thebiwholivcd:

look. i’m…so here for harry james potter being happy. i want fluff and love and days of sunshine for this poor sweet boy. i want to wrap this child in miles of bubble wrap and toasty blankets and feed him as much treacle tart and tea as he likes.

but tbh what i want most of all is for him to fall apart. to have the chance to fall apart. because he never really did, did he, never had the time or the capacity or the space to process all the shit he’s been through. i want a post-war harry who has trouble choking down his breakfast and can’t seem to eat enough no matter how much ron and hermione nag at him. who dreams of blood and death and voldemort’s voice in his head (nobody seems to love you enough to save you this time, you have permitted your friends to die for you) and wakes up to stare at his reflection in the mirror and feels the urge to smash it into a thousand pieces. who can still feel the soul of his enemy inside him even though it’s gone for good (it was there the whole time) and he feels slimy and dirty and contaminated and he doesn’t want ginny to touch him (god he missed her) because he’s not good enough for her. not anymore (never has been, he knows that now).

i want the aftermath of the harry in deathly hallows who nearly let the dementors have him because he was so shattered by fred’s death but who refused to grieve with the weasleys, to even look at them, because it was all his fault (every single death that night was because of him) and his skin crawls every time molly weasley hugs him (i don’t deserve this, i don’t, i don’t, i don’t). and they’re all having a hard time and ron can’t sleep and molly is so tired and george won’t talk to anyone and harry wants to say something (i’m sorry, i’m so sorry) wants to do something to help but he can’t (he can barely get out of bed for god’s sake, he’s useless, useless, useless). and sometimes a noise is too loud or a light is too green or maybe nothing out of the ordinary even happens to start his head spinning but suddenly it is and his vision blurs and his throat closes up and he can’t breathe, can’t think, and he’s shaking and he’s learned to lock himself away when it hits because bill saw it happen the first time (he saw) and he looked at harry with so much damn concern in his eyes (but his eyes were purple underneath, he doesn’t need to worry about harry, needs to worry about himself) and he couldn’t stand it so he hides and handles it the best he can and hopes to god no one notices.

and he doesn’t understand why sirius is on his mind all the time now and he doesn’t understand how he can miss dumbledore so badly and still be so goddamn angry and he doesn’t know why he’s thinking about the dursleys (he feels like a child again in his cupboard, lost and alone and afraid) and he should be better than this, he thinks, stronger. so he pretends like he is and he helps hunt down death eaters and goes to meetings and tries to help rebuild a world that’s been broken and he doesn’t listen when kingsley tells him to slow down and he doesn’t listen when arthur tells him he’s killing himself and he doesn’t stop to wonder if it’s strange that he can’t seem to feel much anymore.

until one day he’s alone and it’s too quiet and he’s thinking too fast and suddenly he’s feeling too much and it’s not fair (not fair, not fair, not fair). he never knew his parents and teddy will never know his and he can’t be what everyone expects him to be and he just wants to disappear, to stop existing, and he’s screaming, screaming into his hands and he can’t stop, not even when it’s suddenly somehow ginny’s shoulder he’s screaming into and her arms are tight around him and she keeps saying words like ‘okay’ and ‘love you’ and ‘i’m here’ and these words are too soft for someone like him (he’s so fucking worthless) but she’s not letting go and she’s holding him like he’s priceless and then he’s sobbing, great gasping sobs and he can’t breathe and it hurts so fucking much and he cries, he cries for hours, until his eyes ache and his throat burns and he’s just so…so tired, and he falls asleep in ginny’s lap to the whispered promise that she’ll be there when he wakes up, that he’s not alone, and he falls asleep thinking, for the first time in a long time, that maybe someday there’s a chance that ‘happy’ will come.