"Absent Friends"
a different sort of fanfic.
The room was dark, lonely, and mysterious. Although it was empty, a tension filled it, a waiting, a hushed power that seemed to barely constrain itself from bursting out into action—but above all, the blackness caught at the imagination.
It wasn’t an exhausted blackness, like that of an office finally closed for the night as the last straggling workers left, or the restful slumber of a house with all the occupants peacefully asleep. This room was dark because those in charge of keeping it safe were afraid, and kept it so dark on purpose.
But tonight, it wasn’t a as complete a blackness—yet the feeble, hesitant, faintly blue light that shone from the room’s center illuminated nothing of the shadows around it and only patches of its source.
The great stone dais stood alone in the room, its ancient archway crumbled and weathered. There was nothing remotely remarkable about the dais itself, except for its antiquity, but it was not the stone that had been hidden away here.
What frightened its keepers so much, mystified, bemused, tantalized and agonized them were the Veil, and the archway it hung from.
Tattered, worn, and faded, the Veil hung down across the arch like a badly done makeshift door. It was from the Veil that the blue light came, although anyone watching would not be able to tell whether its source was the cloth itself, or some point beyond.
A breeze swept through the room, like the sound of a thousand whispered voices. It—they—brushed the Veil, gently carrying it to the side of the arch as though a ghostly, invisible hand had suddenly gripped it.
If anyone had been watching, they should have—would have—expected to see the other side of the room through the arch. Instead, there was... nothing. The room could be seen around the arch and over it, but between its arms there was… just emptiness.
Except…
The whisper came again. It no longer sounded remotely like the wind. It was a low, sad, whisper, and it echoed strangely, as though two voices were speaking slightly out of sync with each other.
“Harry,” the whisper called sadly, penetrating the room with a ghostly sigh. “Harry…”
But there was no one to answer; no one to witness—
But then—
A flash of fire illuminated the scene like lightning. A single red-gold feather appeared out of nowhere, floating through the darkened room like a tiny ship on an endless sea, buffeted by tiny air currents. The stillness seemed to condense, draw in on itself, as the feather came closer and closer to the emptiness of the arch. Without a sound, it reached the edge—and fell through into the nothingness, vanishing so completely that it might never have been.
For a moment, the stillness held. Then suddenly—the soft cry of a bird, an unearthly, exotic sound, a quivering note of power and sadness and hope exploded into the room. From that one note came a symphony that filled the darkness, battled it, and conquered, sending echoes and echoes of echoes into the long forgotten, dusty corners, strains of beauty beyond measure seeming almost to take physical shape; it defied understanding, reality, and even the intuition of the human heart.
When the glorious sound finally faded away, the whisper grew stronger, as though it had gathered strength from the healing, penetrating music.
“Harry…" the whisper came, "I’m sorry…”
Then it, too, faded. The blue light slowly dimmed as silence was restored, and limp once again, as though the invisible hand had released it, the Veil drooped down to cover the portal of emptiness.
Nothing here had changed permanently; the room went back to its darkness, its waiting, and its mysteries. But somewhere out in the velvet night the bird called again, a softer note, a calm sound, like balm to the soul. Beautiful, almost unbearably vibrant, it drifted through an open window and—thanks to, perhaps, a trick of the ears—seemed to echo the whisper’s words.
Harry rolled over in his sleep, the tortured images of a nightmare—a memory—fading into pleasant dreams as his unconscious mind responded to what his waking self would not have understood.
For now, although the sun would rise on a grey, grim world, though Harry would face the trials ahead only reluctantly and with shrinking hope, his heart eased a little from this small comfort, his soul taking courage in this gift from beyond the grave. In a way, absent friends had joined him again, healing certain wounds and empty places in shadowy places of his own heart that he dared not face. As the music faded, the sound of beating wings came and went, and Harry breathed more easily. His sleep deepened, and some of the tension left his face, dreams, too, easing into a pure rest—and Harry was comforted.
For he knew he would not be facing the day alone.