You Can't Win the Battle and the War

by browneyedkat

After the Battle of Hogwarts, things don't go back to normal as easily as Harry had hoped. Short fic about Harry healing and finding normalcy in his life.

11. Luna: Desperation

Chapter 11

The walls seemed determined to close in on Harry, to crush him as he leaned up against one in the entrance hall. His breath came out shaky, rattling through his lips and tearing at his throat. People surrounded him, milling about as they took a break from the efforts of piecing the castle back together, and their voices pressed in on him, a mess of clattering and rustling in his ears. His eyes scanned the room desperately, all at once searching for anything to help him and trying to hide his breaking from the room of people who looked to him. Finally he spotted Luna and tried to catch her eyes, to ask her from across the room to help him. She wandered about, talking and laughing, free of his burden. It was a long time before she saw him and crossed the room to stand beside him.

He looked at her, her chin jutted out toward him, a gleam in her eyes. Without speaking, she asked him to speak, but something else filled her face, something that he could not interpret. Still, he spoke, just as he had before; he didn't hesitate before saying what was torturing him.

"I thought…I thought we won. We won, didn't we?" Luna cocked her head at him, which he supposed might have been a response in the affirmative. Yes, he told himself. We won.

"I just…so many people are dead. So many people died." His voice came out pleading.

Something hard flitted across Luna's face, and Harry was reminded once again to wonder who she had lost.

"Yes, Harry," she said, and her voice had a familiar lilt to it, still calm as it always was. There was something different about it though, a new hardness that sounded almost angry. "People died." And with that, she turned and walked away, back to the crowd of people she had previously been laughing and talking with. She slid her arm around Neville, and his face lit up as he looked down on her. As she looked back at him, Harry saw something in her eyes that he hadn't realized was missing. There was no desperation, no aching hope, no pain between them. Harry saw with clarity.

Suddenly calm, Harry moved from his place on the wall, turned his back slowly, and walked into the Great Hall, away from the crowd of people.

He tried to ignore the feeling that some monster was in his chest, clawing to get out. He tried to ignore the desperate need to breathe.