I stood just outside Harry's front door waiting rather impatiently. I knew better than to just apparate in on him anymore, as he tended to act all surly when one did. As it was, he was probably hiding most of the hard liquor in some nameless spot that I would eventually find it in when he was asleep or passed out. I decided to give him thirty more seconds before I used my wand to blast through his door. I could do it; after all, I knew his wards.
Just as I was reaching for my wand, the door swung open and I was met by a drunk Harry, as I'd expected. His eyes were cloudy and his mouth formed a loopy grin when he saw me. He stumbled backwards to let me in and I had a hard time not pulling him into a tight embrace.
It had been six months since Ginny had admitted she was pregnant with another man's baby, three months since the wedding, and two months since Harry had started drinking. In that time I came to his house every other night after work just to be there for him; whereas, Ron came the other nights.
Harry hadn't mentioned Ginny once.
I marched through his house towards the living room and was met by the sight of a rumpled blanket on the floor by the couch and one bottle of beer. He knew better than to pretend he hadn't been drinking at all. Harry walked in behind me and rested his head on my shoulder. "Hi `Mione," he whispered in my ear and I wished I could have stopped the shiver. He was too drunk to notice it anyway.
I found myself getting very angry; not at Harry; I never could get truly angry with him, but I was beyond pissed at Ginny for everything she had done to him. Harry had been the top in his auror program, happy and in love with Ginny, and thinking about a family. It killed me to see him like that with another girl, but I had been happy that he was happy. Now, not only was he crushed that he lost the woman he loved and had to watch her marry another man, Ginny was calling him every day, telling him she still loved him and just needed to talk to him. It didn't escape me how the calls started only after her model began cheating on her or how the first call coincided with when Harry's drinking had started.
Well I had had enough. It was time for Harry to start talking, to start healing. Ginny would never stop because Harry was miserable given that she watched him drop out of his Auror training, turn into a cold and destroyed person, and start drinking and yet it was still all about her. She wasn't getting proper attention from her model so she decided to come get it from Harry again. If she was going to be the same spoilt little brat she always was, it was up to Harry to change and since he wasn't doing it, it was up to me to make him want to change.
I turned into Harry's half embrace and gave him a long, hard hug. He seemed surprised for a moment and stiffened since, usually, I only gave him that hug when I was leaving. He sagged into it, though, wrapping his arms around my waist . "Please don't leave," he whispered into my hair and I felt like crying. I wasn't leaving, but I was leaving behind my sympathy for a moment, it was time for tough love.
"Harry," I started and was relieved to find my voice strong and unbroken, "Sit down. I have something to say to you." His head tilted back and I looked up to see his loopy grin. He thought I was going to tell him about my day as I usually did. It calmed him to hear how Lupin was doing as the Minister since as Lupin's assistant I knew almost everything. Not tonight sweetheart, I thought.
"Harry," I started when he was sitting down and I was kneeling in front of him to be at eye level, "I need you to talk to me. I need you to tell me about Ginny. Tell me what you're feeling. I can't stand to see you like this, please let me help." Harry's eyes widened in surprise then turned into the metallic color they had been at the wedding, and I knew his answer before he said it.
"No."
I must have pleaded with him for a half an hour and each time his eyes grew more metallic and he got further away. Finally, I stopped, staring at him for a couple minutes, I realized that, I knew a way to make him talk, but I didn't want to do it. I knew it would make him guilty, but it was the only way I knew that he would answer me.
"This," I began and my throat burned as I thought about the pain I was about to cause. Harry's eyes swiveled to mine and he must have caught a hint of my emotions because his eyes softened somewhat. "This...…coming here and seeing you like this…it's killing me, Harry- me and Ron. It's so painful to see you throwing away your life and not being able to do anything but sit here with you. Please Harry…please, won't you tell me for me? Won't you let me help you so it doesn't hurt so bad?"
His eyes grew wide, shocked, and then pain-filled. I felt the guilt as he thought back to the past six months, how Ron and I came here every night perhaps feeling pain because of him. I wished I could take it back. I shouldn't have used that trick with everything that he'd been feeling already, even if it was true. I didn't know I had started crying until Harry wiped a tear off of my face and brought my face up to meet his own.
He rested his forehead against mine and cleared his throat. "Okay," he said, "okay." I was stunned by the hoarse quality of his voice, almost as if he hadn't used his voice box enough. Yet, thinking back on it, he really hadn't done anything but whisper for the past two months. Couldn't Ginny have at least left him his god-damn voice, she already took almost everything else.
"I," he started and then cleared his throat, "I really loved her, Hermione, I thought I was going to marry her. I thought we were going to be just like my mum and dad. Those thoughts…they helped me get through the war. I needed to live because…because I could finally have a family. I could finally know what it was like to love and be loved." His voice cracked on the last word and his hands slid down my face to rest on my cheeks.
"What did I do wrong, Hermione?" The pain in his voice made my heart race and I felt my stomach clench with worry for him and anger for Ginny. He didn't blame this on himself, did he? He couldn't. "I thought I was loving her correctly. I thought I was a good and devoted boyfriend, but I messed up again on the most important thing. I messed up because I didn't know how to love her right. If I did, then she wouldn't have gone looking for it with someone else…she wouldn't…she wouldn't. That was supposed to be my baby, Hermione. Mine. But I can't love. I don't know how. I tried and I failed. And if I couldn't love her, when I tried so hard, then I don't think I can love anyone. Even if I ever got over her, I wouldn't have anywhere to go. I'm stuck. I'm stuck because I'm not good enough and the worst part is that I don't know how to get better or if I even want to try to get better."
Tears flowed slowly down his face, wetting my face that was pressed against his. I had never seen Harry cry before. After the war, when we went to all the funerals he was sad, but he never cried, and now here he was, devastated. I pushed aside the immense amount of rage I felt washing over me and focused my attention on Harry and what he had said. I sat with him, wiping away his tears, and staring into his worried and pain-filled eyes-worried he didn't know how to love, that all of this was his fault. I knew that I could show him that he could love right, I could show him how very good he was at loving.
"Harry," I said and was surprised by the passion that filled my own voice, "There is more than one kind of love. I don't know how Ginny felt, but from what I saw you loved her so well, more than anyone I had ever seen, better than the most functional couples. I can also tell you how well you love me, you are one of the very best friends in the world, Harry. You are always there for me and you can always make me feel that much better. And I can also tell you how well you love every single living being on earth, you care for the well-being of everyone and you hate to see people get hurt. You have so much love in you that it's amazing and I hate to see you question it. Never doubt that you do love right; I'm living proof that you can and do."
Harry's eyes filled with more tears, but he was silent. We sat together and let the heaviness of our previous conversation drift away as we held each other and wiped away the tears that continued to fall. I could have stayed like that all night, or for eternity if need be, but eventually Harry said he needed to go to sleep. I gave him a long, deep hug and a kiss on the cheek before leaving his house, a plan already forming in my mind. It was time for Harry to start living again.
AN: Well, here's another chapter! I was so excited by the response I got and I'm glad you guys are liking it so far! Mucho thanks to my wonderful Beta reader's cosmopolitan411 and KillerQueen, they made this chapter readable!!!
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