Harry Potter :Diamond Heart

If there was a word that Harry had would use to describe how he had spent the last week it would have been wallowing.

Nothing had managed to break him out of his misery. He had spent almost all of his time sitting on the end of the Gryffindor table practicing his disillusionment charm and eating whatever food had appeared on the table. He was fairly sure he had even slept sitting there, still invisible.

The disillusionment charm had been the only magic he had performed. The warmth of his wand when he cast the spell was the only heat he felt in the cold hall and Harry dearly missed the brief flare of something that he had had with Katie.

Harry was certain he had not really loved her. He didn't know an awful lot about love, his only source prior to his date with Katie had been the overly romantic rubbish in Aunt Petunia's favourite books, but Harry knew that he had not known her well enough to truly love her. It had been pleasant to be with Katie, she had liked Harry, and as long as that had been true he had known he would never completely return to being nobody. It had been comforting and it had made her important to him in a way few others had been, but that was gone now, and he was left missing what he hadn't previously realised existed.

The worst part was that he could not understand why she had done it. Katie had asked him on the date, she had initiated every aspect of their short lived relationship and seemed just as content in his company as he had been in hers. Her reaction simply didn't make sense.

Harry could, if he really tried, understand the reactions of the other member of his house. They were tired of standing in his shadow and, no matter how much he disliked his own fame, nothing had ever happened let them into the light. Having spent most of the first eleven years of his life unseen he could empathise, though he did seriously disagree with how they had reacted. Even his family's hatred of magic was comprehensible; everyone fears the unknown. Katie's decision was so inexplicable Harry could not wrap his head around it. She must have known what Roger Davies actually wanted and that she would regret it afterwards, but Katie had done it regardless. It left him at a loss as for how to act around her, or he would have had he spoken to Katie since.

Harry hadn't actually spoken to any living person since Katie had run from him into Gryffindor Tower with tears streaming down her face. He supposed he should have spoken to her, apologised or tried to fix things, but he just couldn't seem to bring himself to try. It was like the chair that lay in pieces on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, mending it meant undoing the moment, and though Harry longed for nothing more than to undo what had happened he knew that undoing it simply allowed for it to happen again. He and Katie might fix things, the warmth might return, the company, the feeling that he mattered, that he meant something, was somebody, might be reborn, only to be torn away a second time. Harry could not find it in himself to risk that hollow, empty feeling again. His courage had found its limit.

Some Gryffindor I am.

It all seemed rather pointless now. He was a horcrux, getting stronger did not matter when he had to die, becoming somebody to someone did not matter when it would not last. Dumbledore would find the other horcruxes Tom Riddle had made, destroy them, and then it would be his turn.

His body had gradually begun to grow visible again, so Harry recast the charm. The magic swirled from his wand with a soft ripple of warmth up his arm and he noted uncaringly that he had finally achieved the state of complete invisibility that most wizards and witches never could. There was bitter irony in his mastery over a charm that rendered him invisible, unnoticeable and nobody when being nothing was what he had always been.

Wonderful, he thought. Now I can sneak about even better than Fleur Delacour does.

There was a small surge of pride from having beaten the other champion after she had been so dismissive of him, but it was swiftly swallowed by the same swell of apathy that had consumed everything else. Fleur Delacour was a talented witch and likely already older than he would ever be. She would have a career, a family, children, all the things Harry had half-dreamed of having himself and there was nothing he was willing to do that could change it. Fleur Delacour might have to read his name off the Triwizard Trophy, but it would be more an epitaph than a statement of triumph. His pride was little more than a bitter taste in his mouth.

Harry had been more tempted by Salazar's solution than he had let on. There were plenty of wizards and witches that were more deserving of death than him. He had not lied, it was not his place to sentence or judge, but there those who had already been sentenced and judged by society. They lived on stolen time, and deserved the death that might save him. His refusal had been based on his desperate desire to avoid emulating Tom Riddle any more than he already had and his revulsion at the Killing Curse itself.

He very much doubted he could be convinced by anyone to use the curse that had robbed him of his family and left him as nothing. If he had to die he'd rather it was on his own terms, amongst equals, or at least with those who respected him.

Only those who are strong get respect.

Harry had read that somewhere. In one of Vernon's guides to management and leadership, in some novel of Petunia's, or one of the hundred spell books he had found at Hogwarts. It didn't really matter; it was true. If he couldn't live to be somebody, to find equals, he would at least die respected.

No more wallowing, no more avoiding what is coming.

The disillusionment charm cut out abruptly, his intent to be seen and respected nullifying the enchantment. It was only a matter of minutes before he was noticed. He stoically ignored the stares of the other students and the whispers, even when he caught Katie's name being bandied about.

'Mr Potter,' the stern voice of Professor Mcgonagall called after several long minutes had passed. 'If you would like to accompany me to the headmaster's office.'

Harry rose from his seat, stretching stiffly. He wondered what Dumbledore wanted. The headmaster had not spoken a word to him since his remonstration in the antechamber over a month ago.

'If you like, Mr Potter, we can go via the tower so you can change into some fresh clothes.' There was a stiff suggestion in the tone of his head of house.

'It's ok,' Harry smiled, glancing down at his crumpled, creased robes. With a subtle motion of his wand within his sleeve he transfigured them. Crisp, clean black school robes took the place of his worn clothing.

'You have become much more accomplished than I realised,' Mcgonagall commented. There was a glint of approval in her eye as she inspected Harry's transfiguration. 'To the headmaster's office then.'

No further words were spoken between them until they reached the gargoyle.

'Sweet crystals,' Mcgonagall ordered in a tone that implied a certain level of resignation at the headmaster's choice of passwords.

Harry followed his head of house slowly up the staircase, wondering with every step why he had been summoned. He hadn't seen or heard anything from Dumbledore since his headmaster had conveyed his disappointment in Harry after his selection for the Triwizard Tournament and, after his recent realisations, he didn't want to see him.

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