Pain and Understanding
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
This is my first attempt at fanfic...please RR: I accept both good and bad reviews!! :)
He couldn't stand being alone but at the same time he couldn't deal with being around people and therefore he found the one place that he could sort of do both: he sat next to a sleeping Hermione in the hospital wing of Hogwarts. He had been sitting there for hours watching her sleep and thinking of all he lost and all he almost lost. As he watched each rising breath she took, Harry was reminded that he had not lost everything. That his best friends were still there and his mistakes did not cost everyone he loved their life. With Sirius gone, Harry found his friends to be his lifeline, the only reason for him to live. Although he felt himself distancing from them, seeing Hermione on the floor of the Ministry of Magic and not knowing if she was alive, and seeing Ron struggle to breathe through the brain closing around him terrified Harry so badly that the knot still remained in his stomach...it reminded him of their loyalty and love for him that he felt so deeply back towards them.
Sirius. That name came rushing back to Harry as it always did right when he felt like he might be able to get on with his life. With that name came hundreds of emotions: love, pain, joy, unbearable sadness, companionship and dreadful loneliness. Torn between remembering the good times and then guiltily realizing he was smiling or remembering what his death cost Harry and thinking that he was cheating Sirius out of all the good things Sirius had done for him, Harry couldn't even see straight when the memories hit. Right now as his vision swam Harry realized he couldn't hold it in anymore. All the pain from the year came rushing back full force: his hand throbbed where Umbridges pen had deeply cut, his scar burned reminding him of his future, images of Sirius ran through his head mixed with the feelings of inadequacy and resentment he felt when he thought of what he had been through and what he has yet to go. Before he knew it, Harry was sobbing so hard he couldn't breathe and a familiar hand had begun to stir.
Although her ribs began screaming in protest immediately and she knew that they would continue to do so for the rest of the night, Hermione turned over and pulled Harry as much as she could onto her bed. For his part, Harry finished lifting himself so that he was next to her on the bed, placed his shaking head on her shoulder and finally for the first time, completely let it all out. With one of his best friends stroking his head and his back encouraging him to cry. Promising that she would always be there and he was allowed to be upset. That crying didn't show he was weak but rather would make him stronger for the release that it allowed. That she didn't know what he was feeling but would do everything in her power to be there for him, so that maybe his pain would diminish. And silently crying for the boy that thought he had lost so much and maybe didn't realize all he had. For the pain he was feeling and how much she wanted him to be happy. And for hours they lay like that, Harry shaking with such ferocity that the bed shook and Hermione quietly calming him until finally they both fell asleep.
Hours later Harry would wake up and notice Hermione's face showing a tiny hint of a grimace of pain at what Harry knew were her ribs for the stress she had put on them lugging Harry on the bed and turning to calm him. He realized that maybe Hermione did understand his pain. That while he knew that she had never felt the exact type of agony he had experienced and prayed that she might continue to remain ignorant to that feeling, he knew that as long as he felt that pain she felt it too, she felt it in the responsibility that she took to make it better for him, in the vibrations of the bed as it shook while he sobbed, and in her heart when she looked at his face and listened to his grief, she felt the same inconsolable heartache that he felt. Just as he watched her face contort in pain and understood as well as felt her pain although he himself had not actually hurt his ribs, and had never known the pain that being dealt that awful curse caused. As he walked out of the hospital wing and for the first time in a year Harry felt a weight being lifted off his shoulders. He wasn't alone. And it was OK to hurt and grieve and cry but he never had to do it alone. There were those who cared and who understood and Harry knew he could count of them to understand his pain.