Peace had finally come to Hogwarts, but Harry couldn't feel it. The world had turned golden again, the air warm and full of life, yet something inside him stayed cold and unmoving. Everyone said it was over. Voldemort was gone. The war had ended. So why did it still seem as though a part of him hadn't stopped fighting?
The summer sun hung over the castle as if reluctant to leave. Its light slid across the grounds in slow, golden sheets, spilling over the broken walls and scattered stones, over the towers that even now bore scorch marks from spells that had missed their mark. The air shimmered faintly with heat, yet under the sweetness of wildflowers there lingered the bitter trace of smoke and ruin.
Harry sat by the lake, where the grass bent beneath his weight and the stream lapped gently at the shore. The reflections trembled on the surface; the castle doubled and distorted in the ripples. He let his fingers drift through the cool water, scattering the image into fragments. The waves spread outward, caught the light, then disappeared.
Somewhere across the lawns came laughter, high and sudden, followed by the thud of footsteps and a muffled shout. Someone was carrying planks, perhaps, or coaxing tools back to life under Professor Flitwick's direction. The castle was being mended. So were the people. Harry listened to it all, yet the sound felt oddly far away, like hearing a conversation through a wall.
He wanted to feel the relief everyone else seemed to share, the ordinary calm of safety. But his chest was heavy and tight, as though something was pressing against it from the inside. His body was alive, but his mind had not yet caught up.
He closed his eyes. The air smelled of grass and warm stone, lake water and sunlight. He tried to let the warmth soak through him, but every flicker of peace seemed to vanish as quickly as it came. Shadows moved behind his eyelids: a flash of green light, the forest, the face of the man who had killed his parents and died at his hands. He drew a breath, sharp and uneven, and opened his eyes again.
The water captured the shine, too bright to look at for an extended time. He watched it until his vision stung.
"Harry!"
He turned at once, though part of him had known it would be her. Ginny was walking towards him from the direction of the castle, her stride brisk against the long grass that brushed her knees. The sunlight caught her hair as she moved, turning it the colour of new copper.
Harry's chest tightened before he could stop it. She looked so certain, so utterly alive under the same sky that still felt strange to him. The warmth that spread through the air didn't seem to reach the spot where he sat.
She slowed as she drew closer, her trainers flattening the grass, and stopped a few feet away. "You've been sitting there for ages," she remarked, her tone softer now. "Taking it all in, are you?"
He glanced back toward the lake. The water shimmered with sunlight, each ripple bright enough to sting the eyes. Farther off, near the fringe of the forest, smoke rose faintly from the direction of Hagrid's hut, the kind that came from cooking, not fire. Somewhere closer, he could hear the faint chatter of students still at work on the castle repairs, hammers tapping in steady rhythm.
"I suppose I am," he murmured at last. His voice sounded rough, as though unused.
"You've been 'taking it all in' for the past half hour," she teased, moving to stand beside him. There were no accusations in it, only quiet amusement.
Harry tried for a smile and failed. "Guess I lost track of time."
Ginny tilted her head slightly, studying him. Her eyes were steady. "You all right?"
He wanted to answer quickly, to give her something simple. Of course I'm all right. But the words stuck somewhere behind his ribs, where the truth had learned to hide.
"I'm fine," he managed, and looked back at the lake.
Ginny lowered herself into the grass beside him, her movement easy and familiar. The space between them felt full of unspoken things. She rested her arms on her knees and glanced sideways at him. "It's been a week, Harry. You don't have to pretend."
He didn't answer. A beetle crawled over a blade of grass near his hand and tumbled into the water, sending out tiny circles that broke the stillness. The ripples faded just as quickly as they had begun.
Pretend. The word echoed somewhere deep in his mind. It was what everyone wanted from him—the Ministry, the papers, the people who stopped him in the corridors to thank him. Pretend it's over and you're fine. Pretend you do not wake up hearing the last words of the dead.
"I'm not pretending," he whispered, though the lie was thin. "I just don't know what I should feel."
Ginny turned her head towards him. "You don't have to feel anything yet. You only have to be here."
Harry swallowed, the movement tight in his throat. The wind shifted, brushing his fringe from his forehead. The sting rose behind his eyes before he could blink it away.
"I'm just tired," he murmured. "That's all."
It wasn't, and they both knew it.
Ginny didn't press, scoff or argue. She simply waited and stood beside him until he was ready to speak. Sometimes it took minutes or hours.
His gaze drifted over the lawn again.
Students sprawled across the grass, laughing as though nothing had ever been wrong. Someone had started a game of Exploding Snap beneath the beech tree by the water's edge, its bursts of colour and smoke rising against the sunlight. The laughter that followed was genuine, warm, and ordinary—and somehow, it no longer seemed to belong here.
"They're all laughing," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "Celebrating. Like it's all finished now—the war, Voldemort, everything."
Also, saying the name felt wrong, heavy on his tongue, as if it belonged to another life altogether.
His jaw ached before he realised he'd been clenching it, the tension wound tight at the hinge and creeping down his throat.
"I thought I'd feel different, you know? After it ended. Relief, maybe. Peace, even. But instead…" He frowned, eyes on the lake. "It's like I'm stuck somewhere the rest of them have already walked away from."
The words scraped their way out. He hated how small they sounded, how childish. By now, he should have been better. He should have been past it.
Ginny turned her head, only slightly, enough for her gaze to catch his. Her voice came quietly, nearly lost in the wind.
"It's not over for you, is it?"
Harry shook his head, the movement short and tired. "I don't know how to stop waiting," he admitted, his tone low. "Anticipating the next fight, and the next thing to go wrong."
He hadn't meant it to sound so hollow, but hearing it aloud made the truth of it sink deeper.
Silence settled between them.
He looked back at the lake. Its surface gleamed, too calm, too perfect, as if it were trying to forget what it had reflected.
"I don't want to drag you into this," he murmured, quieter still. "You've had enough to deal with."
"Don't talk rubbish," Ginny shot back at once, her tone firm but warm.
She reached for his hand without hesitation, her fingers sliding easily into his. "You're not dragging me anywhere," she told him. "I'm already here. Right beside you."
He looked down at their joined hands. There was nothing magical about the gesture—no spell, no light, no fanfare. Just her hand in his, steady and warm. And somehow, that simple contact anchored him more than anything else had in days.
Her next words came softly, slower now. "I saw you flinch yesterday. At dinner. When someone dropped a glass."
Harry's stomach sank. He looked away, pretending to watch the lake. "Didn't think anyone noticed."
"I did," Ginny answered. Her tone was calm, certain.
Of course she had.
"You're not sleeping much either," she went on, her voice gentler now. "Don't bother lying—I've seen the bags under your eyes. You are giving Snape a run for his money."
The corners of his mouth twitched before the sound escaped him: a quiet, breathy laugh that felt strange after so long.
"Poor Snape," he murmured. "Even dead, we're still taking the mickey out of his complexion."
Ginny's grin flickered but faded as quickly as it came. Her expression softened, serious now.
"Harry," she asked quietly, "is something going on? Anything you haven't told me?"
He hesitated.
The words hovered on the edge of his tongue, but hesitation held them back; or fear. Or simply the habit of carrying everything alone. He didn't want to worry her. She'd worried enough. Everyone had.
And what if it were nothing? What if this was just him being broken?
"I'm alright," he managed at last, his voice quieter now. "It feels like everybody else has moved on, and I'm…"
He trailed off, unable to finish.
"You're what?" Ginny asked softly.
Harry looked down at his trainers; scuffed, cracked, and still faintly marked with soot and blood from the battle. He hadn't had the heart to replace them. He had replaced hardly anything.
"Stuck," he murmured quietly. It feels as if I am still trapped, waiting for things to fall apart again.
She was silent for a moment. Then, her fingers tightened around his.
"You're not on your own in this," she whispered, her voice soft but sure. "You never were."
He nodded, even though the motion felt empty. "I know. I do. It seems as though I forgot what that feels like."
Ginny didn't speak.
She only shifted closer until her shoulder brushed his, her head resting lightly against him. The warmth of her touch steadied him; the world stopped tilting so much.
"Then I'll remind you," she promised softly, "every sodding day if I have to."
His throat tightened. He blinked hard, willing the sting in his eyes not to win.
"That sounds exhausting," he joked weakly, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.
"Good thing I'm stubborn, then," she replied, with a slight huff that might have been laughter.
Something in her voice caught him off guard. It wasn't just the words. It was the way she said them, like a promise rather than comfort. As if even if he came apart completely, she'd always be there, piece by piece, putting him back together.
For a moment, he couldn't breathe.
The ache in his chest throbbed, sharp and deep. He pressed his lips together, jaw tight, but the tears continued to rise.
He hated feeling weak.
He hated that it still hurt.
And most of all, he hated how much he needed this—her—to keep standing.
"Harry?"
Her voice reached him again, softer this time, quieter. A voice that didn't demand or prod. It simply existed, like she always had been.
"I'm here."
He turned towards her slowly, as though his body had forgotten how to move. The air felt heavier, thicker, every motion dragging at him. Ginny stood a step away, eyes fixed on his. When he met them, the breath caught in his chest.
Because she saw him. Not the scar, not the title, not the legend everyone spoke of instead of him—but him. And somehow, that made it both easier and harder to breathe.
"I just—" He stopped and swallowed. His voice was dry, as if he hadn't spoken in days. The breeze stirred his hair, warm and light, and for a mad moment he thought it might carry the ache away. But it didn't. It stayed.
He tried again.
"I just… sometimes it still hurts."
The words escaped hollow, quieter than he'd intended, almost like an apology.
"Like I've lost something," he went on, eyes fixed on the grass, then the lake, anywhere but her. "Or someone. Even though we won."
A laugh slipped out; soft, broken, with no genuine humour.
"I didn't think it would be this way," he quietly admitted. "That one day I'd wake, and it would all be over. That I'd be alright. But I'm not. Not really."
Ginny did not answer straightaway or offer a fix or tell him it would fade. She just stayed beside him, letting the quiet settle between them.
Then, in a low whisper, she murmured, "Of course it hurts. You've lost people, Harry. People you loved. You did more than just fight. You carried all of us."
Her voice didn't break, but it came close.
Her words struck something deep inside him, peeling back a layer he'd held shut for too long. He did not argue. Because that wasn't the hurt he meant, and she couldn't mend that anyway.
"I keep expecting to feel okay again when I wake up," he muttered. "That I will open my eyes and be seventeen, and the worst thing I'll have to face is a bloody Potions essay."
Ginny smiled faintly; sad, but fond.
"I don't believe there's a 'normal' to go back to," she replied gently. "But that doesn't mean there aren't going to be good days in the future. Or laughter. Or even peace."
Harry swallowed. His throat felt thick once more, as though something had taken root there and wouldn't shift.
"I think I'm scared," he admitted. "Not just of what's happened, but of this—whatever this is. Like it's set to stay. I won't ever be able to move past it. And I'll only drag everyone else down with me."
"You're not dragging anyone anywhere," Ginny interjected at once, her voice firm but calm. She meant it; he could hear it in every word.
She stepped closer, her hand brushing his. The touch was simple and ordinary, and yet it cut through the fog better than any charm ever could.
"You've spent so long carrying everyone else," she said softy. "Maybe it's time someone carried you."
He blinked. It took a moment for her words to sink in, and when they did, something inside his chest gave way. Not broken—opened. Like a door easing on old hinges.
A part of him had always feared that if he ever let it show how much he was still hurting, how far he hadn't moved, people would pull away. But she had not. She continued to be there, moving closer.
He looked up and met her eyes.
"Is it selfish," he asked quietly, "to want things to be alright? To laugh, and not betray someone? To go a day without thinking about who's gone?"
Ginny didn't answer at once. She stepped forward, her fingers brushing the rough stubble along his jaw.
"That's not selfish, Harry," she murmured softly. "That is just being human."
He let out a long breath and tried to smile. It came out uneven and uncertain.
"Sometimes I forget how to do that," he admitted.
"Well," she replied, with a ghost of a smirk playing on her lips, "lucky for you, I'm an expert at being human. Stick with me and I'll show you how it's done."
He laughed then, properly this time. It was small, but it was his. Without thinking, he leaned into her touch, as if his body remembered something his mind had yet to catch up to.
"I've missed this," he whispered quietly, almost to himself. "Just you. You're talking to me as if I haven't changed."
"You are still you," Ginny returned. "Dented. Like a well-loved cauldron."
Harry snorted. "That's romantic."
She grinned. "My pleasure."
He did not want to cry, but tears welled up. Just steady, not loud or sobbing. His shoulders trembled once, twice, and then he let go. Let it happen. Didn't fight it this time.
She said nothing. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. He sank into her, breathing her in like the first clean air he'd had in weeks.
"It's alright," she whispered, her voice close to his ear. "Just let it out. I've got you."
The warmth, the solid weight of her embrace, felt like a lifeline across open water. He wasn't fixed, but he was no longer drowning.
He didn't think. He leaned in and kissed her.
It was not desperate or hurried. It was soft, like exhaling and remembering they were still here, breathing and alive.
When they parted, something shifted in the air between them. The pain hadn't gone, but it did not cut so deep anymore.
"Thanks," Harry murmured quietly.
"Anytime," Ginny replied, giving his hand a squeeze. "Though I take payment in Chocolate Frogs."
He smiled. The lake shimmered, calm and clear, sunlight warm against his back. The wind moved through the trees, whispering low like a lullaby.
He didn't know what tomorrow would bring.
But for this one quiet moment, he was alright.
The halls of Hogwarts were cold, colder than he remembered. The stones beneath his trainers echoed with each step, the sound far too loud in the silence. It was late, long past curfew, but that hardly mattered at this moment. Not since everything had changed.
Harry moved quickly, instinctively keeping to the shadows and skirting the pools of light spilling from the enchanted sconces. It wasn't fear of being caught; detentions meant nothing now. It was different, something deeper: a sense that he no longer belonged here. He was a visitor passing through a place he used to know, watching memories flicker at the edges of his sight.
Every corridor tugged at various things: laughter, arguments, hurried footsteps between lessons. But tonight there was none of it.
His heart wasn't racing because he was sneaking about. It was the reason for it, the thing that had dragged him from his bed like a hook behind his ribs and pulled him here, step after step, until he stood at the top of the dungeon stairwell.
The air grew heavier as he descended, cooler and damper. A faint metallic tang lingered at the back of his throat. He'd walked this path many times before, yet tonight each pace felt weighted.
It wasn't long before he reached the door.
Professor Slughorn's quarters looked no different from that night, the time Ron had nearly died. The memory stirred uneasily in his chest. He hesitated, hand suspended in mid-air. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he knocked; three firm raps that echoed sharply down the corridor.
There was a pause.
Then the door creaked open on old hinges, and Professor Horace Slughorn appeared, blinking against the candlelight, wrapped in a thick velvet dressing gown the colour of stewed plums.
"Harry, my boy!" he boomed, even if his voice was rough with sleep. "What an unexpected delight! Though I must say, it's a bit late for social calls, isn't it?"
He offered a small, polite but strained smile. "Sorry to wake you, Professor."
"Oh, nonsense, nonsense," Slughorn dismissed, waving a hand dismissively as he ushered him inside. "The hours hardly matter to an old man like me. Besides, you're always welcome in my little sanctuary."
Harry stepped through the doorway, and the warmth of the room hit him at once. It smelt comfortably of aged books, something sugary—probably crystallised pineapple—and the faint scent of a potion gently brewing nearby.
The fire crackled merrily in the grate, casting flickers of amber light across the cluttered space: armchairs with plumped cushions, half-filled goblets, papers in mild disarray. Bottles of concoctions glinted on the mantelpiece. It was oddly cosy.
His gaze flicked to the rug before the hearth. He could still see Ron there, pale and gasping for air, eyes rolled back, the poisoned mead bottle beside him.
The memory twisted in his stomach.
"Sit yourself down, my dear boy," Slughorn urged cheerfully, bustling towards a side table. "Fortuitously timed, I've just warmed some butterbeer. You'll have a glass, won't you? Or perhaps something stronger? No? Butterbeer it is, then."
Harry nodded absently and sank into the nearest armchair, his fingers curling into the upholstery as though he needed the grounding. His stomach was far too knotted for drink, but he accepted the goblet anyway when Slughorn handed it to him with a small flourish.
"Now," the professor inquired, lowering himself into his chair with a sigh and a puff of breath, "what brings you to my door at this rather unorthodox hour, hmm? Sleepless night? A touch of curiosity? Or have the Gryffindors brewed up some midnight mischief you'd like me to ignore?"
Harry stared into his goblet. The froth had already settled.
He hesitated. The words did not come easily, not because he didn't know what to say, but because he wasn't sure he should speak them. Slughorn had given more than he'd meant to previously. That memory—the one Dumbledore needed—had cost him more than pride, and Harry knew it.
So why was he here again?
Because it wouldn't let go. Because something hadn't finished yet.
"Professor," he began slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on the goblet, "I was wondering… would you talk to me about Horcruxes again?"
A splutter broke the quiet as Slughorn choked on his butterbeer, dabbing furiously at his moustache with a monogrammed handkerchief.
"Horcruxes?" he echoed, more quietly now. "Good gracious, Harry, why on earth are you thinking about those again?"
He glanced up and instantly wished he hadn't.
The professor wasn't angry, nor even flustered. He seemed worried—truly, deeply worried. His usually jovial face had fallen into something close to concern, his small, shrewd eyes moving over him with open apprehension.
That somehow made it worse.
He looked down quickly, his grip tightening on the goblet. "I've just been thinking about it," he muttered. "Can't seem to get it out of my head."
Slughorn did not respond at once. He set his goblet on the side table and leaned back slightly, hands folded over his middle, studying him with something uncomfortably close to understanding.
"I see," he murmured at last, though he clearly was not convinced. "Well, it isn't the sort of subject one usually lingers on, I must say."
Harry didn't answer.
Because it wasn't curiosity at all. It was a gnawing ache in his chest, a doubt that refused to let go. Not even now. Especially not at this moment. The war was over. Voldemort was gone. Every Horcrux destroyed. And yet…
Why did he still feel like something was wrong?
"That's a rather peculiar question to ask, Harry," Slughorn remarked. His voice had dropped an octave, rich and deliberate, edged with caution. "You're not asking for any reason, are you?"
He looked away, unable to meet Slughorn's gaze. The fire crackled behind them, soft and steady, yet far too loud in the silence that followed.
His thoughts reeled, tumbling over one another, searching for a version of the truth he could shape into something less revealing.
But the quiet stretched, pressing in on him, tight and suffocating. Panic rose, bubbling in his chest like a Fizzing Whizzbee gone wrong. He couldn't back out now. He'd come too far.
Slughorn leaned forward slightly, his genial expression hardening into a look of reserve, curious as ever, but not anymore harmless. Guardedness settled over him, and a flicker of concern sharpened his gaze.
"What is it exactly you are trying to understand, my dear boy?" he asked, his tone still mild but no longer light. There was steel beneath it now. "You know that sort of magic is best left behind, do you not?"
Harry's fingers curled into fists inside his pockets. His palms were clammy, and the skin at the back of his neck prickled. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, loud enough that he half wondered if the professor could hear it too.
"You said," he began, his voice cracking slightly. He swallowed and forced it steady. "Horcruxes hold a piece of someone's soul, right?"
"Yes," Slughorn replied at once. His round face looked oddly pale in the firelight, his features set now, grave and unblinking. "Indeed, that is what they are. But Harry," he lowered his tone to a murmur, "that is very dark magic. Dreadful stuff. Horrifying, truly. Unnatural in every possible sense. Not the sort of subject one ought to dwell on."
He nodded vaguely, his jaw tight. Lectures or warnings were not something he wanted. He knew the theory. Another thing was needed—something concrete, explaining the settled unease.
He licked his lips, suddenly bone dry. "But how does it work if that Horcrux," he paused, bracing himself, "ends up inside a person? Not an object. A living being. And later, what happens to their souls when someone destroys them? Does it stay whole, or does it shatter too?"
He had meant to keep his voice even, but the last words came out strangled, like something that had been choking him for a while.
Slughorn stared at him. The colour drained from his face. For a lengthy, uncomfortable moment he said nothing. His hand gripped the armrest more tightly, and Harry saw the tremble in his fingers.
The pause went on for ages, too long to be anything but confirmation.
He felt it, the weight of what he had asked settling over them like a curtain falling shut. He had crossed an invisible threshold. There was no taking it back.
"Well," Slughorn began slowly, his voice quieter and less certain than Harry had ever heard it. He shifted uneasily in his seat, as though the question itself made him uncomfortable. "I have never encountered such a case. A Horcrux is meant to be hidden in an object, something inanimate, lifeless, a thing that cannot feel. A person? No, that would be a terrible mistake. Neither a human soul nor a living body would tolerate it properly. It would wither."
Harry's stomach lurched. A chill crept up the back of his neck and spread across his shoulders.
"But what if it was not on purpose?" he pressed, barely aware that he was leaning forward now, drawn to the answer. "What if it simply happened by accident, as if the soul fragment had nowhere else to go and latched on to someone?"
Slughorn looked horrified.
His mouth opened, but for a moment no sound came out. He stared at Harry like he were seeing him properly for the first time, as if the room itself had shifted underfoot.
He swallowed. His moustache twitched as if searching for something to hide behind.
"And when the Horcrux is destroyed," he paused again, the words seeming to hurt as he spoke them, "any part of the soul that is tangled with it is lost as well."
Harry's throat tightened. He could not draw a proper breath. The walls felt closer than they had a moment ago.
"That damage," Slughorn added grimly, "does not go away. It leaves a scar. Sometimes visible, often not."
His hands trembled now. He shoved them deeper into his pockets.
"So if the Horcrux is destroyed," he whispered, "does the person die too?"
The professor did not answer at once. He looked down at the floor, his lips drawn in a thin, solemn line.
"Not necessarily in body," he said at last, "but in soul. It would be a kind of death, a decay of the self. The damage is irreparable."
Harry stared at him, unable to speak. The words echoed in his head: irreparable, death, decay, turning over and over.
A deep, shivering quiet settled over the room.
"But is there a way to mend it?" He blurted out, his voice too loud in the silence. He leaned forward, eyes searching the professor's. "If they never wanted it and did not ask for it, can someone save them?"
Slughorn's gaze softened. There was pity there now, but another thing too, a quiet, painful kind of knowing, as if he had once stood at the edge of life himself and turned back.
"I simply do not know, Harry," Slughorn admitted. "Dumbledore—well, he always believed there might be a way. He had hope, even when most would not have dared to wonder. But if such a thing exists—some manner of healing for a fractured soul—it has not been recorded. No book I have read speaks of it. No wizard I have known has been brave enough to speculate."
He paused, his gaze drifting into the firelight as if searching for something long lost.
"Those who create Horcruxes, you see, are not the sort who leave room for redemption. They are not interested in repair, only in power. And power," he sighed, "seldom comes without a price."
The words echoed in the chamber like a final toll.
Harry sat frozen. His pulse thudded in his ears again. A foolish part of him, some stubborn, childish hope, had believed the potion master might confirm Dumbledore's faith, that there was a way, some obscure charm or lost ritual. But if even Dumbledore had not found it, what chance did he have?
"Professor," Harry said quietly, barely more than a breath, "how long could someone live like that?"
Slughorn looked at him. For a moment the old man hesitated, chewing his lower lip beneath the curve of his silver moustache.
"It would vary," he answered at last. "I suppose it depends on the strength of the soul carrying the burden, on the will to endure it. But over time…"
He trailed off. His hand went to his chest almost without thinking.
"It would be agony, Harry," he mumbled. "The mind, the emotions, including the magic. It could all fray. Not at once, but slowly, cruelly, like threads pulled loose in a favourite jumper, just enough at first that you do not notice, but eventually it unravels."
He looked away again, firelight dancing in his eyes.
"And some," he murmured, "might not even realise it is happening until it is far too late."
Harry stared at the floor, his throat tightening. His fingers gripped the arms of the chair until his knuckles turned white.
This was not about Voldemort anymore.
He was not asking about strategy or theory. He was not trying to unravel the enemy.
He was wondering about himself.
Because deep down, some part of him had always known.
The strange dreams and the connection. The way he could feel Voldemort's rage under his skin. His scar burned specifically, from the link and something within.
It had lived inside him for years. It had taken root in the deepest parts of him, unseen and unspoken, but never gone.
Slughorn watched him now, brow creased, concern written plainly across his round, ruddy face.
"Harry?" he asked quietly. "Are you quite all right?"
He opened his mouth to lie, to say yes, of course, just tired, but the words would not come. His throat was dry. His lips barely moved.
"I am fine," he muttered, but even to his own ears the statement sounded brittle.
Slughorn leaned forward slightly, clearly unconvinced. "Harry, really, are you—"
"I need to go."
It burst from him like a spell, sharp and jagged. He was already pushing back his chair before the sentence had ended. The legs scraped loudly against the stone floor, a screech that made him wince. He stood too fast, the room spinning as the blood drained from his head.
He did not wait for Slughorn's permission or his questions.
Harry turned and left, the professor's voice following him down the corridor, blurred and faint.
The chill of the dungeon hallway hit him like a slap. He stumbled, breathing hard, his footsteps echoing wildly in the emptiness. His stomach lurched.
He barely made it to the nearest loo before he collapsed into a stall, gripping the basin as bile rose in his throat. He doubled over and retched.
Again and again, until there was nothing left but the dry, hollow convulsions of a body trying to expel something it could not reach.
His knees gave way. The cold tiles bit through his trousers. He pressed his forehead against the wall. He trembled uncontrollably, skin slick with sweat.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Get it together. Pull yourself in. You cannot—
But he could not. Not tonight.
The truth of it weighed down on him. He had thought, foolishly perhaps, that once it was over, once Voldemort was gone, it would all fall away. That he would be free.
But he was not.
The war was over. The danger had passed. And yet he felt like a ticking time bomb.
He stayed there, slumped and shivering, letting the icy wall hold him up.
Eventually, minutes or hours later, he forced himself upright. With one trembling hand on the surface, he staggered out and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, the sour taste still clinging to his throat.
The castle was quiet, almost ghostly. His footsteps seemed to echo louder than they ought to. He moved through the corridors on instinct, head down, eyes unfocused.
By the time he reached Gryffindor Tower, he felt like a ghost walking through his own memory.
He did not bother to take off his shoes. He pushed through the heavy curtains of his four-poster, collapsed onto the mattress, and let the darkness swallow him whole.
The tears came without warning.
Hot and silent at first, then ragged and uncontrollable. He buried his face in the pillow and gripped the sheets as though they might stop him from unravelling entirely.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't.
Why was he still fighting?
Why did it continue to hurt?
He was done. He had finished everything; he had walked to his death; he had watched people fall around him, and he had seen Voldemort die.
So why couldn't he sleep?
Why did he keep feeling as though something inside him had broken beyond repair?
Dumbledore. Fred. Remus. Tonks. So many others. Faces drifted behind his eyes: half smiles, frozen moments, unfinished sentences.
And beneath it all, the guilt.
The awful, festering truth was this: he was still here, and they were not.
Who was he now? Not the Boy Who Lived. Not the Chosen One.
Just Harry.
Lying there, sobbing into his pillow, his heart aching with all he could not name, he did not feel like a hero at all.
He felt only lost.
And he was not sure there was a way back.
The morning light filtered gently through the high, arched windows of the Gryffindor boys' dormitory, stretching long golden stripes across the worn stone floor and casting a soft glow over the scarlet hangings. The air held a peculiar hush, an in-between quiet that belonged neither to sleep nor wakefulness but to something else entirely—a stillness that came before parting.
Harry sat on the edge of his bed, hunched slightly, elbows resting on his knees as he stared at the small, half-hearted stack of clothes beside him. 'Packing', he supposed, though only in the most generous sense. The T-shirts had creases, the socks were mismatched, and a jumper appeared to have tried escaping the pile.
He hadn't even folded anything. It didn't feel worth the effort.
His fingers twisted absently at the edge of his sleeve, and that odd, tight feeling returned to his chest. Slughorn's words from the night before still curled at the edges of his mind, unsettling and persistent. No straightforward answers. Just more questions and an awful weight that refused to lift.
This was it.
The last day.
Shouldn't it feel different? Like peace or closure? But all Harry felt was hollow, as if he'd finally crossed the finish line only to find the ground give way beneath his feet.
He let out a quiet sigh and glanced towards the bed beside his—Ron's, of course. The sheets were a twisted heap, the duvet barely clinging to the foot, and biscuit crumbs scattered across the pillow like an abandoned trail.
Ron would normally still be asleep by now, breathing in a way that someone could only describe as structural, but the silence was unnatural. Too empty. It made the room feel colder.
He was just beginning to drift into that slow, foggy place in his thoughts when—
BANG.
The door burst open with a force that made him jump.
"HARRY!"
Ron came barrelling through the entrance like a spell gone wrong, a fistful of toast clutched precariously in one hand. His hair looked as if he'd styled it in a wind tunnel, and he nearly knocked over Neville's old chair in his haste to cross the room.
He blinked, stunned. For a disorienting moment, he wondered if he was hallucinating. But then Ron threw himself onto the bed beside him, still munching toast, and grinned that grin—the one he wore after every Quidditch win, after sneaking food from the kitchens, after surviving whatever mad thing they'd barely got through—and just like that, it was undeniably, inescapably Ron.
"Blimey, mate, you look awful," Ron chimed cheerfully through a mouthful of crumbs, handing him his glasses with surprising care. "Left these on the table downstairs again. Were you planning to stumble around by sound, or are you going for the mysterious blind appearance?"
Harry took the spectacles and pushed them on. The world slid back into focus with a soft click behind his ears.
"Thanks," he muttered, squinting. "And you look like an angry thestral has dragged you backwards through a barn."
His best friend puffed out his chest, clearly pleased. "Post-battle chic, mate. Very exclusive. Heard it's all the rage down Knockturn Alley."
Harry snorted despite himself. The tension inside him eased, if only a little. Some things at least hadn't changed.
Ron clapped him on the back, hard enough to make his spine jolt. "Come on then, Chosen One. Let's seize the day and all that. You don't want to miss McGonagall's farewell speech, do you? I'm betting there'll be tears."
Harry groaned. "Why do you suddenly sound like Sir Cadogan?"
"Because one of us has to shout ridiculous things at you now You-Know-Who's gone," Ron shot back brightly. "Besides, you saved the wizarding world. Someone's got to keep you humble."
He narrowed his eyes. "And that someone is you?"
"Absolutely. I wouldn't trust anyone else with the job."
Before Harry could reply, he stood up too quickly, too abruptly, and surroundings tilted beneath his feet. The air thinned. His stomach twisted violently, and then—
Thud.
His knees hit the floor.
Pain shot through his legs, and for a heartbeat, the room spun—sunlight, stone, and flashes of red. His vision darkened at the edges.
"Harry!"
Ron was beside him in an instant, toast forgotten on the ground. His tone was sharp now, urgent.
"What the hell? Mate, what just happened? Are you—?"
"I'm fine," he blurted quickly, though his voice didn't sound it. He blinked against the spinning in his head, trying to make the room stay still. "I stood up too fast."
Which wasn't untrue.
He hadn't slept properly for days. His appetite had disappeared somewhere between the funeral and the last duel. And the grief, unspoken and heavy, had not gone anywhere. If anything, it had sunk deeper, as if roots were growing into him.
Ron crouched down, frowning. "You sure? Since the battle, you've looked like dragon dung, and I mean that. You always look a bit knackered, but this is something else."
Harry gave a hollow chuckle. "Thanks. That's the morale boost I needed."
But his best friend didn't laugh. He was watching him with that rare, serious expression, the one that only surfaced in moments that mattered, when someone was bleeding or a life hung in the balance. He hated it. Hated being on the receiving end.
He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. "I'm just tired," he murmured quietly, leaning back against the wall. "It's all caught up with me, I think."
Ron stayed quiet for a second, then shrugged and held out a hand, hauling Harry gently to his feet.
"Then rest," he advised simply. "Or eat something. Merlin, consume some food. You're starting to look like Nearly Headless Nick."
It was such a Ron thing to say—plain and practical and utterly unbothered by anything too emotional—that it made Harry's throat tighten unexpectedly.
He nodded, brushing off his trousers, trying to ignore the faint tremor in his limbs.
Together they descended the winding staircase from the boys' dormitory. The walls, warm with morning light, seemed to hum with the memories of a thousand Gryffindor students: voices, laughter, whispered secrets, furious arguments, and the occasional explosion. Every creak and echo felt vibrant.
Harry didn't speak. Ron walked beside him, solid and quiet, and somehow that made it easier to keep going. They stepped down into the common room, and its familiar warmth wrapped around him.
It was already alive, buzzing with the low hum of conversation and the occasional burst of laughter. Someone had left a chessboard mid-game on the table near the fire, and the hearth crackled lazily, exhaling ribbons of smoke that curled through the scents of toast, parchment, and melted wax.
For the first time that morning, Harry's shoulders loosened.
It smelt like home.
He hesitated at the foot of the stairs, glancing around. The squishy armchairs, the threadbare rug, the windows streaked with last night's rain—all exactly as they had always been, and yet somehow not. Something in him had shifted. The world had changed, and he wasn't sure if he could keep up.
"I wonder what it'll be like," he mused quietly, his voice barely carrying above the noise. "Living at the Burrow. Being normal."
Ron turned, eyebrows raised. "Well, for starters, Mum's cooking will knock your socks off. Hogwarts never stood a chance." He grinned, lopsided and familiar. "Just don't get between her and the frying pan. She's terrifying with a spatula."
Harry let out a quiet laugh. "Comforting."
But Ron's grin faltered, his gaze softening. "You know you are family, right?" he added after a moment. "Always have been. You're not only coming to stay. It's your home too."
He opened his mouth to reply, but no words came. His chest tightened, not from fear or pain, but from something quieter and gentler. A pressure, soft and strange, that made his throat ache.
Family.
He wasn't used to hearing it said out loud. Not like that.
Instead, he turned to glance once more around the common room: the worn cushions, the smudged portraits, the place that had held him through every version of himself: an eleven-year-old boy in oversized shirts, a fifteen-year-old with nightmares and scars, and a seventeen-year-old soldier, hollowed and raw.
He was leaving Hogwarts. But for the first time, he realised he wasn't going alone.
They stepped out into the corridor, joining the slow stream of students heading down to breakfast. Before long, they passed through the wide doors of the Great Hall.
The scent reached him first: warm bread, sausages, and pumpkin juice, then the sound: the clink of plates, the low hum of conversation, laughter spilling from the Hufflepuff table. It was all so familiar, so normal, and yet it felt wrong.
Not bad, just distant. As if the world had edged slightly out of reach and he was standing on the other side of a pane of glass, watching but not part of it.
His feet carried him forward on instinct. The rest of him—his thoughts, and his heart—lagged behind.
You should feel happy, he thought vaguely. Or relieved. Or anything else. But there was only a heaviness that clung to him, slow and thick. Not tiredness exactly—he had been tired for years—but something deeper and brittle.
His stomach turned at the smell of food. He hadn't eaten properly in days, but now even the idea made his throat tighten.
And then he saw her.
Ginny.
She sat at the Gryffindor table, her hair a burnished red-gold in the morning light, bent in quiet conversation with Hermione. The way she tilted her head, the curve of her smile—none of it had changed. Yet a feeling in Harry shifted painfully at the sight of her.
Not that he didn't care. He cared a great deal, and no longer knew how to hold it.
I am not the same, he thought suddenly. Yesterday, I wasn't the boy she kissed. I'm a different person now. Something half-broken.
He slid wordlessly onto the bench across from her, hoping, absurdly, that no one would notice how much effort it took just to sit down.
Ginny looked up at once. "Hi," she said softly. Her voice was steady, but her gaze was full of concern. She had always seen straight through him.
Harry tried to smile. The corners of his mouth lifted, but it never reached his eyes. His gaze dropped to the plate in front of him: eggs, toast, and bacon, untouched and unappealing.
"You should eat," Ginny murmured, reaching across the table. Her fingers curled gently around his.
For a moment, he let her hold his hand.
Then the weight of it hit him.
The unfairness of it—that he could feel her skin, warm and real, while so many others could not. They could not come down to breakfast. Could not laugh or touch or love again.
He drew his hand back slowly.
"I'm not really hungry," he answered, his voice flat.
Ginny did not press, but her eyes stayed on him, worry flickering behind the brown.
Across the table, Hermione had gone still. Her chin lightly rested on her palm, while her sharp and knowing stare fixed on Harry. She said nothing. She always knew when he wasn't telling the truth.
Ron, standing beside her, tried to appear casual, but he furrowed his brow and tensed his shoulders.
He hated that look and being the reason for it.
"Mate," his best friend ventured after a moment, his voice low and unusually gentle, "you've got to eat something. We're heading back to the Burrow soon. If you turn up looking like a windswept Dementor, Mum will hex the lot of us."
He gave a jerky nod. "Yeah."
He meant to say more. He wanted to tell them it wasn't their fault, that he was not shutting them out, only that he seemed weary, not the sleep could fix, but the kind that sank deep, wrapping itself around his lungs until even breathing felt like effort.
Harry took a slow, steadying breath and reached for a piece of toast. Ginny was still watching him, quiet and steady, with that familiar patience in her eyes. She didn't press him or say a word, but her gaze, warm and unflinching, moved across the table like a hand he hadn't yet found the strength to take.
He took a small mechanical bite. It crumbled dryly in his mouth, sticking to his tongue. If it had any flavor, it was like ash: dry. Swallowing was worse, as if forcing splinters down his throat, every movement slow and scraping.
He set the toast down.
"I'll eat more once we're back," he mumbled, his voice low and unconvincing. "At the Burrow. I promise."
He didn't know whether it was a lie. It felt more like an assurance made to them than to himself. If he said it, if he gave them something, even small, maybe they would worry less. Or at least pretend to.
Mrs Weasley would fuss, of course. She always did. She would pile his plate as if she thought it might weigh him back down to earth, flapping and scolding and calling him "dear" in that brisk, exasperated way that somehow consistently made him feel like things could be all right after all. He did not have the energy to argue. He didn't know if he wanted to.
Hermione gave a small, approving nod, though the line between her brows did not go away. Ron tried for a grin, one of his usual lopsided ones, but it came out thin and awkward, as if he knew it wasn't fooling anyone but hoped it might help anyway.
Harry pressed his palms to the table. The wood was smooth beneath his fingers, cool and grounding. He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, trying to let the quiet settle him.
But the silence between them was not peaceful. It was thick with everything unsaid, pressing down on his chest: grief, guilt, exhaustion, and all the things he hadn't yet found words for.
He couldn't breathe through it.
"I'll be right back," he muttered, already standing. "Need the loo."
No one stopped him or asked if he was okay.
But he felt them watching—three pairs of eyes following him as he walked away, carrying something too heavy for breakfast and too personal to speak of.
His footsteps were brisk against the stone floor. His head was down and hands were in his pockets. He didn't want to meet anyone's gaze or see pity. Or worse, understanding.
He did not know where he was going.
But his feet did.
They carried him away from the Great Hall, the warmth of the hearth and the clatter of plates and voices that felt both too loud and too far off. The corridors grew quieter with each step until the echo of his own shoes was the only sound that followed him.
And then, without quite meaning to, he turned a familiar corner, and there it was.
The library.
Still and vast and hushed, like a cathedral of knowledge, and equally sacred. It wasn't only shelves and parchment. Over the years, it had become something else—a quiet refuge, untouched by chaos. A place where not a single person expected him to be anything. Not the Chosen One. Not the Boy Who Lived.
Just Harry.
He pushed the door open. It creaked on its hinges with the same sound it had always made, like an old friend clearing its throat.
The air smelt of dust, ink, and polish. It wrapped around him, soft and familiar, and for a fleeting second something inside him loosened.
Madam Pince sat at her desk, hunched over a battered volume with a spine that appeared older than most of the portraits. Her thin fingers traced each line with a reverence that bordered on ritual. Her grey-streaked hair was in its usual severe knot, and not a single strand was out of place.
Harry had once thought she resembled a hawk—sharp, alert, always ready to swoop down on students with chocolate near the books or ink stains on borrowed scrolls. But now, in the quiet, with no one else around, she simply looked tired. The sort of fatigue that didn't come from a long night but from years of standing guard over a delicate thing.
Even here, the war had left its fingerprints.
He hesitated in the doorway. His reason for coming wasn't entirely clear. He'd planned to get away, to breathe. But now that he was here, surrounded by silence and shelves older than he could name, he realised he was looking for something.
Not answers, exactly. But perhaps understanding.
Of what came after.
Of what lingered.
Of what it meant that so many faces haunted him even at this moment. He could still feel them sometimes, and hear their voices in the quiet spaces between thoughts.
Was that normal?
Was that madness?
Was that them?
"Mr Potter."
Her voice was as crisp as ever. It snapped through the stillness like a ruler across knuckles.
He looked up quickly, almost guiltily.
"Er—hello, Madam Pince," he began, taking a few steps closer to the desk. "I was wondering… do you have any books about… souls?"
Her eyes narrowed behind her wire-rimmed spectacles. "Souls?" she echoed, in a tone usually reserved for someone asking how to breed basilisks in the girls' lavatory. "Yes, there are several volumes, but they have restrictions. Advanced magical theory. Very delicate material. I do not allow it to be handled lightly."
"Right. Of course," Harry blurted quickly, raising his hands slightly in surrender. "I'm not trying to meddle. Just curious. Something for… light summer reading."
A silence followed.
Madam Pince gave him a long, suspicious look, as if the phrase itself were a personal affront.
"Light reading," she repeated, her voice as flat and unimpressed as an ironed scroll. Her eyes, thin and needle-sharp behind the lenses, narrowed with surgical precision. "And what, precisely, makes you think you ought to be perusing about souls at all?"
Harry froze.
The question struck harder than he had expected, not because of what she said, but because of how easily it cut through his excuse. All the words he'd rehearsed—about curiosity, about passing time, about summer reading—crumbled in his throat.
She wasn't really asking why he wanted the book.
She was questioning what he was doing here.
That was an answer he was unsure he could give without exposing everything.
He doubted Horcruxes would make pleasant conversation, and, I still don't understand what's left of me probably wasn't what she wished to hear.
So he did what he usually did when he couldn't tell the truth.
He shrugged.
"Just trying to stay busy," he offered, forcing his voice into something even and light. "Better than sitting at home staring at the wall."
It was not a lie.
Only not the complete facts either.
Madam Pince regarded him with a look so sceptical it could have stripped varnish. Her lips formed a shape like punctuation, maybe a semicolon made of disapproval.
"I find your sudden enthusiasm for self-education rather suspect," she pronounced crisply. "You have not historically been a regular patron of this library—unless accompanied by Miss Granger or in pursuit of some impending catastrophe. And now I am to believe you've developed a spontaneous academic interest in souls?"
Harry shifted where he stood, hands pushed deeper into his pockets. Her tone, though sharp, held no cruelty, but it still made him feel the same way he once had in Snape's office, caught mid-excuse with ink-stained fingers.
"I know I haven't exactly lived here," he admitted quietly, the words tasting faintly of embarrassment and apology. "But I read. Sometimes."
He hesitated, then added, more honestly, "I'm just… curious, that's all."
It was the closest he could come to saying; I don't know how to stop thinking about what's gone. I don't know what to do with what's left.
The silence that followed stretched long and taut between them. Madam Pince's expression was unreadable, though there was something too knowing in her eyes. It was as if she were cataloguing not just his request but him: the slope of his shoulders, the tone of his voice, and the weight behind his words.
Harry had faced Death Eaters, Dementors, and even Voldemort, yet somehow, in this quiet, paper-scented room, he felt smaller than ever. As if she could see every crack he'd tried to plaster over.
At last, she spoke.
"Your timing is questionable," she declared, making the word sound like a reprimand. "But I suppose it could do no harm to let you browse. Briefly. Also, I will certainly notice if you mishandle anything."
Relief washed through him. He didn't grin—it felt wrong here—but his shoulders eased slightly.
"Thank you," he exhaled, a little too quickly and loudly.
Madam Pince sniffed, which he took as acceptance, and turned back to her desk with a rustle of robes that sounded very much like a dismissal.
The Hogwarts Express rolled through the countryside with the lazy ease of something that had made the journey too many times to bother hurrying. Beyond the windows, the world blurred into wide sweeps of green and gold; the fields flashed past in dizzying strokes of colour. Inside a cramped, stuffy compartment near the end of the train, time stretched awkwardly, heavy and slow, as though caught in a pause no one knew how to unstuck.
Harry slouched in the furthest corner, his shoulder resting against the window, the glass cool against his temple. He'd felt tired before, after battles, after nightmares, but this was different. It wasn't the sort of weary that sleep could fix. It sat deeper, quiet and wrong, as if something inside him hadn't quite mended. His glasses had slipped halfway down his nose, and his eyes, when they opened at all, were dull and unfocused. His hair, usually windswept by either Quidditch or catastrophe, was flattened in odd patches, as if he had spent the night wrestling his pillow and losing.
Ginny sat beside him, their fingers loosely entwined, though Harry didn't seem to notice. He had said little since they'd boarded the train.
She shifted, brushing her thumb across the back of his hand. She studied him for a moment, her eyes soft with unspoken concern. Then, without a word, she moved and guided his head into her lap with gentle, practised care.
"There," she murmured, smoothing a few strands of hair from his forehead, her fingers sliding through the tangles with quiet familiarity. "Rest now, alright?"
Harry didn't respond. His breathing, shallow and uneven at first, steadied under the warmth of her hand. Within minutes, he was asleep.
Even in sleep, his body wouldn't fully relax. His hands twitched, jaw tightening every few seconds, as if the dream he'd fallen into wasn't a peaceful one.
Opposite them, Ron sat stiffly, his knees knocking against Hermione's as they tried to share the narrow bench. He folded his arms across his chest, and he hadn't taken his sight off Harry.
"I've never seen him this way," he muttered at last. "Not even after Dumbledore. He looks… I dunno. Empty. Like there's nothing left in him."
Her gaze lingered on Harry's face, on the deep shadows under his eyes. She thought of the manner he'd winced earlier, the almost imperceptible flinch when the sunlight caught his scar, and felt a twist of worry she couldn't identify. She let out a long sigh. "Ron, he has lost more people than anyone should. We all have. You don't simply bounce back from that."
"I know that," he blurted quickly, glancing at her before turning to Harry. "But this isn't just grief. It seems he is not all there. Like he's gone somewhere else and left the rest behind."
Hermione's expression softened as she followed his gaze. Harry shifted in his sleep, his brow creasing, his mouth twitching with whatever chased him in dreams. He didn't look peaceful. He looked haunted.
"Maybe we should just ask him," Hermione murmured after a moment, her voice quiet but sure.
Ron turned to her with a snort. "Yeah, brilliant idea. Let's wake him the one time he's actually asleep and start interrogating him like we're the Ministry."
"Well, doing nothing isn't helping!" She snapped, irritation sharpening the sound of her words. "What's your strategy, then? Sit here and hope he suddenly opens up?"
"That was sort of the plan," Ron grumbled, folding his arms tighter and glaring at the floor.
Hermione groaned. "Honestly."
The compartment fell silent again, save for the steady clatter of the train and the rush of wind against the glass. A faint murmur slipped from Harry's lips—indistinct words tangled in a restless dream.
Ginny frowned and brushed a hand over his fringe. "He told me he's scared," she whispered.
Ron and Hermione both turned to her, the argument forgotten in an instant.
"Last night," she went on, her eyes still on Harry. "He said he feels stuck. He'd murmured it quietly like a confession, as if saying it aloud might make it real. That he could feel something inside him tugging, holding him back, as though a weight he couldn't shake."
Hermione leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "He told you that?" She asked, breath tight with concern.
Ginny nodded. "He didn't mean to. You could tell. It just sort of slipped out. He was exhausted… panicked, almost. Like he was ready to bolt."
Ron frowned. "That explains why he nearly collapsed in the dormitory this morning. Claimed he'd stood up too fast, but he appeared about to fall over. I had to catch him."
"He barely touched breakfast," Hermione added. "Only stared at it and took one bite of toast."
"Could've been the porridge," he muttered. "Looked like it was scraped off the bottom of Hagrid's cauldron."
She shot him a look sharp enough to cut parchment.
"Sorry," he mumbled, ducking his head. "Just trying to lighten things up."
It didn't help.
The air in the compartment changed. It grew heavier, thicker, as though the train itself could feel the weight of what they weren't saying. Ginny's hand never left Harry's hair, and for a long while, no one spoke.
Harry whimpered in his sleep, the sound little more than a breath. His brow creased, with a deep line cutting between his eyes, as if some shadow had slipped into his dreams and tightened its hold. His face turned slightly, twisted by something that looked too much like fear. Or memory.
Hermione leaned forward, her voice barely above a whisper. "Do you think he's unwell?" She breathed, watching him closely. "Properly ill, I mean. Not just tired or… off."
"It's not that simple," Ginny murmured, her tone quiet but certain.
Ron shifted, glancing between Harry and his sister with a frown. "Nothing with Harry ever is," he grumbled. "Cursed scars, dark wizards, and bloody exploding staircases."
"No sets of stairs exploded," Hermione retorted flatly, not even looking at him.
"You weren't there," he shot back, folding his arms and slumping back in his seat.
Ginny didn't respond. Her attention stayed on the boy curled in her lap, her voice steady. "Whatever this is, he's keeping it buried. But he shouldn't have to. He doesn't want to talk about it—maybe he can't—but that does not mean he doesn't need us."
Hermione reached across and placed a hand on Harry's shoulder lightly, as though afraid to wake him. But the touch was firm and deliberate. "Then we help him," she declared firmly. "No more second-guessing, or pretending we don't see it. No more awkward silences."
Ron hesitated, looking down at his trainers as if they might hold an answer. Then he shrugged. "Alright," he murmured quietly.
Ginny smiled faintly, the look firm with quiet resolve.
There was a pause, brief but lighter than before. The silence that followed didn't press or suffocate; it settled around them instead, something shared and still.
Then, suddenly, Harry stirred. He mumbled an unintelligible word into Ginny's jumper, his face half-buried in her lap.
"What did he just say?" Ron asked, leaning forward, his eyebrows raised. "Was that English?"
Ginny tilted her head, frowning slightly. "I think he said… 'Snorkack,'" she offered.
Hermione blinked. "As in the Crumple-Horned Snorkack?"
She nodded, the corner of her mouth twitching. "Sounds like it," she remarked.
He barked a short laugh. "Well, that's a relief. At least he's not dreaming about You-Know-Who strangling him with a basilisk or something," he quipped.
Harry shifted again, mumbling once more. At this moment, the words were clearer, though no less baffling.
Ginny raised her eyebrows. "Alright… now it's 'fanged gerbil,'" she reported.
Hermione blinked. "Fanged gerbil?" She echoed.
"Pretty sure that's what he said," she replied, trying not to laugh.
Ron grinned, his spirits lifting for the first time since the train had left the station. "Brilliant. When he wakes up, we're getting the full story. I want diagrams," he announced.
"Don't encourage him," Hermione warned, but the faintest smile tugged at her mouth.
He turned to her. "Oh, come on," he argued. "Snorkacks and fanged rodents? This might be the most fun he's had in weeks, even if it's only in his sleep."
She rolled her eyes, though the tension in her shoulders eased. "We still need to talk to him," she reminded him. "About the actual stuff. The things he is not saying."
"Yeah," Ron agreed, glancing down at Harry, who had settled more comfortably, one hand curled near his chest. "But maybe we let him finish dreaming about magical hamsters before we launch the emotional intervention."
Ginny chuckled, low and warm, and this time Hermione joined her. The sound was soft, barely more than a breath in the small compartment. It wasn't loud or full of mirth. But it was real.
When Harry blinked awake with a headache, his first thought was that a Bludger had hit him.
A very large one. Possibly enchanted. And angry.
He had been wrecked in battles, but this didn't feel the same. His bones felt weary, as if someone had removed something without restoring it.
He then considered the possibility of being trampled by centaurs.
Then, as a shrill whistle cut through the compartment and rattled inside his skull, came the third, slower, grudging realisation.
Oh. Right. Train. The Hogwarts Express. That explained the rocking, at least.
He squinted at the blur of golds and greens rushing past the window, the late afternoon sun streaking the glass. The room smelt faintly of pumpkin pasties, worn leather, and Ron's trainers. His neck was knotted, as if someone stood on his chest. Lovely.
"Ugh… what time is it?" Harry croaked, his tone rough.
"About time you woke up," came Ron's voice from across the compartment, muffled slightly by the effort of shoving a battered trainer into an overstuffed rucksack. "We thought you'd finally pegged it."
"I checked your pulse," Ginny reported evenly, not looking up as she zipped her satchel. "Twice."
He blinked and turned his head slowly, as though any sudden movement might detach it from his neck.
"You what?"
"You've been out for hours, Harry," Hermione explained, folding her notes and slipping them into her beaded bag with the air of someone trying very hard not to fuss. "Literally since we left Hogwarts. Ginny tried waking you. You mumbled something about invisible cheese."
"I was obviously dreaming," he muttered, dragging his hands down his face. "And probably starving."
"You were also snoring," Ron added cheerfully, as if this were a great personal triumph.
"I don't snore," Harry insisted at once.
"Oh, but you do," Hermione countered matter-of-factly, raising an eyebrow. "All three of us can confirm it. Loudly and with conviction."
He groaned, slumping forward with his elbows on his knees. His whole body ached in a particular, bone-deep way that had nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with too much of it. His brain still felt thick, fogged, as if someone had stuffed it with wool and left it to stew.
A warm hand touched his arm. Ginny leaned closer, eyes searching his face. "You all right?" She asked, voice low.
Harry paused, then nodded, though it didn't feel convincing. "Yeah. Just… took me a minute."
The train had slowed. Outside, the countryside blurred into the greys and browns of suburban London. Rooftops slid by, fencing flashed past, and a startled sheep darted from view.
"Are we nearly there?" he asked, squinting at the skyline.
"Pretty much," Ron replied, peering out. "Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Home sweet home. Or something."
Harry nodded once more, but his body seemed to have turned into jelly.
By the time they stepped off the train, the station was a riot of sound and colour. Trunks clattered, owls shrieked, and parents called out over the hiss of steam. Warm sunlight caught in the haze, turning everything gold and bright and slightly unreal.
He stood still.
He hadn't meant to. His feet just stopped.
The others moved ahead—Ginny tugging her trunk, Ron waving at someone through the crowd, and Hermione spotting her parents at the far end near the trolleys.
Then—
"Harry!" Mr Weasley called, beckoning them over. "Over here, all of you!"
But he didn't move.
His heart gave a strange flutter.
Something was wrong.
He turned his head slowly, scanning the edge of the platform. They should be here. They were always present.
He could almost see it: Uncle Vernon, red-faced and scowling in the background; Aunt Petunia, stiff as a poker; Dudley, sulking behind a melting ice cream. Miserable as ever. Silent. But there.
It had been predictable. Fixed. Unpleasant, but expected.
Only now—they weren't here.
He squinted, scanning the crowd, half-convinced they must be just out of sight. Late, perhaps. Stuck after a group of third-years wheeling trunks sideways.
A faint ache had throbbed behind his eyes, low and persistent. The kind that came and went ever since the battle, the night he should have died and somehow survived.
"Harry?" Ginny's voice whispered softly beside him. She tugged lightly at his sleeve.
He didn't answer.
Ron had paused ahead, glancing back. "Mate?" he asked carefully. "You alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I'm just—" Harry's mouth felt dry. "I'm waiting. My uncle should be here."
His best friend frowned, stepping away. "Your what?" He blurted.
"My uncle," he repeated, slower this time. "He's meant to pick me up. He always does."
There was a pause. Ron stared at him as if he had claimed he was off to work for goblins.
"Wait—are you serious?"
"I am not joking. Why would I be?"
"Harry…" Hermione came up beside them now, her voice careful. "You're not going back to the Dursleys," she reminded him softly.
He turned to her, frowning. "I'm not?"
"No!" Ron objected, baffled. "You are coming to the Burrow. You always wanted to."
"But no one said that to me."
Ron looked helplessly at her and Ginny.
"We told you," she insisted gently. "After the battle. More than once."
Harry blinked. The noise of the platform seemed to fade—distant and muffled, as though someone had thrown a blanket over the world. The crowd moved in slow motion. Voices came and went without meaning.
"I don't…" He swallowed. "I do not remember that."
Then, suddenly, a blur of ginger wool and motherly warmth enveloped him.
"Oh, there you are, dear!"
Before he could react, Mrs Weasley had him in a hug—tight, warm, almost suffocating. It was the sort of embrace that didn't ask questions;
He did not resist. He let her hold him, his face pressed into the crocheted shoulder of her cardigan, breathing in the scent of flour, lavender, and faint Floo powder.
"Are you alright?" she asked, pulling back just enough to look at him properly, hands fussing over his shoulders and hair as though she could straighten his world by touch alone.
"I think so?" he croaked, though it came out more as a question.
She didn't seem convinced. Her brow creased instinctively in a way that meant she already knew better.
He hesitated, then asked, his voice quieter now, unsure.
"Mrs Weasley… did I ever tell you I wasn't going back to the Dursleys?"
The query seemed to hang between them. Her expression faltered. One hand brushed a curl from his temple with gentle confusion.
"But, love," she whispered softly, "you said your goodbyes last summer. They went into hiding, remember?"
He blinked.
No, that couldn't be right.
"Hiding?" he echoed. "From whom?"
Mr Weasley appeared beside them, calm and serious. There was always something steady about him, even when the world was coming undone.
"Harry," he whispered quietly, "do you recall your seventeenth birthday?"
He opened his mouth, instinct ready to defend.
"Yeah, of course I—"
But the sentence broke apart halfway through.
He froze, searching for the image that should have been there. Nothing came. No sound, no colour, not even the shape of memory. Only blankness.
"Wait," he breathed, blinking fast. "No, I must remember. That's ridiculous. Everyone remembers their own birthday."
He gave a small laugh that didn't seem right, not even to himself.
But his thoughts were unravelling now. The harder he pulled, the faster they slipped away. Like tugging a loose thread from a jumper and watching it fall to pieces.
"Harry," Ginny said softly, stepping closer. "We were all there. You stayed with us. You were at the Burrow. Mum baked you a Golden Snitch cake."
"I—" he looked between them, helpless. "I can't remember any of that."
He pressed his fingers to his temples, as if he could force the memories back. "Did I hit my head or anything?"
"You didn't," Hermione stated firmly.
"Are we sure about that?" asked Harry weakly.
"Well…" Ron began, uncertain. "You did trip over Crookshanks last week and land headfirst in the gnome pit."
"Ron!" she snapped.
No one laughed.
Mr Weasley spoke again, his tone low. "Sometimes after something traumatic, people lose pieces of memory. It's the mind's way of coping. A defence, to protect you from pain too great to face at once."
Harry swallowed. His throat was dry. "I'm not worried," he lied. "I'm fine. Honestly."
He wasn't okay. Not even close.
His mind was full of holes now. Big ones. Not just his birthday or the Dursleys.
What else disappeared?
"I don't understand," he whispered. "It feels like I am slowly losing parts of me."
"You're not missing anything that can't come back," said Mrs Weasley, pulling him into another firm, one-armed hug. "We'll help you remember. You are not on your own."
He wanted to believe her. He almost did. But the icy knot beneath his ribs suggested otherwise.
"What if I never do?" he said quietly. "What if I've forgotten something or someone important?"
Ginny stepped closer, eyes steady. "We'd tell you," she promised.
"Swear?" he asked, fragile.
She nodded. "Cross my heart."
For a moment, Harry just listened to the owls, the wheels, and the distant laughter. All of it sounded far away, as if he were hearing the world through glass.
Then, trying for lightness, he said, "So… I'm going to the Burrow, then?"
"Yep," Ron answered quickly. "Unless you'd rather wait for your uncle, who's probably in wizard witness protection by now."
Harry let out a small, uneven laugh. "No thanks. I've had enough confusion for one day."
Still, as they moved, the knot in his chest didn't ease. It stayed there, quiet and cold, whispering in the back of his mind.
If he could forget something as big as this… what else might already be gone?