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"Why didn't you tell us?"
Harry looked up at his first friend. They had all piled into a bed in Gryffindor tower last night, so exhausted they hadn't said a word before going to sleep. Hermione was still asleep next to him, but Harry had been just dozing for a time, reveling in the knowledge that it was over. Voldemort was dead.
It seemed Ron had been awake already, thinking of something else. At Harry's questioning look he continued, "When you went to the forest, why didn't you tell us? That you were going to survive?"
"I-" Harry started, but was caught off guard as Ron turned fully towards him, his brows furrowed. "I don't know." Harry said slowly. He did know, but he wasn't going to say it.
"You looked at Snape's memories, yeah? And it showed you how to defeat him? To fake your death? The bloody bastard, he could have told you earlier." Ron's face made the snarl he always displayed when talking about Snape these days, before refocusing on Harry. "But why didn't you fill us in? We would have kept the secret. Mate, you don't know what it was like thinking you were dead."
Harry met Ron's eyes, but couldn't speak. Of course, everyone would probably think that, that he had faked his death to catch Voldemort off guard or something. "Yeah, sorry. I guess with things going so fast I didn't have a chance to tell you." He heard himself saying. It was better this way, to let them think he had a plan. Better they assume this then know the truth. Everything had turned out, they didn't need to-
"Bullshit." Harry's train was cut off at the whispered curse from Hermione. He hadn't even realized she had woken up.
Both boys looked at her. She still looked tired, and was covered in grime from the battle the day before, but her eyes were firm, piercing.
"Tell him the truth Harry, tell him why you didn't tell us you'd be back." Her words were still quiet, but there was a firm strength to them, a stubbornness under the exhaustion that Harry knew from experience meant that she wouldn't let it go without a fight.
He still tried. "I don't know what you are talking about." He said, leaving his face a blank mask. It would probably be more convincing if he could manage an actual expression, but he didn't have the energy for that, so blank would have to do.
"Hermione? What do you mean? What is she talking about Harry?" Ron was looking at him too now. The gears behind his eyes grinding into this new puzzle. Ron may not be quick on the uptake with emotional matters, but he had a strategist's mind, and Harry doubted it would take long for Ron to figure out the mistake he had made in his assumptions.
"It doesn't matter," Harry tried to say it firmly, but even to his own ears it sounded weak.
"There was a plan right?" Ron said, "In Snape's memories, something that told you what to do, how to defeat him."
"I-" But before he could even try to reassure his friend, Ron was continuing, voice rising.
"Right? You didn't just go out there to try to save us all, you daft git?" But it didn't sound like a question anymore. "What was in that bastard's memories, to get you to walk to him like that? That arsehole, playing off your saving people thing. He made you go didn't he?"
"I-" Again he was cut off, it seemed his input was not needed anymore.
"I know those occlumency lessons were a bad idea." This time Hermione interjected. "Letting him in your mind when you were already going though such a hard time." The emotions in her eyes has dissolved into grief, in his direction. "What did he show you? I know it's been hard but you can't let a bastard like him tell you that you should go sacrifice yourself."
"It wasn't-"
"Why would you even listen to that evil bat?" Ron seemed to be getting worked up. "That death eating bastard is a liar, he killed Dumbledore."
"He didn't-"
"Harry, you know we love you right? We-"
"Just STOP." His shout silenced both Hermione and Ron for a moment. He took advantage before they could continue. "It wasn't like that okay? I had to do it."
"But-"
Harry blurted it out, he couldn't let them think he'd leave them if he had a choice- "I'm a Horcrux!"
That silenced all three of them for a minute, as the other two took time to absorb the news, and Harry admitted the thing that he had been avoiding thinking about since the battle ended.
"I was a horcrux." Harry said softly once the silence had stretched for a moment. "Dumbledore knew, he told Snape to tell me once there was just Nagini left. I had to die, and Voldemort had to be the one to do it."
He was looking at his clenched hands by this point, so the sudden hug from Hermione made him jump.
"Oh, Harry..." She said, burrowing her face in his neck.
Ron put his arms around both of them, muttering, "It's alway you, isn't it mate."
That surprised a laugh out of Harry, and that seemed to be the breaking point because next thing he knew he was crying, and they were all crying and holding each other and just reveling in the fact that somehow, someway, it was all over. They all survived.