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~Keep your helmet, keep your life, son…~
“Well…this sucks.” After everything that had happened, their Ruse revealed, and being forced to move to America, that was all Harry had to say.
It was all anyone could say, really.
Archie, as always, tried to stay smiling. “It really does, doesn’t it?”
Their eyes met for a brief moment, and Archie was once again hit by the overwhelming sensation of everything going too fast, like a broom out of control in a sudden storm, and it was all he could do to hold on tightly, even though he knew it was futile because his hands were slipping and frozen from the cold.
Everything their families had built was gone, gone, gone overnight because of Harry and Archie’s ruse. It was almost cathartic— almost , because Archie still hadn’t processed anything yet. Their ruse had been a wooden house held atop a stack of cards, and finally, finally it had fallen down like everyone had expected after three years of creaking and rocking through storms. But it had happened within the blink of an eye. One minute he was trying to stay seated in a falling chair, and the next, he was falling down into rubble.
“It’s going to be okay.” Harry held Archie’s gaze with her own, her eyes steady and calm. “We’re gonna be okay.”
Archie wasn’t so sure. Sure, they were going to America and Archie could finally enroll into AIM as himself, but Harry…
Everything had changed for Harry.
As if reading his mind, Harry continued, “And don’t you worry about me. I’ll just carry on as usual.”
Archie didn’t reply. Harry didn’t need him to.
~Something med school did not cover…~
Nobody blames you. It’s not your fault. Archie’s dad had insisted.
And yet…it kind of was. Archie spent his nights thinking about what-ifs, lying on an uncomfortable bed and staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling.
Now, it was Archie’s fourteenth birthday, but nobody in their three houses felt like celebrating.
There were still boxes yet to be unpacked, gathering dust in the house. Progress was slow, because even attempting to make their houses feel like home felt wrong. To unpack would mean to accept reality, and none of them were willing to. As far as Archie knew, Lily only unpacked enough to make Addy’s room a comfortable living space. That was it.
“We should do something,” Sirius offered half-heartedly.
“I don’t want to,” Archie mumbled.
There was something in Sirius’s gaze that felt a lot like sympathy, before he just sighed and reached over and ruffled Archie’s hair. “Happy birthday, son.”
Sirius left. Archie continued staring at his bare, new room.
“...Sorry.” Harry looked at him and around the room guiltily.
Archie huffed. “And why are you apologizing?”
“Well.” Harry looked around the unfamiliar, wrong room again. “This is at least half my fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” Archie said automatically.
“Then it isn’t yours either,” Harry raised an eyebrow imperiously.
Unbidden, Archie let out a small laugh. Harry just rolled her eyes at his horrible(great) sense of humor before she got up too. “I’m going to the lab. Come find me whenever you’re done moping.”
Archie wondered, briefly, how much progress had been made in the potions lab renovation at the Potters’. Then he sank into himself again, because he was not, as Harry aptly put it, done moping. He didn’t think he knew how to stop.
~Only 20 minutes to sleep, but you dream of some epiphany…~
School gave Archie a sense of normalcy.
The only good thing that came out of this was that Archie could be Archie again. Hermione had forgiven him after some begging for forgiveness, and the whole school had gotten used to his name and his looks again, so Archie could wake up and pretend all was well.
Of course, he could only pretend for a few seconds before reality came crashing again. Harry was in some of his classes, and it was so wrong . She should have been in Hogwarts, learning from her beloved Potions Master Snape, but she was here instead, right there beside him in class at AIM.
He didn’t know whether potions class was worse for her or himself. Harry had never shown any outward disgust or boredom in class, but as her cousin and very, very best friend, Archie could tell. Mostly because Harry rectified her boredom by reciting information about potions ingredients Archie was sure no one else in the room knew. It was fine when she was just talking in his ear when they were brewing, but she actually gave more information than was needed when Archie—not Harry —was called on in class.
“...and asphodel was also considered the food of the dead, so potioneers deduced that the creator had included it in their first trials of the Draught of Living Death based on the myth.”
This earned them a beaming smile of encouragement from Professor Tallum. That was when Archie knew she was really, really bored.
Class ended, and Harry disappeared into the crowd.
“Archie,” Hermione tugged on his arm when he tried to go after her. “Where are you going?”
“I’m just—uh—”
“Archie,” Hermione called again, this time with a tinge of disapproval. “It’s lunchtime. You need to eat. And this time, more than just salad. You need to have some meat too, it’s Nutrition 101.”
“Right,” Archie said, trying to give her one of his winning grins. “I’ll catch up to you later then—”
“Oh yeah? When?” Hermione demanded.
Archie blinked. “What?”
“When are you going to ‘catch up to me’? Archie, you’ve been like this ever since school started. You make up some excuse and never show up for meals. Have you even looked at yourself recently?” Hermione dragged Archie to a corner, looking up at him with disapproval, worry, and most of all, sadness. “Please, Archie. Harry wouldn’t want you to be like this.”
Archie stiffened. He tried to speak, but his throat clogged up. So instead, he settled for staring down at her, his expression akin to a deer in headlights.
Hermione wavered, clearly uncomfortable, before continuing with newfound determination of someone going down a death slide with no way back up. “I know what you’ve been doing,” she said, her voice low. “You’ve been pretending—and I know it hurts less that way, but you have to face reality some time. You have to feel this…hurt, in order to move on. It’s what…Harry would’ve wanted.”
“You don’t know anything about Harry,” his voice was rasp. Stop, you’re going to regret this, some part of his brain was telling him. But a button had been pushed, and there was no abort function. “So stop acting like you do. She’s my best friend, my cousin, and—”
“—And she’s gone,” Hermione’s voice was sad, almost to the point of breaking, but firm. “You have to accept that.”
“No she’s not, ” Archie almost growled. Why couldn’t they see that? She was there just this morning, laughing at one of his stupid jokes—and it was a Harry laugh, one where she laughed with her eyes and made her look younger and more her own age. It was the laugh right before the look , where she pretended not to have been amused and gave him the Eye that said, come on, you can do better than that. And then next time, Archie would absolutely do better than that and everyone would have the best laugh of their lives.
“You—don’t—understand—” Archie managed to force out, and ripped his arm away from her. He didn’t, couldn’t look at her expression when he ran out of there.
He had to find Harry.
~Just one single glimpse of relief…~
Archie followed his instincts and surprisingly, it didn’t lead him to one of the potions labs in the school. Of course. Harry had always been more than potions, even though that was what everyone immediately associated her with.
Instead, Archie found her standing on one of the cliffs that looked out into the water, wind blowing in her hair, looking like she didn’t have a care in the world.
Harry loved flying. And as Archie made his way over, she looked like she actually was.
At the sound of his footsteps, Harry turned. She took one glance at his panicked and distraught expression, and understanding crossed her features.
Harry always knew, without him actually having to say the words.
The cousins stared at each other in silence. One of them waited patiently, and the other tried to accept the reality that he had been, unbeknownst to Hermione, repeatedly on the verge of accepting until something always pulled him back.
“Why?” Archie finally whispered. It was lost in the wind, but Harry could hear and understand him all the same. Why did you come back?
“You needed me,” Harry said simply. “Though now…I see that it may have done more harm than good.”
Archie let out a loud, gut-wrenching cry. Big, fat tears dropped for the first time since that fateful night as he wailed, pushing all of his grief through his lungs and letting it get swallowed by the wind. He raced towards Harry, arms wide open. She opened her arms to reciprocate in turn, but when he finally reached her, touched her, his arms passed right through.
That didn’t stop him from sobbing in her arms. He fell to the ground, and so Harry knelt in front of him, and he could almost feel her—the chill in his bones was all he could get from her.
“...And perhaps I was selfish too.” Harry’s voice had dropped to a whisper, as if telling him a secret. “I wanted to see everyone one last time.”
Yet, as far as he knew, she only ever appeared to him.
“I’m sorry,” Archie forced the words out past his hiccups. “This isn’t fair to you. You had so much left to do, and all because of this stupid ruse—I—”
“ You still have so much left to do,” Harry corrected gently.
It was true. Archie’s head spun.
“I—I’ll help you,” he said determinedly. “I can’t be the greatest Potions Master, but I can—”
“You should fulfill your own dreams,” Harry interjected quickly. “Not mine.”
Archie sucked in a breath. Something clicked, and he stared at her misty eyes unwaveringly. Her eyes were so wrong, he thought. They were supposed to be a glowing green, but now, they had been dimmed by death. “Will that help you move on?”
For the first time since she’d been like this, Harry looked taken aback. Then, she relaxed, smiled, and asked a gut-wrenching question. “Do you want me to move on?”
All was quiet for a minute, except for the rustling wind in Archie’s ears. Then, he reached out and placed his hand on top of hers. It went right through, but Archie did his best to uphold the illusion of holding her hand.
“You deserve to rest, Harry.”
She frowned.
“Don’t worry about me,” and it would’ve been convincing if not for the tear tracks on his face and the crack in his voice. “Go.”
Harry looked into Archie’s eyes searchingly for one last time. She must’ve found what she was looking for, because she nodded, and then she disappeared, just as suddenly as she had appeared, without any fanfare. She didn’t even say a simple bye because after all that had already been said—there was no need.
And the way she left was just so Harry that Archie would’ve laughed if he had been in a better mood. He could almost still smell her, the signature Harry smell of potions, before he realized it was just his own clothes. He’d just come out of potions class, after all.
It was the smell of asphodel.
~To make some sense of what you've seen…~