The Kiss of Life
by Bil!
K+ - Angst – HP, SS – Complete
Harry contemplates CPR and the consequences thereof. Not HBP compliant. Set 6th or 7th year.
Disclaimer: As ever, the characters and world belong to JKR.
A/N: I have no idea where this came from. Originally it was a scrap written long before HBP (giving you at least a little idea just how long stuff usually sits on my computer or in a folder before I do anything with it) and I haven't bothered to bring it up to date because that would just be messy. And complicated. And messy. So this is not HBP compliant. Also unbetaed. You have been warned.
The kiss of life. CPR. It doesn't exist in the magical world. I didn't know that, and if I had I would have assumed that it was because they use magic. Witches and wizards are too reliant on magic, I realised that early on: they believe magic can solve everything and don't think of what to do if it should suddenly fail. They think it will always be there.
But that's not what I was talking about, I was talking about CPR. I learnt how to do it in primary school, kneeling on the cold floor of the school hall beside one of my classmates, pushing on his ribs and then holding his nose and pretending to breathe into him, pretending to force life into his lungs. I wonder how many of the Muggleborns did the same. Did they get told they shouldn't do it, once their Hogwarts letter came and they knew what it was they were and all those odd little happenings made sense? No one ever treated me as a Muggleborn, they never told me all those little things about a magical life that any magicborn knows instinctively.
They should have.
Because I never knew it either, yet no one came and explained anything to me, and I didn't think to ask because I didn't know until too late that there was anything to ask about. Things like don't share blood, don't share breath, don't bind yourself to people because this is magic, dammit, and everything is so much more permanent when magic is involved. But I didn't know that, I never knew any of that, and why did they think I knew it when they knew I'd spent the ten years before Hogwarts with Muggles?
But I was talking about CPR. Did you know that the Greeks thought that the breath was the soul? I found that out too late. I wonder what they would have thought of CPR? Would they have said that you gave up a part of your soul to help the other person live? It sounds a lot better than just shoving CO2 down someone's throat; it makes it a more selfless act, giving up a part of yourself to save another. And they weren't wrong, at least not where wizards are concerned. But I didn't know that. I didn't know anything.
All I knew was that he was dying and I was living and I could save him, and I didn't know there would be consequences – and you know what, even if I had known it wouldn't have mattered, because he was dying and I could save him and when you're standing on the edge of death that's all that really matters. When you're standing on the edge of death there is only life and notlife, and the power to choose. I chose.
Cold and dark and damp and aching. Someone beside him, rasping and gasping and convulsing, then going still, horribly, hatefully still. He had no wand, no magic, had nothing but himself, and he hurried over and the man wasn't breathing, his heart wasn't beating and—NO! He wasn't going to let the man die, no one else was going to die because of him, that wasn't right, that wasn't right… But he had no magic, had no wand, had nothing, nothing, nothing but dim memories of a cold school hall and the instructor saying—
He checked the airways, checked the breathing, checked the pulse, panicking, panicking. Then raised himself onto shaky knees, ignoring the blood that trickled down his side, and pushed on the man's chest, trying to force his heart to beat, and breathed into the man's mouth, trying to force his lungs to breathe. It didn't matter who the man was, years of hatred and taunting didn't matter, none of that mattered, all that mattered was that they were here and the man was dying and he wasn't going to let anyone else die, not if he could stop it, not while he was up and breathing and able to move.
There was nothing in his world but the rhythm, getting the heart to beat, getting the lungs to move, just the rhythm on and on and on until the man jerked and gasped and breathed and LIVED and he could collapse into a pool of his own blood, cooled by the dark stone, and sleep in the knowledge that he had saved one person, that here was one person he hadn't killed, hadn't let die, hadn't failed…
I thought Snape hated me before, when all he saw in me was my father and my name. And then I did exactly what Dad had done: I saved his life and bound him to me. But I did a better job than Dad did, because Dad just saved his life – I saved his life by giving him a part of mine. It was then I discovered what it really meant to be hated.
I woke in the hospital wing to his ranting: Did the torture damage your brain, what in Merlin's name did you think you were doing, are you really as stupid as you look, you should have just let me die, you shouldn't have—
On and on and on. And that was when he thought I was asleep; you don't want to know what he was like when he realised I was awake. Not that I had any idea what he was babbling about. I'd just saved his life, hadn't I, so why was he complaining? He'd saved mine, so surely that cancelled out any life debts. What was he so upset about? Admittedly, I wasn't thinking clearly enough to put any of this into words when I first woke up. Severe blood loss will do that to you, not to mention that magic-leeching potion, torture, a cold cell, and… Well, you get the idea. But even in my hazy state I felt different, odd. Not as if I'd lost something, but as if part of me was… further away than it usually was.
Later, when I was actually able to string two coherent thoughts together, they told me. About the Greeks and their breath-as-soul, about CPR and why wizards never practise it. Sharing breath isn't a problem, mere mingling of breath like a kiss; but two people living on the same breath, a true giving of breath—no. I'd given up a part of my soul, as surely as if a dementor had come along and taken a bite out of it. I'd given it to him in my breath when I saved him, and that was why it felt like a part of me was so far away – it was. It was in him.
I was too tired to be angry, too tired to wince at Snape's vitriolic tirade. But not too tired to ask one little question: Why? Why hadn't they told me these things?
Why did everyone expect me to know everything without being told?
And then, as they stared at me (why, surely they should expect that question after all this time?), I began to laugh quietly into my pillow. One soul in two bodies. Did that make us soul mates?
When he came back later, I told him that even if I had known I still would have done it. And he hated me, but I didn't care, because he was alive and safe and he hadn't died because of me and that was all that really mattered. He was alive and that was all that mattered. He hated me, but I think I loved him, because he was my proof that I wasn't completely worthless, that I could save someone, that not everyone was going to die because of me.
We were bound, part of me was in him, part of me was him, and where ever I went – where ever he went – I could feel him. I found myself hoping that I would never have to rescue a drowning wizard or perform CPR for whatever other reason, because I wouldn't be able to stop myself, even knowing what would come, and then my soul would be split into all these little pieces, running around in other people's bodies and no longer just mine.
But that would be a success, wouldn't it? All those people I had saved, all those times I had actually succeeded. After all, my parents were killed because of me. Yes, I defended the philosopher's stone, but Quirrell couldn't have gotten to it if I hadn't been there. Ginny was my only success so far. Sirius's rescue from the dementors could have counted, but then I got him killed so that cancelled that out. And then there was Cedric's death, Voldemort's return… So many failures.
But now I had two successes, and Snape's hate couldn't change my sense of triumph. It didn't matter if I had to share my soul because of it, because I had saved Ginny and I had saved Snape. It didn't make up for my failures, not by a long shot, but at least I hadn't failed them too. At least I could do something right.
For me, that was enough.
Fin