The darkness surrounds me

Whispers surround me in waking. Once again, my hand is grasped tightly in another.

“I don’t think we should bring it up, Harry. ” I hear on my left. “Minerva said he wasn’t too happy about it, and he has been out since she told him. So I think we should just keep quiet for a while. ”

“I understand, Hermione, but you have to realize that what I did was the only thing I could do. I want to thank him, but there is just no way big enough to show my gratitude. ”

I almost want to sigh. Seven years, seven years have these two hated me, despised me and mistrusted me. And now that they have learned my motives, they are here because… because what? Because they feel guilty? Because they pity me? I do not wish to be pitied. I wish to be left alone. No one who has lived around me knows who I am. Not the Potter boy, nor the Granger girl. Not Minerva, who had so readily believed me dark after last year, nor Lucius, who had never known who I really worked for. The only person who ever really knew me was long gone, murdered by my father many years before. No one had the right to sit by my bed and hold my hand as though they loved me. They didn’t. Most didn’t even like me.

I jerk my hand out of the girl’s grasp and open my eyes.

“I thought I told you two to leave?”

Great, my voice is back to raspy.

They both look at me with wide eyes, both poised as if to speak, but neither produces the necessary sounds. For good measure, I glare at them both before locking my gaze into Potter’s.

“Was I not perfectly clear the last time?” I ask him. He looks down at his feet, his fingers fumbling with the edge of one of my sheets. I really wish the daft brat wouldn’t do that. I can feel it slipping ever so slightly on the other side, and I am not inclined to see what is underneath the sheets.

“We were worried, sir. ” He says.

Ha! Worried? About me? No you weren’t.

“Stop lying to me, Potter. ” On my other side I can hear the girl starting to sniffle again. Oh what now?

“Miss Granger, will you kindly stop your incessant crying? It will do nothing to improve my mood, I assure you. Now, will one of you tell me why you both insist on sitting by my bedside, or will I have to call Minerva to have you both removed indefinitely from my side?”

I could not be clearer than that, could I? I could feel something wet hit my left hand, and I would’ve bet all my galleons, assuming I still had any, that the daft bint hadn’t stopped crying and was now on the verge of bawling her eyes out. Great, just great. But I have to hand it to her, she didn’t make a sound.

Potter lets himself fall into the chair behind him with a heavy sigh, and in the moment, his green eyes shining up at me, he looks years older. He looks like a man. Though I have probably seen a lot worse, I do not wish to know what he has seen and lived through to become this mature that fast. I just don’t want to know. Every hardship he has lived through means another failure on my part to protect him.

“After I viewed your memories, I went out to die. ”

He merely looks at me, and I nod. I know what he tries to tell me. After all, I was the one to, albeit indirectly, tell him. The boy nods back.

“If you want to, you have my memories to view. Long story short, I killed him. ” He even punctuated it with a shrug.

 “I heard afterwards that Hermione had gone back while I was gone, to see if she could save you. She was unsuccessful. She closed the wound on your neck, but she was convinced you had bled out. ”

That was punctuated by a sob to my left. I barely contained the urge to roll my eyes. I believe I was the one to die? Not her.

“So I went back with the only thing I could think of. Dumbledore once gave me a vial of Phoenix tears. Though if you were really dead already, it should not have worked. And I was convinced it hadn’t. I sat with you for almost an hour, checking your pulse and breathing and whatever I could think of, I did. But you didn’t respond. You were dead, I am sure of it. No pulse, no breath. Because I didn’t want to levitate you, I went back to the castle to find someone who could help me carry you. You must’ve woken up when I was still in the building.”

I sighed, none of that explained to me why they were here, and I could already feel my eyes droop.

“So you feel guilty?” I venture.

“No sir, not guilt. ” Her voice is choked with tears, and it is filled with enough sorrow to cut through skin. Though it doesn’t affect me one bit. Those tears are not for me, they are for her.

“It’s gratitude, I think. You did so much for us, and … “ She sobs some more.

“I’m sorry about Hermione, sir. She has been doing that for almost a week now. She is convinced it will be out of her system soon enough, though. Something about nerves?”

I am getting thoroughly confused now. I look from the crying young woman on my left to the cold and collected young man on my right. What the hell is going on? The only thing I learned from this is that Granger is highly emotional, understandable, but annoying, and that I had died and I am not dead anymore. But I still don’t have a good answer to my question. Why are they here? I’m still going with guilt. By the sound of it, that’s what it is.

“Potter?” I ask him. “Did you show my memories to anyone?”

“No sir.” He shakes his head. “I did not. I have them placed in a vial in my vault at Gringotts. No one can get to them but me. ”

I nod. That was a good thing to do.

Wait, Gringotts? “How long have I been out?”

“Since Minerva told you about the order of Merlin, it’s been a week. Since the final battle? About a month.”

“About the order of Merlin…”

“Don’t yell at me too sir. You have exerted yourself enough in the last ten minutes. Poppy will have my head if I scream you into a week-long coma like Minerva did. They have been fighting all week about your condition.” The boy chuckles.

“I have managed to get the ceremony were we get our orders of Merlin pushed up to next week, so all you have to do is stay in bed until then. Though Kingsley might come to give it to you himself, he’s minister now, just because he’s Kingsley. I almost envy you, if I had been confined to a bed like you, they would have brought the ceremony to me.”

Somewhere during his laugh, I fall back asleep.