AN: The editing was spectacularly crappy for this. Now it's fixed!
The title has nothing to do with my English paper whatsoever. Though the summary is from John Green's book The Fault in Our Stars.
There's been this wonderful theory by Muffliato on how the Horcrux affected Harry. It suppressed everything (not magic, but I have the whole Lash/Harry Dresden—Horcrux/Harry Potter parallel in mind), his emotions in particular, on how he sensed everything. So beware if things get purple, but note that I'll never aspire to be Meyer.
Disclaimer: Last time I checked I am an American brunette. Nice try, but I know that I'm not JK Rowling
Title: The Moving Shadow
Word Count: 1K
Summary: The thing about pain is that it demanded to be felt. For Harry, this meant years and years of pain finally catching up to him.
Grief. It came at him like a lightning bolt. Some moments ago he was watching Ginny leave his dormitory to go to her family, watching her long hair dance behind her. In the next hour he was slumped against the cold wall of the shower. The years of keeping his emotions back was failing, and his entire composure was falling down like an avalanche.
The pain ached and burned in him like Fiendfyre, unquenchable and raging. He tried to keep himself contained, pushing the vengeance, the sorrow, and the misery—Out! But pictures of Fred, Remus, Sirius, Tonks, Colin, Dumbledore, Snape, Dobby, the muted Weasley family…. The guilt was making him gasp as everything was catching up. From seeing Ron's prone body on the chessboard to the tendrils of Ginny's hair leaving his hand—it was all there and real.
With shuddering breaths he let his hands leave his hairline. The tips of his nails came back red and then diluted to pink and vanished under the spray of the hot shower. There was still blood on his hands; he could still see it even when the water washed them clean. His reflection in the bathroom mirror next only showed a man crippled with fear and high expectations. He saw only a broken version of himself.
He hid in the Burrow for the remainder of the summer.
It was the only place he saw as home now. Place was poisonous to the touch and Hogwarts was burned and haunted. Keeping refugee inside was the best chance of hiding away from the world. The reporters were like vultures, as they demanded to swoop down on his dead thoughts. The people were too much with their teary thanks as they wouldn't stop grabbing him. Nights were now filled the terror of his past and uncertain futures, all of the what if's and should have's. The days were filled with illogical ideas that involved unreal Time Turners and fantastical spells plagued his mind. I should have—or—I could have also echoed loudly.
He couldn't remember grief being this defeating. It was more than the silence before a funeral or the pain after a death. It was booming—demanding to never be forgotten. "Is it always like this?" he asked one morning. Surrounded by Ron and Hermione, his two friends turned to look at each other, and a million words might have passed between their stare.
"I…" Ron choked. His face went from ashen to blooded as he took a shaking sip of his tea. Hot liquid spilled over his fingers, creating more pain that would heal.
Hermione set her own cup down on the table. Her hands were neatly folded on the weathered wood. She eyed Harry, her stare tilting to the side. "How long have you been feeling this?"
He shrugged and looked down at his own tea that was growing cold. His eyes ached and his throat felt raw. That was the only answer he could feel.
The world was too loud. Too bright. Too much.
He shielded away at first, peaking through the curtain of his self-imposed isolation. Life could move on without him.
Ginny found him.
He was sitting on his bed at night, his head cradled between his hands. Another nightmare had came and went, but the pain stayed. He almost didn't hear her walking inside the room. She sat down next to him, causing him to raise his head slightly. She was blurry without the use of his glasses. She was all reds and whites, and all washed away in the dim moonlight and creeping darkness. His throat constricted at seeing her.
Ginny's hand was hesitant, hovering over his shoulder. "Harry?" He groped for speech of his own but it came out in silence. His hands slid over his head, raking at the knots and tangles, and fingers steepling at the back of his neck. Tightening his grip at first, he then loosened and dropped them to the bed. She moved closer, leaving her upturned hand next to his. "Hey."
His lips almost quirked at that. "Hi," he rasped.
Ginny raised a knee to tuck under her chin. She wrapped her arms around it, his posture now hunched. Curtains of her vivid hair fell to the side, and his fingers itched to push it back. "I think they get better in the daytime." Her words were uncharacteristically soft.
"It doesn't go away for me," he said.
She set both legs down to the floor. At first Harry thought that she was leaving, but she turned around to hug him instead. He buried his head in the crook of her shoulder and neck. The smell of broom polish and flowers washed over him, giving him the release to cry. No words were needed because the actions said as much as they could.
Life got slowly better after that.
He was soon able to eat more. He could look at Mr and Mrs Weasley a bit longer without flinching. The dreams were also becoming nicer.
He found Ginny later outside. She was sitting in the hammock that was nestled between two large trees. He and Ron had found it after looking through the shed to find Mr Weasley a mixer. She slid over to the side to give him some room. It swung under their combined weight, but it held them up. She leaned against one side of the hammock, resting her weight on forearms. "You look different in the sunlight."
He narrowed his eyes. "Thanks?" He rubbed his hands over his arms, the summer heat feeling odd on his pale skin.
Ginny sat up more. Her eyes locked with his and he found himself unable to look away. "You look alive."
"What happens next?" he asked.
Ron dropped his cup of tea and Hermione looked up from her book about the history of magic in Australia. "Bloody hell!" his friend exclaimed. Hermione waved her wand over the mess and the cup fixed itself and the tea was wiped away.
"What brought this on?" Hermione said.
He fiddled with the earpieces of his glasses. The feeling was stark and new. He looked out and saw the rolling hills of Devon. He couldn't see anything beyond that. "I don't know."
He was able to enter Hogwarts without fear when visiting Teddy during his first year. That was the year when he was doing speeches to the Defence class for the Fifth and Seventh Years. With clammy hands and rushed notes, he was able to get though his speech and the questions and answers without too much trouble. He was able to focus enough without the memories of the war following him.
It had left him exhausted in the end. He wandered around the halls of the castle, noticing the changes. Some parts of the stone looked cleaner, newer, the tapestries were colourful, even the portraits had some new additions. It all hid the past events that took place inside. It didn't looked like Hogwarts anymore to him. He could now understand what Ginny had meant in her letters to him years and years ago. His Hogwarts was dusty and filled with secrets. This Hogwarts was clean and the secrets were unmasked.
He rested a hand on a wall and looked around. He could still see what the castle used to be, but he found that he was starting to prefer the newer one. There was less danger, he hoped. More boring, too, but the monsters were slayed and the evil was vanquished. There was no pressing fear for the new generation anymore.
The bell rung and soon the hallway was filled with students. He placed his back to the wall to give them more room. A knot of them would stop and stare as they recognised who he was.
"Blimey! Is that—"
"No, it can't be."
"Can you see the scar?"
He smiled a bit at their words and walked down to go outside. Later, after catching up with Teddy and sharing tea with Hagrid, he saw that he could look back at the castle (half-expecting) a new wave of bitter memories, but found nothing instead. He told this to Hagrid and the half-giant had said thickly that it got better with time.
He took this and caught his reflection in a mirror on the way out. He saw only Harry. No longer a boy ravaged by war or torn apart from grief, but he saw a godfather, a parent, and a husband. He looked completed.
All was well, he mused.