Behind Blind Eyes
He had eyes the color of emeralds that had been lying in the sun. They shone like the sun when he was excited, and the moon when he was upset. They reflected the stars on a clear summer night whenever he thought of Her. But that didn’t matter. If anything, it made it worse. Because now no one would ever see those suns and moons and stars. Harry Potter’s eyes had closed forever.
He wasn’t dead. He still walked and talked and ate and slept. But he acted as if he were dead. Maybe he wished he was. But on the Hogwarts grounds that no longer looked like the same happy grounds they had once been, on that battlefield, Harry had defeated Lord Voldemort. After the battle, he had gathered up what was left of Ron and Hermione and had put them in the same grave, so that they could never be separated. He only wished he could join them. However, he couldn’t, he had to wait for death, and peace, the normal way. He had to live one day at a time.
But the sight of his godfather, Dumbledore, and Neville dieing, his best friends being tortured and burned to death, and his true love in so much pain had taken its toll on him. It was made worse by the fact that he thought it was his fault. Even though now the thestrals could be seen by everyone, (everyone had seen death of some sort) Harry refused to see them. He had closed his emerald green eyes like the sky, for good.
His only consolation was that Ginny still lived. It was a mystery, a miracle that she hadn’t left him like everyone else. She had been tortured, burned and suffocated, even had the Avada Kedavra sent her way, but she had not died. No one but herself and Harry knew why she hadn’t. Why the Avada Kedavra hadn’t affected her. Why she wasn’t lying 3 feet below the ground like everyone else. Harry had confided in her after his friends’ funeral when he had found her sitting by their graves saying “Why? Why? Why aren’t I dead too? What did you do to deserve it? What did I do to deserve life?” He had told her that he had used a spell to give her every protection he had ever had. Everything he had ever used against Voldemort. He knew he probably needed it more, but he couldn’t live without her, so it didn’t matter. Ginny had been mad about that, saying that she could take care of herself and Harry should have been focusing on beating Voldemort and freeing the Wizarding world.
She hadn’t talked to him or seen him after that, so there really wasn’t anything to see at all anymore, except the white walls of the intensive care ward at St. Mungos (he had been moved there right after the battle), the white sheets of his hospital bed, and eventually the white walls and sheets and floors of his own house. Occasionally, McGonagall or Flitwick or Slughorn , or his school friends, Dean or Seamus or Luna would come and visit him, but the only person he really wanted to see never came. Ginny stayed away from his house.
At first, he only closed his eyes so the lights didn’t hurt them, but then, when he was allowed to walk around again, he realized that he could no longer see the faces of his friends as their souls left this earth, he couldn’t hear their last words. And he was glad. As much as he wanted to remember them, his eyes would not open, that file in his brain remained on the DELETED shelf. Those suns, and moons and stars remained a distant memory.
It had been nearly a year since those emeralds had shone when the only thing that could polish them arrived at the door. Harry walked to answer the doorbell, feeling around with his white cane. When he opened the door, Ginny no longer saw those lips she had kissed, those eyes she had dreamed of, the boy she had loved. Standing on his front porch, wearing his clothes, inside his shoes, was a 19 year old boy with grey hair, a cane, and wrinkles. Harry breathed in. He remembered that smell. He opened his ears. He remembered those footsteps. Behind his eyelids, stars flashed inside emerald green eyes like fresh pickled toads. Those eyes were the only thing about him that hadn’t aged a lifetime in the past year, the only thing that was still Harry, despite what they had seen. Slowly, as if he was wondering if this was really a good idea, he opened those eyes. They saw the reason they had closed and the reason they had opened all in one sweep of Harry’s head. They saw everything they had missed in the past year. The sun and moon and stars flashed through the heavens, and Ron and Hermione’s voices boomed over their heads, “Harry, you need to live.” And a man saw what he had forgotten. While he was behind blind eyes.
Behind Blind Eyes by alisonlynn
Chapter Notes: A/N- this is my first individual fan fiction, so I need feedback!! Maybe, if people say they like it, I’ll write Ginny’s story, Behind Brown Eyes. but anyway, please Review, I beg of you! Hey, that rhymes! Anyway, I hope you read The Love Square too, it’s a lot better because dancesweetie and vrose90 helped me write it. By the way, it’s so useful to have Snape sweeping around like an overgrown bat. Next to him, who would suspect, p-poor st-st-stuttering professor Quirrill