Cut From the Sky

Chapter 9: Gay Coded

On the 69th of November 2nd, the beginning of the new day jerked Harry sharply out of sleep. He woke up to a coil of magic around his core, transporting him from his hotel bed into a standing position just feet away in the middle of the room, where he started his every November 2nd. He wavered, almost going to his knees. Most nights, he remembered to put a wand alarm to avoid going through the transition half-asleep: It was more than a little jarring.

Balancing himself against the edge of the bed, Harry forced his breath to calm, waiting for his stomach to stop rolling. Fragments of a dream clung to the back of his eyelids. Chasing shadows through a forest of birch trees and blistering heat with Ron, his wand drawn, his heart thudding heavily in his ears. He never saw Ron being hit, and yet Ron disappeared and Harry combed the mossy ground, dripping with sweat and panic, knowing that whatever had happened to Ron was entirely Harry's fault.

"Ron is okay. Ron made a full recovery," he reminded himself quietly, because he was and he had, after that time Harry's anger and his failure had almost cost Ron his life.

Harry needed a moment before he could step into the streets to perform the strange and useless job he had opted into as a consequence of Ron almost losing his life to his inadequacy. He took a shower, lathered jasmine-scented hotel soap into his hair even though it would leave it dry and brittle, then let the water run cold. Bracing his hands against the bright white shower wall, Harry watched rivers of clean frigid water run between his fingers, then drop towards his feet. He could never see his own feet in the shower. They were a blur. They could have been anything.

Harry shivered when he stepped out of the revolving doors into the street. "You break it, we fix it" the ever-flashing sign of the phone repair shop claimed, their promise contorting and reflecting manifold in the rippling puddles. Two dogs were tied to a pole outside, barking miserably into the downpour. Harry's hair, drenched with clean shower water, collected rainwater at once, turning heavier with every step. His jacket was warm though, familiar and comfortable, because Arthur always wanted the best for him.

"Impedimenta," Harry cast, after a good half an hour of walking in the rain, waiting for the witch Philomena's list described as "sweet looking, always wearing pink". The middle-aged witch stopped in her tracks, frozen by the very edge of a puddle. She was wearing a light pink coat, soft and Muggle looking, and a matching beret. Harry had noticed her in the streets yesterday and the day before, and once in the foyer of the Parisian Ministry, leaving the fish tank looking perfectly immaculate. She'd smiled at him, bright and easy.

She was smiling now, coming into work, and her honey blonde hair was in perfect curls under a strong Impervius. It was the kind of hair that aunt Petunia had always stared at in quiet jealousy whenever it flickered over the sitting room telly in an ad. She would pull at the ends of her own hair, limp and frazzled and her lips would turn even thinner, and when she'd catch Harry noticing she'd make him get on his knees and scrub the floor under the kitchen table, even though it was clean already. Even when he'd just cleaned it, moments before.

Petunia would have hated the witch. Her smile was bright and eyes wide and warm and if Harry hadn't cast the hex, had let her step into the puddle, he was certain her gleaming beige Oxford's would come out of the puddle unscathed and perfectly dry.

"Confundus," Harry murmured.

Dropping the hold of his Impedimenta on the witch, he watched as she blinked into the spray of rain. A delicate frown pulled at her eyebrows and she raised her face upwards, towards the tower of clouds. When she took an uncertain step in what he knew was an entirely random direction, he kept his eyes on her. She must have noticed.

"Excusez-moi, pourriez-vous me dire comment me rendre au café le plus proche? Je ne me sens pas bien. Je dois m'asseoir. Je ne sais pas ce qui se passe," she told him and he didn't get his translation charm up in time but her helpless confusion was written plainly across her face.