Euphoria

Harry scrapped the idea of getting a sandwich, and decided that if Kreacher was going to bring him anything, it wouldn't be one of those. It would be some sort of alcohol, possibly a fire whiskey. He knew that he should be feeling sad for all of the dead, but instead he was happy for all of those who were still alive and kicking, he was so happy, that he felt a constant swooping sensation in his stomach, the way he used to with Cho or Ginny.

All of the portraits, Hermione, Ron and himself had tears of happiness in their eyes, and Harry was suddenly bursting with energy, he turned and ran back through the corridors, he made it back into the great hall, all of the dead and injured had been placed in the hospital wing. People were screaming and shouting and jumping around. Colin Creevey had somehow unearthed a muggle CD player, and was trying to get it to work, to no avail.

Hermione shook her head, and went over and cast several shield charms on it. Then Colin popped in a CD, and said: "Sonorus."

Suddenly music was blasting out of the small player, although there was still a lot of magical interference, and it kept fading out and buzzing. The song increased Harry's feeling of euphoria, that swooping feeling in his stomach was almost too much to bear.

Boston, More Than A Feeling

"I Love This Song!" Hermione screamed. Her own jubilance off the charts. And she began to shout along with the deafening music.

thought Harry his mind wandering, until he saw Ginny. She ran over to congratulate him, and gave him a crushing hug, screaming: "YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT!" over and over again. He just laughed, and winced as she squeezed his damaged torso.

The strange thing was; that he hadn't actually thought about Ginny that much since he saw her, just before he walked into the forest. While he stood there in the clearing, waiting to die, he had thought of only one person. And she had honey brown curls, and beautiful hazel eyes. 'Damnit! Don't think about Hermione like that! She's one of your best friends. You're supposed to be dating Ginny!' And another voice in his head replied. 'No you're not. You broke up with her, and you haven't thought about her like that for ages!' This was true. Unfortunately, during the last six months he had never seen her once, and he had somehow lost his need for her, the same way a drug addict goes cold turkey. He had even had withdrawal symptoms, those long nights lying there watching the map, staring at her dot. In the end he had stopped doing it because he loved her, he did it just to have a connection to the rest of the world, just to feel a little bit involved.

When she hugged him there was none of that old feeling in his gut, or maybe it was just that there was already so much of it there. They pulled away, and he just surveyed the hundreds of people, feeling that amazing feeling. The feeling that it was all over. It was just as though each and every one of them had overdosed on Euphoria potion, that was the only word he could think of to describe it, Euphoria.

It was all over.

Hermione turned around, slowly, and their eyes locked. She was the one who had been with him the whole way, in fact, Harry contemplated. She had been with him for seven straight years, the only times she didn't have his back, was when she was petrified by the basilisk in second year, or when she was almost killed at the ministry, or when she just couldn't be there. Like in the Tri-Wizard, or when Tom returned from the dead, or when he fought him in first year. She was always there. He just looked at her, with the fondest smile he could muster.

It Was Over.

He opened his arms, and simply said: "Thanks Hermione." A huge grin splitting his face, and tears in his eyes, she had helped him so much over the years. She leaned into the hug. 'Oh Dear.' He thought. 'I just got the feeling in my stomach, which means that I should have got it when I hugged Ginny, but I didn't, which means that I really must be over her.' The other voice spoke calmly once again 'Why do you think you responded like that to Hermione then?' 'That's easy,' replied Harry to his inner voice. 'I'm just feeling all of the nostalgia and remembering all of the good times we've had together.' He assured himself. There was no reply, no nagging counter-remark from his sub-conscious. Confident that he had won this inner battle, he moved his mind to other things.

The song got louder, and Harry felt even more of that feeling, and lifted Hermione off the floor in the hug, and began to spin her around, very fast. She screamed, and Harry just laughed. He put her down and noticed that the song had changed. Now it was a different uplifting song.

The Dandy Worhols, Bohemian Like You

It. Was. Over.

He wandered amongst the crowd, laughing, shaking hands, hugging friends and thanking people for the lovely flowers. He noticed Madame Pomfrey, and she came over to him tutt-ing loudly. "I see that as usual you have taken no regard whatsoever for your own health, and are parading around the place with four broken ribs, two- no three shattered vertebrae, ruined liver and kidneys, cracked skull, broken jaw, severely ruptured organs, and your heart is barely beating. I would usually suggest you go straight to the hospital wing, but unfortunately you are Harry Potter." She was being very stern, but then she smiled fondly, and opened her arms wide.

"My Harry Potter, my most regular patient in all my years in this school. Come here Harry." She said, in a motherly voice worthy of Mrs. Weasley. He smiled to the point of almost laughing as he leant in for his first ever hug from the matron. "I'll have to see about getting a plaque on that bed, I think it would be nice for it to become officially yours, since you spend every other night in it anyway."

"Thanks Poppy. Means a lot."

The next encounter he had was with his old transfiguration teacher.

"Potter," she said, with tears in her eyes. "I thought we'd lost you for a few minutes there. I lost faith in Albus; I didn't think we had a chance. I knew he had some hare-brained scheme cooked up to beat You Know Who, but I thought it had failed when you… when you…" She took a moment to calm herself. "We thought you died Potter!"

"I wouldn't leave a fight. Never have, Never will."

"I know, you truly are a Gryffindor, in fact, you're probably the bravest student I have ever had to endure."

"Don't be hurtful, that's not funny." Complained Harry with a fake look of pain and sadness.

Before she could reply he just pulled her into a warm hug. At first she was taken aback, but with a smile she returned it.

The next run-in was with Dennis Creevey, he walked up to Harry, and just stared, slowly he said: "Wow! You were amazing you know. The way you just appeared there, and looked at him, and you just talked to him, and there was just this power, and you just smiled and… Wow. You're just Too. Fucking. Cool."

Harry just smiled, and patted him on the shoulder. "Sorry about Collin, it was my fault; I should have made sure all the younger kids got out, including you."

Dennis stared at him, his jaw dropping. "If you dare blame any of this on yourself then I'll give you another scar! Go and enjoy yourself, you deserve it."

"Thanks Dennis. Want to get a last picture for his memory or something? I promise I'll smile and everything."

"I think I'll have to get in line." He said, nodding over Harry's shoulder.

Harry slowly spun around, though he already knew who was there. When he saw her he couldn't help smiling for some odd reason.

"Hello Rita."

And On That Bombshell I'm Afraid It's Time To End.

I wrote this story a while back and was submitting it on another site but the validators were so unreliable and they hated me so much that my chapters would be banned for having flashbacks of previous chapters in them and so on. So i decided to put it up on here instead. Updates will be on Thursdays most weeks, although i'm pretty bad at getting deadlines right, so it'll probably end up being friday most of the time. Anyway, Leave a review and tell me whether or not you want the rest of my amazing story up, or you want to tear this piece of s**t down and burn it.