"There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone."
-"There Will Come Soft Rains," Sara Teasdale
-:-
He'd sat for hours, waiting on it to arrive. His back was protesting quite severely, and he'd kept his swatting at insects to a minimum to avoid any startling movement. As such, his skin was continuously crawling with both real and imagined little bug legs. The feeling did not help the perpetual burning sensations that lit his entire body. He bore it all stoically, waiting, still.
It was nearing dawn in the forest, if the lightening of the shadows told him anything at all. He'd sat against the tree all night, keeping his back protected in case anything else found him. There was only one thing he'd come here to see, just...to make sure…
There.
The glimmering movement through the trees was unmistakable. Nothing else gleamed quite like the hide of a unicorn. She came into view then, a lovely mare of such pure color that seemed to gild the forest with an unnatural white-gold light. He was left momentarily breathless by this magnificent creature, as he well should be. Unicorns were notoriously difficult to come across, and were rarely seen in the wild without being purposefully drawn out.
She, of course, knew he was there. Large, dark eyes did not leave his own, but she did not seem terribly afraid of him. Curious, perhaps, which was also unusual. The unicorns had become, understandably, much more wary of humans after his first year.
He remembered the blood vividly, a quicksilver essence that he should never have seen outside of a Potions classroom. Unicorn blood forcibly taken, a shadowed mouth coated in smoking silver, the shuddering sigh of the forest as it mourned. To kill a unicorn was a heinous act that lead to a cursed existence, and yet, the wizard had killed a stallion indiscriminately and drank its blood dry. He should have known, even then, that nothing would ever get better. Even as he had soothed the dying stallion while Hagrid banished the cursed creature from the forest, he should have known.
In her eyes, he could tell, she had not forgotten. He wasn't quite sure how long unicorns lived, but it was doubtlessly a very long time. Of course she remembered. And the unicorns had not been untouched by the war. No creature had.
With some joy, he noted the simple swell of her belly. Hope was such a foreign notion to him now, but he could feel it stirring somewhere deep, and smiled.
If nothing else, the creatures would recover. They would not forget, but they would move on, create new life untouched by war and death.
The unicorn sighed softly, and the faint scent of sweet clovers tickled his nose. He bowed his head once, lowering his eyes respectfully. When he looked up, she was gone.
He stood slowly, his muscles protesting sorely, and headed back to the castle. Finding the way back was simple now; a blackened scar chased its way through the forest, stopping who-knows-where (he hadn't ever wanted to find the end of it, the beginning was enough). Cursed fire, from Bellatrix. The scar would never recover. And yet, he noticed, wriggling masses in the dampest parts of the burned path, where the rains had drenched the soil. Flobberworms.
He emerged from the forest shortly after. Flobberworms never strayed far from the sun, which couldn't penetrate past a few meters. He almost went back in at the sight of the grounds.
The hole blasted into Hagrid's hut was still there. He still hadn't tried to fix it, and doubted he ever would. The garden behind it was burnt to hell too. He didn't like to linger around Hagrid's hut at all, and he didn't linger then either. He marched straight past it, to the broken castle silhouetted by the sunrise. Past the crude graves, with the engraved stones he'd made himself. He'd scoured the untouched library for days searching for a stone engraving spell. Their names flashed at him in the sun, but he'd learned long ago to swallow the guilt and the shame and the sorrow that choked him every time.
He stopped near the entrance, flashes of movement catching his eye.
A large eagle owl soared into the Owlery, coming in from its night of hunting. He blinked in surprise. He'd forgotten about the Owlery, quite frankly, and something hot and unpleasant prickled at his throat as he remembered far too many things about.
Despite that, he found himself making his way up there through the silent castle. The Owlery, too, was quiet, but not in the same way. It was the quietude of sleepy owls, not as many as before, but enough to produce a pleasant haze of noise that was music to his ears.
Looking up at all the owls, some of whom blinked sleepily back at him but were otherwise happy to ignore him, the hot feeling came back. He let it. Before he knew it he was on the floor of the Owlery sobbing to an audience of largely indifferent owls. One of them flapped off its perch in bewilderment at his heaving sobs, then settled huffily back down and turned its back to him.
If he sat long enough on the floor, he decided, he could pretend that everything was fine. The castle was full of people. His professors, his friends, even his not-friends who had hated him, tolerated him, ignored him. He'd give anything to see even Malfoy walking up to Owlery with a letter in his hand, but that wasn't going to happen. The ambient noise of the Owlery was a horrible distraction, but he knew nothing had changed.
And yet, there was something deeply soothing about that fact. Life would go on, with or without them. Without him. Maybe everyone he knew was dead, blasted into oblivion by the almost atomic spell Voldemort had hissed out of desperation, when he saw Nagini's head lopped from her body and knew he would die. It was a spell meant for total devastation, and should never have been created, much less used. He'd watched the bodies of his friends boil and contort into unrecognizable shapes, heard their screams as they died. Voldemort's stricken face as he befell the same fate was almost funny, if his own skin hadn't been boiling. He was screaming, but he wasn't dying. There was just pain.
And when it was over, he lay panting amongst the distorted bodies of scores upon scores of witches and wizards. Some of them were his friends, some not. He could make out a make out a mass with some remnants of red hair. Ron, probably. It might be George, or Ginny. He couldn't remember who was closest to him when the spell was cast. He had cried there, too, lying on the floor under the shattered ceiling of the Great Hall, the only witness to Harry Potter's escape from death once again.
He didn't know why he'd survived the blast. Still didn't know. Certainly the owls didn't know, and were probably getting sick of his sobbing fit. Sure enough, most of them were staring disdainfully at him. He could laugh, maybe, if his situation weren't so damned pitiful.
Life would go on. He knew this now, and the fact didn't bring him a whole lot of comfort, but it had settled something inside of him. The rest of the world wouldn't, couldn't remember the losses like he did.
He'd have to leave Hogwarts, eventually, he knew. The Ministry had already quarantined the area. Harry had no idea what they planned to do with the castle, but he knew they'd seen the graves. They were probably looking for him. Not him, specifically, but they certainly knew someone had survived.
Maybe he'd go abroad, but it was harder to blend in now than ever before. Angry, misshapen scar tissues covered his entire body from Voldemort's curse, and he knew they'd never heal. His hair would grow back, possibly, but he wasn't optimistic. He would always be marked by Voldemort's power. The thought depressed him, but it did not make him angry anymore.
It had started to rain during his short duration at the Owlery. He peered into the gloom outside, mind racing as he examined the deep pockmarks on his arms. He had choices, he knew. What better time to leave, then, if not today?
He left the Owlery, then Hogwarts (not without a final goodbye to the graves), then England (not without a stop to Gringotts, where the goblins were discreet about him closing his accounts). He didn't know exactly where he'd go, but he was finally comfortable with leaving it all behind.
Life would go on, after all.