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"A faithful friend is the medicine of life."
~ Apocrypha

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Nothing in life is ever absolute. No matter what happens, or whether we live to see the sun set one day, only to rise as another dawn greets us - it doesn't necessarily mean that we'll live to see the coming day.

She knows this of course, because she's intelligent and wise. She spends her days reading, and musing with her friends about the upcoming war. And they're always so weary and cautious around Harry, because he's so worrisome and hurt now. Ron shrugs everything aside, trying to find whatever good there is in any situation; making his friends laugh with little jokes and insisting that whatever is coming will come, and they'll face it together with their heads held high.

He's right, they tell themselves. And perhaps he is, though secretly, they have their doubts. They've lost a close friend all ready, and only time could tell how many will follow after.

"But it's okay, Harry," insists Hermione, brushing aside the gloomy atmosphere. "We're all okay, and the world is okay--for now. We'll make it through this; we all will."

He wills himself to believe her, to trust her words for once and find the logic which she always sports. Though even she doesn't know whether they really will, and as much as he urges himself to believe such simple words, he has his doubts.

A war's begun, and the whole world knows it now. There's paranoia and fear, loss and triumph in each and everyday. And wasn't the world like that to begin with? And The Dark Lord they'd been battling against with for years now had a face, and a body, and a deadly army to boot. They've been fighting for so long that they hardly even remember what the world was like before coming to Hogwarts and facing the challenges therein.

They do remember the freedom, and the joy, and the memories from a time so long ago. Hermione still remembers the Muggle children, and the old Muggle playground just a stone's throw from her house. Ron still remembers playing Quidditch with his brothers, and laughing as Charlie told some joke that made no sense to he or Ginny, but made his mother cover their ears and hush her son up.

And Harry, he tries to remember, but it doesn't do him any good. All he had before was the Durselys, and they're hardly the people that happiness spawns from. It makes him bitter inside, as Hermione and Ron grin and tell their tales, while he's left to listen and sulk deep inside; but it doesn't matter.

Nothing matters in the end.

He reassures himself by saying that good memories will come, once time is over and the world settles back to whatever placid, calm demeanor it might have held at a time. But he secretly wonders whether he'll live to see that time, or whether it will return at all. And how many people--how many friends-- will have to die to help secure his success?

"You've got a rather sad way of looking at life," Ron once said, and for once, he was probably right.

That didn't stop Harry from glaring at his friend, and ignoring him for the rest of the day. Sometimes he ponders whether ignorance could one day save them, and whether if he were to ever push themaway, would it save them from the forthcoming evil?

But he couldn't push them away or aside, because in the end, they wouldn't let him. They maintained that they had been there by his side this long, and they'd be damned if they weren't in the end.

"We're your friends," Hermione proclaims, "and we're here as long as you need us to be, even if you won't admit it."

So they're resilient, stubborn and strong. Friends are meant to be strong together, and they're meant to comfort each other as darkness falls. They're meant to hold onto their innocence together, and question it when it's gone.

Harry fears the day this friendship should ever slip away, or the day he should awake to find one of them lost to him forever. But he can't stop them from caring. He can't stop Hermione from loving both he and Ron. He can't stop her cinnamon brown eyes shimmering with tears as she awakens from the nightmares--ones they all have now. Ones where everything's lost; ones where it's all his fault.

And Ron persists that things will be fine, and that they still are really--even when it's obvious that they're not. He tries to act like nothing's changed, and that he can't hear Harry's screams at night as the worst of images plague the young boy with the scar. There's nothing he can do to help, and that's probably the worst part of it all.

They writhe in despair as the news of attacked countries, or casualties of war spill in. Harry feels at fault, his responsibility bearing so much of a burden. Each life lost is his blunder, each second wasted is an injustice. But there's nothing he can do from within the walls of Hogwarts. There's nothing he can do when Dumbledore insists that he stays where he is, and that he prepare himself for something he's not yet ready to face.

But they're still together, and they're still friends. Perhaps that's all that matters in the end, though in all honesty, it's a lie. Life matters, and the three friends never know when the next one will be taken.

There's hope for a finer day and a newer age, where the worries of the past can be put to rest and the world will be at peace. There's strength in each of them, which will hopefully win through in the end and save the three from their tormenter who lurks in the shadows. The battle lines have been drawn, and sides have been taken...

And they've let go of the past. They're ready for their future.

~Fin