Hi Portkeyers x
Author's Note: Harry is a bit of a T.Y.M (Troubled Young Man) in this. So if you like your Harry with milk and sugar, this is prob not for you. Also, although I don't personally feel the characters are OOC (I look at it more as natural evolution of the characters as adults), some of you might.
Warnings: If you have an extreme aversion to: swearing, tattoos, use of alcohol, cigarettes, illegal drugs, handguns, mentions of R/Hr, likeable! Ron, not-so-likeable! Ginny, or the nickname 'Mione...you might wanna move along. Nothin to see here. (No NC17 smut either, just assumed. In plain English that means there's no detailed porn scene so don't get mad at me later.)
Disclaimer: This is fanfiction. You know the drill; characters aren't mine and all that. The song lyrics I use occasionally throughout belong to other people with genius far over shadowing mine as well. Sigh.
Finally, I made a fanmix of all the songs in this fic over on my live journal. So if you want to listen online and/or download any of the songs, go to:
http://golden-scarlett.livejournal.com/8372.html
WARNING; There are spoilers on there that assume you've read the whole fic, but there's also an option to access the songs without reading the spoilers. And there's also a couple of Harry POV pieces that you won't get unless you've read the whole fic till the end.
Ok that's enough rambling. I really enjoyed writing this so I hope you enjoy reading it x
Come Undone
Who do you need
Who do you love
When you come undone.
Harry Potter doesn't use magic anymore.
I don't even know if he still has his wand. But he, The Boy Who Lived, never utters a spell or a hex or even a simple charm. I know this for certain.
Instead he lives this sort of half life. Immersed in the Muggle world, cut off from any kind of magical reality. I'm the only one of us he sees anymore. And even that tenuous link does little more than scare me with its fragility as I feel him slipping through my fingers more every time.
And I still condemn myself for not having seen it coming.
*
When the war is over, it is a strange time. A bittersweet moment of stillness where no one really knows what to do or say next, how to get on with normal life, or in fact what normal even is now.
We are all a bit lost and even I scare myself - mainly with my strong urge not to go immediately back to school. Nothing about the idea appeals to me and I think I really know then how much I've changed.
Ron hasn't changed at all. At first I thought he might've, what with Fred's death. But he comes out the other side of his grief as much himself as he's always been, cheerful and witty though still quick tempered, but if anything he is just a little more confident. I find the new confidence attractive, for a time.
Ginny carries on in typical gutsy fashion. She is devastated at losing Fred but she's always been strong and tenacious. That's why I think she will be the one to get through to Harry.
He seems okay, for the longest time. For the whole year following in fact, he seems like the Harry I know so well, taking all the horrors and sadness in his typically stoic way, never overly emotional through all the funerals and the recounting of the wars' worst stories.
But it is in the joyous, celebratory moments that I see the slight fraying of his nerves, a small reaction that I don't realise at the time, is the beginning of his unravelling.
In the ceremony for the first of many monuments unveiled in the months after, I notice him fidgeting on the stage behind the podium. It isn't unusual in itself that he would be uncomfortable in a situation where he is the centre of attention. But I sense the desperation coming off him in waves, his frown deepening behind his glasses.
I'm sitting just down from him in the row behind, my hands crossed in my lap as I try to focus on Kingsley Shacklebolt's deep voice, talking about unity and optimism. But my eyes kept darting to him, trying to detect...is he... shaking? I reach across Bill Weasley to my right and place my hand on Harry's shoulder. A few people notice my movement and turn to watch but I couldn't have cared less about them.
He turns to me and I nearly gasp. The look in his eyes shocks me to my core; a blatant mix of resentment, anger and bitterness that I'd never seen in him before. There is no hope, none of the usual nobility. His eyes are the darkest shade of green I'd ever seen them. I don't recognise him.
Then in the next second it is gone, replaced with a generic smile and nod, his fingers finding mine and squeezing them. I continue to stare at him open mouthed but he turns back to Kingsley now, his face relaxed again.
I should have known then, that something was wrong.
*
He's soft to the touch
But frayed at the ends he breaks.
*
But still I don't say anything. Then I find out over the next few weeks that Ginny is struggling, with Harry, but she never talks to me about them. She tries to talk to Ron, who in turn blabs to me, but I know Ron can't offer her any advice because Harry is very slowly but surely, shutting off to him too.
Then Ron and Harry have a falling out that I'm not witness to - I only see Ron in his rage afterward, stamping around The Burrow in a petulant sulk, and refusing to give me details, only telling me they'd had words and if I want to know what happened, ask bloody Harry because he has no idea what he said wrong.
I don't though. I don't know what I'm waiting for until after a week of none of us hearing from Harry, Arthur Weasley tries.
He goes to visit him at Grimmauld Place where Harry is living with just Kreacher for company. Arthur reports back to a distressed Molly and Ginny that Harry doesn't want to talk to anyone. I can tell from the look in Arthur's eyes that his manner had been more vicious than Arthur chooses to pass on.
So I know then it is down to me. I don't want to do it, because I'm not sure I can get through to him - and just what it might do to me if I can't. But I know I owe it to everyone somehow, to try. I don't tell Ron though, or Ginny. I just go there one night after one of my Healers training lectures.
Kreacher lets me in. He is cordial, but his usually crisp white towel is a grubbier brown, and somehow this is what instantly worries me. He leads me through the hall and up the stairs, into a darkened room. As my eyes adjust, the musty smell of it transports me instantly back to a moment years ago and it rocks me; remembering this room was where Buckbeak was once kept, and where I'd last tried to break through to Harry in one of his dark moods.
I'd succeeded that time. But when I catch a glimpse of him slumped in the corner, chest and feet bare with just faded jeans on, I feel cold nerves gather in the pit of my stomach.
I walk slowly over and notice he is playing with something in his fingers. The silver glint of it catches the tiny amount of light in the room from the doorway and at first I think it is Ron's Deluminator. Then as I get closer I see it's a muggle Zippo lighter. He is flicking it open and lighting it, then snapping it shut, over and over, methodically.
He doesn't move or show any sign that he knows I'm there as I kneel gingerly at his side. I study him discreetly, realising at that moment that my friend is a man now; just noting how the once stringy arms and flat chest of adolescence have given way to the ropey, fuller muscles of adulthood. I watch the repetitive action of his fingers as he continues his motions, and I can see out of the corner of my eye he is stubbornly watching the flame flicker alight and die, steadfastly ignoring my presence.
Finally he snaps it shut one last time and we sit in darkness for a while.
"I knew you'd be next." His voice is croaky like he hasn't spoken yet that day, even though it's two in the afternoon.
He smiles but there is no warmth in it.
"The last ditch effort."
I frown at the bitter note in his voice and then I notice the bottle to his side and at the same time catch the smell of Firewhisky coming from him. I sigh.
"What's going on Harry? Why are you doing this?"
He stays silent for a while, taking a drink directly from the bottle in the meantime. He motions with it at me, apparently offering me some as his eyes squint against the harsh taste in his throat. I shake my head and lick my lips, trying to prepare what I was going to say.
"Just save your breath Hermione. I just want to be alone."
I tilt my head, frowning.
"And what do we do? Just stop caring about you?"
He laughs sharply, a humourless bark that reminds me of Sirius.
"You don't even know me. None of them ever really knew me."
I reach across and grab the bottle before he goes to take another sip. I put my face close to his and meet his glare. He is looking back at me, no fight in his eyes - they're just blearily bemused. His gaze drifts down to my lips which makes the nerves coil slowly in my stomach for some reason.
"I know you. I know this isn't you."
His mouth twists.
"Yeah you know me alright. You know me better than anyone Hermione Jane."
His words are dripping with sarcasm and I stare at him, confused, trying to read his eyes that are that unsettling dark green again. Then his face changes to a mask and he looks away.
"Why don't all of you" -he swipes the bottle back out of my hands quicker than I would have given his reflexes credit for and then points directly at me-"Why don't YOU, just fuck off."
I catch myself before I flinch. He is watching me closely, grimly satisfied.
I don't respond for a bit, then I yank the bottle back off him.
"It'll take more than a 'fuck off' to make me give up on you." For some mad reason, I take a swig from the bottle too, trying and failing not to grimace. I wipe my lips with the back of my hand. "Harry James."
His eyes are still steely but his mouth twitches and he laughs, the tiniest trace of humour in it this time. He turns back to his lighter and starts flicking it again.
"Whatever. Whatever you say."
I stand up and leave him then, checking in with Kreacher in the kitchen. After supervising the making of dinner (much to the house elf's disgust), I traipse back up the stairs and chuck a t shirt at Harry, still in the same position in the corner.
"Dinner."
I turn and walk out without looking back, but I don't hear him move an inch. Fifteen minutes later I'm thinking I've failed when the kitchen door swings open and he pads over to the other place setting, scraping the chair back with a kick of his still bare foot.
I don't look at him and kept eating. We eat in silence and I glance up halfway through. In the light of the kitchen he looks even more terrible, his hair sticking up at odd angles and the growth of stubble on his face the longest I've seen it, even on the Horcrux hunt. He doesn't meet my eyes and I've finished so I take my plate to the sink, and set about washing the dishes without magic for some reason.
I don't hear him get up so his voice in my ear makes me jump.
"That's not a victory. I was just hungry."
I stay still as he reaches around me and dumps his empty plate in the warm water that my hands are soaking in. I fancy that it's my imagination that he presses against me slightly, his nose and breath brushing my ear, and sending a current shooting through my side and down my leg. But I dismiss that, and everything else - ridiculously happy that he's eaten. I don't care what he says; I know it's a victory, if a small one.
The next night is much the same. I tell Ron I'm staying at my parents and he grumbles as usual. But the Burrow is uncomfortable for me right now anyway. I've never become used to staying in Ron's room with him, and Ginny's moping is driving me a little crazy if I'm honest. The darkness and silence of Grimmauld is almost a relief.
He barely says two words to me. But he calls me Hermione Jane again. And again the next night, so when I call him to dinner, I call him Harry James too.
That night I stay. I've been apparating to Mum and Dad's after dinner but I don't want to tonight. I set up the room that I'd stayed in when it had been Order headquarters. The nostalgia is nice and unbearably sad at the same time; in that room I can picture Tonks and her vivid hair a little too sharply for my liking.
In the morning, to my delight, he is in the kitchen already when I come down for breakfast. He has shaved and I think he's even run a comb through his hair, though with Harry you can never really tell. He doesn't look up from his cereal when I come in but I'm just happy with his appearance at all.
Halfway through breakfast, he says something that surprises me.
"Ron know you're here?"
I look up and he is studying me hard, and it makes me suddenly self conscious. I watch him carefully for a moment then decide to be honest and shake my head.
"No."
"Hmm." He nods and goes back to his cereal. "You shouldn't be here then."
I frown and feel my heckles rising. "I'll decide where I can and can't be, thanks."
He snorts lightly but doesn't respond otherwise. I'm slightly disgruntled then I notice he is dressed rather nicely in a collared shirt and pants.
"Going somewhere?"
He pushes his chair back loudly and takes his plate to the sink. Kreacher takes it off him and shoos him away while he sets about the dishes.
When Harry turns back, he rakes his hand through his hair and smiles slightly, and for the briefest moment I see the Harry I knew. Then just as quickly the grim mask is back, but at least he answers.
"Job interview." My eyes must've lit up because his face is amused as he crosses his arms. "Happy, Hermione Jane?"
I don't hold back my enthusiasm.
"Very. Very, Harry James."
I should've known then, somehow, that it was all about to go downhill.
*
The next time I see him is over two weeks later. I call in often over the next few days and talk with Kreacher but he has no idea where Harry is.
I take to dropping in to Grimmauld Place as part of my daily routine. I don't know why because I've told Kreacher to alert me as soon as Harry gets back and I actually believe he will. But an anxiety is gnawing at my gut and I've found it can only be soothed by being at the most Noble House of Black.
Ron knows something is up with me. He's getting irritated that I won't stay at the Burrow anymore, that we've only had the occasional dinner lately. And I know it's wrong but part of me wants to test him in some way, to be a bit unobtainable and see how he handles it for a while. I recall the way I felt when he left us on the Horcrux hunt and I know it's a little childish but I take some sort of sick satisfaction from his pining for me now.
My training is going well; I'm enjoying study again. I think if I could just find Harry, everything would be right.
I ask for Kreacher's help to pull a couch into the kitchen in front of the fireplace and he does so without grumbling. I think he spends a bit of time waiting there too, for the familiar popping sound that will signal Harry flooing home.
As it happens, when he finally turns up he doesn't come through the fireplace. In fact, I'm not sure where he comes from because I'm asleep, dozing on the couch after two glasses of red wine and too much staring into the golden flames.
He touches my arm and I jolt awake, focusing slowly on his face. I'm wide awake in a second once I do, and reach out to grab his arm instantly, as if to check he's real. He smiles at that, and then sits on the arm rest of the couch.
It's then that I notice his hair.
It is short, shorter than I've ever seen it, cropped close to his scalp. It makes his eyes stand out more if that's possible.
"Harry...your hair!"
He runs a hand through it like he usually does but there is no messy length for his fingers to get stuck in and he just ends up rubbing his head. He doesn't speak though.
I can't stop staring at him, my instant relief that he's finally there giving way to a million questions all trying to get out of me at once.
Instead I find I can only gape at him, at his scar, stark on his forehead now that no hair covers it, his dark t-shirt exposing arms that are slightly tanned. His jeans are dark also, and he wears boots, black boots that look sort of army issue. And, I realise with a jolt, he's not wearing glasses.
He rubs his face and I get then that he is uncomfortable under my scrutiny.
"How...How are you?" I stammer.
He grins, and I realise for the first time that his haircut suits him.
"Hungry."
Kreacher cracks into the room abruptly, giving me the fright of my life, and goes about quickly arranging some supper. I look at the clock - it's 1am.
Harry sits on the couch and eats and those questions bubble up in me again. I try to order them but his physical presence is distracting me, he looks and seems so different. He even smells different; I catch a hint of cigarette smoke on him.
I stare at the fire again, and finally settle on something to say.
"I've been worried about you." I clear my throat. "We've been worried."
He makes a grunt and shrugs his shoulders, finishing his mouthful.
"You don't need to. I'm fine."
He seems relaxed, so I ask him.
"Where've you been?"
He glances at me then grabs a long drink of beer that Kreacher has provided. He answers looking into the fire.
"I got that job."
I feel my eyes widen.
"That's great!" He doesn't react and I prod him. "Isn't it?"
"Yeah" he says, looking at his plate.
He remains silent. I raise my eyebrows.
"So..?"
"So...what?"
"So what is it?"
He stands up and takes his empty plate to his sink.
"It's just some contract stuff. I'm not really sure yet." He comes back to sit next to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. Some of his old warmth is in his eyes. "But how's your training going?"
I know he is trying to change the subject but I'm so happy he seems better that I play along. "It's great actually. I'm really enjoying it."
He smiles; a genuine one. "That's great. You'll be really good at it."
There is some strange sadness in his tone that scares me, and I shift closer to him instinctively.
Had I known that it would be the last time I'd see him for almost a year, would I have said something more? Would I have asked him, begged him to tell me what he was doing, where he'd really been?
I don't know, but when he puts his arm around me and draws me against him, the two of us sipping our drinks and staring at the fire in warm companionship, I'm shamefully pleased and so giddy, that I don't say anything. In fact I fall asleep again, nestled into his shoulder. I think I feel him kiss the top of my head but that might've been a dream because when I wake, it is morning, the fire is low and I'm cold.
And he is gone.
*
Lyrics credit(in order); Come Undone by Duran Duran, Beautiful Disaster by Kelly Clarkson.