A/N: I do not own Harry Potter. He is the wonderful creation of J.K. Rowling. I'm just playing here.
Chapter 2. The Tenth Letter.
Every word he read made him angrier and angrier. His first instinct was to tear her letter into a thousand pieces and use them to line Hedwig's cage. His surging anger, however, seemed to make him oblivious to all reasonable courses of action (and at the moment, tearing up the letter seemed very reasonable). Like a spooked horse charging into a burning building, it blindly drove him to read on even further. This, of course, only served to make him even more upset the more he read.
Hermione stated in no uncertain terms that he had to come to terms with the fact that Sirius was gone. It was perfectly all right, natural in fact, to miss Sirius and grieve his loss. He was not allowed to blame himself for Sirius's death however, she said. He had to accept and believe that Sirius's death was not his fault. Not to his surprise, she of course reminded him who WAS to blame.
It was Voldemort, she said, who tricked Harry into going to the Department of Mysteries that night. It's kinda funny, actually, Harry thought to himself, seeing his name written out again. I don't think I've seen it since the Chamber of Secrets. Sure, Hermione and Dumbledore say it out loud, but in print, it always that 'He Who Must Not Be Named' rubbish. It was Bellatrix Lestrange (Bitch!) who cast the spell that knocked Sirius back towards the... And of course he wasn't allowed to forget about Lucius Malfoy and the rest of the Death Eaters.
Hermione seemed to go to great lengths to remind him how it was all of them who were the ones who were to blame for Sirius's death. There was even a cryptic comment that almost anyone else would have thought nothing of, but Harry knew it was Hermione's way of saying she felt that Dumbledore's hands were not entirely clean of it either... not bloodied by any means, but certainly not clean.
As he read, he realized how impassioned, how forceful her words were. He was actually surprised she decided to write it all down in a normal letter rather than sending a Howler. As he read her words, his own inner voice angrily reading her words gradually changed to hers, complete with all the emotional emphases on certain words and dramatic pauses he knew she would have used had she been saying this directly to his face. He cringed at the thought that any Howler sent by Hermione would easily rival anything ever sent by Mrs. Weasley.
Her letter culminated in a detailed analysis (well, detailed by Harry's standards... probably brief by hers) of the events of That Day, from the moment Voldemort sent him the vision of Sirius being tortured to the final moment when Sirius fell through the veil. It described in great detail every possible choice Hermione felt Harry could have made (and even a few he never would have thought of) and showed how they all resulted in Sirius's death, one way or the other.
She even made a diagram of the chronology of the events with lines and boxes that mapped out the timeline of That Day. It showed how, as the saying went, all roads led to Rome. It was the Damned Bloody Sodding Flowchart of Death! If he wasn't so miserable, he might even cry. Yes, crying would have been an improvement on what he was feeling.
Voldemort was singly determined, she said, to obtain the prophecy. Any possible hope Voldemort had to ever be able to "defeat" Harry (Oh thanks, Hermione! THAT word makes it SO much better...) depended entirely on knowing what the prophecy contained. Every encounter Voldemort had had with Harry resulted in, at best, merely being thwarted, and at worst, the destruction of his physical body.
Even if Harry had known for a fact that there was never any need for him to ever go to the Department of Mysteries (Thank you, Dumbledore!), Voldemort would have stopped at nothing until he got that prophecy. One way or another... sooner or later... he'd find a way to "encourage" Harry to come to the Department of Mysteries. And once Harry was there...
If Harry hadn't been so absolutely furious with her at that moment, he would have written her a very short letter telling her exactly what he thought of her letter... two words probably. While he was quite capable of thinking of colorful pairs of words to less-than-subtly express his feelings, Harry was so furious that he couldn't string together two complete thoughts. How dare she write something so... so... an analysis of why Sirius was destined to die!
But as it turned out, he was much too angry to write anything at all. He wanted to be alone right now (You are alone right now, you idiot!)... alone, even from his own thoughts. After reading the last sentence on the page, his hands went slack as he tried to tune out the rest of the world. The letter fell from his hand to the floor. Maybe he could use something from those insufferable Occlumency lessons, something that would help keep even him out of his own thoughts.
As it was starting to get dark outside, he turned out the lights, sat down on his bed, and then curled up into a little ball under his pathetic sheets and miserable little threadbare blanket. He hoped, he prayed, that when he woke up he'd find that this was all just a bad dream, that Sirius would be there waiting for him. If not, he'd be willing to settle on waking up to find that that letter-that proclamation of death-was only a nightmare he wouldn't be able to remember.
Once Harry had finally become enveloped in the soothing calmness of unconsciousness, his restless mind once again resumed its nightly routine: replay, relive, remind, resign. Once again, Sirius was dueling with Bellatrix. He taunted her. She cursed him (Harry was never really sure what spell she had cast at Sirius). And he fell backwards, slowly, gracefully, in slow motion, towards that innocent looking veil that fluttered seductively in the still air as though there were a slight breeze or it had just been touched.
It seemed to take a long time for him to fall. Harry knew that when Sirius fell through, he would not reappear on the other side (in this world at least). And yet, each time he watched it, he always had a sense of anticipation, as though maybe, just maybe, this time he'd reappear as if he'd fallen through any other stone archway.
Sirius was still slowly falling backwards. Even though he was helpless to do anything about it, Harry thought nothing of how long it was taking for Sirius to fall. This was after all, a dream, and in dreams even the impossible can occur and seem as normal as anything else. As Sirius started to near the veil, Harry focused his attention on the veil as he waited for what he knew was going to happen, happen.
He stood there, his eyes transfixed on the ragged piece of cloth. The eerie fluttering had an almost hypnotic effect on him; he could not help but stare at it. Right as Sirius began to enter his tunnel vision on the veil, suddenly the veil changed from an ancient, tattered piece of fabric to a drawing, almost a cartoon version of itself. The folds of the fabric were replaced with intricately drawn lines; every nick, tatter, tear, and hole was replaced with a little box, circle, or other similar shape. Finally, fine lines of text in Hermione's handwriting written vertically appeared and disappeared one line at a time across the face of the drawn veil, similar to the large electronic reader boards Harry remembered seeing on the Muggle side of King's Cross Station. The scrolling effect made the drawn veil appear as if it too were fluttering in a slight breeze.
Harry turned his attention back to Sirius. The look of fear and surprise on Sirius's face still had not faded away. When he looked at Harry, Sirius's eyes locked intently on Harry's, and he cocked his head slightly as if he were judging him, trying to make a decision. Whatever he was going to say, Harry never found out. As soon as Sirius opened his mouth to say something, he immediately changed into Hermione. Again, this being a dream, Harry found nothing unusual about the sudden change.
The moment he realized it was Hermione, as he had done with Sirius occasionally, he immediately started to chase after her, even though he knew he would not reach her in time. Right as she was about to reach the veil, she looked at him and repeated something from her letter, "You did everything you could. Sirius would not want you to treat yourself like this."
The instant she touched the veil, Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, woke up in his bedroom in Little Whinging, Surrey, shouting his best friend's name, "HERMIONE!"
Harry sat up immediately and looked around his room. He could see Hedwig sitting on her perch. She opened her large amber eyes and stared at him reproachfully, as if to complain about him waking her up. "Sorry girl," Harry whispered.
"Shrrmmrruummph muhhhllffump Pott..." The muffled grunts of Harry's Uncle Vernon came from down the hall. Obviously he had heard Harry, but it must not have woken him up, since it was lacking the usual threats and expletives customary whenever one of Harry's nightmares actually woke someone up.
He sat there for a few moments trying to collect himself; he wiped the cold sweat away from his forehead and neck. As his hand brushed the scar on his forehead, he was thankful that at least he was sure Voldemort again had nothing to do with the dream. He supposed to himself, however, that it didn't make him feel any better either. As his sleepy brain struggle to engage, he closed his eyes and tried unsuccessfully to remember what he had just witnessed.
Hermione... Hermione, Hermione, Hermione. Harry said her name to himself several times very quickly as he strummed his fingers on the mattress, trying to remember something. Something about Hermione... I was thinking about her because of something... As the fog of sleep slowly began to break up, Harry's eye caught on something lying on the floor.
The light from the street lamp outside the house hit the ceiling and cast a dull glow in the room. It was barely bright enough for him to be able to see it, but... there it was. Harry's lips pursed together tightly and he wrinkled his nose in displeasure as he remembered with distaste what exactly was lying on the floor there. Ah, yes... the letter. Oh bugger, it's still here.
Harry looked over at his alarm clock. The glowing red LEDs told him it was 3:17AM. Actually, it didn't really say 3:17 exactly since the '3' looked like a backwards 'C' and the '1' was only half of a '1.' It seems that the clock (a birthday gift to Dudley from Aunt Marge) had been damaged when his cousin hit it because the alarm had woken him up. Since a free broken clock was cheaper that the cheapest clock money could buy, it was given to Harry so he could be sure to get up in time to make everyone else's breakfast.
Seeing as how he was now fully awake, Harry decided he needed to do something other than stare at the ceiling until he felt he was ready to fall back to sleep. At first, Harry tried to ignore the pieces of parchment lying on the floor. He tried to forget everything Hermione had written. Unfortunately, he concluded, the damage had been done. She had done what she had probably intended to do all along: plant an idea in his mind that he would be unable to rid or ignore.
The harder he tried to banish those words from his mind, the more he found them entrenched. He half considered Obliviating himself to purge the unwanted thoughts, but he quickly decided against it, since he didn't know how to properly use the spell. If he wasn't careful, he might end up giving himself the Lockhart treatment and wiping everything; he had no intention of letting himself forget why Sirius had died.
For some unknown reason, Harry felt compelled to go over and pick up Hermione's letter and read it again. The weak glow in the room was not bright enough to read by, but he didn't dare turn on the light. The last thing he needed at this moment was someone to wake up to use the bathroom and see the light peeking out between the door and the carpet.
Sure, the Dursleys had gone out of their way to avoid starting any unnecessary rows with Harry after Moody's little chat back at King's Cross, but to blatantly tempt them by doing something so vile as to waste electricity by reading at night was more than he was willing to risk. Harry took the letter over to the window and held it up directly into the light of the street lamp coming through the window. It wasn't exactly ideal reading conditions, but since his eyes were already adjusted to the dark, it was enough.
Maybe it was that he was secretly hoping the letter had somehow changed since the last time he read it. Maybe he just wanted to be doubly sure that what he knew was written in there was really written in there. That way, he could feel justified for what he was feeling about that letter. Whatever the case, Harry quickly confirmed that it was in fact still the same letter he had read earlier. Damn, he thought, more resigned than angry.
As he read, the crushing waves of grief, guilt, and anger came surging back. While grief by far made up the largest portion of the tumult that was Harry's psyche, it was kept in check by his anger, that intense spotlight of emotion that was pointed directly at himself. He felt like he was lit up on stage, for all the world to see how he had failed his godfather.
Perhaps part of the problem was how exactly Sirius had died. Maybe it would have been easier if Sirius had just been killed outright with a simple Avada Kedavra killing curse, or even shot with a Muggle gun. But it wasn't that simple. Instead, Sirius was taken from him, seemingly one piece at a time. First, there was the spell that knocked Sirius off his feet. With all the spells, hexes, and curses, including Unforgivables, flying in the fighting, Harry never knew which spell had been cast.
There were only three spells he recognized by sight: a stunner, the killing curse, and the purple curse Hermione had been hit with (true, he didn't know what it was, but the sight of it was something he'd never forget). For all Harry knew, it could have been an overenthusiastic Expelliarmus. He didn't know why, but for some reason, simply not knowing what had caused Sirius to fall only added to his feelings of failure, and consequently his anger.
But more than that, there was the Veil of Death itself. Harry thought about it on several occasions in the past few weeks. When he did think about it, it wasn't so much in regards to Sirius as it was his curiosity about the stone archway and veil itself. While Professor Lupin held on to Harry to keep him from running after Sirius, he had said that Sirius was gone. They all acted as though he were dead, when all he really did was simply fall through it.
Luna had said that there were people "in there." She could hear them; Harry could too. When she mentioned those voices, she said she knew she would see her mother again. Did that mean that beyond the veil was "the next great adventure," as the headmaster had once described it: that which is beyond this life? When Sirius fell through, did it "kill" him, or did he simply continue his fall unaware of any change and land on the floor... on the other side, and then get up and go join his parents for tea?
Harry had heard Professor Dumbledore refer to that room as the Death Chamber. From the layout, he assumed that it was a place where executions were carried out. He also supposed it was possible that people at the ends of their lives went there voluntarily to leave the physical world painlessly and with dignity. But what was the veil exactly? A device? A gateway? All of this uncertainty nagged at him; it was like wondering about someone who had been missing for years. If only he knew something, then maybe he could begin to deal with it.
As he read Hermione's letter, Harry felt so helpless against her words. He knew she was trying to convince him that Sirius's death was not his fault. Despite her repeated statements to the contrary, Harry still felt responsible for Sirius's death. He felt he needed to prove her wrong; he needed to prove that this all WAS his fault.
Since Hermione had gone to such great lengths to show that there was nothing he could've done differently that would have led to Sirius surviving, Harry decided that the best course of action would be to do the same: to follow the sequence of events and find just one example of how he could've saved Sirius. After all, how could it simply be fate that Sirius was destined to die like that? Harry didn't believe in that kind of thing. Did he?
And what of the prophecy? Weren't you just- asked a voice in his mind.
Shut up! interrupted the other, No one asked you.
Again, the first voice asked, So it can be your destiny to be the one to face Voldemort, but not Sirius's to GIVE his life to save yours?
The second voice didn't reply.
Once he stopped arguing with himself, he set out to do what he had decided. It seemed so simple: simply find a way (only needed one) he could have kept Sirius alive. To be fair though, he knew he would not be satisfied if Sirius merely survived that day. Harry conceded to himself that Hermione was right about one thing: Voldemort was determined to get the prophecy.
Even if Dumbledore hadn't withheld so much vital information and Harry hadn't gone there that night, Voldemort would have tried again. So, all he really needed to do was to find just one way to guarantee Sirius's survival. And to do that, all he needed to do was prove Hermione wrong. Erm... OK... Harry thought to himself uncertainly. Suddenly he thought maybe it'd be a little harder than he expected.
To make it easier on himself, Harry decided to start with the examples Hermione had used. He went though them, one by one, trying to figure out some way that Sirius could survive. Every single time it was the same: Harry could not find a way to guarantee Sirius's survival. Each time he failed to disprove one of Hermione's scenarios, he started getting angry again.
This time however, he wasn't angry at her. He was angry at himself for not being able to save Sirius. He was angry at Dumbledore for withholding information. But most of all, he was angry at Voldemort, Bellatrix, Malfoy, or any of the other assorted Death Eaters... whoever was responsible for Sirius's death in that particular scenario.
By the time Harry had finished going through all of the scenarios he could think of, he was completely exhausted mentally. Unlike before when he blamed himself entirely, his anger now stretched out in all directions. He felt as though he knew what it'd be like to be a boggart in a room full of people. With so many people to be mad at for Sirius's death, Harry could no longer focus his anger.
The intense spotlight his anger had become, pointing at himself, was now starting to lose its focus. When finally combined with his exhaustion, he found he could no longer keep it up. It was as though the entire top of the lighthouse had been removed. Without the reflecting mirror and focusing lenses of the lighthouse chamber, the once intense beam that could sweep out for miles into the blackness of his grief was now nothing more than a small unprotected flame that stood atop a very small building on the rocky shore of a stormy coastline.
With the intense focus of his anger now lost, Harry was now finally and completely at the mercy of his grief. And, oh, how the grief rushed his shores. The first wave quickly advanced and his once sustaining anger was no match. Harry immediately broke down and did something he promised himself he would never do: he started crying.
Harry never wanted to ever let anyone see him cry. He felt that he had had to put up with too much misery in his own life to ever admit to himself by crying that it might've just been too much. Fortunately, he knew no one would ever see him here in his own little mini-Azkaban. Perhaps that was why he didn't fight it as hard as he usually did. Quickly losing the strength and willpower to do anything, Harry simply set the letter down on his night stand, crawled back into his bed, and buried his face in his pillow and began to cry out fifteen years worth of restrained tears.
At some point in the night, Harry fell asleep. When he awoke, he realized that he felt different. Something had changed. Harry looked around the room as he thought about what had happened. His eyes fell upon Hedwig and he watched her as she slept in her cage. He stared at her, mesmerized, thinking about how simple her life must be... no prophecies, no war... the only real thing to worry about was finding the addressee on a delivery and whether dinner would be warm blooded or cold blooded.
He felt transfixed by the sight of her breathing, in and out, in and out. As he watched, he became consciously aware of his own breathing. He soon also became acutely aware of the feeling of emptiness inside his chest. His crying had not lessened his feeling of loss for Sirius, but something had changed.
He was still mad. Voldemort, Bellatrix, Malfoy, Dolohov, the other Death Eaters, Dumbledore... they were all still the subjects of Harry's ire. Harry still held them responsible for Sirius's death, each in their own way. Sirius. As Harry said his name to himself, he suddenly realized that he felt differently about the way Sirius died.
By no means was Harry happy about his death; he would've given his own life to save Sirius's. That was it! As bad as he felt about losing him, Harry now also felt a sense of pride in the way Sirius met his death. We all will face death, Harry admitted with a knowing acceptance that no fifteen year old should have, the only question is how and when.
Since it HAD to happen sometime, Harry could not think of a better time or way for it to happen than coming to the rescue of someone he loved. Harry had been so focused on how Sirius died that he didn't give any thought to why. If Sirius was giving his life to save another's, did it really matter whether it was by bullet, Unforgivable curse, or mysterious stone archway? No, Harry admitted to himself.
His own possible death a matter of prophetic record, Harry knew that if his time were to come sooner than later, he only hoped that his death would have purpose, and not be in vain. With his new found pride in how Sirius faced death, Harry hoped that he would be as lucky. If he HAD to die, he felt he could do so with a clean conscience if it meant saving the lives of his nearest and dearest.
Harry thought back to the battle in the Department of Mysteries. What if Dolohov's curse had been a certain green one instead of a mysterious purple one? Fortunately it hadn't been, but if he had been close enough, Harry could now honestly say he would have jumped in front of it to protect his best friend. Does "fortunately" adequately cover it? Harry wondered. He would have died to save Hermione's life.
His inner voices started up again. You know, that certainly sounds- the first one started.
It does not sound anything! the other defended. And I'm not afraid to say it: I would give my life to save Hermione's! And yes, I would've also for everyone else there that night: Ron, Luna, Ginny, and Neville. So there!
Harry resolved then and there that if his only two choices were to kill or be killed by Voldemort, the world would probably be better off if it were the former rather than the latter. I, for one, don't have any problems with Muggle-borns, Harry thought to himself with a grin.
Returning his attention to Hermione's letter, Harry reread it one more time. As he did, he found himself crying again. But this time, there were more than just tears of pain. For one thing, he felt as though he had finally been able to let go of a tremendous weight that he had been forcing himself to carry around: his anger at himself.
Anger was still there, in abundant quantities to be sure. When it was directed at others who Harry held responsible for Sirius's death however, it seemed much lighter than when it was pointed at himself. With that weight released, all that remained was his sense of loss for Sirius, which was no small burden by any means. There was also a little guilt for letting the other five follow him that night, but that seemed to have been slowly fading as he had been reviewing their bravery That Night.
As bad as he felt, now that he was finally honestly facing the loss of Sirius, he knew that he would be able to get through it. With the paralyzing anger now gone, he could begin to come to terms with his feelings. And the best way he felt he could do that was to be in the company of his two best friends, plus three more.
And with that, Harry immediately resolved to write back to all five of them... honest, heartfelt replies to the letters they sent, as well as their parents. That meant five letters to his five friends for the letters they had sent him so soon after his arrival, plus four more to their parents.
But there was a tenth letter also. A tenth letter he knew he had to reply to first. This last letter, that would be the first of his replies, was the keystone to all the other replies. If he could not find words for this one, the others could be worse. If he could not be honest to himself and what was in that letter, he had no chance of doing so with any of the others. And what he felt he needed to do most of all at this very moment was to honestly tell his friends what they meant to him.
Harry pondered what to write in response to that tenth letter. He started to let his mind go blank as he stared at the ink, focusing on the tiny spidery veins here and there resulting from the parchment fibers absorbing the ink. His eyes landed on the word in the letter where he remembered finally figuring out what this letter was about. He began to smile slightly (the way one does when realizing what a prat he was being) as he remembered his initial reaction, how he wanted to send her a very short response telling her in two words what he thought of her letter.
He skipped ahead to the last two sentences in her letter.
Remember Harry, I'm here if you need me. We all are.
He had the strangest feeling that those last three words were added at the last minute. He was no expert, but he had seen enough of Hermione's handwriting on his homework to notice that the handwriting didn't flow (he couldn't think of a better word) as it did throughout the rest of the letter.
But that wasn't important at the moment. What was important was what he was going to write in response. As Harry stared at those words, it finally came to him what to write. It wasn't eloquent by any means; no wordsmithing or second drafts would be required. The following day, after he appeased the Dursleys, he immediately set out to start his replies.
Once he had the first, most important reply finished, he sent his beloved snowy owl out into the pleasant evening with instructions to deliver it to Hermione immediately. He told her to stay the night and rest there, because when she returned the next day, he would have nine more letters for her to deliver to the four families of his friends.
As Hedwig flew off into the summer afternoon, Harry started writing his nine other replies, which, after the first one, he found much easier than he had expected. He looked up occasionally to watch as Hedwig flew toward his best friend's house, slowly becoming a tiny dot on the horizon. Attached to her leg was a piece of parchment that had written on it two words that, he thought, very clearly expressed what he felt about her and her letter: THANK YOU.