Harry Potter sat at a table in a small muggle café, staring blankly at the screen on a laptop, vaguely aware that the coffee next to him was getting very cold. He had made a deal with himself a few weeks ago, that he could only drink a sip of coffee for every paragraph he wrote, so he would stop just drinking and staring at the window. The result, however, was that he just wasted a lot of money on overpriced coffee and got no further on his memoirs.
He wasn't sure why he was writing his memoirs. He had just figured that's what people did when they had nothing better to do with their life. His job at the ministry had been short lived, though he wasn't sure if it was the gawking of his coworkers or the sheer hypocrisy of working for a group that had that had practically insured that Voldemort returned even before they had been taken over by dark wizards drove him to give in his resignation letter less than a year. He had spent the next few years ambling about, mostly in the muggle world, where people stared less.
He wasn't sure why, but he had figured the staring would lessen after the war. Or, at least, people would be respectful enough not to gawk, to treat him as a normal person, rather than trying to get his attention or snapping his photograph while he was out to dinner with Ginny.
Oh. Ginny. There was a name he hadn't thought of in a while. How long had it been since Ginny had left? Five months? Six? Long enough that her side of the bed had stopped smelling like the shampoo she had left in the bathroom. That strawberry-melon shampoo she insisted on buying because she thought it smelled like summer. Harry smiled wistfully to himself as he thought about her. Those three freckles above her left eyebrow, her laugh, the way she twisted the points on his hair as they laid in bed, nestled together against the world outside. The way she could break him out of his shell, if only momentarily and get a laugh out of him.
He didn't blame her for leaving that much. After all, she had put up with everything for almost three years. She had even waited until he got home to leave. Harry supposed she had wanted him to beg her to stay, to cry and break down and realize what a fool he had been, and that he was going to wake up and start living his life again. And part of Harry had really wanted to, but, just, couldn't. Instead he had sat next to her and listened to her quavering voice, telling him that she knew what he had gone through and how hard it had been, but she couldn't keep waiting for him to come back to her and it wasn't that she met anyone. She was going to go stay with George for a bit, keep him company, and to send an owl if he needed anything, and she would do the same if he needed him. Finally, she stood up, and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
"I love you, Harry. But we both deserve better than this."
Those words rang in his ears as he watched her blink the tears out of her chocolate brown eyes, watched her had twitch as though she wanted to touch him one last time, watched as she stood up, turned about, and walked out the front door of their flat.
She still hadn't sent him a letter. But then, he supposed, he hadn't sent one either.
Instead he sat here, day after day, just to avoid the overwhelming silence of the space they had shared.
He shook his head and reached for his coffee, grimacing at the cold bitterness. He stretched his arms and placed his fingers on his laptop's keys, poised, and he would start writing… now!
Still, nothing came to him.
Sighing, he typed irritably Harry Potter is nothing more than a twat who got lucky, got the girl, lost the girl, and now sits in a miserable café driven mad by his own existence and terrible coffee.
"Well, that's not a fair assessment at all, the coffee's quite nice if you get the pumpkin in it." said a light voice to his left. Harry jumped and looked up at the pale smiling face of Luna Lovegood.