Ruminations

"I feel I owe you another explanation, Harry," said Dumbledore hesitantly. "You may, perhaps, have wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess... that I rather thought...you had enough responsibility to be going on with."

Harry looked up at him and saw a tear trickling down Dumbledore's face into his long silver beard.

* * *

Harry lay in his four-poster bed in the Gryffindor Dormitory that evening and let the questions run through his aching head. There was no point in trying to sleep, as he had noticed after making an attempt and waking up in a cold sweat just remembering what had happened to Sirius.

Why had Sirius gone and died? He had Harry and Lupin still to look after! If he'd just moved a little more the right, would he still be alive? Who was next to die gruesomely? Hermione? Ron? He hoped Umbridge. That woman--if she could possibly be described as that and not an overgrown frog--had put everyone through so much anguish and hardship she would have deserved it.

Ah, wishing death, now, are we? A strange voice within him that sounded sinister and evil asked him. Harry didn't answer. He just looked at the folds in the canopy above him and wished for Sirius to be alive. Even if he hadn't chosen to become a ghost, Harry hadn't even gotten to say goodbye properly. But, no. That would have been better, and things were never better for Harry.

First year had been trying, but not this much. He had still had the hope that he had driven Voldemort away forever, and he still had happiness. Second year wasn't wonderful, people shunning him and all, but he had been young and oh so much more naïve to think that Tom Riddle would end it all. Third year had found him Sirius and Remus, his two surrogate parents, but him through so much grief. Fourth year had gotten more trying and he had experience his first brush with death. Cedric. Then this. This year had been horrific. Why couldn't it just all go away?

Harry wouldn't tell Hermione or Ron about that prophesy that Dumbledore had shown him. They had enough to think about as it was. Why they were still friends with them after everything he had done to them--snapped at them for nothing, outright shouted at them for things they couldn't control, and put them in so much danger--was completely beyond him. No, this would stay with Harry and only with him. He would not burden them with matters that they could nothing about.

As much as he loved Ron and Hermione, they couldn't make things right with the flick of a wand or a hug, as much as they thought they could. Harry knew that. He had treated them so horribly this year. They were his only loyal and true friends to date, and although he had taken things out on them that he shouldn't have, he could only hope they would still stay with him when he needed them most. He knew Hermione would try her best, but even she had a breaking point. Even she was human, as much as she would absolutely hate to admit to it.

Harry had said he didn't want to be human to Dumbledore during their row in the headmaster's office, and he had meant it at the time. He would have given anything in the world not to be Harry Potter. Perhaps, he could be a butterfly or a robin or something else uncomplicated? Anything but himself.

Professor Dumbledore had dropped a bomb on him during that meeting. He was supposed to murder or be murder by a Lord of Dark Magic that was stronger than almost every single wizard that Harry had ever met. Fantastic. Harry, for some reason, was thinking that the 'be murdered by' was the most likely course of events. Perhaps that was just his pessimism getting its hopes up, but one can never tell, can one? And the prophecy had been predicted by a Divination teacher that had an unwavering habit of predicting his death five times a class period. Bloody brilliant. Really.

At least now he knew he wasn't going to be having batty dreams about a corridor with no windows and a black door. Don't think of the Department of Mysteries. Don't think of it, Goddamnit.

Cho. Who could forget Cho? Apparently, Harry could because he hadn't thought of her all that much since she had insisted on being a prat and starting a fight over that friend of hers. But now that everything was calm, would he talk to her again? For some reason he couldn't find the will to really care about Cho. Sure, she had given him his first kiss under that mistletoe, but compared to everything that had happened, that didn't seem significant at all anymore.

She was still mourning over Cedric a year later and he was still Voldemort's number one target. The only thing that Harry could find attractive about her anymore was her shiny hair and pretty face. She didn't have the personality--or the stability he so craved in people close to him--to go along with it. Though she had showed up to bring support to Harry's defense group, he wasn't sure if it was just a ploy to get his attention.

And Dumbledore's army. The whole thing that had started Umbridge's rise to Headmistress and caused such horrors. Now that the old windbag, Umbridge was gone, would Harry continue to give people lessons in Defense Against the Dark Arts? Harry guessed that it all depended on who was positioned in the spot of the teacher. If it ended up being someone utterly useless, like Lockhart, perhaps they would actually continue the sessions in the room. He didn't know how much more he could teach them, though--he seemed to have run out of jinxes and curses.

Maybe once he begged back into Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape he could teach them some of that...

Harry dropped off to sleep for the last time that year in his bed in Gryffindor dormitories next to a snoring Ron and Neville--the other boy who could have lived.