Shattered

The war is finally over, and the wizarding world is desperately trying to return to some semblance of order. Hogwarts is emptied, shattered by battle, as students and professors alike return home to pick up the broken pieces of their lives. Every single witch and wizard has been affected, some more than others: some will return to their previous lives, while others will never be whole again.

You return to the Burrow, wanting only to be with family as you mourn for your loved ones. You have lost a brother, and the pain is keen every time you remember the fierce laugh you will never hear again. Your family is in shock, grieving Fred's death as well as Nymphadora Tonks, Remus Lupin, and so many others. You wonder how any of you will ever recover; you sometimes doubt that George can.

Harry is struggling as well: he sacrificed everything he had to give, and though he defeated Voldemort, he is physically and emotionally exhausted. He manages the aftermath well enough, forcing himself upright and posing as the hero everyone needs. No one thinks about what he needs, only that he acknowledge and take on their loss as his own, as if it will somehow make it all better that Harry Potter grieves with them. He attends funeral after funeral until he finally collapses.

He sleeps for days.

It is when he finally awakes that you first notice he has changed. His eyes, though rested, are different: something is missing. He does not smile as much as he used to; he is distant and quiet. You worry about him even as you try to understand. You want to help, but sometimes he won't let you. Other times, he seems to cling to your tenuously renewed relationship as if it is all that is keeping him from collapsing once more.

He seems to be forgetting things. One day, he doesn't remember something from sixth year; the next day he recalls it perfectly. If he pauses during a conversation, he often forgets what he was talking about. When he goes out to the garden, he sometimes returns hours later, confused as to why he had been there in the first place.

It is as if you are talking to a different person each time you see him. Sometimes it is someone whom you don't know at all, who has no memory of your past together; other times it is someone who suddenly becomes so angry that you question your future together. You hope it is only the aftermath of what he's been through, but some days are harder than others, and more than anything you are scared for him.

He slowly grows worse, until he does not wish to leave the Burrow anymore. It's as if he understands that something is not right inside, that something is happening to him. He will sometimes stop in mid-sentence and stare blankly into space; when he returns, he has changed. He might be happier, he might be sadder. Often, when he returns from the blank space, he is angry. He snaps and snarls and storms away, leaving you behind in his chaotic wake, upset and worried.

You try to talk to him, but it is no use: he shrugs it off just as he shrugged off Hermione's concern and Ron's awkward questions. You watch with a heavy heart as he turns his back for the garden, only to return hours later a different man: aggressive and oversexed. He immediately seeks you out, and though at first you are glad for his physical attention, long denied, he quickly becomes too rough, and you push him away. He narrows his eyes, green slits glinting behind his glasses as he raises his arm. You hex him before he can even begin to move his hand toward you.

He hits the wall and falls to the ground. You stand and stare at him, hating what he's become even as you are afraid of him, afraid for him. Something has gone terribly wrong inside of him. You see it right before you: he stands, so remorseful now that the agony is spelled out clearly upon his weary face. He reaches out toward you with tears in his eyes.

He begs for help. Finally.

You do not know what to do. You do not understand what he is going through, what is happening to him. Is it the aftermath of the battle, of his terrible journey to destroy Voldemort? Or is it something more? Either way, he is falling apart, and you have to save him, just as he saved the world.

You go to Ron and Hermione, and they understand. They know Harry is sick, or perhaps injured, and must get help. Together you are able to talk him—the contrite and confused him—into going to St. Mungo's. They will be able to do something, somehow piece him back together. It's your only hope. You can't bear to watch as he returns from the brink only to slowly disappear once more.

Everything is almost lost: the part of him that agreed to go is suddenly and inexplicably buried the morning you are to leave. He is now incensed at your meddling, enraged at the very idea of something being wrong with him. He is powerful in his anger, and only your father and three brothers can hold him down. Your mother forces a potion down his throat, sending him into blissful oblivion as you watch with stoic eyes, your heart breaking silently for his pain.

The Healers at St. Mungo's receive him with great concern. He is the savior of the wizarding world, after all, and they promise to do everything in their power to help him. You wait anxiously with your family, nerves fraught with fear and anxiety. A slow anger begins to make its presence known as well: how could this happen? How could he go through so much only to fall now? It doesn't seem fair, and you whisper a silent appeal to the universe that it show mercy to a man who has already known far too much pain in his short life.

The Healers are unsure what has happened. It appears that his mind is fracturing, splintering into pieces day by day. And it is as if each piece sometimes manifests itself as a whole, but an overly focused one: he is uncontrollably angry one moment, until the next piece takes over, and he is overcome by hopelessness, lust, or even a regression to his past. They blame it on stress, a delayed reaction to all that he went through during the battle—a way to cope with the trauma.

You are stunned silent; your family is speechless. The Healers tell you that there is nothing they can do for him other than to make him comfortable, that he will either come out of it with time, or he will fracture into smaller and smaller pieces until he cannot survive the breakup of his soul. You finally collapse into your father's arms, unable to hold back the sobs.

Hermione, of course, does not accept the Healers' conclusion. She stands and hurries away, your brother trailing after her. You frown and wonder where she is going, shaking your head as you realize it's probably the library. That is what Hermione does, after all: she goes to the library and finds the answer she needs in a book. You wonder if she will find what she's looking for this time, and find what's wrong with Harry. You dare to hope that if anyone could, perhaps Hermione might find a cure.

You are sitting with Harry that night, holding his hand and smiling during a rare moment of respite. He is his old self, and you hope he will not suddenly disappear, that this moment will last for as long as it can. You see in his eyes that he is struggling to hold back the madness, and you grip his hand tighter, hoping you can anchor him to this reality, to this person that he truly is.

Ron and Hermione burst in. She is carrying a book, her hair flying about her, her eyes bright and wild. Ron looks flustered and upset, like he wants to stop her but knows she is right about whatever it is that has sent them tumbling into the room. You start to say something, angry at the interruption, but Harry stops you and asks Hermione what is going on. You dread what she might say, your insides twisting with the gut instinct that it is something horrible, something you cannot bear to hear.

To your surprise, she asks Harry about the final battle. You stare at her, questioning her wisdom in bringing up such a thing when he is clearly so fragile. She apologizes to you both, but insists: did Harry remember anything different about the battle, any sort of spell that he had never seen before? Was there anything he had not told them already?

Harry seems to go into himself, and you worry whether he will come back this time. He closes his eyes and is silent for a long while. When he opens his eyes, he has changed: he is terrified, his breathing picking up rapidly as he remembers that terrible night.

Yes, he tells her. There was something. He had been under the Invisibility Cloak, running through the Great Hall, casting curses and jinxes at anyone he could. He had just passed Neville and saw the Dark Lord aim the Elder Wand at the young wizard who had killed Nagini. A violent jet of black light had shot toward Neville, and Harry had thrown up a Shield Charm to protect his friend. It had been a struggle: the spell was strong, and he had felt it reverberate all the way up his arms into his body. He had staggered, the mere echo of the curse nearly taking him down. Yet he had managed to stay on his feet and had carried on, determined to continue, to finish the battle once and for all.

Hermione sinks into a chair, unseeing. She reaches blindly for Ron's hand; he is pale as he takes it, staring at his friend with a mixture of shock and pity. You demand to know what's wrong, what she's found. She shakes her head. Harry speaks, his voice rough and pleading, and she looks at him with tears in her eyes.

"Frangite Animum," she whispers, and your mind struggles to put meaning to what is obviously a spell. It is not something you have heard of, and Harry shakes his head as well, unable to understand what she is telling him.

Ron tells you what Hermione cannot: it is an ancient spell, a spell almost lost but for a handful of rare books and the most depraved of minds delving into the darkest of magic. It is a spell that shatters the mind with one fell swoop, breaking a man's very being into so many pieces he is but a shadow of his former self, struggling to remain whole.

There is no known cure for such a spell; it is a wonder the Shield Charm even held to save Neville, and that Harry survived the backlash to finish the battle. It is a miracle he has lasted this long with his soul so broken.

You jump up and shout at her, tell her she's wrong. You demand to know how she even found such a thing if it is so ancient and rare. Hermione holds out the book she has been clutching with shaking hands. You rip it from her, flipping to the page she has turned under, reading the awful description of the spell. It must be true, for it is exactly what you see before your eyes in the broken man lying in the bed beside you.

You turn to Harry, your senses reeling, but desperately trying to give him your false hope so he won't lose his. Only he knows it's true as well, because he has felt it, and to your shame, he smiles at you and tells you it will be okay. Let the Healers know, he says. Once they understand the spell, they can help. They'll find something.

Only they can't, and you know it: you feel it in your heart. Shattered Soul. That's Harry, right in front of you, blinking out to return moments later a different man, confused and questioning. Where is he? What is he doing there? His very being is shattered, the pieces within fighting for control, unable to maintain it for any amount of time as his soul wars within itself. And he doesn't remember any of it.

You cannot stand it. You throw the book across the room, desperate to hit something, to purge your anger before it consumes you. Hermione stands and quietly takes Harry's hand. She somehow manages to maintain a slender hold on her emotions as she tries to explain to Harry once more what has happened to him. He blinks and frowns and asks questions that cut into her with each bleak answer she is forced to give. Watching her move closer and closer to the edge, you gather your own broken dreams and move to relieve her. Touching her on the arm, you smile and nod toward the door. She gratefully squeezes your hand and leaves with Ron. You can see her in your mind's eye, breaking down as soon as she reaches the corridor.

Harry has left again, returning as yet a different man: a boy-child, lost in memories of his first year at Hogwarts, of a time when he didn't even know you existed. You try to pull him back to where he is now, to his life with you, but it does not work. He is entranced by memories of his first owl, his first friends, his first glimpse of Hogwarts.

You stay with him through the night, lying next to him when he falls asleep and simply listening to the steady cadence of his heart. It is the most peace he will know from now on. You try to brace yourself for the long journey ahead, beginning with the morning, because you don't even know who he might be when he awakes, or if he will remember what has happened to him.

He deteriorates rapidly. Your mother insists he come home to the Burrow, away from the bleak walls and stale air of the hospital. A part of you resents this, for now you will have to watch him break apart every minute of every day. You try your best to hide your pain from him, bottling it up inside. The only time you let it out is when he grows angry: you scream and shout right back, guilty but glad for the excuse to fight with him, even when you know you are losing him.

Soon even that part of him is lost, for the pieces of his broken personality shift so rapidly now that he is unable to maintain any sort of fragile hold on reality. You watch as he collapses from the inside, his ruined mind weakening his body. He is silent and still most hours, now, staring vacantly through the window in Ron's room where he spends his days. The Healers tell you that he won't last much longer, that his body cannot survive the demands of his fragmented mind and will simply shut down.

You take turns sitting with him: you, your mother, Hermione. Your brothers come to see him and say their farewells. Even George comes, though it is hard, and he leaves too quickly, his face scrunched up with grief. Your father watches over the family, trying to stay strong, but it is hard; you have already lost so much, and now you are all losing Harry.

You are with him when it happens, you and Ron and Hermione. He opens his eyes, and they are clear and vibrant green. The spark of his old life smiles sadly at you. You take his hand, Hermione takes the other, and Ron sits at the foot of the bed. It is as if you know this is the end, and you want to blanket him with as much love as you can, shield him from any pain he might feel as takes his final journey.

He does not say anything, but he does not need to. He gazes at Hermione, at Ron, and lastly, at you. It's okay, he seems to be telling you, but he cannot find the words anymore. You can see how hard he struggles to stay with you for even this long. And so you lean down and kiss him once more, brushing the hair from his eyes, and you tell him—yes, it's okay.

He nods and closes his eyes, and with one last shuddering breath, he is gone—shattered.

And so are you.

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