Stop All the Clocks (This Is the Last Time I'm Leaving Without You)

chapter 8

There are gentle fingers sliding through his hair as he wakes. Draco. Harry always falls asleep before the end of the movie, and Draco always touches his hair, gently stroking his fingers through the glossy black strands while Harry dozes, and then he prods Harry awake, and Harry goes stumbling off to bed while Draco clears up downstairs and joins him a few minutes later.

"Mm, Draco," he murmurs, and the fingers in his hair stop moving.

Harry shifts, stretches, and opens his eyes to find Hermione crouched beside the sofa. The last two days come rushing back and he blinks sleep from his eyes and stares up at the ceiling. By the angle of the light coming in through the window, he can tell it's early afternoon.

"I'm sorry," Hermione says. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's fine," Harry says, his sleep-rough voice coming out as more of a croak. He clears his throat. "I should be up." He sits up to reach for his glasses where they've fallen on the floor, and catches sight of Ron standing nearby. He's got a terrible look on his face, an anguished sort of pity that Harry knows all too well. It's the same look people are still giving George all these years later. Harry looks away. "Sorry, I meant to call last night."

"It's fine," Ron says. "You know we're here for you, right? Whatever you need."

Harry nods and adjusts his glasses. "Yeah, I know."

"How about some lunch?" Hermione asks briskly as she stands up. "I'll make you something to eat and then we can..." She trails off, her fingers twisting the hem of her jumper, then she nods to herself. "I'll make you some lunch."

"I'm not hungry," he tells her, and her hands falls away from her hem to dangle helplessly at her side, and he immediately feels bad. Hermione's worried about him, and if it'll make her feel better to take care of him, that's something he can do. He offers her a faint smile. "But I would like some tea, if you wouldn't mind?"

"Of course." She sounds relieved, and Harry lets the brightness of her smile warm him.

As she disappears into his kitchen, Ron comes over and settles beside Harry on the sofa. "Are you all right, mate?" he asks gently, even though they both know he's not.

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, considering..." Harry swallows. "I will be," he says firmly. "I will."

"Harry?" Hermione calls from the kitchen. "I can't find your mug, do you know where-Oh, there it is."

For a moment it doesn't register what's happening, but then Harry throws himself up, knocking Ron aside, and races for the dining room. His socked feet slide on the hardwood floor and he skids around the corner just as Hermione's raising her wand, and she has just enough time for her mouth to round into a soundless little 'oh' of surprise before he grabs her. They both go crashing to the floor, Hermione's wand goes flying, and he's grasping her so tight that she cries out, but it doesn't matter, none of it matters because Draco's charms are still intact.

And then they're clinging to each other, and Harry's repeating over and over, "It's all I have left of him, it's all that's left," and Hermione is telling him again and again, "I'm sorry, I didn't realise, I didn't know, I'm so sorry," and then Ron comes up and kneels on Harry's other side and wraps his arms around both of them and holds them tight, and it's there, surrounded by their arms and their warmth and their love and the sharp scent of Ron's aftershave and the flowery smell of Hermione's shampoo, that the pain finally comes. It swells up in him, so vast that he thinks for one dizzying moment that his ribs will crack from the force of it. Harry struggles against it, but this isn't something he can fight. It's just there, as immutable and uncaring as the ocean, and as it breaks over him and pulls him under, Harry takes what little comfort he can from the knowledge that with Ron and Hermione here, they won't let him drown.

His last thought before he finally lets himself go, before he topples off that razored edge and sinks deep into his grief, before his eyes burn and his vision goes wavery and his nose stuffs up and runs slick and salty over his mouth and those awful wracking sobs come tearing up out of his throat and the pain in his chest explodes into something bitter and vibrant and real, is that he never wants to feel this way again, never again. Never never never never never-