Marauders - Always - Part One

CCIV: Everybody Was Dragon Fighting (Harry's Version)

The curtain swung closed behind Viktor Krum and Harry Potter was all alone - just as he had been for most of his life.

He fell numbly into Fleur's stool. He ran his hands through his hair anxiously, looking around the tent. He supposed it was supposed to be a comfortable place, probably somebody had put a lot of thought into the decorations and such. There was a board of wizard chess and a table of finger foods that not one of them had even noticed existed. There were four desks, too, and he noticed a lot of books on dragons sat on the shelves - nearly everyone from the library he had searched in the Library with Hermione. On the desks lay fresh parchments and quills.

It was bizarre, surreal. Like maybe the decorator didn't know what the tent would be for. Like they had no clue a bunch of teenagers being sentenced to fight some deadly dragons would be forced to sit in here as the others were led off to a possible slaughter one by one...

Like any of them would be studying at a time like this. This was not the time for catching up on one'd correspondences,

Although - Fleur had said she had written letters to her family, Harry remembered.

He inched over to the desk nearest him.

He didn't know why he felt so embarassed about it - it wasn't as though anyone else was there to see him.

Harry sat at the desk and reached for the quill.

Dear Padfoot,

Fleur Delacour said she wrote her family before she came out here to the tent. I didn't think of it until she said it, but I ought to have done. Now I haven't much time left but I wanted to write something out, just in case. Dunno how it'll get to you, I can't just leave it laying about the tent, so I suppose I'll carry it with me and hope for Hermione to get it to post.

The dragons sound horrible. I can hear them shrieking and roaring and the ground actually shakes when they stomp about. I can't see what's happening out there but it certainly doesn't sound like anything I want to go and do. But I've got to. In just a few short minutes it'll be me out there getting scorched and trampled on and I'm having a rather good panic to tell the truth.

I wanted to tell you before I go out there that I'm really glad you're my godfather and I know we didn't get a lot of time before this whole Triwizard thingy came about but felt better just knowing you were there.

If I make it through all this, I hope we can spend some more time together perhaps. Sirius I don't even care if we're on the run all summer, I'd rather be on the run with you than back at the Dursleys. Please let me come with you wherever you are? We could stay anywhere really then, nobody's going to expect a kid and his dog to be secretly a wanted wizard murderer, not in a hundred years, do you reckon?

Also I wanted you to tell me about my parents more. I'll bet you had loads of great times with them. I just want to know the most boring stuff, Sirius, like what sort of jokes they told and what their smiles were like.

Blimey, how do you miss someone you never even met before so much?

Well, Mr. Bagman's just called my name and I have to go and see my lot. I've gotten the Hungarian Horntail and she's the most ferocious of the bunch, so I'm definitely a goner. But it would've been nice to be on the run with you if it had worked out.

Sincerely,
Harry J. Potter

He sat staring at the parchment even as the whistle blew.

Get up, Harry, he told himself.

He rolled up the parchment and shoved it into his pocket, took up his wand, and walked out the door of the tent. Everything felt surreal and too colorful, large and overly clear but blurry at the same time. He could feel the gravel under his trainers and there was a ringing in his ears, as though the whistle had never ceased.