Incorporeal
"Harry Potter is dead."*
Voldemort's magnified voice is carried over to the dark room inside a dilapidated building, and a man sprawled on the floor opens his eyes.
"He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him."*
The figure tries to move, but all he manages is scrabble his fingers across the floor as if reaching for something, while his deathly pale lips form the word 'no'.
"We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone."*
The eyes close again. The voice speaks more, but is not heard as the man's body is shaken by several terrible, shuddering dry sobs.
I need all of my effort to stop myself from turning away. I have to remind myself that my presence is incorporeal, and there should be no need to seek a wall or a chair to lean to.
The man on the floor lies lifelessly, his face void of any expression. Yet I know what is going through his mind at this time, know it as clearly as if his thoughts were written in the air.
In vain. For naught. All of it.
However brief the words, they take up the entirety of what still remains of his mind. I have to remind myself that my presence is incorporeal, and there should be no need to breathe, and therefore, the feeling of all air being gone from the room is but imaginary.
Lily.
On cue, his fingers close in a fist again, in a hope that the glass shards, already deep in his palm, can possibly bring more pain.
Unconsciously, my eyes fall down to the green lines on my hand.
Forgive me.
How weak, how ludicrous, how pathetic, to make a plea that even he knows not to be answered. Ever.
A long, trembling breath. I have to remind myself that my presence is incorporeal, and I cannot possibly feel any pain, regardless of what the man on the floor may be experiencing.
Let me die already. Fade. Blackness.
Fading into nothingness would certainly be a relief, or at least an expectation of one, because one can hardly feel any relief after one has faded into nothingness.
Blackness. Or not. See her. Be forgiven.
Be forgiven and never see her again, because there is one she loves, and wherever they had gone, they had gone together.
Be forgiven. Or not. See her. Be denied.
Be denied forgiveness, and have nothing to do to earn it, no place to escape, no way to die any further.
See her. Be denied. Or not see her at all.
Cross over and not find her there, not see her at all, have no one to plead to, no one to hope for… No one.
I cannot die now!
Oh, but you can, is it not something you have been waiting for so eagerly, for the past few hours?
I don't want to die!
What a strange desire all of a sudden. And the reason for it?
I… am… afraid…
'Don't call me coward,' indeed. I have to remind myself that my presence is incorporeal, and the man on the floor cannot possibly see me sneer.
I fight an urge to leave and save myself the pathetic display of myself. However, should I decide to be less pathetic, I should cease looking for escapes, even if the portal rune is still intact.
The man in front of me has no means to measure time, and therefore, neither do I. The surroundings, however, do not grow foggy, indicating him still being conscious. There must be a clerk with a self-inking quill after all, I conclude, pacing whatever little space I can cross without approaching the now lifeless-looking body, and trying to think what runes one could apply in order to have better control of the viewed memories. Pure academic interest, as I would definitely neither be making another Pensieve, nor viewing any more memories. Restraining myself enough to view this one to the end may turn out to be more of an ordeal than I might have expected. Inexplicably, not a single rune comes to my strangely distracted mind.
Whatever time has to have passed, passes. I can almost see the pulse on the man's neck now. On the exposed and unscathed left side. To think of how much trouble would have been spared, had Nagini chosen to bite there instead of on the right. No amount of survival potions would have helped me… him then.
The room seems to waver as if in a heat haze. My eyes are drawn to the doorway as I catch the sound on the edge of hearing. Footsteps? Or rather, running feet. More than one pair. Less than three.
Again, I have to remind myself that my presence is incorporeal, and there is no need to step away from the door and into the shadow.
A boy bursts into the room and stops frozen in his tracks, causing the girl that rushes in after him to nearly topple him over. Not noticing it, he takes a few shaky steps towards the body on the floor.
"I can't believe I've forgotten, Hermione," he mutters, looking down at the figure that now looks no more alive than a corpse. From his angle, at least.
I know that this is exactly the point when the man on the floor believes himself to have completely lost his mind.
Sweet welcome insanity. Harry Potter is dead. He cannot be here.
Furthermore, he cannot be here even if he were alive. You are the last person at whose side he would find himself kneeling like he does now.
The girl lays a sympathetic hand on the boy's shoulder and starts lowering herself on the floor next to him before making a soft sound and walking around the body.
"Lumos."
She holds her wand over the man's head, illuminating the display that appears monochrome save for the dark red. A gasp.
"He's bleeding!"
A strange chuckle from the other side.
"What'd you expect, Hermione? You saw what Voldemort did."
The girl's voice is shaking in a mixture of fury and anxiety, while her body language indicates a suppressed urge to slap her companion out of his trancelike state.
"I saw what Voldemort did, Harry, and I know that corpses don't bleed!"
Before the words can sink in, she cuts off strips of cloth from the sleeves of her robes with Diffindo and presses some of it to the wounds that are slowly resuming the bleeding, the previous clotting not enough to keep them closed now that the heart rate is returning.
"Right. Hold these. Carefully," she commands. A hand holds the cloth pressed, less than steadily, while the girl makes more bandages, out of her companion's sleeves this time.
"Hold his head with the other hand while I try to wrap these around. I don't trust my bandaging spell enough at this moment."
No movement on the boy's side, as his eyes seem to be fixed on the lifeless face before him.
"Bloody hell, Harry, you're not going to die from touching him! I don't know how on earth he hasn't bled to death, but he will soon lest we do something!" Hermione Granger snaps angrily. He complies.
"You wouldn't happen to have any useful potion on you, Professor, now would you?" the girl mutters, running her wand over the man's robes after laying the bandage hastily.
"Of course not, you've never made anyone's job any easier. What's this, though?" she reaches for the limp right hand, her eyes widening at the sight of the palm.
"Right. Whatever it was, we'd better not touch it. Harry, we need to do a double Mobilicorpus here to keep him in the air without doing more damage. Oh darn, oh damn, I wish I knew more about medicine. And I don't even have my bag with me! Come on, on the count of three. One, two, three – Mobilicorpus!"
"Mobilicorpus," the boy echoes. The girl holds her wand steady as she tugs on some hair stuck in the puddle of dried blood. For some reason, that small detail seems to mildly nauseate my incorporeal self. It may, however, be the fact of this being the second time of leaving the Shrieking Shack unconscious and hoisted in the air. Or, possibly, the effect of watching my not-quite-corpse being lifted in the air, however carefully and with different spells.
Soon, I find myself forced to run to keep up with the two as they rush down the underground passage maintaining the body in the air between them with surprising skill. I am surprised to find them have enough breath to swap remarks as the boy suddenly regains some speech.
"Damn it, Hermione, why didn't you bring your bag?"
"Well, pardon me for not dragging our entire camp and stock of potions with me wherever I go, especially after the end of it all!"
"I thought you always had dittany handy?"
"Pray explain how it would have helped a corpse! You told me he was dead!"
"He was! I thought he was!"
"Oh, look who's finally doing some thinking!"
"Stop sounding like him, Hermione!"
"Somebody has to, it seems! Just because you don't like someone doesn't mean you can't learn something from them!"
"Learn? Learn what?"
He has to wait for the answer for the minute it takes them to immobilize the Whomping Willow and climb out of the hole, the body trailing in the air behind them. The girl pushes her hair out of her face and measures the boy with a stern look.
"Well, for one thing, the way I see it, were your body hanging in the air and him helping me transport you, he wouldn't waste his breath arguing! Now step on it."
They run off. I remember to follow barely in time not to be banished from the memory, my incorporeal mind feeling strangely empty at the moment.
I have seen this before, I realize as I watch the two reach the Hospital wing, blessedly choosing empty corridors to run through and at least saving their charge – me – the humiliation of being dragged through the entire castle in the present sorry state.
Madam Pomfrey gasps softly, but asks no questions as she opens the doors of a separate ward.
"Over here."
I watch my body lowered on the bed with surprising care and see color drain from the matron's face as she points her wand at the bandage to see the wound before unwrapping it.
"Oh dear. Oh dear, dear," she whispers.
"Can you save him?" the boy asks in a strangely quiet voice, speaking for the first time after the brief conversation near the Whomping Willow.
"You've certainly done everything right, Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, but the damage… I'm afraid there's very little I can do… By all rights, he should have been dead… for some hours already…"
"He's not going to die," Harry Potter states, his attempt at sounding confident disrupted by the tremor in his voice. Hermione's eyes dart from him to Poppy Pomfrey and back.
"Leave him to me now, Mr. Potter, I'll do what I can," the woman speaks as she ushers the two from the room. Before she can do that, however, the boy approaches the man, whom I know for certain to be deeply unconscious at the moment.
"Don't you DARE," he demands angrily before turning on his heel and stalking out. Hermione watches him for a moment before hurrying after him. I have no choice but to follow, making a mental note of being right to dispute the notion of people in a coma hearing what is being said to them. Potter is hardly in a position to make orders, and the person he is trying to order around is hardly in one to follow any – but had I heard it in my faint, there would have been a high probability of dying out of pure spite.
In the corridor, I lean against the wall out of sheer habit, incorporeal or not, and observe the boy wearing a hole in the stone floor.
"I can't believe it, Hermione! Very little she can do! This is ridiculous! She's gotten people out of worse fixes, hasn't she?"
"I don't know, Harry," the girl replies quietly, watching him from her position against the wall just opposite me. He is not satisfied with the answer.
"I wish someone knew, then. Maybe at St. Mungo's…"
"He cannot possibly survive the trip. Apparition is out of question, and any other means are too slow. Not much point now because-"
"Because he's going to die anyway, is that what you mean?" he spins, glaring angrily. She looks down.
"If that's what you think, why did we bother dragging him here from the Shrieking Shack at all?"
"You'd rather leave him there, then? For Merlin's sake, Harry, I know what you've been through, and that's the only reason I'm still here! You're completely intolerable! And I can't believe you're fussing – yes, fussing! – over Snape of all people like that! One would think he was-" she trails off.
"One would think he was what, Hermione?" Potter asks, stopping in mid-step.
"Your best friend, or something," she shrugs, obviously swallowing the first answer.
"Or something," the boy mutters, sitting down on one of the chairs. Hermione lowers herself next to him.
"It was somewhat of a shock for me too, when you told me he's been on our side all this time," she admits.
"You always gave him the benefit of doubt, though."
"Well, yes. But it was never, well, personal for me like it was for you, if you know what I mean…"
"I know what you mean…" he sighs. "And I'm sorry for being intolerable. I'm not fussing, Hermione, but you cannot possibly understand…"
"You can tell me if you'd feel better for it."
"No… not yet. Sorry. There are things I need to work out on my own."
"Alright. I'll go check on Ron and Ginny and be back in a moment."
"Right."
She leaves, and the boy leans his elbows on his knees, burying the fingers of his hands in his hair.
The clock against the wall seems to blur briefly, showing that half an hour has passed.
Molly Weasley appears at the other end of the corridor.
"Harry, dear."
He forces a weary smile on his face.
"Good to see you, Mrs. Weasley. I never got a chance to say how amazing you were."
"Did you see – Oh, of course you did," she smiles weakly, but genuinely. "There will be plenty of time to discuss everything, dear, but you definitely need to rest now."
"I'm fine," his answer seems to leave his lips bypassing the brain completely. The woman sighs.
"Then again, you probably know best. I hope Madam Pomfrey won't mind me taking over her teapot for a few moments."
"She's… busy right now, so I guess not."
A few minutes later, Potter is twirling a teacup in his hands, his eyes fixed on it and unwilling to look anywhere else. However little empathy I am generally capable of, his wish to be left alone is clear even to me. But not to the woman by the boy's side.
"Harry, Hermione told me what happened."
"Uh-huh."
"None of us have any reasons to doubt your judgment."
"Uh-huh."
"However," she pries carefully, "we cannot help but wonder-"
"If you cannot help but wonder, Mrs. Weasley, then you do have a reason to doubt my judgment. Or else you and whoever else is wondering with you, would not wonder," Potter replies in a voice so level he could be making a statement in court.
"I was just trying to say that should, Sna-, um, Prof-, um, Severus recover, Kingsley would really like to talk to him."
Were there time, I would be amused at her fumble with my name, but there's a crash as a cup shatters on the floor.
"Harry, you look pale, darling."
"I'm fine, Mrs. Weasley, I'm fine. Sorry about the cup."
"Reparo. So, I was saying-"
"No."
"Sorry, dear?"
"No one's going to talk to him unless he says he wants to talk to them."
"But Harry…"
"No one," the boy repeats, looking in front of himself. I have to remind myself that I am still incorporeal, and he cannot possibly see me, even though his eyes seem to be directly on me.
My head turns together with those of the other two as the doors to the ward open. The boy, against my semi-expectation, does not get to his feet, simply looking up at Madam Pomfrey, his face a picture of hopelessness rather than a silent question. The matron gives him a kindly look – kindly, yet sad.
"I've done everything possible, Mr. Potter."
"He's…"
"He's alive, but it is beyond our – or anyone's – efforts right now. All we can do is wait."
Patience is definitely not something that Potter could ever master easily – nor is he capable of it now as he leaps to his feet again, nearly knocking the hapless cup out of Mrs. Weasley's fingers.
"What do you mean, 'beyond our efforts'? What do you mean, 'all we can do is wait'?"
The expression on Poppy Pomfrey's face shows that she, just as before, does not appreciate being shouted at in her own kingdom.
"I mean exactly what I said, Mr. Potter," she speaks more sternly than before. "He has lost a lot of blood and survived without aid for a truly unrealistic amount of time, especially given his less than hearty constitution. From what I could judge, the very fact of Professor Snape's survival until the moment you and Ms. Granger have delivered him here can only be accounted for by an extraordinary power of will – hardly the will to live, even, but rather the refusal to die. That, and the fact of him being the Potions Master, of course. All we do now is hope that his take on staying alive remains unchanged."
"Right. Right," mutters the boy, sitting back down.
"Now, Mr. Potter, I will not insist on you doing anything like getting some rest or eating something while Molly, who has kindly agreed to help, and I tend to my other patients – because I have treated you often enough to know how completely intractable you can be unless severely bed-ridden. However, should you indeed care about Severus's well-being as much as you appear to, I will trust you not to disturb him."
She walks off, trailing a slightly aghast Molly Weasley behind her. I find myself desperately wishing for a way to review parts of memories to be able to make sure I have heard all the words correctly. Against my will, I am reminded of the drop of Veritaserum, the confounded precaution that has mercilessly cut off the possible excuse of mishearing.
The surroundings blur briefly again and reappear, as if unchanged. I find my eyes drawn to the clock, the first impression being that it is still the same nine in the morning, the second realization, assisted by the darkness outside the window – that, in fact, twelve hours have passed. The third realization is that the hallway appears empty, which makes little sense, for the sheer reason of my being able to remain there.
Footsteps indicate two people approaching.
"Are you sure, Hermione?.." a male voice asks just out of sight.
"Trust me, Ron, he's here alright," the girl answers, turning the corner. "Hold this," she says, thrusting a mug and a plate into Ron Weasley's hands and approaching the chair in which she – and I – have last seen Potter. Her hand passes through the air, meeting no obstacle.
"Very smart, Harry," the girl makes a face and reaches out in the direction of the other chair, her fingers grasping something invisible this time and revealing Potter, hunched, weary-looking and irate.
"Next time you try to make it look like you actually left this place, at least be bothered enough to create a believable illusion of yourself sleeping in your dorm, and sit further away from where you used to be."
"I'll keep that in mind," he answers, looking too tired to snap back. Or simply resigned.
"You can't spend the night in this chair, you know," the red-haired boy states, eyeing his friend warily, no wonder being forewarned of the dangers of arguing with him at this time. Hermione Granger rolls her eyes and shakes her head as Potter snarls back, too predictably for her already,
"Yes I can bloody well spend the night in this chair if I want to!"
"Of course he can, Ron," the girl sighs in the typical female 'I told you so' fashion. "He can spend the night, and the following day, and the next week in this chair if he wants to, and there is nothing we can say or do to persuade him otherwise, so we're not even going to try, right?"
Ronald Weasley nods, while Potter eyes the two suspiciously. His sentiment is justified, as Granger draws her wand and taps it over her hand meaningfully.
"However, he knows that I am fully capable of putting a Full Body-Bind on him and pouring a Dreamless Sleep potion down his throat even if Ron refuses to cooperate with me for the fear of future retribution-"
"Hey!"
"Well, I don't think Harry would hit or hex me," she smiles mischievously, "you on the other hand… Nevertheless, he is fully aware of the truth of my words, and would rather eat these sandwiches and drink the hot chocolate we brought, knowing that the sooner he does that, the sooner he will have us out of his hair. Is that correct, Harry?"
Potter looks at the two silently for a few moments before something resembling a smile crawls onto his face – not forced this time.
"Can you ever be not correct, Hermione?" he chuckles lightly, reaching for the mug and almost bringing it to his lips before pausing.
"I'd rather one of you take a sip first, though. Joking!" he adds hastily, drinking from the mug hastily as a wand is pointed his way. The wand does nothing but deliver a sandwich, which he picks up from mid-air.
"Thanks, guys," Potter speaks after finishing eating, his previous attempts at speaking thwarted by the threats of Silencio should he say another word before the food is gone.
"Really. I mean it."
Hermione smiles, while Ronald looks positively relieved.
"Good to have you back, mate. I knew Hermione was exaggerating."
"Excuse me?"
"Well, you were. He looks quite normal, although one would indeed think he's losing it, stuck here for the whole day."
"I'm NOT losing it, Ron!" Potter retorts, immediately back to the defensive stance. "Your Mum and Dad need you – you should go to them."
"Sorry, Hermione," the freckled teen mutters as the girl shrugs. Potter finally makes an attempt at self-restraint, obviously remorseful over the lash-out.
"Really, guys. You're both needed elsewhere."
"What about you, Harry? What about people who need you?"
"You two know where to find me. Besides…" he looks down, not bothering to conceal a sigh. "Everyone's got someone. Right?" he shoots them a questioning look. Ronald's hand finds Hermione's just as her fingers reach out for his.
"Right," Weasley confirms.
"Right. So everyone needs someone, and everyone's got someone. While I have a place I need to be right now. Do you think I could have that, at least for a little while?"
The couple looks at each other before nodding at Potter in unison. He manages a weak smile again before the girl drapes his Cloak over him again. I feel a pang of undisputable envy. Understanding is a gift given to precious few, and the 'precious few' where I never belonged seem to include Potter, again. Issues of gifts being deserved or not disregarded.
The boy's disembodied voice feels strange in the empty corridor.
"Everyone's got someone. But somehow, as soon as I think I've got someone – they're gone. Not you too. Everyone's gone now. Not you too."
Part of me wonders whether he realizes he is saying those words aloud. I rationalize that the very fact of me hearing them puts that well out of question.