estera

The part where Remus Lupin is dead?

The part where Nymphadora Lupin is dead?

The part where Colin Creevey is dead?

The part where so many people died that I stopped being able to count them?

Or the part where Voldemort is dead?

Because one of those things happened. I'm not entirely convinced the other did. I woke up in the hospital wing three mornings ago.

At least I think it was morning.

The curtains were open, and sunlight was pouring through the windows in thick golden beams. Dust floated lazily through the air. Somewhere nearby, someone was crying.

At first, I thought I was still in the forest. I remember lying on the ground. I remember Hagrid crying. I remember thinking that it hurt to breathe. I remember the strange, awful peace of believing it was over.

Then I opened my eyes and saw the hospital wing ceiling.

For a long time, I simply stared at it.

I knew that ceiling.

I had spent enough time in this room over the years to recognize every crack.

I knew the fourth bed from the left squeaked whenever someone sat down too quickly.

I knew the cabinet near Madam Pomfrey's office had a broken handle.

I knew the way sunlight looked in this room.

I knew this place.

And I remember thinking:

Oh.

I didn't die.

I am still here.

I am not entirely sure what I felt about that and yet, I left the hospital wing the next day.

Hogwarts does not look like Hogwarts anymore. There are walls missing. Entire corridors are gone. Stone litters the floors. Windows have been shattered. Statues lie broken. Portraits have been ripped apart. There are scorch marks everywhere.

Everything smells faintly of smoke.

I stood in the Entrance Hall for a long time. I kept expecting someone to tell me it was temporary.

Surely, this wasn't really Hogwarts?

The funerals started today.

I did not know there could be so many.

The Great Hall has become something else entirely.

No House tables.

No banners.

Instead there are flowers.

Candles.

Rows and rows of chairs.

Too many chairs.

I remember Mrs. Weasley crying.

I remember George staring straight ahead and not moving.

I remember Ginny holding Jonathan's hand so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

I remember Professor McGonagall crying openly.

Then I looked at Harry, who was staring at the front of the Hall.

I followed his gaze.

Remus.

Tonks.

Remus had taught me to cast a Patronus.

He had made tea after lessons.

He had smiled at me in corridors.

Tonks once dyed her hair blue because I said I liked the colour.

Now they were dead.

Both of them.

Together.

I wondered if Harry was thinking the same thing I was.

That Teddy Lupin would never know them.

That his parents had died saving a world he would not remember.

I wanted to say something.

I didn't know what.

"Harry?" I eventually said.

He looked at me and I forgot what I had intended to say.

"Y/N?"

I looked at him. Then I said the only thing I could think of.

"I'm glad you're alive."

His face changed. He blinked. Then he smiled.

A very small smile.

"I'm glad you're alive too."

Then neither of us spoke for a long time.

I think there are some things grief makes impossible to say.

Or perhaps unnecessary.

I know this makes me a coward.

I think I can live with that.

For now.

----

The Potters asked me to stay with them first.

It was Lily who said it.

I remember her hands. I remember how careful she was with her voice, like she was afraid I might break if she spoke too loudly.

“Y/N… you can come with us. You don’t have to be alone.”

And I remember thinking—

I am always alone.

Even when I am not alone.

James stood behind her, trying to look steady. He wasn’t. None of them were. Not really. There’s something strange about seeing adults who are supposed to be unshakeable suddenly look like they are made of paper.

I said no.

I couldn’t stand the idea of being one more thing they had to carry while they were already breaking.

The Weasleys asked too.

Molly hugged me so tightly I couldn’t breathe properly and I didn’t even care. She kept saying I could come home with them, like home was something you could just be handed after everything.

Arthur just looked at me like he understood too much.

Ron didn’t say much. George and Percy didn’t either. Ginny just watched me. I said no to them too.

Because I don’t belong in anyone’s house when the world is still bleeding.

So I stood there afterward with nowhere to go.

It should be simple. You either have somewhere or you don’t.

But apparently there is a third category, which is: you survived a war and now you are just… here.

Harry disappeared for several days after that.

No one knew where he went.

People tried to find him, of course. People always try to find Harry when he disappears like that, like the world has decided he is something it cannot afford to lose even for a moment. But he was just gone.

I didn’t think much of it at first.

I thought maybe that was just what people did after surviving something like this. They vanish for a while. They break in private. Harry always seemed like that type of person.

I did not, however, expect him to come back covered in dirt and splinters.

He looked like he had been built out of exhaustion and stubbornness alone. He grabbed my shoulder and guided me into some sort of obscured forest.

He just said, very quietly, “I thought maybe… if you wanted somewhere quiet.”

And then he stepped aside.

A cottage?

It wasn’t grand. It wasn’t impressive. It didn’t look like anything magical at first glance. Just stone, wood, a chimney, a roof. Moss and ivy climbed up its walls. But there was a willow tree beside the cottage.

Harry didn’t look at me when he said, “It’s not much. I didn’t really… I just thought—”

He stopped.

He always stops like that when he thinks he’s said too much.

I remember walking toward it slowly. My hands were still shaking from everything else, from funerals and ashes and names being read aloud like they were nothing more than ink on parchment.

The fireplace inside was already set up. The rooms were small. Simple. There was nothing decorative about it, nothing unnecessary. Just warmth and structure and something that felt like it had been built by someone who didn’t know how to ask questions but knew how to stay.

Harry stood in the doorway.

“I thought maybe you’d want somewhere quiet,” he said again. “Somewhere no one would—”

He didn’t finish that sentence either.

I didn’t know what to say.

What does one even say in a situation such as this?

So I said the only honest thing I had left.

“I don’t know why you did this.”

And he looked at me then and said, “Neither do I.”

That should have been the end of it.

Harry is outside chopping wood like he is trying to split the entire world into something manageable.

And I keep thinking—

I don’t know why he built me a house.

I don’t know why he keeps choosing me.