If I Could(A Harry Potter Fanfiction)

The Year Concludes

Here it is!!!!!

Its super short, but enjoy!

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The walk back to the common room was unbearable. We were both silent, only the sound of our dragging feet echoed through the corridor. We were lucky that we didn't cross paths with anyone, people were either asleep still or already in the Great Hall.

Though I had no strength left in my body somehow my feet continued to carry me. I could feel every injury I endured again, my hands throbbed, my head pounded, my throat was raw and strained. My robes were tattered, bloodied and stained. I was sure I looked a mess, but I didn't really know the extent of it. Harry trailed behind me the whole way back, neither of us said anything, even if we could speak I had nothing to say.

The Fat Lady didn't bother asking for the password when she saw us, she was silent and watched us cautiously as we entered, a question hung on her lips but she never asked. When I heard the portrait click back into place my head began spinning. Everything began to feel real, to feel final. This wasn't a dream, no matter how badly I wanted it to be, no matter how hard I wished. Halfway through the common room, I fell to my knees. My chest burned so badly I feared my heart would stop beating.

I started to cry, the stinging returned to my cheeks and the lump so large in my throat I may have vomited again. My arms lied limp at my sides.

It was only a few seconds before I felt the warmth of Harry's arms pull me into his chest. I sobbed into his shirt for what felt like forever, but in reality wasn't. Every minute that passed without Sirius felt like an eternity, I wasn't sure I could live like this.

When I pulled away from him, tears still streaming down my face, his shirt soaked, I saw he too was crying. I could feel the pain I saw in his eyes. His hair was more unruly than I had ever seen it, his face scraped and cut from a number of things that happened yesterday. But of all the wounds he sustained I could tell that he too hadn't suffered anything that came even close pain wise to losing Sirius.

I took the sides of his face in my hand and leaned towards him. Our lips touched, for just a moment, before we pulled back and rested our foreheads together. I dropped my hands into my lap and looked at them. Harry took them in his hands, almost cradling them.

It was a Tuesday when Sirius died; the 18th of June, 1996.

It was now Thursday, the pain still engulfed me, but all I had to do was keep up appearances until the end of the week when the Hogwarts express would return to London and I could go home.

Home...

It hadn't registered with me yet that I wouldn't be returning to Grimmauld place, not that I was sure I could do it, but to return to the Burrow solidifies this, the fact I no longer have a father.

Harry spent the day following in bed the entire day. He didn't eat, though he did get cleaned up and changed into clean clothes. He wouldn't talk to any of his roommates. And while I too was quiet about it, I still made my way around the castle. When the information came out in the Daily Prophet that Sirius was dead, and that his name had been cleared, I got many sympathetic looks, but few people tried to discuss it with me. But no one saw much of Harry after it happened.

Just barely after lunch began I knocked on Harry's dormitory door and when no answer came I pushed my way inside.

"Will you come to lunch?" I asked softly as I entered. Harry was laid on his stomach, the sheets and comforter on his bed jumbled into a mass with which he poorly covered himself.

"Leave me alone," Harry said bluntly, his face buried in his pillow. I pushed the dormitory door shut slowly and disregarded his request.

"You need to eat something..." I pleaded. I had been bringing him small plates, but when I would return I would find nothing had been touched. He only ever spoke at most five words at a time. "Rejoin the living," I said, though immediately regretting my choice of words, it made my chest ache.