Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise. But I can dream.
Notes: This is just a quick little fic that takes place right before the Battle of Hogwarts, centering around the idea of "hope." Enjoy and review!
It was difficult, for Harry.
To hope.
Hope was something hard to come by, alone in the dark of a broom cupboard. Living a childhood in which he was pushed aside and beaten down. Harry had never known a gentle embrace, or a tender caress. Nobody held his hand, made him smile, or kissed his sleeping forehead.
At least, not anymore.
Perhaps, he had pondered as he lay awake in the night, he had once been shown such kindness. Perhaps his father had lovingly smoothed down his hair, and his mother had brushed away his tears and whispered that everything was going to be alright. But they were gone.
And he could never hope to see them again.
It was eleven years before hope first stirred inside, awoken at last from its long, cold slumber. It swelled inside him and rose, mingling with the single phrase echoing through his head.
He was a wizard.
Hope re-entered his life frequently in his years at Hogwarts, though it often left as soon as it came. It danced frustratingly in and out of his grasp. He gloried in the moments in which he had it...a cheering Gryffindor table, a Snitch clutched in his fingers, a new friend, a new family member. But he was crushed in the instances where hope deserted him. The faces of so many he had lost swirled around him. Mad-Eye, Lupin, and Fred. Dobby and Tonks. Sirius. He ached in his failure to protect; he reveled in what could have been avoided.
More faith was lost than gained. And hope dangled further out of reach.
But now here he was. At the very end. And a tiny part of him couldn't help but marvel at how far he had come. How hard he had pushed.
And that he still had something worth fighting for.
The stars were beginning to appear one by one in the clear sky, and a cool breezed tickled the back of his neck. The air of the anticipated battlefield crackled with magic. Hogwarts was alive tonight. Harry turned to face his fellow students, teachers, and friends. His family. They too felt the pulse of the night, he could tell. But there was something else among them, something far more powerful than the most ancient spell. A magic of its own.
Hope.
After all this time, he had found it.
He could see it now. Hope was there, in the squeeze of a hand, a clap on the back. It lived within the spark in the eyes of so many. It breathed within the shaky laughs and whispered reassurances traded back and forth.
Hope was fleeting. But hope was present.
And the battle had just begun.