And the hope is gone, an ember snuffed out before it could catch. He follows Hermione and saves Buckbeak, but it is all he can do not to scream about the injustice, about all the pain the world has brought him. He doesn’t know how he was ever able to conjure a Patronus. There is no joy in him. Perhaps it was the knowing that he could. Regardless, Sirius is free. Harry is not, but it’s something. Enough? Probably not, but he lets it go, heart shuddering at the thought that every year may be this way. He will always be hurting, always separate from everyone else, always a thing of fear and pity. Will there never be someone there who won’t carry those things with them? He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t want to think about the thing in his chest, heavy and cold, growing colder still. He doesn’t want to think of it as his heart, his soul, but he knows that’s what it is, hardening and cracking under the pressure.