Disclaimer- It's not mine. Yay.

Return

When they return, they are not the same.

They are no longer the children with bright faces and eager smiles, a gentle cover for the biting words and teasing laughter of youth.

Looking into their eyes, now that it is over, there is no innocence and laughter. There is nothing but a dull emptiness. Only the brilliant green hue links that shadowed pair to its happy past.

When they first returned, it was not so bad. Ron had, a few days after their brilliant entrance, tried to kill himself. Hermione attempted soon after. But there had been conscious thought, a realized need for escape.

There is no longer even that.

Ron no longer struggles to get up in the morning. He doesn't remember it, only waking up for a period of seconds during lunch, if that. And then the fog of emptiness settles once more, drowning all life.

Hermione still has fits of sanity, but it is a mixed blessing. The images of tortured bodies and the cruel laughter of the dead haunt her constantly. Madame Pomfrey has given up on her. A hopeless case. She does not understand. She cannot see them, she does not hear them. To her they are only the insane ramblings of a deranged mind.

And Harry smiles for the cameras. He shakes all the right hands, gives interviews to all the right people. No one looks into his eyes. No one sees what is now missing. He is, after all, their savior.

The hand that guides him, eyes twinkling from beyond the veil, knows that he is being eaten from the inside.

And who is going to save him from himself?