This would have been posted sooner, but the stupid computer got a virus and crashed!

Dislaimer: Never written Harry in my life (he's not a Weasley is he?!) Hope I've done him justice.

Aftermath – Before the Funeral

Harry

He has never felt his lack of a mother so much as he does now. He wants someone to hold him, to soothe him, to tell him that it is all over, that he is safe now, that it is not his fault, that it is alright. He wants someone to protect him, to fuss over him, not to mind if he cries, to understand how he feels. He wants someone to mother him.

But the only mother he has ever known has no time for him now. Oh, she smiles at him, asks if he is okay, tells him what happened to Fred and the others is not his fault, but it is not the same. Most of her mind is elsewhere. With her own children. Most if it is with Fred, who died, and with George, who somehow has to go on living. The rest is with Ron and Ginny, who need her to comfort them. With Charlie and Percy, who both push her away for their different reasons, but who need her nonetheless. With Bill, who is being strong and seems to be coping, but was hurt and is still her son who needs his mother, whether he will admit it or not.

So she has no time for him. He doubts if she even really sees him. However much a part of this family – the only real family he has ever known – he has felt in the past, he is an outsider now. The fact of Fred's death has made him one. The fact that Fred's death is his fault, that he could have prevented it if he had given himself up sooner, makes it worse. He feels as if he should not even be here, but he has nowhere else to go.

He envies Hermione and Fleur, who must also feel like outsiders, but who have nothing to blame themselves for, and who seem to have found some solace in each other's company and in being useful.

He has never felt so alone.

Of course, he is not alone. The others are there, around him, all the time, sometimes oppressively so. Hermione has told him so many times that it is not his fault that he thinks he might hex her if she says it again. Ron and Ginny have said it too – but Fred was their brother. He cannot believe they mean it. It was his fault. They have to blame him. He could have prevented it.

They need comfort too, and he feels helpless to give it to them. He hugs Ginny as she cries for Fred, strokes her hair, holds her hand, but he has nothing to say to her. What is there to say? Fred is dead, and it is his fault. How can he even begin to comfort Fred's sister?

And he pretends not to hear when Ron cries in the night. Ron would not want him to hear, and he has nothing to say to him either. He cannot offer comfort when he is hurting so much himself, when he feels so guilty, so angry, so lost, so empty.

He feels like an observer, rather than a participant in the family's grief. He pities Percy's guilt, because he knows what guilt feels like, but he knows that Percy does not deserve it as he does. He pities Charlie's anger too, and understands it. He almost cannot stand to look at Arthur – the pain in his eyes is just too much for him to bear. He admires the way Bill is keeping it together, recognising that he is the only one stopping this broken family from disintegrating. (But then one day he finds Bill in the orchard, chalk-white and shocked, and he realises that Bill might easily fall apart too, like the rest of them. The thought scares him, and he runs to find Fleur. There is nothing he can say or do to help.)

He feels bad that he has not cried for Fred. Nor for Remus, Tonks, Colin or the others who died. They were his friends, and they are dead, but he does not seem to be able to mourn them. How can he cry for them when it is his fault they died? He does not deserve to do so.

He has never felt so alone.

He has never felt so guilty or so angry or so lost.

He has never felt so empty.

And he wants his mother.