human again / hp.

Chapter 123

The corridor felt like the inside of a shell. Hollow. Echoing with the footsteps of ghosts.

I sat on the cold stone bench by the arched window where moonlight poured in like water, silvering everything it touched. I had not moved since Draco left. He had looked at me for a long moment before nodding, reluctantly, and disappearing into the shadows. I had told him I needed space. Time to think.

But the truth was I couldn't face Hermione. Couldn't walk back into that dormitory and see the raw wound in her eyes. Couldn't crawl into bed and pretend I had a place in that room anymore. In Gryffindor Tower. In any of it.

So I sat here instead.

My fingers brushed the silver ring at my pinky, turning it. Over and over. A soft, repetitive motion that gave my hands something to do. The air was cold against my bare arms, but I didn't care. The silence suited me.

I didn't hear him at first. Just the faint shift of weight. The softest sound. Barely more than a breath.

And then, as if pulled from shadow, Harry emerged.

No noise. No words. He just appeared, the Invisibility Cloak slipping from his shoulders. My breath caught.

He looked like something out of a dream. Or maybe a memory.

His hair was messier than usual, if that was possible. His eyes met mine and I felt it like a spark under the skin. That green. How had I never really looked at them before?

Like a forest lit from within. Or something that could burn you like acid, if you stared too long.

"Harry," I said, and the word barely came out. It cracked in my throat like something fragile.

He didn't speak at first. Just looked at me. Something was building behind his eyes. Something I didn't have a name for.

"Why are you here?" I finally whispered.

"I could ask you the same thing," he said softly.

I looked away.

He took a few steps closer. Then sat down on the edge of the bench beside me, leaving just enough space for the silence to fill again. I couldn't look at him. Not right away.

"I saw you," he said after a moment. "In the corridor earlier. With Draco."

My heart jumped.

I kept my voice steady. "And?"

"You looked tired," he said. "Like something was eating you alive."

I smiled without meaning to. It wasn't a happy smile. More like something broken.

"Maybe it is."

He turned to me then, fully. And I could feel the weight of his gaze. It was unbearable. I forced myself to meet it anyway.

There it was again. That green. And something else I had not seen before.

The sharp lines of his jaw, no longer the boy on the balcony that night in fourth year. No longer awkward and flushed and too polite. Something in him had changed. Hardened, maybe. But not in a cruel way.

More like he had seen too much. And carried too much.

So had I.

"I wanted to ask you something," he said, voice low.

"Then ask."

He hesitated. "Why did you stop talking to us?"

I flinched. He saw it. I looked down at my hands, twisting the ring again.