Drain the pressure from the swelling
This sensation’s overwhelming
Give me a long kiss goodnight
And everything will be alright
Tell me that I won’t feel a thing
Just give me Novocain
Harry rolled over in his bed and stared at the clock hanging on the blue wall. Eleven thirty.
He’d been in bed for an hour. The idea had been to go to sleep. Not only that, but to go home too. So far he had failed in both “plans.” He was neither asleep nor at home, and since he wanted the latter more than he had ever thought possible, he decided that the Mirror of Erised could care less about him. Or, on the other hand, just wanted him to stay in this world a bit longer.
"Maybe there’s something else I need to see?" he muttered to himself. The sound of his voice seemed much louder than it actually was within the void of the room.
He groaned once more and rolled over in his bed, yet again, realizing that instead of being teleported home (if that was indeed what had happened) he was still just laying in a foreign bed with a headache. And not just any headache, it was the great white of all headaches. The kind that started at the back of the eyes and then slowly traveled to the forehead where it resided until it grew bored and moved to the nape of the neck where it settled in to reek havoc on any attempt the mind made at forming an intelligent thought. So, amidst the blinding pain of the great white headache Harry continued to wish, to will, himself home.
He laid in his bed and focused his full attention to only that of his life. He closed his eyes and let the images of the past filter through his mind. The first time he was in Diagon Alley. His first year at Hogwarts. The first time he was at the Burrow, his real home. Hermione and Ron bickering. Quidditch, which mingled with joyous rounds of, “Weasley is our King.”
His mind then traveled to the less pleasant pictures from his past that happened to be etched plainly in his mind. Quirrell, Lockhart, the fake Mad-Eye Moody, also known as Barty Crouch Jr. The Triwizard Cup. Cedric’s untimely death, Sirius’ death, both things he could now accept. And with that final thought he opened his eyes, hoping to see his dorm room, but was greeted only with the shadowed blue walls of the foreign bedroom, that he was growing far too accustomed to.
Harry growled in frustration, picked up his pillow, and launched it at the door. Was it so much to ask to go back to where he belonged? Was it? He didn’t think so but apparently, he was wrong. All he knew was that he sure as hell was not going to stay in this world if he could help it. He had launched another pillow at the door for good measure when he heard the voices in the hallway.
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” came the honest answer.
Harry slowly stood up from his bed and collected his pillows as he continued to listen to the worried tones outside his room.
“He knows now, I suppose there is nothing more we can do.”
Harry walked back over to his bed and laid down, ignoring his migraine and focused only on his parents voices. His mother sounded close to tears when she asked her next question.
“When did Dumbledore say he told him?”
There was silence, then, “Not too long ago. He made it sound as if it’d only been a month ago, but one can never know with that man.”
Harry had the feeling that all his mother could do at that point was nod her head. More silence followed his father’s revelation. The silence was unbearable do to the pain it held. The unasked why, which hovered over every unplayed beat between the two of them. The exact same fermata that had extended through the last six months of his own life.
Why him? Not that he would have wished this fate upon Neville, but why had it been him? It could not have only been because he was a half-blood. And if it was, why on earth would Voldemort base his choice upon that reason alone. But ultimately, “Why him?”
It always resorted back to that question and he knew it had done the same with his parents too.
Amidst the silence he heard his door click open and he quickly shut his eyes as the two adults entered his room. He could feel them hovering over his “sleeping” body. He could hear their soft breathing as they watched him. Then finally he felt his mother run her hand through his messy hair. She heaved a heavy sigh, as if she were holding back tears.
“It’s not as if we could keep it from him forever,” His father stated, almost as if he too were broken by this fact.
Harry felt the tender hand run once more through his hair, and this time he knew that she was crying. “Yes, but now any form of a normal teenage life has been snatched from him.” The hand crept gently through his hair again, “Now he knows that all of this is because of him. How is he going to deal with it?”
The question hung heavily in the air, thick with every syllable that had been uttered. Harry laid there, amongst the heavy silence, wishing that he could blow his eavesdropping cover and comfort his mother. Then the answer came.
“He is strong.”
Harry heard his parents turn their bodies toward the door.
His father sighed, “Yes, Sirius, he is, but what if that isn’t enough.”
Harry could feel Sirius’ dark eyes rest on the back of his neck. The man sighed deeply before he answered his best friend’s question. “He has done well enough since he has learned the truth,” he paused before he finished, “I have faith in the boy.”
Harry heard shuffling footsteps sound from where Sirius had been standing, followed by a door opening somewhere within the hall. He felt his mother’s comforting hand run through his hair once again as soft voices of forgiveness filtered through his wall from Reign’s room. He then heard his father leave the room shortly after the voices had started. Then, within the silence and muffled truths from the other room, his mother leaned into his cheek and kissed it softly. He kept his eyes shut as she leaned into his ear and whispered, “I love you.”
She then moved out of the room and shut the door behind her. When the door had shut behind his mother’s retreating back, he opened his eyes and rolled over onto his back. He felt a hot tear roll down his cheek, as he moved his hand up to touch the spot where his mother had left her kiss. The only kiss he would every have from her. And despite the bittersweet revelation this provided, he found that once would be enough. He then, with a few more tears, shut his eyes and prepared his swollen pain-filled brain for sleep.