Submerging

I live in a world of physical pain. I hate the way my body has betrayed me. Turned on me, made me a prisoner of flesh and bone… There isn’t much that magical medicine hasn’t figured out how to improve or cure. I’m one of the lucky ones. Sure, everything is healed. But that doesn’t stop the pain. The medical world, magical or muggle, is still discovering, still lacking.

Wizarding medicine hasn’t figured out how to correct eyesight yet. Harry’s glasses often get in the way when we’re sent out to fight. He and I went into muggle London and got him contacts. He’s a different person without his glasses. Those are the times when, if it’s possible, I find a way to love him a little more. It’s the eyes I guess.

His lenses hid their depths, his intensity. The arms obscure the sides of his face; the bridge hides the strength of his nose. I suppose it’s a bit silly to think such a small object can change so much, but it’s true. Without the glasses I can see straight into his soul. He opens up to me and allows me inside. It’s one of the three places I’m safe. It’s one of the three places I can go to escape the pain.

They tried to split us up, you see. It was just a routine raid. But they wanted us to divide in half; two of us each go with an Auror. We fought with them. We argued with them. They refused to relent. We have so many battles to fight these days that we finally caved. The four of us being together (I mean being together) caused enough arguments with outsiders as it were. We had learned to pick our battles, choose our fights. This was one time we shouldn’t have backed down. We haven’t since.

I know which defensive spells they’ll cast first. I know their offensive tricks as well as they know mine. Oh, there’s no real rhyme or reason to the order we chose to use our weaponry, but we’ve become so close we all know. They don’t know. But they split us up anyway.

I was sent out with Harry and an Auror named Rane. Our other half was sent with an Auror named Shelby. Both of the Aurors knew their stuff. They train daily in combat. But they don’t know us. Not the way we know each other. My boys could have saved me. My mind has no doubt of that. But we were split and the spell hit and Harry was just a second too late and I was flying.

There were more Death Eaters than we had anticipated. (But that always seemed to be the case so I don’t know why we haven’t learned to send more of our side out on these hellish excursions.) By the time Harry had fought his way over to me, I wasn’t breathing. He told me later I was lying at odd angles and that I had been thrown over forty-six feet from where I had started. My landing was cushioned by a tree, so no worries…

Harry did CPR and the first time his lips covered mine, breath soared through my body. They were afraid to move me. They couldn’t tell where the injuries started and where they ended. I was a bloody mess – literally. There were too many Death Eaters and there wasn’t a choice. Harry would never leave me behind. I still remember hearing his voice, broken sobs making the words hard to understand, as he pulled me into his arms and carried me to safety.

Apologies were the words I heard second most from Harry after the phrase ‘I love you’. He insists my injuries were his fault. I insist it was their fault. That if it hadn’t been for him – for the magical touch of his lips over mine - I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. Nonetheless, he still takes the blame. I don’t complain around him, nor do I let my pain show. I don’t know what’s harder, masking my agony or knowing no matter what I say, I can’t take the burden of my injury from his shoulders.

I fractured five vertebrae. My collarbone was broken just above the juncture to my right shoulder. That same shoulder’s blade slid two inches to the right and shifted an inch lower than where it belonged. It broke into three pieces. My shoulder itself shattered. The socket was in so many pieces the Healer joked about not being able to find them all. I didn’t laugh.

Three ribs on my left side broke in both the front and the back. My hips were fractured, along with my right knee, and left ankle. If that wasn’t enough, the tree that ‘caught’ me was lovely enough to jab one of its limbs into my right eye causing a blood spot and it scratched deep gashes across my face. Like I said, I was a bloody mess.

We normally conduct ourselves properly. No major scenes, nothing to draw attention to us – more than what comes with the territory anyway. (How many times do people really get to see the Boy-Who-Lived with his entourage of lovers?) But at St. Mungo’s we turned more heads than a dragon parading down the center of Diagon Alley would have done.

Harry refused to leave my side. He used worse profanity than I’ve ever heard even Ron use. They still told him to leave. He refused. By the time they were done giving me the initial care routine, Harry had hexed a security wizard and had threatened to do worse if anyone else so much as whispered for him to leave. For one of the first times ever, I encouraged his misbehavior. I needed him with me.

They didn’t want to let the others back when they got there. We felt them enter the building, I could taste their fear and my heart went out to them. I concentrated; trying to open the mental link the four of us had been working on building. Their worry was too great, causing too much resistance, and I was too weak to try any harder.

We heard the shouts in the hallway, the fight they put up against the hospital’s workers. I couldn’t stop grinning as the doors to the wing were blasted open and my other two boys burst in. Panic and anger wagered a war dance in their eyes. I thought they were beautiful. Hair mussed, dirt covered, tension filled gods, walking around on this forsaken planet just to come see me. Maybe it was the potions talking. Maybe my boys are just that sexy. Personally, I think it’s the latter.

Their eyes fell on me and they ran to join us. Ron caught Harry in an embrace, his eyes locking with me over Harry’s shoulder. I smiled at him. Draco’s eyes had lingered on Harry, aware of the distress he was in, but knowing Ron would take care of him. Draco didn’t slow down until he was seated on the bed, hips even with mine, leaning carefully over me, his lips seeking mine. Assured I was alive, that I was still me and not a mirage, he pulled back. But he didn’t leave my side.

Ron had calmed Harry and led him to the opposite side of the bed from where Draco perched. Harry sat down first, Ron behind him, and they each took one of my hands in theirs. I smiled, told them I loved them, and closed my eyes. The pain had eased.

After I was released from St. Mungo’s I got back into training as soon as I could. All of the guys told me not to push myself. But I was determined and they all knew what that meant. They trained with me and told me in no uncertain terms I was not to train for more than four hours a day for the first month. I humored them for two weeks. Then I joined back into the usual regiment.

Ron started a new routine. Every night he would ask me to lie down in front of the fireplace on my stomach and he would massage my back. Ron has magical hands. Cliché, right? But there’s no better terminology to describe it. Under his ministrations the pain fades, I’m more flexible than I otherwise am, and he talks to me the whole time. He makes me laugh. He keeps the little kid in me alive. Under Ron’s hands… it’s the second place I can go to escape the pain.

We’re sent out on another raid less than two months after the one I was injured in. I woke up stiff and feigned a headache, allowing me to wait until everyone else had gotten up to start the day. Slowly, I crawled from the bed and began my stretches. The pain didn’t ebb. It throbbed relentlessly, making every step a journey through the twelve layers of hell. Damn my body. I’m too young to feel like this! This pain… it’s for the elderly. For the arthritic, for the diseased, and bedridden. I’m none of those things! I am barely a woman – hardly more than a girl and already I’m reduced to a battered shell in which I’ll have to spend the rest of my days. Draco’s eyes bore into me when he hands me my morning coffee and I know he knows.

I plead silently with my eyes, begging him not to tell the others. Not to tell Harry. I have to go. I have to be there. And he understands. Acknowledges my request with a nod and a chaste kiss to the forehead. I sigh and lean into the counter. For a second I think of calling Draco back into the kitchen with me, but I know he’s gone to begin his warm up session and it would be selfish of me to do so. I content myself with wrapping my hands around my warm mug and enjoying the sun’s appearance over the horizon.

Night falls and we take our places. This time we’re together. This time we’ll be safe.

The battle is the most bloody yet. We take turns saving each other. We have a rotating defense. One person attacks while the others defend, then we switch positions. No one is left unattended. No one is left open to surprise attacks. We keep each other safe; we keep each other alive.

The Death Eaters retreat. We wait before we emerge. Holding position is important. We don’t want to just run amuck as soon as the opposition disappears. What if they decide to pop back to share a spot of tea? We’d be sitting ducks wearing neon targets.

So we sit. I heal the minor abrasions the boys had gotten; Ron heals me. (Growing up with five older brothers teaches you a thing or two about healing spells.)

The signal sounds and we emerge. Slowly we pick our way through the debris. We roll bodies over, wands aimed. (Constant vigilance.) We’re checking for survivors. From their side, to obtain information or hold as prisoners of war, and from our side, in hopes we reach them in time to save their lives.

Ron and Harry are off to my left, Draco to my right, moving across the sea of carcasses in a straight line. I kneel and place my hand on a shoulder. There’s no movement. I roll the body to lie on its back. The familiar face staring blindly into the darkened sky hits me like a punch to the stomach. I turn and retch. Over and over. I can’t stop. When my body has nothing left to offer, I dry heave. The sound is worse than a cat coughing up a hairball. My body wracks with the effort. Sweat coats my skin and I shake violently.

Draco was at my side by the time I turned around. He held my hair up and rubbed my back. He spoke softly into my ear, murmuring words of comfort. I couldn’t make out what he was saying but his voice had a lulling effect. The moment I started to calm down, Harry’s voice broke through the buzzing in my ears. He had seen too. He knew. My own pain double and I curled in on myself, lying in the mud near my own vile regurgitation.

Draco didn’t hesitate. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into his lap. He cleaned me of filth with a flick of his wand and I sought the comfort of his body against mine. He held me, rocking back and forth as we sat in a field of the damned. Ron and Harry still stood, just off to our side, but they were white noise for the moment. A part of the background. I had found my third place of escape – Draco’s arms.

Battle weary and worn we dragged ourselves back to Grimmauld place. We all had our own bedrooms. It was rather pointless though. There hadn’t been a night yet we didn’t sleep in one another’s rooms or, as we had taken to lately, slept all together on a transfigured bed in the parlor.

We took turns in the shower, if only to wash away the remains of death. Ron and I went in together, Harry and Draco went when we were through. As we walked from the bathroom, I stopped Ron and kissed him. When we pulled away from one another I told him I loved him and he returned the sentiment.

Ron built up the fire in the hearth as I started to put together a dinner. I felt the urge to be sick again at the sight of the food and walked quickly from the kitchen. I didn’t break stride until I was in Harry’s office. I yanked open the cabinet doors and emerged with my treasure.

By the time everyone had met in the parlor, ready for sleep, I had a tray with five shot glasses waiting. Everyone took a glass and stared at the one remaining. I bit back on my tears, refusing them an appearance. We raised our tumblers in silent salute to our lost comrade, our lost friend. The Fire Whiskey burned over my tongue and all the way to its known destination. I revealed in the feel of it. A pain inflicted by choice. It was much sweeter this way. The damnation was at my hand, by my choice, not handed out by the cruelties of fate.

Harry banished the tray and its contents and we crawled into bed. Harry first, then me, followed by Draco, and bookcased by Ron. I laid down on my side, Harry facing me, searching my eyes for an answer I didn’t have. I kissed his forehead and told him I loved him. He repeated the words to me, but didn’t look away. I was glad he didn’t. His eyes were a drug and I wanted to indulge.

A sigh escaped as Draco’s arms closed around me. He kissed my neck and whispered he loved me. I whispered the same to him. Ron’s arm fell over Draco and his hand came to rest on my hip. He gave just the slightest tightening of his fingers and I ran my hand over his. Love.

Feeling no pain, I pulled Harry closer. We hid in the dark. We hid in each other. But with all the things we met head on, I would say we were entitled. When we turned to each other like this, it was more than running from the real world. It was a moment we stole from time to remember why we were fighting.

You see, if we didn’t have each other, there would be nothing worth fighting for. We wouldn’t have reason to hide. We would just go out and meet death straight on. But that’s not our style. Because we do have each other. And we always will. No matter how odd the group of us is. No matter what obstacle stands in our way. Together we are stronger than we could ever be apart. Together we’re invincible. And when we’re together? There is no pain.