The Dead Are Walking

It makes me want to cry sometimes. Cry and rave and beat him till he- I don't know. I know it won't achieve anything. But I still want to none the less.

We don't know when it started. Harry won't tell us.

The dead love Harry. They follow him. They reach out and stroke his face, touch his clothes, clear his way. He said once it feels like a thousand tiny snowflakes hitting his skin. Cool, individual, untouchable, and fading as soon as they're noticed. That was before he stopped talking about it.

I know they talk to him too. Never when he's awake. Then they are mute, wondering and demonstrative. But in his sleep. They come to him in his dreams too. Is it not enough that they take him from me during the day light, that they must follow him into his sleep too? The one place I cannot reach? They talk to him, speak of things which the living cannot comprehend. Sometimes he wakes afraid, and others with a peaceful smile on his face. He doesn't know why he feels the emotions when he wakes, for, like all dreams, the words and faces slip from his mind as the sun rises. But he is comforted, or troubled by them still.

I know Harry can't control it. He has never told me this, but I know he has seen my dead. The dead I still carry in my heart. They come to him. They come for his company, for his love, just to be near him. Why won't they come to me? Have I not loved them? Why must I be left to suffer? Why must I be left alone?

He doesn't like to go to St Mungo's anymore. He prefers the quieter, smaller hospitals on the outskirts, dedicated to those who have not the time or the ability to get to London, and to those with money. Yes, Harry cannot see the point in buying more than one set of formal robes for the pompous political functions, but he will waste a hundred galleons a year to have his ills and maladies cared for by a Healer who cares more about the money than the healing.

I asked him once, why he thought they loved him so, why he could see them. He looked away from me, smiled, at someone, some gesture I couldn't see, and slowly began to tell me how he came to own all the Hallows, and how he died. I don't think Harry realised it, but he looked, translucent, then, as though he would float away. For a moment I thought I was the one who could see the dead.

But I am unfair. Harry doesn't like to go to St Mungo's. There are too many. Too many of the dead in the morgues and too many of the nearly dead in the wards. He said that they aren't like the others. They aren't used to Death. They cry and rave and beat him, just like I want to. And when they realise he can see them, they beg and plead with heart wrenching desperation for him to help them, fix them, do something.

He can't do anything of course. They are dead.

The dead are walking. And Harry is with them.