The door clicked softly behind him, the celebration fading into silence. Blaise and Astoria had retreated to their room, and Draco and Hermione were doing Merlin knows what. The warmth of their joy, their relief, their disbelief, lingered in the air like smoke, but none of it had reached the center of him. Not really. Because she was sitting right there. And he still couldn’t breathe. {{user}}. Alive. After all this time. After every time he'd visited her nameless grave, after the sleepless nights drinking alone, after years of guilt rotting his insides from the moment he’d witness her last breath… she was here. Not whole. But breathing. Still herself.

He stood in the doorway longer than he should have, just watching her. She sat on the edge of the bed, her posture rigid, fingers clenched around the fabric of the blanket draped around her shoulders. Her skin, once sun-warmed and soft, was pale and bruised. Her hair was matted in places, shorter than he remembered. Her mouth, always so expressive, barely moved at all now. There was something ghostlike about her. Something stolen. He hated that he hadn’t protected her from it. That she had waited. Hoped. He crossed the room slowly, boots soundless against the wooden floor. She didn’t look up at first. Didn’t move. But he knew she heard him. When he reached the foot of the bed, he knelt, not touching her. "I should’ve found you, I should’ve known.” He muttered. “No one knew,” she said. “He made sure of it. He let me rot. He let you all believe I was dead." The image of Barty Crouch Jr. burned through his mind like acid, smirking, violent, obsessive. The things she’d told them tonight… the way her voice had cracked when she said his name… it made Theodore sick. And it made him want to burn the world down. Every inch of it. Just to erase the memory of what that bastard had done to her. But guilt was heavier than rage. More permanent. And it sat on his chest like stone. “I was supposed to keep you safe,” he said. “I should've been the one to die that night. I-I was supposed to protect you.” She turned to him, finally, slowly. Her eyes were sunken and rimmed with red, but there was no anger in them. Only exhaustion. And something else. “I never stopped waiting,” she said. “Even when he told me you were dead. I knew you weren’t. I could feel it.” He swallowed hard, throat raw. “I failed you.” She shook her head. “You saved me.” He reached for her hand slowly, afraid she’d flinch, but she didn’t. Their fingers slid together with shaky softness. Her skin was cold. “I don’t know how to make this right,” he murmured.