Chapter Text
Harry barely made it out of the Chamber of Secrets conscious. Fawkes’ tears had healed the wound the basilisk had left on the surface, but they were still working on purging the venom from his body. As a result, it felt as if his blood was boiling beneath his skin, like he would burst into flames at any time.
It must not have been noticeable to the others, however. Ginny was sent to the Hospital Wing, accompanied by her very relieved, very protective parents, but Dumbledore decided that Harry simply needed food and sleep after his ordeal.
Despite how everything felt, Harry wasn’t going to protest the decision. The Hospital Wing had always made him uncomfortable and he’d already been in there several times this year. Even when he was just visiting others, it wasn't a place he wanted to be.
Besides, he was clearly fine. The basilisk venom hadn’t killed him yet and he doubted that it would, now that he had phoenix tears in his system. The boiling sensation would stop eventually.
The days got harder, however. Harry was grateful that exams had been cancelled because after a few days, it was clear to him that he wouldn’t be able to focus on an exam. All he wanted to do was sleep, but sleep was hard to come by when it was impossible to get comfortable. His pillows and comforter gave him rashes until whoever did the laundry replaced the down materials with something else. The dorm room was too hot, too stifling. After the first few nights, Harry found himself slipping under the invisibility cloak and going in search of someplace cooler.
One night, he made his way up to the owlery and spent the night cooing over Hedwig and the other owls, distributing treats liberally, enjoying the sensations as they pressed their feathers against his skin up until the point where his skin started prickling, like something under them wanted to burst free. Fawkes had even dropped by, close to the dawn hours, though the owls had been less than welcoming to the brightly-colored bird.
Fawkes had seemed to sense their attitude, so he’d only stayed for a few minutes—just long enough to run his beak through Harry’s hair a few times and accept a treat from the wizard. Then, the phoenix had taken to the air, flying well out of sight of Hogwarts.
Well, maybe he was delivering a message for Dumbledore, Harry guessed, though one hadn’t been present as the phoenix left.
Another night, he made his way down to the Black Lake and soaked his feet. The cold water did nothing for the constant heat he felt, however. And yet another night, he ended up in one of Professor Sprout’s greenhouses. Herbology had never been his favorite subject, but during that particular night, there was nowhere else he’d rather be. Greenhouse two held cold-weather plants, so cooling charms kept the air pleasant. The large piles of dirt in the back of the greenhouse also made a particularly comfortable bed, Harry learned when he’d gotten too tired to look over the plants. He’d probably gotten the most sleep that night, definitely more than he had in the dorms.
Hermione and Ron didn’t seem to notice Harry’s predicament, though they did notice that he was growing increasingly irritable as the final weeks of summer term dragged on, prone to snapping at them when he was too hot, too tired, too uncomfortable. Mostly they chalked it up to his reluctance to return home at the end of term, back to the Dursleys. However, Hermione suggested a few times that Harry go to the Hospital Wing, if only for some fever reducers, but Harry never listened to those particular suggestions. He wouldn’t willingly consume a potion—they all tasted nasty—and he just knew that fever reducers wouldn’t help in this case. Besides, thanks to Potions, he knew exactly which ingredients went into a fever reducer and he wouldn’t consume a single one of them by itself willingly, let alone a brew made with all of them combined.
Harry forced himself to enjoy the last few hours on the Hogwarts Express at the end of June. He used a liberal amount of cooling charms and picked Hermione’s brain on how to place extended cooling charms on all of his clothing in his trunk. He played Exploding Snap with Hermione, Ron, Fred, George, and Ginny, and set off the last of the twins’ Filibuster Fireworks, taking a surprising amount of joy in seeing the things accidentally set fires all over the train. The twins had a talent for pyrotechnics, it seemed, as did Ginny. It matched well with their red hair, he supposed. If elemental magic existed, he would definitely peg them all as fitting within the Fire element.
And then he was back at the Dursleys, his extended family decidedly not happy to see him again. He was sure they enjoyed his absence during the school year just as much as he enjoyed not having to live with them. Privet Drive had never been home and honestly, he would do anything to never go back there again.
But he had failed in doing so for the second summer in a row.
The many number of locks were still on the door to his room. The cat flap was still there as well. Harry supposed he should be grateful that Uncle Vernon had never gotten around to replacing the bars on his window.
Like always, it was sure to be a miserable summer.
Not only was it a miserable summer, but it was a hot one as well. The Dursleys ran the air in their house liberally during the day and every window was opened at night, for some sort of relief from the heat.
A relief that Harry could never quite find. As the days and weeks passed, he felt himself getting weaker and more tired, barely managing to eat. After the first few weeks, the Dursleys didn’t bother to give him chores, not wanting him to collapse in the midst of doing them. He wasted away to the point where Aunt Petunia was considering taking him to a hospital, only stopped by Uncle Vernon’s warning that they would likely do blood tests and figure out there was something freakish about him from that.
Harry didn’t want his blood drawn or any tests to be run on him, so he was thankful when that was the end of that particular conversation. Instead, he just sat in his room, even though he wasn’t locked in there like he had been last summer.
It was only at night when Harry could muster enough energy to move around and to try to eat. He made sure the Dursleys were sound asleep before he sneaking down to the kitchen, searching for things that he wouldn’t have to heat up. Bread, a few vegetables, ice cream when he was sure that neither Uncle Vernon or Dudley would notice. Fruit. Lots and lots of fruit. His favorite thing, he discovered, was to coat apples in cinnamon.
He was sure that his Aunt Petunia had noticed, since she was the one that did the shopping, but surprisingly, she never complained. Never said a word about it, not to Harry, not to Uncle Vernon.
Small mercies, Harry decided.
It all changed the early morning of July 30th, however.
Harry had fallen asleep against the refrigerator, the coolness of the appliance granting him a few hours of rest. He only started to stir when the dawn light began to trickle in the kitchen.
Quietly, he cleaned up his mess. The jar of cinnamon went back into the spice cabinet, the apple cores and seeds buried under the garbage left behind from dinner the night before. The knife and plate were run under water for a quick moment before being hastily dried.
A sharp knock on the door prevented him from going back upstairs, however.
It wasn’t loud enough to wake the Dursleys, but the last thing Harry wanted was for the bell to ring. Because if it rang now, there wouldn’t be enough time to sneak back in his room. Uncle Vernon would see him wandering about the house and his reaction to that would be decidedly less than pleasant.
Reluctantly, he peered out the peephole, wondering who would visit the Dursleys at this early hour. He promptly grimaced at the sight of the woman on the other side of the door. Judging by her attire, it was not a visitor for the Dursleys, because they would definitely not consider that normal.
It was a visitor for him.
His stomach twisted nervously, but he opened the door, staring at the woman apprehensively.
She was unlike anyone he’d ever seen before, with her dark skin, red hair, and red-gold eyes. A few scars covered her visible skin, scars that looked quite fresh to Harry, as if they barely had time to heal. There were probably more scars he couldn’t see, considering she was wearing armor. Lots of armor. A sword hung at her side, as did several iron fans. Harry had the feeling that if she unfurled the fans, the edges would be as sharp as any blade.
Her eyes swept over him briefly and she cursed under her breath. “Arielle, I thought you would be older,” she muttered. She turned her head to the side and for the first time, Harry spotted the bird on her shoulder—Fawkes, he realized, though he wasn’t sure why the phoenix would be with this stranger and not with Dumbledore. “This is him?”
To Harry’s surprise, the phoenix bobbed his head in a nod-like action.
The woman cursed again. “Lovely,” she said, reaching across to grip the door, preventing Harry from even attempting to close it. She stared down at him, red-gold eyes burning, a solemn expression on her face. “Let’s talk.”