Disclaimer: I do not own HP and co.
Written as a 500 words or less challenge: prompt: 15 minutes in the downfall of love.
Blink of an Eye:
You could only push people away for so long before they stay gone. Harry stared at the spot where Ginny had disapparated long after the room had gone silent. The echoes of their raised voices having quieted at last, but Ginny's words forever in his mind like a broken phonograph skipping and repeating; "I'm done Harry. I can't do this."
He could feel his body keeping him alive but he couldn't see the point. With Ginny gone – her last nerve ruptured - Harry felt an aching he didn't know he could feel. The suffering of losing so many loved ones to death had pained him, devastated him to the point where he barely wanted to go on. But Ginny leaving... to know she was alive and well and frankly better off without him… that killed him. He knew he was overbearing and overprotective since the war, but was it so wrong to want to hold onto the happiness, to the love; to keep it safe and protected? He was tired of feeling hurt.
He stared at the empty room without seeing until the dust in the light of the sunset was no longer visible and the moon attempted to rule the sky, if only for a moment. He knew he should go after her. Knew he should fight for her – for them. But he couldn't move. She was better off without him; he'd always known it, and now it seemed so did she.
He broke from his trance and looked habitually at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. The fifteen minutes between the hazy light of sunset and darkness. Fifteen minutes between love and loss. A fraction of an hour; an eye blink in life. How could fifteen minutes mean so much?
Harry sank to the floor, broken. In fifteen minutes he had gone from having everything, to having nothing. In fifteen minutes he had shattered.
