“I told you I’m fine,” Harry said, some annoyance lacing his tone. Hermione crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked down at him, cocking one eyebrow in an “oh, really?” kind of way. He read her look perfectly, as she’d intended him to, and glared at her mutinously. He knocked the crisp, white standard-issue infirmary bedsheet off of his legs, and swung them over the side of the bed.
The room spun crazily around him, first in one direction, then the other, slanting in at an odd angle and then slowly coming to a halt. His stomach lurched, and his hand unwillingly grasped for a bedrail.
“Harry, I had to levitate you in here,” she said, softly, her tone a gentle plea.
“I could have made it,” he insisted. Hermione smiled at him as if he were a small child that needed to be humored. His skin was pasty white, and his eyes were sunken into his head, with deep circles under them. “Don’t look at me like that!” he snapped, glowering at her. She looked a little startled at his sudden outburst.
“I don’t need sympathy, Hermione,” he said, his voice biting at her angrily. “I don’t need you to coddle me, and I don’t need you to patronize me. You think - you think…” he trailed off, and gestured at himself with one trembling hand. “You think I don’t realize what this is doing to me? You think I - I don’t know that I’m probably going to die? The - the horcruxes - he’s killing me, now…a little at a time. Maybe he won’t have to face me at all.”
Hermione’s face had crumpled a little, and she put one hand over her mouth to stifle any wayward sound of protest or despair that might emerge.
***
He sat at the adjacent desk, which was empty, and grabbed the open book from where it lay. He began to flip the pages listlessly, wondering at his own discontent.
Where are they? Why aren’t they here…helping? He found himself thinking petulantly, before he caught himself. They could be down in the library. And even if they’re not, wasn’t I just telling Hermione that she needed to do normal things. He sighed gustily, annoyed with his hypocrisy. And yet he could not quell the sense of rejection, of unease, of abandonment that pervaded him at that moment. He was alone, and they were somewhere…perhaps together. You don’t even know that much. But somehow he knew they were.
And maybe that was his biggest fear. Not the deaths of his friends in and of themselves, but the fact that they might die, he might live, and he might be condemned to live long years without the close companionship that he had come to rely on. He tried to imagine life without Ron…without Hermione…and he could only see a vast emptiness, a shell of a life, without any real substance.
And if they end up married? A snide inner voice said. They’ll be alive, but you’ll still be alone. Maybe you’re destined to always be alone just like you always have been. No parents, no godfather, no mentor…no Hermione…Alone, just like Lord Voldemort…
“NO!” Harry shouted at the empty room, slamming the book shut. A cloud of dust wafted up, and the motes were caught in the lamplight. His heart was pounding rapidly. He wasn’t sure where that voice had come from…had it been his? Or had the thoughts insinuated themselves inside his head from somewhere else…someone else?
What if you’re more like him than you realize? You’re rich, famous, magically powerful… if you defeat him, who could stand against you? You could do anything you wanted, have anyone you wanted…
Hermione flashed briefly in his mind, and he recoiled from the desk in shock, as if he could somehow remove himself from his own thoughts.