Summary: Slash, Remus/Harry Despair is a bitter thing and, although the War is over and his duty as hero is done, even Harry Potter can't help but fall prey to the grasping emotion. Unable to shake the depression and the continuing cries of the Wizarding world, Harry needs someone to turn to. Enter Remus Lupin, who just might be able to help Harry in ways no one has ever been able to before.

Author's Note: And it continues:-D Thanks go to anyone who's reviewed so far, and I hope you'll enjoy this next part. I'd still love to know how I'm doing, so I'd appreciate it greatly if you left a review to give me a heads up.

Character(s)/Pairing(s): Harry, Remus, Sirius, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Bill Weasley, Charlie Weasley, Snape, Tonks, Dumbledore, McGonagall, various Order members. Remus/Harry, Ron/Hermione, Charlie/Tonks, brief mentions of past Harry/Draco.

Warning(s)/Story Note(s)/Disclaimer: angst, AU (ignoring several elements of book five and completely ignoring book six), violence, language, alcohol abuse, slash, het, brief mentions of sex. Anything I've forgotten? Please, leave a review and let me know. :-) I do not own Harry Potter, any of the characters within this story, and do not claim to. No profit is being made from this work of fanfiction.

Overall Rating: M, for Mature, just to be safe.

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Heal Over, Someday

II.

Chapter One

It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.

Oscar Wilde

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1999

"How many did we lose last night, Hermione?" Harry kept his voice low, not wanting to disturb the other patients in the hospital wing. He was unable to stop the question from leaving his mouth, however, despite the fact that Hermione looked worn, ragged, and close to tears seated beside his bed. Her shaking hands were wrapped in white bandages and they contrasted sharply against the bright red of her burns, not all of them covered by the material. Harry didn't remember how his friend had come to be in such a state, but wasn't sure if he wanted to remember.

He needed to know, though, how many had been lost because of him, because of his stupidity. Hermione said that he had defeated Voldemort, but Harry had to know at what cost—Ron was in a bed halfway down the ward, as was Professor McGonagall, but there were so many faces that he didn't recognize because of bandages and wounds and there were far too many people not there, not in the ward. Remus, for instance—Harry couldn't see Remus, hadn't seen him all afternoon. He'd been unable to ask if the older man was…missing, but he had to know what the chances were. Sirius was here, thank god, hobbling from bed to bed looking at the inhabitants and generally creating a fuss for the wounded Madam Pomfrey; but Sirius hadn't made any sign of knowing where his best friend was. It sickened Harry, to know there was a possibility that Remus had gone down with all the rest, just because of him.

Hermione looked like a first year beside him, hands bandaged and hair wild, but she was alive, and Harry was so fucking thankful to whatever god that existed that he didn't dare ask her how her hands had been burnt, or why she was close to tears. Maybe it was because it was over; the big battle they'd been preparing for years on end now was finally over and done. Voldemort was gone, the War was tipping in their favor.

But at what cost, Harry had to know. He stared at Hermione patiently, wondering if she'd ever get around to answering when she finally nodded to herself, eyes bright as she looked away, as if she'd reached a decision and wasn't quite sure if it were the right one.

"Thirty four," she eventually whispered, facing his pillow. "We…haven't been able to identify all of them yet, but we were…we were able to count them. We were able to count them," Hermione repeated, in a daze and unaware of the jolt of reality that had just stricken Harry.

Thirty four. Thirty four comrades dead and gone, probably in pieces if the Death Eaters had had anything to say about it; thirty for men and women, of which there was a distinct possibility that several of Harry's friends were a part of. Remus, Dean, Neville. And even his school yard rivals turned scared and reluctant heroes—Pansy Parkinson, Terry Boot, Zacharias Smith. The list of names in his mind ran over and over, and Harry had tried comparing faces against the names in his head repeatedly, but Madam Pomfrey had pressed him into his bed every time he'd tried to lean forward to look down the sea of beds currently inhabiting the hospital wing.

Her hands had been wrapped in bandages, too, but that thought hadn't registered until Harry had caught sight of Hermione, helping Professor Snape tend to Dumbledore a few beds down; things weren't looking up for the headmaster, and emotional turmoil toppled onto his already aching body when Harry realized that Dumbledore was probably dying, and that there didn't seem to be anything they could do for the man. He remembered that Professor Dumbledore had been involved in some sort of an explosion, something to do with the Death Eaters and Lucius Malfoy in particular, but Harry also remembered that he had been fixated on Bellatrix Lestrange the entire time this had been happening. She had been taunting him endlessly, trying to get after Sirius in particular, trying to hand him over to Aurors that were on the scene, Aurors that never made it past that woman's traps.

Harry felt bile rising in his throat at the memory of running past a jumble of bodies and spotting bubble gum pink hair and thinking, Oh, my god. Tonks, before dodging a garbled, 'Crucio'. He still didn't know if Tonks had been alive or dead, but no one had volunteered anything yet and Harry couldn't bring himself to ask, to interrupt the shocked peace they'd managed to establish within the past few hours. The crying had lessened, and there was a great deal less of sound in general, now that most of the hospital wing had fallen asleep, succumbing to the potions Madam Pomfrey poured down their throat at the earliest opportunity.

It made for more thinking time, and Harry hated it. If he knew that he wasn't going to dream once he fell asleep, he would have downed the small vial on his bedside table and given in to the urge to just lie and forget that anything had happened. But he couldn't—nightmares pressed on the inside of his eyelids and he knew they'd surface the moment he closed them in search of rest.

Hermione, though, she needed the respite. After fighting in the battle and helping various patients, the woman beside him was shaking as she sat, exhaustion written in the determined lines across her face; turning to his best friend and ignoring the low throb of pain in his side as he did so, Harry reached out and touched Hermione's shoulder tentatively, hoping to draw her attention. She had fixated on the iron bedpost behind him the moment she'd sat down and hadn't looked Harry in the eye since. Harry supposed it might be shock, but knew that either way she needed to sleep, needed to rest, to heal. They all needed to do that now, and Harry knew that once his own shock set in he'd be as useless as ever—he could feel it creeping up to him in tendrils, weaving its way into his waking thoughts and settling in. For now, he needed to make sure Hermione was going to be okay; ingrained habit made him put her before him and he wouldn't have it any other way.

"Hermione," he whispered, when it became apparent that the young woman wasn't going to turn and face him. Harry could see her lips moving, could almost hear the mumbled thirty four, but chose to ignore it for now and shook Hermione's shoulder gently.

The reaction he got wasn't quite what he had been expecting; Hermione started violently, coming back to herself with a jerk and soft cry. She seemed disoriented for a moment, but noticed Harry's hand on her shoulder and turned quickly, nearly overbalancing her chair.

"Harry!" she exclaimed suddenly, "Are you all right? Do you need anything?" Finally facing him, Harry noticed the glassy glare to Hermione's soft brown eyes and frowned; her hands were trembling as they pressed to his, to his wrist and elbow, checking for wounds—something she'd already done when she first sat down.

Harry shook his head, gently taking Hermione's hands into his own and holding them away from his injuries, where Hermione had been probing softly. "I'm fine, but you need to rest, Hermione. You need to go and lie down for a bit, sleep it off."

Eyes bright and alert for just a brief moment, Hermione began to shake her head but slumped against the edge of Harry's bed after a moment, whispering, "I suppose you're right. I'm…just so wound up, Harry. I keep seeing it in my head, and I can't bring myself to believe that it's actually over…"

"I don't think it's over, Hermione. I don't think it ever will be," Harry murmured, patting Hermione's wrist.

"Oh, Harry, surely you don't believe that?" Hermione's eyes were tearful, and Harry hated to see the fear behind those tears. He didn't know if the War was truly over, now that he'd killed Voldemort; Lucius Malfoy was still out there, as was Bellatrix, and neither were bound to take the loss of their Dark Lord with much grace. The battle had been short, fierce and full of casualties, but it probably hadn't been the last.

"I don't believe a lot of things, Hermione, but that isn't one of them. But I don't want to get into that now; you're exhausted. You should be curled up with Ron or something, making the most of whatever time we get before it starts back up again." Harry wanted to pray that what he was saying was wrong, wanted to be proven wrong, but reality had a nasty way of putting its nose into things and shattering any illusions he'd had about this war. Despite how fast this last battle had been, killing Voldemort hadn't been easy. It had taken determination, and a powerful sense of knowing that it had to be done. He had to take life, had to deliberately kill something, something that had been a person once, and Harry clamped down on the thoughts there, grasping Hermione's hand tightly as she reached for his wrists again, presumably to check his injuries.

"Harry, please…"

"I'm fine, Hermione. Go, sleep. We'll talk about this," he glanced to the window, where late afternoon sun was streaming in through the high windows, bathing everything in a warm, golden glow that didn't quite reach his bed or his heart. "Later. I promise."

She was caving; it was in her eyes and every line of her body. Exhaustion was taking its toll and whatever adrenaline she'd been running on before was slowly dwindling away; her shoulders had a distinct slump to them and Harry knew that he'd won this personal battle. Reversing the grasp Harry had on her wrist and pressing his hand back into his chest, careful to avoid the bandages, Hermione smiled tenderly. "You need to rest, too, Harry; I'm sorry I kept you awake."

Harry shrugged; his shoulder burned and he couldn't hide the wince as he shook his head again. "I'm wide awake, Hermione. It's okay. You, go, sleep, and lay down with Ron."

"I hope you get some rest, too, Harry. You deserve it, far more than I do." Leaning down, Hermione pressed a kiss to his forehead and Harry could smell her perfume, mingled with the acrid stench of fire, of magic, blood, and dirt. The scent made his heart pound with dread, and he pulled away from her quickly, flashing a smile that he didn't feel.

"I'll be all right. Go."

Hermione went, her robes, tattered in places, fluttering around her womanly frame with a grace that had nearly developed overnight; Harry remembered when they had all been awkward teenagers, bumping into walls and growing into bodies that had stepped ahead of their minds. He remembered when Hermione had been flat-chested and bony; remembered when Ron realized that their best friend was a woman indeed. He was glad she had made it out alive, glad that she and Ron had found each other during the bitter nights of war, glad that they'd continue to be together now that everything was nearing the end. Harry didn't believe for a moment that yesterday had been the end of the war itself, but he could feel the end getting close. It was closing in on them at a nearly breakneck speed, pressing down on him from all sides and smothering him with 'what ifs' and 'what now's.

Leaning back into his pillows and taking a deep breath to calm his racing heart, Harry listened to the low murmur of voices and deep breathing around him. The hospital wing seemed alive with the breath of the people in here, and beneath the soft thrum of noise Harry could hear Sirius' voice, talking to someone, could hear the man's limping step between the rows of beds. Sirius had assured him the damage to his leg wasn't permanent, that Madam Pomfrey had told him he'd be up and about within a week or so—he'd also said that he really shouldn't be walking on it now, but couldn't sit still, couldn't lay down and take the potions Pomfrey was handing out like water. Harry had told him then that he was extremely grateful that Sirius had made it out alive, but that he was also extremely pissed that Sirius had ventured out of Grimmauld where the Order had been stationed, awaiting Dumbledore's summons.

The anger he had felt seemingly hours ago had faded, leaving Harry with his own bone-deep exhaustion, with his numb thoughts. The reality hadn't completely sunk in yet; everything had a surreal feel to it that he couldn't shake, despite how hard he tried to grasp at control again. Pain hadn't registered on a major scale, despite the fact that Pomfrey had told him he'd better prepare for it, because his injuries were serious, no matter how easily he was able to shove them aside.

And waiting was terrible; Harry wasn't any good at it and never had been. Impatient his entire life, Harry preferred to go out and meet things head on. Dread wasn't something that sat well with him; Harry hated not having control of his body, of his surroundings. Being out of control nearly his entire life, with someone else in the driver's seat, so to speak, Harry liked to know what was coming and how he could handle it. But simply waiting for his body to notice he'd been severely injured, that now was the time to rest…Harry couldn't stand it. Something was driving him inside, pushing him to get up and move, to protect, to fight, but the fight was over for now. His adrenaline hadn't quite settled, and he could feel the pound of it in his blood. He wondered how Sirius was doing it: moving. He wondered how his godfather was capable of it when his leg had nearly been destroyed barely twenty four hours ago.

It felt like a lifetime had passed since. Fighting, screaming, praying that he didn't hit someone on their own side and never quite knowing who he was fighting against, Harry hadn't lost consciousness for more than two hours since he'd fought Voldemort, since he'd completed the spell Dumbledore had started hours before, using his dwindling energy to hold during the skirmishes with Lucius Malfoy and Crabbe's father. Harry didn't understand the spell completely, he never had, but Dumbledore had assured him that it wasn't necessary and that the only thing he needed to do was hold to his conviction—to know on some identifiable level that Voldemort had to be killed, that this was the only way. In the end, his parents' voices and faces had brought him through to the last word of the spell, wrapping their memories around him had been the only way to go through with it.

Voldemort had killed his parents, had killed countless numbers of people, children, Muggles, wizards, witches. It hadn't mattered what they had been in life; in their death, they stood for the future, for what would happen to thousands more if Harry had let that vile piece of filth walk the earth another day. Harry could hear the inhuman screams in his head, could still see the pyre of dark flames that had consumed that resurrected body and he felt his stomach clench, bile rising in the back of his throat as the memories came back to him in waves. Opening his eyes, Harry realized he'd started dozing off and clenched his hands before him, barely noticing the way his raw fingers rubbed against the material.

There were several gaps in his memory from last night, and Harry didn't remember why his hands were raw, but he also didn't remember being brought into the hospital wing. Too many thoughts were whirling inside his head, too many names, too many faces and spells that hadn't been his own, and his head ached with the pressure of trying to keep all of it in. He knew he needed to sleep, but it wasn't coming easy and, from experience, was well aware that the dreamless sleep potion Madam Pomfrey had placed on his bedside table wasn't going to be enough; over the years, it had been used sparingly, but his body had grown accustomed to it nonetheless. Too many times he'd had to use it, too many dreams he'd had to suppress; in the end, they all came back to him anyway. So, it was a matter of, did he want to face them now, or later?

It was cowardly, he knew, but he'd rather face these memories, these images in his head, at a later time. Much later—never, if it could be arranged. He wanted this to be over for him, wanted his mind back, and wanted his dreams back. Since his very birth, he'd been crucial in the war against Voldemort, he had been the key from day one. And now…now that Voldemort was gone and he was facing the prospect of having a life of his own…Harry wanted to take that chance with both hands and forget everything that had happened. He wanted to forget all the pain, the death, the guilt of not being fast enough to save more people. He wanted his life to be entirely his own, and not dependant on the statistics of war that were staring him blatantly in the face.

He wanted a fresh start, and he knew that was impossible.

Settling into his pillows and watching as Madam Pomfrey made her rounds, Harry tried his best to fight the fatigue that was slowly taking hold of him. Giving in would mean dreaming, and dreaming would mean facing yesterday in its entirety. Sleep would lower his defenses, and Harry was well aware of what was on the other side of those defenses—pain. Once, just once, he'd like to fall asleep, and sleep easy; he'd like to feel secure, relaxed, to be free of hurt and rage, and every other emotion that had been building in him for months.

Eyeing the potion bottle on his bedside table, feeling the lethargy and weakness creep over him, Harry debated on whether it would be worth it or not. Dreamless sleep potions were hard to strengthen, so Harry knew it was a simple, normal dose in that vial and whether it would do any good depended entirely on his body and how tired he really was. Of that, he was no judge, but he knew that he could probably be dead and still be haunted by these images, these memories of the past twenty four hours alone.

If he took the potion, there was a possibility that it wouldn't even work, and if he didn't, there was also the possibility that he wouldn't even dream. But that was an impossible thing; he'd been dreaming for years now, and Voldemort's hideous face was always enough to bring it all rushing back. Like now, when sleep was close but still so far away…Harry could see those flashing red eyes, could hear that piercing, hollow scream, and could feel the heat of that flame as it grew upwards, caressing burning robes and filling the air with an unimaginable stench…

Harry fell into a fitful sleep, potion forgotten on his bedside table.

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