About Harry

Chapter 14 - Think about something soothing!

He regained his consciousness on the bed of the spare room, Bill and George standing beside sported set faces. The wands clutched in their hands revealed a readiness to stun him again if necessity arose. It was an unneeded precaution, however. The violence had subsided. He felt just anger, pounding at the bottom of him like a heartbeat. It was there ready to spring out again, but for the moment it quietened.
'I'm sorry Harry, you were going to kill him, we had to do something.' George told him with a need of justification.
'Where is he?'
He asked only to make sure he wasn't in the house. He didn't think he could answer of himself in case of a meeting.
'He is at St. Mungo's. You managed to do quite a bit of damage before we could intervene'
He wasn't speaking with resentment, just with a matter-of-fact tone 'somebody from the ministry is there. He will need to answer a few questions when he will be able to. There is going to be an investigation. There is the risk he may finish in Azkaban. Hermione is there trying to see what she can do.'
Harry didn't reply. To him it was well-deserved, and he was just sorry dementors were not guarding the place anymore. He wanted him to be as miserable as possible.
'How do you feel?' Bill asked. At that question he turned to look at him. His expression hardened, his brow furrowed and the pounding inside him grew steadily. 'What do you think?'
And under that gaze, Bill lowered his on the floor.
He left the room straight after, he needed to get out, to get some air and be alone. He felt this mix of confused feeling rising anger, panic, pain threatening to burst out any moment and he didn't know what to do to control them.
Going toward the door he heard a voice he didn't recognise, coming from the living room.
'Probably it was just a stunning spell but cast with such a violence to the head of a six years old child...'
He threw a look in there and the shock overcame him suddenly. He felt all the air leaving his lungs as if somebody had hit him unexpectedly.
On the sofa there was Lily's body, limp and lifeless.
He wasn't prepared to behold that sight; he didn't want to have to see it. It was too much.
He felt a sickness building up very fast, together with an anger so powerful it was uncontrollable; it was standing between him and everything else and against everything and everybody. The pounding grew so much to make him deaf to all that was around him.
Ginny was still crying, and Molly was holding her while speaking with who, he now knew, was the healer. Ted was there too. The first realising he was there. He didn't try to approach him or to speak to him. He just looked at him and from that look Harry understood that probably he alone knew what was happening inside him.
Then Ginny saw him too. Her face was a mask of pain and affliction. It was torture to Harry to witness it. And the motive destabilised him; it didn't hold any power to soften him, it just made him even angrier.
He hastened out of house, in the need to be out immediately. With the corner of his eye, he saw Ginny about to follow, but Ted got hold of her and shook his head.
He felt thankful for it. He didn't want to confront Ginny and talk about what happened, not knowing what his reaction could be. He didn't trust himself.
As soon as he was at back of the house, the sickness mutated again becoming physical, eventually gushing from his mouth on the snow. He felt all those fierce feelings going out from him through the retching, emptying body and mind. When his stomach was completely empty and the spasms died out, a bleak numbness filled the place.
He stood immobile in the snow for a while. When he succeeded in standing up, he leaned against the wall looking in the garden. Nobody was around. Probably everybody was to tend to the business death always calls to. The trees were barren and grey. In front of him was the place where many years before he interred Dobby.
Everything was happening again. Why was he doomed to see so many people he loved die around him?
How many had he witnessed going before their time?
He always thought that, after Voldemort, he wouldn't have to behold this again. He felt safe and for that reason unprepared.
Why did life have to be so unfair to him? Didn't he deserve to be happy now?
Why my Lily?
He could hear her voice just a few hours before saying 'If dad won't go, I won't go!'
Thinking about her made him harden. He felt something closing down in him. He had to protect himself somehow. He didn't want to suffer like this anymore. He must shut it out otherwise he would become mad with grief.
And Lily again 'We can be each other's birthday present'
This is hell! I've to stop this!
What can I do?
Think about something soothing!
Yes, but what?? What??
He recalled, when at seventeen after Voldemort tried to kill him again, he met Dumbledore in that white space, he thought he had died then, and it was so nice, so peaceful. How lovely it would be to go there again. Be in peace.
It meant death though.
Do I want to die?
It would have been a relief in a way. Life from now on would have been hellish. This was not something he could forget sooner or later. It would have been there accompanying him like a cancer, forever. There was no escape.
Death is an escape. And a sweet one as that.
He pondered about it seriously for some moments but then he thought about Ginny and the boys, and he knew it wasn't an option. He couldn't do this to Ginny.
I must stay here and bear it.
He didn't move from that wall until evening. The wintery darkness, with his frost, downed around him. However he was immune to everything. He didn't feel neither cold, nor hungry, nor thirsty. Weariness maybe. He longed for some sleep. He longed for the oblivion sleep could give him. But he didn't want to meet anybody. Not yet.
The moon was up in the sky when Ted appeared, and he could see his contour quite easily. Of all the people he was the least unwelcome. He knew he wouldn't have pestered him with silly questions, tears or requests.
'I've just come to tell you that Ginny and Molly are going to the Burrow. The funeral will be in the cemetery of the town at ten o'clock. We thought it was better than in London. You can go there now or tomorrow as you prefer. Bill said that he doesn't mind if you want to stay for the night.' His tone was flat and devoid of emotions, Harry knew he was probably grieving too, he loved Lily dearly, but he exerted himself in not showing it. He knew it wasn't the right move with him.
'Where...?' he couldn't bring himself to pronounce Lily's name and anyway Lily was no more. It was just her body, and it didn't matter where it was. He just didn't want to see it again.
Ted understood the unfinished question 'She is at St. Mungo's. They will keep her until tomorrow. It seemed best.'
'I will go to the Burrow. Later. They don't need to wait for me.'
He planned to get there when everybody was sleeping. He didn't want to see any of them.
Reading his thought Ted said 'I told them to leave you alone, but you will have to speak to them eventually. Especially to Ginny. Don't let these bad feelings take over you.' he tailed as he returned back to the house.
Too late.

Harry got to the Burrow a few hours later. Everything was quiet. A note left on the door informed him that a camp bed in Ginny's old room was made for him and a change of clothes was in the living room if he wanted to have a shower. Some food was in the kitchen if he was hungry.
He would take a shower. A hot shower would have been nice, he felt suddenly shivering and cold in the warmth of the house, it couldn't therefore come from the frosty night outside, it must have been something from the inside.
As he was undressing, he noticed his hand still covered with Ron's blood now dried. He observed it a few moments mildly interested. It was strange to remember the violence overtaking him just hours before. He felt nothing now. Just nothing. Perhaps the starry night had calmed him somehow.
He was in a kind of odd trance. He would do the things he had to do but not thinking too much beyond it. Take a shower, change your clothes, brush your teeth and that's it. He didn't need to think about anything else to keep going.
He didn't touch the food left for him. Only the thought made him feel sick again. He would just go to bed. He felt so tired. He was looking forward to that blissful nothing that was waiting for him.
The room was dark and silent. Ginny was sleeping and Harry was thankful for it. He realised when he got in bed that this was going to be the hard part. When lying without doing anything ones thoughts start to wander and they cannot be stopped, hardly one can direct them. Now, it was going to be difficult not to think about Lily.
'Keep your mind clear' he ordered himself 'if you fall asleep quickly then it will be sweet nothing for a few hours.'
It was very difficult however not to think about the morrow. The funeral was waiting for him threatening to wake the pounding.
He would control it. He would be strong, and he would sleep. He had just to think about something soothing again.
'Think about the white place' he told himself. And with that serene memory he managed to slip in a dreamless sleep.