The Boy Who Wanted to Live

Please

Harry sat up on his knees and slowly began crawling towards the door. His head was heavy and too often his body would weigh more on one side and make him fall onto his elbows. He wasn't yet out of the Hospital Wing and he had already scraped his arms till blood fell in droplets on the stone beneath him. He sat up, panting heavily as his head spun and tightened. The world was moving too fast for Harry to keep up. He slid his butt on the ground until he reached the top step where he leaned forward heavily and dry heaved for several moments. He could almost hear the footsteps from Quirrel and the unknown man several flights down. Harry hoped he didn't run into them on his way to the common room.

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Draco limped heavily on one leg as he dragged himself up the stairs. He hesitated a moment, longingly gazing down a hallway that led to the hospital wing. Footsteps nearby and a distant cry of pain made Draco ignore his body's cry for relief and he kept climbing, hoping that the blood had slowed enough that the small drops that had stained the steps he'd passed would stop falling long enough to allow him to lose the man- or men, that followed him.

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Hannah ran from the library with a new skip in her step. Dumbledore! Why hadn't she thought of him first? She ran upstairs, tripping a few times. A flying figure flew past her head and she ducked.

"Whotch where you're going!" Peeves yelled from behind her.

She ignored the poltergeist earning a bottle of ink to fly past her head and smash against the wall. She let out a cry of shock and stopped on the step, slowly turning to glare at the horrid ghost that haunted Hogwarts.

"Peeves!" She yelled, using the same voice her mother used when she was in trouble "Get your butt over here right now, mister!"

Peeves stopped, hovering in the air in surprise. He stared at the small child as if asking if she was serious.

"Do not make me say it again," she warned, taking a step closer to him and pointing at the ground in front of her, "Now,"

Peeves hesitated unsure of what to do. He flew over and leaned backward like a schoolboy being scolded, hands behind his back. Hannah pointed at the big puddle on the floor.

"You threw that at me," Peeves opened his mouth but she cut him off before he could deny it "You. Threw. That. At. Me. Do you know what is in that? That's right," she cut him off again, pinching his pointed ear as her mother does to her little brother "Ink. Ink is in that and it almost hit me, Peeves. Now for one, I don't know where you got that inkwell but I know for a fact that it doesn't belong to it since you don't even know how to write. Two," she said ignoring his hurt look "You damaged somebody's things AND you tried to hit me with it. I for one am not dead as you,"

"not dead-"

"And I can get HURT by things like that. You almost hurt me, Peeves. Obviously you don't care about that, and honestly, I don't care either but" she pulled him by his ear until she was nose tip to nose tip with the menace "if you ever try to ruin my favorite designer shirt again I will rip off your hands so you can never steal anything ever again, you disgusting little cretin," she spat.

Peeves' eyes went wide in horror and surprise as this little girl threatened him. She gave him one last stern look before letting go of his ear and turning to continue her trip to Dumbledore's office, leaving a stunned poltergeist behind her.

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Harry finally regained enough strength to stand and wobbled on his weak legs, leaning heavily on the wall as he went down. A familiar annoying poltergeist flew past Harry sobbing loudly. Harry stopped for a second, rubbing his eyes as the figure disappeared in a wall across from himself. Was he hallucinating? Maybe he should have stayed in the hospital wing.