Work Text:
He can’t bear to stare at the ceiling any longer, trapped in his own company. Ron’s gentle snoring isn’t enough to assuage the bone-deep feeling of loneliness, it falls short of its usual reassuring quality. Sighing, and not having the confidence to wake his best friend without good reason, he untangles himself from the covers and slips quietly from the room onto the landing.
With well-practiced silence, he creeps down the stairs, hoping to meet another sleepless soul at the kitchen table, or sitting by the fire in the living room. But it’s dark, and there’s no sign of life around at all.
The longing for company seems to physically ache and the remnant queasiness from his last nightmare returns as he stands aimlessly at the foot of the stairs.
He heads back up the stairs, not noisily by any means but without any effort to be quiet. One of the steps creaks, but otherwise the house remains devastatingly silent. Then comes the struggle – Harry lingers uncertainly in the hallway. He considers waking Ginny and Hermione, or Ron, or even George. He knows they wouldn’t mind, that they’d want him to bother them, even. They’d understand. The long nights spent with warm drinks and inane conversation to avoid their troubles were a familiar comfort to all of them, and if nobody mentioned the shadows under the others’ eyes, the redness, the hunched shoulders or the shot of something strong in their mugs, they could pretend that it was just an impromptu sleepover. Still, they had slept through his nightmares this time, and he couldn’t bring himself to wake them. A good night’s sleep was so rare, and Harry knew he would not find the words to fill the drowsy silence. He would not shake his brother awake only to look into his bleary, questioning gaze and falter, unable to ask for what he really wants. A childish longing to be held, to believe an authoritative promise that the monsters in his nightmares can’t get him here, to be soothed through a desperate bout of sobs that would wrack his entire body.
So Harry hovers in the dark hallway, feeling rather sorry for himself. Tired but so far from sleep that he just feels restless. Haunted by the certainty that the others’ wouldn’t be so hesitant to seek comfort from those they loved. Even more troubled by the vague notion that they wouldn’t be desperate for comfort in the same way as him anyway, in the first place. That there’s something they all take for granted that he reveres, even now.
He inches forward and gently pushes open the door to the master bedroom. He stands adrift in the doorway, watching Molly and Arthur sleep in bed. He wants to whisper their names into the darkness to rouse them, but the very fibres of his being reject the impulse, closing up his throat and squeezing his chest. His eyes burn and he sucks in a gasping breath, thirsty for more oxygen. He takes a clumsy step backwards in retreat, and that’s when the sleeping form of Molly, closest to him, shifts in the bed. He freezes, even as tired eyes blink slowly open and settle on him in the doorway.
He holds his breath. The figure shifts again, rising just slightly, pushing herself up against the pillows. “Harry?”
He wanted this, he chides himself. He was so wrong to want this. A tremendous wave of guilt overcomes him.
“Are you okay?”
“Sorry, Molly.” Harry whispers, voice hoarse. “Go back to bed.” He keeps his voice as soft and low as he can get it. She must still be half-asleep, she might not even remember by morning. He takes another step back, into the hallway, reaching for the door knob to pull it shut.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Don’t worry. Go to sleep.” He insists gently. His hand settles on the knob, which he twists and pulls closed. He doesn’t let go once it clicks shut, he just closes his eyes and leans the top of his head against the door, turning his face to the floor. A shuddering breath passes through him against his will.
With a quiet click, the door that had been holding Harry up opens before him – he trips forward on his weight, caught by a pair of hands on his shoulders.
“Oh Harry.” Whispers Molly, pulling him close. He stiffens immediately, but the arms wrapped around him feel too safe not to give in to. He lets his head drop onto her shoulder and struggles to breathe normally, hating himself more for every moment that passes. He feels wrong, like he’s stealing something that he hasn’t earned. How can he take solace in the embrace of the Weasley matriarch, after all that he’s done?
That thought gives him the willpower to reject the thing that he craves. Harry pulls sheepishly away from the hug, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Sorry.”
Molly tries to shush him in a soothing tone, but he takes a step backwards, unable to look at her. “I’m really sorry.” He repeats. “For waking you. For everything.”
“Harry, please.” She implores. “Stop beating yourself up. Come to bed.”
Harry’s surprised enough to meet her eyes, and she seizes upon his confusion with a guiding hand at his elbow. She nudges him towards the bed, where the bedside lamp on the far side is now on, and he notices that Arthur’s awake too, now. He’s sitting up in bed, wearing navy flannel pyjamas, matching the pattern of Molly’s periwinkle. It’s absurdly normal and domestic, and Harry’s guilt, fear and despair are suddenly warring with awkwardness. Arthur shuffles over and pulls back the quilt, “Come on, son.” He encourages.
Feeling lost, Harry lets Molly coax him into the bed. She shuts the door and returns to sit on his other side. Harry sits very carefully still. He thinks the pyjamas must have been part of a matching set one Christmas – he’s sure he’d seen Ron in a similar pair coloured maroon for some time at Hogwarts, but he’d quickly outgrown them.
Molly pulls him against her chest again, her diminutive height cancelled out in bed, but Harry can’t let go of the tension. Even when she rubs circles in his back, he can’t relax.
“Sorry.” He murmurs. “Please go back to sleep. I’ll go.” Nothing changes, it’s as if he hadn’t spoken. The proximity begins to feel smothering. He can’t give in to it. He feels alien. His pulse isn’t horribly fast but it is heavy, like if he were to look down he’d see his chest convulsing with each thrum. “Stop!” He demands, overwrought with anxiety. The hand on his back stops moving but it just sits there. The pressure of the touch is unbearable.
Harry shoves roughly at the blankets and detaches himself, crawling like an infant to the foot of the bed.
“Please talk to me.” Asks Molly, still gentle. “I’m sorry. I just want to help, dear.”
“I don’t need help.” Harry stares into her blue eyes. “You don’t need to be sorry.”
“I upset you.” She states, matter-of-fact.
“No.”
She looks so sad, which only makes Harry’s regret increase ten-fold.
“I don’t know what happened.” He insists. “Sleepwalking, or something. I’m alright, tired, I’ll go back, I didn’t mean to wake you, you don’t need to worry, or, or –“
“We do worry. It’s what parents do.” Arthur finally speaks, interrupting Harry with a firm but kind voice.
“You’re not my parents.”
“It’s what people do for people they love.” Arthur amends. “You know Molly, Harry. She’s desperate to mother you. Won’t you let her?”
A smile tugs at Harry’s lips, just a little. “I don’t need it.”
“We do. We need to look after you kids, even when you don’t need it. Come on.”
Harry doesn’t move. He doesn’t crawl back between them, but he doesn’t move to stand and run away, either.
“Maybe,” He begins. “Even if I wanted to.” He licks his lips. “I don’t think I can.”
There’s no immediate rebuttal to that announcement, so it permeates through the quiet, inflection thready, cracking on the last word. Harry almost wants to take it back, but he’s too worn to think rationally. He hides his face behind the one hand that isn’t holding himself up, looking to the side at a wooden dresser, cluttered with toiletries and parchment and trinkets. The sit in the quiet for minutes, the sound of Harry’s carefully controlled breathing discordant against the natural, regular pattern from Molly and Arthur. He moves his fist to cover his lips and turns to face the pair again, though he doesn’t look right at them. His eyes struggle to focus on anything, anyway.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry. God.” Harry trembles. “I’m really sorry.” He cries. He’s glad that they make no move towards him. As he squeezes his eyes shut he feels his face crumpling, the heat of tears wetting his lashes.
“What on earth are you sorry for?” Molly asks, sounding so genuine that Harry chokes on a warbled laugh. As if the idea of Harry needing to apologise was a surprise to her, when it couldn’t possibly be.
“Everything. Everything! I’ve been selfish. Dragging Ron, dragging everyone – and putting it off, everything. Fred.”
Molly tuts. Harry’s surprised by the emotion in Arthur’s words, “You can’t possibly blame yourself, Harry. For all that?”
Harry can’t help it, he only cries harder.
“Shhh, stop this nonsense, dear. Is that what’s been weighing on you?”
Harry couldn’t respond even if he knew what to say.
“You should have said something. You’re not responsible, Harry. For any of it. Do you understand?”
The sympathy is wrong, they’re wrong, Harry swipes angrily at his cheeks, frustrated with his childishness.
“You don’t understand at all. I can’t tell you, but you don’t understand. You’re wrong.”
The untold secret sits between them like a barrier for barely a moment, before Molly pushes past it. “You don’t need to tell us.” She decides. “No matter what it is. There’s no secret great enough to put the blame at your feet, Harry.” You don’t understand, his mind scoffs. You’d be horrified, if you knew. “Because we know you. You are good. You never asked for any of it, it wasn’t fair. You didn’t have a choice. But when you do have a choice, you do the right thing. Even when the world asks too much of you. Even when you’d have been more than entitled to turn away. You’re young. I know it mustn’t feel like it, but even now you’re a child. What should a child do when faced with war? You’re not nearly selfish enough, Harry.”
He didn’t know what to do with the impassioned speech. He wanted to retreat within himself.
“We all made decisions to put ourselves in danger, to take risks. And it wasn’t just for you. If Ron had never met you we’d have still fought the war. If you hadn’t existed, Voldemort wouldn’t have been any less of a dark wizard, any less evil. The blood is on his hands.” There was a breath. “Fred wouldn’t blame you. None of us blame you.”
Harry shook his head. “Stop it.”
His chest rose and fell. He could feel two sets of eyes boring into him.
“Is there something else?” Asks Molly, softly. “A nightmare?”
Harry shook his head and it was true, then, because his nightmare had just been bodies, and he couldn’t think about that any more. He certainly couldn’t take any more reassurances.
“There’s something.” She says. “Why won’t you let us help you?” And it wasn’t phrased like an invitation, though it could have been. It was a question. A devastated, confused, question.
I don’t deserve it, his mind instantly supplied. I’m scared. This parental care just feels strange. I don’t know how to act normally. How do normal people react to the chance to be comforted when they’re not distressed enough to lose all self-consciousness? It’s not like this. It’s not with deep, penetrating horror. It’s not with a painful blend of achingly desperate longing and uneasy, panicked fright.
Through those jumbled thoughts, stray fragments tumble from him. “I don’t – it feels strange – I don’t... know how. I don’t know how.”
Molly leans forward, extending a hand. Harry looks at it, feeling inhuman. Normal people take the hand.
“I’m sorry.” I’m not normal. I can’t be.
The hand drops, empty, atop the bunched up duvet. “Don’t be sorry.” Somehow she sounds even sadder than she did before.
“I’m just –“ Overwhelmed. It’s too much, too far beyond what I’m used to. “I think I’ll go back to bed.”
“Sleep here.” Arthur requests.
“I can’t. I won’t be able to.” I won’t be able to sleep at all. But I'll never be able to get myself together if I stay.
“Alright.” He says, disappointed.
Alright. Harry rises from the bed and walks to the door.
“We’ll be here.” Comes the insistent plea of Molly Weasley. “If you change your mind.”
“I’m sorry.” Harry says, lingering in the doorway, unmoored. “I hope you get back to sleep. I’m really sorry. Goodnight.” Harry pulls the door quietly closed and doesn’t stick around for minds to change.
He goes straight to the bathroom, needing to be really, truly alone, avoid disturbance. He locks the door and sinks immediately to the cold, tiled floor. The repressed chaos within him finally rises to the surface. Stupid! So, so stupid! A tight knot twists in his stomach, he swallows down the sensation of rolling nausea around it in his gut. Childish, voiceless howls escape him, alarmingly animalistic. Stop. He allows himself the comfort of curling up, wrapping his arms around his knees and burying his head low. He cries, he lets himself go in the way he never could bring himself to with company, no matter how much he wanted it. Afterwards, he stays sitting on the hard bathroom floor for a very long time, drained and unmoving. Eventually, he forces himself up, stiff all over, to return to bed in Ron’s room. He pulls the covers over him, listening once again to Ron’s snores. He will not sleep.
Harry lies flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for the sun to rise and to see it filter softly through the curtains. He wishes he had lain like this all through the night. He wonders if Molly and Arthur are sleeping, now, or quietly discussing him with concern instead of getting rest in the small hours of the morning. He studies the streaky paint on the ceiling for the thousandth time in his life, and wishes for the millionth that he had the ability to clear his mind.