HARRY:

I was still in the common room when Lucy climbed through the portrait hole. She didn't look surprised to see me. She smiled weakly.

"So," she said.

"So." I smiled back for a second before it faded. "Are you alright? Did something happen?"

"I... I've been writing letters," she said, glancing down and wrapping her arms around herself. "I realized I should write one tonight once I got back to my dormitory, and then it showed up. Figured I should trust the room, I guess."

"It's a smart room." That was a dumb thing to say. "It's rather intuitive." Not. Helping. "Does it help?" That's better, at least. Wait, that's still vague— "Writing the letters, I mean?"

"I... yeah, it does. It was Luna's idea. She apparently mentioned it to Henry at the funeral, and it ended up helping him so he mentioned it to me at King's Cross." She clammed up, her face flushing bright red. She still wouldn't meet my eyes. She hadn't been embarrassed around me in quite a while.

"That's good, then," I said with a nod. I was desperate for her to stop looking so... small. Scared. Shut down. After everything I'd just seen for the past couple hours. After I'd seen her so strong, with her chin held so high. Please, Lu, where did you go? "Isn't it?"

Lucy looked up at me. "You don't think I'm insane for writing letters to my dead brother?"

"Oh, no, not at all. I know he... you two were... it makes sense to me. Really. You were close, you told him everything. And, well... I can imagine losing that would be really hard."

That was eloquent.

"Yeah, that's exactly it," she replied in spite of my lack of eloquence. "That's... exactly it." Lucy was silent again for a moment before smiling at me. "Harry, we did it." With that, she rushed across the room and plowed into me. She held onto me as if I were the last person in the world.

"I think that went well," I said, grinning.

She nodded and dragged her sleeves across her face as she pulled away. "I think so too. We did it," she said again, "and we're going to keep doing it." She opened her mouth to say something else, then closed it.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said quickly. Too quickly.

I narrowed my eyes at her. She blushed again.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

I grinned. "Nothing?"

"It's dumb."

"I doubt that."

"It is."

"I still want to hear it."

"Git."

"Prat."

"Fine." Lucy sighed, a sheepish smile on her face. "For half a second, I thought it would be fun if we had a handshake."

"A handshake?"

"Yeah, like... something the two of us could do before or after everything D.A. meeting, or Quidditch matches, or just because. It's dumb, I know — "

"I want a handshake," I interrupted with a grin. "It would be fun to have a handshake with you. Even though you're a prat who doubts herself far too much," I added. "Merlin, Lu, you'd think you were about to suggest we go celebrate the success of the first meeting with champagne in Umbridge's office with how much you were resisting telling me your idea."

Lucy laughed. "Okay, a handshake isn't that bad."

"My point exactly. So... what are we going to do?"

"Oh, you want to do this tonight?"

"I don't see why not. You look happier right now than you've looked all day."

She smiled shyly. "Yeah, I think I am. The meeting was a success, I got to write Cedric the same time as Henry, and I'm here now about to make a dumb handshake with my best friend. Sounds like a good day to me, even if my best friend is an insufferable git."

"Well, my best friend is an insomniac prat," I replied with a good-natured roll of my eyes.

"We're both going to be insomniac prats tonight, unless you happen to be particularly good at developing handshakes."

"I'm afraid I'm rather inexperienced."

"So am I."

We exchanged dorky grins and got to work. Within half an hour, our handshake was complete. We did it once, ending with a friendly salute, and headed our separate ways for bed minutes before midnight, a very significant day in our wake.

I fell asleep rather quickly after the excitement of the day. And it was horrible.

In a flash of blue-white light, Scabbers had become Peter Pettigrew on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. Words back and forth, words that had blurred together in the year and a half since I had first heard them all, but words I would never forget. Words such as spy, Secret-Keeper, betrayed. James and Lily, Lily and James. The parents I had never known, the parents I had never gotten to know, all because of the man groveling on the filthy floor. I might have forgotten the exact words spoken as revelation after revelation was made in that disgusting place, that accursed place, that place that had been the site of so much suffering, but I knew I would never forget the moment I saved the traitor's life.

Strung along by the memory, I jumped between Peter Pettigrew and the two men about to kill him. I didn't just jump, really — I launched myself in front of the wands.

"NO! You can't kill him, you can't."

Sirius's eyes flickered between sorrow and disbelief and recognition. He saw my father in that moment, I know he did. Maybe my mother, too. He released a small, exasperated sigh I don't think I was even supposed to hear. "Harry, this piece of vermin is the reason you have no parents. This cringing bit of filth would have seen you die too, without turning a hair. You heard him. His own stinking skin meant more to him than your whole family."

Something hot and cold at the same time was coursing through me. Panic? Adrenaline? Grief? Yearning? I never knew, I doubted I ever would. I couldn't breathe, but I tried to reply anyway. "I know. We'll take him up to the castle. We'll hand him over to the dementors. He can go to Azkaban... but don't kill him."

Peter Pettigrew grabbed me around the knees. "Harry! You — thank you — it's more than I deserve — thank you — "

I jumped away. "Get off me. I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it because — I don't reckon my dad would've wanted them to become killers just for you."

The scene gave way to a whirlwind of color, a whiplash of scenes emerging every couple of seconds. Peter Pettigrew, now a rat, disappearing into the night. Peter Pettigrew, at Voldemort's feet in my dream from the summer. Peter Pettigrew, in the graveyard.

This memory materialized around me. This one was solid.

Peter Pettigrew again. Wand slashing through the darkness.

I watched as the jet of green light, too-familiar green light, blazed through the night. Struck Cedric directly in the chest. Extinguished the light in his eyes.

The dream disappeared in an explosion of black across my vision.

I jolted awake, everything within me trembling and burning. I shot up. I couldn't breathe.

Cedric is dead because of me.

This was not a new thought.

Cedric is dead because of me.

This thought had crossed my mind hundreds of times, probably thousands, if not millions.

Cedric is dead because of me.

In the past, though, I beat myself up for encouraging him to take the fateful Portkey with me.

Cedric is dead because of me.

But that night, I realized the truth was far worse than that.

Cedric is dead because of me. Cedric is dead because he took the Portkey with me. Cedric is dead because of me. Cedric is dead because I saved Peter Pettigrew's life. Cedric is dead because of me.

Cedric is dead because of me.

I did this to Lucy.

And with that thought, I was crying. I pressed my hands to my eyes and felt the hot tears coursing all the way down my arms.

I had known many lows in life. A couple of highs, but many lows. I realized with another jolt that Lucy had been there for so many of my highs, and I was the reason for so many of her lows.

I cried harder. All this time, I had been trying to get as close to Lucy as possible, wanting her to open up, wanting her to lean on me, wanting her to learn to trust again, wanting her to let me be there. But all this time... what if I was wrong? What if what I thought was best... was wrong? What if after everything we'd been through, both on our own and together... it was wrong of us to stick so close together, it was wrong of me to want to keep her so close? I wanted to keep her close to keep her safe, but if I was the danger, if I was the reason she was so lonely and so unprotected... what was stopping me from running away other than the literal confines of the castle? But even then... why would I let that stop me?

I couldn't run. Running would be a coward's move, a last resort. Something to do when there's nothing else to do to fix what was broken. Running would eliminate the problem, meaning me, without leaving a solution. An excuse to not even try to fix what was broken by removing the one who broke it.

I couldn't run.

I cried. I cried, the thoughts ricocheting around my head like they were trying to escape. But they couldn't. There was no escape. The thoughts, no matter how loud, no matter how heavy, no matter how painful, no matter how terrifying, couldn't leave the confines of my head. They just couldn't.

I couldn't run. I wouldn't run.

I couldn't run away from Lucy. I wouldn't run away from Lucy.

But I couldn't run toward her, either. I wouldn't run toward her.

I cried. Trapped. Trapped by the confines of the castle, trapped by the confines of my mind. Trapped in my bed. Frozen, with my hands over my eyes and tears still slipping down my arms. A blazing hot contrast to the cold rain I could faintly hear outside.

Of course it's raining.

Of course it's raining.

Of course it's bloody raining.