I do not own Harry Potter, the Wizarding World, or any canon characters.

Note: I had a really rough day so wanted to do an extra update. Seeing your comments really helps me feel better. Thank you all for continuing to join me on this journey. I'm also going to start doing a few responses to comments and reviews here and there will and try to keep them at the end of the post. Hope all have a lovely day!

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The Family that Chooses You

Chapter 57 – Acceptance

Harry was trapped.

He could not see; he could not move. He drowned in dark shadows, shadows with long grasping hands that made horribly rattling sounds. A deep chill gnawed at his bones, making him shiver and shake. He whimpered pitifully, trying to escape. No matter how hard he struggled, he could not escape the cold and pain.

He felt someone take his hand. It was a familiar touch, one that he latched onto desperately. A warm voice filled his ears and while he could not identify the speaker nor hear the words, the sound soothed him. A warmth washed over him. He felt safe.

The shadows receded and so did his struggling. He sighed softly and lost himself to nothingness.

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Harry's eyes opened slowly. For a moment he had no idea where he was. He only knew that he was lying somewhere soft. Sunlight draped over him from the window. He grunted softly. His body was waking up with him and he was a mass of ache and fatigue.

"Rabbit!"

He blinked at the extremely fuzzy outline of Angelina. "Angelina?" he croaked.

"Hold on." She gently slipped his glasses onto his face and he smiled weakly as she swam into focus. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired," he said. "Achy. What happened? Where am I?"

"You're in the Infirmary. One second, be right back."

He watched as she left his side, parting the curtains around his bed. After a few minutes she returned with tired but happy looking Katie and Hermione in tow.

"Harry! How do you feel?" Hermione asked hurriedly.

"Tired," he repeated. "Are you three okay?"

"He's the one in the hospital bed and asks us if we're okay," Angelina snorted. Her smile showed that she was not at all annoyed. "We're okay Rabbit. Just bumps and bruises for us. You're the one that had it worst."

"Do you remember what happened?" Katie asked.

Harry shook his head, feeling dread build up within him.

The three girls explained all that happened. Katie and Angelina recounted what happened during the game while Hermione described what it looked like from the stands. They ended the story by bringing Harry to the Infirmary. They felt it would be better to wait for Harry to recover more before sharing what happened after with the Headmaster and professors.

Throughout the story Harry stared with wide opened eyes. His horror grew with each sentence and when they finished, he stared blankly at them. His brain processed the deluge of information and stubbornly clung onto one detail.

"Rabbit?" Angelina was concerned at how still he was. "Harry?" She started as tears began to roll down his face. "Oh no, are you hurting? Should I call Madam Pomfrey."

His lips moved soundlessly.

"Say that again?" Katie asked.

"You all could have died," he whispered.

The Chasers looked at each other. "That's true…" Angelina said slowly.

"Especially you two. You jumped off your brooms in the air."

Katie winced. "Which in hindsight is very reckless, but it felt necessary at the time…"

"Why?"

The one-word question stopped them cold. Katie did not like the look on Harry's face. He looked suitably horrified, which to anyone hearing the story would certainly be horrified, but there was a quality to it that felt very off to her. Tears continued to run down his face. He looked sickened.

"To save you of course," Angelina said.

"Why though? Why risk your lives to save mine?"

"Because you're our friend and our teammate," Angelina said shortly. She was trying to remain calm but the questions were starting to bother her.

"That's not a good enough reason!"

"Rabbit-"

"No! I'm not worth risking your life for! Any of you!" Harry shouted. He started to shake uncontrollably.

"Harry, calm down," Hermione begged, her hands to her face.

"No! I can't! I'm not worth it!" Harry sobbed, his breathing ragged. His gasps were shallow and he felt incredibly hot.

"Don't be ridiculous," Angelina said sharply. She could not help getting angry herself. A part of her knew that Harry was perfectly valid in reacting this way. However, hearing him say that he was not worth it, angered her. She knew it was a product of his upbringing, of being told that he was worthless and a freak. She knew that she had to try and remain calm for him. She was failing at that however. "You are most certainly worth it."

"I'm not!" His voice was a howl of anguish. He tried to scramble away from them, to keep from endangering them further. "I'm not worth your lives!"

"Rabbit, calm down!" Angelina tried to push down on his shoulders, to keep him from falling from the bed. He did not fight her per se, but he struggled harder. "Hermione, go get Pomfrey!"

Katie had been watching with her jaw open, trying to comprehend why Harry was acting this way. She knew he would be upset. She knew he had difficulty accepting his self-worth. Yet this seemed extreme, even for him. She stared at him, desperately trying to find the words to reassure him, to calm him down. She saw him look wildly at Hermione and then she understood.

"Wait," Katie said softly and Hermione did, looking like she was about to dash and scream for the Healer. "Harry, you didn't lose us."

Her words penetrated his panic and he instantly stopped struggling. He seemed to deflate in front of their eyes, looking smaller and younger. "I could have," he said. "I can't lose any of you. Not because of me."

Angelina looked sickened. "Rabbit, you're not going to lose us."

"You could have died," he insisted. "I don't want that. I don't want to see people hurt for me or because of me." He dropped his head and his tears fell like rain. "I don't want anyone to die for me."

"Like your parents," Katie said softly.

He nodded dumbly.

A heavy silence descended over them.

"Harry…I never blamed you," Hermione said quietly. "For being petrified. I never thought for a moment it was your fault." Her cheeks went pink when the other two girls looked at her. "I know you feel like it was your fault, but it really wasn't."

"You got hurt because of me," he whispered mulishly.

"Perhaps. Also likely, I was better prepared because of you. If I didn't know what to look for, because of you, I could have died without looking in a mirror." Hermione's voice cracked when she spoke but she looked resolute.

He ignored the logic. "It's all because of me. People get hurt because of me. People die because of me."

"You parents didn't die because of you," Katie said. "They died because of You-Know-Who. Don't accept responsibility for anything He did."

He said nothing and continued to cry.

"Rabbit," Angelina's voice was incredibly gentle, "we did all that willingly. We didn't feel like we had to, at least I didn't. I wanted to. No one forced us to go through all that."

"But why for me? Would you have done it for anyone?" Their silence was his answer. "I don't understand why you would go so far for me."

"Because you do deserve it, because you need it. You've been hurt and neglected for ages, it's about time anyone tries for you."

"So you pity me," he said bitterly.

"Harry, why did you push Draco out of the way and jump in front of Daphne?" Hermione asked sharply. "Why were you willing to spare them being attacked by a hippogriff and willingly step into danger for them yourself?"

"You what?!" Angelina and Katie shouted together.

Harry tried to burrow into the bed away from them. "That's different," he muttered.

"How is that different?" Hermione pressed. "And if you say Draco deserves to be saved and you don't, I swear I will slap you silly while you're here in the Infirmary!"

The others giggled from the absurdity of her words, and how much she meant them.

"I'd save you a thousand times before I'd even attempt to help that tosspot once," Angelina declared.

"No you wouldn't," Harry said, "You'd try. You're a good person."

Angelina blushed. "Only to the people I like, my friends."

Katie reached out with her hands and took Harry's. He was filled with the warmth he felt while he was trapped in his nightmare. He felt calmer, but he tried to pull away, unwilling to hurt her. She held on and squeezed his hands.

"Harry, look at me."

He looked up. His emerald eyes were wet with pain and anguish.

Her chestnut brown eyes were wet with pain and concern.

"You try to spare others because you don't like seeing them get hurt. We do the same because we don't like seeing you get hurt. We care about you. You don't want to lose us but think about how we don't want to lose you either. You are worth it, every bit of effort. You deserve to be helped, to be cared for."

He looked at her for a long time. "Why?" he asked again.

"Because you do," she replied. She smiled sadly. "Harry, do you trust me?"

He nodded without hesitation. "You won't ever lie to me."

"Do you trust Angelina?"

Another nod.

"Do you trust Hermione?"

A third nod. He really did. Though his trust in her was different from Katie and Angelina, he sincerely did. He missed her look of embarrassed pleasure.

"Then trust us when we say we don't blame you. That we want to do the things we do. We care about you."

His crying intensified but it felt different. Before his tears were cold, born from a place of pain and despair. These tears felt warmer. They felt like they were released, tears unleashed with relief.

"Okay," he whispered. "I trust you. I believe you."

Katie sat next to him and drew him to her, letting his head rest against her shoulder as he continued to cry softly. Angelina slid to his other side and held one hand while Hermione moved closer to hold his other. They supported him and sat with him.

He accepted them. He accepted their thoughts and feelings. He felt something small and cold deep within him start to unravel. It began to relax, a tightness he carried all his life that he never knew existed.

It felt freeing. It felt terrifying.

He needed it. Craved it.

"I hate to ruin the mood," Angelina said wryly, "but if I don't do this, I'll never hear the end of it." She smirked when Harry looked up at her. "Alicia said to tell you when you woke up that she's happy you didn't die but she's going to kill you for scaring her so much."

Harry giggled.

Katie rolled her eyes but smiled all the same, heartened by Harry's giggle. "She also said that she's rather fond of you and would hate to lose you." She mock glared at Angelina. "At least pass on the whole message."

"I'm not an owl," Angelina muttered.

"Is she okay?" Harry asked. "What about the twins and Wood?"

"She's fine, exhausted. Sleeping in the next bed over. She drained her magic from an awesome spell. The twins are fine too, a bit banged up but got fixed right quick." Angelina grinned and waggled her eyebrows. "Oliver's fine, spent the whole time sitting with Alicia."

"Alicia barely let him go even when asleep," Katie said with a giggle.

The three girls were consumed by more giggles.

Harry felt like he was missing something but he did not mind. "I'm glad everyone's okay," he murmured.

They sat in companionable silence.

"So, what's this about an attacking hippogriff?" Katie asked in a dangerous tone of voice.

Harry looked sourly at Hermione. "I really wish you didn't mention that."

Hermione patted his hand before letting go, rising from the bedside with pink cheeks. "I'm going to go get Madam Pomfrey and tell her Harry's awake."

"Take your time," Angelina said. "Give us a few minutes to talk to Harry about said hippogriff."

"Coward!" Harry called out as Hermione fled smiling.

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kjtrack: That's an interesting theory. It makes a lot of sense. I will be honest and say I didn't even consider that connection. Every year, there are certain things that I kept the same because I felt they were very vital to the story and I wanted to keep his reactions to Dementors, hence keeping the memory. In hindsight, it doesn't make a lot of sense for him to have the memory still, but hopefully it's still enjoyable that it's there.

D.J. Scales: Yes, about time really and I hope I can portray it realistically.

Guest: I was hoping to avoid the idea of people knowing things without reason to. I thought that I showed that Katie would know certain things more due to her mother's influence, but perhaps I fell a little flat there.

alix33: Thank you, I worked hard on his sarcasm. Snape's dialogue is very special and I wanted to get it right.