There's something wrong now - not Wrong, the Wrong that permeates his every dream and day, but wrong, with a lowercase w. Something amiss, a crease in an otherwise seamless cloth, and it rubs against his skin, teasing and tempting him to smooth it. It's a whisper, rising and falling in pitch, and he hears it when he walks through the corridors and crouches by the graves.
He wants to know what it is it's saying. And why.
If this were an ordinary year (but it's not, he knows this, knows it in the bed that's rarely used and the halls and hearts that never warm) this tiny dip in the surface would be part of the magic of the place, the power and the draw, because Hogwarts has always been the world tipped a bit farther along its axis, another shade of reality. But this is not a matter of shade or perception but of true change, so it could be a sign of the enemy's arrival, or a break in the wards that protect them, or maybe, maybe maybe maybe, he prays, on those nights when he's so tired after writhing on the floor under Snape's wand that he doesn't make it to the dormitory but sleeps out on the hall floor, the roughly hewn stone comfortable in his delirium, I'm just losing my mind.
But when he wakes up, there's still that whisper and he still knows where he is, and why, and what he must do. He is not insane.
One afternoon he goes down to the Chamber, alone. On his hand and knees, a pose Riddle would have liked, he thinks while his lips twitch upward, he searches crevices and corners for any sign of It, trying to make sure that the evil is still sealed off, contained if not eradicated. Then his groping hand knocks the collarbone of what once held Hermione and a dull echo resounds in the Chamber, crawling into his ribcage and synching with his heartbeat. Thum. Thum-thum. And he listens, because no one was there to listen to her last muffled sounds, so he owes this, at least, to her. To not scream and smother her cry with his.
Their daring, nerve and chivalry, he thinks. And then, I am so, so sorry.
And he does not cry. He cried when he lost Sirius and later Lupin and even Dumbledore, he had something left to give then. There's just been too many deaths, too many damn deaths, and all the eulogies bled into each other - Fred's pranks attributed to George (who stood immobile while small patches of grass nearby ignited) and Bill became Captain of the Quidditch team instead of Charlie - and all he can remember is the faces of the Weasleys pressed farther back into bone, into the framework of being with its sharp juts and points, as they became smaller and more still.
The Order is at Hogwarts with him now, and the fragments of Dumbledore's - Potter's Army too, an army of desperation instead of defiance. He no longer trains the army, as he sees not the living but the dead, the spaces left open in respect blooming full in his mind and he tries to remember each idiosyncrasy of the slain, as though the knowledge will somehow keep them alive. The turn of Ernie Macmillan's nose, the calluses on Oliver Wood's hands, Padma Patil's Patronus - if I could remember, he thinks desperately, trying to spin the few remaining threads of the past into something real and durable. As though if he can deliver a few details to the panicked parents, he can revive their children.
Because if he can do that, he can bring himself back afterward.
It's late when he comes in, or at least Harry assumes it is. Outside the window the sky is black, and Harry feels as though he's been sitting there for a long time. And Ron, his red hair a meager torch in the dark, sits with him by the window and does not speak, letting Harry listen undisturbed.
Minutes and clouds pass, drifting slowly away. Harry hears Ron open his mouth and inhale, once, twice, three times, working his way up to what he needs to say, and then, evenly:
"You can't bring them back, mate. But you can stop others from . . . going away."
"It's not enough," he replies. It never is.
"No," says Ron. "But it's all there is." He stands and walks out of the room, his shoes clacking against the stone in a steady, even rhythm that echoes long after his frame disappears through the door. Harry sits without moving, listening, and knows that Ron is right. Then he stands and exits to go listen to the clatter of the living instead of the whispers of the dead.