All the Ghosts are Screaming

8

Harry

Seamus... hurts himself.

It was Ginny who broke the news to them, bursting through the door of the boys locker room after training without waiting for one of them to answer her knock. Ron was already yelling and halfway through scolding her, but then they both saw her face and whatever they were going to say was replaced by that sick feeling in your stomach that comes when you know you were about to get bad news.

Ginny was crying.

Harry had rarely seen her cry, not since Dumbledore's funeral or the day of Bill's wedding. She hadn't really even cried at Fred's funeral, just stared at everyone with a set jaw and a face full of fury, but this time she had a quivering lip and tears slipping silently down her face.

"What's wrong?" Ron was on his feet in a moment, arms held out like he was trying to hug her, but Ginny just shrugged him off. "What happened?"

"It's Seamus." She let half a sob out and then swallowed the rest, turning to kick the locker door so hard Harry was surprised she didn't break anything. "He's at Mungo's. He..."

"What?" Ron was still looking for something to fight, an enemy to push his fear towards. Harry was just watching Ginny, the way she was crumbling. "Did someone hurt him?"

"He did it to himself." She said, and then the tears came for real, a torrent of them. "He did some damage Ron."

Harry doesn't remember listening to her. All he remembers is that one moment his picture of Seamus included the Seamus he knew from school, the happy one that was in love with Dean, and now there was this other Seamus in his head, the one that kissed Dean good bye on his way to work and then sat down to write a note, who locked himself in a bathroom, who got found by Luna three hours later covered in his own blood and crying about how he couldn't make himself cut deep enough, could she finish it, please.

Please, he had apparently sobbed, letting her pull him into her arms like he was still a little kid. Please let it end.

Harry felt like he had been punched in the stomach, so he turned away, but he couldn't hide from it forever, because Ron was on his feet, one arm wrapped around his sister's shoulders. "I'm going home." He said, voice grim, but determined in the way it had been back when they were preparing to do something dangerous, like he was checking things off of a to-do list. "Making her a strong cup of tea. You want to go keep Dean company in the hospital until Hermione gets there?"

No, he wanted to say, because he did not want that, he did not want to see Seamus like this, he did not want to sit in uncomfortable chairs and tell his friend meaningless platitudes, he did not have to be the one to deal with all of this.

But that's not what he says.

"Sure," He hears himself saying, reaching for his shirt to get dressed, inexplicably wishing Draco could come but realizing in the same moment that he wouldn't be welcome. This was not about Harry's comfort. "Of course I'll go."

Draco

Harry was late, which meant that Draco was waiting when he came home, settled into the corner of the couch with a book spread across his lap.

"I'm late. I know." Harry didn't give Draco time to respond, just yanked off his coat and threw it down on the chair with an anger that Draco hadn't seen since they were in school. "Something came up."

"Is everything-," He meant to ask if everything was okay, but doesn't, because the words aren't out of his mouth before Harry is leveling his stare at him.