All the Ghosts are Screaming

39

Harry

When he was younger, locked in that cupboard under the stairs and wondering if he would ever get out, thinking only of the footsteps creaking over his head and the spiders trembling on the ceiling. He had no way to track time other than the hunger pains roaring in his stomach, and he was hungry all the time back then, so when the Dursleys had all left for some family outing and Harry was left in there, alone in the dark (this was, of course, before they added the light bulb), it was like the concept of time didn't exist at all.

Like there was no time, just this, this yellowed, lumpy mattress and his too big jeans and the door with the splinters from the time he had lost his head and tried to claw his way out into the hallway (his fingers had bled for months after), like he was existing in a black hole, someplace where no one would hear his screams, where if he had died like Vernon kept asking him to do, no one would ever even know he existed.

(Like Schrodinger's Cat, Hermione had told him, once, in their sixth year, when she finally asked the questions about his life in the muggle world that she and Ron had been dying to know and he had told her, the worry and the fear and the never ending pain bleeding out of him in one long rush of an explanation, like you exist and you don't at the same time, because until that door opened, there was nothing but your own mind to decide, no sensory input to remind you that you are alive, and he had stared at her, dumbstruck, before saying yes, yes, that was it so glad that it had been put into words that made some sort of sense.)

That was bad, but it was okay, because he always knew that the door would eventually open, if just to feed him or let him go to the bathroom, because whatever else the Dursley's were, they were not people who would chance staining their reputation with a murder investigation.

This was different.

This, this damp, rot filled cellar, was unfamiliar, and he did not know where it began or ended, because he was rooted to the spot right in the middle of this little underground box, unable or unwilling to move those three feet to where he could search and see if there was something he could use to pry the door open again. This time, he had no way to track the time at all, was just stuck hyperventilating in the oppressive heat of summer, left with the knowledge that no one was going to be coming to open that door, because who would look for the Boy Who Lived in the cellar?

He had only wanted to see if there was anything down there. George, on a day where he came to help with some more difficult charms, had taken one look down into the cellar and told Harry not to worry about it, that he would clean this one up, maybe even fill it in and board it up if that was what he wanted. And Harry had said that's alright, no thank you, that he could handle it, even though the little boy inside of him was screaming at him to let it be gone, to not go in there, that this was not something they wanted to do.

But that Harry, the scared little boy who waited in the dark for someone to show him the light again, was dead, had faced worse than a little darkness and four walls that seem to cave in on you a little bit more each time you took a breath, like you were running out of air, and he wanted to prove it, so he wrenched those doors open and climbed into the darkness and closed his eyes, took a deep breath of that stale, earthy air and ground his heels into the dirt floor, because he was fine with this, really, he was fine.

Only he wasn't, because when he went to walk back out into the sun, it turns out that the wood was so warped from water damage that it could not be opened from the inside.

This is stupid (breath, damn it, eight seconds in and hold it for four and then eight seconds out, knock the air back into your lungs if you have to) you've had to deal with things so much worse than this, don't you remember those monster spiders in the forest from when you were twelve, you faced them (not really, the car came and saved us) (shut up, not the point) and anyways, this isn't so bad, look, if you sit its like the room gets bigger, pull your knees to your chest and bury your head between them and its like there is nothing happening at all, you are just sitting somewhere with your eyes closed (you are sitting in a hole, you are in a hole and the dirt is being filled in on top of you, that's how this is getting smaller, that is why you are choking) don't be stupid, don't be stupid, don't be stupid, calm down, won't you, won't you just calm down, someone will be here to let you out any moment, they always come to let you back out, they would not let you die (no one is coming. no one even knows that they should be looking).