Harry

After fighting off monsters for the past seven years, Harry had learned to never stop watching over his shoulder, but that doesn’t mean he always realizes what he’s seeing.

Like, he got asked for his wand just like everyone else, and instead of thinking about how strange it was that they were claiming it was for security when it had never been done before, he only thought about how everyone else was handing it over without a problem (everyone except Draco, who hesitated just for a fraction of a second, so fast you could blink and miss it) and how his lingering unease must have just been a product of the war, another way that he was scarred, so he hands it over and tries to push away how naked and vulnerable it made him feel.

Or how when Hermione got called to give her speech, everyone sat in their seats and cheered for her, all of the ministry people with stiff smiles on their face and all of her friends genuinely happy, except for one man in the back dressed in black like the waitstaff but not, because his clothes did not have their insignia on it, and also that same man was the one who crept from the back of the room down the side and finally edged his way up to the podium, close enough where he might have been distracting if he was not the kind of person who people looked right past.

Or the fact that the chandelier was swaying, just a bit of a tilt, like it was caught in a soft wind, and for once, the only time it would have been helpful, he was notparing it to a moment from the war, was not thinking of dungeon doors and Hermione’s screams and a beautiful place to die with friends, he was thinking how it was sort of pretty, up until the moment where Hermione herself realized that it was happening, her expression changing from annoyed to panicked as she half raised her hand to block the light that had lit up across her face.

Harry sees it all, but he doesn’t understand what it means, not like Draco, who is up and moving before anyone else puts together what is happening, screaming at Hermione to move, get down, get out of the way with such desperation that despite everything, Harry is struck by the thought that he really must love her, to yell like that. Their table is in the very front row, so other than having to duck around Ge’s chair, there is nothing to block his path to the podium, so it’s a straight path from them to Hermione.

They all watch it happening. He sees it like it’s in slow motion, like he’s back in battle and his survival senses are trying to give him extra moments to figure out which way to dodge. This time, there is nothing to do, because he had been so confident in their own safety that he could not yet figure out that something bad was about to happen, and anyways, what was he supposed to do without a wand? There was nothing for him to do, except for watch.

He can hear Ron yelling, screaming for people to move, to help. He can see Ge understand what was going to happen at the same time that Harry had, how he moves to his side for a wand that is not there. He can see Kingsley, running, his mouth half open in a yell, but he could also see that he would not get there in time.

He can also see Draco, running, leaping, closing that last gap to throw himself at Hermione. She is knocked to the side and rolls down the few steps to Ge and Harry’s feet, and even though she is crying out in pain and clearly is having trouble breathing (they would find out later that she broke two ribs and bruised three more on her left side) he does not stop, just hurtles over her, trying to get to where Draco is lying in time.

There is not enough time. There’s no time for anything, just for Draco to curl in on himself and throw his hands over his face, and Harry just barely catches a glimpse of how relieved he looks, how proud before he’s covered up in the rubble.

Somewhere, someone is screaming, crying out for Draco to be alright. It’s only later, when all the soundse rushing back and he bes aware of the stinging pain in his hands that Harry realizes it was him.

e on.” He is digging through the rubble, pulling away twisted lengths of metal and sweeping away the scattered crystals. They crunch under his feet and grind into his skin when he drops to his knees, rip through his palms when he starts to dig through it all. For the first time in his life, he feels bad for the people who did not know what it is to be magic, who have to watch things like this happen and be helpless to stop them. e on, Draco,e on.”

Because he was helpless. He was helpless before it started and he was helpless as he watched it fall and he was helpless now, moving this mess away from where he thought Draco had been buried, when for all Harry knew he was three feet to his right and Harry was only burying him deeper.

Someone falls to their knees beside him, and without looking he knows it is Ron, because he knows those hands, those scars and those freckles and the one mole where his palm meets wrist, and he is filled with an overwhelming wave of gratitude to him, knowing that he must have passed by Hermione toe stand beside him, to help Harry find the one he loves even though the woman that Ron loves had just been attacked.

e on, Draco,” Harry says, and he is not sure what that means, if he is calling for him and really expecting an answer, if it is a plea or a prayer or something stuck between, if he actually thinks there is someone out there listening. “Be alright. Be alright.”

In his head, Harry is thinking that all he needs is to find him, to clear the dust and debris off Draco’s face and crush him to his chest, hold him and never let him go. But when he does find him, half pulling him out of the disaster before Ron grabs Harry underneath the arms and pulls him away, it does not help, because even though Harry had seen a lot of awful things, this might have to be the worst.

Penelope is trying to talk to him. Harry knows that, dimly, even recognizes her words, but he doesn’t really listen. “This is a job for a healer, Harry,” She is saying, and Percy has grabbed him by one arm and Ron by the other and they are pulling him away, but Harry isn’t cooperating, because all he is looking at is Draco, with the blood snaking down from his temple and the dust on his face and his breathing so harsh and loud that it might be better if he could not hear the breath at all, because at least it would not sound like he was in so much pain. “Let me do my job.”

He only stops fighting when Ge joins him. He can’t say why, really, except for the fact that if there is one person in the world who knows what is like to lose someone that is so unbelievably vital to your own well-being, it is Ge. Harry can’t imagine that he would ask him to step away if there was a way for Harry to help.

“She’s going to take care of him.” Percy tells him, his jaw set and his face smeared with blood. Later, Harry would learn that it was Percy’s own. He caught him with an elbow to the face when Percy first tried to pull Harry away. “She’s the best at her job”

For the first time, Harry can truly appreciate Percy and what he can do. Despite all his pomp, he really is one of the rare people in life who are able to walk into an emergency and control a room, who can look at a situation and see what needs to be done. And he doesn’t lie, and he doesn’t have much patience for people he considers ipetent, so when he says that his girlfriend is the best at her job, it isn’t empty flattery, it’s the best words offort he can think of giving.

“Okay.” Harry says, and sinks down to the ground. There is a hand on his shoulder and he knows without turning that it is Hermione, because he can recognize the weight of it from so many years of her holding him back and holding him up. He raises his own hand up to meet her, and cannot find the energy to ask if she was alright, even though he hopes that she is. “Okay.”

“Hey.” Ginny throws herself down on the ground beside him. They’re back in some hallway in the ministry that Percy had led him to, promising to send someone when they have news. Draco was at St. Mungo’s in a magic induceda, and was not likely to wake up anytime soon, so no one thought that it was important for him to head over there right away. “Thought you might want this.”

She’s holding his wand out to him. Harry hadn’t even thought to go after it. If someone wanted to hurt him, he would tear them apart with his bare hands, ruined as they were. “Yeah.” The weight of it makes him feel better.

“We’re going after them, if you want toe.” She is dressed in what Ge had named her battle armorbat boots and an old jacket with a patch over the elbow, fingerless leather dueling gloves and her hair pulled up in a tight ponytail. “The people who did this, I mean.”

“You think we can get them?”

He wasn’t interested in it, if they couldn’t get them, if he couldn’t make one of them hurt like they hurt Draco.

“I think so. We got the one who dropped the chandelier. He told us a lot.” Ginny flexes her fingers, and for the first time, Harry notices the split skin on her knuckles. She is staring down at her hands, like even though she wasn’t sorry, she couldn’t quite believe that this was the person she had turned into. “I was very persuasive.”

Harry thought about it, and then thought some more. He could stay here, sitting in this empty hallway, and then switch to sitting in some ufortable chair in a slightly cleaner hallway in St. Mungo’s. Or he could go fight, make someone pay, make them hurt. He had his wand back, after all.

And he was done feeling helpless.

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