Easier To Run

Replacing this pain with something numb

It's so much easier to go

Than face all this pain here alone

Something has been taken

From deep inside of me

A secret I've kept locked away

No one can ever see

Wounds so deep they never show

They never go away

Like moving pictures in my head

For years and years they've played

If I could change I would

Take back the pain I would

Retrace every wrong move that I made I would

If I could

Stand up and take the blame I would

If I could take all the shame to the grave I

Would

Sometimes I remember

The darkness of my past

Bringing back these memories

I wish I didn't have

Sometimes I think of letting go

And never looking back

And never moving forward so

There would never be a past

Just washing it aside

All of the helplessness inside

Pretending I don't feel misplaced

Is so much simpler than change

It's easier to run

Replacing this pain with something numb

It's so much easier to go

Than face all this pain here alone

Ten years.

It's been ten years since I last went to London. It's been eight since I lost him. Since I lost the love of my life, my soulmate, my best friend, and my lover. It would have been fitting, perhaps, for him to die in my arms on the battlefield, when we stood side by side, and I watched him defeat Voldemort for the final time. Instead, he was given a death fit for the lowest of Muggles. In the prime of his life, he was hit by a damned car, while trying to save the foolish girl he called a wife.

I admit, after he married her, I was bitter towards him. But when I saw the defeat in his eyes - the utter despair, I knew there was more to the marriage than simply love. I should have known that anyway, as since our sixth year, he and I had shared a companionship like no other. The hatred we had known all those years seemed to transfigure itself into a love so passionate, and so true, that nothing, not even the scorn from my family, and the lingering disgust from his friends could tarnish its golden glow. After some time, he even convinced me to be at least civilized to his redheaded best friend. It took a while, but the Weasel and I actually became friends. The Mudblood took a little longer, but it happened. I've never seen him happier.

It's crazy, really. Most would have believed that I would be the one to 'go with the flow', as some would put it. I would be the one to do exactly what was expected of me, without question. For me, it would have been to marry Pansy Parkinson and become a Death Eater, and fight against him. But in the end, I wised up, and let my heart win out. Apparently, he couldn't do the same.

Those long ten years ago, we were both twenty, and crazy for one another. However much I like Ron, even now, I harbor a deep bitterness towards his mother. She was the one to suggest that he go out on a date with Ginny. She was the one that subtly pressured them into getting married a year later. He never protested, but I could see that he was far from happy, away from the Weasley family. His eyes were empty and dull, and he grew quiet. The vital fire I'd admired in him for so long burnt out. Oh he was the same on the surface, but I got to see beneath it. I got to see the pain, and the loneliness he felt. I carried him through the long nights, when he cried, because he missed his parents. Honestly, I couldn't blame him. I'd always called him a baby, but once I truly understood how much he'd been through, my opinion changed. He became my whole world. If I was honest with myself, I'd admit that he still is.

I still wake, hoping to find him next to me in the mornings. His shirts and trousers still hang in our shared closet at my father's mansion, pressed, and gathering dust. Thanks to a few charms, they still smell like him.

Why ten years?

The last time I was in London was for his wedding. I was his best man. I almost didn't show up, and when I arrived, the ceremony had already started. Ron was standing at his side, and Hermione, his new wife, was just behind Ginny, holding her bouquet of yellow roses. Harry's favorite flowers. I ignored the pangs of emptiness in my chest, and took my place, giving Ron a grimace rather than a smile as I took my place. He knew the misery I was in, and couldn't bring himself to gloat, even if the temptation was there to revert to our old ways of cutting at one another.

Before he and th-, Ginny, left for their honeymoon, he cornered me in the room at the back of the large church that the men had gotten ready in. He pressed me into the wall, and stole my breath one last time. The excuse was made that he was changing. He changed, yes. But it was only after we'd made love on the carpeted floor, hurriedly. There is a faded scar on my hip from that afternoon. Every night, when I lie alone in bed, I trace my fingers over it, remembering the things Harry told me in those few moments. I knew it was me he loved, and not Ginny, though she would be sharing his bed for the rest of his life.

Two years later, I received a letter from Ron, informing me that Harry had been hit, while crossing a busy London street. Ginny had been in front of him, and tripped on a stray stone. How odd, when things such as that happen. Apparently, he dived forward, and knocked her out of the way, just in time for the taxi driver to look up and see him. The brakes were never even applied, so the news article read. He'd been thrown up onto the hood of the cab, and rolled from the trunk onto the road. The reporter on hand said that Ginny shrieked and fainted dead away. That tells me that he died alone, and in pain. It didn't give the details of his injuries, and I don't know much about Muggle things, but I do know that the speed at which the car had been traveling was enough to cause serious internal damage. Gods, how I wish I could have been there, just to hold him in my arms, and assure him that I would always love him. Even though I wasn't there, part of me died with him. One just gets a feeling when their soulmate leaves them alone in the world.

So here I am now, standing in the foyer. My bags are packed, and waiting by the door. I'm supposed to be at Ron and Hermione's within the hour to attend their tenth anniversary party.

Merlin. I can't believe I'm doing this. I vowed I would never go back to that city. It killed my beloved. It took the one thing I cared about more than myself. I'm not too big to admit that, these days. However, Ginny's going to be there. I'm not sure I want to even see her, or her mother, for that matter. But then, I am the newest Weasley's godfather. They had him christened at Hogwarts, which I thought was quaint. I honestly about passed out when Ron owled me, asking me if I would do it. Gabriel Thomas Weasley. He was a sweet-looking little fellow with Ron's blue eyes and Hermione's wild chestnut hair. He spent last summer with me, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like a living, breathing human being once again. I couldn't hide from the world with him there.

Picking my bags up, I take a deep breath. I can't let my friends -Harry's friends- down. I haven't been there for them for eight years. It's time I got a grip and made it up to them.