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When Cedric died, it was numbness. And then suddenly it was a searing, clawing, urgent something, desperate to burst from him in a scream. An awful burning in his throat as he buried his face in Molly Weasley's shoulder. It exploded out of him, he lunged for the galleons at his bedside and pleaded with the Diggory family to take them from him. He all but threw the bag at Fred and George, seized suddenly with a restlessness, an urge to scream and kick and hurl and tear at his hair if it meant never having to see that bag again. All that summer, his fingers would tap and shuffle and pull at the collar of his shirt, and one minute he'd be draped, lifeless, across his bed only to jump out of it as though scalded and slam the door behind him on his way to the park, running and running as though movement was all he had left. And it might as well have been, for they'd left him alone in the heat with nothing else.
When Sirius died, it was a dullness, anchoring him to the earth, weighing on his eyelids, pulling on his every breath. He sat curled up by the lake for hours, or by the fire through the night until he couldn't feel his body anymore. It was an ache that began behind his eyes and spread through his limbs after lying in bed for days watching the sun drift past his window, again and again. It was silence rarely broken. And then Dumbledore came for him, something to force him to stand upright again. The weight of the air around him lifted, and he could hear his own breathing again. Motion is the key, he discovered. As long as you kept moving, you kept your wits about you, and the Dementors couldn't claim you.
When Dumbledore died, it was a hollowness through which he just kept moving. He was so, so tired, and the final battle was months, maybe years, maybe decades away. There was no way of knowing. And then all he could do was keep moving forward because when he stopped to think, bad things happened. It was like he was running again, but this time there was nowhere to collapse, and he ran long after his lungs began to burn, until he couldn't feel his feet or his heartbeat. Hunting Horcruxes meant pushing and pushing and pushing through until he didn't quite know if he was something substantial anymore, only that he had to keep moving.
But this. Oh, this was so much worse.
Because when Fred died, the world came to a stop, and when he nearly stumbled over Colin Creevey, the ground dropped from beneath him, and when he found Lupin and Tonks the world hurtled away from him, flinging him into space so he was wheeling through the stars. At least he could still move.
But then he woke to a deep purple twilight, tucked into his four-poster bed with the crust of a sandwich and an empty flask of sleeping potion on the table beside him, and everything came crashing down around him. The world fell like a ton of bricks onto his chest. Everything was dark and quiet and peaceful. No Snatchers lurked in the woods. There were no woods. No Horcruxes. No goal, no destination.
He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe.
Fred. Remus. Tonks. Colin Creevey. Dumbledore. Snape. Himself, nearly. Countless others, he'd barely registered their faces. He'd know all their names by the end of the week, and he'd never forget them. Gone, gone, gone.
He lay there as the light drained from the sky. It was the locket's chain, tightening around his neck, and he was underwater and gasping, his fingers scrabbling weakly at his throat. Then Neville was there, an arm on his shoulder, rooting him to the real world. He barely registers Neville pulling him into a sitting position, rubbing slow circles across his back, until he realizes that he's breathing with the rise and fall of Neville's hand. The locket's chain is gone; Harry's fingers fall from his neck. He doesn't look at Neville but feels him watching as he sinks back into his bed.
Weeks later, Neville will tell him that he learned to calm people's breathing in the Room of Requirement, while he was taking care of the children the Carrows had tortured. "It doesn't work for everyone," he shrugs. "But I'm glad it worked for you."
When he wakes and it's daylight, Neville is curled in an armchair by his bed, asleep.
It's hard for Harry Potter to open his eyes, to turn his head, to move his limbs over the next few days. He struggles to sit up in his bed and only Neville's determined coaxing can get him out of it. With Neville's hand on his shoulder, he manages to stand at the window on the other side of the room and look out at the grounds, the only other part of the castle that hasn't really changed. Then his legs nearly give way from exhaustion and he stumbles back to his bed.
Fred. Remus. Tonks. Colin. Dobby. Was Voldemort's empty shell still somewhere in the castle? Fred. Remus. Tonks. Colin. Countless others, he'd barely registered. He'd know them all by the end of the week. He'd never forget them.
Harry hasn't seen Ron in three days now, which is okay. He doesn't think he has the strength to see Ron and the Weasleys yet. There will be plenty of time for that in the future. But he doesn't dare step into Fred's absence.
They come back to him in flashes at random hours of the day, his memories playing across the canopy above his bed. Sirius falling through the veil and a flash of red light. High, cold laughter. He remembers Dumbledore's pleading face and the blank stretch of white behind him. Had everything else been a dream, too? Had he really almost drowned? The horrible image of himself ballooning from the locket, the red gleam in Ron's eyes, the flash of a sword. Had he really only been eleven years old when he witnessed Voldemort's terrible face straining to burst from the back of Quirrell's skull? Phantom pain flares in his arm as he remembers a foot-long, yellow fang. In his leg, as he remembers a spider the size of a car. Dementors.
He's hardly seen anyone. It's just Neville, and once Dean and Seamus. They hardly speak. Maybe everything else really was just a dream, then. Maybe none of it really happened. Just a horrible, horrible dream.
There are white scars on his hand, still. He clenches his fist: I must not tell lies. So it hadn't been a dream after all. That's why he feels as though the life has drained from his bones. Because it very nearly has. He goes back to sleep.
Hermione comes to see him, finally, after two days. He gets out of bed to greet her, his whole body on fire as he drifts across the room. Is he a ghost? Is that what Dumbledore's visit meant? He can't feel his feet or the air against his arms… but there's Hermione, her eyes bleary and she wraps him in a crushing hug before leading him down the stairs to an empty common room. So she can see him, she can touch him. It wasn't a dream after all.
Fred. Remus. Tonks. Colin. Gone, gone, gone.
He doesn't know where everyone is. They find their favorite armchairs by the fire, and Kreacher brings them tea and biscuits and leaves them in silence. Harry tentatively asks for news. He's surprised that he does, surprised that he even has a voice.
Lavender's doing much better, Hermione responds. Her parents have arrived and Fleur is answering all their questions about her condition. Bill keeps saying he'll check in on her every once in a while once… everything else is over. Something horrible wells up inside Harry, he's thinking of the funerals he must attend tomorrow, and Hermione looks stricken, so he drinks some tea and swallows it back down.
Neville and Hannah are everywhere, Hermione continues, Neville directing a team of students assisting McGonagall with repairs and Hannah helping Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing. It's really quite impressive how they command the other students, she remarks; apparently, when Ginny and Luna vanished, Hannah stepped up to lead the DA alongside Neville. They make quite a pair, too, Hermione smiles fondly. She bets they'll get together for real soon enough, and Harry's chest aches because he's missed these idle conversations. He closes his eyes for a moment and there's Ginny's phantom weight resting against his legs, Ron in the chair beside him, interjecting loudly into their conversation about Romilda Vane as Hermione laughs.
Dean finally kissed Seamus, Hermione continues, and Harry's eyes fly open. Hermione giggles at his surprise. Honestly, Harry, she shakes her head, I don't know how you never noticed anything between them. The entire Great Hall applauded them this morning when it finally happened, you should have seen the look on Seamus's face…
Harry and Hermione pass the afternoon like this, well-supplied with tea and biscuits from Kreacher, Hermione filling Harry in on the events of the castle or reminiscing about their days at school. She's decided to come back to Hogwarts to do her seventh year, and Neville and Hannah have decided to repeat theirs. McGonagall is officially Headmistress of Hogwarts now. Kingsley paid a visit yesterday with a task force of Aurors and they spent some time scouring the castle for lingering curses, enchantments, and dark creatures. Kingsley wants to talk to Harry, apparently, as soon as he's up for it.
The dull weight over his limbs begins to lift as he talks to Hermione. Harry finds himself growing more and more relaxed as the hours pass and the fire wanes. After days of barely being able to move, of hardly registering that he even had arms and legs at all, when Hermione stands to go down to the Great Hall for dinner, Harry finds himself standing with her. When he begins to sway, Hermione catches his arm, but he refuses to sit back down.
It's been long enough, he thinks, as Hermione helps him climb out of the portrait hole. Harry is ready to move again.