Chapter Six: The Lifeboat
I awoke to the reality of Richard Parker. There was a tiger in the lifeboat. I could hardly believe it, yet I knew I had to. And I had to safe myself.-The Life of Pi, Yann Martel
The soft yet steady sound of waves lapping woke Harry from his slumber. The pain in his head was now a dull ache. For a moment, Harry thought the events that occurred was a bad dream. The ship was fine, everyone was okay. He would walk up on the deck and see Hermione's smiling face.
But when he opened his eyes all he saw was blue. Blue of the sky with wisps of puffy clouds left over from the storm. He was cramped and his whole body ached. He had passed out in such cramped quarters. The blaring whiteness of the boat around him hurt his eyes a little so he sat up.
For the first time in his life, even after living with the Dursley's, even after the morning he lost his Godfather, Harry wished he had never woken up. Reality hit him like a sledgehammer. There was nothing around him. Nothing but blue ocean reaching as far to the horizons all around him. The ocean seemed infinitesimal and he just a small speck in it. Where were all the other lifeboats? Someone had to survive.
"Hello?" Harry shouted to the nothingness.
"There's no one out there," came a small voice from the other side of the boat.
Harry was shocked. He had registered that he was on a lifeboat but his mind had somehow forgotten the possibility that he was not alone on it. A sort of calm came over him. The panic going away slightly with the thought that he wasn't alone out here.
Harry walked to the other side of the lifeboat, stepping over another sleeping survivor. He peered under the tarp that covered the bow and saw a figure on the floor, huddled in a fetal position. The sharp smell of vomit hit him. His eyes adjusted to the dark contrast of the white boat.
"Malfoy?" he called out, recognizing the blond head of hair. Of all his rotten luck.
"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me," Draco said, thinking the same thought.
"Were you the one who pulled me out of the water?" he asked.
"No…I think it was him," Draco motioned to their sleeping occupant. "He's been asleep as long as you have."
Harry walked over to the man. He recognized him as one of the professors. Harry nudged him to awaken but the man did not stir. Looking closely Harry now saw that the man's neck was twisted at a weird angle.
He walked back to the covered tarp and sat down under it's shade, still a ways away from Draco.
"He's not sleeping. He's dead," he said plainly.
Draco sat up and stared in the direction where the man lay. A blank look on his face.
"No matter," he said. "We'll be rescued soon."
Harry hoped that he was right.
The day passed in silence. As the sun set Harry moved back to the stern of the boat, laying down on a bench, he gazed out at the golden waters ahead of him, the water glittering under the broken sunlight. Thoughts of rescue filled Harry's head. A boat would come. Hermione and Ron would be on it, waving and cheering as they were brought on board. He missed his friends terribly. The fight they had was stupid and childish. When they were all rescued they would make amends and they would be the trio again. Laughing, having adventures and making their last year at Hogwarts memorable. He thought of Hermione's smile as he looked up at the stars. He hoped she was okay. His mind refused the thought that she might not have made it off the ship.
~*~
"Wait until my mother hears about this," Draco mumbled.
This was the chatter that filled the next morning. Draco muttered to himself and Harry listened as they tried to unlock the silver boxes that they found on the ship.
"Are you sure you don't have your wand?" Draco asked again.
Harry sighed. "For the millionth time, no…I don't."
"I couldn't find mine," Draco sulked and Harry averted his eyes.
Frustrated, Harry dropped the box and reached for an oar. Yanking it free of its binds, he hit the blunt edge on the lock hard. It easily gave way, giving access to its goodies inside. Draco took another oar and together they managed to open all six of the boxes.
Laying its contents out, they took inventory. Water, food rations, rope, blankets, matches, flares, buckets, fishing kits, first aid kits and other little odds and ends. Harry and Draco greedily drank some of the water, the horrible thirst they had was quenched. Draco hungrily dove into the food rations while Harry quietly ate only a few bites.
"We should ration these," he said thoughtfully.
"Why?" Draco asked.
"We don't know how long we're going to be out here," Harry replied.
Draco looked at him as if he'd grown two heads. "We're going to be rescued soon," he said.
"We don't know that for sure," Harry said impatiently.
Draco narrowed his eyes at him. "Fine!" he shouted. He divided the food rations in half. "You do what you want with yours, I'll do what I want with mine. You can go ahead and starve yourself until someone comes along."
The afternoon sun beat relentlessly down on them. Harry sought the shade under the tarp with Draco again, trying to block out his incessant whining.
"Figures that this was made for muggles," Draco muttered angrily. "No emergency wands or potions or portkeys. I mean who did they think would be on this ship?"
Harry did have to admit that he had a point. An emergency portkey would do wonders right now.
"Do they really expect us to survive like muggles until we're rescued?" Draco continued.
"It's not as bad as you think," Harry said.
"Oh forgive me. I forgot I was talking to a muggle lover," Draco sneered.
"Things could be a lot worse, Draco. A lot worse."
At sunset, Harry moved to the stern again, resting on the bench. The sun set on the horizon along with his hopes of other survivors.
~*~
"We have to get rid of him," Harry said plainly as he ate a bit of his food rations.
"I agree," Draco said. Draco's thoughts of immediate rescue had been lost overnight. He was eating his left over rations carefully.
The boat's third occupant was still on the ship. He was beginning to smell. Harry and Draco both got up, Harry taking his legs, Draco his arms.
"God, he's heavy," Draco complained as they lifted him.
Together they managed to dump him in the ocean with a large splash. Harry watched as the body floated for a minute then slowly began to sink. Harry wanted to trade places with him. The ocean had taken his best friends, his Hermione was somewhere in there and he wanted to be with her.
"I know you had something to do with it," Harry said suddenly.
"Huh?" Draco asked.
"The morning after we left New Orleans," Harry turned and faced him. "I know you had something to do with it."
Draco let out a short breath of laughter. "Fuck off, Potter," he said and turned away.
Harry growled and tackled him to the ground.
"You set us up!" he shouted as he punched him. "I know you did!"
"Don't blame me because you ruined things with the mudblood!" Draco shouted, punching Harry back.
"Hermione!" Harry shouted out. "Her name is Hermione." Tears clouded his eyes and he chocked back a sob as he rolled away from Draco. "Her name was Hermione," Harry whispered, letting the tears come, not caring if Draco saw them.
Draco sat up and wiped some blood off his lip with the back of his hand. "We're never going to see them again, are we?" he said softly.
Harry wiped away his tears and sat up. Draco reached over the side of the boat and began to wash the blood away. Harry did the same. A short while later, there was a sharp thump on the side of the boat. Sharks had come to see where the blood had come from, hoping for the possibility of a meal.
Lying under the stars that night Harry heard the soft sniffles of his shipmate. Thoughts of suicide and throwing himself to the sharks filled his mind. But the sun rose the next morning, and the thought went away. Little by little each day Harry slowly let go of the thoughts of ending his life and accepting the new twist that fate had thrown him.
~*~
"I'd give my left nut for a chocolate frog," Draco said aloud as he chewed on a piece of dried fish. Harry laughed and checked on the other fish. They couldn't cook the fish they had caught so they had to settle on drying them in the hot sun.
"Rain's coming," Harry said as he looked off into the horizon.
"I'll set out the bottles again," Draco sighed.
They used the empty water bottles to catch the water from the rainfalls.
"Shouldn't be here until nightfall," Harry sighed.
Small squalls weren't pleasant on such a small boat. The choppy waves rocked the boat and Draco gave way to his seasickness, muttering and cursing the entire time. Harry could only threaten Draco to hold his stomach. They had to share the shelter and as soon as the smell of vomit hit his nostrils along with the rocking motion, Harry had a hard time himself not heaving anything up.
"You said her name again in your sleep," Draco said.
Harry sighed. "I don't want to talk about her."
"Well, I'd just like to voice that I don't appreciate my shipmate's wet dreams," Draco teased.
"Knock it off, Draco," Harry scowled.
"Oh, come on, you have to admit that right now, you're regretting that you never got to hit that."
"I am not talking about this with you," Harry moved away from him.
"Hell, I'm regretting it," Draco muttered and Harry gave him a dirty look. "Just put a silencing charm on her so you can't hear her spouting out the technicalities of what you are doing and she'd be great!"
Harry let out a little laugh.
"I'm serious," Draco said.
"What about you and Pansy, huh?" Harry asked.
"What about us?" Draco asked.
"Aren't you regretting you didn't have one last shag with her?"
"Who says I didn't? She's not that great to be honest with you," Draco sighed. "But pussy is pussy so…" he shrugged.
The storm wasn't bad at all that night. It was only rain. The air was chilly so Harry wrapped the blanket around himself. Thoughts of his last night with Hermione filled his mind as he drifted off to sleep.
~*~
Draco woke up early the next morning. The bottom of the boat was wet with water from the rainfall. He would have to bail some of the water out. The water bottles were mostly filled and Draco topped them off with the water that had pooled on top of the tarp that shaded them. He was capping the last one when something on the horizon caught his eyes.
"Harry! Harry wake up!" Draco shook him.
"What? What is it?" Harry scrambled to his feet.
"Look! Look at this!" Draco dragged him from the shelter.
Harry looked in the direction Draco was pointing. For days on end, the horizon had been an endless flat line of ocean. Today, however, that line was broken.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I don't know. It's small though," Harry said.
They opened up one of the boxes and searched for a flare.
"Hurry, we don't want to lose it," Draco said.
Harry brought out a flare gun, scrambled out of the shelter and aimed for the sky. But before he could pull the trigger, Draco yanked his arm down.
"What if it isn't what we think it is?" he asked.
"What if it's a ship?" Harry countered.
"What if the people on that ship aren't friendly?" Draco said. "Don't you think a rescue ship would be bigger?"
Harry licked his lips in anticipation. Maybe Draco was right.
"Alright," Harry brought the flare down. "But we keep it in sight, whatever it is."
They both turned to look at the horizon again. The object seemed a bit closer.
"Doesn't it look a little closer?" Draco asked.
Suddenly there was a bright flash as something soared into the sky then exploded in fireworks. Harry immediately shot his flare in the sky.
It did the exact same thing.
"It's another lifeboat!" Draco screamed.
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