It wasn't all darkness and sorrow, as he had expected it to be. No, it was much worse than that.
When Harry awoke in the mornings, he found that he could still hear Neville snoring past his alarm, and that he could still see the crimson curtains hanging around him. Just like every day, this day began. And the next, and the one after that. Always the same.
It wasn't the sharp, stabbing pain he expected when he breathed in the cold, castle air, but the same cold sting in his lungs as always.
The pain came in worse ways. The pain, he realised, was always there.
It was in the way nothing had changed about shaving, or eating breakfast, and in the way Hermione's hair still sat piled atop her head whilst she read a dusty tome during free period. Pain came with the wind through the corridors in between classes, still blowing robes around so many rushing ankles.
Everyone still walked, went to class.
Nobody cared.
The sun still set on the black lake, and one night, Harry watched it go.
In almost darkness, the Boy Who Lived stood beside the willow tree, and dared it to swipe at him. For a reason stranger than he would have cared to ponder, it made no such attempt.
Harry began his walk down to the lake.
On his way, Harry passed a few stragglers, barely managing to make it back to the castle before curfew.
Funny, how he didn't care that he would not be among them.
When the soles of Harry's trainers finally touched dampened stone, he became still, and turned to face the sunset. Golden-cloudy, it was, staining the sky in a moving tattoo as it sank below the water. Harry watched, and thought on how unfair it was that the sun still rose and set, even though Sirius had gone.
Harry took a moment to fist his hands in his school robes rather violently, before releasing the tension and sitting limp, on the ground.
When the sun had gone, Harry turned around again and made his way back up the hill, and in through the castle doors.
He had thought someone might stop him in the foyer, or perhaps on his way up the stairs, but no such person made any attempt to hinder him. For this, Harry was grateful.
Thoroughly spent now, the wizarding world's hero stripped off his shoes and cloak, and fell into bed, his spectacles still upon his nose.
He slept that night, like always.
