"But I'm so scared of losing all control

Don't you tell me, "It's better to let go"

When the weight of the world feels so close

It's only me"

(Hard to sleep by Gracie Abrams)

A month sleeps into two and the memorial is postponed because the Ministry is still not on it's feet enough to host such an event. Harry follows most of the chaos through the newspaper or Mr. Weasley's stories but he doesn't try to do much to join the rebuilding effort. He stays at the Burrow almost as if it's an alternative reality where nothing can touch him and he can pretend things are like they used to be. Of course he knows it's impossible, the wizarding world may have defeated it's biggest enemy, but the fracture he created in their society was still bleeding. It's impossible to move on from losing your child or from finding out your neighbor was working for the Dark Lord and now you have to send him to Azkaban.

A part of the Ministry seemed to be trying hard to pretend things were perfect now that Voldemort was gone but even their best efforts weren't sufficient to rebuild fast enough for the celebration. Some people were glad they chose to postpone it because there was much more to be done, some were angry at how disorganized the new administration was showing to be, but Harry was just glad he wasn't going to have to face all these strangers wanting things from him for another month. In the meantime he spent his days helping Ginny practice as she tried her best to stay afloat through her family's grief. Harry watched as the Weasley's tried to live through the unimaginable taking it one day at a time but, as he knew from experience, it wasn't a straight lined process and some days he was the one throwing rocks at her window.

Their own process of healing a relationship was hard and Harry still wasn't opening up to her as much as she wanted to. He had told her more about their year on the run and the details of how they had found most of the Horcruxes but he still kept the events of the Battle and how they found out about the last Horcrux: himself. It was as if she knew that because she also didn't tell him much about her year in Hogwarts either, always deflecting his questions about the treatment the Carrow's reserved for those who defied them. Mostly they trained in silence or commenting on the game, when it was over they sat in the grass and talked about how Ginny could improve or the strategies she needed to learn to impress the Harpie's coah. Sometimes she told him about the letters Luna and Neville sent her and Harry wished he was strong enough to reach out to his old friends, but he barely did so to Ron and Hermione who were living in the same house as him.

It was now the day before Ginny's tryout and he was so nervous one could think he was the one doing it. On the other hand, the girl seemed like it was going to be just a normal friday, but Harry knew her enough to see through the act. She hadn't really told him why she was so eager to get into this team and leave Hogwarts behind along with her childhood. She was a great athlete who always dreamed of playing for her favorite team but it seemed like an odd move after the year she and her family had just had. Even so he didn't press her for answers thinking she wanted space to sort out her feelings on her own like he did.

"Do you wanna go to the lake?" Ginny asked Harry after they landed on the ground.

They had just finished their last drills and the sun was still high in the sky because they decided to stop earlier so Ginny could rest. He didn't expect that this meant she would want to spend her free time with him, especially after being together every day for weeks. The moments he was flying by her side were the best in Harry's day's and he was already dreading the following week and the loneliness that would come with not having her around.

"Sounds great" he replied, trying to sound way more natural then he felt by the prospect of spending time alone with her not in any way connected to quidditch.

They walked there in silence, following a path Harry knew by heart after going there almost everyday in his first month back in the Burrow. When they got there it was just as peaceful as he remembered, making him feel immediately way lighter. She sat down on the edge of the water and took off her shoes, putting her feet inside the cool water and closing her eyes in delight. Following her lead he did the same, sitting by her side and with their hands almost touching. That familiar silence started to stretch between them again and Harry mourned the comfortable ones they used to share. Now these moments didn't feel natural because the silent air was filled with things left unsaid.

"Ron told me about the proposal you three got from the Auror's Department" she said, breaking the awkward moment with a topic Harry had been avoiding for weeks "Do you reckon you'll accept or will you go back to Hogwarts?"

"I'm not sure yet, to be completely honest" he replied, sounding as tired as he felt as the weight of the world returned to its rightful place: his shoulders "I don't think I'll ever be able to get back to Hogwarts, as much as I love the place. I don't know if it makes any sense but...it feels tainted with bad memories now, after everything that happened there."

"I get that, I actually feel the same way" she answered and took a deep breath as if what she was going to say next was going to take courage "I never really shared this with anyone except Neville and Luna, because they went through the same thing, but… I was tortured by the Carrows. They did this to many of the students who were fighting back and I was in the frontline. I still remember the first time a cruciatus curse hit me. I was walking through the corridor at night, we had developed this kind of schedule where the older members of the Army would do it every night to make sure the students under Carrows' order weren't doing anything too awful. This night in particular I had to go alone because Parvati had been put in detention for something she said in class. My "shift" was almost over when I was walking past Myrtle's bathroom and heard a muffled scream coming from inside. Obviously I didn't think much before going in desperately as all those memories from my first year flooded my mind. When my head finally stopped spinning and my eyes focused I realized it was a trap. The Carrows had picked up on our little plan to "protect" the school and they succeeded in proving it as I fell right into their scheme. The Ravenclaw and Slytherin students that executed it laughed hysterically as I stood there shocked and angry at my own stupidity. You can probably guess the rest…"

She paused for a moment and Harry didn't know what to say. He wanted to get revenge but he also wanted to hold her, but he knew it wasn't his place to do either. Instead he held her hand, just like she had done that first day they practiced together, trying to show he was there for her.

"If I went back there everything would come back, but the worst part would be to walk through the halls and remember the places where my friends and Fred died." she continued after regaining strength, sounding more confident now as if the confession had freed her of something she had been repressing for a long time "I know mom can't bear another child dropping out of school, specially after the year we had, so I need to at least say it's for something I always dreamed about, like joining the Harpies. I know it's probably a long shot but… I just can't, you know, go back there and pretend it's the same"

"I get it" he replied "That's also why I don't want to go back there and I feel like most of us who went through the battle share this trauma. It would just feel wrong to walk those halls again knowing we had corrupted our childhoods in them."

They had started these confessions looking down, both scared to look into each other's eyes and see pity, but halfway through, once their gazes met as if pulled by magnets, they found understandment. Harry had always known he never stopped loving her but that was when he realized he had to fight harder because that type of connection wasn't ordinary and he couldn't bear to lose her once more. So, when she laid her head on his shoulder and asked him to tell her about what happened in the battle, he did and, when he finished, it was like the world was a little brighter because he wasn't holding on to all his pain anymore. He had her there to help him. That was the afternoon their wounds started to close.

—-

The day of her tryout left Harry alone with his thoughts again and for a moment he almost fell back into his bad habits. He knew these feelings of relief wouldn't last forever, he couldn't count on her to do all of his healing for him, but only for that day he would enjoy the sensation. That's why when Ron asked him if he wanted to go to the store with him, Harry agreed and followed his friend. When they reached Diagon Alley, Harry felt like all eyes were on him and started to regret his decision but every person who turned in his direction as if to say something was met with an angry stare from Ron that said "don't", He was really grateful for that but also proud of how much respect his usually unconfident friend could wield on people he wouldn't be brave enough to look in the eye some years back.

Reaching the store and finding it with a bunch of empty shelves was like going into Hogwarts and finding its halls deserted. This place used to be what Harry thought about as full of life and playfulness but for a moment it was as if its soul had died with Fred. But then Ron turned on the lights and the magic seemed to go back to the place, casting lights on the boxes full of products Harry could recognize anywhere.

"It's still kind of a mess, but I think it's coming together all right" Ron said as he walked inside being careful not to step on anything "What do you think?"

"It's great, Ron." Harry replied looking into his friends eyes as he sensed him starting to become insecure "Fred would be proud"

"Thanks" he said, looking down and pretending to look into a notebook on top of the balcony "Hermione is the only one who saw it, actually. George is still refusing to come back here"

Harry didn't really know what to say to that so he picked up a box and helped his best friend in the only way he knew how to: being there. Ron followed his lead and soon they were working silently, unpacking products on the shelves and cleaning the mess that remained from the renovation. Being back there and seeing it come together after so much loss helped Harry understand, at least a little, why Ron was doing this.

"Just say it already, Harry" Ron interrupted his thoughts, putting down the box he was carrying and sitting down on a stool "I know you don't get why I'm doing this and that's exactly what you're trying to figure out now, right?"

"Well, to be honest… yeah" Harry replied after a couple seconds of stuttering nervously not wanting Ron to be ashamed or feel like he owed him any explanations.

"Yeah, you're not the first to wonder that either" he said trying to make it sound way more relaxed than it probably was "The thing is: my brother is dead. I hate it so much and I'm so fucking angry all the time. I just wanna go out there and get revenge, probably my whole family does as well, but we know that Fred of all people would want us to move on. Still, I can't just let go of him and I feel like the store is the most concrete piece of him that I can hang on to, so I come here every day and hope his spirit somehow helps me heal."

"Has it worked out yet?" Harry asked, honestly curious because he too didn't know who to cope with his grief.

"Not really" Ron replied exhausted "But I owe it to him and to my family to try"

They stayed silent for a moment, both friends reflecting on how much their lives had drifted away from their teenage dreams. Both had the opportunity to become Auror's and Ron was finally getting to shine above his siblings, but it still wasn't enough. These were the wishes of boys who had hopes, now they were men with hearts mostly filled with tainted expectations. What Harry really wished for in that moment was to find something to hold on to, like Ginny and Ron seemed to have, because even if it wasn't salvation it was still a reason to get out of bed. And he was running out of those, especially since his training with Ginny was over.

The pair went back to packing and worked in much more comfortable silence for the following hours, only being interrupted in the middle of the afternoon by Hermione coming inside the shop. She greeted Harry with a weak hug, looking drained of allenergy, and Ron with a kiss on the cheeks that made the boy blush like they were still in school. When she sat down in a stool of her own the boys stopped working and did the same, sensing the atmosphere change to something more serious.

"I did it" she said after a moment "I scheduled to go to Australia after my parents. It's supposed to be really quick now that they are located, I just had to go there and perform the spell and…"

"That's good, Hermione" Ron said, reaching for her hand and trying to sound reassuring, probably knowing her insecurities about this topic in way more depth than Harry.

"Yeah… It's gonna be fine. You're gonna reverse the spell and they can come back here, like it used to be" Harry jumped in to help ease her anxieties.

"But nothing will ever be as it used to, Harry. How could it?" she said, raising her eyes to meet his in a mixture of defiance and plee "You should know this"

He had no answer to that because, in a way, Harry knew exactly what Hermione meant when she said she feared what her parents would think of the person their daughter had become or even if they would want to go back for this woman. She had erased herself of her parents' memory after years of keeping them in the dark about what was happening in the Wizarding Word, and now she needed to play god again in order to restore their memories. Harry also knew she was right in thinking that nothing would ever seem the same, they were different people and he felt that weight in his shoulders every single day and it kept him from sleeping every single night.

He had spent most of the past days wondering if he was the only one feeling that way because with Ron's shop, Hermione's parents and Ginny's tryout he felt like the only one left behind in his grief. Harry had been oscillating emotionally so much he needed daily reminders that he was wrong for thinking he was the only one stuck in the past. Even if people were moving on, it was taking a huge amount of strength and it wasn't always progressing in straight lines upwards. Still, he hoped desperately for something to hang on to, for a hint in what choices he should make, for someone to hold his hand and guide him forward. But Harry knew help wasn't coming, he had to save himself and he was too tired for that, so he kept up the circle of self pity for another sleepless night.

note: hey guys!

so sorry for taking this long to upload the new chapter, i've been super busy with college and these last two chapters were really hard to write because of how introspective they are. i know the story is kind of slow but i think it's important to develop the feelings and mental state of these characters before reaching the climax. also this is a REALLY slow burn story so i'm gonna them from kissing for a little longe (sorry but not really). still, i promise next chapter will be more eventfull because it will finally reach the moments i pictured when i decided to write this story. if you're liking it so far please comment with your thoughts! (also i'm sorry for not responding to all the lovely comments, i actually have no ideia how to because i'm new to haha)

ps: i just plublished a new story as well and i'm so proud of it, it's a super cute jily christmas one-shot called (cruel) winter with you based on the song cruel summer by taylor swift.