The Curse of Charon

Chapter Fifteen

Harry found that it wasn't easy to go back to being normal, but it was almost the Easter holidays, and he was going to Ireland with Draco, so he found himself managing, albeit barely. Luckily, the teachers had been very understanding, and had spared most of the sixth-years homework for the final week of the term.

He was in Potions class, and even Snape was somewhat subdued. He had not expressed any feelings over the matter of Neville's death, but Harry had occasionally seen him look over at the empty space where he used to sit, with a look of what could only be described as deep sadness. Maybe Snape liked Neville more than anyone had known.

Also, the professor seemed to be fiddling with his sleeves and cuffs a lot more than usual when he was thinking during quiet spells in lessons.

Harry then turned his attention to Draco. Draco had been so nice to him; he had been a constant comforting presence, allowing Harry the support he so desperately needed. He would have liked to talk to him now, maybe even to have him hold him as he had done so many times over the last few days, but he knew it was impossible. Only Hermione knew about their relationship, and anyway, Draco was deep in concentration, planning the essay Snape had set them to start during the lesson and finish for homework.

He found himself looking to where Snape had been looking minutes before, to the empty seat on the bench behind. No one had sat on that bench at all, preferring to squeeze in next to others or sit in other empty seats. It was like no one wanted to surround the space that would never again be filled because no one wanted to acknowledge the gaping hole that Neville's death had left in their lives.

The first few days had been strange, as though no one knew exactly how to behave, especially around Harry and the other Gryffindors who had been closest to Neville. Now, however, now that the 'honeymoon period' was over, a strange sort of silence had descended over most of the sixth year, over most of the school in general. It had not been revealed to the whole school that Neville's death had been self-inflicted, and people were afraid to talk to Harry and his friends, afraid to talk to their own friends about what had happened, afraid to approach any teachers, afraid to ask questions.

Harry found this both tedious and ridiculous. It was obvious that some people honestly just wanted to know what had happened, and he couldn't see any harm in them asking. It was partly the fact that false rumours were likely to be spread that irritated him, and partly the fact that it felt like people were treating him like a fragile object, liable to break at any second.

He wasn't afraid to stand up and face the cruel light of the morning after the terrible events of the night. This was the aftermath, and although it was not possible to feel anywhere near good about it, he at least wanted to feel more comfortable with it than he currently did.

His attention was brought back to the class he was currently attending when Professor Snape let out a strange sort of cry and fled from the room into his private chambers. The commotion caused many of the students to look up from their essays or daydreams. None of them knew why Snape had left, there certainly did not seem to be any sort of reason or catalyst for his sudden disappearance.

After he had not returned, although five minutes had passed, Ron got up from his seat and made his way to the front of the room.

"I can't speak for everyone," he said, as the room fell silent. "But as a friend of Neville, and a friend of more who were his friends, I have to say that I'm sick of this silence. It's plain to be seen that many of you who were not close to him would like to know exactly what happened, and I don't see why you shouldn't want to know that. After all, you have a right to know. You shared classes with him, maybe sat next to him a few times, or said hello in the corridors, all of you knew him in some way.

"Neville killed himself. He jumped off the Astronomy Tower in the early hours of Sunday morning. No one knows exactly why, but various things that have been found, such as his notebook, and the letters he left to his friends, suggest that at the time of his death he was very unhappy. We all miss him terribly. It was a tragic event. But please, please don't think badly of Neville because of this. Like Dumbledore said, we should remember him as he was."

Ron, whose face was now bright red, returned to his seat, crashing into a number of wooden stools on the way. The room was still silent, all were too shocked to speak.

Hermione smiled at him weakly, and Harry muttered that it had to be done. Ron nodded and went back to working on his essay, and Harry went back to thinking.

*

In the privacy of his room, his very own bedroom, most sacred of all his chambers, Severus took off his robes and rolled up the left sleeve of the shirt he wore beneath them. There they were, he saw them clearly, still visible even though fourteen years had passed.

It had been his first year of teaching, the year after he had split from Voldemort, the one after the year he had met Julia. It had been the year she had been killed in a Quidditch accident, the year he had felt everything go from bad to worse. There had been nothing left to do, nothing left to live for. He had no one, he hated his job, over half the staff still didn't trust him. For months he woke up into a darkness almost as black as the night had been, if he slept at all. When he did not, the night and the day melted into one, a garish, colourful orgy of pleasures lost and chances missed and roads not taken. Until one day he had decided that enough was enough, decided that it was time to leave all the bad things behind.

Yes, he could still see them now, two scars running vertically up his arm, and if he pressed them down he could feel the pulse beneath.

His first thought, upon hearing of Longbottom's death, had been that he himself had been lucky, someone had found him before it was too late. His second, third and later thoughts had been nothing so hopeful. Of course, he had potions he had brewed himself that, if necessary, could chase the black clouds in his head away. He took far fewer of these potions now than he had done in the past, which most people would see as a good thing, but Severus knew better. He took less now because then he had been afraid, afraid of the side of himself that deserved to be locked away. Increasingly these days, he spent time with the dark side. It was no good to him; he knew exactly where immersing himself within himself had gotten him the last time, yet there was something almost magnetic, something charismatic even, about the part of his personality that had once sentenced the whole to death.

Seeing the empty space where Longbottom had once sat had brought a few things back to him. Firstly the fact that there ought to have been two spaces in the room, not just one, that he himself should have been space as well. And secondly, the fact that not half as many people would have cared about his death as they had Longbottom's.

The whole thing was really rather depressing, and he eyed the vial on his bookshelf carefully, knowing with every inch of his body that he should take the potion within it immediately, but he did not. He did not want to feel all right for a little while, to go back to class. He wanted to lock himself in his room and curl up into a little man-shaped ball and stay there forever.

*

"Severus...I'm not quite sure what to say to you...I don't know what you want to hear..."

Dumbledore was pacing in front of his window, looking out at the view of the lake and the forest. Severus remained silent, looking down at his hands. When he turned them over he could see his own blood, crusted around his wrist and arm. He hadn't bothered to wash it off, and didn't really want to.

"I mean...I could scold you...tell you not to be so stupid. I could suggest you talk to someone...I just don't think saying either of those things would make much of a difference. I just want you to know that there are people who care about you, people who don't want you to die...you're a young man, Severus...there's plenty more you can do with your life...do you want to take some time off?"

Severus raised his head to look at the old man before him, a man who had faith in him, who had trusted him when no one else would. A man who meant a lot to him, a man who obviously had no idea how to talk to him. No one seemed to know what to say to him anymore...Madam Pomfrey had not said a word to him all the time he had been in the Hospital apart from 'drink this' and 'eat something'.

"I would like to take some time off, yes. I would also like to sleep for once."

Dumbledore nodded gravely.

"Yes...I will get some potions made up for you, Severus, not because I think you're incompetent but because you need a rest...there is one I'd like you to try...I think it might help you."

Severus nodded, his eyes burning with tears he had not let himself cry, for his mother, for his father who had beaten her, for Julia, for himself. Much as they prickled and hurt him, he would not let them come. Especially not in front of Dumbledore.

The headmaster gave him a slip of parchment which he took to Madam Pomfrey, and in return for it she gave him two bottles of potion, one labelled 'sleep' and one without a label. She instructed him to take some of each that evening, the unlabelled one just after dinner and the one marked 'sleep' an hour before he wished to do so.

*

Ever since he had relied on the bottle of unmarked potion to get him through the day.

*

Harry was slow to pack up his things, as he had been every day since the weekend, so Draco waited outside the classroom for him after all the other students had gone. Harry smiled as he saw him lounging against the wall.

"Are you ok?" Draco asked. Harry nodded and smiled again, although it was not his usual smile, the one that seemed to have the ability to knock Draco over. It was a different smile, slightly forced, slightly weak, slightly fragile. It was what showed Draco that much as Harry was pretending, he was not ok.

"Come on," he said. "Come to my room. It's near here. I have something to show you."

On the way they talked about all sorts of things, like Ireland. Draco had already packed. Harry had not.

When they got to the dungeon room, Draco motioned to Harry to sit down on the bed while he retrieved his guitar from inside his wardrobe. He then sat on the bed as well, and after a moment of tuning the instrument he began to play something very beautiful, so much so that Harry's eyes began to water.

"That's lovely," he whispered. Draco smiled.

"I wrote it for you."

*

"What are we going to do now, then?" Ron asked quietly, as he and Hermione sat in the common room. It was quite late, and most people had gone to bed. They were alone.

"What do you mean?" Hermione replied.

"Well...a lot of stuff has happened lately...big stuff, I mean."

"You don't think...you're not telling me you thing we should break up, are you?" she asked, her heart suddenly pounding, her mind whirling.

"No," he replied. "I think we should start over again. Make a fresh start. Pretend that none of this ever happened, and that things are like they always were. You're good for me, Hermione, and I want things to be the way they used to be."

She jumped up from her seat and flung her arms around him; hugging him so hard he had difficulty breathing.

*

The guitar now rested against the closed door of the wardrobe, and although the music had long since stopped, some of it's light tone and lilting melody still stayed in the room, like a fragrant breath of air in the dense atmosphere of the dungeon.

They lay together on the bed. Draco was stretched out, his arms tucked between his head and the headboard. Harry lay on his side, his arms around Draco's waist, his face hidden in his lover's hips.

"I don't know what I'd do without you, not when all this has hurt so much," he said. "When I'm with you, I feel safe."

"Why?" Draco asked without thinking.

"Of course I feel safe with you. I know you'd never hurt me."

You're a bloody fool, Harry, Draco thought, wishing he had never gotten involved with Harry, wishing he had never let it go as far as it had gone, wishing he had defied his father, wishing he had never let himself fall in love.

*

Within the same castle walls, beneath the same castle roof, was another person who wished he had never fallen in love, although Remus did not wish he had never let himself fall in love. There had been no letting on any account. The truth was, he had just fallen.

It had been glorious then, in the golden days of old, when the four of them would go and eat out together, or take trips to the zoo or the park, or just sit at home and talk about their futures over a bottle of wine. Or, if he remembered correctly, several bottles of wine.

There had been no future for James and Lily; they had been cheated out of their future by a greater evil, and had died to preserve a greater good, and at the same time as they had lost their futures, little Harry had lost his parents.

Sirius had not had much of a future either. The hand that life had dealt him had been very harsh indeed; twelve years' incarceration, two years of running, one year of waiting, death.

And then Remus himself. When he thought to what he had wished for in his future, and what had actually happened, he found many differences. Firstly, and in his opinion most importantly, he had wanted to stay with Sirius forever. In reality, he had been as alone during the twelve years as Sirius himself had, and been so busy with Order work in the last year of his love's life that they had barely seen each other.

After that, he had wanted to stay friends with James and Lily, to have them all be there for each other forever. That had not happened either.

And what, in the end, exactly had happened to his future. There didn't seem to have been one. It had been the first time since knowing Sirius that they had ever been apart for very long. Remus had spent twelve years waiting for Sirius, without hope of ever seeing him again, twelve long years of looking desperately for paid work that didn't involve stripping or whoring himself, twelve years of living friendlessly and alone. Twelve years of utter hell.

Then when Sirius escaped, he had had such hopes. They could have gotten a house together, gotten married, spent their lives together as they had done before. But it was not to be; of course, life had tried to crush them once already and, having failed the first time, came back for another go at it.

It had succeeded a second time; Sirius had been on the run for almost a year after his escape, then when he had finally been able to settle down, one of them was always busy, or tired, or some other excuse that meant they hardly saw each other at all in that year, the last of Sirius' life.

Remus knew that this had been partially his fault, but still felt enormous self-pity when he considered what he had lost.

*

"How many jumpers do I need to take?" Dean asked, whilst sifting through random articles of clothing that he recognised as belonging to himself.

Seamus smiled.

"Take as many as you want, but remember, it's Ireland, not Iceland!"

"I might be cold, though.

"It's Ireland. Take a raincoat and you'll be fine."

Dean continued to root through his clothes, occasionally throwing socks and shirts into the scruffy open suitcase on his bed.

"I'm really looking forward to it, you know," he said, being still for a moment.

"Me too," Seamus replied, and hugged him. Then they got back to packing, in anticipation of a trip, a trip with consequences that neither of them could have possibly imagined, not whilst packing together in the boys' dormitory at Hogwarts.

*

"Shall we stay here over the holidays, or do you want to come to The Burrow?" Ron asked Hermione as they sat in the common room the evening before the last day of the term.

"Well...Draco and Harry are going to Ireland, so we might as well stay here and have some space to ourselves."

As she spoke, Ron's expression changed slightly.

"What did you say...about Harry and...Malfoy?"

"They're going to Ireland," she repeated. His face was very red, the colour it turned when he was angry or embarrassed.

"Together?" he asked. She gave him a withering look.

"Of course together, Ron. How else would they go?"

Ron muttered something incomprehensible.

There was a short silence, then he spoke again.

"I thought they hated each other."

"Not any more, it seems," she said, and sat down next to him on the big leather sofa.

Ron made a face.

"Try and be nice about it if you see them before they go," she said softly.

He made another face, but nodded, before kissing her.