It's early evening and the sun is setting on the longest day of your life. Nothing in particular has gone wrong, but you woke this morning with a feeling of dread deep in the pit of your stomach. At first, you thought it was the residual effects of the firewhiskey from your Stag Night party, but once you'd eaten and it hadn't left you, you realized that this feeling was no simple hangover. Since then dread has been freezing you through from the inside out.

You pace in small circles in front of the window, wearing tread patterns into the carpet, hoping that the repeated motion will bring you some small reprieve. Worry blooms inside of you and though you try to push it down, it keeps flourishing. How could this have happened, you wonder to yourself. You wrack your brain, but there is no immediate answer. Somehow time has changed you, robbing you of the love you once felt so intensely.

The cold, dark, hardness that is growing within you started the moment you allowed Voldemort to kill you. Though you survived, an integral part of you shattered, leaving you a mere shell of the person you once were. The segment of you that loved so fiercely is gone. It's as if you are an actor playing a part that you've rehearsed a thousand times. You say the same sad lines over and over again, hoping that the next time you repeat it, you'll remember how to mean it.

But you never remembered and with your wedding day fast approaching, you've come to realize that you never will. You simply can't love anymore. Not in the way she needs you to. The dreams you used to share of having a family and growing old together have faded. All you can think of now is the sheer need to flee to the farthest corners of the earth, to escape, to breathe fresh air. You've been suffocating under her expectations for too long and you know now that you must cut her loose. She at least deserves that much.

As you think about what to tell her or how you could possibly explain, memories of the years past flow steadily through your mind. You remember your first kiss and how her lips tasted of gingerbread. You remember seeing her fly for the first time, red hair whipping fiercely behind her. You even remember the way she screamed when she thought you'd been killed. You remember it all and you feel nothing. The woman who's memory sustained you through the war is now a distant memory.

The end has come. You feel it deep in your gut before you ever say it out loud. All that's left is to tell her of your decision. Every part of you wants to avoid the tear streaked scene to come. If you could, you'd simply slip into the night, never to be heard from again, but she deserves an explanation at the least. You owe her that much.

Quietly, you break from your pacing and slip out of the room. "Ginny!" you call loudly, as you head down the hall.


Hi there,

This story was originally posted on HPFF for The "I Don't Love You" Challenge in which we were to write about a character realizing they no longer loved their partner the night before their wedding. The character I was assigned was Harry Potter.

I'd love to hear how you felt about this, particularly because I chose to play with 2nd person POV and I don't have much experience with it. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

~Kaitlin/TreacleTart