Chapter Text
Can one truly ever heal?
Harry sat on the grounds of Hogwarts, taking in the breeze that touched his skin like a butterfly blessed in July— fluttering away, moving from roses to roses— feeling alive. He looked to his left and found Ron and Hermione talking to each other in hushed whispers like new lovers do, too scared to love in the open, too scared to reveal themselves to the world. Harry looked at them, and he smiled.
He knew all too well what it was like to love, and to deny himself the enlightment of it.
Quidditch practice was almost over, and Harry was confident his team would do well to win this year as well.
Harry got up, and before he could approach the young lovers, a strong pair of arms embraced him from behind.
"Have you no shame?" Harry whispered playfully, smiling still.
Draco leaned into the smaller boy even more, too enrapt in love to take notice of the prying eyes on the pair. Everyone be damned, thought Draco, and kissed Harry on the cheek. "You done with practice yet?" Draco whispered, softer still, "I'm getting impatient, you know."
Harry rolled his eyes and freed himself from the grasp of his lover. He folded his arms and looked straight in Draco's eyes. "If you are thinking you and I are doing... Things today, forget it." Before Draco could open his mouth to protest, Harry continued, "I have to meet with... You-Know-Who for something today."
"Can you not call him You-Know-Who? That name is reserved for someone with a special place in Hell."
"Right. Sorry. I meant Dumbledore. He is still on the run, and if Umbridge found out that I am going to meet him—"
"Then there would be Hell to pay."
"Yeah."
Draco sighed. "I get it. Be careful, won't you?" Harry nodded. Draco embraced Harry, and only pulled apart hesitantly.
Harry watched as Draco left the grounds, and his mind was quick to go back to thinking about what was to come. Dumbledore had contacted Harry through the Floo, and told him of his urgent assistance on a matter. Harry had no idea what the "matter" was, but he knew there was no choice but to oblige. With Umbridge as the new Headmistress, Harry was willing to do anything to help Dumbledore replace the darn woman. Harry just hoped this special visit to his old Headmaster was in regards to just that.
He decided on going back to his dormitory.
Upon reaching the main halls, he tried his best to ignore the eyes of the people around him. He knew they were just curious about what Harry had done, but it was hard to not think more into it. Did they think Harry was a freak after finding out what he had done?
After what he had done.
"Why? Why? Why?" Harry asked himself, falling to the ground, "WHY DID I HAVE TO BE THIS— THIS PERSON?" He screamed— He yelled— at no one in particular. There was no one else to blame, but himself. He was in the darkling of the woods, and there was not one soul present to listen to his agonising screams.
"I tried. I tried so, so hard. I couldn't be normal. I COULDN'T BE NORMAL!" Then looking up above at the sky, tears incessantly falling down his cheeks, he said, in broken whispers, "Are you proud of me, Dad? Mum? Are you... This person that I have become... Did you want me to live this way?"
Harry was crying. He was crying for the dreams that never were, and for the dreams that never became real. He was crying about the friends he could have made, and what memories they could have made together. He was crying about the conversations that he wished had happened, but never did. He was crying about Ron, and how far he had pushed him away. He was crying about his very many successes and achievements he could have shown to Sirius and Remus, his godfathers who loved him to death.
He was crying about Luna, and how he was finally going to meet her on the other side.
"Luna," He said, weeping still, "This... Us... We are infinite, are we not? I.. I am.. We will be together... Again."
Harry wiped away his tears and pulled out his wand— his wand that he had first come to use at the age of seven, and was going to use the last time at the age of fifteen.
What Voldemort couldn't finish, Harry was going to.
Pointing his wand at himself, he closed his eyes and remembered Sirius and Remus and Molly and Hermione...
And Ginny, and Ron...
What pain must this be
That it does not ever end?
...And Hagrid, and Snape, and Dumbledore, and Draco.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A grand, bright light emanated from the end of his wand, and Harry fell to the ground.
He should have seen Luna, coming down to Earth to take Harry's soul away, but all he saw before he felt himself truly die was darkness.
Peace.
Harry was at peace.
But he had woken up. He was saved. He was saved by the people who loved him, and who Harry loved back. He had stayed at St Mungo's, healing, and had come back to Hogwarts for his Seventh Year— happy, and healed.
But, can one truly ever heal?
He sat down on his bed once he reached his dormitory. He had been at Hogwarts for a week already, yet it had taken him a lot of time to adjust, and to be back at this place, where bad things had taken place. He remembered the blood that he made his body shed, and how alive it made Harry feel. Despite it being bad, despite all the therapy and the love and the healing, Harry couldn't help but still think that these bad things were actually good, and they were calling him... It was calling him... Blades, and glass shards, and—
No.
No.
Harry was not going to do that. Not anymore. He had healed now, right? This was in the past. All of it was in the past. He could move on now. He had to.
Right?
But he couldn't let go. When he tried to let go, he remembered all the hurt the people who loved him gave him. When he tried to let go, he remembered how his loved ones pointed out every single thing they did not agree about him. When he tried to let go, he remembered there was no actual point in his existence, because every single direction that he would take in life would end in death anyway, so what was the point in leading a life that ultimately leads to death?
Oh.
Harry was back on square one.
But then he remembered.
He remembered that did not actually ever heal.
It was easier to pretend to be alright than actually be alright.
Harry thought of Mr Higgs, his oh so lovely therapist at St Mungo's, and how disappointed he would be at his... Relapse? Regress? Animosity towards life?
One cannot truly ever heal.
Harry wished, from the bottom of his heart, that he were wrong.