Harry sat on the edge of his bed and stared down at the socks in his hand, unable, suddenly, to make himself put them on. The energy it would take to bend over, to lift his feet, even to move his fingers felt an insurmountable barrier; he might as well have been trying to levitate his trunk with no wand for all he felt capable of performing the simple task.
He'd woken early that morning, just the beginnings of a fuzzy grey light penetrating the curtains of his four-poster, but had lain still and silent for what felt like hours. At some point, he could hear everyone else getting up and dressed, but, surrounded by the familiar sounds of a regular morning in the Gryffindor boys' dormitory, he felt somehow separate from it all, almost as if he was listening to a recording of something that had happened a very long time ago.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed between the last of them leaving and his own getting up, and he wasn't sure now how long he'd been sitting here holding his socks. He wasn't sure of anything much, if he was being honest with himself, and he wondered vaguely if he might be getting ill. The quiet ache in his chest seemed to suggest as much, only he knew he'd never felt like this with any cold or flu. He wasn't ill. He knew that. He was perfectly alright. It was just that he couldn't seem to make himself move.
Distantly, he heard the beginnings of some uproar, students shouting and laughing, and he realized suddenly that there was a game. Ravenclaw versus Slytherin, noon, which made it at least eleven-thirty now for so many students to be spilling out toward the Quidditch pitch. Ron and Hermione would be with them, he supposed; they'd talked of going last night, Hermione finally giving in after Ron's relentless prodding and teasing. Had they found seats already? Were they laughing among their peers in the warm early-autumn sun – waving a banner made by Dean, perhaps, Hermione rolling her eyes in mock exasperation at something Fred or George had said?
Harry's chest felt tighter, suddenly.
The dormitory door opened slowly, and Harry heard the long, low creak as if from very far away. "Harry?"
The sound of Ron's voice made the ache in Harry's chest deepen and he could not bring himself to reply. After a long pause, he heard Ron come closer, till he was standing at the foot of Harry's bed.
"Harry?" he repeated. "You coming?"
Coming? For a moment the question swam confusingly in Harry's mind before he realized: to the game. They'd waited for him. They were still waiting. For some reason, this made his chest feel all the tighter.
At his continued silence, Ron stepped forward, so he stood facing Harry's profile. "Mate?" he ventured, and Harry, catching the uncertainty in his voice, registered a vague sense of guilt for having caused any concern or inconvenience. "Everything okay?"
Of course everything isn't fucking okay, thought Harry, and yet he could not bring himself to speak or to move or even to look up and meet Ron's gaze. Somewhere beneath the enormous expanse of heavy nothingness occupying his lungs, he felt the terrifying, dizzying panic that he had been trying for months to suppress begin to rise. He was dimly aware that his hands were shaking, but though he was desperate for some release of the horror building inside him, he felt as if the link between his thoughts and his physical self had been shut off, and he could only sit there, a dead weight, on the edge of his bed.
Ron stood watching him for an uncomfortable moment longer, and then Harry felt the mattress dip as Ron sat down beside him, not touching but close enough that Harry could feel his warmth against the bare skin of his arms that he had not, until this moment, realized were cold.
"We don't have to go to Quidditch if you're not up for it," said Ron eventually.
At these words Harry felt his eyes burn and his throat grew so tight that he was certain he could not have forced words out of it even if he was able to find something to say. His chest was so heavy he could hardly breathe. A long silence stretched between them during which Harry expected more with every passing moment that Ron would give up, would stand and say, "All right, mate, your loss," and then head to the game with Hermione and the other Weasleys. Don't go, he thought desperately, and wondered if by thinking it hard enough he could make Ron understand. He had been dreading company, had hoped rather desperately that no one would find him like this, and yet now that Ron was here he could not bear the idea of being left alone again.
Finally Ron said softly, "I wish I knew how to help you, mate."
Harry squeezed his eyes shut against the intensified burning.
"Is there anything I can do?"
His voice was so gentle that Harry felt as if something deep inside of him had been cracked open. He was completely, utterly raw, more desperate and more vulnerable than he had ever felt, and only this allowed him to lean slightly, without any more thought, against Ron, just enough for him to support a tiny bit of his weight.
"Hey," said Ron, sounding surprised, but without reproach. Slowly he brought his arm up to wrap it around Harry, drawing him closer.
Harry released a long, shuddering breath that he had not even noticed he was holding and laid his head against Ron's shoulder.
He was not sure how long they sat like that before he heard footsteps and a soft knock on the doorframe. "Ron? Harry?"
He felt Ron shift slightly to look at Hermione in the doorway. He said nothing, but his expression must have communicated something to her, for Harry heard her approaching and then she was sitting down on his other side. Wordlessly, she drew up her legs and rested her own head against his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his free one as if to hold him in place. Only then, anchored firmly on both sides by Ron and Hermione, did the tears finally come, sliding silently down his face and into Ron's shirt.
"You're okay," Hermione whispered, and slid one of her hands into his. "And we're not going anywhere."
He remained motionless against Ron with Hermione's warm weight pressing into his other side until his tears were spent, and then for a while after. None of them spoke again, but their soft, even breathing on either side of him was a greater comfort than he knew how to express, and gradually, the tightness in his chest began to loosen. They weren't going anywhere. And he would be okay.