Who: Harry and Ginny What: a reunion. When: Wednesday, at the end of the battle. Where: Hogsmeade. Warnings: mentions of violence, everything else TBA Status: Complete
It felt like years, and yet only moments, since Harry had left the tent late last night. He hadn't really slept in at least two days, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. That was to say nothing of the Cruciatus Curse he'd endured at Crouch's hands, then the Killing Curse at Voldemort's, and then pretending to be dead. Ironically, the very worst of what he was feeling was all along his right side, the side of him that had hit the ground when his "dead" body had been dropped, the levitation spell ended when battle had begun. His wrist and his ribs were killing him, and he could barely see out of the shattered right lens of his glasses, which made his depth perception more than a little bit difficult.
Precisely how he had survived all of that, and then the battle, with only minor flesh wounds and broken bones to show for it, Harry wasn't sure. All he knew was that he was alive, when he was supposed to be dead, and that was just as overwhelming as anything else. Then there were the sheer number of people who were dead or grievously injured, and the sight of their twisted and bloodied bodies on the ground and being levitated into stretchers rendered Harry completely incapable of doing anything.
The fighting was over, and he didn't know what to do with himself, didn't know where any of his friends had gotten to, if they were even alive. He made himself move, picked a direction and wandered through Hogsmeade, looking into everyone's faces to see if he recognized them. The idea that they might be so badly disfigured that he wouldn't even recognize them was already haunting him. Merlin, how many people were here because of him, because they had believed in him? How much of this was he responsible for? At a loss for how to quantify it properly, Harry felt himself responsible for all of it, and the weight of it rested heavily on his shoulders as he walked. If he could just find Ron and Hermione, or any familiar face at all, someone that recognized him, he thought it might seem infinitely easier to bear.