Chapter 2: Wars Behind Faces and Above Throats

The song for this chapter is Migraine, by twenty one pilots.

"Harry?" Hermione asked him again, fear making her voice waver.

"What?" he snarled, irritated. Sirius had to be here, he had to, otherwise he had led his friends into danger again for nothing...

"I... I don't think Sirius is here."

Blackness swirled around him, taking him further, deeper into the realms of his nightmares, where he could never escape. The sounds of battle were harsh whispers and the whipping sound of wood travelling through air, the soft noise of spells and the hum of blood, adrenaline, magic. The Death Eater Hermione had struck dumb slashed his wand through the air, his mouth forming unheard words, sending a purple flame through Hermione's chest. She gave a soft 'oh' as if in surprise, and crumpled to the ground, her eyes still staring into the nothingness.

Harry froze, unable to move. His vision twisted and distorted as Neville began crawling over to the bushy-haired brunette, his nose and wand alike shattered by the Death Eater's kick. Blood dripped from his nose, the splatters staining the floor red. Harry stood dumb, unseeing, unable to answer or think of anything bar Hermione's prone form, her mouth still open in shock, her hair spread across the floor. Dolohov's demands for the prophecy fell on mute ears, because Hermione was just lying there and she wasn't moving and he was praying that she wasn't dead, she couldn't be dead because then Harry would have as good as killed her.

But she was and they couldn't do anything and she wasn't breathing and Neville couldn't feel a pulse and Harry was shaking her, crying for her to wake up but she wouldn't, couldn't. Harry remembered that she had brought some books on the muggle sciences to school after the Christmas holidays. Written on the shiny pages in black ink were the words, '… after death, the pupil dilates and the cornea fogs up, creating a blackened, smoky-looking eye...' Ron had teased him for looking at the book. He'd said that Hermione was infecting him.

Harry almost couldn't bring himself to look. But, surely enough, Hermione stared out through white fog, unable to see through her glassy, blackened eyes. She was dead. And not even magic could save her. And he was falling, drowning in the blackness, unable to breathe as his chest tightened and eyelids lowered and he collapsed beside her, cheeks wet and body numb. Then he awoke with a start, gasping out breaths through the steady flow of tears.

The door opened not a moment later, the blurry figure of the Doctor walking through it. Harry sniffed and wriggled his way into a seated position before bringing his hands up to his eyes, wiping away his tears as he looked down at his lap. The Doctor sat on the empty bedside table, placing a hand on Harry's shoulder. He didn't look up, but felt his cheeks grow hot and he hoped that any redness could be put down to the wiping away of his tears.

"Crying for people you've lost isn't anything to be ashamed of," the Doctor said, his voice low, "Rather, if you hadn't cried, I would have been afraid of the darkness taking away your greatest ability."

"Love," Harry said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his hoarse voice. "Dumbl- the headmaster always said it was love. But I don't- I don't understand what he means."

The Doctor considered this, his brows furrowed slightly in thought. "Maybe you don't have to understand it. Maybe you just have to feel it."

"Me loving people has gotten them killed, Doctor," Harry said, looking up at him with fire in his eyes. "My parents, Hermione, Sirius - they all died because I loved them, and because they loved me back. People caring about me kills them, not saves them."

"It saved you," the Doctor pointed out. "You parents, they loved you enough to die for you, and it saved you."

Harry looked down at his sock-clad feet. Dumbledore had always said that he had to return to the Dursleys for the blood magic to be renewed, the spell that his mother had cast by loving him enough to die for him to be strengthened by Harry's association with her sister. Could Harry do the same? If he were to allow Voldemort to kill him, would it save everyone else?

"You're saying that my greatest ability is to love people enough to die for them?" Harry said slowly, his thoughts running rampant.

"Perhaps you could avoid the actually dying part, but yes." The Doctor paused, as if shocked by his own statements. "Maybe you should try to get back to sleep."

The Doctor left the room, and Harry tentatively went back to sleep.

The fact that I'm writing this (again) is insanely ridiculous to me, and yet here I am! I hope the quality of writing makes up for the literal two years that I wasn't writing this for.

Catcha!

- Little