You're the Boy-Who-Lived, the saviour of the wizarding world, the Chosen One, but underneath all that, you're just as screwed up as everyone else. Only you'd better keep it secret Harry dear, better keep it all together in front of those cameras and those journalists and reporters and authors and mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and people who expect you to be more than what you are. You've an image to uphold, remember?
During the day you're wound so tight, trying so hard, giving so much to everyone else that there's nothing left to give yourself, not to mention those closest to you.
It gets to the point where you need a bottle of Firewhiskey just to fall asleep, but Ginny finds out and puts a stop to that. For a while you grapple with the insomnia and she stays up with you while you pace and drink too much coffee and count sheep with the faces of those who've died because of you. And when you wake coated in sweat instead of blankets, she's the one there holding you, smoothing back your hair and whispering words with soothing sounds and little meaning. You hold her tightly in return, and you want to find the words to tell her how much her presence means to you, but all that ever slips from your mouth is "I love you." She seems to understand though, and for that you're grateful all over again.
Eventually you acknowledge that she needs her sleep too, especially when she's got to go back to Hogwarts, and, later, training sessions with the Harpies five mornings a week, and so together you make the decision to try a Sleeping Potion. It's just a temporary measure, you reason, you'll only take a little when you need it, and Ginny seems to believe you. But you're lying to her and to yourself and to everyone around you, and you know it. Once Ginny's asleep – only once she's asleep, because if she finds out you know she'll stop you, and you're too dependent already, you don't know what you'd do if that happened – you drink your potion from the bottle, disregarding the recommended dosages. Whoever recommended them didn't – couldn't possibly – have considered what your situation would require. How could they? There's never been a situation quite like yours; you're all alone. You're always alone, even when there's hundreds of people clamouring to hear your every word, even when you can hear the gentle breathing of the dedicated girl sleeping beside you. It's a bitter thought, one reserved for nights like these, when no one else could possibly know.
There's a period where you avoid even Ron and Hermione, telling yourself they need some time to adjust to the novel idea of Ron and Hermione, the package deal, when for so long he's just been Ron and she's just been Hermione. Truthfully, as much as you love the both of them, seeing them brings back memories and pain that you don't want to deal with just yet. But of course, they're Ron and Hermione, and they were never going to be kept away from you very long, and especially not when Ginny figured out what you were doing. One day they appear in Grimmauld Place where you've been living while you try and reacquaint yourself with the world. They're hand in hand and doubly determined, and they refuse to leave until you tell them what's going on. In typical Hermione fashion, she guesses and she's correct, and you swear she's channelling Dumbledore when she tells you "numbing the pain for a while will only make it worse when you finally feel it."
But, you want to yell at her, you're not numbing anything! You still feel everything, and that's the problem. In the wake of the war there was a honeymoon period, where everything was rosy and the world was rich with celebration, because look – look at the second chance they had been granted. Yet there was mourning among the happiness, so many and so much had been lost. It's that you can't escape, all those people sent to their deaths when you – you were blessed enough to come back unscathed. What makes you worthy of a second chance, when they all had just as much, or more, to live for?
Their names cycle through your mind on endless repeat: Mad-Eye, Dumbledore, Fred, Remus, Tonks, Colin, Dobby, Sirius, Cedric, Mum, Dad. It is your mantra, and in the daylight hours it helps, because you say their names to yourself and you remember, this speech is for them, this ceremony is for them, this world moves forward for them, so that their sacrifice will make a difference. But what in daylight is your blessing, at night becomes your curse. Their faces haunt you, their memories taunt you, and all you know is that it's your fault. If only you had ended it sooner.
You think of your godson often, and you note with regret the similarities between you. Both boys orphaned at such a young age, victims of a war you were too young to understand. When you finally knock on Andromeda's door, Ginny is with you, and you're gripping her hand in your own, silently pleading with her to keep you from falling apart. When he smiles at you, with brown eyes like his father and ever-changing hair like his mother and an air of innocence that's all his own, you know coming here was the best thing you could have done.
"Hello Teddy," you say, "I'm your godfather, Harry. And I promise to take good care of you." It's the first promise you've made in a long time, and it feels like one you'll be able to keep.
That night, you fall asleep without your potion. It's just one night of the countless more you'll have to face over the course of your life time, you're not all fixed and better and recovered – you doubt you ever will be, really – but on this one night you're okay, and that's enough for now.