Missing the War

Missing the War:

It's the pale, grey hours of gloom that exist briefly before night gives way to day; the sun has not yet risen but a pale, wan stripe of yellow lines the horizon, a promise of the coming light that he's never awake to see.

The landscape is deathly quiet; a silent, unearthly grey blanket of shadows, so still that it feels almost dead. He wonders if perhaps it is. Or maybe it's just him.

His legs feel like lead, so heavy that he can barely find the strength to take each step. He's tired - beyond tired into the gnawing, suffocating realm of exhausted - and his eyes itch, red and straining behind their lenses, desperate to close... to find release in black oblivion. But he forces them open, wide and staring, and forces his legs to keep moving.

The acrid, burning taste of the whiskey he drank still lingers on his lips, his breath, his clothes; still lingers in the pit of his stomach, weighing him down, dulling his already sluggish movement down the road.

He knows he's a pitiful figure. He can't quite seem to bring himself to care. It's no big deal really. He's used to it by now.

The house looms in the distance, a tiny grey speck barely distinguishable from its grey-washed surroundings. Slowly it creeps closer.

The garden is overrun; a veritable jungle of weeds that have long since strangled the delicate flowers that once bordered the house. He wonders when the last time he gardened was. He can't remember. Possibly it's been years.

Brambles claw at his robes, sinking their teeth into the dark fabric. The sound of gentle tearing is strangely satisfying. He doesn't realise that the wild thorns have left their mark on his skin until he looks down and sees the jagged red scratches crisscrossing up and down his bare arms.

At the front door, he fumbles for his wand. He finds it eventually, stuck down one boot. He doesn't remember putting there. He has the smooth wood in his hand for several long minutes before he realises that he can't remember the spell to unlock the door.

He turns the knob, just in case. It twists easily and the door swings open with a long, pained creak that shatters the eerie silence. He pretends that Ginny left it open by mistake. But she didn't. She leaves it unlocked most nights now. She's gotten tired of having to get up to let him in.

The house is dark inside; gloomy shadows cling to every surface. He waits for his eyes to adjust. They do, but everything is still grey.

The kitchen table is strewn with parchment covered in Ginny's neat, round handwriting. During the war he would tease her for working too hard and she would laugh and pack her maps and files away. He's not home to tease her now and she works silently and tirelessly into the night.

He stands just inside the bedroom door. He can see her still figure on the far side of the bed; a grey lump huddled beneath grey blankets... even her usually vibrant hair seems dull in the gloom.

He strips off, shedding layers of dew-damp clothing until he's standing there in nothing but his underwear. He shivers even though the room is quite warm. Leaving his clothes there on the bedroom floor, he shuffles across worn floorboards to the bed.

He slides beneath the covers. The bed is cool, but he can feel Ginny's warmth to his right. It begins to seep across the mattress towards him.

"Harry?" Her voice, husky with sleep, startles him. He wonders vaguely why she always bothers to ask. He wonders who else it would possibly be.

"Yes," is all he says. It's vaguely slurred and his voice sounds most unlike him, dull and hollow. He wants to say something reassuring like 'I'm home' or 'sorry I'm late' but he doesn't. He used to in the early days, but he's given up now. He's not even sure he remembers how to form those words or what they mean.

Ginny doesn't answer; she merely burrows further into her cocoon of covers. For a moment, he wants to wish her sweet dreams. She used to say that to him during the long nights of the war when they slept together in a tangle of limbs. But again, he doesn't. He suspects her dreams haven't been sweet for a long time.

Within moments, her breath has evened out again, deep with sleep. He lies in the semi-darkness and listens to the sounds of her breathing. He slows his own breaths to match her steady rhythm.

His eyes close of their own volition, too heavy to stay open any longer. But he doesn't sleep. That desirable oblivion still eludes him, dancing tantalizing close, but just out of reach. It's like this most nights now. He wonders how many more there can possibly be.

He wishes he could roll over and find sleep like Ginny does. He tries not to think about the nights when she doesn't, when they both lie awake, side by side in the darkness. Those nights always feel so oppressive, each waiting for something that never comes.

Once she asked him to leave, or maybe she told him to leave. It was just a single shaky word, whispered across the mattress. Go. He didn't answer her and they lay in silence, so much time and space between them and so little to say.

The following night he didn't go out. He went to bed early and lay awake wishing he had, missing the feel of the cold glass in his hand, of the amber liquid burning down his throat.

She came to bed late that night, crawling in beside him. Don't. He nearly missed her whispered word, a belated correction laden with guilt. But it wasn't a plea. Sometimes he wishes it had been.

He hadn't been going to of course. He knows he probably never will. Occasionally he wonders if she still thinks he might or if she still wants him to. Sometimes he wonders why she doesn't leave herself.

He steals a look across at her, curled away from him. It wasn't meant to be this way. The rogue, treacherous thought glides slickly into his consciousness. He wasn't meant for this... for this dull, endless, lifeless existence. She wasn't either.

He remembers a time when things were different.... not good, never good, but different. He remembers days of war; of horror, pain and death; of long, endless nights filled with adrenaline and bloody, relentless action; of stolen hours wrapped in each other and desperate fumbles that he couldn't stay away from no matter how much he told himself he wouldn't put her in danger...

They were bad days really. Bad. He almost laughs because that single word could never do justice to what it was like... could never capture it all.

But he misses those days. He knows he shouldn't. He knows he should be glad they're over. But frustratingly, perplexingly, depressingly he's not and he definitely does miss them because at least he knew he was alive then; at least he felt like he was alive.

He doesn't anymore. In the deep darkness of night with swirling tendrils of whiskey in his stomach, he thinks that maybe he should have died in the war; that that was the way it was supposed to be. More often than not, he thinks it would have been preferable... death and eternal rest rather than this semi-life full of fading memories and nothingness.

He used to have dreams; he used to imagine how the future would be and those thoughts used to sustain him through the bloody, painful nights. But when future finally dawned, it wasn't like he'd imagined. His dreams are dead now. He wonders if they were a casualty of the war or the peace.

In his mind, nothing makes sense any more. Hermione has a million and one diagnoses. She's been reading Muggle psychology books again. Shell shock, survivor's guilt, post traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression... those are some of her favourites. She whispers them to Ginny when she thinks he's not listening. Sometimes he thinks she might be right. Mostly he thinks she doesn't know what she's talking about.

Still, he hears the desperation in her voice; sees it in the premature lines on Ginny's face. It's even there in the dark purple-grey hollows beneath his eyes. He wonders how much longer he can exist like this; how much longer Ginny exist with him like this.

He ponders this thought as he always does in the pre-dawn hours. The sun finally drags itself up above the horizon and tiny, glowing beads of sunshine creep through the gap in the curtains. He has found no answer this morning. He never does and he supposes he never will.

Ginny gets up for work and he rolls over, finally succumbing to unconsciousness. He sleeps until the night falls again. Rising like the walking dead, he stumbles out into the blackness and waits for it to fade to grey so that he can stumble back home.

It's no big deal, really. This is how it is... his life, his existence, his death. Exhausted. Grey. Endless.