AN- I've managed to put this idea off for a while, but it's just become too good to waste. I listen to the song all the time on the `City of Angels' CD, and you never know when opportunity will come knocking. Of course, it chose to come knocking for me around three in the morning, but hey, that's just Eimaj, my evil muse. Don't ask, please. Anyways, here it is, the fic I have managed to procrastinate and elude for a while… I Grieve, by Peter Gabriel.
When Hermione Granger had first been told that Harry Potter would be arriving soon, she hadn't really known what to expect from him. Ron had been expecting anger, and Molly loneliness, and Dumbledore resentment at being treated like a child.
None of them had expected him to come in smiling, like he had. The laughter hadn't really reached his eyes, but at least he had managed to try and make them feel like he really would be okay.
And he would be, she was sure of it. Losing someone, even someone as close to you as Sirius had been to Harry, was hard, but eventually time would make the wound a scar.
Great, another scar for Harry's heart.
At the moment, she watched his face carefully for any signs of tears, but none seemed to come. The entire greeting, he kept the mask carefully on around the Weasleys, and she really couldn't blame him. All of them were sending him pitying looks, like Ron, or not meeting his eyes, like the twins and Bill, or being all-maternal, like Ginny and her mother. Only Hermione seemed to know what Harry really needed. Time alone.
Nearly an hour passed before it appeared Harry couldn't stand the coddling anymore, when he slunk up to his room, trying to draw as little attention to himself as possible. And silently, she let him, until nearly an hour later, when she decided he'd had enough time to think, and followed his earlier path up the stairs, trailing him to his room.
***
Only an hour or two ago had Harry arrived at Grimmauld Place, where his godfather had spent his last few moments, but it was already beginning to take affect.
He hadn't had a chance to properly grieve for his friend, his guardian, and seeing everyone again without him in Grimmauld Place had been the first time it had really hit him…
Sirius wasn't there. Sirius wouldn't ever be there again.
Which would have been a good thing, when phrased that way. Harry knew his godfather hadn't been able to take much more of that house nor most of the things residing in it. But it didn't numb the pain that had been steadily increasing since he had gotten here in the first place.
It was only one hour ago
It all seemed so different.
Nothing yet has really, sunk in.
Looks like it always did.
This flesh and bone
It's just the way that we are tied in
Now there's no one home.
A sound broke through Harry's musings, and distantly he heard the clatter of silverware and knew dinner was ready. Funny, he thought distantly. I don't think I'm that hungry. But he was grateful for the distraction. The lack of noise in the house almost made it seem empty.
But Mrs. Black's shouts never came. Assuming Dumbledore had removed the portrait, his thoughts were nearly back in order when he realized he could only hear the noises from below because someone had opened the door.
Quickly wiping away the tears he hadn't known were on his face until then, Harry turned to the door, not surprised to see Hermione studying him carefully from the doorframe.
"So…they gave you Sirius's old room?" She asked, quietly walking in. Thanking god she hadn't asked him if he were all right, (he would've lost his temper, and at the moment he was honestly too tired to,) he sat up a bit from his spot on the bed and murmured,
"Yeah. I guess they thought it would help me move on."
The words, `but it wont' lingered unsaid in the air between them. Both of them knew it would take more than returning to Sirius's old house and sleeping in his old room to bring Harry back to normal, or as close to normal as he had been before, and even then there would be damage.
Hermione walked over to the bed and sat on the edge of it, still watching him carefully. "At least you're crying." She replied, sadly.
"I'm not." He defended by reflex. She sent him a look that forced him to continue with, "I mean, I was, but I'm not anymore."
"Maybe you should be. Maybe if you let it hurt, and cry over it, it'll stop hurting so much."
What Hermione said almost sounded reasonable. He felt like all of the stress and pain of the last hour, the hour of realization, had finally come to a head, and he had to let it out somehow. But Harry hadn't actually cried over anything in a long time, his pride always stopping him.
"Nah. I'm fine."
"No you aren't."
"I will be." He muttered defiantly.
"Not if you don't talk about." Hermione shot back, just as forcefully. "Not if you don't' cry over it! I saw the look on your face when you came in. you were almost looking for him-" Here, Harry went to defend his sanity, which was already questionable, when Hermione said, "No, I'm not suggesting you actually thought he would be there, but it hadn't really sunk in yet, had it? I mean, that Sirius is really gone."
The words were like a stab to a bleeding wound, and to both his surprise and hers, it drew a painful gasp from him. He felt like all of the air had been sucked out of his lungs, like he'd had the wind knocked out of him.
"Harry?" She questioned after a second. And to her shock, she saw his start to tear up again.
I grieve for you
You leave me
`So hard to move on.
Still loving what's gone
They say life carries on
Carries on and on and on and on…
"No, I guess I hadn't really thought about it until I ended up here, seeing his house with the knowledge that he isn't anywhere in it." Harry replied, furiously wiping his face in an effort to keep the tears from coming.
Gently, Hermione put her arms around him, trying to be as comforting as she could. "I know. It took a while for me, and I didn't even know him that well." She replied, as he continued to wipe his face.
"It changes everything. I mean, that whole day does. Dumbledore was supposed to defeat Voldemort, and Wormtail was supposed to get caught, and Sirius was supposed to be freed, and I was supposed to live with him until I got old enough that I had to move away. I was supposed to have a home to go to before school ended, for Christmas this year." He sucked in a breath. "Now, I have to be the one to face Voldemort, and there's no more keeping me out of it, whether I want a part in it or not."
Hermione didn't ask what he meant, and although he knew he'd be fully questioned later, he was grateful that right now she just planned on letting him vent.
"It just feels so incredibly…quiet. Empty. I mean, I don't know if you feel it, but I really do."
The news that truly shocks
Is the empty, empty page
And the final rattle rocks
It's empty, empty cage
And I can't handle this
"He's not stuck in here anymore." She said, trying to soothe him.
"I know. I keep wishing I could think like that, but somehow that always makes me feel a little… I don't know, maybe guilty."
"For what?" Hermione asked, surprised. Harry didn't often open up this much.
"For letting that rat live. This is my payment. There's no point in turning him in now. Whether Sirius gets his name cleared or not doesn't matter, because people will always doubt him. People will always doubt me at times, no matter what I do for them. Look at Dumbledore last year. I mean, he always seems so damn indestructible, and I'd say the media gave him a pretty good lashing…"
"Yeah, but Sirius would be cleared, and able to fully rest in peace." Hermione said, quietly. "And you'd be able to let go a little more. It would hurt a little less. The guilt wouldn't be as bad." Mentally, she added that Harry shouldn't feel guilt at all, but getting into a fight about that wouldn't get them anywhere. "Just like crying would make the ache less sharp."
"What do you know about loss?" He asked, half-heartedly. "What would you know about pain?"
Hermione quieted as she remembered her older sister, who had lost her life in a car crash, along with putting a friend and friend's mother, in critical condition. She had been determined for the longest time not to cry, because her sister would come back eventually like Samantha, who had been in the crash with her sister, had.
But when her old best friend, her bigger sister, hadn't ever come back, she had accepted it, and spent a good few months in all black. Yes, as an eight year-old. That had been when books had become an obsession.
Even after she had met and befriended Harry, the pain was still there.
I grieve for you
You leave me
Let it out and move on
Missing what's gone
They say life carries on…
Life carries on and on and on and on…
"That's for another time. For now, just think of Sirius. Just let it out, until it stops hurting as much, and try to keep pulling through. We'll be there to help you out." She said, as she stood.
"Wait, where are you going?" Harry asked, as a tear came down while he forgot to wipe his face.
"I thought you might want to cry alone." Hermione replied, as though the answer were obvious.
"No, don't. Stay. Please?" Hermione, silently, walked back over to the bed and hugged Harry to her, while he cried on her shoulder.
And while Harry let it all out, everything about the prophecy, and how badly it hurt to lose his godfather, and his nightmares, he started to feel an unbelievable relief. Something inside loosened, and it felt like for once he could breathe without pain and guilt smothering him.
Life carries on in the people I meet
In everyone that's out on the street
In the dogs and cats
In the flies and the rats
"And they keep trying to pin Sirius as one of Voldemort's supporters!" Harry continued, forgetting his pain almost for his anger. "They'll keep using his memory that way, too, unless we can prove them wrong!"
"And we will, Harry." Hermione soothed. "We will, eventually. There are only so many times the rat can get away. Eventually, we will. I'm pretty sure you aren't the only one here who wants Sirius's name cleared. If I'm not mistaken, Remus said something similar." She said, the first name of her old professor sounding awkward when she said it.
"You comforted Remus like this?" Harry asked, feeling an unexpected surge of jealousy.
"No. I heard him suggest that he himself go after Pettigrew to avenge his friend's long imprisonment and death. I don't think you'll be the first to want Pettigrew dead. You may even have to get in line, because Ron would want his fair chance too." Hermione said, smiling slightly.
"Oh." Harry said, immediately embarrassed by his earlier outburst. "Right then. Er, were we, uh-"
"Harry!" Ron said, loudly pounding on the door before poking his head in. "Are you two doing more than talking in here?" Both young adults in question turned bright red and shook their heads quickly. "Sure…sure. Keep telling yourselves that." He was rewarded with a pillow to the head. "Right. Well, Hermione came up about an hour ago to tell you that dinner was ready. You still not hungry from lunch?"
Both of them knew that that had been an excuse, a way of saying downstairs that he had needed time alone. But Harry thought for a minute before wiping his eyes and thinking, `life does carry on.'
"Nah. Besides, aren't the twins coming tonight? Even if I were stuffed, I wouldn't miss that!"
In the rot and the rust
In the ashes and the dust
Life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on and on
Dinner that night was normal, and pleasant, with everyone talking and taking it in turns to pass the food around. For the first time all summer, Harry had a real appetite, and Ron as usual stuffed his face.
It's just the car that we drive in
It's the home we reside in
The face that we hide in
The way we are tied in
And life carries on and on and on and on
Life carries on and on and on…
None of them mentioned the hour-long discussion that had taken place upstairs, making it appear that it would become one of the unspeakable things. The things like the tri-wizard tournament that they knew, but never spoke of.
But Hermione caught Harry's eyes several times, asking silently if he was all right, and telling him that she was there, though it didn't need to be said anymore. She had always been there, he had just never noticed. She would help him to find relief.
Did I dream this belief?
Or did I believe this dream
Now I can find relief,
I grieve
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