Memories of the Heart || Harry Potter x Reader

Y7 ~ The Girl Who Sings To Trees

They landed hard.

The world spun with a sickening lurch as Y/N stumbled to her knees, the sudden cold of the earth seeping through her clothes. The air was razor-sharp, thick with damp and silence. No tent. No shelter. Just trees—towering and skeletal—rising around them like watchful phantoms. The Forest of Dean swallowed them whole.

It was pitch black.

Not the quiet comfort of night, but a suffocating void. No moonlight, no stars—just the breathless stillness of a forest holding its breath. The only sound was their ragged breathing and the distant rustle of something unseen shifting in the underbrush. Her fingers trembled faintly against the hem of her coat, her knuckles scraped and raw, her face pale beneath the streaks of dried dirt and blood.

Her heartbeat echoed in her ears. Loud. Relentless.

Proof she was still alive.

"Harry.." Her voice barely made it past her lips, raw and trembling. "Harry, can you hear me?"

She strained to see him through the gloom, her eyes wide, unfocused, searching. Her breath shuddered as it left her lungs. She felt as though the forest itself might swallow her if he didn't answer.

For a moment, there was only silence.

Then—

"I—I'm here," came Harry's voice at last—low, hoarse, but alive. "I'm here..."

The sound shattered the silence like breaking glass, and Y/N's breath hitched.

"L—Lumos," she whispered, her voice shaking. A small orb of light bloomed from the tip of her wand, casting flickering, silver light through the mist-hung trees and over the frost-covered ground. The glow stretched out, chasing away the shadows long enough for her to see him.

Harry stood a few feet away, ghostlike in the half-light. His face was streaked with dirt and smeared with blood, a cut trailing along his jaw. Mud clung to his jacket, and the edges of his were torn. He looked like he'd clawed his way back from hell—but his green eyes locked with hers, and in that moment, nothing else existed.

Without thinking, Y/N surged forward—but her knees buckled beneath her halfway there. Harry caught her instinctively, stumbling as she crashed into him, her arms wrapping tightly around his neck. They both fell to their knees in the snow, the cold biting through fabric, but neither noticed. Her face pressed against the crook of his neck, and she clung to him like he was the only real thing left in the world.

"Thank Merlin..." she whispered brokenly, her breath coming out in small, panicked puffs. "You're alright... I thought—when she—when Nagini—" Her voice cracked, the memory too raw, too vivid. Her body trembled against his.

"I could say the same about you," Harry murmured into her hair, his voice scratchy with emotion.

He held her tighter, one arm wrapped around her back while the other hand came up to cradle the back of her head. His palm felt dampness tangled in her hair. At first, he thought it was snowmelt or sweat—but it was thicker, stickier. But he didn't notice, he didn't realize...

Their embrace felt eternal and fleeting all at once, and when they finally pulled apart, the weight of everything they had just endured came crashing back.

Y/N's eyes searched his face, still wide with fear, before she turned, raising her wand just enough to find Hermione's outline hunched near them.

"Hermione?" Y/N's voice quivered. "Are you alright?"

Hermione looked up slowly, the lantern light revealing the grime and wear on her face. Her eyes were shadowed with fatigue, but she nodded. "I'm okay," she said softly, though her voice was rough with held-back emotion. "I'm just... tired."