obscure reason. She knows that she cant trust Tom...
