Broken Strings
He looks at her. He remembers a time when he thought she was beautiful, when she was his everything but that time was long ago and the remnants of the fire that was once their passion are embers of a dwindling flame. He remembers when all this was new, when they were inexperienced and fumbled and it was all over too quickly. Again, those days have long since passed and faded into the distance.
Their ship has sailed and they both know it. They are trapped under the façade of a perfect family. On the inside, they are dying slowly inside and they want out. Not even their children know, or they pretend not to. No one seems to notice that they no longer share secretive glances or that they do not even sleep in the same room anymore.
It is hidden well though, behind a mask that has been practiced for many years. The resentment that they feel, it's been there for a while. They hate their life, how public it is but it's taught them to hide under the mask of what the people want to see. To the public, they are the perfect couple and they are happy, their children are smart and wonderful. Their lives are perfect.
Or, for a better phrasing, their lives are the perfect illusion.
Let me hold you for the last time
It's the last chance to feel again
But you broke me, now I can't feel anything
He knows he should be grateful. He knows he should be happy that he survived the war, though he surely should've died. He should be happy that he got a chance to live when so many did not. Sometimes, though, he wishes that he had died along with Voldemort. He longs for the calm abyss that death brings. He knows that there is nothing important to live for down here.
He also wonders, when his thoughts turn depressive, about her. He tries to think of when their relationship started to die but it was so long ago, hidden behind so many memories of them faking behind happy to Ron, Hermione, Molly, George, Lily, James, Albus, Teddy…everyone. He cannot remember the last time he truly loved her. He can still find traces during the Final Battle, before the killing curse in Aragog's lair struck him, where his 'last' thoughts were of her. There is no emotion behind it anymore, when he tells her he loves her. There is no emotion in her 'I love you too', either.
Both Ginny and Harry both know that the other doesn't.
When I love you and so untrue
I can't even convince myself
When I'm speaking, it's the voice of someone else
When James gets married, Harry makes a speech, though he's not the best man. He tells them all about the joys of love, how it is a form of redemption and how he is glad his son is able to experience it. He doesn't say that he feels nothing akin to it anymore, that marrying Ginny was one of the worst things he's ever done, even though he got three amazing children out of it. Secretly, in his mind, he loathes her.
He knows that she hates him just as much.
They both hide behind their fake smiles though, so well used that they have become real. There are no real smiles for Harry and Ginny anymore. He puts his arm around her for the cameras but it's off as soon as their gone. There's no spark, no tension, just a silent hate that seethes out of them.
They can't even gather the passion to argue anymore.
Arguments were aplenty in the beginning. Their passion burned and the make up sex was great. They would yell themselves hoarse and in several hours, their bed would be creaking and on one occasion, broken. Albus had been conceived from one of their lasts bouts of make up sex. As they years grew by and their children were born, their arguments became few and far between simply because they lacked the passion to start them.
At home, no words are spoken. Harry works extra shifts and Ginny buries herself in the story that she's determined to finish and publish. When Harry is Head Auror, no one forces him to return to a meaningless marriage that feels like a divorce in all but name, though he catches their glances sometimes, silently pitying him. After all, to them, he has a super hot wife to go home to.
Their love is non-existent.
They long ago gave up trying to convince themselves it wasn't.
Oh, it tears me up
I tried to hold on but it hurts too much
I tried to forgive but it's not enough
To make it all okay
Some nights, Harry's awoken by the sound of sobbing. Ginny cries a lot. He doesn't know why but she does. One day, out of the blue, she tells him that she's written a story based upon their marriage and that she's going to publish it when she dies and tell the public what a lie they've been living. She's going to tell them the truth of their marriage.
Harry couldn't care less.
She gives him a section to read, leaves it on his pillow so when he returns from Auror duty one night, he finds it before going to bed. He leaves it there, gets changed and settles into bed before reading her elegant, spiralling writing. In the extract, it details how the couple's love abates slowly, how they tried to hold onto their declining feels and loose themselves in them but they lost the battle and they no longer loved. Harry knows what she is saying. He knows that he tried to hold on - for the kids, for image, for people's expectations – and there had been nothing to hold onto. He had slid gracelessly out of love.
Ginny, apparently, hasn't forgiven him for not trying hard enough though she, too, had fallen out of love.
He still doesn't care.
You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that ain't real
Dysfunctional is a word you could use to describe Harry and Ginny. They simply don't work. Their lives don't work together.
Ginny resents Harry for making her life so public and restricted; Harry resents Ginny for not being enough for him to love. Their love had been real at one point, but the negatives had been stronger and it had broken. Their hearts didn't want to felt the emotion and thus, it didn't.
They didn't want to be in love. They knew that they would have to live this lie until their deaths and it was a reluctantly accepted fact.
When they think that they have a chance to leave, to be free of the chains of what used to be, something happens and they withdraw further into the shell of depression that clouds their lives. James, Albus and Lilly don't like to go over their parent's house anymore because it's so depressing and they realise, far too late, that their parents love is a lie. It doesn't shock them as much as you'd think. Subconsciously, as they grew up, they knew.
It was all a lie.
Oh, the truth hurts and lies worse
How can I give anymore
When I love you a little less than before?
Harry has killed a few people in his lifetime. More than a few, even. They all have, the Aurors. In the war, it was kill or be killed and damn it, they had to do it to survive. They used to have nightmares but they knew the bastards deserved it and they just became a number on their 'kill chart' that hung in the Auror Headquarters. The killings have become a memory.
Kingsly orders him onto the field with his men, a rare treat, and gets them to follow up onto a supposed Death Eater hideout, where a revolt is being staged. They bring a few ward breakers and they're in within five minutes. The place is in the middle of nowhere and they don't have to worry about muggles seeing things they shouldn't.
Inside, they're all wearing Death Eater masks, replicas of the ones from the war because those were all burned. Harry heads for the leader, also wearing a mask but in jaded green and he tears it off. He's known all along that it was Draco Malfoy. Malfoy sneers at him. Harry punches the bastard in the jaw. Hard. No one objects because Harry's eyes are blazing and he's scary when he's mad. Malfoy whimpers pathetically.
They all know about his hatred for Malfoy. They've seen him glare at the guy for years as he's tried to corrupt the Ministry, just like his father, and they know without saying that he's called dibs on Malfoy. Kingsly doesn't want a horde of prisoners and they know that they'll once again be murderers tonight. Harry says the first Killing Curse, not at Malfoy – he's being saved for last – but at an unnamed one who slumps over with a disgusting thump.
Albus, Harry's son, is the rookie Auror on the team. He's never killed before and it mortifies him to see his father doing it so carelessly. Harry's vibrantly coloured green eyes are dull and they show no mercy or regret. Maybe, just maybe, if you look hard enough, you could say that he's enjoying it. Albus doesn't want to be like his father anymore, not like he did when he was a child. He's seen how unhappy his father and mother are and he can't pretend like James. It eats him up inside. Albus blames himself, he blames James, he blames Lily, he blames Ginny. He even blames Harry for not saying anything, for becoming this shell of a person. For allowing himself to enjoy killing.
No, he's the only one of his generation that doesn't want to be like Harry Potter.
Oh, what are we doing?
We are turning into dust
Playing house in the ruins of us
No one bothers to check where Harry Potter goes after his long shifts are over. They trust him; they don't believe that he goes into Knockturn Alley. They don't know that he's gone there for years and, to him, it's much better than Diagon Alley. He wears the same cloak he always does when he comes here – midnight black with a hood that hides his face. He Apparates to the same place and he walks the same path as he normally does.
They place he goes to has no sign outside. Its walls are dark brown and hardly anyone likes to come down this far into the Alley. Harry revels in the silence; the Aurors are not exactly quiet. He does not knock before entering.
There is a stout woman behind the bar, washing mugs and talking to another girl who is serving a Fire Whiskey to a cloaked figure. Harry says nothing and sits on his usual bar, and his usual Fire Whiskey with Gin, ironically, is passed to him with barely a glass. He is never late. A figure bounds over to him energetically from a corner and he buys her a drink. They still haven't said a word. She smiles at him and they finish their drinks quickly before Apparating back to Harry's foyer.
Sounds of their activities reach Ginny's room and she tries not to cry but the tears slip down. She looks down at the calendar with a teary glance and out her window. She has the master bedroom. Harry and the girl make their way up the stairs with noisy movements and the girl moans loudly right outside her door and Harry does nothing to conceal what he is doing.
A minute after he reaches his room, there is a rhythmic pounding against the walls. Ginny knows the noise well. That noise is her companion every other night.
Harry's companion every other night is a whore. Ginny tries not to think about it but there are memories, so many memories, of when their lives were better.
That night, she wishes that she was the one in Harry's bed. Just that night.
She wishes they would acknowledge their anniversary.
Running back through the fire
When there's nothing left to save
It's like chasing the very last train
When it's too late, too late
Lily's known for years that her mother does drugs. She found her mother with some cocaine when she was ten and she's never said a word – but she came close, so close to - though her mother knows that she knows. She hasn't told her dad because he's never home and when he was, he always smelled like cheap perfume and she knew what he'd been doing.
She couldn't decide which was worse.
When she was twelve, her father moved out of the master bedroom and she knew he only pretended to go in there and sneak out later for her sibling's sake. She was sure that James and Albus didn't know but she knew and it broke her heart as she saw them grow further and further apart. It was inevitable, however and she said goodbye to her real parents when she was ten and she found it all out.
She leaves home when she's out of Hogwarts, renting a flat with Scorpius Malfoy because he can't go home either. He got kicked out of his home for being a Hufflepuff and he's been in an orphanage for ages. His father ignores him, not even talking to him to tell him to change his name, which didn't happen in the end. It is only by his mother's persuading that he has been allowed to keep it, though it was reluctant. She was in Hufflepuff, too, and the managed to become friends. He's the only one she's trusted enough to tell about her parents.
She tells him that her mother takes drugs and slits her writs and her father sleep with whores and purposely doesn't come home. He is appalled but he understands why she doesn't want to go back home, why the only reason she does is to make sure her mother hasn't offed herself. She is out there quickly, though because the atmosphere makes her cry. When her brothers finally figure the lie out, she pretends to be shocked but when they confront them, her mother stares at her like she knows and her father merely shrugs.
Ginny does know, though and Harry seems emotionally dead nowadays.
She wishes everyone would stop comparing her to her mother and father. She doesn't want to be like them. Like Albus, she is one of the few in their generation that doesn't want to be like the Great Harry Potter.
Oh, it tears me up
I tried to hold on but it hurts too much
I tried to forgive but it's not enough
To make it all okay
It is on James' 25th birthday that Hermione realises. She talks to Ginny for a few minutes, and then she goes off and talks to her other various relatives. Their family is possibly the biggest in Britain. Though the Potter's house is bulging, she notices that Harry is not there.
At first, she thinks that he is once again on Auror duty and is late. She dismisses this notion after two hours. She tells Ron and they become worried. They tell Ginny but she doesn't seem to care. Ginny tells them that she doesn't expect him to show. It's not a big deal, it's okay.
But it's not! Hermione wants to scream at the witch with now grey streaked red hair. It's not okay!
When Harry does show up, the party is nearly over but James doesn't seem to mind that his father was missing. He gives his father a hug and smiles, like it happens often. Harry hugs back, nods and doesn't even say ''Happy Birthday'. Ron knows that Harry has been on Auror duty that morning and it is the first time that he has seen his son today. They are not happy with the situation and, for the first time, they realise that something is wrong. They watch and Harry does not say hello to Ginny, he does not even look her way. Instead, he goes over to talk to Teddy, who is another Auror.
Harry works the next day, as well, even though it's a Sunday. Kingsly has long since given up trying to make Harry go home to his family. Now that all the children have left, they assume that Harry doesn't want to go back to such an empty house. And, truly, Harry does miss the kids but he stays at work to get away from the woman he loathes, from the life he loathes.
He knows, however, that he can't always run away.
You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that ain't real
The next morning, Ron and Hermione tell Rose and Hugo to talk to Lily, James and Albus about their parents and see if they know anything. They don't want to barge into their friend's lives and find everything to be okay. The cousins arrange to meet up in the Leaky Cauldron in the afternoon, as they all have Sundays off. Ron, meanwhile, has been told to place a Tracking Charm on Harry if something is wrong.
And that afternoon is the day that Lily says everything. She's held it in so long, too long and she's breaking with the truth and none of them know. And she wishes Scorpius was there because he understands but they all just stare at her with these shocked expressions and she sobs. God, she cries so hard. Through her sobs, she tells them how she's seen it grow worse as the years go by. How Ginny used to only do drugs sometimes, once a month and Harry only was with a whore once every two weeks.
The public see her sobbing and they want to know why. Reporters come over and ask what they problem is because they're all so nosey. And Lily wants to scream at them. She knows that it's the reporters fault for her parent's misery. James and Albus drag her into the fireplace though, and they take her to Ron and Hermione's place.
Hermione doesn't expect them home. She doesn't expect to see Lily sobbing, she doesn't expect anything to be really wrong but it is. When she hears, she's shocked. She's angry too; she wants to ask Lily why she never said anything but she looks at her niece, really looks, and sees how badly this all hurt her. Lily didn't want to betray her parents; she didn't want to ruin their fake lives, though she knew she should've. Hermione thinks it's all Ginny and Harry's fault.
She tells Ron to place the Tracking Spell on Harry.
Oh, the truth hurts and lies worse
How can I give anymore
When I love you a little less than before?
Ron doesn't know, Hermione realises later. Ron wasn't there when Lily explained. Now, he knows something is wrong but he doesn't realise how bad it is. Hermione wonders how they could've missed it. It seems so obvious now – Ginny's obsession with wearing long sleeves, Harry's tireless shifts… it all made sense.
How could they have lied?
The lies were shocking and to find out how long they had been pretending was startling. Why had they kept bottling it all inside? Why had they not just divorced? Why had they drowned themselves in this life of misery?
So Ron places the Tracking Spell upon Harry. It is one of Hermione's new inventions. She has delved into Spell Creation during her pregnancy with Hugo and has fallen in love with it. Her spells are useful in the Field Missions but some, like this, are secrets between the two of them. If he manages to successfully place it on Harry, then it would be undetectable and it couldn't be spelled off, in theory.
He puts the spell on Harry without a hitch and stays late, with Harry, under the guise of doing paper work, the only downside of being an Auror. Harry, for once, is not the last person in the Auror office that is not on night duty. Pulling out a Charmed map, he locates Harry's dot and illusively follows him, under a Disillusionment Spell. He follows Harry up the lift and into the Atrium.
When Harry Apparates, Ron expects him to appear in Diagon Alley or somewhere near his home. He doesn't. Ron nearly has a heart attack when he sees Harry appear in Knockturn Alley. He sucks in a deep breath and he follows straight after. He arrives, clad in his royal blue Auror robes, and sees Harry's dot as a cloaked figure walking in the distance.
Ron knows that he is a sitting target and transfigurates his blue robes into discreet, dark ones like the ones Harry has. Stealthily, he follows Harry to an unnamed pub and waits outside.
Harry leaves within five minutes, and arrives inside his house. Ron sends a Patronus Message to Hermione, saying that Harry has gone home. He is told to go there and wait for Hermione.
Quarter of an hour later, they are outside the door, waiting to go in. They share a look and use a unlocking charm to get in. Immediately, they hear a mantra of moans and a continuous thumping coming from upstairs.
Hermione doesn't need anymore evidence to know Lily was right.
But we're running through the fire
When there's nothing left to save
It's like chasing the very last train
When we both know it's too late, too late
Hermione asks everyone over the next day. She tells the children – they're not that young anymore, she realises, watching them leave – to go out somewhere and they four parents sit down. Ginny and Harry sit next to each other, more out of habit that desire, and Harry stares blankly at the wall whilst Ginny stares shyly at her hands. Once again, Ron and Hermione share a look.
"So…" Ron begins uncomfortably.
Harry shifts his gaze to Ron. "Do you think that I don't know about the Tracking Charm?" He says monotonously, his fingers drumming on the table top.
Hermione gulps. "What?"
Silence reigns and Harry simply stares at Hermione, his gaze unwavering and creepy with their blankness. She thinks of how shiny and emotional they used to be and how they are nothing now, compared to what they used to be. In her nightmares, when they rear their heads, she sees eyes like his, on bodies. The bodies of the dead, fallen at the hands of magic and their eyes are vacant. Open, the unseeing eyes stare up towards the sky and they are empty. She remembers crying over Tonks and Lupin and Fred. Fred's eyes were open, before George closed them. Hermione shivers at the likeness.
It is near uncanny.
You can't play our broken strings
You can't feel anything
That your heart don't want to feel
I can't tell you something that ain't real
"Are you happy?"
No, Harry is not happy. He has not been for years. He does not want to be happy, he does not care anymore. It scares them, how unemotional he is. Ginny is used to it and does not comment but Ron and Hermione share that damn infernal look again.
"No." There, it has been revealed. The lies have been pealed away and Harry and Ginny, in all their sinful ways, have been bared in front of the scrutinising eyes of their friends. Friends that have not known, friends that should've known. In their eyes, Harry and Ginny have done what needed to be done, what had to be done to keep the world right.
"Why not split up then?" It hurts Ron to say it because they're his best mate and sister. Family.
Harry sighs. Ginny speaks this time. "Reputation, in the beginning." She begins. "What a scandal it would be. Harry Potter, the Saviour of the Wizarding World, divorcing the only Weasley daughter. They'd say that I thought I was too good for him, that I was a scarlet woman. We didn't want that. We didn't want the kids to have to go through that. Everyone was happier if we were still married." She pauses.
Hermione frowns. "But you're not happy!"
"So what?"
Oh, the truth hurts and lies worse
How can I give anymore
When I love you a little less than before?
Oh, you know that I love you a little less than before
There is nothing more to say on the matter. Harry and Ginny go home that night and they sit down and talk. Ginny talks about how they can't do this, about how they're dying inside and how it needs to stop. Harry agrees. They are going to divorce. Finally, they have decided that they don't care about the public.
Harry moves out the next morning. And when the last box of his stuff is gone, he goes back and he hugs Ginny.
It's the first time they've hugged for years. They smile at each other and Ginny begins to cry again. She's not happy. She's sad that this is ending, this period of their life that they've lived through for such a long time. She hopes they'll be happier this way, even if no one else is.
When Harry leaves, he smiles at her and they feel something other than misery.
They are content.
Let me hold you for the last time
It's the last chance to feel again
The song is 'Broken Strings' by James Morrison and Nelly Furtado. I don't own the Harry Potter series.
Thanks for reading.