A sneak peek into Fic Request #3
I was hoping to have something completed and ready to post by today but looming finals ate my brain and my life so it didn't happen.
Instead, I give you what amounts to a sneak peek into the fic requested by addisonj who wanted to see a fic about the Trio transitioning from war to peace-time.
As yet untitled and very unfinished...
Harry jerked awake with a sharp gasp.
His heart was pounding, his face sweaty, his throat scratchy from the screams he never allowed himself to scream.
He wasn’t alone in the room. The sound of someone else’s breathing filled his mind and his grip tightened on the wand he never let go of, even in sleep-especially in sleep. He was immediately tensed and poised to leap up, the words of a hex forming in his thoughts, only waited for more of a sense of the person’s location, of the nearest place to duck behind.
It took a full minute of tension before sanity-and reality-broke through the mindless fog of automatic reaction and he remembered, realized. It was only Ron. Of course it was only Ron. He was at the Burrow, sleeping in Ron’s room as he always did at the Burrow.
And the War was over. Voldemort was gone.
They were safe.
Death Eaters were still being rounded up but his role-their role-had mostly ended. It was up to the Aurors now, up to the last, surviving members of the Order.
Harry lay in his bed stiffly, staring up at the ceiling in the darkness.
In. Out. In. Out. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
He tried to regulate his breathing, tried to force his muscles to relax, one by one, but couldn’t fully manage it.
Besides, he hated the darkness. If he had his way, he’d keep so many candles lit up throughout the night, it would be nearly as bright as full daylight.
Darkness meant danger. Darkness provided cover for enemies. Darkness meant increased vigilance was needed. Darkness meant the acrid taste of fear.
And darkness meant sleep-uneasy sleep, stalked by the twin terrors of memory and dread.
He hated sleep now too. Not that he ever got much of it these days. He didn’t think he’d slept more than a few hours, at best, on any night in the last year.
He lay as still as he could, trying to will himself to relax, not to react to the almost-stifling restlessness, the urge to get up and investigate, make sure that nothing lurked outside.
Maybe this was insanity, some corner of his mind suggested coolly-that detached corner of his mind that had developed as a shield of sorts against the emotions, the fear, that would otherwise strangle him. He’d read or heard somewhere that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again expecting the same result and after all, wasn’t that what he did every night, always expecting, always hoping in some corner of himself that this would be the night he could sleep, this would be the night he got the better of the terrors that stalked his dreams?
He heard a creak and almost bolted upright, straining his ears. And heard nothing aside from Ron’s continued steady breathing.
He tried to ease himself down; the creak had only been the usual sounds of a house settling. There was no danger.
To say nothing of the fact that he knew that there were wards put up all around the Burrow.
He ought to know; he was the one to put them up every night. He knew, without saying, that both Mr. and Mrs. Weasley considered it unnecessary (which is why they didn’t do the same); he also knew that Ron, if he’d known, would have said he was acting paranoid, that there was no danger to protect against anymore.
Knowing all that didn’t change the fact that he needed to know the wards were up. They didn’t solve the problem-his current state was proof of that-but they did help.
Harry gave up the battle to keep still and swung his legs off the bed to sit up fully. He was too restless to lie still any longer and decided to get up, double-check the wards, if only to give him something to do.
Moving carefully, he stood up, easing his way across the dark room and opening the door with equal care. Ron might be a heavy sleeper but he knew that others weren’t and he had no wish to wake anyone up.
The Burrow was entirely still and silent, as it should be at that hour, and Harry crept quickly and quietly down the stairs.
He was almost to the front door when he sensed something, some movement, behind him and he whirled, his wand up, his lips parting on a hex-
To find himself staring at the point of another wand and, behind it, a very familiar face and form.
He promptly lowered his wand arm, dropping just that little bit the guard that had flown up automatically. “Jeez, Hermione, what do you think you’re doing? I almost hexed you!” he said in a heated whisper.
“Me? I almost hexed you!” Hermione returned in a whisper, although hers was decidedly calmer than his had been.
It was too dark for him to see much of her face beyond a pale shadow in the darkness but he didn’t need to see her face to know that her expression had softened a little, could hear it in her whisper, as she asked, “You couldn’t sleep either?”
“I can never really sleep,” he admitted. “I was just going to--”
“If you’re about to check on the wards, I just did,” Hermione interrupted him.
He blinked and gaped at her. “How’d you know?” he blurted out.
She made a gesture to indicate the front door. “You were going outside. What else would you be going outside at this hour for?”
He felt a flicker of an odd emotion and realized, belatedly, that it was amusement at her matter-of-fact tone. So very Hermione of her, he thought inanely.
“I actually meant, how did you know I even put up the wards?” Even as he asked it, he knew it was probably a silly question.
“Of course you’d put up wards at night. And even if I didn’t know you would, I’ve seen you taking them down in the mornings and I’ve heard you come down to check on them before.”
It was definitely a silly question; this was Hermione after all. Of course she’d known.
“You- you don’t think it’s silly of me since the War is over and all?”
“Silly? Of course not. And I’m glad you put up the wards; it helps me sleep better at night.”
He relaxed, realizing at that moment how nervous he’d been, how much he hated his own weakness, his inability to relax, to just let it go. He hated his inability to stop feeling afraid, to stop feeling like he was still fighting.
He hated it but for some reason that he couldn’t explain, he felt better knowing that Hermione felt some of the same thing. To her, somehow, he could admit his weakness in a way he couldn’t with anyone else, and doing so didn’t make him feel weaker but in some odd way, almost made him feel stronger, better about it. Maybe it was something about her matter-of-fact acceptance, her unquestioning understanding, but he felt better.
“Let’s go sit down,” Hermione said. “It’s silly of us to just be standing in the hallway like this. Unless,” she paused and glanced back at Harry, “you want to go back to sleep?”
“No!” he burst out involuntarily-although he did somehow remember to keep his voice low--not able to suppress his tiny shudder of reaction. “No,” he repeated more calmly in a whisper.
He felt Hermione’s look but, thankfully, she said nothing more about it as they went into the family room, settling down side by side on the couch.
They were silent for a few minutes, a comfortable silence, somehow, sitting together in the dark as they were.
“I have nightmares too,” Hermione finally said quietly.
He let out a shuddering breath. “Yeah. I- I’m afraid to sleep because of them,” he admitted.
“Oh, Harry… Don’t you ever get to sleep without nightmares?”
“Not lately.”
“It’ll get better, Harry. Really, it will. It’ll just take some time.”
He wasn’t so sure of that but somehow, hearing her say it, he could almost believe it.
“Ron doesn’t seem to have any trouble sleeping.” And even though he tried, he knew that some of the envy he felt over that seeped into his tone.
“I think… it’s different for Ron. This is his home; he grew up here and is surrounded by his family. It makes sense that he’d find it easy to feel safe here.”
“I suppose.” A home. Harry wondered what that must feel like, to have a home that you could feel completely safe in. Hogwarts had been the first home he’d ever really had and Hogwarts no longer felt safe to him, hadn’t proven to be safe for him. And much as he liked being at the Burrow, much as part of him basked in the feeling of being with a real family, he always knew that the Burrow wasn’t his home, the Weasleys weren’t his family.
“I- I envy Ron, you know,” he found himself admitting, his voice very low. “It just seems… so much easier for him.”
“In some ways, it is, but you know that Ron’s life isn’t perfect either.” She paused and then added, in a suspiciously bland tone, “Besides, it must be easier to be happy when all you care about is Quidditch.”
He laughed as he knew she’d intended him to and then was surprised at himself. He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d really laughed, sincerely, not the forced chuckle he tended to use during the days to deflect attention from the fact that he felt positively suffocated from all the attention.
He sensed rather than saw her smile and felt himself relaxing further, feeling some of the ever-present tension ease.
It was still dark but the darkness didn’t seem so terrible now that he wasn’t alone. There was an odd comfort just from being with someone else. The darkness no longer seemed full of lurking dangers.
Another silence fell until all he could hear was the soft sound of his and Hermione’s breathing, the quiet sounds of the night. And for the first time in a very long while, the silence didn’t seem ominous. He simply sat there and enjoyed what felt like the first real moments of peace he’d known in years.
After a while, he felt Hermione lean her head against his shoulder. “This is nice,” she murmured quietly and he knew she understood, felt much the same as he did about this sharing of the darkness with someone else.
It was… nice. A very tame, bland word but oddly fitting, too. Because it wasn’t about drama or intensity; it wasn’t as if he and Hermione were doing anything to ward off the darkness. This was a quiet thing, a calm thing, just him and Hermione, sitting in the dark-and for the first time, he felt as if the War might really be over…
Amazingly, he must have dozed as the next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes to find the pale, gray light of dawn filtering in through the curtains, dully illuminating the room. He must have dozed and, more than that, he had not dreamed.
He squinted across the room to the clock to see that it was just after five in the morning; he had managed to sleep for nearly three hours.
He turned to look down at Hermione, still leaning against his shoulder, to see that she was, apparently, asleep as well, her eyes closed. Seeing her now in the light, he could see the tell-tale shadows under her eyes, proof that her nights had been quite as restless as his had been. He was suddenly very glad that she had managed to get some sleep too.
“Hermione. Hermione, wake up,” he said, his voice gentle, not quite willing to move his shoulder and wake her up more abruptly.
She blinked and opened her eyes to focus on him almost immediately. “Oh, Harry. I must have fallen asleep,” she said, sounding as surprised as he had been.
“We both did,” he answered. “But we should probably go back upstairs before people start waking up.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Hermione pushed herself to her feet, moving with something less than her usual briskness, and he stood up as well, following her out of the room.
“Well, goodnight, Harry,” Hermione said and then paused, “Or, I guess, good morning.”
He felt himself smiling-and it felt unfamiliar enough to give him a moment’s pause. “See you later, Hermione.”
She gave him a small smile in return as she left, heading to Ginny’s room, while he turned towards Ron’s room.
That was how it began. And it became a ritual, a habit, of sorts.
He didn’t think it was really intentional, on either his or Hermione’s parts, but that was how it began, their meeting up at night, when all the Weasleys were asleep. Just the two of them, sitting and talking quietly in the darkness of the nights until they dozed and, somehow, managed to find the few hours of dreamless sleep that still evaded him elsewhere.
Oddly, he never mentioned it to Hermione or anyone else during the day-he never knew why except that their nightly interludes seemed somehow a thing apart from the rest of the world and to mention it during the day seemed as if it would break the strange unreality that lingered about those night conversations.
There were times it almost felt as if he were living two lives-the one during the day when he was nearly constantly tense, feeling half-suffocated by the very affection and concern of the Weasleys, to say nothing of the constant demands on his time and attention from the outside world, all wanting to make much of the Boy Who Lived and Hero of the Second Voldemort War, as the media had already styled him; and the other one during the nights, when he was, somehow, just himself, just Harry.
...
To be continued...
Instead, I give you what amounts to a sneak peek into the fic requested by addisonj who wanted to see a fic about the Trio transitioning from war to peace-time.
As yet untitled and very unfinished...
Harry jerked awake with a sharp gasp.
His heart was pounding, his face sweaty, his throat scratchy from the screams he never allowed himself to scream.
He wasn’t alone in the room. The sound of someone else’s breathing filled his mind and his grip tightened on the wand he never let go of, even in sleep-especially in sleep. He was immediately tensed and poised to leap up, the words of a hex forming in his thoughts, only waited for more of a sense of the person’s location, of the nearest place to duck behind.
It took a full minute of tension before sanity-and reality-broke through the mindless fog of automatic reaction and he remembered, realized. It was only Ron. Of course it was only Ron. He was at the Burrow, sleeping in Ron’s room as he always did at the Burrow.
And the War was over. Voldemort was gone.
They were safe.
Death Eaters were still being rounded up but his role-their role-had mostly ended. It was up to the Aurors now, up to the last, surviving members of the Order.
Harry lay in his bed stiffly, staring up at the ceiling in the darkness.
In. Out. In. Out. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
He tried to regulate his breathing, tried to force his muscles to relax, one by one, but couldn’t fully manage it.
Besides, he hated the darkness. If he had his way, he’d keep so many candles lit up throughout the night, it would be nearly as bright as full daylight.
Darkness meant danger. Darkness provided cover for enemies. Darkness meant increased vigilance was needed. Darkness meant the acrid taste of fear.
And darkness meant sleep-uneasy sleep, stalked by the twin terrors of memory and dread.
He hated sleep now too. Not that he ever got much of it these days. He didn’t think he’d slept more than a few hours, at best, on any night in the last year.
He lay as still as he could, trying to will himself to relax, not to react to the almost-stifling restlessness, the urge to get up and investigate, make sure that nothing lurked outside.
Maybe this was insanity, some corner of his mind suggested coolly-that detached corner of his mind that had developed as a shield of sorts against the emotions, the fear, that would otherwise strangle him. He’d read or heard somewhere that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again expecting the same result and after all, wasn’t that what he did every night, always expecting, always hoping in some corner of himself that this would be the night he could sleep, this would be the night he got the better of the terrors that stalked his dreams?
He heard a creak and almost bolted upright, straining his ears. And heard nothing aside from Ron’s continued steady breathing.
He tried to ease himself down; the creak had only been the usual sounds of a house settling. There was no danger.
To say nothing of the fact that he knew that there were wards put up all around the Burrow.
He ought to know; he was the one to put them up every night. He knew, without saying, that both Mr. and Mrs. Weasley considered it unnecessary (which is why they didn’t do the same); he also knew that Ron, if he’d known, would have said he was acting paranoid, that there was no danger to protect against anymore.
Knowing all that didn’t change the fact that he needed to know the wards were up. They didn’t solve the problem-his current state was proof of that-but they did help.
Harry gave up the battle to keep still and swung his legs off the bed to sit up fully. He was too restless to lie still any longer and decided to get up, double-check the wards, if only to give him something to do.
Moving carefully, he stood up, easing his way across the dark room and opening the door with equal care. Ron might be a heavy sleeper but he knew that others weren’t and he had no wish to wake anyone up.
The Burrow was entirely still and silent, as it should be at that hour, and Harry crept quickly and quietly down the stairs.
He was almost to the front door when he sensed something, some movement, behind him and he whirled, his wand up, his lips parting on a hex-
To find himself staring at the point of another wand and, behind it, a very familiar face and form.
He promptly lowered his wand arm, dropping just that little bit the guard that had flown up automatically. “Jeez, Hermione, what do you think you’re doing? I almost hexed you!” he said in a heated whisper.
“Me? I almost hexed you!” Hermione returned in a whisper, although hers was decidedly calmer than his had been.
It was too dark for him to see much of her face beyond a pale shadow in the darkness but he didn’t need to see her face to know that her expression had softened a little, could hear it in her whisper, as she asked, “You couldn’t sleep either?”
“I can never really sleep,” he admitted. “I was just going to--”
“If you’re about to check on the wards, I just did,” Hermione interrupted him.
He blinked and gaped at her. “How’d you know?” he blurted out.
She made a gesture to indicate the front door. “You were going outside. What else would you be going outside at this hour for?”
He felt a flicker of an odd emotion and realized, belatedly, that it was amusement at her matter-of-fact tone. So very Hermione of her, he thought inanely.
“I actually meant, how did you know I even put up the wards?” Even as he asked it, he knew it was probably a silly question.
“Of course you’d put up wards at night. And even if I didn’t know you would, I’ve seen you taking them down in the mornings and I’ve heard you come down to check on them before.”
It was definitely a silly question; this was Hermione after all. Of course she’d known.
“You- you don’t think it’s silly of me since the War is over and all?”
“Silly? Of course not. And I’m glad you put up the wards; it helps me sleep better at night.”
He relaxed, realizing at that moment how nervous he’d been, how much he hated his own weakness, his inability to relax, to just let it go. He hated his inability to stop feeling afraid, to stop feeling like he was still fighting.
He hated it but for some reason that he couldn’t explain, he felt better knowing that Hermione felt some of the same thing. To her, somehow, he could admit his weakness in a way he couldn’t with anyone else, and doing so didn’t make him feel weaker but in some odd way, almost made him feel stronger, better about it. Maybe it was something about her matter-of-fact acceptance, her unquestioning understanding, but he felt better.
“Let’s go sit down,” Hermione said. “It’s silly of us to just be standing in the hallway like this. Unless,” she paused and glanced back at Harry, “you want to go back to sleep?”
“No!” he burst out involuntarily-although he did somehow remember to keep his voice low--not able to suppress his tiny shudder of reaction. “No,” he repeated more calmly in a whisper.
He felt Hermione’s look but, thankfully, she said nothing more about it as they went into the family room, settling down side by side on the couch.
They were silent for a few minutes, a comfortable silence, somehow, sitting together in the dark as they were.
“I have nightmares too,” Hermione finally said quietly.
He let out a shuddering breath. “Yeah. I- I’m afraid to sleep because of them,” he admitted.
“Oh, Harry… Don’t you ever get to sleep without nightmares?”
“Not lately.”
“It’ll get better, Harry. Really, it will. It’ll just take some time.”
He wasn’t so sure of that but somehow, hearing her say it, he could almost believe it.
“Ron doesn’t seem to have any trouble sleeping.” And even though he tried, he knew that some of the envy he felt over that seeped into his tone.
“I think… it’s different for Ron. This is his home; he grew up here and is surrounded by his family. It makes sense that he’d find it easy to feel safe here.”
“I suppose.” A home. Harry wondered what that must feel like, to have a home that you could feel completely safe in. Hogwarts had been the first home he’d ever really had and Hogwarts no longer felt safe to him, hadn’t proven to be safe for him. And much as he liked being at the Burrow, much as part of him basked in the feeling of being with a real family, he always knew that the Burrow wasn’t his home, the Weasleys weren’t his family.
“I- I envy Ron, you know,” he found himself admitting, his voice very low. “It just seems… so much easier for him.”
“In some ways, it is, but you know that Ron’s life isn’t perfect either.” She paused and then added, in a suspiciously bland tone, “Besides, it must be easier to be happy when all you care about is Quidditch.”
He laughed as he knew she’d intended him to and then was surprised at himself. He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d really laughed, sincerely, not the forced chuckle he tended to use during the days to deflect attention from the fact that he felt positively suffocated from all the attention.
He sensed rather than saw her smile and felt himself relaxing further, feeling some of the ever-present tension ease.
It was still dark but the darkness didn’t seem so terrible now that he wasn’t alone. There was an odd comfort just from being with someone else. The darkness no longer seemed full of lurking dangers.
Another silence fell until all he could hear was the soft sound of his and Hermione’s breathing, the quiet sounds of the night. And for the first time in a very long while, the silence didn’t seem ominous. He simply sat there and enjoyed what felt like the first real moments of peace he’d known in years.
After a while, he felt Hermione lean her head against his shoulder. “This is nice,” she murmured quietly and he knew she understood, felt much the same as he did about this sharing of the darkness with someone else.
It was… nice. A very tame, bland word but oddly fitting, too. Because it wasn’t about drama or intensity; it wasn’t as if he and Hermione were doing anything to ward off the darkness. This was a quiet thing, a calm thing, just him and Hermione, sitting in the dark-and for the first time, he felt as if the War might really be over…
Amazingly, he must have dozed as the next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes to find the pale, gray light of dawn filtering in through the curtains, dully illuminating the room. He must have dozed and, more than that, he had not dreamed.
He squinted across the room to the clock to see that it was just after five in the morning; he had managed to sleep for nearly three hours.
He turned to look down at Hermione, still leaning against his shoulder, to see that she was, apparently, asleep as well, her eyes closed. Seeing her now in the light, he could see the tell-tale shadows under her eyes, proof that her nights had been quite as restless as his had been. He was suddenly very glad that she had managed to get some sleep too.
“Hermione. Hermione, wake up,” he said, his voice gentle, not quite willing to move his shoulder and wake her up more abruptly.
She blinked and opened her eyes to focus on him almost immediately. “Oh, Harry. I must have fallen asleep,” she said, sounding as surprised as he had been.
“We both did,” he answered. “But we should probably go back upstairs before people start waking up.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Hermione pushed herself to her feet, moving with something less than her usual briskness, and he stood up as well, following her out of the room.
“Well, goodnight, Harry,” Hermione said and then paused, “Or, I guess, good morning.”
He felt himself smiling-and it felt unfamiliar enough to give him a moment’s pause. “See you later, Hermione.”
She gave him a small smile in return as she left, heading to Ginny’s room, while he turned towards Ron’s room.
That was how it began. And it became a ritual, a habit, of sorts.
He didn’t think it was really intentional, on either his or Hermione’s parts, but that was how it began, their meeting up at night, when all the Weasleys were asleep. Just the two of them, sitting and talking quietly in the darkness of the nights until they dozed and, somehow, managed to find the few hours of dreamless sleep that still evaded him elsewhere.
Oddly, he never mentioned it to Hermione or anyone else during the day-he never knew why except that their nightly interludes seemed somehow a thing apart from the rest of the world and to mention it during the day seemed as if it would break the strange unreality that lingered about those night conversations.
There were times it almost felt as if he were living two lives-the one during the day when he was nearly constantly tense, feeling half-suffocated by the very affection and concern of the Weasleys, to say nothing of the constant demands on his time and attention from the outside world, all wanting to make much of the Boy Who Lived and Hero of the Second Voldemort War, as the media had already styled him; and the other one during the nights, when he was, somehow, just himself, just Harry.
...
To be continued...