✔️ 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐆𝐎 → ℎ. 𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑤𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦

24 | A W A K E N I N G

the night falls with gravity.
semi-automatic,
the earth turns from sanity.

ARMS HEAVY, EYELIDS even heavier. It was a strange sensation feeling herself awakening. There were no noises, no light - no, it was something else that tickled her conscious. Barely noticeable first, and its intensity wasn't really increasing. Nevertheless it was all her mind needed to find a way out of the blackness it got stuck in.

It was the smell of autumn. Fire and wood, rainy days, candles and hot chocolate. Cozy and homelike.

Opening her eyes had never been that exhausting. Her lids felt like weighing tons. She lay in a bed, not that cozy, but fine. An almost full moon was shining through the high windows of the hospital wing, dimly enlightening the room.

His head was placed on her legs, the Invisibly Cloak hanging loosely from his shoulders, lips slightly parted to a quiet snoring. If Ember thought the opening of her eyes was exhausting, she hadn't considered curving her lips into a smile. Closing her eyes, she slowly lifted her arm, stretching out her fingers to softly bury them into his messy hair.

Ember could feel him stir against her palm, before his head jolted up, her hand slipping back on the mattress.

"Emmie?" His whisper wasn't anymore than a breath. She kept her eyes close, humming an 'uhm-hm', and in response heard Harry shifting in his seat. "You're awake?", he then asked to make sure her small response hadn't just been a mean betrayal of his own imagination. She nodded. "How are you feeling?"

"Dunno", she replied, her voice surprisingly husky. "Tired", she after a moment admitted. "What happened?"

"You can't remember?"

"Vaguely", she whispered. "I was here ... Dumbledore used this charm on us, the one that would allow us to go down into the lake. And now I'm here."

"So you can't remember what happened in the lake?", he said, staring into her face that wore nothing but curiosity in this moment. "Emmie, you almost drowned!" Her eyes grew wide at his words. "Dumbledore's spell had been broken as Cedric was halfway on his way up. He tried to use the Bubblehead Charm on you, but it didn't work. Nothing worked! When - when he reached the surface, they all - they all thought it was - it was too late -"

Harry's voice crumbled and broke. In the semi-darkness, Ember could see his eyes glittering for the split of a second, before he wiped them dry with the sleeve of his jumper.

"It's okay, I'm here", she cooed, taking his hand in hers, but he just wildly shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Emmie, I'm so sorry!" The words stumbled out of his mouth in a hurry. "I - I have - It should have been me! I should have been the one to care about you the most! I've been so selfish, and I needed to see you on the cusp of death to realise that you - that you -"

"Harry, stop it", Ember cut him off, squeezing his hand. "You've done nothing wrong. It's okay that it was Ron, he's your best friend -"

"I took you for granted ever since we started going to Hogwarts!"

"No, you didn't."

"I spend all my time with Ron and Hermione, and all we do is fight ..."

"Harry James Potter, you listen to me now, you prat!", Ember fiercely whispered and Harry froze in motion. "You haven't done anything wrong, for Merlin's sake! Of course you spend more time with them, you're in the same house! And just because you're my clone, doesn't mean we have to stick together every second of our life. I spend a lot of time with Susan and Hannah as well. Do you want to tell me that does make me a bad sister?"

"No, but -"

"And of course we fight, we're siblings!", she went on, ignoring his attempt to complain. "There's nothing wrong with that. We've fought a million times, and you had this fight with Ron once, of course you were glad to have him back. It doesn't mean that you take me for granted, when you are sure about me always having your back no matter what, because I am having your back no matter what, and I know you have mine."

Harry blinked at her, his green eyes behind the circular glasses glistening.

"You could have died", he breathed.

"I'm not the one to die", she snorted, chuckling quietly.

Harry growled, not even a twitch on the corners of his lips, "I'm not the one to let you."

Harry stayed with Ember for the rest of the night, telling her every detail about the second task; how he'd almost given up, how Dobby brought him the Gillyweed, how creepy it had been in the depths of the lake. He didn't even leave out his stupid attempt to take all the hostages with him, and for the first time since the task he could really enjoy the fact that the judges mistook his failure as chivalry and bravery, so he now shared the first place with Cedric.

"Oh, and today Snuffle's owl arrived", he finally said, sounding excited and morosely at the same time. "He's in Hogsmeade."

"What?", Ember coughed. "Has he gone mad? What if they see him? What if he got caught?"

"I try to not think about it that much", Harry muttered. "Anyway, he wants us to visit him. You as well. He wants to finally meet you."

Ember's heart jumped, just to skip a beat right after. She would meet Sirius! By the end of last year she'd been so jealous with Harry for having have had the chance to come to know their parents' best friend, and even though she'd been happy for her brother, she'd whishes for meeting her own godfather as well. But to this point she didn't even know who it was. Beaming brightly at Harry, she was already planning to ask Sirius.

Harry watched her whole face enlightening with a thrill of anticipation, while he tried to smile at her himself. He knew what it meant to his sister to meet Sirius. Unfortunately this wasn't the only thing he knew.

-