*✧･ﾟ:* DEAD TO ME *:･ﾟ✧*
TW: suggestion of self harm if you squint. mentions of death, war, and violence.
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HARRY WAS DISAPPOINTED to see the kitchens empty of her. When the urge to go down into the Dungeons for a snack and possibly a smoke came upon him, he wondered if that was the universe telling him that she, too, would be down there. But unfortunately, she was not, and the only trace of her was the tiny ashtray that held the tiny butts of her used cigarettes. Harry took a seat beside her empty one nonetheless, wondering how messed up it would be to ask one of the elves if they had a pack of camels and a lighter.
Unlike Ron and his other fellow teammates, he was not upset about Slytherin winning the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin match. In fact, he could have caught that Snitch if he so desired it, for his arms were considerably longer than Jones'; but after she had said her Father would be attending, and after Harry had caught sight of the man in the stands, he couldn't catch that Snitch with a good conscience. Not when he knew Jones might get physically abused if she didn't win. He'd never tell her he let them win, though. She'd kill him. But if she ever found out... rather she hate him than her be in pain.
Seeing Jack Jones speak to his daughter in such a way had evoked such a fiery lividity within Harry that he simply could not hold himself back from barking the comment he did. Her hands were calloused enough as they were, Harry had thought, she really doesn't need anymore. And why the hell wasn't she wearing gloves? That's Quidditch safety number one, according to Oliver Wood!
Despite the spring air during the day being a blanket of sunny warmth, the night breeze was a biting chill through the cracked windows of the kitchens; through said windows Harry could see the tide of the Black Lack slap against the muddy ground, the murky water tucking itself underneath the Earth's grassy blanket. The clock on the wall read 11:46 PM, the black hands quietly ticking in endless circles.
When the door creaked open behind him, Harry wished he could have stayed facing front so he might look as cool and collected as Jones always had, but his eagerness had gotten the better of him; he whipped around in his seat, holding back a look of relief when he saw Jones creep in, wearing baggy beige pants and a white top, her mane of dark hair tousled about her head.
She seated herself beside him without a word, silently removing a box out from her pocket and slipping out a cigarette. It had taken almost every ounce of his energy to not stare at her as she flicked the lighter to reveal a flame, the cigarette dangling delicately from her plump lips and her eyelids lowered to watch as she worked.
"You are one hell of a Seeker, Potter," She finally spoke, exhaling a colossal cloud of smoke from in between her lips as though she had been building it up for years. His lips involuntarily twitched upwards at the compliment as she handed him the cigarette.
"You too," Harry said meekly, taking a short drag. She had yet to look at him just yet, and Harry wondered what it would take for her to meet his eyes. "I didn't think it'd be so close of a game."
"You underestimate me," She quipped simply. "Told you I've played every position."
Harry wanted to talk to her about the night in the Quidditch Commons. He had been wanting to since it had happened; he wasn't sure if the emotions that pumped through his veins whenever he set eyes on her had fueled the way he seemed to burn for her or if they inhibited his ability to let their flame grow.
"Uhm... Jones..." He couldn't quite form words to express his feelings. His addled brain could barely even function with being so close to her and even though he wasn't looking at her, he wondered if he'd be able to speak of what had happened without stumbling over each word. "I know that you... well — I — I don't... I just..."
Jones glanced at him, and his breath caught in his throat. How he even managed to be in such close proximity to her in the past and not have his words fall flat, he could not even fathom. He watched carefully, his words becoming simply nothing as she crushed the cigarette into the tiny ashtray beside her. And when she turned her body completely to face him, he simply could not speak.
"Is this about... uhm, what happened?" She spoke sedulously, her plump lips moving so delicately that Harry had to consciously move his eyes away from them. He wondered at what point he had truly stopped hating her and when the sound of her voice had become sweet to his ears. He wordlessly nodded. "Uhm... I'm sorry, Potter, but... I don't know if I can explain it, either."
"Well, I just want you to know that... it wasn't 'cause I wanted to see the — the mark," Harry said quietly. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her right hand fiddle with the hem of her left sleeve. He pushed the urge to grab ahold of her hand down to the pits of his stomach. "And... and I don't — I — I don't want you to — to think —"
"Stealing my speech-impediment, are you?" Jones joked with a lackluster smirk. He felt his face glow red as her pretty pink lips slowly turned down into a somber frown. She said nothing more.
"I need to ask you something," His voice was low and soft, and by the glimmer in her eyes he could tell she wasn't used to hearing him speak as such, or anyone for that matter. "And I want you to answer honestly. Can you do that for me?"
She had a very odd look on her face at his words, as though she were conflicted between biting back at him for speaking to her like a child or nodding obediently without another word. To his astonishment, she went for the latter.
"Why did you kiss me, Indiana?" Harry asked in a frail voice, his voice laced with tremors as though the words themselves might break in half. At the sound of her first name, he observed as she weakly blinked twice, her dark eyelashes elegantly fluttering as she did so and at the sight of her pupils dilating, Harry told himself he would never address her as Jones again.
"I..." Her words fell flat on her tongue, and he wondered if she'd even give him an answer. Her fingers were fiddling with the material of her beige pants, pinching it and folding it about anxiously.
"Because if it really was a mistake," Harry went on. "And if it was just some stupid thing to you, then..."
He trailed off, his heart churning in chest and suddenly it was dreadfully difficult to breathe. And when he opened his mouth to continue speaking, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep quiet.
"I hated seeing that sixth year hurt you like that," He went on, staring bullets into the open window and praying for a breeze to drift through it as he felt his arms grow heated. Indiana's eyes were wide, he could tell, and she was staring at him, but he couldn't find it in him to stare back. "That's why I punched him. And — and I hated seeing you kiss Nott on the cheek after you won your match against Hufflepuff. And I hate the fact that all you're doing is sitting beside me and I feel like I can't breathe."
It was silent for a few heartbeats, and Harry knew he had revealed too much. This was when she was bound to laugh at him, tell him how it was some measly hookup and that it meant nothing to her and that he was foolish for ever believing she could ever feel that way about him. That he was some stupid half-blood Gryffindor who couldn't grasp his mind around the fact that just because she kissed him didn't mean she fancied him, that she was simply out of his league and he was just a prude who caught feelings way too quickly.
"Please say something," Harry swallowed the lump in his throat and rested his elbows against his thighs, burying his crimson face into his palms.
And when he finally peeked up from his hands and laid eyes on her, she was looking back, and he could not look away again. He sat upright again, knowing his face probably looked like a firetruck, but he felt only slightly better to see that her cheeks, too, were flushed pink. He was too distracted by her eyes to linger on her cheeks, though; they were a glossy brown and he wondered if she was going to burst into tears.
"I'm sorry, Potter, but I can't... I..." She stammered out in a near-inaudible voice, a single, pearly tear falling down her pink face. "I wish I could... b-but then... you..."
"If you're going to reject me, please just do it so I can get the hell out of here," Harry muttered, finally tearing his eyes away from her and shifting his line of vision to watch the elves in the back of the kitchens working silently.
"I'm going to Azkaban," she whispered, and he felt her shift positions so she was entirely facing him. He, too, then turned his body to face her, knees brushing one another as they sat face to face. A gust of wind flooded through the open window, cool against his flushed skin and made a few of the dried locks of Indiana's hair float up off her face for a split-second. "There's no reason or you to... for us to...."
"Well, it's not set in stone, is it? You've got a trial," Harry said. Indiana only shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, allowing a couple more tears to roll down her face. Before they even met the lines of her jaw, she hastily pulled the sleeves of her shit over her hands and wiped the tears away as to hide them from the boy across from her.
"I'm going," She said defeatedly, running her tongue over her bottom lip. "There's no getting around it. Unless a miracle happens, I'll be sh-shipped off."
"They can't send you if you're seventeen," Harry pressed further desperately, recalling something he had read in his Magical Law textbook. "Minors can't go —"
"My birthday's the 21st, I'll already be eighteen for the trials," Indiana frowned and frustratedly wiped at her face again, her cheeks turning a tad bit red from the roughness of her hands. Harry's brows tilted upwards, his chest clenching. "There's no gettin' around it —"
"No, no, there's got to be another way," Harry said determinedly, getting to his feet to pace. Maybe if he got moving he'd be able to think straight; then maybe he could breathe properly. "It's the Ministry, they've never been set with anything —"
"Potter, I'm not the Boy-Who-Lived or some war hero, okay? They've got no reason to keep me around," Indiana said heatedly, standing up as well to trail after him as he paced.
"Yes, they have! There could have been a Quidditch scout that the game, or maybe you'll get top marks or something, or you might —"
"Potter!" Indiana shrilled suddenly, and Harry found himself at a loss for words. Her eyes were blazing angrily just like they always seemed to do, except this time she was crying, her pink lips pressed tightly together and the top of her nose a cherry red. "Stop acting like I'm going to have some sort of influential life! I am a fucking criminal!"
"You've done nothing wrong," Harry said. "You didn't kill anyone, you've just made some mistakes —"
"I have the mark, you idiot!" Indiana's voice broke in the midst of her yell, her trembling fingers crossing her body to clutch her left sleeve before violently yanking it up, the blotchy Dark Mark practically hitting the boy in the face. It looked worse than last time; it was coated with more scars and blotches of darkness, the skin itself looking so dilapidated that Harry wondered how her bones were staying inside of her skin. "Stop putting this idea of false hope into my goddamn brain!"
"But —!"
"No!" Indiana brought her hands up to clutch her scalp, the glass tears rolling down her delicate features as she squeezed her eyes shut so violently that Harry wondered if it hurt. "I'm going! And there's no getting around it, they're gonna take me — I shouldn't have —"
"It's not your fault —!"
"They killed her, not me, I didn't do it —" Her hands were trembling, her hands moving to completely cover her face. Harry wasn't quite sure what she was talking about, but he knew for a fact that this was not simply her being angry at him. This was something deep-rooted, a trauma that not even he couldn't have experienced; the fate being held above her head just above her reach was taunting her, being shone into her eyes like a blinding flashlight of her future. "I didn't do it —"
"Indiana —" Harry strode towards her, his hands outstretched to attempt to remove her hands from covering her face, but just as his fingers brushed her skin, she ripped them away and shoved him backwards with the heel of her palms. Stunned, Harry blinked as she whipped her wand out of her pocket and placed the tip on the raw skin of her left forearm. "Put your wand down —"
"Do you ha-have any idea what your f-fucking war caused?" She stammered uncontrollably. Harry's hand inched towards his back pocket to his own wand, prepared to disarm her if he needed. "Your men killed my mother! And I had to watch her fucking die right in front of me!"
A member of the Order killed her mother? Harry had not been aware that members of the Order would have killed, but he supposed anything could happen in the heat of war. The sheer terror in Indiana's eyes was ripping him apart from the inside out; that sort of brokenness was something he had only ever seen in the mirror, something he would never have wished upon another.
"Put your wand away," Harry told her lucidly, his green eyes boring into hers as firm as he could as though to somehow telepathically change her mind. "Please —"
"He thinks I killed her," She whispered weakly. Harry felt like crying. "Father reckons it's all my fault. N' he's the one who made me get this."
She gestured to her Dark Mark, and Harry could faintly see the tip of her wand glow a fiery red, and before the heat could even graze her skin, he flourished his wand and casted a non-verbal Disarming Charm, causing her wand to flip up into the air and land right into his free hand.
"G-Give it," Indiana demanded, striding forward to rip it from him. He held it out of her grasp before placing it and his own wand into his back pocket. She kept trying to circle about him like a dog with its tail, her hand grazing the edge of Harry's back with each attempt whilst he avoided her grasp. "Stop it, Potter — g-give it!"
"No — Indiana —" Harry placed his hands on her shoulders once she had collided her palms with his chest, attempting to shove him down — once — twice — thrice — but no matter how strong she was (and Merlin she was strong), Harry towered over her.
"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" She croaked incorrigibly, and after a very short moment of her continuously whacking his chest with all her strength, she stopped, her fingertips numbly gliding down his pectorals; he had to bend slightly to catch her as she collapsed, holding her on her feet and wrapping his arms to encase her entirely.
And with that, he felt her spine begin to heave up and down, shattered weeps muffled by his shirt as she allowed herself to lose control of herself completely. Harry bent his head low to rest in her hair, his large hands strained to hold her as tight as he could as though she might crumble into pieces if his hold was too weak. Harry had never been quite good with those who were emotional, nor had he ever quite known what to do when someone cried, but with Indiana it truly seemed like second nature.
He held her close until some ungodly hour of the night, when the wolves howls had ceased and even the trees of the forest had frozen in time, watching the pair stand intertwined with one another. Her body was cold as though she had been neglected for ages, and Harry could only think that perhaps he was providing her with enough warmth to get her through the night. He finally admitted to himself that he liked holding her close to him, her coldness soothing and his warmth pacifying.
"I'm sorry," He heard her muffle after a very long while. He could feel her heartbeat from how close they were to one another, the violent pounding of it reducing as though to try and sync up with his own. "I shouldn't have messed around with you..."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked her gently, not daring to let her go just yet.
"We can't be together," she told him as though the words themselves were poison that would be released into her bloodstream should she say them. And despite the twisting in his chest, he kept his hold on her. "I'm going to prison. It's not fair to you."
"I don't care," Harry mumbled into her hair. "I can't get you out of my mind."
"Oh, Potter..." He felt her push herself closer to him. "You're much too good..."
"Please call me Harry," He asked her softly. "Please."
"Harry," She said. His heart might have stopped just then. "I kissed you because I couldn't help it. I just couldn't. You are everything I could ever want, and yet I can't have you."
"You are not going to Azkaban," Harry told her in a quiet and yet stern voice as though this were an announcement of the truth. "Not if I can help it."
"Okay," Indiana said. He felt her push herself closer to him. "Harry."
SHE SPEAKS!
happy late birthday to indiana! her birthday was may 21st :)
is this one of my favorite chapters? yes, yes it is. did i cry writing it? yes, yes i did. i should not have been listening to cigarettes after sex while writing this, it shows.
also my james fic is not going as planned!!!! i keep hating the plot. do you guys have any good ideas for me to write?? i need to write for james but i have no idea where to start
i was gonna add another short scene at the end of the chapter, but i figured it was best to leave it here. trials are next chapter baby!!!!! get pumped!!! (or not cause who knows what will happen to indie!)
- s <3