Title: Dark
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: T+
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Drabble
Warnings: None
Summary: #74 – Dark. You can hide anything from anyone in the dark, but the darkness knows.
Word Count: 845 words.
Author's Notes: Drabble: a slice of fic in less than 1500 words. FEH universe.






Prompt 74 – Dark







It was so dark.

Harry Potter thrashed when a hand touched his shoulder, and suddenly he was awake.

“I’m sorry to wake you, sir, it’s just…”

Harry Potter rubbed his eyes, realizing, slowly, where he was. He was in a chair by a fireplace in a hovel of a house with rain pounding the ground outside like a fist pounding against a hollow chest of a corpse.

“What is it Creevy?” Harry asked hoarsely, glancing about the room and the faces that had been watching him sleep.

“The one I was telling you about, Aidoneus, he’s here, and he would like to speak to you.”

Harry sighed. He was hungry, and he wanted those eyes to stop staring at him as if he were some kind of god.

“Send him in…”

Dennis Creevey moved into Harry’s line of sight, and for the first time, Harry saw someone familiar.

“We will have to leave you alone with him…it is the only way he will speak to you…”

Harry straightened in his chair, adjusting his old, ragged clothes and feeling for his wand in his sleeve.

“Then do it! Enough talk, just send him in!” Harry hissed.

His head hurt, and his vision dimmed slightly as he heard feet scuffing upon the stone floor and bodies moving away from him. The number of people wanting to be near him was suffocating, he hated it, the people squeezed out the light and left him in the dark.

He hated them, but they always did what he wanted them to… Harry stopped asking why long ago.

“I am Aidoneus.”

Harry glanced up at the door and blinked. All he could see was darkness.

The dark had found him.

Harry stood, knocking his chair back and drew his wand. “What are you?” he hissed.

The darkness had taken the shape of a person, a man, and it was far too like a Dementor in Harry’s eyes.

“I am Aidoneus, and that is all you need to know, Mr. Potter.”

The voice was otherworldly, as was the black smoke that seemed to swirl about what should have been a man’s face.

“I am here because Mr. Creevey tells me you need assistance.”

Harry stared into the darkness, losing himself in it, but at the word ‘assistance,’ Harry blinked and shook his head violently.

“Yes. Yes… Assistance.”

The darkness shifted slightly as Harry lowered his wand, the Elder Wand. He moved stiffly, picking up his chair and sitting again by the fire. Slowly, the light of the fire soothed him even as darkness hovered near the doorway.

Harry considered making a motion that the creature called Aidoneus sit, but though better of it. The figure seemed to hover resolutely before the door.

“The nature of this assistance involves Hermione Granger and her connection to the Department of Mysteries, does it not?”

Harry’s emerald eyes narrowed.

“What do you know of her?” he growled, and he felt a hot jealousy trickle into his chest, damping the spark of his anger.

“I know many thing, Mr. Potter. Please explain what it is you intended to do, and perhaps I can assist you with the information I can provide.”

Harry tamped down the revulsion he felt at the sight and sound of the figure.

“You are a creature of information, is that it?”

The darkness seemed to nod, but Harry could not be sure.

Harry stared into the dark of the face of what should be a man’s, or a monster’s. There was something in the darkness that ebbed and flowed, obscuring something underneath. There was also something true about that dark, something that soothed Harry Potter though he was at a loss as to how to explain it.

“I need Hermione.”

Harry blinked at the sound of his own voice, but continued.

“I need her to get to the…” Harry trailed, considering Aidoneus again. “If you are a creature of information, you already know what I need, and why I need it.”

The darkness shifted slightly as the head nodded again.

“Do you even know how to begin, Mr. Potter?” the phantom asked.

Harry’s eyes narrowed.

“By injuring Hermione Granger, you have only set a great obstacle in your path. Her hate for you will fuel her to hedge your every move.”

The odd, otherworldly voice seemed to flow over Harry’s disrupted mind like a balm.

“If you are so determined to have her as key to what it is you desire, the only way to do that is to capture her.”

Harry’s face contorted. “And how can I do that? I have no idea where she is!”

The phantom shifted again.

“In two days she will be outside of Hogsmeade on the lane to the Shrieking Shack.”

Harry’s eyes widened.

“How do you…”

“I know because it is my role and my duty to know, Mr. Potter.”

Harry said nothing.

Yes, the dark knew everything, every secret whisper, and every fibre of a man’s being. In the darkness, you could hide anything from anyone, but you could not hide from the dark itself.