Achieving Light [Book 2 of Through Darkness and Light]

Chapter 21: Cherish These Days

A/N: Upload! :D Only chapter left is Epilogue...and I'll have that out soon. But for now, this is it! Love y'all so very much! So much to get to, and so little time left in the year...but something to look forward to this coming year: I shall be starting a new fanfic! :D Title: The Son of Mine Enemy. First guess gets the first chapter dedicated to them, and 20 points to the House of their choice. :)

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Voices filtered in through the hazy mist of semi-consciousness.

“How long do you think it will be?”

“I cannot say…it has been long enough already, and they should have awoken long before now…I suspect their minds are healing from the trauma. It was a very odd sequence of events that they went through, and I’m sure there is more to it than what we know.”

Blackness, then some time later, more voices.

“Will they survive?”

“Perhaps…though I am more concerned about Harry’s welfare…he was the more gravely injured…”

Harry…

“Draco, wake up…you’ve got to wake up and take care of Lily…”

Lily…

He could not wake.

~ + ~

He was floating in a cloud of dulled pain. Though it was tolerable, he could sense it lapping at the edges of his mind, waiting for the moment it could strike. All around him was white. No color, no sound, just white.

Harry…

A whisper seemed to ring in his ears, the first sound he’d heard in awhile. He looked around.

Harry…

Again, the whisper. He tried to answer, but he couldn’t.

Your Inima needs you, Harry…

Draco! He must be so worried…

Arise, Harry…awaken…your daughter needs you as well…

And Lily! Who was looking after her?

Your friends are caring for her…as they care for you and your Inima. But they need you, Harry…

He simply could not wake.

~ + ~

“It’s been far too long, Severus,” Minerva McGonagall said sadly, staring down at the lifeless bodies stretched out on the beds. “Poppy says that if they remain comatose like this for much longer, permanent damage may occur.”

Severus Snape sighed. His dark eyes took in the cold, still figures of his godson and the Savior of the Wizarding World. “There’s not much we can do but wait,” he murmured. Rare emotion glittered in his gaze, as he gazed sorrowfully at the two. “We must trust Fate will intervene, and bring the two back to the world of the living.”

“But they’re so cold…if it weren’t for the heartbeat and the shallow breaths, they may well be dead!”

The Potions Master shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger. “And that, I’m sure, relates to the otherworldly struggle they face. You and I both know and remember what Albus told us. ‘I suspect that Harry and Draco will yet encounter Death’s grasp before this is over’, he said. I believe that is what we are looking at now. Death’s unwillingness to let his prize escape him. It is only because of luck, or perhaps some other being, that they even remain alive.”