Talk To Me (Drarry)

Chapter 2

...the world turns black. And silent. The stars are gone, as are the lights of the castle. Everything. Harry blinks rapidly but he can't see a thing, and he can't hear the rushing of the wind; he can't hear his own shallow breathing; he can't hear the "Oh, fuck," he definitely yells. Or whimpers.

Panicked, fingers sliding on his broom handle, he's suddenly aware that he's practically upside down and the only thing stopping him from plunging to his death is the vice-like grip of his thighs around the broom. Swallowing hard, he wraps his fingers tighter around the handle and pours all of his adrenaline-jittery energy into slowly, carefully righting himself, using pure instinct to guide himself into a safer position.

Finally, disoriented and quite frankly terrified, he stills, leaning forward and trying to control his messy breathing and hammering heart rate. He can still feel the wind, that's for sure, and he knows that everything hasn't just... disappeared, so it's got to be... oh, fuck. Fuckety fuck. It's got to be whatever hit him this afternoon in Duelling Club. Surely third years don't know time-delayed hexes...

"Oh, serious words are going to be had," Harry says to the night that he can't see, but he only hears it inside his head. Which is extremely disconcerting. Still, thinking vengeful thoughts about Aurelia and Christina seems to be taking the edge off the blank, cold terror of hovering on a broom several hundred feet in the air and barely knowing which way is up.

The trouble is, one way or another, he's going to have to land this broom. And find his way across the grounds. Something in the pit of Harry's stomach roils nastily at the prospect; the thought of wandering accidentally into the forest or the lake without his two most important senses rakes a cold finger down Harry's spine and he shivers again.

Still, he can't stay up here all night. Laughing silently and hysterically at his supposed Gryffindor courage, Harry tilts the front end of his broom downward and opts for slow, descending (he hopes) circles, because he knows that straight down just isn't happening in this wind.

This wind, in fact, is horribly disorienting, and not only that, but Harry thinks he's descending a little too fast now, but it's surprisingly difficult to tell without his sight. He actually senses the ground a split second too late, a split second before he's crashing into the hard, frozen grass at an awkward angle.

He's flung from his broom with a string of colourful curses and lands painfully some unknown distance away with an impact that knocks the breath out of him. He feels his ankle twist and crumple beneath him, but the rush of pain is delayed for merciful seconds; when it comes, the wave is so sudden and intense that Harry wants to vomit.

Gripping the cold, frozen grass in numb fingers, he swallows back the acidic taste in his throat and pulls his breathing under control with a supreme effort. His eyes sting and the wind rips harshly across the tiny amount of moisture on his skin before he can scrub it away with his sleeve. Furious with himself, he releases an unchecked sound of frustration into the air, but it's no good. He's locked in this dark, silent box for the foreseeable and feeling sorry for himself isn't going to help. Still, it's the perfect end to a perfect day.

Carefully, he gropes for his wand, but it's nowhere to be found. An experimental shift of position to allow him to widen his search across the grass jars his ankle slightly, leaving him retching, head spinning, and determined to stay still. The bleak fact of the matter is that he's freezing cold, injured, he doesn't know where he is and all he can conceivably do is sit and wait for someone to come. Hope for someone to come.

"No one'll think to look for me for hours," he says out loud, just for the sake of it. And when they do? Well, it's certainly not going to help that he has the fucking map. The soft edges of folded parchment against his fingers tell him that that, at least, is still in his pocket-fat lot of good it's going to do him when he can't see.