He stares at the wall. Little cracks run through the paintwork, and he can't help but think that it's what his heart would look like, too, if he were able to see it in front of him. They both started off so immaculate, but time took its toll on them both, eroding them until they were nothing but a dull mess. Years ago, when he first realised he was in love with Ginny, he dreamed about fixing up 12 Grimmauld Place, of moving in there with her and making it the home it never was. Reconstructing the Blacks' ancestral home until it was nothing at all like the place that had once haunted Sirius had seemed like the perfect homage to his late godfather, but that's now a dream of the past. He may live there, but Ginny never will, and the process of renovating seems too entrenched in the normalcy he has never had and most likely will never have. He and the rest of the Weasleys did go through to baby-proof and toddler-proof the house so it would be safe for Teddy, but, other than redecorating one of the bedrooms for the boy, that's all he's had done to it since her death.
Mood swings are normal to him now. They've gone from being the unfortunate result of hormones interacting with the Horcrux in his head to being the result of a life forever shadowed by death. The day can be going well, but then a flash of crimson hair or a wry joke will remind him of what happened and bring him crashing back down. He can usually hold it in – he has to, for Teddy's sake; Andromeda isn't up to raising such an energetic toddler, so he's been doing it one slow day at a time – but it's building up, always building up, and every now and again he just needs to be alone to let it all out. When it does, he always asks Andromeda or Hermione or Molly to mind Teddy for a day or two while he falls apart all over again.
Like today.
Some days, days like this, are worse than others. It the fifth anniversary of their first kiss, of that day when she ran across the common room to him, her eyes blazing as she collided with him without a caring in the world of what others might think of the display. It's the fifth anniversary, and he can't get the memory of that searing kiss, and of each and every kiss that followed it, out of his head.
Knuckles rap against the door, and his first instinct is to leave whomever it is to their knocking.
It's all they do, really, he thinks. People knock at his barriers, expecting that they'll one day fall down and reveal the person he once was, tired from being cooped up for so long but still there and normal, and now they knock at his door, too, apparently.
He decides to leave it; his close friends would just Apparate inside, Andromeda would Floo in if there were an issue with Teddy, and no one else really matters anymore. Besides, Kreacher can get it if he wants to.
"Harry?" Hermione's voice calls out, and sounds like she's much closer than he thought. Detachedly, he supposes that it's the Amplification Charm at work again; the front door has been charmed to amplify the sound of knocking so that Kreacher can hear it from any place in the house, but that makes it easy to mistake it for other noises. "Is it alright if I come in?"
"Yeah."
"I wanted to give you the chance to be alone," she explains as she enters and pulls a few bottles of firewhiskey out of her bag before placing them on the table in front of him. She settles in next to him, a bottle in her hand, and stares at the same patch of wall he's been spending most of his day studying.
"Thank you," he murmurs. "Don't you have a date with Ron?"
"I cancelled." The response is succinct, and he appreciates it. Rambling irritates him more often than not at times like this. "I'd rather be here."
"Thank you," he repeats. "I could never repay you for everything you've done."
She doesn't bother with platitudes about how it's a small repayment for everything he's done for the wizarding world, or about how she'll always be there for him. Instead, she simply says, "Friendship doesn't have a tally card."
"I know. I just want you to know I'm grateful."
Together, they sit and stare.