Chapter 72:
The rooms of Grimmauld Place were exactly how Harry remembered them from the summer; dark, gloomy and perfectly matched for his falling spirits.
He could hear voices in the living room, broken murmurs. He hesitated, frozen on the spot, before his feet began to lead him forwards without conscious permission.
There they were - The Weasleys. The black clothing clashed poignantly with the flame of read hair crowning each head, halted only by a three other heads, dark, sandy and brunette respectively.
Sirius Remus. Hermione.
He could feel his throat tightening at the sight.
No one in the room was crying, but there was instead an awful, cold, deathly silence, and traces of grief everywhere. Stark white faces, red puffy eyes, lips pressed into hard thin lines and shaking hands. And the aura.
Sadness permeated the house, heavy and oppressive, curling icy fingers into every crevice or nuance of feeling, pain and sorrow, or anger. They seemed to notice him, but for a moment no one said anything.
Ginny immediately strode past him, features crumpled, slamming the door behind her without word. Harry flinched almost visibly.
"I'm so sorry for your loss," he said quietly. "Is there anything I can do?"
Mrs Weasley was around him instantly, her arms crushing him a hug.
"Oh, Harry, thank goodness you're alright, there was no sign of you last night," she said. Harry instantly felt a million times worse. She released him after a moment, teary eyed. "He would be glad you're okay," she declared tremulously, before dissolving into tears. "I'm s-sorry," she stammered.
"Don't worry about it," Harry replied softly. "It's fine…I understand…you're grieving," he dithered helplessly on his words.
What was he doing here? He didn't know what to do to help, he couldn't find any meaningful words to say. He was powerless. He didn't know how to deal with these emotions, how to breach the gap or make it better or even comfort…he'd never really given comfort, especially not for something like this.
He'd received comfort before, but unless it was Tom it largely felt awkward. Emotionally screwed up. All his experience in this type of reassurance came from a drunken moment with a psychopath…and that probably wasn't the best example to emulate. God.
Ron was staring at him, an uncharacteristically flat expression on his face. Harry resisted the urge to cringe.
"I'm surprised you bothered to show," the red head greeted, offering a smile so obviously NOT warm that it couldn't even truly be classified as a smile.
"Ron, give it a rest," muttered an older redhead, who he presumed was either Bill or Charlie. "Now's not the time for fighting."
"Of course I showed," Harry said warily. "You're my best friend."
Ron made a noise in the back of his throat.
"Are you? Cause you know, lately, it feels more like your best friend is Riddle."
Harry suppressed a sigh.
"Don't, don't do this," he said quietly. "Don't drag Tom into you being angry at me. He's got nothing-"
"He's got nothing to do with this?" Ron's voice raised in both pitch and noise, incredulous. "He's got everything to do with this! Maybe if he hadn't dragged you out at all hours of the night my father wouldn't be dead!"
There was a shocked silence, so loud it could have been a scream.
"Actually, Tom didn't drag me anywhere. I went on my own accord," Harry corrected, voice muted compared to Ron's yelling. "Same way I would if you or Hermione asked me. I am sorry about your Dad, but it wasn't Tom's fault. It was mine. I chose to go, I didn't get the vision-"
He didn't get a chance to finish before Ron strode out much the same was that Ginny did. Hermione looked completely torn.
"Go after him," Harry instructed. Ron needed a friend more right now. Hermione smiled, faintly, hugging him tightly, before dashing after Ron. An awkward silence settled on the remaining people in the lounge.
"I should go and see about some lunch," Mrs Weasley muttered, hurrying out, seeming to attempt to wipe her tears away discreetly. "You must all be hungry," she continued, as the door closed.
She was clearly trying to boost her manner with a false brightness, a desperate lunge for the way things were before, a reason to stay strong for her children.
"Well," Sirius said weakly in the following silence, "it's good to see you prongslet."
"You too," he murmured.
It was much later, when he was unpacking (he was actually bunking with Sirius and Remus in Sirius' old room, there wasn't really enough room for everyone to have their own with the sudden influx of visitors and the large number of rooms that's still weren't up to use with all the dangerous stuff they had in them, and he figured it wouldn't be a good idea to bunk with twins and Ron) when the door opened.
It was Fred and George.
He straightened immediately, tensing as they closed the door behind them and shot up a silencing charm. Were they as full of vitriol towards him as their younger brother? Who had spat insinuations and insults whenever he saw Harry, while largely trying to avoid him?
His throat tightened. His hand closed around the handle of his wand in paranoia, but they both simply wandered over, gesturing for him to sit between them. They had withdrawn their wands.
Harry breathed a silent sigh of relief, guilty that he'd even think that the twins would attack him. This house just made him jumpy. He didn't know why, he'd felt oddly restless all day.
"You should ignore Ron-" George started.
"-The prat's just grieving-" Fred continued.
"He doesn't really mean anything he says to you right now, he's angry at the world," they both finished, regarding him expectantly. Harry simply nodded, not sure what to say to that, but then the words slipped out before he could catch them on his tongue and slam them back down his throat.
"You guys don't seem angry at me," he said, eyeing them. Why weren't they?
They shot him identical, tired grins.
"That's because we're awesome," they said.
Harry smiled slightly despite himself.
"Thanks," he said, not specifying what he was grateful for.
They seemed to understand, each squeezing one of his shoulders before wandering out again. "Oh, and Mum says dinner is in half an hour," one of them called out, as they shut the door behind them.
Harry watched the door for a moment, blankly, listening as their footsteps disappeared down the hall. He felt touched that they'd bothered to reassure him, even in such a small, seemingly insignificant non wordy way, despite being in the midst of their own mourning.
That was just the type of son's (mostly) that Mr Weasley had raised.
He sat there numbly for a moment, lost in thought and memory, before he continued unpacking with a renewed vigour, desperate not to be left alone with the shadows in his mind.
He was just shaking out a shirt (the funeral was in a weeks time, or so Mrs Weasley had said, done rapidly due to the fact that the order needed to not bring attention to whether it was that Mr Weasley had been when he died,) when he noticed the crumpled bit of paper stuck to a small leaflet looking thing which he had most definitely not packed.
He plucked it out, eyeing it dispassionately, before his lips twitched reluctantly.
It was a book about the five stages of Grief.
Is it normal to feel angry? Feelings of abandonment…guilt…hard acceptance…there were so many things.
Not sure whether to be annoyed with it or something else, he hid it amongst his t-shirt pile, before turning his gaze to the attached note.
Don't fall to pieces, and blame Zevi for the crappy book.
A/N: I actually had a life this weekend, and shouldn't be posting this now…so I hope you lot appreciate it! Thanks for the reviews, gotta dash, bye.
More on the Weasley's next chapter, and the fall out of Mr Weasley's death.