Fulfilling Obligations (Harmione)

Chapter 46: Always

Being who he was, Harry Potter had more reason than most to wonder what exactly fate was, and he was uniquely suited for a broad and ever-changing perception of its role in his life. At times, he was inclined to believe that fate was in fact a very real and very powerful force that intruded into his existence on a whim...for better or for worse, an inescapable paradox that capriciously dealt the cards from which people were obliged to build the precarious framework of their lives.

Harry suspected many were inclined to lean toward this idea. After all, people were almost invariably disposed to blame anyone or anything but themselves for the failures within their lives. Fate, after all, was an easy choice for a scapegoat. Therefore, it was often not 'I was to blame' for this or that misfortune, but rather 'fate was cruel' to have brought this or that misfortune into my life.

Although Harry, after all he had been through, was reluctantly prone to having a similar view of fate, he did not delude himself into thinking fate was in any way cruel. Because fate was not cruel. Fate was an unbiased dealer of circumstances, and this is where its interference ended. What you chose to do with what you were dealt was where things could go right or terribly terribly wrong.

When you fold too early and miss out on the chance of a lifetime.

When you go all in and lose everything.

So no, fate is not cruel. It seems ruthless only when you play the game wrong and wind up with your pockets empty, merciless only when you call a bluff and fail, like a shepherd who refuses to run from a wolf and winds up between its jaws.

Harry felt all of this with a deep certainty, and thus felt an even deeper sense of self-loathing as he took in the shambles of his life and knew it was his fault. Knew it was his fault that his wife of almost fifteen years lay withering away in a bed at St. Mungo's, a distorted imitation of what she had once been a mere three and half months ago. She had been kept alive this long only through the substantial and extremely expensive efforts of highly trained Healers, and of course specialists in everything curse-related.

He remembered the first few weeks very vividly, perhaps because it had been so early, when Ginny was still mostly herself, when there was still hope that the shattered remains of the porcelain figurine would reveal their secrets and a cure.

There had been no such luck.

And so here he was, signing papers to discharge his wife from the Wizarding hospital so she could be at home for Christmas-her last Christmas, as his unwilling thoughts were too ready to remind him.

Harry dropped the quill once his final signature had been firmly inscribed on the last sheet of parchment and immediately strode back through the corridor to Ginny's room, past the smiling receptionists that had become as familiar to him as his co-workers at the Ministry, and past the pair of towering Aurors that had been stationed on either side of the door since Ginny had taken permanent residence there. Just as there were Aurors stationed around his home, around the Burrow, around Ron's house, around Hermione's flat. Each had been reinforced with every ward imaginable, but Harry was done taking chances.

Two female Healers were already within the room-one was Ginny's typical, very experienced Healer Atwell, and the other looked as though she had come here straight off the Hogwarts Express. The older witch was performing a final, routine set of spells to okay Ginny's return home. After months of watching the procedure, Harry had grown quite adept at analyzing the information the spells revealed, and had been privy to the gradual decline of his wife's vitals.

The younger witch, curly blonde hair swinging about, was performing a simple spell to test for heartrate by pressing her wand to Ginny's pale wrist, from which her darkened veins stood out vividly. Harry, as he noted what seemed to be a small, portable radio settled on the girl's hip, discerned a strange conglomeration of noises filling the air as she went about her spellwork. Listening as he approached Ginny's bedside, he detected the sounds of a babbling brook, the chirp of crickets, the rustling of fallen leaves, and the occasional whistle of a songbird.