He should have been happy.
Well, happier.
Because he was happy… just not really. He put on a pretty, pretty little mask and smiled and laughed for his friends and cried as soon as he was locked up in his house.
That was three days out of seven. The other four were spent in his house, staring at the ceiling or the table and thinking. Brooding. Remembering. It was all against his will.
He soon found that, while he couldn't be around people, he also, on some level, couldn't be alone. So he found a radio and a stereo and allowed loud, constant music to play. It played all day, all night, and it helped him heal, slowly. Most of the songs were horrifyingly depressing, but that was just the way people were, he supposed, listening.
Mrs. Black hated it. She screamed and yelled at him, and, when he was in the mood, he would turn off the music and scream back at her. Their yelling sessions lasted for hours at a time, usually, and he almost always fell asleep not long after. Those were his favorite nights, because screaming at Mrs. Black took up all of his energy and motivation, so he slept through the night, his dreams- if he had them- foggy and unclear.
That behavior lasted for six months before Ginny found out. She came by with a surprise dinner planned at a fancy restaurant up the road to help pick up his spirits and found him dressed in the clothes from three days before, yelling over loud rock music to a picture of a dead woman on the wall. She yanked the curtains closed and caught him when he collapsed.
She looked angry. And, by all means, Harry figured that he deserved a good yelling at. But she took one long look around the house, taking it all in- the scattered pictures of the Marauders from Sirius and Remus' old rooms, the sink full of dishes, and the bags under his eyes, his red skin from when his nails traced lines over his scars. Then she picked him up and dragged him to the shower, when she helped him wash, and then to his room, when she practically dressed him herself.
They made good of those reservations.
At dinner, she asked him why.
He thought she already knew the reason, but he told her anyway: that the loud noise prevented him from thinking too much and getting lonely, but he couldn't bear to be in anyone's company but his own. The nightmares were horrendous, so he took drastic measures to either prevent himself from sleeping or to make himself so tired that he didn't dream. He told her that dreamless sleep potions had stopped working long ago.
She told him plainly that he needed help. He knew it. She told him she would be the one to help him.