Fragments of the Mourning

Rating: PG-13 for emotional angst.

Title: Fragments of the Mourning

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters, settings, and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling as published by, including and not limited, to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. The use of these characters and settings is for entertainment purposes only; no infringement is intended or should be inferred.

Spoiler Alert: None, really, but I went with the default Books 1-5.

Summary: He was the freak. The strange Potter boy. The sullen child.

Pairings: Harry/Hermione (allusion)

Author's Notes: Another one-shot. Just wrote it, did a quick edit, and am immediately posting it. It’s 700 words. My angst-ridden one shots are freaky like that.

Footnotes In Reverse: ¹"One good deed dying tongueless slaughters a thousand waiting upon that. Our praises are our wages," by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from The Winter's Tale

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FRAGMENTS OF THE MOURNING

[] OR, OUR PRAISES ARE OUR WAGES¹

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There was something about the reality of touch that appealed to him.

Of all things sensory, touch was the one that was the most genuine. Visions could fool his sight; hallucinations could trick his hearing; potions could alter his taste and sense of smell.

Brain-damage could do the same. An earmark of gallows’s humour, that knowledge always serving to amuse him.

Touch...there was little refuting touch. He knew the Muggle science that explained how the sense of touch was little more than a relay of perception via electro-chemical impulses. Touch could, it was theorised, be synthesised by manipulation of the brain and its chemistry. Similar effects could be achieved via a combination of spells and potions.

But he always liked to think that touch was still the surest sense of them all.

Hot, cold...soft, hard...sharp, blunt...things he could know for certain. Things he could hold.

Things he could hold...

He had never really been held. Not that he could remember. Harry Potter's parents had been murdered when he was an infant, so he had no idea of what it felt like for his mother or his father to hold him.

He did not know what his mother smelled like. Did she smell sweet? Or earthy? Or like the summer? Or the autumn?

He did not know what his father sounded like. Was his voice like his, the only difference being the years? Was his voice completely different? Did his father read bedtime stories to him and did he make the voices of the characters?

Things he could never possibly remember, things he would never hope to know.

When Harry was deposited onto the doorstep of Number Four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey that was the last time he had been held. He was held by Rubeus Hagrid, he was held by Albus Dumbledore. And then he was held no more.

He was the freak. The strange Potter boy. The sullen child. Why would Aunt Petunia or, God-forbid, Uncle Vernon want to touch him? They could scarcely look at him.

His cousin Dudley didn't mind touching him, but that was only to use him as a punching bag.

There were times, late at night, when Harry would tightly close his eyes in a vain attempt to stay the tears that welled, and would try to imagine what it would be like for someone to hold him. Someone to hug him. Someone to tell him that everything was going to be all right, while smoothing the hair from his forehead.

He wanted to be held so badly. He wanted to feel someone, anyone. He could barely inhale, at times his want, his need was so great. Just to hold. Just to be held. To find comfort, solace, in the simplest of touches. A hand on his shoulder. His fingers intertwined with another's. He longed for this sort of intimacy. One where nothing was expected or demanded, one where, due to the pureness and goodness of the feeling, someone would reach out for his hand. Just because.

But there was no one who would do that.

No one.

No.

That was a lie.

There was someone...

She reached for him.

She held him.

She hugged him. She would grab his arm when she was nervous, or frightened, or surprised. She would onto him quite tightly. She would hold his hand. Just because.

But Harry could never ask her to do this for him. He could never ask Hermione just to hold him. Even as a friend, just as a friend, he could never ask.

But he wanted to…

There were so many things that he wanted to ask for. So many things that he wanted. That he knew that he needed. But didn't have the strength to ask for. But he knew, deep in his heart, Harry knew that if he could, he would give it all away, everything, even the memories, for a quiet life. One where he could reach out with his hand and someone would be there, reaching back for him.

Someone, somewhere, surely owed him at least that. Owed him something more than faint praise, a crackpot prophecy. Someone had to owe him his chance at happiness.

Didn't they?