it is the day after the battle.
harry feels, sometimes, that the day after the battle is the one that ought to be commended.
on the day of the battle, the halls he once called home didn’t ache with loss. there were no bodies covered in blankets, no weeping loved ones that held cold hands. on the day of the battle, he just wanted to survive, so he didn’t allow himself to mourn. on the day of the battle, he hadn’t realised the enormity of the day he had survived. the boy who lived, where others did not.
the day after, harry potter goes to the hall where remus and tonks still lie, still so close to each other but not touching. he remembers a woman whose smile could light up a room, a man who sat beside him and offered him chocolate and a kind word. he sits beside them for a long time, remembering. he owes them that much, at least.
the day after, harry potter sits in what was once dumbledore’s office, and now belongs to nobody. soon minerva will take it over; now it is just filled with them. his friends, the survivors. he raises a glass of firewhisky to the ghosts around him and they toast him back. their eyes are empty but, he knows, their hearts are not yet broken beyond repair. they will continue.
the day after, harry potter walks among the ashen-faced people in the courtyard. they have been here since the battle; they aren’t sure of where to go. he walks among them, and he listens to their stories, and he talks to each of them. some want him to talk - some want him just to listen, and he does both as they need him. he wants to know their stories, because he knows that his will always be written in a thousand books. nobody will remember the name of the sixth-year ravenclaw who watched her classmates fall around her as she stunned death eaters from the stairs, or the fifth-year slytherin who cast shield charms on the others to save them from curses, or the seventh-year hufflepuff who made sure there were no more kids left in the building, or the sixth-year gryffindor who in the panic began tripping up death eaters from under a table. but harry knows, and harry listens, and he watches as they unburden themselves onto him, and he hugs them when they need it. they should be remembered. so harry remembers them.
on the day, harry woke to a world with them still there. the day after, when he opened his eyes, the world he saw was one where they were gone, and he knew that the next day would be the same. and the next. and the next.
it always feels like the day after the battle.
.... I just do t know what to say....
