Freaks: Year Two

The Wizarding World Is Not All Magic

Harry could not sleep. Too much was on his mind.

As events like the All Star quidditch game were being discussed and exams and the upcoming summer holiday, Harry kept thinking how it was impossible for him to just forget about what was going on outside the castle walls–outside in the Wizarding World. Death, destruction, murder, attacks...

Not even outside the castle walls. Look at what had happened to him. Look at what happened to Andy. Who knew what else was going on inside the school that he had no knowledge about.

Anytime Harry tried to focus on his studies all he saw was how the words would bleed together, the ink seeming to drip down the pages, but it wasn't black ink, it was red. It was blood. And he'd blink and it would just be words. All the dark things he saw disappeared in a blink of an eye, but it was a reminder. It was a reminder that he was lucky. His parents were alive. He was alive. Not everyone was. Remus Lupin lost his mother, Edgar and Ameila Bones lost their mother, Fiona and Felix lost their father, Derek Bell, well he lost everyone. His mother, his father, his little sister. All in the same week.

When he had been in the Forbidden Forest he had questioned why he was leading himself to a person who had at the time been blamed for a crime. During that he had been trying his very best not to faint as he had discovered he had developed a fear of the dark. The shadows of the forest seemed to morph into eyes and mouths, making grotesque faces. Harry had wondered if they were going to jump out at him and hurt him.

But that was just his fear talking. He was still safe. Even in the forest. Those images his mind made him see were just another reminder that were scarier things out there that he should be thankful that he was shielded from.

He was alive after all. Not everyone who had been alive at the start of the year was alive now. Adults he didn't know the name of, children he didn't know the name of. All dead.

He wished he knew their names.

Hope Lupin, Patrick Talisman, Ingrid Smith, Macy Ellewoods, Thomas Cole, Constantina Bones, the Everheart family, the Bell family, Alice Bell...

Too many names that he just didn't know.

He slowly sat up in his bed, feeling a slight ache in his back. He ignored it and picked up Lou that was laying on his pillow. He had thought she had been lost in that dark forest, but thankfully she had been with both him and Alabaster the whole time. "Hello sweet Lou." She squeaked. "Want to have tea with me?"

Harry placed Lou on his shoulder. He opened his curtains and stood up, his kneecaps letting out a crack. He quietly made his way to the dormitory door, ignoring the dark, moving shadows that loomed around him. He exited the dorm and made his way down the stairs. He soon noticed that there was someone in the common room, knees up against their chest, face buried in their knees.

Through the light–the dying firelight Harry knew it was Andy Scott.

Harry felt his heart sink upon seeing her. He hated seeing her like this. At the beginning of the year she had been so happy. Who wouldn't be? It was not everyday a person discovered they were a wizard. She had been so excited, with her many questions and she had been so excited about learning magic and to go to school and to just be a witch and now some evil psychopath had ruined it completely for her.

Harry couldn't imagine the fear she must have been feeling. Being whisked into a whole new world you barely understood, but a world that promised so many wonderful things, it was magic after all, only to find out that you were looked down upon, but not only that, attacked.

School was supposed to be a safe place.

And Harry hated that it had been ruined for her.

And he hated that they had not found out who had actually done it.