The door creaks from disuse as Harry swings it open and steps into the bedroom, shutting it behind himself for privacy. The sight of the things scattered around the room floors him, and he leans back against the door to collect himself.
Half of the room looks the same as it did a few years ago, the last time he was here. The other half looks emptier, which just makes the first half seem all the lonelier.
Steeling himself, he walks across the familiar floorboards and turns so he can't see Hermione's side of the room. Although she left a number of things there in memory, she's relocated a lot of it to her new room, so it feels like half of a tribute, there and yet not.
Instead, he focuses on Ginny's side.
Her bed is still made the way she left it the last time she was here; done up but not perfect, neat but not pristine. A thin novel rests on her bedside table next to her nightlight, and a teddy bear sits atop them like a sentry on lookout. One sock sticks out from under her bed, dust clinging to it as if it's taken it for its own and refuses to let go.
A signed photograph of the Harpies line-up from when she was a teenager is taped to the wall. Photos of her friends fill the rest of the space in a kind of mosaic, and a string of tinsel loops around and between them, glittering in the dim light. Harry remembers how she and Hermione put it up one Christmas, but Ginny decided she liked it there and refused to take it down afterwards.
It's pretty, she said, and there's no reason to just save pretty things for certain times of year. I may as well keep it up all year 'round.
Pain hits him at the memory. It was a better, more innocent time back then, and he wishes he could return there, even just for one day. He would give up the knowledge that they won the war, and how they did it, if it meant being with her again.
Almost instinctively, he raises his wand and starts casting charms to remove the dust that has built up. He and Hermione forbade Kreacher from entering the room after the war, not wanting it to be disturbed, and neither of them felt comfortable lifting the order as time went on. But he knows Ginny would want it to be clean, even if she didn't care about orderliness.
By the time he's finished, he doesn't know what to think. Where it once resembled a forgotten tribute, it now looks like it's still in use. It's almost as if she could walk back in at any moment, ranting about one or another of her brothers, and flop down on her bed in exasperation.
It's not as well-used as her room at the Burrow, but it still feels like her.
His feelings for her burn so bright it hurts.
Love might have been the thing he had that Voldemort knew not, but he has learned that it can be a double-ended sword. It's what allowed him to defeat his half-human foe, but it's also what tortures him whenever he thinks about his late girlfriend. She's the love of his life, and he knows he was the love of hers, yet she's gone, and he can't get her back.
His only consolation, tiny as it is, is that they made up before the final battle. Otherwise, she would be his late ex-girlfriend, and he doesn't think he could bear that slight but important distinction on top of everything else.
The first tear escapes his eyes, and it makes way for an onslaught. Casting a quick muffling charm on the door, he sets his wand on her bedside table — right where she used to put hers — and climbs onto her bed. His belt cuts into his skin, but he leaves it be, welcoming the pain. He knows she didn't sleep with the teddy for years before her death, but he pulls it into his arms anyway, hugging it tightly as he thinks of a young Ginny doing the same thing to ward away the terrors of the night.
She never got to see the dawning of the day. She knew that the hour was drawing close, but she never saw it for herself.
As the tears stream down his face, he closes his eyes and thinks of her.