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Notes: Yet more post-OotP angst.

Aftermath
by

The night is a black window he opens onto his dreams. They aren't cold, as dreams ought to be--they're warm and smooth, a shifting, drowning segue he can't escape from. They're almost beautiful. He's sitting in the common room, watching firelight flash off Ron's hair, a red that becomes Voldemort's eyes, that becomes Bellatrix's mouth. He wants to smash it, see it blossom blood, but he ends up kissing it instead--and then he's back in Sirius' arms, being kissed goodnight for the last time, and Sirius is falling through the Veil, and then Harry's down in Snape's dungeons, quivering with the blow of a Legilimens, hating being forced to come back for lessons this year. Hating Snape for seeing the secret Sirius had told him to keep.

James, Sirius' mouth says to him in dreams. But Sirius' mouth isn't red. It's white, thin, a scar splitting one side of it. Broken heart. I'm not James, Harry tries to say to him, like he always had, but Sirius keeps forgetting, like he always had.

Then he's back in Dumbledore's office and Fawkes is asleep--and maybe this is real and maybe it isn't, and Snape's a dark shadow standing watch in one corner, and Dumbledore's eyes are troubled.

'I'm so sorry, Harry,' says Dumbledore. 'We should have known--after what Sirius felt for James--'

'I'm not James,' says Harry, and then he walks past Snape, or perhaps through Snape, because it feels as though Snape's body has been pushed aside, light and easy as a curtain.

Curtain. That reminds him.

The night is a black window he opens onto his dreams. Open it, open it, Harry. The wind is warm against his face. He breathes it in, seeing the far ground waver beneath him, and steps out.