Dazed
The sorting went by in a blur of names and cheers. He had tried to pay attention to it, or at least to see if he recognized any names, but there was no point. It seemed to go by quicker than it had in years past, although he wasn’t sure if that was because there were actually fewer first years this year, or if he had always just really wanted to get to the feast period of the evening after a long summer of never getting enough. As the last of the names were read off and McGonagall began to give a short speech he surveyed the other Eighth Years.
Neville was watching McGonagall calmly, he was more confident now that Harry ever remembered him being back when they went to school together. He supposed that was what the seventh year had done to him.
Luna, although a year younger than them, had joined them at their table. Harry didn’t think anyone was going to try and stop her. She was staring at the stars above them and twirling her fingers around her necklace- one that Harry knew Ginny had gotten for her.
Harry and Ginny hadn’t worked out. He had needed the silence, needed Number 12 and the work that forced him to get out of bed every morning. She had needed someone truly alive. He wasn’t that person anymore, and he didn’t think he ever would be again. Ginny and Luna made more sense than they ever had anyway.
Dean and Seamus were sitting across the way, half paying attention and half joking around.
There was a group of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs that he really should have known the names of, but that he couldn’t quite remember at this time.
Blaise and Pansy were the picture of grace watching McGonagall, as was normal for the Slytherins. Not a hair was out of place and their cloaks were perfectly pressed. However, something was different. When McGonagall had finished and the food had appeared on the tables, Blaise and Pansy had exchanged a look and then moved closer to the rest of them. Harry waited for some sneer to come out of their mouths, but nothing did. Neville, however, looked up at Blaise and gave him a small smile. Blaise leaned over and whispered something at Neville that made that smile grow. Pansy was talking lightly with a couple of Ravenclaws, missing the pained look of disgust that Harry remembered always being on her face.
Harry had possibly missed quite a bit over the summer.
He remembered, in the back of his mind, Hermione telling him that the rest of their year had gotten together to speak after the war. He had missed it, as he had missed a lot of events over the last few months.
He had seen Malfoy though. He had gone to his and his mother’s trial, making sure that the woman who had saved his life and the boy who had looked so broken whispering Crabbe’s name didn’t go to Azkaban.
He looked different than he had that day. He was more put together now, although not like he used to look. His hair wasn’t slicked back anymore, it looked soft.
Harry promptly looked away. Back to the food. Back to everyone else.
* * *
The Eighth-Year rooms were in a faraway tower that Harry had not known existed, it might have had not before their need for it. They did not divide them by house, there weren’t enough of them for it to matter anyway. When they were told that the rooms were individual he had felt a brief moment of sadness, remembering the years he had spent alongside Ron, Neville, Seamus, and Dean and then the months he’d spent in the tent with Hermione and Ron. But that had been quickly replaced by overwhelming, aggressive relief. No one needed to know what his nights were like, he had a hard enough time hiding how it was in the day, pretending that he was all recovered, the perfect poster child.
“We thought you knew what you were doing!”
The perfect survivor.
But they were not living: They were gone.
The perfect sacrifice.
Neither would live, neither could survive.
He was used to being alone at this point, there was a comfort to it. No one to worry about his screams, no one to notice the moments when his control broke. A moment to give in to it all, to the forces that were practically screaming at him, clawing at his skin.
No, not now, he was almost there, almost alone.
Harry gave Hermione a small smile as he made his exit from the common room, wandering down the hallway and scanning the names on the doors, searching for his.
Finally, he found it, nestled next to a room labeled “Draco Malfoy.”
For a moment he considered getting angry about that, feeling the annoyance and rage that often followed that name, but he couldn’t find it in himself. What was the point? He had fought a war, he had died, he was supposed to be dead, he didn’t know if he knew how to keep up the fight. He didn’t know what else to fight for.
He entered his room.
It was cold. He supposed that this tower had not yet fully gotten used to the magic of Hogwarts, and hadn’t adapted to its quirks and tricks. He considered casting a spell to warm the room up.
The flames chased them as though they were alive, sentient, intent upon killing them.
That was the end of that thought.
It wasn’t too different from his room back in Gryffindor, although the bedding was a more neutral gray, with the same four-poster bed and his trunk sitting by it as it always had. There was a window and he could see the rain that was beginning to pelt the sides of the castle, its soft noise the only thing breaking the silence.
It was so quiet.
It was always too quiet.
* * *
He could almost feel the darkness of the room on his skin. It was unfamiliar, not in a cupboard, not in a shabby old room, not in Gryffindor, not in a tent, not at Number 12. A new place, which generally meant a new threat. Except, that was supposed to be over.
He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with his life now. He didn’t remember a time when he could just exist, nothing trying to kill him, nothing trying to take it all away from him again.
He didn’t know who he was when war was not pounding at his door. When death was not searching out his breath as if it could survive if only it took from the very air in his lungs. When all the panic and all the adrenaline had no point- no release.
He could feel the pressure of it- pressing on his sides, scratching at his brain, poisoning his nights. He needed to sleep. When was the last time he had slept? He couldn’t sleep. Something was waiting for him to break, begging for him to shatter, and he wanted to give in.
What if he just gave in? What more was left to happen to him? What more could he lose? His life? What a joke. His future? There wasn’t supposed to be one.
“like a pig for slaughter— ”
He feared he was far past the butchering date.
It was still dark. Back to silence, back to being alone. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, he didn’t know what else life could even be like. He didn’t want to get up, he didn’t know if he could get up. Where was there to go? What was the reason to live his life now? He had fulfilled his purpose, hadn’t he? The room was cold, he was shaking, and his mind was dull or it was angry or it was bursting or it was-
The war was over. They had done everything they were supposed to do, they had ended it all and won. He was in the only place that had ever felt like home, but it wasn’t that tonight.
It was dark.
It was cold.
He was alone, and he had done that to himself.