Work Text:
A World Our Own
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Harry remembers falling.
Again.
It is the third time in less than a week that the ground has given way beneath him. Or maybe the ground has never moved at all. Maybe it was only his mind that could not bear it; the pain that all but split apart his scar...his chest...his head.
Is living meant to hurt this much? Is it supposed to? Perhaps it is simply the proof of it — things are real because they hurt. That has always been the way of things after all. His truth.
He remembers the cold, and how much it burned. How his lungs were full of glass, and how every breath was caustic. In the water, and later too. It stabbed and stabbed, and the pain was everything. And cotton. How could it hurt and feel like cotton?
He is drowning in it; the cotton. His world is wrapped in the texture of solidified clouds. The water. The cool grass beneath his cheek. The soft hands fluttering across his face. He doesn't think he should be able to feel them, through the cotton, but he does. They are both fading and growing stronger. Firmer. Softer.
"Harry!"
His name is jarring. Pulling at him, dragging him from the darkness. From the cotton. Further into the cotton.
His eyes are so heavy. Like the air. Like the icy heat. How can ice burn?
"Harry, wake up!"
The voice is soft. Comforting. Familiar. He reaches for it, lets it pull him out. Up? Where is up? Where is out?
The ground feels firmer, suddenly. Each individual blade of grass is pressing into his back. The cotton dissolves, fades into spring. The water was clouds, and you cannot drown in clouds, only fall. So he cannot have drowned.
He blinks, his heavy lids opening at last. And she is peering down at him, a vision, her hair so scarlet and fierce that it scalds as it sharpens. He doesn't reckon a sunset should be allowed to blaze with such intensity. Not in daylight. But she does. She blazes right through everything, breaks through every wall in her way, his Ginny. He smiles.
"Finally!" she says, her face settling into the etchings of relief. "You've been out ten minutes. Adrian's run to get Pomfrey. Are you all right?"
And he isn't sure how to answer. Is he all right? He isn't sure. His head is still full, his mind swaddled in confusion.
"What happened?" he asks. His own voice is shattering.
"The broom," Ginny murmurs, laying a cool hand across his cheek, "you fell off."
He doesn't remember. But it must be true. He knows it is true. "Were we...playing a game?"
"Of course not," she says, frowning. She blushes. "Quidditch practice. I was watching you." Her voice is soft. A whisper. A caress.
"I wanted to get you alone and do things to you in the air, Harry," she whispers. "But then you fell off."
Her words are so at odds with the brightness of the pitch that he cannot process them. He wonders if he misheard. Misunderstood.
"I was trying to get the Snitch," he says dumbly. He was definitely reaching, he remembers this. Remembers the glint of gold, almost as if through shimmering water. The memory feels cold, winterlike, but around him it is spring. It feels like summer, even, but in the summer there is no Hogwarts, so it cannot be summer.
He doesn't remember closing his fingers around it. But he remembers falling, though he didn't think it had been quite so high, but he does remember it hurt. Now, the pain is dull. Cotton again.
He ignores it — the dull ache in his head and chest and everywhere, barely noticeable behind the thick layer of swaddling — and focuses on her face. Her soft fingers are holding his, and her hair is spilling across her shoulders, like lava made wind, and her eyes are the color of the earth. And in that moment, he knows that she is everything. She is both the journey and the house at the end of the road. Home.
"I love you," he gasps. "Ginny Weasley, I'm in love with you."
And she smiles. And then everyone smiles. And he realizes that the entire Slytherin team is gathered around them, minus Adrian, of course, because he ran off to get Pomfrey. But Malfoy is there, wearing his signature smirk and holding the Quaffle. And Crabbe and Goyle are there, grinning stupidly. Even Miles is looking on. And they all look amused, and relieved, and like they're trying not to snigger. And he is embarrassed, and yet not embarrassed at all.
"I know," Ginny says, smiling. "Of course you are."
And she reaches out a hand and pulls him to his feet, and everything hurts. He reckons it hurts. It should hurt. His head is pounding, really. But Ginny's hand is in his, and she's leading him back to the castle, and he's too busy watching the way the green sleeve of her robe trails against his arm to remember to feel anything else.
She is beautiful. More beautiful than he's ever allowed himself to say, both inside and out, but today, he knows he will tell her. Today, he has walked back from the edge of falling. Today, he will tell Ginny how her smile is the best thing he's ever seen in his entire life, and how just the thought of it is enough to keep walking, despite everything. He will tell her how he loves Ron and Hermione, how they mean the world to him, and yet without her that world is empty. Silent. He will tell her that no matter how strong the Horcruxes pulling at him are, their darkness is nothing compared to her light. She carries it within her like a torch; her strength, her compassion. She is not simply sunlight, she is the sun itself. And when she casts her light upon him, the dark shadows that trail him seem smaller. Everything he's done, he's done it for her. For a future he holds dearer than anything. For a future as beautiful as the contrast between her fiery river of hair and her crisp Slytherin greens.
He wonders, as he watches her, why he was ever afraid. Why he once tried to dehumanize an entire house before he stepped foot within its dungeony halls. But the Sorting Hat has always known where he belonged. He can't imagine how it would be, had he been a Gryffindor. What would it be like, if his and Ron's inter-house friendship had been neither inter-house nor groundbreaking. Would Gryffindor and Slytherin hate each other? Would he be known for nothing but his scar?
If he is to be known for anything, he'd rather be known for something he did. Something he chose to do without having to. Without Dumbledore's legacy and a prophecy breathing down his back. But in the end, he wishes to be known for nothing, and by no one, except her. Except Ginny.
"Come," she says, and he glances up, and the blank stretch of wall is before them. Ginny has not taken him to the hospital wing. It is a relief; he has seen enough of the hospital wing to last a lifetime. Ginny…Ginny understands.
He stares blankly at the wall, and the wall stares blankly back. His mind is empty; full of cotton.
"Severus," Ginny says. "Severus Snape." And the door opens. And he cannot wrap his mind around why this is the password, because Snape is a traitor. Isn't he? But yes, the password is correct. Of course it is; he's known it all along.
They step inside the common room. It's empty. It should be cool; it's beneath the lake. He yearns for it to be cool...but it is boiling. Perhaps Voldemort has set the lake on fire. Would Voldemort do such a thing? He isn't sure, but that is how the common room feels. When he looks out at the shadowy water beyond the windows, it is roiling. Angry. Nearly black.
Ginny appears unconcerned. She leads him to the stairs that lead to his dormitory.
"Ginny," he mumbles, "the water…the lake."
She pauses. Glances at the window and then back at his face. Her eyes are like fire.
"Oh, it's been like that all week," she says. "The giant squid's been mating with Hagrid's medium-sized octopus, don't you remember?"
"Right," Harry says. And he does remember it, now. The lake's been roiling for days. He must have hit his head rather hard. Perhaps Ginny should take him to Pomfrey after all.
She doesn't, though. She leads him down, down the stairs, further into the scalding heat. His every breath is blistering. How does she not notice? Does she not burn because she is fire itself?
They are in the dorm — dim and dark, with the black lake swirling outside the windows, threatening to break through the magically-enforced glass. Ginny pushes him into his four-poster, atop the dark green sheets.
"You need to rest," she says. "Or you'll never find the other Horcruxes. But it's all right, I'll help you look."
"You shouldn't help me look," Harry mumbles. "It's too dangerous. That's why I had to leave you. Don't you remember?"
"I do," she says sadly, nodding. "I cried for days, you know. Not because I thought you didn't love me…but because I knew you'd never stop."
And she is right. And it hurts. It all hurts, and he can barely feel it. He remembers leaving her — a funeral with a white tomb full of goodbyes — and yet now she's here, and he's not quite sure why that is, how it happened. But it's right. It's how it should be. She's here, with her red locks spilling down her back like sunset threads. It's hard to look at her now — he's staring at sunlight.
"Anyway, Harry," she says softly, "of course I'm helping. Look, I've got this out of Snape's office for you." And she lifts her hand, and she's holding the sword of Gryffindor. The blade is glinting, even though it's dark. Burning, really. There are tendrils of flame dancing across its sharp edges, blazing so hot it hurts.
He stares. It's like he has forgotten how to breathe. The way the fire swirls across the metal, it's like shimmering water. He was reaching…he remembers now. Not for the Snitch at all. No, no it was the sword. And the clouds were freezing. The clouds were water. The clouds were ice.
His head is on fire. It's like the sword is cleaving it neatly in two, right along the lines of his scar. He gasps. He was in the water. Was he drowning after all? And then Ron…Ron pulled him out. Ron and the sword. So why...
"Harry?" Ginny asks urgently. "What's wrong?"
She's shaking him, her icy hand on his shoulder, his face. He cannot seem to answer. His tongue feels heavy. Leaden.
"I'm getting help!" she says. She has decided to run to Pomfrey after all. But what can Pomfrey do...what can she say of cursed scars, and Horcruxes, and swords full of basilisk venom that cut through shattered souls?
But no, she has not gotten Pomfrey at all. Ron and Hermione are beside him now, grasping hands and looking pale and terrified, and he can't fathom how they got into the Slytherin dorm — do they know the password is Severus Snape? Severus Severus Snape?
"Wake up, Harry!" Hermione says urgently, and he blinks, and it's gone. It's all gone. The green hangings, the four poster, the dark dorm. Ginny. All that remains is a familiar narrow bunk. A canvas ceiling. He's in the tent, and Ginny is gone — at Hogwarts, where he left her. Just a dot on the map he watches during the long and lonely nights, and no matter how many declarations he makes, she'll never hear them. His words cannot touch her through the parchment.
He pushes at the sweat-soaked sheets that cocoon him to grasp at his aching head, and Hermione and Ron lean over him. Everything else is gone, dissolving into smoke and fading away, but they remain solid. They, at least, are real.
"It's all right," Hermione says softy.
"What happened?" he gasps. He's trying to make sense of it all, to sort through the threads, but they're tangled in patterns so wild he can't even see the edges. If only his head would stop throbbing. He feels like he did that winter in primary school, when he was nine and Dudley was so thoroughly awful that he ran off from the playground and, wrapped up in the unyielding confidence of youth, decided he would never return. It took two days for the Dursleys to track him down, though now he's quite confident that's simply because they didn't look hard enough. The little adventure landed him with a spell of pneumonia so severe that Aunt Petunia kept him out of school for two whole weeks, after walloping him in the ribs with her frying pan. The stabbing in his chest, like his lungs are full of glass and he can barely breathe, the way he can't stop shaking — he remembers these things. It's like he is nine again.
"We found you outside the tent, mate," Ron says, and Harry looks at them blankly. Was that where the cool earth was?
"You don't remember?" Hermione says softly. "You collapsed, Harry. You had a terrible fever…"
"No…" Harry mutters. He remembers the pond, and the sword, and Ron destroying the Horcrux. He remembers walking back to the tent, Ron and Hermione's row, Hermione's fury. And he knows she's angry with Ron, and yet how angry is she, really, since Ron is back. She's been waiting for him to return for two long months. And she may be angry, but he knows she will forgive him. Of course she will...she's simply waiting for the moment when she can. And then his thoughts swirl into a confused mess. Ron and Hermione. Hermione and Ron. And him, alone. He does recall feeling ill, but certainly it was simply a cold. He isn't sure why, how, he's here. His hands are still impossibly reaching for Ginny, a million miles away.
"Oh, Harry, you should have told us if you weren't feeling well," Hermione says anxiously. "Why do you insist on doing everything on your own? I have Pepper-Up Potion, you know."
And he doesn't answer...what can he really say? Ron is back, and now Ron and Hermione are on the edge of together, dancing around each other like thunder and lightning, but really they are two parts of a whole. And he's thrilled that Ron is back, beyond thrilled. But the more they are together, the more he is alone. The more he is aware that Ginny is gone, out of reach, and he is marked. And there is nothing but murder — death — on the horizon. Maybe even his.
So he says nothing at all.
He turns away, willing his eyes not to betray him, and Hermione lays a hand across his forehead and frowns and turns to Ron, and he can hear them talking in low voices now, as if they think he cannot hear.
"He got bitten by You-Know-Who's snake, Ron. And then jumped into an icy pond and nearly drowned. Is it such a surprise? We should have seen it sooner."
"It'll be fine, Hermione. We'll sort him right out. Colds aren't a problem for us like they are for Muggles."
"I think it's rather more than a cold, Ronald. And both of you idiots walked around the forest for how long without even drying your clothes. It's a wonder you're not ill, too. Honestly."
"Bloody hell, Hermione, just give him the potion. If it doesn't work we'll worry about it then."
And Harry nearly laughs. He would laugh, really, if his chest wasn't on fire. Oh, he really did miss Ron.
And then Hermione is pushing a smoking goblet into his hands, and it burns through him, like Snape's cloak after Hermione set it on fire in first year. A traitor after all. If only she hadn't let it burn out. Perhaps then they would be back at Hogwarts, safe and warm with Dumbledore standing strong to lead them. And Ginny...would she still be in his arms?
Her face swims before him as he slips into darkness once more, but this time, there are no dreams waiting to meet him. There is nothing but black.
.
It takes several more days, before they leave the clearing. It is the longest they have stayed in one spot to date, but Hermione is loath to move until Harry is better. She walks around on edge, constantly at war with herself; pushing down the part of her that fears discovery by insisting that Harry cannot yet Apparate. She force-feeds him potions twice a day, until their stock is nearly exhausted. Harry is relieved; he is quite certain that his lungs have healed only at the expense of all the taste buds on his tongue.
When he is strong enough to walk and Hermione finally stops fretting long enough to fall asleep in the bunk beside Ron's, he slips out of the tent and into the moonless night.
The stars are a spray of paint across the dark canvas of the night sky. He touches the blackthorn wand to the parchment, whispers, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," and casts it aside. He doesn't need its light to make out her name, the starlight is enough, and for that he is thankful.
She is there, safe in her dorm. Is she waiting? Will she keep fighting for him? The answer he wants...it isn't simple. It is neither, and both at once, and he thinks of how Ron's and Hermione's hands were casually entwined as he walked past and hates himself for this weakness, and yet she is his strength. She is both. Here, beneath the starry expanse of the universe, he cannot lie. Not to himself.
He brushes his hand across the parchment, trailing his fingers across the letters of her name.
"I love you."
The words are lost in the wind. Perhaps it will carry them to her. Perhaps she will feel a soft breeze ruffle her sunlit hair when she steps out upon the grounds tomorrow, and she will think of him. Or perhaps it will slip into her dorm and trail into her dreams, and she will know. Perhaps in her dream, she will say it back, even though in his she did not.
And of course she did not, because he cannot dare to even imagine these three words leaving her lips, not even when he is asleep and lost in dreams, for they would change everything.
These words he knows she cannot hear...if he survives long enough, he hopes he can say them to her. Truly say them.
And if she's waiting, as he's afraid to hope she might be, then perhaps...perhaps they can build a world...that is entirely their own.