𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐦𝐞 | 𝐇.𝐏.

𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝟕 - 𝟏𝟓

All my feelings were so overwhelming and all at once that the only thing I could possibly feel was nothing.

My vision blurred as Hermione and Weasley pulled away from him and he locked eyes with me. Those eyes that I had first seen waiting exactly where we were right now to get Sorted. Those eyes that managed to take my breath away every single time he looked at me without fail. Those eyes that I had fallen so incredibly in love with it hurt.

And those eyes that were about to close forever.

I think I was crying now too, but I was completely silent. If I made one sound, everything would shatter. I was walking, and then I was running, and then I was in his arms. And for a split second I almost forgot everything and it was all okay because he was holding me.

I sobbed endlessly into his shoulder and he was trembling like a child and I knew that no matter how much of a hero front he put on, Harry Potter was terrified to die. 

For my entire life, I had never feared death, only wasting life. Now my greatest fear was coming true, because life meant nothing if he wasn't in it.

I don't know how long we stood there. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours, it could have been days. The Earth could have revolved around the Sun a million times before we broke away and it still wouldn't have been long enough.

Slowly, carefully, I pulled back and rested my forehead against his. I couldn't even bring myself to open my eyes. It was too much. Lighter than he had ever touched me, he wiped a single tear from my cheek with his thumb. Then he brushed his lips against mine, barely more than a whisper of a kiss, and left me standing there with a broken heart.

But it was worse than a broken heart, because he hadn't even left me with enough pieces to put myself back together again.

When I heard the first scream, I knew with my entire being that Harry Potter was dead.

Everyone raced outside. Every single student, professor, and Order member followed the sound of cries and shouts until they were in the courtyard.

I stumbled blindly after Hermione and Weasley.

Then Draco was next to me, like he had been there the entire time. Half-carrying half-dragging me, he helped me the rest of the way outside.

There were Death Eaters—hundreds of them. There was Voldemort, with a twisted grin on his face. He was practically glowing with power. And then there was Hagrid, chained up and being held in place by magic, holding a limp, dangling body in his arms. His sobs echoed across the grounds.

As if I was underwater, I heard the muffled shouts and wails of everyone in the world. But none of that mattered, because my world was falling apart so fast I could hardly realize what was happening.

The skyline turned red as the sun disappeared and the ground beneath me shook and the thread that held it all together was unraveling before I could even try to catch it.

I was slipping. I was falling. I was crumbling.

I think I said his name.

Not Potter, just Harry.

I imagined his face if he could have heard me say his first name. A pain shot so deep and sharp through my failing heart that I would have cried and fallen to my knees and ripped out all my hair if I wasn't frozen, stock still, like a horrified image of a girl who knew nothing anymore.

It was my father's voice that brought me back.

"Draco," he rasped. My eyes snapped to him, on the other side of the courtyard with the rest of the Death Eaters, and then to my brother next to me. The pressure of Draco's hand on my arm was impossibly tight.