Chapter 10 Blind
Blind
I don’t remember who I wanna be
Blind
Don’t remember who I used to call me
I’m blind and the shadows are eternity
I’m blind but there’s still color in my memory
Blind
Oh, I’m blind
Is there still hope for me?
He stole it. But Liam couldn’t help it because he was hungry and it looked so good. And there were so many of them in the store. He knew that he would regret it one day, but he couldn’t help it, and after that first one Liam stole more and more and more. And it was funny because he never used to like apples much before.
But that was before, and he rarely remembered those days now. It was all pushed away and locked up somewhere in the back of his mind where even he couldn’t see it.
All there was left now was the scary darkness and the fog and shouts and yelling and waiting, waiting for something bad to happen. And it did. Over and over. Again and again.
And he had no where to go, so Liam slept in hidden, far-away corners, and he didn’t know what it was but there seemed to be a force protecting him from harm while he slept in his dark, secluded corners and in the old half-ruined buildings.
During the day he would get bored and hungry and walk around the streets and watch people. They were scared, always scared, and sometimes he would see big posters like the ones in movies. The faces on them were ugly too, scary. It was like a long un-ending Halloween, but these people weren’t really dressed up, it was what they were really like. They were killers. Murderers. And Liam saw them exactly three times after that day.
The first time he was walking through the streets quietly, munching on an apple (it had been a month since he started stealing and Liam didn’t really care about eating it in public anymore), and he had been happy that day because the sun was up and the mist that floated over the rooftops seemed weak.
He had passed the picture only a minute before it happened. The man in the wanted sign looked like he was made of ice. Liam imagined an evil ice king as he stared at the frightening eyes and the scarred face.
Then they had come. This time they weren’t trying to hide themselves or anything. He could see them clearly and so could everyone else in the street. Screams erupted and blood was splattering everywhere and a fire started burning in one of the houses on the edge of the street. And Liam had watched in horror as they waved around a strange kind of laser guns and shot out colored beams of light at the people on the street.
The apple dropped to the ground and Liam remembered to the end of his days how it changed color and glowed green and then red and blue and even purple before settling back into its original red color. He never ate apples again.
He stared it for a while, and in the eerie light of the battle Liam’s vision began to blur. He looked up and saw a tall robed figure standing only a few feet away with his back turned to him. Liam watched the man firing off a green laser beam and he saw it hit a woman in the chest. Another jet of light soon followed bringing her small terrified daughter down after her. Liam could feel his heartbeat pounding in his head and he stared at the black robed figure, his veins burning once again, just like that day.
He watched, with a bitter nauseated feeling as the murderer’s robes erupted into violent green flames that soon consumed his whole body.
The second time he saw them he was standing in the middle of a shop trying to concentrate on getting the largest amount of bread out of there without being seen. He turned to the lady at the desk and tried to make his eyes focus through the white hazy film covering his eyes. She wasn’t paying any attention so he checked to ensure that no one was near enough to the door and made a run for it.
There were no shouts, no “Shoplifter!” resounding through his ears. He kept running for a while, but he didn’t get caught or stopped or talked to and Liam knew it had been a shoddy robbery this time so he turned slowly around. They should have caught up to him by now.
He walked back slowly, the quiet suddenly filling his ears painfully. Slowly approaching the store he suddenly noticed that although the ever-present haze was still there, there was also a green mist impairing his vision. He ran now, his heart thudding mercilessly in his chest and did not stop to look around until he was standing in the doorway of the shop.
The green haze filled the room and they were all there, all the people that had been when Liam was in there. But now they all lay on the floor with their eyes wide open and their bodies deathly rigid. He did not try to squint or concentrate hard when he looked behind the counter because Liam didn’t want to see the shopkeeper’s expression. The last thing he had done for them was shoplift.
Liam never stole again.
It is not surprising then that his next encounter with the robed figures came very soon and caught him in a weak, haunted state. It was three days after his last robbery and he was very, very hungry. Liam was walking through the streets slowly, battling with his conscience and the ever present film over his eyes. It had been tinged with green ever since that day and reminded him of the silly paper glasses they used to wear to see the world in red or blue or green. The thought of those old games brought both a smile to his face and tears to his eyes. He was going mad.
He didn’t jump or shudder or run or do anything much when he heard the first scream. He just stood there in the middle of the street trying to take in the blazing fires and the crumbling buildings and the horrible laughter that filled the air. It was then that Liam realized that he wasn’t going to go to hell someday for all the horrible things he’d done.
Because he was already in it.
Suddenly a loud scream ripped through his ears: “Heeeeeeeeelp!” it was a little girl, “Mummy please – no mummy, daddy pleeeeeeeease!”
Liam fell to the floor and stared out into the darkness before him with tearful eyes. His tears ran down his cheeks and they felt sticky and disgusting on his skin. It was all he could do now, he thought, just sit there and cry and wait- hope- to be killed. He would never be a strong, brave, firefighter now.
The tears were hot against his eyes. They burned them, slowly but surely, drowning the boy into a world of eternal darkness.
………
Ron stood still with his back to Harry and Hermione’s in a tight circle, well triangle really, he thought. None of them dared to move although they stood now in the quiet ruins of downtown Cambridge after a surprising and vicious attack.
“It’s over,” Hermione whispered, still not moving from her position. Ron was the first to turn his back to the world and the battleground and look at his companions. He eyed Hermione’s sleek blond hair with disgust and tugged at his own brown curls. The disguises hadn’t worked at all.
What had begun as a quiet, sneaky, break in to find out more about one of He- Voldemort’s more “interesting” followers and hopefully about the Horcruxes had turned into a large-scale battle in which Voldemort unleashed his wrath on a city full of innocent Muggles. Ron tried hard to fight the sick feeling in his stomach. They hadn’t been able to save anyone, and had barely saved themselves with the help of the Order and various Aurors.
“Mate?” Harry’s voice interrupted his thoughts. Ron took out his wand and transformed both his and Hermione’s features back to normal before turning to Harry. He heard a small sniff from Hermione as he looked at Harry’s unnatural appearance. The scar was still there, he noted, pushing Hermione’s small whisper of “vain” to the back of his mind.
“Mate,” Harry repeated, “It’s hot and…I can almost feel his anger through it.”
“What’s hot, Harry?” he asked. Hermione shot him a shushing look as she transformed Harry’s features back to normal.
“The Horcrux, mate, I’m sure it’s a Horcrux!”
“What? But Dolohov wasn’t important enough to be keeping something so important, right?” Ron voiced his doubts, “Besides we weren’t even sure if the information about this so called son of his was true, or that he’d been in contact with Malfoy or-”
“Ron, look, feel it, it’s nearly burning my hand!”
“How does your scar feel, Harry?” Hermione asked quickly conjuring a small magical sack for the possible Horcrux.
“Well, it’s alright now,” he replied, “Just a little prickly. You were right Hermione.”
Ron did not have time to take in her triumphant smile because he had just spotted a small shivering form huddled in the middle of the battle. He walked over to the boy quickly muttering something to his friends to assure them that he would be right back.
It was a little boy and Ron wondered what torture he had been though in this battle, who he had lost, as he walked to the other side to face him. As he kneeled down before the boy Ron noticed that Moody had caught his friends and was interrogating them once again.
He looked down and resisted the urge to look away again. There was something funny about the boy’s eyes and the way he looked out at him. Ron stretched his hand out, trying to stop the boy’s spastic shaking, but he was thrown back, a shock creeping through his arm as soon as he touched him. He must be a Wizard-born or half-blood, Ron thought, his parents must have put some sort of protective spell on him, which would explain why such a little thing had survived the battle.
“It’s over, errrr, what’s your name?”
“Liam.” the boy answered automatically, still staring funny at the same spot.
“Right, Liam, it’s over now.” Ron realized that even he couldn’t force himself to say something as stupid as “It’s going to be alright”.
“Let’s go get you by a fire-” the boy suddenly jumped before settling back into his shivers, “To get warm, and then maybe Madam Pomfrey can take a look at you, she’s the best Healer ever, and she’ll be able to fix anything and make you feel better…”
“Blind people can’t be Firefighters right?” the boy asked in a half-whisper. Ron furrowed his brows and looked at the boy; they had begun to Apparate and leave the scene to the Muggle please-men, or what was left of them, to take care of. Hermione was waving him over urgently over Moody’s shoulder and so he stood up and picked up the tiny boy.
“We’re just going to go back to Hogwarts,” Ron said in a louder than necessary voice, “And we’ll get you into the Hospital wing and then we’ll talk a little.”
He was looking at Moody the whole time he said this and he noticed that the boy didn’t put up any resistance or protest. He was mumbling something from his spot in Ron’s aching arms and everyone was looking at them now wondering if the boy had been driven to insanity or if there was still hope for him after the battle. Ron bent down and brought his hand to the Portkey on the ground bracing himself for the pulling sensation in his gut and hoping that he wouldn’t lose his lunch.
