Headaches
August 9th
Sirius fell through the veil, over and over.
Every time Harry reached for him, he slipped away out of reach.
"It's as easy as falling asleep."
Cedric died on a loop, his face frozen forever in his youth.
Lily Potter screamed - "NOT HARRY!" - until Harry's ears bled.
Harry saw Fred, Remus, Tonks over and over, their faces bloodied by war and peaceful in death.
And every time Harry walked through the forest, he had the spirits of his parents beside him.
It didn't make it any easier, but it was all he had to hold on to until the cold broke and Harry woke up in a bed.
Harry startled awake and everything felt off, wrong. The bed he slept in was too large, too soft. Everything was white and Harry's tongue was dry, his whole mouth was completely dry as he looked around and tried to orient himself.
It was the bedroom, the one that Eddie slept in. Harry was on the ranch, out of the room he'd been trapped in. Had any of it been real? The dementors and the cold that had frozen Harry to his bones?
Harry went to rub his hands on his arms, chasing away the lingering cold that he could remember so vividly, when he saw the bandages. Clean, white, gauze bandages were wrapped on both of Harry's forearms, covering his scars.
"Harry."
Harry startled again at the sound of his own name and he didn't notice, had missed him entirely, but Trent sat in a chair in the corner of the room. Trent started to stand while Harry attempted to swallow so he could ask him what was going on, did he do it?
Did Harry last twenty-four hours? Did Doctor Morris say it had been enough? Was it enough? Was he enough?
"Doctor Morris has cleared you from work duties today, but he wants you to join us for lunch," Trent said. "You have enough time to shower first."
That - yeah, that sounded good, a shower and food.
Trent had to help Harry out of bed, his legs were so weak they felt flimsy and useless. They hobbled together out of the bedroom and Harry hesitated in the corridor, his eyes lingering on the third door, the one that Harry had been locked behind.
How… how did the doctor get —
No.
Harry didn't want to think about it, about all of the things the dementors brought up. Not then, not yet.
The rest of the house was completely silent while Trent helped Harry to one of the bathrooms. Trent sat on the toilet and Harry assumed he was supposed to stay with him.
It might have bothered Harry before, stripping in front of Trent, but the lure of the shower was too strong for him to care much. The water felt so good as it burned away the sweat and ice that had been covering Harry from head to toe. The bandages soaked through and Harry could see the raw, red gouges he must have left with his own nails.
There was something about the sight of his own blood that soothed Harry, it made it irresistible to pull the bandages off and pick at the scratches, pick until they oozed and Harry felt he could finally breathe.
After he scrubbed his body and gulped several mouthfuls of water, Harry felt better. His head ached and he didn't think he would be completely warm for a while, but he felt good enough to slowly think backwards…
Dean.
Who was Dean?
That was the memory Harry couldn't place, one he didn't think the dementors caused him to relive. Harry only knew one Dean and he was alive and well, living in Scotland with Seamus the last Harry knew.
So why did Harry have a vivid memory of having someone stroke his hair while they screamed for Dean? Why was that the last memory he had before waking up in the white bedroom?
Trent silently offered Harry a new roll of gauze when Harry dried off from the shower. It was a bit awkward to do, but Harry managed to wrap his arms up and hide the marks from anyone else's eyes.
"Where's Doctor Morris?" Harry asked Trent. Harry thought he'd be there, that he'd tell Harry if he had done enough yet.
"He's busy," Trent said simply. "You have to eat lunch."
Fine. So Doctor Morris was busy, that was fine. Harry didn't need to bother him, they'd talk soon surely. Harry wasn't going to be a bother, take up more of his time when the others needed him.
Harry wasn't going to be selfish, he wasn't going to go in that room again. Everything inside of Harry was shaky, unsure, except for that certainty that he would never be so selfish again.
Seeing Draco at the table with the others hardened Harry's resolve. Draco wasn't a monster, he'd never been one, Harry should have fought for him.
There were people who died because they fought for Harry. Why had Harry taken that for granted? How did he get so self-centered that he stopped caring about other people?
It made him feel sick with himself, completely disgusted.
Harry would have sat by Draco, tried to think of something to say, but there was only one chair open after Trent quickly sat between Taylor and Regulus. Harry sat down, distracted by his own thoughts, and only realized something strange was going on when Regulus cleared his throat and stood up.
"One of our peers broke several rules last night," Regulus said, his eyes locked on the wall just over Tony's shoulder across the table from him. "Sam was in an unauthorized area, he was out of his bed during a time he shouldn't be, he willfully destroyed property, and he was insubordinate to the doctor."
Harry looked at Sam, curious about that. Sam wasn't looking at him though, he was glaring at the table.
"Because we are a team, meant to support each other and encourage self-growth and development in mind, body, and spirit, we face Sam's punishment as one," Regulus went on. "Until Doctor Morris feels that Sam has properly taken accountability for his actions, nobody will eat during meal times."
What? That didn't seem —
"Since Harry was being treated during the time of Sam's choices, he is allowed to eat."
Sam looked at Harry then and —
"Please, Dean, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Don't leave me."
Did… had Sam been in the room with Harry? Harry squinted his eyes at Sam, more concerned with that question, and missed it when someone put a plate of food in front of him.
"What?" Harry looked down at the sandwich and potatoes and the green beans that smelled amazing then looked to Charlie. "I… don't get it," he said.
They were all sitting there, looking at him. Their eyes were prickling Harry's skin, light pressure that would never be enough to break skin.
Tightening. Squeezing.
"Harry." Charlie snapped his fingers and Harry blinked, he didn't know where he went, but he felt his mind settle back in itself.
"You weren't with us last night, mate," Charlie said slowly, clearly. If Harry listened to him, he could ignore the others.
"You're allowed to eat," Charlie said. "It's fine."
Fine? Harry could barely swallow, he felt sick.
Was it a test? Did Doctor Morris want to see if Harry was going to act better than the rest of them? Harry wasn't with them because Doctor Morris was helping him, letting Harry try to prove that he wasn't a selfish person.
Harry nudged the plate away from him and couldn't speak, couldn't meet anyone's eyes. Harry wasn't going to eat if they couldn't.
"Don't be noble," Draco whispered sharply, his eyes narrowed in the corner of Harry's vision.
Noble? Harry wasn't being noble. If he even tried to eat, he'd be sick. As hungry as he had been after getting out of the shower, his stomach had gnawed away at his insides, filled itself with shame and pain.
"Fine," Regulus said evenly. "Then we're to sit here silently until one."
Harry had a lot of bad memories, a lot of things that he thought were unbearable. Sitting at a table with a plate of food in front of him while eleven others were being denied it? It was painful enough that even in the silence Harry didn't drift off to the memories the dementors brought up.
There was no reason to crawl back in those moments, Harry was suffering enough in the present.
When they were finally excused from lunch, Harry actually jumped to his feet in his eagerness to get away from the table. He would have liked a chance to talk to Sam, to try and get him to make Harry's muddled memories make sense, but Harry had to go to the library with Regulus and Tony while Sam went to the kitchen with Spencer.
"Good stuff back there," Tony said casually while they followed Regulus. "You know that starving artists are only starving because they don't have food, right?"
Right, people starved when they didn't have food. Harry knew that, it was why he could never eat in front of people who were hungry. It was selfish and that was what Doctor Morris wanted to help Harry break.
"Sorry," Harry muttered, dropping his head so he didn't have to be seen by Tony.
Harry was sorry he was hungry and he was sorry that with every tortured scream for ‘Dean' that played in his head he was more and more certain that he had something to do with Sam breaking the rules.
Regulus told them they were allowed to choose any book they wanted, since it was the weekend. They still needed to take notes as they read, but Harry liked having a chance to look through the bookcases. Tony and Regulus both found their books quickly, it took Harry a little longer to choose one.
With as distracted as he felt, as much as his mind wanted to go back in the White Room and replay Lily's screams, watch Cedric die over and over, drown in green light… Harry didn't think he'd get much reading done. There was a book that Harry chose at random, mostly for the illustration of rabbits on the cover, to settle down and start.
It was nice, easy to start. Harry could picture the English countryside being described and got to know Hazel and her brother, Fiver, two rabbits that seemed to care about their fellow rabbits.
That was what Harry first wrote, that he liked the peaceful description of the country and he liked how much he liked Hazel and Fiver.
Then Fiver had a vision, a vision of blood and death, and Harry snapped the book shut so he could catch his breath. Maybe he didn't need to read it, maybe Harry knew how Watership Down would end.
Maybe Harry of all people knew how a vision of the future could destroy a peaceful life and soak everything in blood.
"That book's dark, kid," Tony murmured quietly, raising a brow when he saw Harry's choice. "Here, I'll trade you. Jack London has a way with words, you'll like it."
Harry shook his head and shifted in his seat, turning a shoulder to Tony. It was a kind offer, Harry wasn't going to take it. Harry determinedly reopened his book and tried to fill as much of their time in the library by making notes rather than reading as he could.
It was a relief when their time ended and Harry could put the book away. Honestly, Harry was sure that the rabbits in the warren were all doomed to death, he didn't need to read it to confirm it.
Harry was relieved when he, Sam, and Bucky were all sent outside to do lawn work with Taylor for their skills time. It was almost normal, really, Harry doing yard work under the hot sun while his stomach adjusted to being empty.
And it gave Harry a chance to talk to Sam.
Taylor gave them each a pair of shears so dull they were basically useless and set them on pruning a wall of flower bushes that covered the back of the house. It only took Harry a minute to decide that his hands were more effective than the shears and Sam was quick to toss his after Harry did.
"So… how are you?" Sam asked quietly, glancing briefly at Harry.
"A bit confused," Harry said honestly. "Did you - did we see each other last night?"
Because seeing Sam's eyes made Harry think they had. Harry surely couldn't have imagined Sam's eyes, dark pools of brown with flecks of green mixed in. It was the memory paired with it, the memory of someone holding Harry, stroking his hair, screaming for Dean, that made it seem like something more of a dream than memory.
But if it had been a dream, Harry didn't know why Sam would be screaming for Dean.
"I don't remember," Sam said calmly, maybe too calmly? He snapped one of the dead stems from the bush and tossed it in a pile behind them.
"I was messed up last night, paranoid," Sam said. "I wanted to find the doctor and then I heard someone crying and I thought it was my brother, Dean."
Oh.
Harry frowned and tried to match Sam's memories with his own. Had Harry been crying? It wasn't… completely unlikely. Maybe Sam heard him and then… then he mixed Harry up with his brother. Harry did that once, he had been drinking and confused Ron for Fred, a horrible occurrence for them both.
"Do I look like Dean?" Harry asked. Because Ron sort of looked like Fred, but Harry would rather not look like Sam's brother.
"No." Sam snorted and there was some amusement in his voice then, some life again. "Dean's got dark blonde hair, for one. His eyes are darker too, not as bright as yours. And - and you don't have any freckles, Dean's all freckled."
"Got it," Harry said. So Harry didn't look like Dean, Sam had just been having a fit or something.
"What property did you damage?" he asked.
"I guess I broke a door." Sam paused and stared until Harry turned his head and was caught in his intense stare. "I don't remember much," Sam said slowly, much too intensely for the conversation. "I'm sorry I got you in trouble."
"You didn't," Harry told him quickly, even managing to smile a bit. "I'm sorry you're being punished."
It didn't seem fair, hearing Sam explain himself. Sam had been sick, not thinking. Surely the doctor understood? It wasn't really Sam's fault, he shouldn't lose food over it.
"Dude, I'd go a week without food if everyone else wasn't suffering," Sam said nonchalantly. "But since we're apparently a team…"
Harry hummed, but it didn't sit right with him. Sam was sick, that was what Kingsley called Harry. Kingsley said it wasn't anything to be ashamed of, nothing different than if he had the flu. Harry wasn't sure that he believed him, Harry could have done more, but Sam?
Sam didn't ask to see Lucifer every time he turned around. Unless he was lying, and Harry didn't think he was, Sam saw Lucifer after he died to save the lives of others.
"Why are you here?" Sam asked after they had worked together in silence for a few minutes. Harry had been thinking hard about how Sam said he died, so it wasn't an unfair question.
Painful, but not unfair to ask.
"My boss made me," Harry said, skirting the truth some. "He was going to fire me, which would have been a lot of fuss, or he said I could come here, ‘get my head on straight'."
"Because of the war?" Sam asked.
"Because of life," Harry said, too honestly. It was the war and everything that happened before, the crash that happened afterward. Harry… didn't know who he was without the war, he didn't know who he was before the war.
Harry's entire life felt like a war, then it snipped his strings and left him floating in misery. Harry couldn't make his feet touch the ground, he couldn't separate every case he had from what it could have become.
"Do you feel better?" Sam was quiet, hesitant. "After whatever you went through last night?"
Harry… Harry thought Sam didn't remember what happened the night before. Which meant Sam was lying and Harry couldn't understand why he would.
Why would Sam break a door and get in trouble on purpose? Why would he pretend that he was upset about his brother? How did that help him, or Harry, get any better?
"Harry?" Sam was waiting, a healthy stem in his hand, bent, but not snapped.
Did Harry feel better? With his thoughts tangled up and his mum's screams echoing in the background of his mind? Was he better than he'd been before he went into Morris's office, before Morris pointed out how selfish Harry had been?
"Yeah," Harry said. "I do."
The stem in Sam's hand snapped. If he was going to lie to Harry, Harry could lie to him too.
It didn't feel good, but nothing that day felt very good.
Harry helped make dinner with Charlie and Draco after he finished with Sam and Charlie didn't say so, but Harry assumed that since they were making the same amount of food as usual, everyone would be allowed to eat that night.
It was uncomfortable though, working with Draco after Morris pointed out how much Harry had failed him. Harry wanted to apologize, to find a way to ask Draco how Harry could make it up to him, something… and the words wouldn't come to him.
"Thanks," Harry said, probably with too much forced brightness, when Draco passed him a bowl of boiled potatoes to mash. Draco's hand slipped and the bowl nearly fell, but Draco managed to catch it at the last second.
"Sorry," Harry said. He blinked and that was it, that was all he needed to say. Harry grabbed Draco's wrist before he could walk away and repeated himself while looking directly at Draco. "I am sorry," he said. "I'm sorry."
It wasn't just words, it was words after actions. It was accountability after reparations. Harry didn't know what else he could do after that.
"It's fine," Draco said, turning his wrist and pulling it from Harry's grip slowly, his eyebrows mashed down. "Are you feeling alright, Potter?"
"Fine," Harry said. "I just wanted to apologize."
For not offering him a chance, for deciding that helping others outweighed helping Draco. For Harry taking time to visit Godric's Hollow when he knew it wouldn't help him end Voldemort, but did it anyway. Would saving Draco instead have ended Voldemort sooner? Harry didn't know, would never know.
"Apology accepted," Draco said. As he walked away, Harry swore he heard him mumble ‘scarhead', but he couldn't be sure.
"Alright there, Harry?" Charlie asked after watching the short interaction. "Getting peckish?"
"No, I'm fine," Harry said again. All Harry wanted to do was apologize and Draco might not have known what it was for, but Harry did it.
It might not have really counted, but Harry - Harry would… probably tell Doctor Morris about it in their next meeting.
Hopefully it would go some way toward softening Morris against the punishment the others were facing, because Harry found himself once again sitting at dinner and being told he was the only one allowed to eat.
It didn't matter if Harry was hungry, it didn't matter if he helped make enough food to feed all of them, there was no way that Harry was taking a single bite of anything while the rest weren't allowed to.
"You're a fucking moron," Billy said when he and Harry went out to the barn with Taylor for the nighttime feed. "How does you going hungry make any of us feel less hungry?"
"How does me eating make the rest of you feel less hungry?" Harry asked, turning it back on Billy. Harry couldn't explain that it felt like a trick, or that Harry wouldn't be Dudley - enjoying a meal while someone else went without.
"You think this is the place to give a shit about everyone else?" Billy argued. "You think if you're nice enough that you'll get out sooner?"
That never actually occurred to Harry, but… yeah, that made sense. Doctor Morris said they were all there because they were defiant, at a minimum, so why wouldn't being nice get them released? Or at least make it happen sooner?
"Do you think being a prat will get you out sooner?" Harry asked, his voice biting with his irritation. Harry had a headache, he was still cold on the inside, he was hungry, and they had to shovel dung from a stall.
Billy scoffed, but then he snatched a pitchfork and got right to work beside Harry in a stall, making it much quicker to clean. Billy had to pause at one point, when Harry himself could feel his muscles burning from the work, to roll his shoulders.
"God damn, I'm sick of this fucking shoulder," he complained. "It's still all screwed up from my old man."
His old man?
"Your dad or boyfriend?" Harry asked, unsure which one he was referring to. Billy laughed half-heartedly and told Harry his dad, so Harry nodded in understanding. "My uncle broke my arm once," he said, scooping another hidden and hay-covered pile of dung. "I don't think I set it right, but it was fine after I regrew all the bones."
"Yeah?" Billy asked, getting right back to shoveling even if Harry saw him wince when he pulled on the shoulder. "You live with him or something?"
"For sixteen long years," Harry said drily. Very, very long. They were better when Harry had Hogwarts to go to, almost unbearable before then.
"Sucks," Billy quipped. "You should have been legally killed by a fucking demon monster at seventeen. This place sucks, but I could still be with my dad."
Harry let out a startled laugh, curious then about how many of them seemed to have that very specific shared experience.
"I did die at seventeen," Harry said, managing to grin about it somehow.
Billy didn't stop working, but he managed to scowl darkly at Harry. "I was possessed by some evil dick for a month."
"Only a month?" Harry asked, only a little bit mocking. "I had the soul of an evil dick inside of me for sixteen years."
Was Harry being fair? No. But there was something about Billy that reminded Harry of Draco just enough that he wanted to win… whatever it was they were competing about.
The most messed up one?
"I had to kill people while possessed," Billy said.
"I had to watch Voldemort kill others because of our soul connection."
"My mom left me with an abusive asshole when I was ten."
"My mom was murdered while I was a baby, I can still hear her screaming sometimes."
"When I was thirteen, my girlfriend died. When Neil caught me crying about it, he kicked my ass and told me to man up."
"When I was fourteen, my classmate was murdered in front of me. When my cousin heard me crying in my sleep, he ganged up on me with his mates to kick my arse."
"I'm fucking bisexual and can't tell anyone."
"I… wait." Harry stopped shoveling to look at Billy, at the red skin that looked like it was burning him crawling up his neck. "Why can't you tell anyone?" he asked.
"Because I can't be a fuckin' fag," Billy snapped.
"But… you said you're legally dead?" Harry reminded him. "You - you could be? If you wanted to, I mean. I'm sure there's loads of people who don't care about that. My friend, Hermione, said that bisexuality is the new heterosexuality, or something."
Harry only remembered because he'd been drunk and humiliated by the conversation the next day when he remembered it. Ron told him that Harry had blurted out some thoughts he had and Hermione jumped straight to lecture mode.
Ron's summary of the conversation was: ‘it's okay to be gay'.
"Says you," Billy said. The tight muscles in his back relaxed though and Harry was the one to scowl when Billy poked at, but didn't stab, Harry's leg. "You got any siblings?"
Harry wasn't sure who won, but they had an alright time working together. Billy wasn't too bad, even if they were both hot and hungry and shoveling dung.
And it gave Harry a brilliant topic to bring up during their group reflection time that night.
"So…" Harry looked around at the others, the people he was told to bond with and make a family out of. "How many of you have died before?"