Forever Knight [Harmione]

Chapter 5: Blood

Mediwizards came, tearing him away from her body. He made a desperate grab for her, but someone was pulling him back. It was Remus; maybe. He hardly cared.

He didn’t fight, anyway. He needed them to get her back. He needed them to revive her.

Ron’s sudden arrival caused more of a struggle with those around him. He was a large man; strong. It took three aurors to hold him.

Harry couldn’t even hear his own furious screams. And he watched as the mediwizards worked to revive her.

There was a steady stream of beams from the mediwizards’ wands, blue and pink rays aimed at her chest. The beams would bathe her in their glow, before dissipating into nothing.

Several minutes later, the mediwizards looked at one another, their faces resigned to the inevitable.

No…

One of the mediwizards reached over to press her eyelids closed.

No.

They were noting her official time of death.

No!

Harry knocked them aside and pulled her limp, slender body back into his arms.

He wasn’t sure what he did next. All he knew was that he was screaming her name, and that he was fighting back the crippling despair that was pounding onto him in waves. He was holding her tight as he wailed against her shoulder. He was vaguely aware of Ron nearby. Maybe it was Ron’s hands that were gripping his arms.

He didn’t know. He didn’t care.

This isn’t happening, he thought furiously. This is a nightmare. I’m going to wake up and she will be there; alive; smiling. She’s not dead. She’s NOT DEAD.

“Harry…” said a choked voice from behind him. “Harry, please.”

SHE’S NOT DEAD!

He hadn’t even realized that he had been screaming it out loud.

Stored glass and ceramic figurines began to explode; wooden tables split into bits through some invisible force and the walls groaned with the stress of the power buffeting it.  Perhaps the house was mourning, too. 

Shouts from the people around him did nothing to temper his magical outbursts.

In the next minute they were tearing him away from her and he couldn’t understand why they had to do that. Why can’t they just leave him alone with her? Why did they have to take him away?

Someone was struggling to hold him back.

“Harry!” It was Ron, and there were tears running down his face, too.

Harry didn’t care. Nobody could possibly understand his grief. Nobody!

He lashed out and the shriek of wood grew louder. Maybe he hit somebody. He wasn’t sure, but the next thing he remembered was a wave of drowsiness, and seconds later, the world went absolutely dark.

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Harry woke up in the emergency ward of St. Mungo’s. There were no healers surrounding him or even bustling about. He had been placed in the farthest corner of the facility, and the only ones there to greet him were Ron and Remus.

He sat up from the hospital bed, frantically transferring his gaze between the two of them. “Tell me I dreamed it. Tell me it was a nightmare!”

Neither Ron nor Remus spoke. Harry didn’t need for them to say anything, anyway. He was covered in dried blood. Her blood.

Ron’s face was streaked with tears, his eyes red and puffy. Remus didn’t look any better.