“Why won’t you talk to me, Harry?!” she screamed. It was one of their rare moments alone, after all the chaos of the post-war celebrations.

Silence.

Harry had been so closed off after the War. He never seemed sure of himself and Ginny couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smile. She needed to see him smile again.

“Leave it, Ginny…” he said tiredly, finally. He sounded so tired. And fed up. He never seemed to want to talk to her anymore, look at her. She felt childish shouting at him like this but she needed to have him focus on her again.

She was sick if the huge gap suddenly wedged between them.

She felt an irrational surge of anger roar through her, and kneeled down before him, blocking his view of the fire which he’d been using to avoid eye contact and stare moodily at. “Look at me, Harry! Look at me!” She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.

He looked at her.

More silence.

And then she saw what he’d been trying to hide.

Confusion. Tears. Pain. Screams of agony echoed in those emerald eyes.

“I’m not like you, Ginny,” he said. “I can’t just get over it. I can’t be happy. The War might be over, but we lost so many people…I didn’t win quick enough….I can’t be happy like you, Gin…”

When she talked, it wasn’t the sympathetic soft voice she was used to using with Harry. It was completely different. It was dull and dark and filled with an undercut of rage. “I lost my brother, Harry. You lost people, we all did, but I lost my brother. Fred.”

He flinched, as if she was throwing that in his face too.

“We have to move on, Harry,” she told him, her tone changed suddenly by his flinch, and she wasn’t just talking to him anymore, but herself too. “We have to try let ourselves be happy again.” But then suddenly she was crying too.

They stared at each other, Harry with tears slowly running down his face, Ginny’s soft sniffs the only sound to fill the room.

And then they moved and held each other, and he was apologising and she was apologising, and the tears didn’t stop flooding, but they didn’t stop holding each other either…

They were only children, after all. Still teenagers. They’d had to deal with too much. Nothing made sense anymore. It was just too hard. Ginny didn’t know how to make the world better for Harry, and Harry didn’t know how to make all the pain go away.

All they could do was hold on to one another…

Based on true life as always. Things change after somebody dies. And nothing ever really seems to make sense after it

i'll always be here for you, Gary xxx

Does the pain ever go away?