i.
harry is still damp by the time ginny has dragged him up to the hospital wing. he can feel saltwater crusting in the folds of his sweatshirt and the taste of it ferments at the very back of his throat. when he closes his eyes he can still see the lashes of fire dumbledore cast in the cave not two hours ago, like when you look too hard at a lamp and it stays in your vision like some strange ghost. there and then gone. grief has a funny way of lasting like a sickness. he can feel it in his body.
she pushes the doors open ahead, a hand around his wrist. a flood of yellowish light hits him and through the brightness, dark figures bloom. bill's lying on one of the beds with his face bandaged, and hermione, ron and luna are clustered around him. the world swims and harry has to catch himself against the doorframe just to stay upright.
hermione gets to her feet. "harry," she starts to say.
a dark figure fills up harry's vision and then sirius is there, hands on his shoulders. "you're hurt," he says, like it's simple.
"'m okay," harry mutters. his wet hair is still dripping onto his forehead. "i'm fine. just tired."
sirius' hands find the bottom of his jaw. thumbs pressing into the hinge of his neck, he raises harry's face and looks him searchingly in the eye. "what happened?"
"dumbledore's dead," harry says. "i watched it happen. snape killed him."
across the room, the blurry form of hermione throws her hands over her mouth. ron says something he can't make out like oh or fuck or merlin or something.
"no," says a desperate voice a few paces away. over sirius' shoulder, harry meets lupin's tortured grey gaze.
"yeah," harry says. "killing curse."
he thinks he should probably be crying right now. he cried last year after the incident at the department of mysteries, cried in dumbledore's office and in the hospital wing afterwards, even though nobody died. sirius had come achingly, terrifyingly close to it and for the first time in his life, even after everything, death had closed its cold hands around harry's throat and held fast. its presence had haunted him for months. he had thought for the summer of 1996 that it would follow him forever. now it has returned, it seems. he wonders if this will be the rest of his life.
"we'd been out of the school together," harry says, mostly to fill the silence. "he was weak. injured. he would've done something otherwise. we went to the astrology tower, 'cos that's where the dark mark was."
the ceiling swims over him. sirius' hands leave his face and harry sways a little, feels the ground under him start to tilt.
"black," somebody says nearby. "potter. he needs to sit down."
"oh," sirius mutters. "come here." and his arms fold around harry's midriff like the warm embrace of inevitability and he helps him shuffle to a nearby bed, beside neville longbottom, who looks to be sleeping. harry is deposited like a ragdoll on the white bedsheets. sirius sits beside him, warm hands on his arm. the horrified quiet of it fills the room.
nearby, lupin collapses into a chair, head in his hands. it occurs to harry for the first time that dumbledore probably meant rather a lot to him.
"you're alright," sirius murmurs. "hey, your clothes are wet."
"i'm fine," harry says faintly. "really, i'm... i just want to sleep."
"you're sure..." and lupin looks up, desperation in his white face, and peers from harry to ginny. "you're sure?" he asks again. his voice breaks.
"i'm sure," harry says. "malfoy was there too. he disarmed him. dumbledore, i mean. and then snape did it. he fell from the astronomy tower."
"we saw his body," ginny agrees. sitting next to hermione, her face is utterly bloodless. she, too, looks like she might faint.
nobody speaks. madam pomfrey bursts into tears and sits on one of the pristine white beds, wiping at her eyes furiously. sirius withdraws his hands to rub at his face.
"fuck," he says.
mcgonagall falls into a chair across the room. "snape," she says. "snape. i just... i just can't believe it."
"he was an accomplished occlumens," lupin says. he doesn't sound like himself. "we always knew that."
"did they hurt you?" sirius asks harry with urgency.
harry shakes his head. "snape cursed me," he says. "but that's... that's all. i'm okay." he gestures to his face. "and somebody cruciated me, i think. not for long, though."
sirius draws in a sharp gasp of air like it hurts to breathe. "let me fix your face," he mumbles, pulling out his wand.
"leave it," harry says. he's swimming in exhaustion like a thick tar. he thinks at any moment it might consume him. but the night isn't over. cautiously, he pushes himself up to sit, leaning heavily into sirius' side.
"you're sure?"
"yeah."
"okay," sirius says gently. "we'll leave it." he drops an arm around harry and for the first time since they entered the cave earlier, harry feels like a whole person again.
people file in and out. fleur arrives, and she sees bill and her face hardens and harry remembers, then, how she became a champion three years ago. around him, a debate flies around the room about snape, about malfoy, about betrayal and curses. forget the war; this, here, is what war feels like. it feels like drowning miles from the lake that dragged you into it.
at one point, sirius shifts back into the large, black dog. lupin's pale devastated face fills harry's vision and he takes sirius' place, sitting beside him and holding him up. sirius rests his soft black doggy chin on harry's knee. harry imagines that he's somebody different.
it's two am by the time the ward settles. half of the order have been in and out and bill's stable but he isn't going to look the same anymore. lupin shuts the curtains around harry's bed and, fully clothed, harry lies back against the pillow and closes his eyes. padfoot curls up into a ball at the bottom, near his feet.
"night," harry tells him. "see you in a bit." when the nightmares come. and they will.
he imagines padfoot has answered. darkness swarms in and the world vanishes, consumed by night, soon to abate to a pale blue morning.
ii.
r.a.b.
"you should ask sirius about it," hermione tells harry once, near the end of term. the last few weeks haven't felt very real. "b. it could stand for black."
harry doesn't give the offer much thought. "the less people know, the better," he tells her. "dumbledore died knowing it'd only be the three of us. let's keep it that way."
"he was..." hermione bites her lip, looking out of the nearby window over the grounds. they don't look the same as they did before. "he was really worried about you the last time he was here harry."
"i know."
"you should owl him, over the summer."
"i know," harry says, suddenly exhausted. if he knows one thing in the world it's that sirius loves him. and he doesn't know a whole lot of things for certain anymore, so he wants to cling onto it. "i'm not taking my chances. not after last year. i'm keeping in contact with him as much as i can."
hermione and ron were privy to how much almost losing sirius got to harry at the time. he's never fully explained it to them but they understand. it's one of many things that goes unspoken between them.
she reaches across to squeeze his wrist. "okay, harry. when you owl him, tell him we said hello, okay? i know he hates it in that house."
when the war starts proper, harry thinks, they'll all be criminals. maybe that'll cheer him up.
iii.
harry hurtles out of the back door and into the crowd of order members and friends gathered on the dursleys' well-kept back garden. there's a general cry of greeting, and hermione and ron pull him synchronously into a tight hug, slapping his back and knuckling his hair until it sticks up even more than usual, their hands gripping a little too hard into the back of his sweater.
he's barely free from them when sirius is there. he grins wolfishly down at harry. he's gotten a new tattoo recently, a big, gaping maw full of sharp fangs that sits along the front of his throat.
"alright, potter?" he teases. "bloody hell, i don't know how muggles stand to live like this."
"me neither," harry grins, and lets sirius hug him tight, wrapping his arms around sirius' neck in turn. it's a stretch (sirius is about a foot taller than him) but they've managed so far, haven't they?
"you okay?" he asks into sirius' ear.
sirius nods. "better than okay." he pulls away and raises his voice. "oi, moony! c'mere!"
professor lupin materialises out of the crowd and smiles benignly at harry. "it's good to see you looking so chipper, harry."
"you, too," harry beams. and it's true; professor lupin looks healthier and brighter than he's ever seen him. even his shabby clothes don't detract from his radiant smile. "erm, what's going on?"
sirius grabs professor lupin by the wrist and drags him forward. "look!" he exclaims, and shoves lupin's hand into his face.
harry blinks. there's a silver ring on lupin's finger, blinking in the dull glow of a nearby streetlamp. it's quite aged and doesn't look particularly expensive.
"what's..." and then it hits him. "oh. oh! you two!"
sirius barks out his familiar laugh. "us two," he says amusedly.
"you got married?!"
"engaged," lupin says. he shoots sirius such a loving look that harry isn't sure how he missed it before. there's enough devotion in that stare that it makes him ache. he's known them both for three years and yet...
regardless, they glow in one another's company. and merlin knows both of them deserve to be happy.
"you've got my blessing," harry tells lupin solemnly. then, as he trips over his shoelace, "ah!"
about five different people reach out to steady him. laughter ripples through them all. yes, harry thinks. we're all going to be alright.
"let me," sirius says, raising his wand.
harry waves him off. "i can do it," he says.
"you can do it once we're inside," mad-eye interrupts, shoving through the crowd and grabbing harry by the upper arm to drag him back to the back door. "come, you. we haven't got time to waste; there's been a change of plans. we'll explain once we get inside..."
iv.
the silver lynx sends a bright, blueish glow through the tent. nearby dancers freeze up and the whole room goes quiet in ripples from the place where the patronus has landed. harry feels hermione stiffen beside him.
after a tremulous moment, the cat opens its mouth. "the ministry has fallen," it says, in shacklebolt's low, level voice. "scrimgeour is dead. they are coming."
silence falls entirely. in a whisp of flickering silver, the lynx vanishes. then, somebody screams.
the crowd bursts into a flurry of motion. harry's ears pop as the wards fall and then crack, crack, crack - people are apparating, in or out, he's not sure. hermione fumbles with his arm and they both lunge to their feet. harry's hand finds his wand.
they hurtle into the panicked mess side by side. "ron!" hermione screams, half sobbing. "ron, where are you?!"
dark figures penetrate the crowd. harry spies arthur weasley through a gap in the chaos, locked in a fierce duel with a masked death eater. the ceiling of the tent tears open and strips of burnt fabric rain down. the smell of bad magic, like burnt toast or a gas fire, permeates the air, so thick it's almost choking.
"ron!" harry raises his voice to holler. a curse whizzes over his head and he falls against hermione and the both of them stagger, clutching one another.
a masked man lunges at them. "relashio!" hermione shrieks, and he drops his wand. as he bends to pick it up, harry lunges forward and kicks him across the face and he capers, blind, into the mess.
somewhere, something is burning. the tent has caught fire on one end and black smoke pours, acrid, through. for a moment, harry loses hermione in the mess. he raises his voice to shout her name.
then through the crowd; lupin. backed against a table, wand flashing through the air in a spinning blur as he fights off two death eaters at once. as harry watches, one of their hexes makes it through and the ageing professor shouts, a deep, bloody gouge lashing across his cheek.
harry lunges through the fighting to his side, stunning one of the two death eaters from behind.
"professor!" he wheezes. "i've got you-"
"harry, run!" lupin shouts, voice so uncharacteristically forceful that he doesn't sound like himself. "run, for merlin's sake, get out of here-"
"no!" and harry hears the nearby sound of a curse spinning past and he whips around to lash a stinging hex across the room. it misses the offending death eater by an inch and then he's fighting again, back to back with lupin. "they'll kill you-"
a large hand latches around the top of his arm and a curse shoots past his ear like a gunshot, hitting the death eater across the tent. harry looks up and it's sirius, face smudged with ash.
"you're okay?" sirius pants. "i thought- i thought i saw-"
"i'm okay," harry says immediately.
"you have to get out of here."
"i'm not leaving you!"
"yes, you are!" sirius shouts, breath hot against his face. "get hermione and ron and go!"
"but- but you two-"
sirius forces one of his wolfish smiles. "we've survived one war," he says. "we'll survive as many more as we please. run, harry."
harry hesitates. "you'll live?"
sirius squeezes him. "we'll live," he says. "now go!"
v.
sirius finds them a few days into their stay at the abandoned old order hq. it hasn't been lived in for a year now. grimmauld still holds bad memories for him, evidently, because he looks immensely haggard as he brushes off his jacket by the front door.
"smells just as bad as it did when they left it," he says, as he staggers through the dust. "it's me, don't worry, you lot."
"you can prove it?" ron asks tremulously from halfway up the stairs.
but harry already knows. he lunges across the entryway and hugs his godfather. sirius grips him like a drowning man.
"how'd you know we'd be here?" hermione asks.
"figured you'd need somewhere fool-proof." sirius glances up at ron. "and, uh... well. harry's got this mole on the back of his neck that looks like a smiley face. bet a death eater wouldn't know that, eh?" and he grins.
"why are you here?" harry asks, pulling away. "they're still looking for you..."
"they're looking for all of us," sirius waves him off. "you lot most of all. i'll be fine. i had to apparate quite precisely onto the doormat, because this place is being watched, but they didn't see me."
"we figured they'd know we're here," harry nods. "come on, we've got... uh. tea, i suppose."
the three of them sit around the kitchen table. sirius listens, somewhat enraptured, to their retelling of the past days.
"and you're sure they didn't trace your apparition?" he says. "if one of them grabbed you they could've."
"no," hermione says anxiously. "no, they only found us after half an hour or so. we don't know what did it."
"well," sirius says, looking mildly spooked. "at least you lot got away unscathed. the same can't be said for all."
"is professor lupin okay?" harry asks quickly.
"remus is fine." sirius grins. "he sends his regards. we're holed away in a safehouse in south wales." his smile falls. "there've been plenty of attacks, though. tortures, too. andromeda and her family, and others. they're trying to get to everybody who knows you, harry. they're trying to get your location out of them."
"bloody hell," ron mutters.
"my sentiments exactly," sirius agrees. he pins harry with a look. "i know that expression, young man."
"'young man'," harry imitates lowly.
"don't try to change the subject. i can see you blaming yourself, it's written all over your face. this is not your fault."
"if they're torturing people to find me..."
"do you think it'd benefit the war effort if you were to hand yourself in?" sirius asks, half laughing. "we've all got survivors guilt, those of us who lived to see the end of the first war. you learn to live with it. i promise none of this is your fault. okay?"
"okay," harry says quietly. sirius always knows the right thing to say. an immense wave of affection for his godfather swells inside him. "i'll do my best to remember that."
"good." sirius smiles. "my advice is famously good."
"why did you come here?" hermione asks. "apart from getting the news."
sirius hesitates. "i'm actually here in place of remus," he says. "remus and i... we've been..."
for one of the first times in all the years harry has known him, sirius looks uncertain of himself.
"we've been having a hard time lately," sirius says eventually. "i don't want to bog you all down with stories of the good old days, but we... we never really figured things out. before azkaban." a faintly haunted look ghosts across his handsome face. "we screwed plenty during the first war-"
"eugh," ron says, not seeming to mean it.
sirius laughs hollowly. "but we never dated, really," he says. "it all sort of fell into place recently. we... skipped a lot of phases. sort of went straight from... well. i proposed rather quickly, i suppose you might say."
"oh," harry says. by the way they looked at one another the night mad-eye died, he would've thought they'd been in love for years. "i see."
"not the best at self-love, our moony," sirius says stallingly. "so he's... a bit up in his own head about it all right now. just for the moment, of course. he'll work things out. we'll work things out, i mean." hesitation. "but he wanted to come offer his services. to you three, i mean."
"wow!" hermione offers.
"wicked," ron exclaims.
"oh," harry says, less enthused.
sirius nods at him. "been arguing about it for days," he says tightly. "he was quite convinced i'd be... he'd be..." he trails off. "well, i've convinced him to stay safe right where he is."
"why?" ron asks. "he'd be a bloody brilliant asset."
harry sort of gets it though. there are lots of things about sirius he just sort of gets like that. "he's not going to throw his life away," he says.
sirius nods again. "i won't let him," he agrees.
"oh," hermione says with dawning comprehension. "oh, sirius, i'm sorry..."
"don't be," sirius waves her off. "i told you. survivor's guilt, isn't it?"
harry nods. he knows a lot about that. "but he still wanted you to come?"
"he's been worried. i have, too." sirius' eyes flicker over harry like they're hunting bruises. his leather jacket squeaks and winces around his narrow shoulders as he shrugs. "now i'll be able to go back and tell him you're all okay."
"tell him to stay safe," hermione says.
"and that he's got to stay alive," ron puts in. "like you said at the wedding. you made it through the last one, didn't you?"
"and tell him you need him," harry adds. "because you do."
sirius nods. "you know me too well," he says, amused.
harry smiles. he wants to say, you need him like you need me, if one of us dies you might fall apart, but he thinks that'd be too harsh or too direct for today. instead he just lets sirius keep hunting injuries.
vi.
"and now," lee jordan says, "we hand over to rotterman and romulus for our popular segment, 'pals of potter'. lads, do you maintain, as you have every time you have appeared on the show, that harry potter is still alive?"
"well," sirius' dry old voice says. harry's heart bounds up his throat and into his mouth. "we're getting predictable, aren't we?"
a quiet laugh. lupin. it's lupin. "we maintain, as we have every time we have appeared so far, that he's out there, alive and well."
"rotterman and romulus," hermione murmurs. "of course."
"i spoke to him," sirius' voice says. "not recently, of course, but recently enough to know that he's got a plan and he's alive and kicking. all we can ask for, isn't it?"
"and we'd encourage anybody to keep up their support of him," lupin's soft voice assents. "allow him to guide rebellious hearts and minds. let him give us hope."
"poetic and well-put as always," lee jordan says. "and if harry potter is listening right now?"
"take care of yourself, harry," sirius says grimly. "i'll be seeing you again soon. you've given me grey hairs."
"follow your instincts," lupin tags on. "they're very good, and almost always right. and listen to your godfather. he, too, is almost always right."
harry sits back against the tent wall and, despite himself, despite the awful news of ted tonks' murder, despite even the war, he grins. they're out there. they still believe in him. he feels that the whole world could lose faith in him and so long as he had sirius' belief in him, he could fight ten dark lords all at once.
ron clasps his arm and beams at him. "told you it was brilliant!" he says.
vii.
there's a sharp bang on the front door of shell cottage. harry, ron and hermione all flinch hard. the last month has been gruelling and it's at times like this, harry thinks, grabbing his wand, that they really do feel exactly like what they are: scared kids with enough trauma between them to send the bravest of men running.
bill stands up, griphook slipping under the table. wind whips against the windows. fleur has her wand out too, her face fierce, backlit by the spitting fire.
"who is it?" bill calls, approaching the door.
ron and hermione's hands have both found harry's arms, on either side of him. he's not sure whether it's so they can apparate away or just so they can hold onto him.
"it's us!" a faint voice calls over the storm. "sirius and remus!"
harry scrambles out from behind the table, tearing his arms away. "sirius?" he shouts.
bill shoots him a warning look. "what was the last thing you said to me, sirius?"
a pause. the wind whips ever-louder. "i told you that it was a shame," sirius' voice shouts, "that you had been born into one war and grown up into another."
bill's face twists. in two long strides he has reached the door and flung it open.
sirius and remus fall over the threshold, both of them white-faced and windswept. for a heartstopping moment, harry thinks they're hurt. but they straighten up, clutching one another like they're one body.
sirius beams into the room. "we did it!" he shouts to nobody in particular. "we're married!"
hermione shrieks. "oh, merlin!"
harry feels himself smile - properly smile, all teeth - for the first time in what feels like years. "that's amazing! congratulations!"
sirius looks up at him and many emotions - worry, shock, grief, wonder, elation - cross his face. he bounds over to harry and sweeps him into a tight embrace.
"you brave, brave boy," he whispers into the top of harry's head, arms tight around him in that consuming way he's able to hug that nobody else can quite do. "we're so proud of you."
harry grips him back tight and they almost topple, laughing. sirius has only barely let him go when remus hugs him, too. he feels intensely loved.
"it's so good to see you!" lupin exclaims warmly. "and you both, hermione, ron."
"we're still kicking," ron says faintly. "funny day for a wedding, isn't it? bad weather."
"we're bad luck, the both of us," sirius laughs. he squeezes harry and remus very fiercely. "we can't stay, not for long. sorry for dropping in, bill, we should've written ahead but it was- it was all so sudden. spontaneous."
"no worries," bill grins. "glad to get some good news, to be quite frank."
"we've been listening to potterwatch," hermione says eagerly. "the both of you are brilliant. it's gotten us through..." she flails for the right words. "gotten us through."
"right. right, of course." lupin smiles blithely at her. "we're glad to help. merlin, it's good to see you all safe. padfoot's been going grey."
"it's ruining my stunning good looks," sirius agrees.
soon, bill has filled all their goblets again; they all raise a toast together, the yellowing glow of the fire casting every face in the room into a warm, golden blur.
"to sirius and remus lupin! and to the seventies," bill says cheerily.
harry laughs as he chokes his firewhiskey down. of course sirius would've taken lupin's surname. the blacks are dead and buried now, and if anything confirmed it, it's this.
"you know us," sirius grins, arm around professor lupin's waist. "all in the name of spiting our parents, i suppose. we must be off, really, but we just wanted to spread the news. thanks so much, bill."
on their way out, remus exchanging news and advice and other such contraband with hermione and ron, sirius boxes harry's shoulders into his hands and leans close to his face.
"i meant it," he says. "everything you do out there, i'm proud of you. if i've ever seemed like i'm not, it was..." he trails off and his eyes go different.
harry knows what he must be remembering. you're less like your father than i thought, he said in fifth year, and it had stung then, but harry's seventeen now, and the weight of a war is heavy enough to bear without thinking about that time.
"i'm okay," harry promises. "and i know you're proud. you tell me all the time."
"and i'd tell you again," sirius promises. he wraps harry in another hug. harry breathes in the pulpy smell of weed smoke and gasoline of his jacket. he smells like a funeral in london.
"we'll survive this," harry promises. "take care of professor lupin?"
"oh, he's told you a million times to call him remus."
"he taught me!" harry defends.
sirius pulls away. "i've taught you plenty too," he says, "and he's just as much family as i am."
"remus," harry says, testing out the name on his tongue.
remus turns to look at him. "yes, harry?"
sirius barks his wonderful laugh. "he's welcoming you to the family, moony."
viii.
by the time harry and luna get back to the room of requirement, it's far more full than it was when they left. kingsley is standing near the exit, solid-stanced like a guard, and beyond him, mr and mrs weasley, and beyond them, bill, fleur, tonks, tonks' auror girlfriend, katie bell, angelina johnson, alicia spinnet and oliver wood.
he's only been back inside for a moment when, over the din and the chatter, he catches somebody shout his name.
"HARRY!" somebody yells from nearby. harry looks up in time to see sirius running over. his long, dark hair is plaited at the back of his head, though wisps have started to come out around his face. he looks like a fucking rockstar.
"sirius!" harry shouts. for a moment he forgets all about snape and the diadem and the cruciatus curse, forgets the war and the fighting and just hugs his godfather. for a few seconds, he lets that consuming, safe warmth surround him. he's alive, he reminds himself. both of them are alive.
"thank god." sirius pulls back, hands on his jaw, looking him over. "we heard about gringotts- it was stupid, harry. so stupid. a dragon? really? you could've died. stupid."
"stupid enough to make you proud?" harry asks cheekily.
"oh, yeah. it'll make marauders' history." sirius' brow furrows. "you look sick."
"he's angry," harry says.
"your scar?"
"i'm clinging on." harry smiles as reassuringly as he can.
remus crowds in beside them, hiding harry temporarily from the watchful crowd filling the room of requirement. "as soon as this is all over," he says, "you are going to explain how on earth you broke into gringotts and lived to tell the tale. understood?"
"got it," harry smiles. the room sways and spins around him for a moment and when he comes back to himself, from the clawed grip of voldemort's mind, they're both holding him up. "i'm okay. i'm okay."
"are you sure?" sirius asks urgently. "do you need to sit down-"
"i need to win this war," harry says. "i need to end it." he steps away and raises his voice. "we're meeting in the great hall!" he calls. "we're fighting!"
a great roar takes the crowd. this is why gryffindor is the home of the lions, harry thinks. like big cats, they will bite and bite until there's nothing left to eat. the crowd throngs towards the entrance.
a ways away, the weasleys reunite. ron is hugged and fussed over and taken care of like he's a child again. any other time harry might have felt faintly jealous. but remus and his godfather don't let him go and he's loved, he thinks. he's so loved.
ix.
as the dementors sweep low over them, the silvery shape of luna's patronus darts in front of harry, a bright little soldier. the hare sweeps warmth back into his bones and for a terrifying moment he thinks he'll slip from the ledge he's clinging too, into the dark, slanted unknown below.
then, she grabs his arm. her bright, blonde face smiles down at him.
"that's right," luna encourages. "that's right, harry... come on, think of something happy..."
"something happy?" harry asks, and his voice cracks.
"we're all still here," she whispers. her eyes fill with tears. "we're all still fighting. come on now..."
and harry thinks of sirius and remus, of how they smile at one another; he thinks of how ron and hermione hugged him tight between them at his birthday party in the summer like they would never let go; he thinks of a future where life will be easier, where every bad thing will be far behind him. he thinks he'd give anything. anything at all. he imagines he can feel sirius' warm strong arms around him. consuming and safe.
he raises his wand. from its tip bursts a bright, silvery form, the largest patronus of the lot.
hermione gasps. "harry..."
"oh," luna says. "i didn't know patronuses could change, harry!"
"oh," harry echoes. his heart swells bigger than he knew it could get. the large, silvery dog bounds ahead, crashing through the wave of heavy darkness, and then returns to his side, snuffling its bright nose at his face. padfoot. of course.
seamus laughs delightedly. "that's so bloody cool," he says.
x.
the fighting stills as if it has become a predator, stalking, waiting. clutching hermione to stay upright, blood sticky against the inside of his shirt, harry staggers over the threshold of the castle's doors and almost falls against the staircase of the entrance hall. his legs don't really work.
"i've got you," hermione murmurs into his ear. "i've got you."
the loss of fred aches like a festering wound. harry's head throbs with it. he wants to cry like a child. he doesn't want to fight anymore. he wants to lie down and never get up again.
the great hall is awash with suffering. there are bodies lined up against one wall, crying families surrounding them. the weasleys are a red-and-pale wreckage around fred. scattered to his sides like bits of broken china. harry thinks they'll surely never be whole again.
"i've got him," a soft voice tells hermione. a cold pale arm sweeps under harry's shoulders and then he's leaning heavy against remus.
"oh." hermione steps away. she wipes one bloody, brown hand against her front. "is sirius...?"
"unconcious." remus' voice breaks. "but he's had worse. he'll be up soon. it was just a stunner."
"oh, thank merlin." hermione gathers harry into a very gentle hug.
he hooks his chin over her shoulder in leu of hugging her back, because he doesn't think he could lift his arms if he tried. eyes follow him from around the hall. he feels like a raw nerve, torn open down the middle.
too quickly, she pulls away. there are tears in her dark eyes. "you'll be okay," she whispers. "we'll be okay."
"go to ron," harry rasps. "tell him... tell him."
"i know." she presses her lips fiercely to his sweaty, bloody forehead. "i know."
just like that she's gone. harry watches her limp away into the crowd. remus helps him hobble off to the side of the room, where a makeshift hospital wing has been set up.
sirius is as pale and dark as death on the mattress he's been laid across. his wand rests at his side. at some point through the fight his plait was severed and his shorn hair is splayed around his head, dark against the pillow. it'll barely come to his shoulders now.
remus helps harry sit beside him. "he was helping keep a collapsing wall up," he says gently. "he's saved a few lives today."
"i thought he'd died," harry says. his voice rasps out almost entirely soundless from his throat. "i thought..."
"he's okay." remus squeezes him against his cold side. "we're okay. would you like me to...?"
with as much effort as he can muster, harry lifts the bottom of his sweatshirt. remus waves his wand and the gorey wound knits back together.
"without potions, it'll scar," he warns.
"i've got enough of those," harry murmurs. "what's another?"
on the white mattress, sirius groans faintly but doesn't wake. remus takes one of his hands. their wedding rings clink together. suffering swells on the air like some ghastly plague.
fumbling, harry pulls out the vial of snape's memories and turns it over in his palm.
"there's something i need to do," he tells remus.
xi.
forget plagues; suffering hovers like a conquest. like a defeating army.
harry hovers in the entrance to the great hall for a moment, invisibility cloak hugging his shoulders. the soft fabric whips around his face as if to reassure him. inside, sirius has woken.
"and you're sure he said he'll be back?" he's asking remus, voice crackly and weak.
"he promised me," remus confirms. he's lain down beside sirius' mattress, long, scarred form almost one with the dust. one of his pale hands traces the outside of sirius' face, feather-light. "you know he wouldn't lie about that."
"i just wonder," sirius says, stilted. then, like it hurts desperately to say it, "i can't lose anybody else. i can't."
harry swallows a mouthful of grief. he wants, more than he's ever wanted anything, to run across the hall and sit with them. to have them whisk him away somewhere far from this war. to never have to fight again. he's young and he's dying, and he just wants to feel safe one more time. the ceiling of the great hall flickers with nightfall. the castle can feel grief, too. the castle can feel love, too.
xii.
"we're so proud of you," lily whispers. "we're so, so proud of you. and you've been so brave."
james nods, standing close. harry looks at him and in his face, for a moment, sees beyond age-wrought cruelty. he sees the boy who took sirius black in when he ran away from home. the man who didn't make it through the only war he ever lived to see.
"you're so, so cared for," he tells harry. "everybody would give as much as you're giving to see you live. they'll grieve you for as long as they're here."
"i've grieved enough," harry says. "i've seen enough. dad. i just want it to be over."
"i know." james smiles sadly. "i know."
xiii.
he dies. it's almost a relief.
xiv.
the noise sirius makes is more animal than human. it takes every inch of willpower harry has left to remain limp.
"no!" his godfather howls. "NO! HARRY!"
there's the sound of a scuffle. through barely-open eyes, harry sees remus wrap his arms around sirius' waist to hold him back. they both scuffle across the wreckage together, sirius howling with grief, remus' face all twisted up with a sob.
somewhere, ginny screams. hermione cries his name. ron breaks down. bodies, war-torn and hesitant, scatter down across the broken entrance of the castle, dark against the golden light of the entrance hall. crying and shouting whip up into a storm of sound. grief is an awful thing to hear. harry wishes, not for the first time, he knew why people care so much.
voldemort silences the crowd with a wave of his greying white hand. he paces over harry's body. his speech lands on harry's ears like incessant buzzing. he's got a migraine that could wake the dead. ha.
every so often, when he thinks he can risk it, harry opens his eyes ever so slightly to watch sirius and remus. they've both collapsed against a slab of broken stone. sirius' gaunt, sharp face has broken. he looks like he might never smile again. tears are pouring down remus' cheeks like he's losing everything all over again. for all the years he spent alone, sirius in azkaban and his friends dead or disappeared, he looks like he would go back, harry thinks, without a second thought, if it meant escaping this feeling.
and then neville - brave, wonderful neville, who harry would think should have been the real chosen one were he not remiss to wish this fate on anybody - kills nagini.
the pale, blue dawn begins to rise over hogwarts. screams tear through the silencing charm and suddenly hexes and curses are flying again, and harry whips the cloak over himself and springs to his tired, war-trodden feet, and he runs into the fray.
and parentage is a funny thing, he thinks. because one person never took their eyes off him, not for that whole time.
flying, spinning curses. the air is a miasma of mismatched colours. harry sees ron and hermione fighting side by side, faces tear-swollen; he sees mr weasley dodge a cruciatus curse that misses him by an inch; he sees dean thomas on the ground, blood leaking in a pool around his head; he sees colour dance across the dark sky, a dark mark or a flare or something. and somebody snags his wrist as harry goes to run into the entrance hall, ushered along by the crowd, and harry is dragged by the tide of fighters into the golden light, and sirius hauls him behind the marble stairs and whips the cloak from him and for a moment he just stares hungrily into harry's face, drinking every inch of him in.
"how did you see through the cloak?" harry asks weakly.
"i saw you put it on," sirius says. "and then i just knew. instinct."
"oh," harry says. "i'm sorry. can you hug me please."
sirius obliges. in the shadows, the battle raging not ten feet away, they clutch at one another desperately, doggedly. harry thinks of how mr weasley knew the moment fred had been hit. he thinks of how mrs weasley cried when he came back from the third task, how she sobbed like the world had ended. he thinks of how remus held him like he was trying to keep him together in the great hall an hour ago.
parents are a strange thing. harry knows he'll have the rest of his life to learn about them.
sirius' hands clutch the back of his bloody sweatshirt, searching for bruises. he brushes harry's hair from his face. their skulls knock together.
"we love you," he says. "we're so proud of you. we're never going to stop being proud of you. you stupid, brave boy. i'm so glad you're alive."
"i know," harry whispers. "thanks. for being there."
"we don't need thanks. you don't need to thank me for anything."
"i've never had this before."
"somebody who's there?"
"somebody who looks at me like i'm supposed to be here," harry admits. then, he says, "i'll live," and he throws his invisibility cloak back over himself and sprints back off into the battle.
xv.
riddle falls like an empire. his withered, grey body hits the ground and hogwarts rises around harry and embraces him, stunning orange sunlight bright through her walls. magic is a wonderful thing. the air swells and then, like an ocean, people flood across the stone towards him.
hermione and ron reach him first. their arms wrangle around him and harry goes staggering, stumbling into them, feet uncertain of where to go.
"you did it!" hermione yells hoarsely into his ear.
"you died!" ron shouts into the other. "you bloody died, harry!"
harry laughs like he's never laughed before, with clumsiness like he's only just learning how to do it. others pile in around them, a horde of them. teachers and students and friends. survivors of this war, and of the next, and of whichever others arrive.
and then remus and sirius are there, forcing their way through the crowd, and it's their hands that clutch at him, their arms that curl around him. they both smell like blood and worry. harry is laughing into sirius' uneven hair and all wrapped up in remus' patched old travelling cloak, and he feels whole. he feels like he'll be whole for a long time. the angry old dog in his heart settles with a bone.
"we're never letting you out of the house again," remus says into the top of his head. "you, you're remarkable."
"you too," harry laughs. "i'm sorry i left. i saw dad. can we go home?"
"yeah," sirius promises. "yeah, we can go home."