"No! No! Teddy!" After so many hours without use, hours of panic, anxiety, waiting, the news had been delivered, and Harry's voice, raw with disuse, cut through the air like a siren, riddled with pain. He wanted to run, run to Teddy, save his life. His legs believed there was still time to go, to run, to jump in front of the killing curse, just as his mother had done for him. The walls stopped him, reined him in, held him back. He was left to pace, his hands pulling at his hair, round in circles as the ministry official so out of place in his comfortable living room faced him with weary eyes.

"I'm sorry, sir, so very sorry." He said quietly.

Finally, Harry sank down to the floor beside Ginny, who was sobbing with her head in her hands. "Why?" he rasped, his streaming eyes on the ministry official. "Why Teddy?"

"It was entirely random, sir." The man informed him nervously. "The death eater rebels at the match, they were firing everywhere, a killing curse ricocheted and hit him, there was nothing to be done…" he trailed off, still looking wearily at Harry.

"He was four! He had his whole life ahead of him! Who would do that? Who would murder a four year old boy? A defenseless, innocent, little boy watching a Quidditch match with his Grandmother-" his voice dissolved into harsh, grating sobs as he stared at his empty hands, wishing a cheerful, bubbly little boy could once more fill them. He listened to Ginny's terrible sobs grow quieter, quieter, until there was only silence; silence that should have been filled with sweet, innocent laughter, a sound he could never hear again. It was the loudest sound he'd ever heard. He was gone. Gone was the flashing hair, never the same color two days in a row. Gone was the pearly, white toothed smile; the round little legs that would never beat the ground again as they ran to say hello; the hands that had held his; the warm little body that had curled up next to him on cold, rainy nights. Gone was a piece of his heart. He was left with the small, blue slippers discarded in his room upstairs; a scruffy, woebegone bear waiting on the bed for the boy who would never return; the pictures on the mantle, only pale reflections of the memories, the memories that would fill him, consume him, torture him until the day he died. And the boy who lived remained slumped on the cold, hard floor, longing for the boy who had died.

And the ministry official turned and left, wondering why it always seemed to be his job to deliver the news that left him feeling as cold and as empty as the people to whom he delivered the unimaginable news.