Work Text:
When Voldemort died, Harry felt a tremendous amount of relief and the tiniest bits of guilt. He had survived against all odds. He had destroyed the Horcruxes, put his very life on the line, but he had survived in the end. And if he had guilt over killing Voldemort, the man who had claimed Harry as his equal, making life for him a living nightmare, then Harry had obviously fallen under the Black madness, just like his godfather and his family before him.
As days passed, the guilt had come back more and more like a fly buzzing in Harry’s ear that he couldn’t quite get rid of. He brushed the thoughts off without thinking, a reflex he had developed quickly following the battle. Snape’s lessons of clearing his mind finally made sense to him now that he had something he couldn’t bear to focus on.
Harry had won. He was alive, his friends were alive, the wizarding world was saved by his hands. If he had to hold up the weight of being a murder with it, then he would do it. The needs of the collective outweighed his personal needs and issues; time and time again, the wizarding world had proven that to him. So he kept pushing down the thoughts, masking the guilt that would bleed into his emotions if he couldn’t close the wound fast enough.
In the weeks following the newly dubbed Battle of Hogwarts, Harry often found himself with the Weasly clan, aiming to be their rock and support after Fred’s death. If there was one thing Harry was good at, it was letting himself be used for those he cared about.
He had done it with the Dursleys when he was younger, hoping that for all the service he had provided them, it might actually make them love him or at least like him in some regard. He had done it again throughout Hogwarts, letting the population turn on him again and again only to put his life on the line for them at the end. He hadn’t blinked an eye when he was told he needed to sacrifice himself for Voldemort to be defeated. He hadn’t had any qualms about becoming a murder to save everyone.
But if that was true, why did he feel like he was about to drown in guilt at any moment? Why was his relief at Voldemort’s death slowing turning into a poison, trying to suffocate him with every breath he took?
He shook his head slowly, willing the thought to recede. Instead, he let the Weasly’s use him for their grief, longing to feel needed again.
He allowed Mrs. Weasley to baby him, treating him just as she had since he was a scrawny 11-year-old, asking how to get on the train to Hogwarts. She would cook and clean, claiming that Harry was still much too skinny and that he shouldn’t have to live alone in that big house that his Godfather left him. Harry just allowed it with a smile, quietly helping her knit, gently reminding her not to set a plate at the table for Fred. It had caused the rest of the Weasly family to retreat back in their grief the last time she had done it.
He let Ron and Hermione be with each other, watching from afar how they were both helping each other through their own issues. He watched as they would sit only with each other, building something beautiful and new on top of the wreckage of all they had lost. He watched as they would hold each other up, not allowing something as petty as grief to tear down something that had taken so many years to happen. He saw them both becoming better people, stopping each other’s tears. He was happy for them; someone deserved happiness after the war was over.
He let Percy scream and rage at him, blaming him for not ending the war sooner, for allowing his brother to die. Harry would sit there, eyes full of understanding as Percy apologized, only to do it again later. He allowed Ginny to think and isolate herself in peace, bringing her food and water as a constant but silent support. With George, he would often sit with him at night, being a physical presence to ward off the older boy’s nightmares.
Then one day, as weeks had passed, Harry was needed less and less. Mrs. Weasley started to baby the rest of her children again (they allowed themselves to be babied again), cooking for everyone, speaking about how she was so excited about Hermione and Ron getting together. She said she knew it would happen, something about a Mother’s intuition being right all along. Ginny eventually started coming out of her room, the family providing her the support Harry himself could not. Percy returned to his life, leaving to make the wizarding world a better place, promising to be an active part of his family this time around.
Early the next morning, Harry woke up with a start, George sitting on the couch beside him. Harry had woken up like this more times than he could count. Another nightmare plaguing his night, with George looking down at him with a sad smile on his face. They never spoke, Harry too absorbed with the red eyes that haunted his memory, George too polite to ask when he was haunted by the same war.
But something about today was different. George looked better than he had in weeks, almost as if he had gotten a full night’s sleep instead of the pitiful amount he usually got. He had looked at Harry with a questioning look, no judgment in his eyes as he watched Harry in his most vulnerable form.
“Do you know why I’ll only go to you with my nightmares Harry?” He asked quietly, absently fidgeting with Fred’s spoon from the Weasley family clock.
Harry, tired and drained, did not respond. There was only so much he could do to push away the guilt and grief as he watched the life drain from those crimson eyes.
George seemed to understand. He looked at Harry with a sad smile.
“You’re the only one who could possibly understand what I’m going through. What it’s like to lose your other half, the reason you felt so motivated to keep living.” he said silently, tears falling from his eyes. He didn’t leave, just watching as Harry slowly blinked away his own tears, excusing himself from the red-haired boy, walked out the door quickly.
He never went back to the Weasley’s after that.
………….
Weeks had passed, and Harry had yet to leave Grimmauld Place once, allowing Kreacher to get any of the trivial things he needed to stay alive. Harry had never felt the type of emotions he was feeling right now. The poisonous relief he had felt months ago had slowly turned into something worse, sadness and anger.
At first, Harry had tried to push away the emotions as he had done with the Weasleys, but without something to distract himself with, he became distraught instead. He would go back and forth between sobbing and breaking mirrors in anger when the grief struck him. He would watch with dead eyes as Kreature would bandage his hand after dosing it with murtlap essence, all the while begging his ‘Master Harry’ to take better care of himself.
It never stopped Harry from repeating the offense again.
As the months went on, Harry had gotten better at avoiding the letters his family sent and worse at pushing away the grief. He was never angry and sad anymore. Instead, a bitter emptiness filled him as he thought about his prophesied enemy, the one who chose him to be his equal, the one who fell by Harry’s own hand.
He stopped taking care of himself, only really eating when Kreacher forced him to, never keeping up on his hygiene in the ways he knew he should. He never touched his wand anymore or did much magic at all, preferring to stay away from the weapon that started these feelings inside of him.
A lot of these days, he just wanted to forget about magic, forget about the weapon he wielded to kill his very soul.
Then one day, under the most intense sessions of self-loathing he had felt, he picked up his wand and made his way to the bathroom, knowing what he needed to do. He stood in front of the mirror, still cracked from when he had shattered it, and looked into his eyes. His mother’s bright green eyes, now sickeningly dull and just a shade darker than the curse that had taken his soul.
He looked into his own eyes, concentrating very intently, before raising his wand to himself and pushing his magic through it, willing himself to perform a spell he never had before.
“Obliviate.”
Harry kept pushing his magic, willing himself to erase Tom Riddle from his life, despite the overwhelming pain he felt removing such crucial and long-lasting parts of his memory.
As the spell was released, Harry looked at himself, feeling a hint of grief and remorse, as he looked at himself, not remembering why he was upset in the first place.
What would Harry have to grieve about anyway? He had finally gotten what he wanted, a normal life away from the Dursleys.