Chapter 24: Phantoms of the Past

Harry's face was hard, eyes unblinking. Not a muscle moved save for the steady rise and fall of his chest. His breathing seemed remarkably calm and controlled. And his wand arm was still extended, frighteningly steady, as it pointed directly at Ella.

Gawain's breathing was not nearly so calm. He sat up straighter.

"I'm sorry." Ella's voice was timid and an octave too high. Still, her eyes were fixed on Harry. And Harry stared back.

Any moment now. Harry would shake his head, smile, say it was nothing, that she just startled him. But Harry didn't move a muscle. "Harry," Gawain said when still he said nothing. But Harry did not reply. He did not move. Gawain rose to his feet from the couch. "Harry, it was just an accident. I'll mend it. Lower your wand."

Harry just stared down his wand at Ella. And yet he didn't. His face was full of fury, all of it directed in Ella's direction. But there was something in his eyes that was somehow both sharply zeroed on Ella and yet not focused at all.

Gawain felt his heart pounding faster. A wave of cold reverberated down his arms to his fingertips. "Harry!" he said more forcefully. "It's just Ella."

Still there was no response, and Gawain felt the panic rising in his chest. Harry was gone. Somewhere far far away. And Gawain had no idea of what this shell he'd left behind was capable. All he knew was it was threatening his daughter.

Gawain took a few steps forward, but at his movement, he saw the muscles of Harry's arm clench as though preparing for a blow, his fingers dig more firmly into the wood of his wand. Gawain's feet faltered. He stood there, frozen mid-step. Indecision racked his brain. Gawain had had years of experience and training, all geared toward ensuring he knew how to act in situations like this. Of course in that moment, with Ella in danger, he could remember exactly none of it.

"Potter," Gawain said, his tone growing harder and with a distinct tone of panic now. "Stop this! Lower your wand!" Reflexively, Gawain's knees bent, preparing to dive in front of Ella if need be. But Potter's potions set-up was between them. He would never reach her in time. Dimly, he noted Mary out on the landing. She had paused on her way back to chat with Brannagh Roslyn, but with the sound-proofing spell, they seemed entirely oblivious to what was happening in the drawing room. The contrast of their casual smiling conversation outside the open door and the turmoil in the drawing room was sharp as a knife.

And still that wand was pointed at Ella. Ella's head darted between Harry and Gawain. He held out his hand to her, signalling for her not to move.

"POTTER!" When still Potter did not respond, Gawain whipped out his own wand, his panic-fuelled impatience mounting further and further.

There was a half-second of hesitation. Could he curse Harry? But in that moment, Gawain knew the answer to that question. Yes. If he threatened his daughter, yes he most definitely could. But would it just make Potter more likely to fire off a curse of his own? And if so, would that be directed at Gawain or at Ella?

"DAMN IT, POTTER! GET YOUR WAND OFF MY DAUGHTER!"

"Gawain," came a low soft voice from the door. Gawain's head whipped around. "Put that down," Mary all but whispered to him, gesturing for him to lower his wand. Gawain hesitated, looking between her and Potter, but she gave him a look of stern encouragement before turning her attention to Potter. Gawain slowly lowered his wand. But he did not re-pocket it.

Mary began approaching Potter very very slowly. "Harry," she said, gently. "Harry, dear. It's alight. You can put that away. You're safe." She manoeuvred herself between Potter and Ella rather than approaching him directly. The wand was now pointed at Mary instead. It did not serve to lessen Gawain's panic, and still he felt his muscles tense and ready to spring. But he noticed a slight tremble in Potter's hand now.

"Ella. Go to your da'," Mary said, but she did not turn around to look at her. Her eyes were still fixed on Potter's face. Her expression attentive but unruffled.

There was a crunch of broken china under Ella's feet as she dashed out from behind Mary and ran to Gawain. He bent to scoop her into his arms as she met him and straightened, clutching her to his chest with a feeling of desperation. Then he turned his attention back to Mary.

She was approaching Potter head on now, very very slowly. She ignored the wand that was now pointed directly at her heart, her eyes fixed on Potter's face. One step. Her voice was remarkably calm. "Harry. It's alright." Another step. "You don't need that. You can put it away." Another step. "You're safe, dear. Come back to us. You're safe."

And Potter's face was changing. The murderous expression was slipping. New expressions were flashing across his face. Confusion, fear, shame. And his hand, though still holding the wand trained on Mary, was shaking more and more violently now. His breathing, which had almost seemed to stop while facing down Ella, was beginning to sound more and more ragged.

As Mary reached him at last, she stretched out very very slowly and rested her hand over Potter's wand arm. And at last Potter blinked. And his face morphed to one to horror. Horror and bitter self-loathing.

His eyes moved from Mary, and he looked down at his own hand as though he didn't even recognise it. He seemed to actively pry his fingers open one-by-one. And at last, the wand fell to the floor. The clatter of wood against wood echoed in the silence. Potter's eyes followed it for a moment. Then he gave a shuddering gasp and buried his face in his hands.

"It's okay," said Mary gently, her hand traveling up to squeeze his shoulder. "It's okay, Harry. We're all okay."

But Potter was gasping for breath behind his hands and shaking uncontrollably. He dropped down to a crouch, and Mary knelt beside him. Very gently, she reached up and wrapped her arms around him. Though Potter barely seemed to notice.

Gawain watched, helplessly from where he stood. Ella was still perched on his hip sniffling and staring between her mother and father in confusion, even as tears streaked down her cheeks. Mary was hugging Potter and rubbing comforting circles on his back. After a moment, she looked over Potter's shoulder and met Gawain's eye. He saw an intense sadness in her gaze. Mary jerked her head in the direction of the door. Gawain hesitated, his arms reflexively tightening around Ella who was now crying into his shoulder. He was not at all sure he wanted to leave Mary alone with Potter. But Mary just nodded at him in encouragement and mouthed, 'I'll be fine.' It was a small sob from Ella that finally had him moving toward the landing.

It was not until Gawain reached the door that he realised Brannagh was there. She too had been standing and watching helplessly just as Gawain had been. There were tears brimming in her eyes, though she kept her face quite blank.

"Is she alright?" she asked softly, nodding to Ella who was freely sobbing into Gawain's neck now.

"I think so. Just startled. I'm going to get her upstairs."

Brannagh just nodded, and Gawain left her standing awkwardly on the first floor landing, seeming entirely unsure what to do with herself. But Brannagh was hardly his concern at that moment.

Gawain did not release Ella until they were safely behind the closed door of their bedroom. All the way up the stairs, Ella kept her legs firmly wrapped around his hip, her arms clasped around his neck, her face buried in his shoulder. He couldn't remember the last time he had carried her like this for any significant distance. She was getting older. Strange to think that very soon would come the day when he would hold her like this for the last time. But now was not the time to dwell on such things. It didn't matter that his arms were straining or that his back was aching or that his lungs were burning as he took the stairs two at a time. All that mattered in that instant was that he get her away from Potter as fast as he could.

Once in their bedroom, Gawain at last released Ella. He perched her on the edge of her bed and finally pulled back enough that he could see her face properly. But he kept his hands on her shoulders as he crouched before her and gazed at her diagnostically. She looked back at him, eyes puffy, face red, tears streaking down her cheeks. He pushed the hair back as he studied her, and strands stuck to her wet face.

"Are you alright?" he asked, wiping the tears away from her eyes with his thumb.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I was just trying to put the shell back where it was and my elbow hit it and…"

"It's alright, Ella. No one cares about that silly vase."

"But I didn't mean to make Harry so angry. Or you."

It was only then that the emotions coursing through Gawain's terror addled brain really formed enough for him to recognise them. He was angry. No. He was furious. And as he stared at his daughter, he realised his breath was still coming in sharp gasps, his fingers were digging into Ella's shoulder a little harder than he intended, and his head was aching from the clenching of his jaw.

Gawain, ye'r scaring her, Gwen's voice whispered in his ear. He drew in a deep calming breath and forced himself to relax his facial muscles. He released his grip on Ella and let his hands fall to his lap.

"I'm not angry. Not angry at you," he amended. His chest felt tight and he struggled to regulate his breathing. He glanced down and realised his hands were shaking.

"I really didn't mean to do it," Ella insisted earnestly.

"I know, Ells Bells," Gawain said automatically, but his attention was really not on this conversation. He was still staring at his hands and had the strangest feeling that they were not really his.

"Do you think Harry will ever forgive me? He was so angry."

"It doesn't matter." A buzzing was sounding in Gawain's ears. He couldn't focus on what she was saying. He closed his eyes briefly as he tried to draw in deep enough of a breath to actually successfully deliver oxygen to his lungs.

"But that vase must have been really important to make him so angry. Can it not be repaired? Why was he so cross with me?" Ella's chatter was making his head pound. He needed quiet.

"It doesn't matter, Ella."

"But I've never seen him like that. He was so—"

"Eleanor! Please!" His tone was harsher than he'd meant it to be. He'd just wanted a moment of quiet to process the turmoil. He raised a shaking hand to run across his beard before he managed to look at her.

Ella looked back at him, her eyes wide, tears brimming again, her lip trembling. Gawain felt himself wince. Wee 'uns 'll do as they're wont tae do. It wilnae be the last time she does something tae frighten the life oot o' ye.

Gawain sighed and pulled Ella into a hug. He pressed his lips against her temple and felt his eyes clamp shut as though this would help to keep the emotions coursing through him at bay. Lips still firmly against her scalp, he drew in a shaky breath through the nose, letting her scent calm him.

He wasn't sure how long they sat that way: Ella curled in his arms, Gawain trying desperately to shut out the world. But it wasn't until he heard the door open and footsteps enter the room and Ella began to squirm impatiently that he finally broke the embrace. Gawain looked to the door, blinking away the daze. His eyes met with Mary's; her gaze was terribly, painfully sad. He just looked at her, unable to think what to say.

"Mam!" Ella broke away from Gawain, bounced off the bed, and ran to throw her arms around Mary's waist. Mary rubbed her back soothingly in much the way she had Potter's downstairs. And like before, she looked over Ella's shoulder to meet Gawain's eye.

Perhaps misinterpreting Gawain's expression, Mary finally spoke. "He's calmed down, I think. Not saying much. He did say something about inferi attacking and not wanting to mess it up again. But then he seemed to come to himself a little more and said he didn't want to talk about it. He's gone up to his room now."

"Mam," Ella interjected, looking up at her. "I swear I didn't mean to."

"Oh, I know that sweetheart," Mary assured her, brushing her dark hair back from her forehead.

"Why was Harry so cross with me?" she asked, clearly hoping to get a more satisfactory answer than she had from her da'.

"Oh, Ella. He wasn't cross with you." Mary looked as though this question was breaking her heart.

"But he looked so angry."

"I know, but that wasn't really anger. He was… scared."

"Scared of me? Scared because I dropped the vase?"

Mary contemplated her for a moment as though trying to think how best to explain this. Seemingly to buy herself time, she led Ella over to sit back down on the bed next to Gawain. The three of them sat there quietly for a brief moment. Mary was studying Ella, combing her hair with her fingers. And Ella continued to stare up at her mother waiting for an answer. Gawain, meanwhile, was leaning forward, elbows propped on his knees and staring at the floor.

"Do you ever see something that reminds you of Nan…?" Mary said softly after a bit. "And then you all of a sudden feel sad? Even though you were fine just a minute before?" Ella nodded. "Well it's like that with Harry sometimes. Except with Harry... He's remembering really scary things that he went through in the past. Back before we knew him. But it's like a nightmare. And he can't remember what's really happening now and what's in the nightmare."

"He's having nightmares? Even when he's awake?" Ella looked horrified at the very thought. She pulled out the Snitch Potter had given her and rolled it backwards and forwards in her hands as she contemplated this quietly for a moment. "How do we make him wake up?"

Mary put her arm around her and kissed her on the head. "We just have to help him to know that he's safe and that he's loved. But we also have to be very careful. Because he doesn't really know who we are when he's like that."

Ella considered this for a moment. "When I have a nightmare, you sing me my lullaby. Should I go sing to Harry?" Gawain felt his jaw clench so hard he heard his teeth grind together. But it was Mary who answered.

"That's very sweet, darling. But I think we should leave him be for the time being. He wants to be alone right now."

Ella nodded seriously. "He gets embarrassed when people can see that he's sad," she observed. Gawain blinked and lifted his head to look at her. Where did she learn such things? "Can I draw him another picture?" she asked. "I can give it to him tomorrow when he's less sad."

Mary's lips twitched. "I'm sure he'd love that." Ella nodded once with an air of determination, then hopped up to fetch her sketchpad. As Ella busied herself, Mary looked solemnly to Gawain. As one, they stood and moved to the far corner of the room.

"I suppose we should be more careful," she said softly to him, though her eyes were on Ella as she pulled out her art supplies. "Supervise her time with him. Make sure he's always—"

But Gawain had had enough of this pretence. "I don't want her anywhere near him," he snapped. "Ever."

Mary turned to look at him. "Gawain," said Mary reproachfully. Gawain didn't like the way she was looking at him. Like he was the unreasonable one here. "You know he didn't mean it."

"It doesn't matter if he meant it or not!" he growled, keeping his voice too low for Ella to hear. "It doesn't change the fact that he could have hurt her! He could have—" He broke off. He didn't want to think about what could have been. His clenched jaw was making his head pound harder with every passing minute.

There was an awkward silence. "I understand why you're upset," said Mary very softly. "I feel it too. But he's ill, Gawain. He needs our help. Our understanding. Fearing him, keeping her from him. It's not going to help matters."

A huff of exasperated impatience left Gawain's chest in a whoosh. "How can you take his side over your own daughter's?" Gawain snapped.

Mary was staring at him with a strange combination of shock and fear and pity and frustration. "It's not about sides, Gawain," she said very softly. "Don't say that." The disappointment in her tone simultaneously shamed him and infuriated him.

His fury was only mounting. The breath was coming raggedly in through his nose, his chest straining with the effort of it. He felt his fingernails digging into his palms and only then realised that he was clenching his hands into fists.

He opened his mouth to speak a few times, but no words came out. He didn't know what he was feeling. The anger was still firmly in charge, certainly. But there was slight lacing of something else there too that he did not want to face. And still Mary was just staring at him with that look. That strange look as though she feared him. Feared what he might do. She had not looked at Potter that way even as he'd held a wand trained on her heart. How could she fear him, Gawain, more than Potter?

After a long moment of awkward silence in which Mary seemed to be thinking hard, she tentatively spoke again. "I know… I know that must have been terrible for you. I'm so sorry that—"

"I need some time to myself," he cut her off.

"Oh… Alright," Mary said in a small voice to Gawain's back as he moved to the door. There was hurt in her voice, but she didn't challenge him. She made no move to stop him. She knew what she didn't know. She knew that she had never lost a child and would never be able to truly understand what Gawain was feeling in that moment. And he found himself resenting her for it. Resenting her ability to see her own shortcomings and refrain from acting on them.

At the door he paused. He should say something. Say something to let her know that he knew this wasn't her fault. That he wasn't angry with her. But in that moment, he was too angry at the world to differentiate who he was angry at or why. Maybe he was angry at her. Why not? He was angry at everyone else. He was angry at Potter. He was angry at whoever it was who was keeping them locked in this god-forsaken house. He was angry at himself. And so, as he paused there, feeling Mary's eyes on his back, he could think of nothing to say. And after a moment, he opened the door, and let himself out.

He made his way down the corridor without really knowing where he was going. He paused on the landing and glanced up over his head. He could only just make out Potter's bedroom door, determinedly shut. He glowered at it for a moment, before turning and making his way downstairs. No, he didn't know where he was going, but all he knew was he wanted to be as far away from Potter as four walls of Grimmauld Place would allow. If it were not for that blasted Trace he would have found a way to Apparate halfway around the world.

By the time he reached the ground floor, he'd made the half-hearted decision to head to the library. No one ever seemed to go in there, so it would be a decent place for some solitude until he'd calmed himself down and had time to think. Plus. Gawain had a feeling he would need a new late-night hobby as no chance in hell would he be having tea with Potter tonight. Might as well look for a new book to read.

His plan proved flawed, however; for when he opened the door to the library, he found it already occupied. Ben startled and turned at the sound of the door opening. He was standing and leaning over a book on the reading table in the centre of the room.

"Alright?" asked Gawain, not particularly caring. He moved around to the bookcases on the far wall, eyeing the spines for any titles that might look interesting.

"Yeah, fine," replied Ben. Gawain heard some shuffling and the shutting of a book behind him. Then a forced laugh. "Other than bored, anyway. Just looking for something to do. Definitely feeling ready to be out of here. God, I hope Marina turns up something useful soon."

"Tell me about it," Gawain muttered darkly. He plucked a book at random off the shelf and leafed through it. Bloody hell, why are all the books in this house so damn boring. He replaced the tome and continued combing though.

"Just passed Brannagh. She mentioned some sort of bother up in the drawing room?" Ben asked him.

"Doesn't matter. It was nothing," Gawain growled, simultaneously feeling that it was very much not 'nothing' and wondering if there was some misguided sense of loyalty in him that, even now, prevented him from ranting about Potter to Ben. How the hell were these books even organised anyway? He glanced around behind him, looking at the row of shelves on the opposite wall, seeing if he could spot any form of order to the titles or authors. As he did so, his gaze passed over Ben, then snapped back.

Ben was always something of an open book. He wore his heart on his sleeve and never tried to hide his emotions. But in that moment, as Gawain looked at him, he shifted, and there was something cagy and uncomfortable in his appearance.

"Are you alright?" he asked. This time he genuinely did find himself caring.

"Yeah!" Ben forced another laugh which wouldn't have fooled a blind and deaf man. Gawain raised an eyebrow at him. Ben looked down at the table top and fingered the book there to avoid Gawain's eye. Then he let out a small sound that seemed somewhere between an awkward laugh and a sigh. "I just found this," he conceded. He pulled what appeared to be a magazine out from under the book. He held it out, and Gawain crossed the room to take it curiously. He recognised it as a copy of the Quibbler, though it looked old and worn down by time and re-readings. "It was on the floor along with some old papers." Gawain forced back the flush, remembering when he had tossed those papers on the floor himself and not bothered to pick them up. Had that really been just last week? It felt a lifetime ago.

Gawain took the magazine Ben held out to him and looked down at the front cover. Then he found himself staring at a face he had absolutely no interest in seeing in that moment. Potter was looking back at him, smiling sheepishly. Gawain felt his teeth grinding together again. Potter's expression seemed to be mildly abashed saying, 'Oopsies. My bad.' Grinning as though assuming forgiveness.

"It's old. From a few years ago. The interview he gave about the night when You-Know-Who came back." Gawain tore his glower away from Potter's face and glanced up to read the heading.

Harry Potter Speaks Out at Last
"The truth about He Who Must Not Be Named and the night I saw him return"

Gawain remembered this article. It had even come across his desk at work. At the time, he'd not known what to make of it at all—Fudge and the Prophet had been swearing the boy was just attention-seeking. But there had been so many things that weren't adding up back then.

Ben was still talking, echoing his thoughts. "I remember reading it when it first came out. And I thought, 'Damn. That's one hell of a story.' Then I just got on with my life." Ben's eyes were on the magazine in Gawain's hands. "It's weird rereading it now, though… now I know Harry. Now he's… he's like a real person. Mad to think of him going through all that."

Gawain looked back at the photo. Picture Harry blinked up at him, still smiling a little uncomfortably. Just as real Harry did when he felt eyes on him for too long, the photograph reflexively reached up and flattened his fringe over his scar. Merlin, but he looked young. Gawain glanced at the date in the upper right hand corner. Just two and a half years ago. Fifteen. He would have been fifteen when this photograph was taken. And he was just a child when…

Slowly, he opened the magazine to the designated page. He really didn't have to read it. He remembered the article quite well. But he opened it to give himself something to do. And to save himself from having to stare into that youthful face. A few quotes from Harry were written in larger bolder lettering to catch the attention of the casual reader. Gawain's eyes fell on one of these:

"It wasn't that I thought I could beat him. It wasn't that I had any real hope that I was going to come through it alive. But I guess I just didn't want to die kneeling on the ground or trying to run or hide. I wanted to die on my feet. I wanted to die defending myself. I wanted to die fighting."

"It's just mad," Ben was saying. "He was just fourteen. And they tied him to a gravestone and crucio-ed him, and he had to watch his friend die and… and he still stood up duelled him and… and it's just mad..." Gawain closed the cover of the magazine and again the photo of Harry smiled innocently up at him.

He couldn't say at what precise moment his anger had evaporated. But when he looked up at Ben at last, the only feeling in his heart was sorrow. And shame. Ye lost a bairn afore. Something no parent should have tae go through. Ah think we can all forgive ye fur over-reacting a wee bit. But maybe ye'll still need tae wirk on forgiving yerself. "Mad," Gawain agreed softly, handing the magazine back to Ben.

Ben took it with a small sad nod and replaced it on the reading table. Gawain found his eyes following its progress. Then his gaze fell upon the book that Ben had been reading. It was the same boring genealogy book Gawain had busied himself reading when Harry had been unconscious.

"Bit of a boring read," he cautioned Ben, nodding to it. "Unless you want to read an argument for how the Black Family should be ruling Europe as the first and most pure house of the Sacred Twenty-eight. Or if you're looking to recreate your family tree and find out how Great Great Aunt Gertrude's marriage united the Selwyn family to the Fawleys or some such rubbish."

Ben snorted. "Nah, you won't find any of my family tree in a book like that. My blood is dirtier than a Dugbog in marshlands." He smiled. "Still. I've got nothing better to do. Consider it a marker for just how bloody bored I am," he shrugged.

"Desperate times," Gawain agreed, and they both laughed softly together. Gawain was surprised to find he still seemed capable of laughing.

"I'm gonna head back upstairs," Gawain said, suddenly finding he wanted to be with his family. "See you at dinner?"

"Yeah, see you then."

It was not until Gawain was turning off the third-floor landing that he realised he'd forgotten to choose a book.

He let himself back into the bedroom tentatively. Mary was sitting on the bed with Ella, helping her with her drawing. But she looked up when he entered. She looked nervous. As though expecting a row. There was a hallow feeling in Gawain's gut as he looked at her. He averted his gaze.

After a moment of standing awkwardly in the door, he crossed the room toward them. He pressed a kiss to Ella's temple, but she scarcely acknowledged him, so intent was she on her drawing. His eyes drifted back to Mary. She was watching him with a sad sort of question in her gaze. He didn't have an answer. Not a good one. And so he reached up and stroked a finger across her cheekbone. It must have meant something to her though, because she smiled a small relieved smile.

He jerked his head toward the bed on the opposite side of the room, and she extracted herself to go sit with him. They sat side-by-side, leaning back against the headboard and quietly watching Ella sketch across the room. Neither spoke for some time.

"I overreacted," Gawain admitted.

"You didn't," Mary contradicted hastily. "It's only natural that you should be worried for your daughter, and I love you for it." She was looking up at him through her eyelashes, but he avoided her gaze. She still seemed braced for an argument, and it made him feel sick to face that look. So instead he just stared across the room at Ella in silence.

"I know I can't even begin to understand your perspective. It was foolish of me to not realise how hard that would have been for you." She paused for him to answer. Gawain did not acknowledge this. He had nothing to say. What was there to say? She had been rehearsing this in her head, he thought, but he did not know his lines. "But… I care for Harry too, you know?" she said tentatively after a moment, seeming to give him up as a bad job. "He's hurting. And I can't see that and not want to help him. Heal him."

"I know," was all Gawain could think to say. And he did know. There was nothing more 'Mary' than that.

There was silence again. They both stared across the room as Ella worked on her drawing, periodically enlightening them on which colour she was using and her opinion on those colours.

"I wish he would talk to someone," Mary said after a bit. Gawain turned to look at her questioningly. "It's not healthy, bottling it all up like he does. He seems so close to Kingsley… I hoped maybe he'd talk with him. I asked Kingsley about it a while back. But he said he's not had a lot of success in getting him to open up. He says he always refuses to talk at all about any of the traumatic things he's been through over these past few years—that he just changes the subject if Kingsley tries. But I wish he would. He's been through so much. And moving on… it's not an easy thing to figure out for yourself."

"No, well… Harry's not really the type to ask for help, I gather. Especially not from Kingsley. He gets pretty fed up with Kingsley when he starts acting too much like a dad."

"Like a dad? What makes you say that?"

Gawain shrugged. "He told me…"

Mary eyed him curiously for a moment. "Who? Harry? When was that?"

"Oh…" Gawain abruptly realised his mistake. But he had no energy to try to hide it any more. "We… we've been having tea together. Some nights. You know. When I haven't been sleeping well."

Mary stared at him for a moment. There was a flash of some emotion, gone too quick for Gawain to read it properly. Hurt? Jealousy? But then she schooled her features. "Oh. I hadn't realised…" There was an awkward silence. Why had he not told her about this sooner? Why had he felt the need to keep this secret? Gawain shifted uncomfortably on the mattress that suddenly felt too hard. "Well, I think that's lovely," Mary said at last, though she did not quite meet his eye.

"I dunno. I don't think I'll keep going down," Gawain said gruffly to cover up his discomfort.

"What? Oh, no. Gawain you must!" Gawain looked at her confused. A minute ago, he had thought she'd been upset by his going down there. Now she wanted him to? "You… you would understand a lot more than most. About what he's been going through, I mean. And I really think it would do him a lot of good to have someone like you to… to lean on a bit… Someone to talk to…"

Gawain considered this for a moment. "It's not really like that. We just… share a pot of tea. And sometimes we chat. But it's not like…" He trailed off, not really sure what he was trying to say. "Besides. Talking... Never was my strong suit, you know that."

Mary studied his profile shrewdly for a moment in silence. "Once I might have agreed with you… But I think you're getting better at it." She continued to gaze at him for a moment. Gawain felt as though she were seeing something in him she had never seen before. And then her lips twitched into a small smile. And in her gaze, he thought he saw pride.

And some time later, when Mary suggested they go down to dinner, Gawain was still quietly trying to sort out the meaning behind both her words and her expression.

The house was dark and quiet as Gawain pushed open the kitchen door late that night. He paused in the doorway. Harry had not come down to dinner earlier, and Gawain was quite unsure what reception he may receive now. Quite unsure what reception he wanted to receive.

Harry glanced at him, then looked quickly away. He was seated at his usual seat, leaning on the table miserably with his head in his hands, shoulders slumped. Gawain noticed he had not set out a second cup for Gawain today. He wondered how to read that. Did he want him to go?

Well, to hell with that, he finally decided. Gawain crossed to the cupboard, helped himself to a cup, then crossed to his usual chair. There was silence in the room for a minute. Harry did not look at him or acknowledge him at all.

The quiet stretched. Gawain was sure there was no doubt of the subject of their silence in either mind. Indeed, the unsaid words felt loud. It made him uncomfortable, but he could not think how best to break it. Gawain was never good at this sort of thing, after all.

"How are you feeling?" Gawain asked after a bit. Harry said nothing. He did not acknowledge Gawain in any way, in fact.

After a long awkward pause, Gawain tried again. "You didn't come down to dinner. Did you get yourself something to eat? I think I saw Amitra packing up some leftovers for you."

Again Harry didn't respond for quite some time. Then, "You don't need to be nice to me tonight, you know." His voice was cold and emotionless. And still he did not look up.

Gawain contemplated this for a moment, then casually reached across to help himself to the teapot. "Is that what I'm doing? Being nice to you?"

Harry at last pulled his head from his hands and eyed Gawain as though this were a trick. "I don't know what you're doing. I don't even know why you'd come down here after… after I…"

He trailed off, drawing in a deep breath and looking away across the room, eyes focused on nothing.

The silence stretched. Gawain studied the boy quietly for a moment over the rim of his steaming cup. There were dark circles under his eyes. When had he last slept? And he looked thin. Had he been eating properly? Gawain couldn't really remember whether he'd been clearing his plate regularly or not. After it became apparent that Harry was not going to finish his sentence, Gawain said, "Why I would come downstairs to check on a friend who had a rough day?"

At the word 'friend', Harry turned back to study him silently for a moment. His face was difficult to read. Gawain did not get the impression he particularly liked being called a friend. Almost like it was dirty word he hoped never to hear. "I could have really hurt her," said Harry rather than reply. There was a hard edge to his voice that Gawain had never heard. An almost deadly calm. Then, almost as though he were intentionally goading Gawain, "I could have killed her."

Gawain's gut clenched at the thought. But his fatherly protectiveness would do no good here, so he forced back the sudden impulse to curse Harry into oblivion for even thinking of hurting Ella. He didn't trust himself to speak immediately, but something of this thought must have shown on his face before he schooled his features, because Harry looked away from him, nodding with a wry sort of smile that was full of self-disgust.

Gawain swallowed and took a deep breath, making sure his emotions were in good control before he spoke. "What do you want me to say? You want me to scream at you? To challenge you to a duel for endangering my daughter? Or I suppose I could just take the Edward Bones approach and make snide comments every chance I get… That seems like it should be productive."

Harry choked something vaguely resembling a laugh at that. Something of which he then looked rather ashamed. Gawain figured it was as good a place to try to lighten the mood as any. "I would be just as out of order as Bones is. Honestly. If I were you, I'd have blasted him with a Bat Bogies Jinx long since. Dunno why you put up with it."

But his joke did not serve lighten the mood at all. On the contrary, Harry suddenly looked even more depressed than he had before, if that were possible. "Because he's right," he all but whispered.

Gawain frowned at him. "How do you figure?"

Harry licked his lips as he selected his words. "I endangered Susan's life at the Battle of Hogwarts as surely as I endangered Ella's tonight." Harry glanced him, then looked away quickly. "I endangered all of them. Everyone in that battle was there because of me. I got them killed."

"Ah," Gawain nodded as he considered Harry thoughtfully. "So what was it then? An Imperius Curse? Confundus Charm? A Befuddlement Draft? Or maybe you just blocked their escape routes and threatened them?"

Harry at last looked at him properly, his expression completely perplexed. "What?" asked Harry incredulously.

"Well, if you're the one who forced so many people to fight against their will, just wondering how you managed it." Gawain chewed absently on a thumbnail as he waited for Harry to respond.

Harry just looked away again, shaking his head in frustrated exasperation. "I brought the fight to Hogwarts. The Battle happened because I was there. It never would have happened if I'd just…" He broke off, shaking his head in frustration as though Gawain were being incredibly dense, and he couldn't be bothered to dignify his stupidity by explaining.

"You were the first spark in a tinder box that was just waiting to go up in flames. It would have happened eventually, whether you were there or no."

Harry ignored him. "And Mrs. Bones… I go over it and over it inside my head. What I could have done differently. If I had just given everyone a little less time to collect their belongings. If I'd just been a little quicker. If I'd gone to their house first instead of last—"

"Then Mary and Ella could be dead instead," Gawain cut him off harshly, and Harry looked up at him with startled eyes. "Is that what you'd prefer?"

"'Prefer'?" he echoed in a disgusted whisper.

Then, very suddenly, Harry pushed off the table, rising to his feet with a screech of chair legs against tile. And then he was pacing the width of the room.

"You don't get it. You don't understand. How could you? No one does. You don't know what it's like to have people die for you. People who could have been spared if you'd just made different decisions—better decisions!"

"Don't I?"

Gawain's words were soft, but he did not need volume to add impact. Harry's feet faltered, and he almost tripped. He turned to look at Gawain, a look of horror suddenly crossing his face. Gawain merely looked back from where he still sat at the table, his face blank and calm, despite the pounding in his heart and the clenching of his gut. Was he really going to open this door? This door he had spent so many years carefully boarding shut.

Finally, a self-disgusted look twisting his features, Harry sighed. He plopped back into his chair, running a hand across his eyes. "That was a stupid thing to say. I'm sorry."

Once again, silence reigned as Gawain tried to muster the courage to say what he knew in that moment he should say. It was a foreign situation to him. For once in his life, Gawain knew exactly what he should say. It was, unfortunately, something he very much did not want to say.

"Do you know why they targeted her? The Death Eaters?"

Without raising his chin, Harry looked up at him guardedly. His expression showed a morbid curiosity mixed with a fear that he was about to hear something he very much didn't want to hear. Gawain could not quite meet his eye as he spoke, instead concentrating on a few specks of what appeared to be salt from dinner that had been missed during the washing up. Or perhaps it was sugar. Maybe Harry had spilled while making his tea. Gawain pushed them around with a finger absently.

"I was one of the younger Aurors in the Ministry at the time. But I'd been rising pretty fast in the ranks. Making a name for myself. And I was finally overseeing cases on my own. And I made a bust. It was a big deal. Five Death Eaters were rounded up in one go. Managed to stop a big planned attack on a Muggle community. I'd fought to take point on that case. I wanted the credit. The glory."

He paused for a moment, thinking back to that past self. He barely recognised himself in that person anymore. The grains of sugar were neatly arranged in a circle on the table top. He nudged them on four sides to make a square. "Well, I got it. The credit. The glory. Had my name and picture splashed across the front page of the Daily Prophet… Received a handshake from Millicent Bagnold… People were saying I'd be heading up the Auror Office by the time I was thirty-five. And I believed it…

"Oh, I thought I was the crup's bollocks. I thought I was untouchable. Thought I was single-handedly going to end the War and clean up the streets and save the world."

Finally, Gawain looked up from the sugar on the table to meet Harry's eye. The boy was looking at him, his expression saying he was bracing for the worst. Gawain gave a wry smile of acknowledgement. "But of course the Death Eaters were reading the same newspapers, weren't they? They also heard about this up-and-comer Auror who was on a mission to round up all of You-Know-Who's supporters. And what's more, he'd gone and dirtied his blood by marrying a Muggle."

Gawain looked across the kitchen, not really looking at anything in particular. "Might as well have painted a target on her back. Might as well have killed her myself."

But Harry was having none of that. He was shaking his head vehemently. "That's not true!" he countered. "You were doing your job. You didn't know what was going to happen. You didn't know they were going to go after her. That wasn't your fault!"

Gawain merely looked at him, directly in the eye this time. The small rueful smile crossed his lips again. He let the silence stretch. Let it fill the room. Let the weight of it settle over them. And very slowly Harry seemed to understand. Seemed to realise why Gawain had shared all this.

"It's different," he mumbled softly, turning his gaze away.

"Is it?"

Gawain watched him quietly with his head cocked to one side. Harry squirmed in his seat. He was clearly trying to find a way around this. A way to say that Gawain was not at fault while still maintaining culpability firmly on his own shoulders. He twiddled absently with the tail of the bracelet Ella had made for him.

"Maybe it is different," Gawain conceded after a long awkward pause, taking pity on him. "Maybe it's always different. I do understand that the scale of the impact is different with someone like The Chosen One." Harry winced at the title. "But motivations matter. And when we're faced with impossible decisions, we can only do what we can. And I think we both tried to do the right thing for the most people." Gawain tried to believe it for himself.

There was quiet for a moment longer. Then, so softly he was not sure if he was speaking to Gawain or to himself, Harry mumbled, "For the greater good."

Gawain could not help but feel a little uncomfortable to hear the mantra of one of the greatest Dark wizards in history quoted in response to his observation. But he also could not help but feel there was a fair point to the words. "For the greater good," he agreed. Then amended, "Within reason."

Gawain did not see Harry again until lunch the following day. He entirely skipped breakfast and was barricaded in the drawing room with the door tightly shut all morning. When he did show himself, the circles under his eyes were even darker, and he looked pale and wan.

He entered the kitchen halfway through the meal and heads turned in his direction. Most in the room seemed to think his appearance was due to the strain of fast-approaching NEWTs, but Gawain noted Kingsley and Brannagh both watching him with a little extra attentiveness. And Marry seemed to be trying to catch his eye, something which Harry staunchly ignored.

Harry did not move to sit down to join them, but rather helped himself to an apple from a bowl on the counter. Kingsley watched him worriedly. "Are you not having lunch? You already skipped breakfast," he commented.

"I'm not very hungry." Harry seemed to be determinedly avoiding any and all eye contact, but especially from Gawain and Mary. "And I have studying to do. And a DA meeting later tonight. I'll grab something at Hogwarts if I get hungry."

"I know exams are coming up, but you're not going to retain anything if you starve yourself," Kingsley pushed on.

"I'm fine," Harry insisted. Apple in hand, he made for the door again to retreat back upstairs.

"Your mother is rolling over in her grave, boy," Mary spoke up.

Harry paused in his retreat and turned. His eyes flicked up to Mary's face a couple times, but he seemed to be finding it very difficult to meet her gaze. Mary however, was staring stalwartly back at him and in her expression was kindness and love and encouragement. She was telling him, without telling him, that she was not upset with him and that she wanted him to stay. Wanted him to be healthy.

Harry tentatively met her eye and a hesitant smile tweaked at his mouth. "I think it takes a lot more than my eating habits to make my mum roll over in her grave. Near-death experiences at the very least, and even those have got to be getting tired." And finally, as several huffs of laughter sounded around the room, Harry's crooked smile pulled up one cheek. But despite the words, he relinquished and turned back to the table to join them for the meal.

Ella, who had been struggling to extricate herself from the opposite side of the table, had just made her way around. She met him as he was pulling out his usual chair next to Gawain. "I drew this for you!" she said. "And I thought you might want this back for a bit."

Harry stood very still, his muscles tensed as he looked down at her hands. In one, Ella was holding out a piece of parchment torn from her sketchpad. In the other, was Harry's Golden Snitch. Harry didn't move for a moment. Merely stood, staring, not at Ella's face, but at her hands. Gawain saw his Adam's apple bob in a swallow before reaching out both hands to accept Ella's offerings.

Ella dropped the Snitch in his palm and Harry's fist seemed to close reflexively around it. But he had eyes only for the drawing in his hand. He stared at it silently for a long moment. Ella began to squirm as though waiting for the verdict from an art critic, but Harry's face was blank. Even those who had not been paying close attention to the conversation, turned from their plates to glance over curiously.

Then Gawain noticed a small tear in Harry's eye. Harry brushed it aside casually before it fell, and Gawain heard a small sniff as he finally looked up into Ella's face. And then he smiled. And Ella gave a relieved grin back. And Harry pulled her into a hug.

"It's perfect," Gawain heard Harry whisper in her ear, too low for anyone else to hear.

Harry finally took his seat and helped himself to a selection from the ploughman's lunch spread out as Ella danced back to the other side of the table. Gawain noted Harry rolling the Snitch in circles in one hand before pocketing it. The picture Ella had drawn was set carefully where it would not get food on it. Gawain glanced curiously at it.

As most drawings from seven-year-olds were, the picture was crude— the humanesque figures with bulbous bodies and shapeless fingers. The colours bright and unnatural. A blocky house that may have been an approximation of their home in Yorkshire. But there were clearly four people standing together side-by-side. And there was no doubt of whom the drawing was meant to depict: A tall man with a dark beard; a woman with a bun and lime-green Healer's robes; a small girl with long brown hair.

And a boy with green eyes, glasses, and a messy black scribble for hair.

A/N (09.08.2022): Thank you so much for all the sweet well-wishes last post. I've gotten settled into my new job and I'm really loving it and definitely feeling a weight lifted off my shoulders. It means so much to me to have had the support of this beautiful community as I've been figuring out this messy thing called life.