Lilly's Secrets

A/N~ This is my next chapter fic I promised.  I hope you enjoy.  The pairing is to be a surprise, so just read and enjoy.  The slash comes in later chapters, but for now I really want to welcome you to my world, where my boys can play. If you review, I would appreciate it.  If you rate, I will be humbly thankful.  All types of reviews are appreciated.

Warnings: Angst

Harry's mind was chaos, there was destruction, pain, guilt, grief and so much more roiling around inside his head.

"Can I talk to you?" Ginny whispered quietly, looking at Harry surveying the great hall.

Harry looked at her, hoping for some signs of comfort, but instead he saw grief and pain mirrored in her eyes as well.

"Sure," Harry replied, he was just numb from it all.

"I don't think we can be together right now Harry.  We both have seen so much, and lost so much.  I can't give you what you need to get through all this, and right now, I just want to grieve and be with my family. I can't do a romantic relationship right now. And after today, I don't think I can do it with you.  You saved so many, but you have become more like a brother to me.  Please don't be angry." Ginny looked pleading, and lost all at the same time.

"I don't feel anger anymore, I am not sure what to feel right now.  Go be with them, Lay Fred to rest. I got to go." Harry started moving out of the Great Hall.  It started suffocating him, he could barely breathe, barely process her last words.  It was not as if his heart were breaking, but the overwhelming amount of information and devastation there was to process was bringing him to his knees.

"Where are you going?" She asked, quietly almost whispering.

"To the only place I feel 'Home'" Harry replied, turned, and ran.  He ran down the halls of Hogwarts, fleeing the death and the destruction, pain and grief.  He climbed stairs that now stood still for him to reach his destination, as if the castle understood his utter need for something even he couldn't grasp.  The painting of the Fat Lady looked at him and opened without hesitation, upon closing, she left her painting so no one could enter.  Harry walked past couches and chairs towards the stairs he had ascended so many times, bringing him closer to his destination.  He opened the heavy wooden door to peer into that room, and wondered over to his bed.  He hadn't been there this last year, but it was still his bed.  His home, his solace.

Harry sat down and sunk slightly into the mattress; tears welled up in his eyes and fell as giant sobs wracked his whole body.  Years of grief swept over him, physical pain was not even a shadow in his mind.  The ghosts of his mother, father, Sirius, Remus, Moody, Dobby, Fred, Cedric, Tonks, Dumbledore and now Severus Snape swam in his memories.  Their eyes were always soft, but he felt that somehow he had failed them by living.  He was supposed to die in the end, not live.  Living hurt.  Living was painful.  In that last moment with Ginny, even as correct as she was about their relationship, he still had lost everyone at that point. All real connections seemed but a fingertip away, but he just couldn't reach them.

Harry slumped to his bed, sobbing, heaving, and trying to breathe through the pain and chaos.  He couldn't close his eyes, the blood gushing from Snape’s neck and the scream as Voldemort was reduced to ash... not visions he wished to relive.  So his eyes became glazed and unseeing.

A wrenching and grinding, tremors shook the tower, but still he did not move. Somewhere just outside the door was a small thumping, a yellow glow lit under the door.  Harry did not even notice when the door creaked open, he slid into an unconscious, open-eyed slumber. 

Tendrils of light streamed into the room, not dazzling bright, but a soft brightness, that slid warmth across Harry’s cheek.  As he opened his eyes, which had closed sometime in the night, He tried to focus on something, anything.  The bed he was in, felt as if it were holding him, comforting him. In a way he was comforted, it was familiar.  Gryffindor tower was always his home. He tried to stretch his body, parts of him felt on fire, while others ached badly.  He planted his feet on the ground, and moved to the alcove with a window.

The view had changed. No longer was he looking over the vast grounds of Hogwarts from a high perch, but instead he was looking over the glassy lake from a much lower vantage point.  Harry stretched out the window to get a better look, and found the tower pretty much intact, but it seemed to have moved from the castle, to the ground and grown to be attached to a cottage below, a rather round cottage.  Harry was a bit startled, and went to move towards the door when he stumbled on something.

It was a leather bound bundle of parchment.  The parchment and leather were not that old, but they were not new either.  There was writing on the outside of the leather that seemed to glow brighter as he looked at it.  The yellow Glow outlined the words: To Harry Potter, my beloved son.  From Lilly Potter, your devoted mother.

His hands trembled as he released the tie that bound the parchment.  He backed up slowly to sit on his bed and read.

The first parchment contained what seemed to be words of charms placed on the package, the second page contained a list entitled Requirements for release.

1. Harry Potter must be alive

2. Voldemort must be dead

3. The soul mate to Harry Potter must be alive

4. The soul mate and harry potter must be separated

5. They both must be grieving

Harry was a bit startled by the last three, he was not expecting that.  So he moved on to the next page which held Lilly's beautiful handwriting.

~TBC – Please rate. Please Review or Comment.