The firewhiskey did little to numb Harry's pain but did make him feel a little better and gave him something to focus on so he kept drinking throughout the night. He lost count of how many he had. Kreacher suggested he might have had enough several times but Harry snapped at him, "I'm your master, do what I tell you," The more he drunk, the more resentful he remembered becoming. No, it was their fault they all died. They were just being stupid. Harry didn't ask them all to give their lives for him. They did it of their own accord. Why should he feel guilty about it? In fact he hoped they felt guilty for making him feel this way. The gits.

The next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake the next morning by Kreacher, his head pounding.

"Kreacher?" Harry croaked, his throat like sandpaper.

"Is Master Harry feeling okay?"

Harry didn't get a chance to answer before he dashed for the toilet and threw up. Firewhiskey didn't taste quite the same coming back the other way.

Lying by the side of the toilet, feeling more tired, more wretched, more guilty than ever before, he promised to himself right there and then that he wasn't going to do that again. Drinking to forget didn't help your problems at all, just made them worse.

"Kreacher has a letter for Master Harry,"

"I told you to put them in some room upstairs," said Harry.

"This is not from a fan. This is a personal letter for you sir,"

Harry took the letter from Kreacher. He recognised Ginny's writing on the envelope. It felt rather full. There was definitely more than one piece of parchment in there, quite a few it seemed. Dreading what was inside, he ripped the envelope and several pieces of parchment tumbled out all with different handwriting on. He recognised Ron, Hermione's Ginny's, Mrs Weasley's, even Hagrid's untidy scrawl. He started reading Ginny's.

'Harry, I know this last year has been difficult for you. It's been difficult for me too, for all of us. Being apart from you has been one of the hardest things I've had to do. I always thought of you, always hoping you were okay and always wandering if you could tell that I was thinking about you. I hoped deep down that you were thinking about me but I know you were probably too busy to do that. You had the whole wizarding world to save, one of the most evil wizards of all time to defeat. You weren't going to sit there thinking about a silly little girl with a crush.

Harry couldn't bear to read any more. Was this really how Ginny thought he saw her? Didn't she know that he had thought of nothing else while he had spent the last 8 months travelling around on a seemingly pointless quest, that when he had gone to die, he spent what he thought were his last moments thinking of her and her lips on his?

That just made Harry feel even worse and added to his guilt. From the look of it, all the letters all seemed to be comfort letters obviously telling Harry he was loved and he should come home and it wasn't his fault and that he had to move on and things like that. Harry wasn't in the mood for that right now. He decided he needed to distract himself. He left the letters on the table, grabbed his wand and apparated back to Hogwarts.

The uncomfortable way of travelling did no favours for Harry's already upset stomach that when he arrived, he had to throw up behind a bush.

"Hello Harry," said a dreamy voice. He looked up and saw Luna Lovegood staring at him and then at what he had just upchucked on the bush. "Are wrackspurts crowding your head? They make your brain go fuzzy and sometimes when there are too many they can cause nausea,"

"Yeah, that must be it," Harry muttered, wiping his mouth with the corner of his sleeve.

"Are you okay, Harry? You look very tired and very pale,"

"I'm fine. What are you doing here?"

"Daddy and I thought we would come and help with the repair effort today. Are you doing the same?,"

"Yeah," mumbled Harry.

"And your hand is bleeding," she pointed out. Harry swore under his breath when he looked down at his hand and saw blood trickling down from his splinching wound. He quickly waved his wand over the wound, trying not to think about the fact that it still hurt and waving his wand had done nothing.

"Maybe you should get Madam Pomfrey to look it over, Harry,"

"No, honestly Luna, I'm fine,"

"Why haven't you changed? You're still in the same clothes you were in the day of the battle,"

"Luna, I'm fine! Just back off, okay," he snapped and walked away leaving a very upset looking Luna.

Harry hadn't even realised that he hadn't changed his clothes. He was surprised no one had pointed it out. He was still covered in dust, some blood from his wounds and it smelt of sweat, smoke and firewhiskey. Harry's mind had been so busy that he hadn't even thought to change or take a shower. He needed to remember to do that when he got home to Grimmauld Place. And he needed to make sure he apologised for that outburst. He didn't know where that anger had come from.

"Oh Harry, are you alright?" asked Professor McGonagall when she saw him at breakfast that morning. "You look awful. And your hand's bleeding,"

"It's nothing. A tiny cut,"

"You know Harry, should you ever feel the need to talk to anyone-"

"Yeah well I don't professor," snapped Harry. "All I need is for everyone to stop worrying about me and continually asking if I'm okay. I'm a big boy now. I can look after myself,"

Harry regretted it as soon as he said it. If he'd said that at school, he was almost certain that would have earned him a reprimand, possibly even a detention. He saw Professor McGonagall's lips tighten.

"Very well, Potter. If you can look after yourself, then can I advise that you shower and change your clothes if you do return tomorrow because the smell is becoming a little overbearing," she said and strode away.

She didn't speak to Harry for the rest of the day. He instantly felt bad. That was two people that he had snapped at now, two people he had great respect for. He know he needed to go and apologise to them.

But as the day wore on, he found his mind wandering again, thinking of his outbursts that day, the letter from Ginny which only made his guilt he was feeling for those lost in the battle even heavier. That and the pain in his injured arm was getting worse and worse. As yesterday, Harry wasn't focusing on his work and so was making mistakes which just made him angrier and angrier.

He finally cracked at a wall that afternoon. On his third attempt repairing a wall where the bricks refused to sit in a straight line, all sticking out at odd angles, he took his anger out blasting the wall to smithereens again, pointing his wand over and over at different bricks, blasting them to even smaller pieces before he spun around and smashed a window that he had a repaired a minute again.

Professor McGonagall suddenly came hurrying along looking both concerned and angry. "Potter, what are you doing?"

His anger suddenly disappeared as quickly as it had materialised. Where had that anger come from? It was like the anger he had felt in his fifth year.

"You're meant to be repairing the castle, not destroying it even further," said McGonagall.

"I'm sorry. I guess I'm a little distracted and things aren't mending the way they should be,"

Professor McGonagall sighed softly and put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Harry, you're tired. Go home and just rest for a bit. For once, have a bit of time to yourself, with your friends. You don't need to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders anymore,"

Feeling glummer than ever, Harry left Hogwarts and apparated back to Grimmauld Place. He actually yelled out as he arrived as his arm burned worse than ever. He quickly waved his wand over it but this time the pain did not even lessen. It was excruciating, Harry could barely move it.

Ignoring it, he stumbled into his house, into the sitting room and flopped on the sofa. He felt sleep coming over it. Harry instantly tried to fight it, he didn't need more nightmares but before he knew it, he was kneeling weeping over Ginny's lifeless pale body in the Chamber of Secrets.

Her eye's suddenly snapped open and she looked up at Harry. "You never even loved me, did you?"

"No I did. I really did,"

"If you loved me, you wouldn't have left me. You would have been able to save me,"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry,"

"Sorry isn't good enough. It's your fault I'm dead Harry,"

Ron and Hermione's bodies suddenly lay before him.

"It's your fault. We came with you to find the horcruxes but for nothing," said Ron.

"We trusted you Harry and you let us down," spat Hermione. "You lead us to our deaths,"

"My family gave you everything, treated you like a son and look what you did, you took a brother from me,"

"You stole my parents from me Harry. It's all your fault,"

Then suddenly Harry was back in Hogwarts in the middle of the battle. Hundreds of people stood before him, all people he knew but they didn't fight. They just stood there as one by one, a green light cast them down dead.

"What are you all doing?" screamed Harry. "Fight back, defend yourselves, do something!"

Neville turned to look at Harry. "Why? You're the reason Voldemort came to Hogwarts. It's your fault that everyone died or got hurt. So you could run around and play with jewellery. Everyone died for you for no reason. It's your fault Harry,"

"No, it was because of them I was able to defeat Voldemort,"

"Then why is he still here?"

A cloaked figure came towards Harry, a spider like white hand reached out for him. "They died for you Harry, for you. Its YOUR fault!"

Harry awoke with a start, hair plastered to his forehead, tears running down his eyes, shivering, shaking. His arm was on fire again, blood running down his arm.

He barely even noticed it. He stumbled to his feet and into the kitchen, rummaging through the cupboards until he found a bottle of firewhiskey. He drank half the bottle in one gulp, pausing only to cough and splutter before downing the rest. His heart was still pounding in his chest.

Without even pausing to think, Harry found another bottle and started drinking that. Harry knew he hadn't been asleep long. It wad mid afternoon when he had come home and it wasn't even dark outside. He'd been asleep a few hours at most. He just needed to drink, drink and forget everything, forget all the death and destruction that had followed him and his friends everywhere he went for the past seven years. He thought of all his friends but he felt nothing but guilt. Ron and Hermione had nearly died on several occasions because of him. He had dragged the two of them on a quest all across the country, on the run, living in just a tent for eight months, with no idea what to do or where to go. And Ginny, the girl he apparently loved but left on her own at a funeral to go off and run around the country, and now she hated him, had no interest in renewing a relationship with him. She was better off without him. She might actually be able to live a full and happy life. In fact all the Weasleys were better off without him. So was Hermione and Neville and Luna and Teddy. He was going to have to look into his godson's eyes one day and explain that he, Harry, was the reason that Teddy had no parents. He was better off without Harry too.

Harry drank and drank, quickly losing count of how many. Between bottles, he just sat and mulled, shivering, and thought of everyone in his life and how much better they would all be without him, sometimes for hours before drinking another bottle in between coughs and splutters. All the time, the pain in his arm was getting worse and worse, slowing spreading through his arm.

The sun went down and came back up again and Harry spent it all either drinking and thinking glumly. A few times Harry had to run to the toilet to throw up a few times before returning to the kitchen and continuing.

It was only when Harry finally ran out of something to drink, his head incredibly dizzy and fatigue clawing at him, he realised something was wrong. He gave a loud yell as the pain in his arm became unbearable, it felt like someone was stabbing a knife into it. It was only then he realised that blood was gushing from his arm and looking around the kitchen and table at all the blood spots had been for some time. He pulled up his sleeve and was horrified to see black marks all across his arm as though the skin were starting to decay.

Slapping a hand over his mouth, he suddenly bolted to the toilet and threw up in it. Coughing, he caught a glance at himself in the mirror. He did look awful, completely pale, bags under his eyes and hair still plastered to his forehead. Harry only just then realised that he had been sweating all night but had also been shivering. And coughing. And his heart had not stopped pounding since he woke up from his dream. He left the toilet and gave a yell as the terrible knife pain spread to his shoulder. He put a hand on the doorframe to steady him as he swayed, the world spinning. God, he felt so tired. This wasn't just being drunk. This was something else. Something was wrong with him. He was ill with something, really ill.

"Kreacher," he croaked. He could barely hear his own voice from the pounding in his ears. "Kreacher!" he called as loudly as he could before spluttering again. Oh god, blood, he was coughing up blood.

Kreacher appeared with a crack but his eyes instantly went wide at the sight of him. "Master Harry, what is wrong?"

"Kreacher, please, I need help. Go and get help,"

"At once master Harry,"

With a crack the elf disappeared as Harry slid to the floor, the world spinning more and more. Shaking, shivering, Harry desperately tried to stay awake. But he felt so tired. He felt his eyes drooping.

The door banged open but the sound could have been a million miles away. He caught glimpses of people standing in his living room, a few of them with lots of red hair.

"Merlin's beard," said a voice.

"Harry, can you hear me?" Lots of them were crowding around him, checking him.

"My god, his arm,"

"Harry, if you can hear me, you've got to stay awake,"

His final glimpse before his eyes closed for good was a beautiful red hair, looking terrified, her hands clamped over her mouth, tears in her eyes.

"Ginny," Harry murmured before everything went black.