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It's very sad when a child can lose someone close to him and not shed a tear. That the very harshness of the world in which we live has stolen from that child the ability to cry. To well and truly break down. To be able to let themselves go free, to show grief. It's a disaster when this happens to a child. They feel broken, they feel heartless, and they feel cold and cruel. They feel angry. He feels angry. He thinks he's heartless. He hasn't cried. This boy, the-boy-who-lived, has been crushed. He has freed the world, and been shattered by it. So I watch him.
He wakes up, cold and silent, moves slowly through the morning movement that I have watched since his loss. Today he travels back to his home. His true home. He enters the sixth year of his schooling in the magnificent halls of Hogwarts. He has not spoken to his friends in two months. He has denied the invitation of his adopted family to go to their house for the final month of summer. His relatives, the mistreating demons, have become scared. His eyes have changed, dark and full of the deaths. They have skirted him; while he has done everything that they have and haven't asked all summer. Their house is clean and neat and full of skittish-ness, full of the depression and reflections of dull eyes. He packs quickly and silently and moves to the front door, waiting the final fifteen minutes wholly without expression or movement. His uncle only gestures and he exits the house and enters the auto, sliding his trunk into the back. His aunt and cousin stay back, not wanting to spend time around the air of darkness that pervades him. The auto leaves the house and rolls towards the city.
He sits stiffly in the corner of a carriage on the beautiful scarlet train as he waits for it to leave the station, still having not spoken that day. His homework lies complete, often to twice the length that was required. He doesn't look up as the others enter the carriage, instantly discomforted by the boy. They are his friends, and sit, all quietly watching the silence and the boy who's dull pale green eyes stare simply out the window at the blank wall just beyond. Their silence fills the room, and all that look into the compartment are struck by it, and pass just as silently as those within. I watch the other's come and go, the silent shakes of their heads, the stricken expressions on the face of the students as they walk down-heartedly away. I watch his friends worry and worry about him, and attempt to reach him, but never quite being able to.
The opening feast at the beginning of the year for Hogwarts, massive, impressive, and awe-inspiring. He never looks up, never pays attention. He's lost in his only little world. The first years file up, and sit on the stool, in front of the rest of the school. He pays no attention his dull eyes staring into themselves, reflected off the shining golden plates on the tables. He sits, his gaze doesn't flicker as the food appears on the plates around him, stands with everyone else as they leave, his golden plate untouched, unfilled, still the smooth, clean surface it was before. He follows the group as they go to the tower far above. She stands there; sorrow fills her eyes as she watches him go. Her eyes hurt as she turns and follows.
He's sitting in the History of Magic classroom, wide awake in the late warmth of fall. He sits and takes notes, eyes noting everything and misses nothing, caring about less. His friends sit beside him, pretending to sleep, but watching his pale green eyes carefully. They cannot remember them ever being that color, it looks so wrong on him. His eyes watch them too, aware of their watching, while they're not aware of his. It's been three days since he last spoke, then only to ask them to hand him a book. They follow him everywhere, watching him, making sure he's OK. I know he's not all right, but he's not that bad yet. Six days since the punishment by his teacher's. His nemesis had made a foolish mistake. He was uncaring, he had easily blown the boy yards with a simple hex, full strength coming quickly, though normal times his magic was diminishing. He was cutting himself off, he was removing his magic from himself. Blocking off all its paths, only in moments of annoyance can it come through. It had taken the boy three days to wake up. The boy's parents' had been furious. He had laughed at them and left. He had frightened them, and walked away.
He scans slowly over the pitch, watching for a flicker of gold with his dull eyes, not caring enough to check for the other seeker. The other was hovering just above him, and behind. His body was slack on the broom, watching about him uncaringly. He seemed almost dead there, except for the lazy circles around the pitch. It often looked like he wasn't paying attention to anything, just drifting. I can see the watching though, but as close as I may be, I cannot see the determination, the want, the desire. An automaton floating slowly above the pitch, the crowd's roar falling on deaf ears. He sees the glint, straight below, and drops. A dive straight for it, with the other trailing behind. The glitter is in his hand, but he's too close. He knows it, he doesn't even try to pull out of the dive. Soon he's carried away by a professor. She plays the seeker from now on, the team decides while he lies unconscious in the Hospital wing.
I watched his still form in the wing where he was taken. She came to see him constantly. His body was rejecting everything. None of the magic or potions had any effect on him, his own magic blocking them out. So she sat, and watched his unconscious form. It had been three weeks since the match, he had not yet awakened. So I watched, the silent interaction of him and her, the softness that she held his unconscious hand, the near silent prayers for his mind, his body, and his soul. Sometimes she seemed to watch me, tracking the place where I watched. This was the first time I had seen it, and it unsettled me. Then she shook herself, and watched him. Someone would check on him occasionally, she'd slide under his invisibility cloak, then back out once it was safe. She and I sat and watched him for hours, before she finally stumbled off, three-quarters asleep.
He woke up, rolling over, fully healed. His body had finally allowed all the potions into him. The rate at which he had healed was disturbing, from broken to normal in a few moments. He stood up, under the influence of so many potions he was nigh on invincible for a few moments. He walked slowly across the room, and into the bathroom. He began throwing up, emptying copious quantities of rainbow coloured potion into the toilet. She had come in as he started throwing up, and was now sitting on his bed crying. It had been 6 weeks since he had been injured. He stumbles back to the bed, sliding in beside her, a few whispered words, and he rolls over and goes back to sleep. Her eyes cloud up, in anger and sadness, and she storms from the wing. He falls asleep, a blank expression on his face, no different from if she had kept watching him.
He walks back into the common room, looking around, the ever bland expression on his face. His friends rush to greet him, and he merely nods before heading off to his room in the firelight. Suddenly she is there, blocking him. Her fiery red hair flashes in the glow as she yells, the blood rising to her cheeks. She screams at him, and hits him hard in the chest. I watch as his face snaps, angry and hard, then drains, like all his energy flowing out of his body, out of his feet and through the floor. I watch as he sags down and then against her, leaning his weight wholly against her. Her eyes widen in surprise as a stray tear rolls down his face, and then the others that follow in it's path. The room empties and he and she sit, with him crying into her lap, and his magic coming off him in waves. The room is soon dark, cold, and barren, and he's asleep, she lifts him over her, and around her back, and carries him quickly to the cold, white room where he had slept.
I watch as they try and help him, and see the life slowly filter back into him. I can see the hope in his eyes, and the fresh tears as he wakes up. I can see his life stretching about before him. So I struggle, and I press. I throw myself against this damned tattered white wall that holds me here. I will come back. I will return to him. So I try, and force my way through this accursed veil. He has freed the world, and been shattered by it. So I watch him, and I reach for him.