Rune stone path

Meeting of the Mothers

"Harry, you can't keep hiding in here forever," Shiva said in a soft voice from the door to Harry's room.

He grunted and moved adding another stabilization rune to his current schematic. "I'm not hiding. I'm working."

"Sure, because everyone works for 14 hours straight. And don't try to tell me you stopped to sleep because the sheets haven't been touched and Dobby is forbidden from coming in here without direct permission." She sighed and grabbed a chair swinging it around to sit down next to him laying a hand on his shoulder. "Harry, you don't have to talk to me, you don't have talk to Fleur, or Tonks, or Hermione. You don't even have to talk to her but you have to at least come out of this room. You have to put down the pencil and come out. At least come and eat."

"Can't stop working," Harry said curtly squinting down at the page.

"Why?" she asked simply.

Harry's pencil froze. A moment later it kept scratching away. "Just can't."

"Not good enough, kid," Shiva said shaking her head and squeezing his shoulder. "Give me a legit reason and I'll leave. Otherwise I'm going to stay right here and be as annoying as I possibly can be until you are tearing that black hair out of your head."

Harry scowled but kept scratching at the diagrams. She started silently counting to ten. She was at nine before he finally spoke again. "If I stop working I have to go out there. If I go out there then I have to talk to her. What the hell am I supposed to say to her?"

"Well you could start with 'hello'. That is the commonly accepted form of introduction after all. This is the most you've said to anyone since she woke up. Fleur was starting to get worried that whatever you did removed the capacity for speech. I think she was only half joking about that," Shiva said.

Harry fixed her with an annoyed stare and turned back to his runes. "Thanks for the help, Shiva," he muttered irritably.

She scowled and leaned back into her chair with her arms crossed. "You think I know what to say? Since Andi and Pomfrey gave her a clean bill of health and left it's basically been brief splurges of conversation followed by the longest, most awkward silences of my life. I wish Hermione had been able to stay. Tonks is making things worse, Fleur is too worried about you and Lily is…well…Kid you're not the only one having a hard time here okay?" Shiva let out a groan and shook her head. "Look, Harry, try to see it from her perspective. As far as she's concerned yesterday you were a toddler who could barely string three words together and now you're a teenager, her husband is dead and she's lost a decade and half. This isn't easy on any of us, kid. You need to talk to your mother."

"I already have a mother," Harry whispered. His voice was so quiet that she almost didn't hear him – he obviously hadn't meant her to. She blinked and struggled to find something to say. Anything would really do for the moment. "Fine," he sighed loudly unknowingly saving her from her floundering. "Fine. Under one condition."

"Name it, kid."

"You stay in the room. I don't think I can do this being alone."

Shiva nodded. "If you're sure…Okay, Harry. Do you want me to ask Fleur and Tonks to leave?"

Harry frowned thinking hard. "I'd almost prefer Daphne to be here honestly. She'd just slap the back of my head and berate me for being a 'typical angst ridden boy'. The girls are going to hover which is just going to make this even harder…can you ask Fleur to go hang out with Hermione for a few hours? Tonks can stay. We might need some laughs at some point."

"Sure, Harry." Shiva stood and gave him a warm smile with a half grin. "If you're not out in the living room in ten minutes though I'm sending Dobby in to drag you out."