you raise me up || harry potter

chapter 46

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nuvole bianche

★ by ludovico einaudi ★

♢ ♢ ♢

The dementor materialized in front of him, face hidden by its hood, its hand reaching out for him, scabbed and glistening. Harry could feel the iciness, could feel it freeze his blood... he pointed his wand at it, his mind already foggy, trying to recall what his happy memory was... what was it? What was the memory that had made allowed him to produce a Patronus just minutes before?

He could feel himself trembling, not just from the cold but from the sheer terror that crashed over him. He could hear not just his mother, but his father, yelling for her to run, that he'd hold Voldemort off...

But he could also hear another voice. It was distant, but distinctly closer. More solid. It was calling his name, not "Helena" like his parents were. How strange.

"Harry!"

The dementor suddenly stopped approaching him, and instead swiveled its head around to look at something else. And suddenly, out of nowhere, a doe charged at it. Harry didn't remember casting it, but he must have, right? The dementor tripped over its own hem in its effort to back away.

There was a large crack! And Harry was looking at himself.

It was bizarre. It was an exact replica of him, and the expression of fear on its face probably mirrored his own. Harry blinked. The coldness and the dementor were gone. 

In its place stood Voldemort, raising his wand and pointing it at boggart-Harry.

"Foolish boy," Voldemort said in his high-pitched voice. "You thought you could defeat me, the most powerful wizard the world has seen? Stand still now, and accept your fate... the same as your parents..."

"No," someone gasped in a strangled voice, and Harry realized it was Snape, pale and horrified, staggering toward the boggart. "Riddikulus..."

But how does one make murder funny?

"Avada Kedavra," Voldemort said, and a green light illuminated the classroom. Snape didn't seem able to move.

"Here!" Harry shouted, trying to get the boggart's attention. It worked; Voldemort turned to Harry, and with a crack, it transformed once more into a dementor. Harry pointed his wand at it. He had cast that doe Patronus, right? He could do it again.

"Expecto Patronum," he bellowed. The doe did not make a reappearance, but something semi-corporeal gushed out of his wand and managed to push the dementor back. Once again, it tripped, and right into the trunk. Harry dove to stuff it back inside, shut the lid with difficulty, and locked it.

Harry sank to his knees. His legs felt rubbery, and he felt like he had just ran a marathon. Snape just stared at the trunk.

"I thought..." Snape said, his voice sounding unlike anything Harry had heard before. Shaken. "I thought that a dementor had somehow gotten into the castle. That it had gotten you already."

"It was a boggart," Harry said. "My greatest fear..."

"...Is fear itself," Snape murmured. "I see."

Harry couldn't quite bring himself to ask Snape about his greatest fear. And Snape didn't volunteer.

Harry stared at the ground. All of a sudden, everything he had been agonizing over for the past four months seemed to overflow and push its way to his mouth. "Were you really a Death Eater?" he asked quietly.