Author's Note- Round 6 of the Quidditch Fanfiction Challenge. A letter between Bofriend/Girlfriend/Spouse. In this letter they are still married but they are not living together.

My Dear Wife Ginny,

Not a day goes by where I don't think about you and all the pain I must have caused. I know it isn't fair to contact you like this, especially after all this time. But I feel it's time to say my goodbyes, my final goodbyes.

It was a year ago today that I left without any explanation, and for that I am truly sorry. I've learnt a few very important things during my absence, and, if you can bring yourself to continue reading I would like to share them with you.

One of the main things I have come to realise is that the saying 'All's fair in love and war' couldn't be further from the truth. Nothing is fair when it comes to love, surely everyone can see that, I mean look at the way I treated you.

I know you're probably waiting for a reason as to why I acted the way I did, but the truth is…. I don't have one. I spent forever trying to write this and I came up with plenty of reasons as to why I hurt you, but then I realised that they weren't reasons, they were excuses to make me feel better about doing it. That's another thing I've learnt; excuses and reasons are two completely different things.

It wasn't that long ago that I met a lovely elderly muggle, and, in my opinion their metaphor for love was one of the more accurate ones. They described love as a delicate rose blooming under the care of both the sun and the rain. I think it's beautiful because it's true; both the golden rays from the sun and the grey drops of rain are needed for the love to grow. It shows happiness and sadness are both essential ,and the idea of a rose as love is perfect as well and that's because it's a fragile thing which has its flaws that cause pain as well, just like all love.

I realised something else only about 3 weeks into my disappearance. I realised that you can't know what you truly hold in the palm of your hands until it is gone. The day you and I promised to love each other for the rest of our lives was the happiest I ever remember being and I took it for granted. I don't expect you to forgive me; in fact I don't want you to forgive me.

But I know you. I know that if I had come to you in person you wouldn't have yelled at me like you should have. Sure you may have been angry, but you would have hugged me and told me it was all going to be alright. But I know that's not true and I also know that if you had hugged me like that then I would never be able to let you go again. I would have been selfish and stayed. Turning your golden rays into a depressing drizzle of rain.

Do you want to know something I have never told anyone? I'm going to tell you anyway. Killing Voldemort is not the hardest thing I have ever had to do, not by a long way. Sitting here now I can think of quite a few things that were harder. Living with my uncle and aunt, watching as all the other children grow up in loving households with parents that cared for them. Watching the people I love and had come to know as my family die. But the hardest of them all was making the decision to walk away from you. To walk out of the door and to not come back is the biggest challenge I have ever faced.

Now I know I told you that I had no reasons for what I did and it's true, I have no reasons to explain why I had to hurt you. But I did have reasons, or perhaps they are excuses, for leaving and I now realise that they were completely selfish reasons, but something I hope you will understand someday is that although it hurt you I still had to do it.

The nightmares were getting worse again- I didn't tell you at the time because I knew you would worry and send me to some doctor for a different potion and I didn't want that, they never helped anyway. I know you noticed the change in my behaviour and mood, but didn't mention it in fear of making things worse.

My main excuse for leaving was purely selfish. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take the constant jokes and questions from random strangers. I couldn't continue to listen to the reporters who noted my every move, and my job wasn't going so well either; whatever I was doing was often interrupted by vivid flashbacks. I made the decision to escape, and I didn't take you with me because I couldn't bring myself to ask you. I didn't want you to have to leave everything you had ever known behind, and where I was going there would not be any contact with anyone from the wizarding world. But these are all just excuses, not reasons.

I made the decision to leave without talking to you, and I later realised how wrong that was. But I thought it was better to stay away than come back and explain why I had left at all and then possibly leave again.

I guess I had best get to the main point of telling you all of this. It has been brought to my attention that you are still waiting for me to come back so I have one last request to ask of you Ginny. Forget about me and move on. I'm not coming back and I don't want you to live the rest of your life waiting for me, trust me, I'm not worth it.

I take back what I said earlier about leaving you being the hardest thing I have ever done. The hardest thing was not leaving, but staying away.

I just want you to know that you have always been and always will be the golden rays to my gloomy rain streaked sky. Always.

Goodbye Ginny,

Your Husband (for now), Harry.