Harry wakes up alone in bed, he feels empty, he feels helpless. It was that nightmare again, where he couldn't save them, it feels like reality.
It was.
He sees Cedric down in that graveyard, with eyes devoid of the joy they exhibit usually, downed by a killing curse rather than a stunner, and it feels wrong.
He sees Colin as Oliver and Neville carry him, lifeless without his usual chatter, and it feels wrong, because he should've been breathing, barely, but breathing.
He couldn't save them, just like he couldn't save the rest, what a savior he was.
He hears their voices though, calling to him, urgently, and he wonders if he is going mental now.
He startles awake, for real this time, at least he hopes, with a concerned Cedric looking at him.
Colin burrows on his other sides, as Cedric soothes him, and Harry burrows into him himself.
He is not alone.
He still feels helpless though.
But not empty.
That was just a nightmare, and this is reality. He never lost them, before he could have them.
But the nightmare never ends, even in his waking hours.
He doubts it ever will.
Colin never knows what to do in situations like these, and he figures he should know because of the frequency of their occurrence.
He has the nightmares too, just not as often as Harry or even Cedric does.
He had faced death, and come out on top, but somehow this always feels scarier.
Harry thrashes in his sleep, his face contorted in pain, and he feels helpless.
He calls Harry's name along with Cedric, doing nothing more than that and he feels helpless.
Harry has told him he talks too much, but he always loses speech when it really counts.
Harry sobs into Cedric's chest, and all Colin could do is hold him a little tighter, burrow into him a little deeper.
Cedric's words soothes Harry, comfort him, but his gentle massaging of Colin's arm calms him too.
He feels less helpless than before.
That won't last, come the next night.
He just wonders whose nightmare will be next.
Cedric has had nightmares, they're always scary. Both Colin and Harry are nearly useless when they comfort him, though they do try. And he feels comforted by the mere fact that they do.
The graveyard was more scary, and the war scarier, but a thrashing Harry with a reminder of what his life was, stuck in a world where that life never ended, it is always the scariest.
Colin never thrashed, but he whimpered, and that was always easy to deal with. And of course less scary.
Harry has always been difficult to deal with when awake, not a surprise that it was the same when asleep.
Cedric never minded.
Whispering words of comfort, massaging an arm to calm the panic, hot tears soaking his chest, sobs wracking his body, kissing the crown of the head and holding the man he loved tight, Cedric had never been more angrier at the world. At the unfairness of it.
And he'd never been more helpless.
Eventually the sobbing stops, and the breathing slowed down.
He loses his hold on Harry, and he feels Colin do the same to his. Slowly he feels asleep too.
Both hopefully remain in a peaceful slumber.
Cedric smiles looking at the two of them, a bit brokenly, but smiles all the same.
The war was over, but the scars never fade.
And not just the visible ones.
They never do.
But Cedric hopes.
Its all he can do at this point, as he goes back into the arms of Morpheus himself.
They were all broken, some more than others.
But they were not alone.
Never alone.
Not ever again.
All they can do is hope.
All they can do is try.
And maybe one day, it will all not have been for naught.