Done! It's too long to fit in just one comment, so if you'd like to read it as one thing, it's posted here (http://cereal.livejournal.com/161060.html) -- otherwise part one below!
It's not that Harry's lost perspective, it's just -- it's always been the weight of the world on his back.
Years from even a single chest hair (years from being a man) he's locked in a cupboard, breathing sticky, recycled air. He's thinking about dead parents and awful relatives and how achingly hungry he is. That was that world.
And it was heavy.
A whole new life and a savior mantle and a lot (too much) of real blood on his hands and he is buckling, drowning, crushed under the pressure.
Turns out: a broken back can mend just fine, but your other muscles suffer while you heal.
When everything clears and the war is over and he's died and come back (and some have just died), everything else starts to twitch.
He watches Hermione with Ron and there, deep and knotted in his gut, the worst feeling in the world. In this world.
(Ginny always looks at him with such clear eyes. It's like a window so clean you don't realize until too late that it's closed.)
There's a wall, a fucking ocean of feeling, and it slams into him over and over again. Like this horrible journey across an angry land was all to find out that once you reach the coast, you just turn around and go back again, a different way, with different traps.
You never get to stop moving.
The rough part, the part that really cramps (and stings, and aches), is how this time, no one comes with him.
It's a happy world now, without use for martyrs or heroes or a bond made from need and dependency and good versus evil.
It's just Harry versus himself. And maybe time.
There was time for other girls, time for aggression with his bed curtains closed, time for everything but the after -- time for everything but what happens if they win this battle.
He could see how Ron watched Hermione, could see the flush flare on her cheeks, but he couldn't see how this would end for him. He was in as deep as Ron (he was in deeper), but: you're chosen to be a wizard, you're chosen to save the world, you're chosen for the storybook ending, except when you're not.
The moments were there. Easy, warm looks in the library. Passion in mortal danger. A hook of electricity low in his abdomen when her shoulder brushed his late in the common room.
If he'd paid more attention in herbology (if he'd had any attention left to pay), he'd realize with seeds planted like that, you still have to help them grow.
Harry/Hermione - fill in the holes you've made. (pg-13) Part 1
It's not that Harry's lost perspective, it's just -- it's always been the weight of the world on his back.
Years from even a single chest hair (years from being a man) he's locked in a cupboard, breathing sticky, recycled air. He's thinking about dead parents and awful relatives and how achingly hungry he is. That was that world.
And it was heavy.
A whole new life and a savior mantle and a lot (too much) of real blood on his hands and he is buckling, drowning, crushed under the pressure.
Turns out: a broken back can mend just fine, but your other muscles suffer while you heal.
When everything clears and the war is over and he's died and come back (and some have just died), everything else starts to twitch.
He watches Hermione with Ron and there, deep and knotted in his gut, the worst feeling in the world. In this world.
(Ginny always looks at him with such clear eyes. It's like a window so clean you don't realize until too late that it's closed.)
There's a wall, a fucking ocean of feeling, and it slams into him over and over again. Like this horrible journey across an angry land was all to find out that once you reach the coast, you just turn around and go back again, a different way, with different traps.
You never get to stop moving.
The rough part, the part that really cramps (and stings, and aches), is how this time, no one comes with him.
It's a happy world now, without use for martyrs or heroes or a bond made from need and dependency and good versus evil.
It's just Harry versus himself. And maybe time.
There was time for other girls, time for aggression with his bed curtains closed, time for everything but the after -- time for everything but what happens if they win this battle.
He could see how Ron watched Hermione, could see the flush flare on her cheeks, but he couldn't see how this would end for him. He was in as deep as Ron (he was in deeper), but: you're chosen to be a wizard, you're chosen to save the world, you're chosen for the storybook ending, except when you're not.
The moments were there. Easy, warm looks in the library. Passion in mortal danger. A hook of electricity low in his abdomen when her shoulder brushed his late in the common room.
If he'd paid more attention in herbology (if he'd had any attention left to pay), he'd realize with seeds planted like that, you still have to help them grow.