Work Text
Prologue
It is good at first, Ginny and him.
Later, when Harry will second guess his entire life, he’ll wonder if it really was beautiful at all. He’ll be tearing his memories apart second by second, then, in a frantic effort to understand when the core of it got so rotten, to pinpoint the exact minute it started crumbling apart, eaten away by the decay of bad decisions, and Tuesday morning hangovers, and the same arguments scuttling in the shadows between them like clockwork spiders, and he’ll wonder if anything can be beautiful at all when its backdrop is war, and death, and destruction. He’ll press his fingers onto the cold glass of windows at impossible hours of the morning, and he’ll sit on cold stone floors with his entire body radiating anxiety and fear, but he still won’t be able to understand how it went so wrong.
If Harry were someone else, someone who loves and understand books, someone like Hermione or Draco, he might think of a classical tragedy. He might section the whole catastrophe neatly into five acts and make sense of it that way. But he’s not, and so he doesn’t, and, anyway it’s just the beginning of the story yet.
And, for a while, it’s beautiful.
The First Act
It all starts in the golden afterglow of a war Harry never even expected to survive. Ginny's standing in the rubble like a bindweed growing out of concrete, she's alive and resilient despite the fact everything around her has been dying for months and everything she is goes clean through Harry's chest. When they kiss, on the day the war finally ends, they hold onto each other like they're drowning, she bites his lip fierce and unyielding because she's grown up a warrior in a war-torn world and he twines his arms around her like vines because it's the only way he has of smothering the heavy guilt of knowing he died and left her alone.
The papers print the pictures on the first page. Hero. Saviour, they say. Love Mightier than Death.
It's not that clear cut.
In the aftermath of the war, everyone is scared and wounded and blind, so they spend all of their time together, the lot of them. Rooms at the Burrow are endlessly full of broken children clutching at each other like starfish, huddling together on armchairs, soft and trembling like newly-born animals. There are entire days Harry doesn't let go of Hermione's hand, and there are nights when they all sleep in the same bed (Ron snoring, and Ginny curled up at the foot of the bed like a fawn, and Luna's long blond hair sprawled across the quilt). It's a haze of warm skin and wet cheeks and soft hair, stroked with hushed noises and soothing words.
It’s like they’re stuck in limbo, all of them. It’s like the war made all the colours brighter, somehow, all the sounds louder and all the feelings sharper and peace hung gauze over their eyes and wrapped their bodies in lukewarm water. It’s like they’ve shed their lives as they wrapped their fists in the boxer gauze of deathwishes and hope and they’re being born again, soft and mewling and entirely useless. And Harry doesn’t think at all, he just grabs onto the closest warm, soft, trembling thing and doesn’t let go — he can’t really tell the difference between being asleep and being awake but he doesn’t have nightmares and for the first time in years, there’s no one asking anything of him, and he — waits until he knows how to be alive again. But it’s okay — oh it’s okay because no one does here. And they’re all in this together.
Luna is the first to leave.
It's the middle of June, then, and perhaps because she's already familiar with grief, or perhaps because she's always been stronger than she looks, she hugs them all, and promises she'll keep in touch, and goes off to help her dad with the Quibbler. Neville, and Hermione follow, eager to leave their childhood behind, to become brand new people in a world where everything seems possible again. Ron comes home one day with books and quills and a plan to pass his N.E.W.T.S. He talks about becoming an Auror one day and Harry - well, Harry's proud, of course, but he's not ready to become someone else quite yet, and he's not entirely sure of who he's meant to be, now that there's an entire life waiting for him.
And as everyone’s hopes and dreams and plans grow, Harry slowly becomes paralysed with fear. It settles at the bottom of his stomach and pools like liquid oxygen (chilling and burning all at once, a force of destruction) because he’s been the sacrificial lamb his entire life, and what else is there for him now ?
And Ginny — Ginny's there through the thick of it. She ties back her beautiful hair, and walks around barefoot, and laughs even though Harry know there are oceans of tears hiding just behind her skin. And of course, of course, she's half mad with grief, but he's more than half mad with the words he can't push off of his tongue (words like "I died" and "I don't know what to do with my life") so he holds onto her like she's the sun (because she's blinding, blinding, blinding -- bright and beautiful and warm). And Harry doesn’t let go because she’s as insane, as sad as he is, she’s broken and lost too and somehow, these are the only feelings that Harry can recognise.
He doesn’t mean to hold onto her quite this much, but when Hermione visits and lists all the reasons why goblins really ought to have more rights, when you think about it, and shouldn’t the centaurs get some kind of compensation for what Voldemort did to the forbidden forest — Harry feels like she’s painted in colours his eyes can’t see, like she lives in a world he can’t entirely comprehend, a world in which the laws of physics are entirely different. A world he doesn’t belong in. So he holds on to Ginny because he — knows her. Because she’s beautiful and heavy all at once, because she holds his hand and because her presence lights up every room with the softness of candlelight in a world where everyone else’s incandescence burns through his retina.
"We should move." She says one evening, barefoot and beautiful, curled up on one of the old armchairs. "Out. Together. I mean", she adds.
Harry's never thought about it, if he's honest, but then again he's been trying his very hardest to not think about the future in any way. "Yeah", he says anyway and curls his fingers around her toes and forgets about the idea entirely.
“We should move” she says, months later, lying under a crochet cover in the rickety bed they’ve taken to sharing. Harry hums and mentally categorises the freckles on her left shoulder but after she’s fallen asleep, he thinks about how Grimmauld Place's been sitting empty for months, and how it might be nice to be just the two of them.
"I'm not sure I'm ready to move into that house" Ginny says when he tells her, late the next afternoon, but she keeps her hands in his hair all the same. “It’s got bagage. I know it was your godfather’s but maybe we need to get away from all the grieving for a bit, Harry. Maybe we’re not ready for those ghosts quite yet.”
They don't talk about it for the rest of the evening but Harry keeps thinking about the old house all the same and about a place that would be just his and Ginny's, about stepping out of the halfway house in his mind and into a life, proper, with her.
They end up moving into Grimmauld's place.
It's not that they really meant to live there, it's just that the process of looking at houses exhausts them. It's just that the whole stepping into daylight, and talking to people, and making decisions -- it hangs over their heads, heavy and cold, and some days, they can't even muster the strength to get up from armchairs or beds or wherever they've curled onto each other. It overwhelms them, visiting empty husk of house after house, all those beautiful shells with their kitchens and breakfast nooks and bedrooms just waiting for someone to fill them with life when they barely have life enough to fill their chests. It drains them, walking through room after room after room, all different sizes and perfect for all kinds of different lives, it always walks them right back to the same questions they can’t answer : What are you going to do now? Who are you going to be now? What will you spend the rest of your life on? And try as they might, they can’t answer any of them.
And when they come back from yet another visit to yet another perfect home (city or seaside or countryside, muggle or wizarding, brick or wood or stone), with nothing to show for it but handfuls of impossible questions and the future hanging like a blade over their heads, their thoughts always end up circling back to Grimmauld's place, that sits empty and dark, waiting for someone to light up a fire in the hearth, to air out the tapestries and clean the antique stone floors — not because they particularly like it, no, but because it’s easy. Because Grimmauld doesn’t require them to decide who they want to be or what they want to do, because they already know how they’ll fit into those rooms and who they’ll be walking softly along those corridors. So they end up moving there, because it's the place their footsteps keep bringing them to.
They don't regret it at first.
The Second Act
It is really beautiful at the beginning, they feel like children in an empty house: lost or free and entirely alone. They pack their bags, at the burrow, with Arthur looking proud and Molly fretting over all the minute details. They feel like grown ups, finally, they feel like they're turning into the people they've been meant to be all along. They go through all the rooms, hand in hand, and when the night finally falls, they pad the stone floor with bare feet, vulnerable and cautious as they shed their daytime armour of cloaks and sweaters for the soft cocoons of fleece and flannel. As they sit in the candlelight, on sofas picked by someone else, in rooms decorated by faceless relatives and long dead strangers, Harry feels hope for the first time. He grabs Ginny's hand, and whispers "I love you" to her collar bones. She closes her eyes, delicate eyelashes on porcelain skin, and sighs. And for a while, they're -- not happy, no, but safe, and warm and that's good enough.
They cling to each other — a little too much, perhaps, but, in a world scarred with deaths and destruction, all Harry can hold onto is her lovely face and, some days, it feels like the only warm thing in the universe.
Of course, there are still nights where they hold on to each other, trembling and out of their minds with sadness and pain and fear. There are early mornings where they can't quite tell the difference between sleep and death and decide not to think about it, letting their hands twists around warm coffee cups and words unspoken die on their tongues. Of course, war shoved a fishhook through their hearts and it doesn't really matter that it's ended because the damage is there all the same. But there are the good days too. Ginny buys new cushion for the sofa in the sitting room, and Harry does a few spells in the kitchen, shining the pots and heating the range and clearing out the clutter. A lot of the house goes untouched, because the war broke all their bones and they're busy not moving at all, hoping their limbs and hearts will mend, but Ginny decides to change the wallpaper in the drawing room and Arthur helps and for a day, it almost seems like their lives are normal. It almost feels like the sunlight's right behind the curtains and they'll find the strength to pull them open some day soon.
They don't. But they twine their fingers together in the darkness, and they hold each other through the days where the fog around their heads doesn't lift and Harry feels like all his bones are slowly coming apart behind his skin, but it feels good, not being alone. And Ginny - is warmth and fire and passion, all at once. She stops the grief from freezing the blood inside his veins, and she stops the cold dampness of the stone floors from lulling him into hibernation, she stands through every storm with him, her lighthouse heart glowing clean through every dark night. And it's good enough, Harry thinks, it's the best he's had in the entirety of his short life. And there’s something comforting about slipping out of his skin and melding his existence into hers until it is HarryandGinny. He’s done this before, of course, when it was HarryandRonandHermione surrounded by forest and dark but it hadn’t been quite the same. It had been Harry (who walked to his death) and it had been RonandHermione (who would live on to grieve for him). There’s been an invisible line traced right after his name, cutting HarryandRonandHermione clean through the middle and he never let himself forget it. Ginny and him, it feels like a complete puzzle, like a matching pair of shoes — one. And is it really so wrong that Harry, who had been singled out his entire life, who has never fit in with everyone else — is it really so wrong that Harry lets his entire existence drip into HarryandGinny until there isn’t anything left?
"You can't just stay in this house, Harry. You've got to find something to do!"
Surprisingly, it's not Hermione who confronts Harry first. Oh, she would have, surely, but she's busy fighting dragon trafficking these days and out of the three of them, it's always been Ron who's been loyal, and stubborn, and brave. So it's him whom Harry finds sat across the sitting room, speaking all the words that Harry refuses to hear.
"Look mate, I've waited. I have. Everyone's been saying we need to be patient with you because you went through so much. And I get it, I really do, but you've been sat on your bloody arse for eight months Harry! How much longer are you going to be walled up in this place, trying your hardest to become a ghost and to merge with all the shit memories of everyone dying?"
And he's right, of course, but Harry's not entirely sure he hasn't turned into a ghost long ago. If he’s entirely honest, he never expected to make it out alive and now that he has, he doesn’t have the first clue what to do with his existence. He’s spent so long covering his skin with the armour of recklessness and tattooing self-sacrifice upon his lungs that, some days, he still wakes up in the morning clutching his chest and gasping for breath. And so Harry does the only thing he can think of : he smiles, and tells Ron he’ll get better, and he refuses to think even about change.
And then, Ginny changes.
Ginny doesn’t smile, and she doesn’t tell her brother she’ll get better when he finally gets around to yelling at her too. Instead, she yells back, and then she cries, and then she talks in sob-broken sentences and low, shaky tones. And throughout it, Harry is incapable of doing anything at all. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, and it’s not that he doesn’t care but they’ve been drowning together for so long, and they’ve been underwater for months now and Ginny’s kicking and flailing all of a sudden and Harry — Harry doesn’t quite have the strength to lift her up and he desperately can’t let go. So he tries to soothe her, so he makes her tea some nights, and he strokes her hair and he lives on the unspoken hope that it’ll all go back to normal, that Ginny will be this soft, warm weight sinking with him into the grey waters of this in-between the war stuck them in, that it’ll be HarryandGinny for just a little while longer, just until he figures out how to be alive again.
“I’ve been thinking of getting a mastery in charms. Maybe teach, someday.” Ginny tells him one night, walking through the door with rain soaked boots, after a visit to — who was it again? (Harry can’t remember, all he knows is that he spent the evening alone, and that this house is too large, too dark, too empty for him to breathe in when Ginny’s not by his side.) “Mc Gonagall said I could train at Hogwarts if I liked, take over for Flitwick in a couple of years if all goes well.”
She pauses and a glacial silence whistles around Harry’s ear. And if Harry wasn’t drowning, if Harry wasn’t this broken and this lost, he’d guess that Ginny’d rehearsed this speech. He’d look at her face and see her eyes looking sad and hopeful all at once, like someone planting a new tree on a fire-scorched ground. But Harry doesn’t understand any of this. Instead, he hears :
I’m leaving. steady and slow and inexorable as a heartbeat : I’m leaving. I’m leaving. I’m leaving. (you’re on your own again)
And Harry breaks down.
The Third Act
It’s unnoticeable at first.
(that’s not entirely true.)
It’s a subtle thing at first. The cracks along Harry’s heart live entirely in the little things, like the way they don’t curl onto each other on the sofa anymore. And Ginny — laughs, and floos with Hermione and Neville, and pores over charm theory journals until the moon hangs high in the sky. And so, Ginny doesn’t notice.
(the old Ginny would have, bites the bile at the back of Harry’s throat)
The new Ginny feels like a March breeze (carefree, and cold, and the herald of a change in everything) but Harry — Harry’s not ready to let go of the January storms living in his head so he starts wrapping himself up in layers of quiet, carefully bubble-wrapping his heart against the damage of the outside world. He starts speaking less, and less,
and
less.
It’s a lonely kind of feeling, and it’s a hole in the pit of his belly that pulses black and heavy with every word he doesn’t say but it’s safe now, and there are cracks snaking along his ribs, and he’s been missing half his lungs for longer than he knows now, and he can’t afford to fall apart. Not now, not now, not now (not after slaying the monsters that hide in the dark. not when all the battles have been fought and won. not when happiness should warm his forehead like a golden crown).
And, sometimes, in the midst of all the silence, and all the gauze that now wrap tightly around every bone, Harry thinks he can see that there’s something not quite right in Ginny’s eyes — a glimmer of wetness, or nostalgia, or worry. But it never lasts for long, and Harry’s too busy trying to numb the echoes of loneliness inside his skull to chase after it, to hold Ginny in his arms, to make her laugh, and speak, and press her soft skin against his shoulder (like she used to). And then, Ginny smiles and stands up to go make tea, or get a book, or something and Harry forgets about it entirely.
And, sometimes, it’s okay that they’re both trying as hard as they can to fix the holes in their chest with woollen silence and razor sharp laughter, with apathy and tireless work, because Harry still kisses Ginny’s soft vibrant hair when she’s fallen asleep at her work desk again, and because Ginny still feels warm and pliant in Harry’s arms on Sunday mornings, and because the last thing they do before they go to sleep is to interweave their fingers under the blankets. And, sometimes, it’s okay that they’re both broken and lost and drifting apart, because they love each other so much, and there’s fire in their kisses and there’s heat beneath their skins.
And, sometimes, it’s okay, until one day it’s not anymore. This is how it starts :
Just as the first real sunlight of March has begun flowing in through the windows and leaving puddles of warmth on the wooden floors of the upstair bedrooms, Ginny comes home with wallpaper samples and paint swatches.
“We really ought to do something about our bedroom”, she says, setting down her supplies on the dining table with an easy smile. Harry’s a bit useless about it, but it’s one of those days when he’d agree to anything to make her happy, so he lets her choose the paint, and he lets her pick the wallpaper, and round bursts of laughter bubble up from his chest when she makes a bad impression of Walburga Black, decorating (“this room will be a deep black. this one will be a light black. and this one, well it’s a nursery, it ought to be light and airy and so we shall paint it plum.”) Ginny decides on a soft shade of sea foam green and a patterned wallpaper with vines and berries in shades of green twisting and coiling on a dark green background. The combination is lovely, and Ginny’s eyes are alive with the excitement of newness as she kisses Harry’s cheek lightly before leaving the room. And Harry — Harry barely has the strength to move.
So when Ginny puts her hair in a bun, when she pours the paint into the tray and starts coating the walls, Harry can’t find it in himself to climb up the stairs to join her. It’s not that he doesn’t want to — oh, it’s not that he’s lazy, but he’s half convinced that his body’s made of wet sand and that it’ll fall apart onto the floor if he gets up from the sofa. He watches the hands on large clock above the mantle piece playing catch with one another and by the time he finally get around to moving, Ginny’s painted the better part of two walls and she’s acquired a couple dozen of sea foam green freckles in the process. She smiles at him and throws a paintbrush in his direction, but they don’t end up painting at all. Instead, they lie on the floor, the plastic tarp crinkling underneath their backs and they stare at the half painted ceiling. Then Ginny starts talking. She tells Harry of how difficult it was to get into her new life, at first. How she thought the pieces wouldn’t fit, how she felt like she was lying through her teeth all the time. She takes Harry’s large hand between her paint-speckled own and asks him, voice earnest and soft and low, if he doesn’t think he needs to try to change too (just try, Harry, it’s all we ever do). Harry fights against the silence constricting his lungs, and tells her he doesn’t know. Talks about how fear paralyses him, and how he’s afraid he’ll just let everyone down because he’s never been taught to be happy. Ginny tightens her fingers against his, and they lie there until their backs hurt and supper time’s long gone past and the breeze coming in through the open windows is sharp and cool against their skin.
Ginny continues to paint the bedroom on the next day. She calls Harry’s name cheerfully from upstairs, hoping that he’ll join her this time. He doesn’t. Time has become heavy around his limbs and he can’t find the strength to climb the stairs. Again. So he closes his eyes, and he lets the weight of being alive settle over his body, and drifts into sleep. He doesn’t wake up until late afternoon. Ginny’s face is heavy and solemn, under the loose strands that fall from her messy bun, when he finally makes it into the bedroom. She’s wearing a pair of faded jeans with a white t-shirt and her bare feet trail sea foam green prints on the clear plastic when she moves to hug him and Harry can tell she’s consumed with worry.
“Harry, love, you need to do something about all the feelings that are weighing you down”, she whispers. “You’ve been depressed for months, love, and we’ve all been so worried but we can’t do things for you.”
And Harry could hug her back, and he could cry, and tell her that he loves her but that he doesn’t know what to do, that he doesn’t know how to get out of the black hole he fell into at the end of the war. They could sit, and he could tell her that he doesn’t know who he is anymore, now that there’s no one telling him who he’s meant to be and what he’s meant to do. He knows she’d listen — but he can’t bring himself to do it. He’s always been the important one. He’s always been the warrior, and the one who knew where things were going. He’s always been the keeper of secret and the slayer of monster and the sacrificial lamb, and he can’t let it all go — not yet, not when he doesn’t know where he’ll land if he lets himself fall. And so, for the very first time in a long time, Harry makes a choice.
He chooses to hurt Ginny.
He chooses to tell her he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. That he’s doing perfectly fine, and he was just feeling a bit tired, that’s all, and really she shouldn’t get all worked up for such small things.
Ginny’s having none of it, of course. She’s not an idiot, and she knows he’s lying to her, but though she argues, though she provides examples and talks about her own struggles, he insists — she’s making it all up. And the more she tries, the more Harry feels anger rising in his chest, burning white-hot through all his organs until it sits in his mouth and sears his tongue. It’s her fault. It’s her fault this is happening — it’s her fault that he’s been dealing with it alone, and how dare she try to rip apart the protective armour he’s been weaving around himself since she left?
“Look, Gin, I can’t always be there when you want me, okay? I need my space and you need to respect that, and not make up things about me to explain that I can’t always be the person you need me to be. I can’t put my happiness on the line to be that person, Gin.”, the anger spills from behind his teeth. “I’m letting you have your studies, to make you happy, and you need to learn to leave me alone from time to time.”
Ginny’s face looks like it’s entirely made of hurt for a moment, tears glistening from behind her eyes, before rage paints a wildfire onto her features.
“Screw you, Harry. Just. Screw you. Just stay alone for the rest of your life if you love it so much, you gigantic tosspot.” She spits before she buries her face in her hands.
Fear freezing Harry’s veins. He hadn’t expected Ginny to lash back at him, not with such accuracy, not with such bite. Suddenly, he can’t help the tears burning heavy at the back of his eyes. Suddenly, the anger evaporates entirely, and he’s small and wounded and helpless.
“How can you say that?”, he whispers. “Why would you say that to me?”
Ginny reaches out to hold his hand, and comforts him because that’s what she does. Because that’s what she’s always done. Because behind the hurt and the fire, Ginny’s the kindest person Harry knows, and though his words stabbed a hole clean through her chest, she can’t bring herself to make him suffer. So she reassures him she didn’t mean it, and holds him, and apologises.
He doesn’t, but it feels like a brand new beginning all the same. It feels like they’ve sailed through the storm and made it out alive and everything will be alright.
But though they thread their fingers together under the blanket, that night, before they fall asleep, it’s never okay again after that.
The Fourth Act
Through March, and April, and May, every single day brings them a little further apart.
Some days, it’s quiet and insidious, fault lines appearing throughout their relationship. Ginny tries her best to be a good partner, she does, but the sharp pieces of Harry’s words are cutting wounds deep into her heart, and so she’s not. She’s afraid that Harry’ll leave, and she’s afraid that she’s asking too much, and the fire behind her eyes, the one Harry loved so much when they first fell in love — it turns to a flickering candle. And Harry — well that’s the thing, Harry’s been nothing but compassionate all his life, and Harry was ready to give up everything back in the warm light of May but the world’s turned grey lately, and all the sounds are kind of muted, and all of Harry’s feelings don’t have sharp edges anymore. Harry’s entire soul has gone numb, and he can’t quite find the energy to care anymore. So those days always goes the same, and Ginny tries, and tries, and tries to be good, and interesting, and fun, and Harry lives entirely in shades of grey and doesn’t look at her at all.
Some days, it’s loud and angry, as the tectonic plates of their hearts try to find a different way to exist. Some day, she yells at him, and he yells back, and she always ends up apologising. She always ends up holding him, and crying into his shoulder, repeating she’s sorry over and over again. He assures her that he forgives her, of course. He tells her he loves her and that he doesn’t want to fight with her and things are better for a little while. Only things aren’t really better, Harry can tell. He knows “better” is some kind of uncomfortable compromise at best because nothing ever changes.
Every single fight only ever goes like this : Harry says something, or does something, or exists in the wrong way. Ginny fights, and yells, and accuses Harry of not caring, not changing, not wanting her in his life. Harry fights back, and accuses Ginny of hurting him, and accuses Ginny of making everything up just to have a reason to get mad. Eventually, Ginny apologises, and Harry says he doesn’t want to fight, and it’s quiet for a little while, just until they’ve licked their wounds, and caught their breath, and the fire in Ginny’s heart flares again, like desperation fireworks, in the hope that something, anything, will finally change.
Nothing does, and Ginny’s less and less like herself those days. Sometimes, Harry notices. Sometimes, Harry takes her in his arms and tells her he loves her, exactly like she is. Sometimes, Harry kisses her and her smile feels warm on his skin. Most of the time, though, Harry doesn’t see.
That’s a lie.
Most of the time, Harry can’t see because if he could — he’d have to give up his lies, wouldn’t he? He’d need to admit he’s depressed, and he’d need to admit he’s chosen to hurt her, to smother her flame and crush her underfoot instead of taking the risk to change. He’d have to admit he’s a coward, and he’d have to admit he’s been cruel and he can’t, he can’t. He can’t because he’s Harry Potter, and he’s the selfless saviour of the wizarding world, isn’t he? So he can’t be cruel, and he can’t be a selfish, and he can’t be a coward. And those are all the reasons why Harry Potter so steadfastly refuses to see.
Until Ginny leaves.
It takes Harry entirely unaware, Ginny leaving, though it really shouldn’t. She’d been growing quieter and quieter throughout May, though a different sort of quiet. She’d been the sort of quiet that worried all her friends. And Harry’d been worried too, of course, and they’d talked about it, when Ginny broke in two and sobbed about how her mastery was too much for her, with all the reading, and the practical training, and her Master being tougher on her than she ever expected him to be. But Harry — you understand, Harry couldn’t hold her together. Oh, you must understand, Harry couldn’t be expected to help her through this, it was too much to ask of him, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? (Ginny’s stopped asking him anything months ago).
Ginny leaves in the golden light of a late May morning. She doesn’t tell Harry, she just goes, and she doesn’t come back. At first, Harry just imagines she’s working late. He settles in front of the wireless and waits, while diner grows cold on the table. When midnight chimes somewhere in the city, and she’s still not back, Harry crawls into bed, between the cold covers and lets dread pool in his belly.
Ginny comes back a week later, with tear-stained cheeks and nails bitten to the quick. Harry’s fallen apart a dozen time by then, he’s cried on every stone floor and he’s watched the moon trace half-ellipses in the sky instead of sleeping.
“Hey”, she says, and her voice breaks and trembles before she can say anything else.
Harry doesn’t even manage a word.
They stare at each other in silence while minutes dance by. They know everything’s changed now, everything’s changing but neither wants to give the first blow into the already crumbling wall of their relationship. So they stare in silence, and Harry feels tears stream hot-cold down his cheeks, and Ginny looks like someone’s driven a harpoon straight through her heart.
And if Harry were someone else, someone who loves and understand books, someone like Hermione or Draco, he’d know this is the fourth act in the tragic play of his life — the act where characters give into their fatal flaws, thus shaping the tragedy of the closing act. But Harry — Harry doesn’t give a shit about tragedies, and classical plays, and literature. And Harry’s already chosen the easy way out more times than he can count — he’s already chosen to hurt, and deny, and lie and he’s sick of it. So : he speaks.
“I’m sorry, Gin. I’ve been a bit of a shit boyfriend, haven’t I?”, he says with a mirthless laugh.
Ginny bursts into tears at his words, and he wraps her in his arms, and he kisses her hair.
“I’m so sorry, Gin. I’m so sorry. I’ve been so depressed, and I’ve been so afraid, and I couldn’t admit it. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t think I can do it anymore, Harry.” Ginny sobs against his shirt.
“I don’t think you should.” Harry holds her small hand and kisses the skin inside her wrist. “I don’t think you should, Gin. You’ve shaped everything you were so I wouldn’t leave, and Gin, you shouldn’t need to. You’re the best person I know, Gin. You’re kind and bright and passionate, and I love you so much. I love you so, so much.”
Tears fall and dissolve into Ginny’s messy ginger braid.
“All I wanted was to make you happy again, Harry. All I wanted was for you to smile again, for us to be normal, you know? All I ever wanted was to be good enough, and kind enough, and smart enough for you to accept my help. All I wanted was to be the one to help you get through this, because I loved you so much. Oh Harry, I still do. I still do. I love you so much.”
“I know Gin. I know. You were more than enough, but you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. And the more you tried, and the more you sacrificed, and the more you compromised, the more I lied to you, and it wasn’t right. I’m sorry, Gin. I’m really sorry. I need time to sort out my head, make changes and stop being a coward. You deserve so much better than what I can give you right now, Gin. So, so much better.”
“So this is goodbye then?” Ginny holds onto him like she’s drowning. “I don’t want it to be goodbye.”
“But you can’t do it anymore, Gin. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Harry’s crying in earnest now, wetness staining the shoulder of Ginny’s green cardigan.
“I know. I drowned trying to get you to swim, and I need to find out who I am again. I’m sorry.” she whispers. “I’m sorry.”
They stay in each other’s arm for a long time, quietly breathing, and crying, stroking each other’s hair and refusing to let go. Their bodies feel slack and empty now that everything’s changed and there’s nothing left to fight for, but they can’t bear the change quite yet, and so they hold on to each other for just a little while more, when the light outside finally starts dimming, painting the walls with shades of gold and red, Ginny stands up and kisses Harry on the cheek.
She leaves without turning back.
The Fifth Act
The one good thing about being entirely, irremediably broken is that there’s nothing else to do but put oneself back together.
Neville arrives at Grimmauld’s place the day after Ginny leaves, and asks Harry if he’d like company. They don’t talk a lot at first, but Harry knows Neville understands what it’s like — the pressure of expectations, of wanting to be good enough, of not knowing who you are, only who you’re meant to be. Little by little, piece by piece, Harry builds himself back together.
He’s not alone — he never was. Hermione suggests therapy and Ron hugs him and thanks him for doing the right thing. It’s not the easy path, it isn’t, but it is a path that Harry’s not ashamed to take. He discovers he quite likes gardening — though he’s not as talented as Neville, he’s got a knack for dealing with plant diseases and magical pests. He signs up for night classes, decides to take his N.E.W.T.S. to give himself options. He stops lying, eventually, to other and most importantly to himself.
He sees Ginny, sometimes, when he visits the burrow. She looks better too, she’s quit her mastery when she got an offer to play quidditch full time. She looks happier, healthier, and though Harry will forever treasure the days that it was just the two of them, he’s genuinely happy for her when she starts to go out with Millicent. She’s not the obvious choice, Millie, but she looks at Gin like she’s the sun, and she makes Gin laugh and glow, and that’s good enough for Harry.
Harry’s not ready for another relationship quite yet. It’s hard work, climbing out of the hole he’s dug for himself and there’s no magical fix. He knows he’ll be working hard his entire life, just for this, just for this sense of calm and stability, but most of all, he knows he can do it, and he knows that if he does, he’ll be happy, eventually.
And that’s good enough for now.