Current music:	The Exies - "Ugly (Acoustic Version)"
Entry tags:	fanfiction, h/hr, harry potter

Drabbly
An angsty drabble with hints of H/Hr:

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The world has ended.

There’s destruction all around the area, destruction that he couldn’t help but feel that he caused in some inadvertent way, that in Voldemort’s quest to destroy him, he sparked. It’s over, or at least this part of it is, as the very wizard who ordered this lay dead at Harry’s feet, but he wasn’t the only casualty.

Ron is awake, but he’s tending to Luna with wet eyes. Ginny is dead, Bill is dead, even George is dead, and George is one of those people who seems to swing his way through life without a care in the world, someone that will never die. Fred doesn’t look like he knows what to do without him, his other half, and he’s currently looking at his brother’s corpse with wide-eyed disbelief. Mrs. Weasley is crying. Mr. Weasley is grimacing because his left leg is resting against a tree fifty feet away.

Harry even feels a little remorse that he killed Voldemort. Sure, Voldemort had killed plenty of people, but he’d been pure once, he’d had a mother that loved him. It’s funny, because they are so similar, and in the same situation Harry might have been the feared Dark Lord.

Dumbledore probably knows this. Dumbledore seems to know everything.

The wizened old headmaster is still alive, of course. Nothing could bring him down. But then again, nothing was able to bring George down, or Sirius down, or Lupin down. Impossible is suddenly possible.

Death Eaters are dead, and he’s guilty for their deaths, also. They had hearts, although they were in the wrong place. They had families. But that didn’t matter. They still died.

All his fault.

Harry hears someone whimper beside him and he turns all of a sudden, very jumpy at being disrupted from his thoughts.

Hermione.

“Harry,” she says weakly. She’s wincing at the pain from the gash in her forehead, or her broken left arm, or that bruise on her neck. He doesn’t know, but again, his fault. “Are you – ” she coughs “ – alright?”

It’s ironic, really, that she’s asking him if he’s alright. She’s the one that’s hurt. The Weasleys are the ones that are hurt. Sirius is the dead one, Remus is the dead one, his parents are the dead ones.

“No,” he finds himself saying, “but I’m luckier than some.”

She looks around the battlefield and nods slowly. “Yes, luckier than some.”

This doesn’t help his temper.

“I shouldn’t be, though,” he states angrily. “I’m the one who caused this. The Weasleys shouldn’t have to pay. Lupin shouldn’t have to pay. You shouldn’t have to pay.”

“Oh, no,” she sighs. “You must know, Harry, this isn’t your fault.”

He snorts. “Really? I wonder why Voldemort came after us then. Why would he?”

“You can’t control that.”

“I can’t control a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean they should happen anyway.”

Her hand reaches up to grab his arm and she pulls herself to her feet, resting her head on his shoulder for no particular reason besides sheer exhaustion. Her touch is stabilizing to him, and he relaxes. He still feels guilty, but it’s different now. He’s calm. He’s accepting.

“These people gave their lives for a cause, Harry. They gave their lives out of choice, not fate, and we can’t control that. But I guess we’ll just have to try doubly hard at what we can control, huh?”

“I suppose.”

His words are choked but smooth, and he knows that he can handle it all, in time. He can, with her by his side, with Ron by his side, with everyone else by his side. And he will help them handle the consequences of sacrifice.

He knows that everything will be okay now, and with that thought they watch the sun rise to the east and wait for the world to begin.