another love; harry potter

forty-nine

\ wherein christmas comes /

"ARE YOU ALRIGHT, HARRY, DEAR?" whispered Mrs. Weasley, leaning across Ginny to speak to him as the train rattled along through its dark tunnel. "You don't look very well. Are you feeling sick?"

Pheobe glanced over and saw Harry shake his head vigorously before he turned his gaze up to the ceiling, but she thought she had a very good idea of what was going through his head.

And, surprisingly, she didn't truly feel as horrible about finding out she was practically being possessed as Harry seemed to be feeling. After all, it was simply a word that finally described the strange dreams she'd been having for the last year.

"Harry, dear, are you sure you're alright?" said Mrs. Weasley in a worried voice, as they walked around the unkempt patch of grass in the middle of Grimmauld Place. "You look ever so pale ... are you sure you slept this morning? You go upstairs to bed right now and you can have a couple of hours of sleep before dinner, all right?"

All of them shuffled about the house when the door to the gloomy old house swung open. Pheobe made her way up the stairs to throw on a jumper but stopped abruptly outside Ron and Harry's door when she heard shuffling, knowing full well Ron was helping Ginny with summer homework downstairs, and Harry had been instructed to go to bed.

"Hey, are you decent?" the brunette rapped on the door, waiting half a second before pushing open the door. Her eyes immediately flew to Harry seizing an end of his locked trunk and dragging it towards the door before he met her gaze. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not doing anything," he said, very unbelievingly.

"Don't give me that bullshit," Pheobe said coolly, narrowing her eyes.

"...what? No, no, you've got it all wrong, there's no bullshit, really-"

"Hey," in two quick steps Pheobe strode over to Harry and took his hands gently. "You told me to be more open with you last year, now it's your turn."

"...it's, well, it's just-"

"It is simply that Mr. Harry Potter is running away," said a snide voice, making Pheobe jump away from Harry in shock and look around.

Phineas Nigellus had appeared on the canvas of his portrait and was leaning against the frame, watching Harry and her with an amused expression on his face.

"He's what?" Pheobe spun towards Harry with raised eyebrows.

"No, I'm not running away," said Harry shortly, avoiding Phoebe's gaze as he dragged his trunk a few more feet across the room.

"I thought," said Phineas Nigellus, stroking his pointed beard, "that to belong in Gryffindor house you were supposed to be brave? It looks to me as though you would have been better off in my own house. We Slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks."

"It's not my own neck I'm saving," said Harry tersely, tugging the trunk over a patch of particularly uneven, moth-eaten carpet right in front of the door.

"Then who's neck do you think you're saving, Harry Potter?" Pheobe shot.

"Oh, I see," said Phineas Nigellus, still stroking his beard, "this is no cowardly flight--you are being noble."

"Harry-"

"I have a message for the two of you from Albus Dumbledore," said Phineas Nigellus lazily as Harry began to twist the doorknob.

Harry spun round and, piquing Phoebe's interest, she whirled towards the portrait.

"What is it?"

"'Stay where you are.'"