Work Text:
“Please, I can’t any-”
It happens in a split second.
Thwack!
The back of Bellatrix Lestrange’s bony hand met the side of your face with such force you flew sideways, plummeting to the ground with a tremendous thump . Arms too late to brace yourself you met the floor harsher than your body could handle, the hair knocking itself out of your lungs, the edge of your brow hitting the ground at a painful angle. You can already feel it begin to trickle blood. Your ears ring with a shrill noise.
“Puny little one! You really think I’ll stop, this is much too fun you know!” Bellatrix’s shrill laugh makes you want to puke. “Too bad, as a pureblood you could have found a nice place at our Lord’s table~! Too bad you and your parents aren’t dark inclined! So now I guess all you’re good for is shutting up and accepting it!”
“Can’t you see they can’t handle it!” a deep voice shouted and though you couldn’t see, eyes screwed up, you knew who it was. Your dear Harry. Sweet, courageous, stupid, Harry Potter.
He should have escaped by now, you know he could, saving Hermione and Ron who resided in the dungeon below. But he had done something, something you didn’t catch but Bellatrix did. She singled you out and separated you from the rest of the group. Dragged you in the center of the room to be not only physically but mentally tortured, Harry watched it all unfold.
“Stop! Don’t touch them!”
You could hear him now, the ringing decreased, struggling as a Death Eater older, stronger, and more than brutish held him down on the floor to kneel. You remember the fright, the anxiety that coursed through your veins, not at what would happen to you, but the image locked into your mind before all the pain began.
Harry on his knees, a brawny hand dug into his hair, almost close to ripping it out in the process of pulling his head up so he couldn’t take his eyes off of you. You wanted to just die already, not to stop your pain, but to stop his. You didn’t want the one you loved more than anything in the world to see you like this. To be put through this. He’d gone through so much at such a young age, and still is, you didn’t want to pour any more salt into an already gruesome wound.
A sob wracked through you, ribs feeling as if they were literally shaking inside your chest. Every beat of your heart caused a dull ache to spring through your limbs, felt all the way to the tips of your toes to the ending of your fingers. Your eyes open looking through hazy vision, one eye closed as blood flows over it from your split wound. “Harry…,” your voice was so soft, so broken, you didn’t know if he could even hear you. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I shouldv’e ne-Aah!”
“Be quiet, are you deaf or something! I said to shut up!”
Bellatrix heeled clad boot thrusts itself into your gut, you swear it connected between two ribs, punching a lung that has you sputtering and choking on the floor. You don’t want Harry to look at you, drooling on the floor, writhing and so unlike what you want him to remember you as. Your arms reach out, a thought coming to you, a purely human instinct to crawl away, but you know it’s futile. So as you fight for breath, your eyes focus on the wooden floor, trying to focus on the spiral and circle in the wood to remember to stay awake. Your nails dig into the wood. Wood that shouldn’t look so pretty, look so beautiful as you suffer upon it.
There’s something low, like a growl, that meets your ears. You can’t make it out through everything happening. You just hope it’s not something you need to worry about. Any more pain and you know you’ll black out from lack of sufficient airflow.
“I said stop!” A loud grunt is heard behind you, a body that is too heavy to be Harry’s crashing to the ground. It rattles the floor and you want to cry from the feeling it wracks through you. The thing is you already are crying, the wood darker where they splattered.
“ Stupify!” You want to turn around, but can’t. That’s Harry’s voice, you try to remember if they took anybody’s wands. Bellatrix had yours, the question was though did she take Harry’s?
“You little brat, how dare you try and-”
“ Expelliarmus!” Bellatrix’s shriek is heard, her wand flicking out of her hand.
You want to see, you want to know what’s happening. Yet can’t as your vision blots black and white, like little stars that mock you. The last thing you hear as your head rests upon the tear-stained wood and your body slumps exhausted from exertion is Harry’s voice shouting so loud it clangs in your skull. For a second you think you hear Hermione and Ron too.
*
It’s bright, much too bright. A grown slips between your lips, pain ricocheting through you as the ache in your ribs is brought back to the forefront of your mind. Speaking of mind, your head is throbbing in more places than one.
You reach your hand up, blindly, to try to pinpoint where it is coming from but a hand catches it. It’s soft and warm and so much better than everything else that feels so strange and new. Slowly blinking your eyes open you drink in the scene around you. Watching the hand holding yours lower it back down on the woolen blanket has you humming in confusion. Following the fingers that gingerly hold your dainty wrist up to the elbow, the shoulder, and the face you are more than happy to see who it is.
“Harr-,” you stop yourself, throat scratchy and dry. He is attentive, realizing your need. So with his unoccupied hand, he grabs a cup on the table next to you and pushed it to your bottom lip. Slow and oh so gentle he tilted it as you gulp it down. At one point he stops in the middle to make you slow down, you want to laugh, the thought of rattling your ribs stopping you from doing so.
Satisfied with your fill you try again, more careful this time. “Harry…,” you have so many questions. So many things you want to ask, want to say, but you settle with, “I’m so happy to see you.”
His eyes, bright and beautiful emeralds shining down on you with something you can’t decipher. A smile is on his face, it wobbles though trying to rise up. His voice is more watery than you had initially imagined. “I’m glad,” he holds your wrist tighter the tiniest bit. “I was scared that you...that you wouldn’t wake up. Madam Pomfrey said it was possible you might’ve fallen into a coma from the severe hit to your head.”
“Hmmm, I’m glad I didn’t. I didn’t,” your eyes trail downwards to the blanket where your free hand twiddles with a loose thread before looking back up, “want you to see another person die in front of you.”
There’s an unspoken word you feel he might insert there himself a ‘because of you’, like so many people like to do. To put blame on him for deaths out of his control or knowledge.
He seems to not take it this way, a real grin starting to form on his face, He runs a hand through the mop he likes to call his hair, something you absolutely adore to no end. “So, let me get this straight. You are on the brink of death and instead of ‘ I want to live’ it’s ‘I don’t want someone to see me die’.
“Well,” you go to correct him, a smile is on your lips, the mood lightening even after everything that occurred, it’ll hit you later but not now, “more like I didn’t want you to see me die. I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
Harry’s brows furrow, scooting to the edge of his chair, closer to you to inquire more. “Not to sound...blunt, but...I’ve seen worse. I mean! Not to disregard your pain or anything you went through, I just-”
“Harry, I know. I just mean,” a surge of confidence rushes through you. Maybe it was your near-death experience that helped you. “For the boy, I like to see me in that position...I couldn’t stand it. I well-”
A hand settles on your cheek, thumb brushing the contour of your cheekbone. Green and black flood your vision till your eyes close the scene and lips press to yours. It’s almost nothing. A bare hint of pressure, light as a miniature tap. You realize it’s him being gentle, he doesn’t want to hurt you with how broken you are. You appreciate it yet at the same time wish you could kiss him harder.
He moves away and it takes you a few seconds to register you’ve had your eyes closed for longer than necessary. Opening your eyes the expression Harry wears is something you want to see him have every single day.
“And I thought the person I liked wasn’t interested in me at all,” his laugh is music to your ears. His fingers that held your wrist are cautious, moving to interlock with yours. You squeeze in reassurance, it’s all you can do right now and hope he feels your love shining through.
It does when there is red starting to paint the edges of his ears, seen even through his crazy hair. For a second his smile falters, eyes glazing like he is remembering something.
“What is it?” you ask voice soft and worry-filled.
“When you were being…,” Harry’s voice trails off, you get his meaning, a nod of his beckoning him on, “you said you were sorry. That you shouldn’t have ever done something. What did you mean by that?’
His eyes lock with yours, you know what he’s talking about. “I thought I was going to die. I shouldn’t have even thought it, but I did. I...I was going to say I should’ve never invited you into my train compartment when we met our first year. I realize now how cruel that would’ve sounded, but you know what I mean now,” he nods hand squeezing yours. “If I hadn’t met you I wouldn’t have caused you the pain of seeing me die in front of you.”
“You’re not dead,” he takes your hand, pressing his lips to the bumps of your knuckles. “And I’ll make you stay that way for a very very long time.”
It’s not your ribs this time. It’s your heart, shaking inside your chest that has you taking a small labored breath. “The same goes for me, at least once I’m healed. I’m a Gryffindor I can get through this easy peasy.” The smile against your hand is felt, nerves shot in the hand. You’ll be lucky they operate after he lets go.
“I want to say thank you though, for saving me.” A tear trailed down your cheek, over the plump flesh of it to your pillow. “I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t…”
You both know what would have happened. It brings horrible visions of what could have been, so to ease both your worries once again he leans over your body a kiss placing itself below the bandage you just realize is on your head. A finger moves your hair from your face when he pulls away.
“You should sleep more, I’ll be here when you wake up. I promise.”
You do as Harry says, feeling more than safe with him watching you.
*
“I was correct,” Hermione’s voice is full of smugness, but it’s her right.
“Just because they confessed right now, doesn’t mean you are,” Ron huffs, foot stapping in exasperation. “I thought we agreed they had to confess in the Gryffindor common room.”
“Details, details. You forgot the agreement was on Hogwarts grounds before the seventh year.”
“I guess...it took them long enough. They threw so many hints I was getting tired of watching them be oblivious,” Ron looks through the hospital wing door’s window as Harry watches you go back to sleep for more needed rest.
“You’re one to talk…” The expression on her face is an interesting one that has Ron crinkling his eyebrows.
“What do you mean by that?” he asks but Hermione turns on her heel. “Wait, I’m serious Hermione, what do you mean by that!?”