human again / hp.

Chapter 128

I had become very good at being silent.

I stopped raising my hand in class. I stopped sitting with Daphne at breakfast. I even stopped wearing color. Just blacks and greys now, a reflection of the cold settling in my bones. Even my jewelry had dulled somehow. Silver never lost its sheen, but it looked faded against my skin. Or maybe it was me that had faded.

People noticed, but no one asked. Not even the ones who used to.

Gryffindor common room was a place I passed through. Nothing more. I never stayed long. I read in corners where no one could see me. I skipped meals. I existed in fragments, drifting between one guilt and the next.

Only Draco saw the whole of me.

We did not speak much in the halls. But when we did, it was always under cover of shadows and silence. Our words were careful. Our eyes not so much. There was a kind of comfort there, in our shared burden, even if neither of us could say it out loud. We had tried once. The necklace was supposed to work. It should have. We'd planned every step, every charm.

And still... Katie.

Katie Bell.

Innocent. Bright. Screaming.

Now she was lying in a bed at St. Mungo's and I could still hear the sound of her voice when the curse hit her. The way her body rose from the ground like something torn from heaven and flung back to earth. I had nightmares about it. Sometimes I woke up with the taste of blood in my mouth, not knowing if it was hers or mine.

No one had figured it out. Not officially. But I could feel Harry's eyes on me more and more.

He had seen something. Not the Mark. Not the truth. But he knew I was hiding something.

He was right.

I avoided him like the edge of a blade, but that didn't stop him from watching me. Every time I left the common room. Every time I slipped into the castle and vanished for hours. His gaze followed. Sharp. Relentless.

He was in the library that night.

I hadn't meant to find him there.

I only needed a place to breathe. A place where I could exist for a few hours without the walls whispering Dumbledore's name like a countdown. I stepped between the rows of books like they were trees in a forest, hoping the quiet might dull the noise in my head.

And then I saw him.

At first it was just his silhouette. Leaning over a stack of books with the lamplight casting gold across his face. But there was no mistaking the tension in his shoulders, the furrow of his brow. He wasn't reading. He was hunting.

He looked up when I stopped walking.

"Looking for more shadows to disappear into?" His voice was low, but it cut through me like a knife.

I didn't answer. I didn't run either.

"I see you, you know," he said. "You vanish for hours and then come back like nothing's wrong. Like you're not hiding something."

"Maybe I just don't like being around people anymore," I said flatly.

"Don't lie to me."

I turned, jaw tight. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know enough. I know you've changed. And I know you're not the only one sneaking around."

I swallowed hard. My mouth tasted like metal.

"Careful, Harry" I said.

He stepped closer. "I think you're scared. I think you're involved in something dangerous, and you're too far in to stop now."