"There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds."

— Laurel K. Hamilton

"Ahem! Oi, is anyone out there?"

The crowd roars with laughter and a few playful 'Here we are! Here we are!'s.

The hammy mouthpiece, who previously had his back turned to the crowd, finally turns to face them with a look of shock and delight.

"Oh, there you all are! Wonderful, wonderful. Dear me, I fear I might be getting a bit daft in my old age."

More laughter.

The announcer then clasps his hands together; mirth flows through him, washes over the crowd. "We have a marvelous show for you all tonight, as you well know. We've got — Miriam Birchneff, you absolute trollop, what are you wearing?"

"Something you couldn't afford, honey!"

The crowd hoots at the banter. Someone wolf-whistles at the elderly woman as she presses her wrinkled cleavage together, her lips flaky with fluorescent tangerine lipstick.

"Oh my, do think of the children next time you leave the house Miriam. Ah, sorry, none of you want to hear a couple of oldies babble on, eh?"

No, they don't.

"I think you may want to see some people who are perhaps a bit more special?"

Yes, they do.

"You know them, you love them, you may owe them your very lives; please welcome...OUR HEROES!"

The man gestures behind himself with a flourish. A flash goes off, spitting out cobalt sparks which spin in the air and out over the crowd, while a symphony of trumpets, drums and cymbals announce the impending arrival of victory.

(For where war goes, cliché follows.)

Yet all this is still ultimately drowned out by the crowd's eruption as Harry, holding Ginny's hand, enters the stage from one side as Ron, holding Hermione's hand, enters from the other. They are all wearing small, practiced smiles as they convene on the stage.

Hermione totters a bit in her heels, and Ron rights her up by the elbow. She smiles at him warmly and a few women nearest to them sigh in envy of their obvious love.

"Now, the introductions are a mere formality," the announcer goes on, "since I'm quite sure you're all familiar with these," he tears up a bit as he looks at them, overcome with emotion, "these brave, brave wizards and witches here. But nonetheless! Introduce them, I shall. First, Ronald Bilius Weasley!"

Ron steps forward and smiles sheepishly at the applause.

"Resilience personified. That is the greatest way to explain this young man, I believe. His wonderful spirit and light is known all throughout the Wizarding World!"

Ron's face turns red but he smiles broadly and shrugs.

"Yes, light. Ronald Weasley is the light in times of darkness."

"Tosser!"

"You're pissed. You've had enough."

"I'll tell you who's had enough. Your mother's cunt when I'm done with her tonight."

The bartender sighs and wipes down a glass with a questionably clean rag, leaving the rim smudged. It doesn't really matter; at this time of night, only the lonely and the drunks remain. Neither of whom really care about how sanitary their glass is.

(Alcohol will clean it, anyway. It cleans everything. Germicide for the soul.)

"Go home, Ron," he says as kindly as a man in his line of work can manage.

Ron shakes his head, gives a hard blink to clear his vision. Laughs it off. "Will do. Just as soon as you get me another drink. Don't tell me you don't need the money; we've all seen that piece of shit broom you're riding."

"I said no. It's policy, mate, come on."

There's a beat. Ron looks down at the counter, and slowly drops his lopsided grin. "Please, just... Come on. It, you know, it...makes me feel better. For a bit."

He's too embarrassed to look up. He's probably red. It was tough on him, coping in a society that sees red as fury instead of distress.

Shit, it's easier, you know, easier to be mean than vulnerable, easier to take the piss out of someone than tell the truth that you're hurting inside. He's always felt like that. And he probably always will.

(It's one of the few things he and Hermione have in common).

The bartender sighs again, more resigned now. He fills up a pint and hands it to him. Glassed, liquid amber. Happiness in a cup, supposedly.

"Last one. Then you're gone. Got it?"

Ron gives the glass a wistful smile. "Too true."

He tosses him a Galleon and heads back to his table. He feels nauseous everywhere; nausea in his legs, in his eyes, in his hands. Like there's a sickness in everything he touches.

Not true, of course; the healers patched him up neat and tidy after the Battle. Good as new. Ship shape. Pat him on the arse and send him out into the world, because Ron Weasley is fit as a fiddle! Right as rain! Good as gold!

Etc., etc.

It had become a common sight to see Ron at pubs. Plural, because he was never at the same one for long, as they would bar him from entry after a while. They really did let him keep coming for longer than they should have; he was a war hero, after all. A veteran. No one wants that guilt weighing on them, no one really wants to turn him away. But then Hermione Granger would come round, wild and electric in her indignation, equipped with every public drinking law and health code concocted since the beginning of time and thunderously threatening to leave them all de-licensed, dis-barred and penniless; essentially, terrify the living shit out of every barkeep in Hogsmeade.

But they'd end up eventually sneaking him in anyways. The Weasley name was far too respected in that bereft, golden shopping square to turn him away for long.

Ron drains a good third of his pint in one go, shivers as warmth spreads throughout his body, seeps into his skull.

The drinking started a couple months after the war, and never really stopped. He'd pretty much be fine during the day. A good friend, supportive brother, loving boyfriend, competent Auror-in-training (He always makes that caveat very clear when people ask him what he's up to, though; not an Auror, but an Aurorintraining. Harry just says Auror; everyone just says Auror, but he can't. He tells himself that he doesn't know why.) But after a long, long day of being a normal, functioning adult, well...

Hermione would beg him not to go (begging, ordering, same thing), and Ron would kiss her on the forehead and then again on the nose. Say he was just meeting some friends, honest, they weren't even going to any pubs. In turn, she would bite the inside of her cheek and glare at him. If I didn't love you so much, I would hate you.

Never one to mince words, his girl.

"Oi. Ronnie-boy. Give us a swig, will ya?"

Ron casts his cloudy vision on the man suddenly sitting across from him. He's dirty, decrepit. Looks like death. Smells like death.

"Don't be sweet talking me, Horace," Ron grins in recognition. "Not after I saw you run off with a younger lad just last weekend."

"Ah, he meant nottin' to me, absolutely nottin', me lover," Horace laughs, chokes, then laughs about his choke. His lips crack as he speaks again. "It's just, a man gets tired of hard liquor and hops, Big R. Sometimes moochin' a class-A glass of Cabernet Sauvignon is the only thing that'll quench the thirst."

Ron chuckles, "Ah, you're just a whore like the rest of 'em."

Horace's eyes light up as Ron slides his pint forward in offering. He takes a quick guzzle, and does nothing to clear the foam collecting in his beard. He was the physical embodiment of giving up. Ron liked that about him. "Ain't that the bloomin' truth. Speaking of whores, how is that delectable bird o' yours – "

Ron doesn't even think about it. Is barely conscious of doing it. But in a second the table is clashing, upturning, wrong; when the events finally catch up with time and Horace bangs his head against the floor, he cries out a surprisingly soft squeal of pain.

Why would he say that? Why would he fucking say that?

Two large blokes suddenly have Ron by both arms, pulling him hard out the door. His voice is hoarse and foreign as he shouts at the man still groaning on the pub floor, "Talk like that again and I'll kick the shit out of you, you rat-faced little bastard...!"

"He was just joking around, psycho," one of the men who had caught his arm grumbled in Ron's ear seconds before he was expertly dumped on the cobblestone ground outside the doors.

Huh. Right. A joke. Ron always thought he had a fairly good sense of humor about things, but that just...struck a nerve. The biggest fucking nerve he had.

Getting to his feet, Ron pushed any dark thoughts away, and chalked the entire incident up to poor instinct control. He had too much to lose by doing something stupid like thinking, after all. He had his friends and family (what was left of it), had Hermione (what was left of her), the job of his dreams (what was left of them), and alcohol. Those weren't bad numbers, if the last one didn't mess up the previous three.

The ironic thing was, he didn't even like the act of drinking all that much. He gets queasy easily, and insecure about being out of control of his body. Years of gawkiness can do that.

But when he's so drunk he can't see straight, let alone think anything, he stops seeing Fred's dead body, lying on the ground. Harry's dead body, held in Hagrid's arms. He stops hearing Hermione's tortured screams.

And that's worth all the discomfort in the world.

"Hermione Jean Granger!"

Hermione steps forward, and the crowd cheers with equal gusto.

"Brilliant, beautiful, and loyal to the end. Without her sharp mind, we'd all be in very deep trouble indeed. Ms. Granger is a sensationally rare breed of witch. And, I have learned, the Miss is turning into a Missus very soon!"

The crowd gasps in delight.

"Yes, yes! I just learned today, Ms. Granger and Mr. Weasley here are engaged to be married!"

Hermione smiles politely and holds up her left hand, showing off a humble diamond. The audience weeps with joy and adoration, and when Ron kisses her cheek lovingly, they cry even harder.

"And what an exquisite marriage I am sure it will be! Loyalty, ladies and gentlemen, is a trait not often come across in abundance, so when it is found, it must be treasured. I daresay, we should all aspire to have half as much loyalty inside of us, as Ms. Granger has in one little finger."

"Fuck! Harry!"

Harry thrusts up hard against Hermione. Her back is against the wall, her legs wrapped around his waist. It's rough. Like always. Amazing. Like sometimes.

This –

Well. The thing is, you see, this just... it just –

This happens a lot.

It's not because she's in love with him, if that makes it any better. But she knows that it doesn't, all right? She knows. (Because what kind of know-it-all doesn't know how awful she is?)

Well, she does love Harry, of course, but not in the way you're supposed to love a person before letting them screw you on a regular basis. No, not the right way at all.

But sex is...a strange thing, really. Hermione still remembers the first time she was confronted with the word "sex," or S-E-X as she read it as a child, all illicit and exotic and repulsively fascinating. She remembers the first time reading the word better than her first time having it, actually. It was from a book written in the 20s, and it was maybe a little more adult than her parents wanted her reading, but this was not a girl who had waited until Hogwarts to search for answers in the forbidden places.

One of the characters said that sex was the biggest joke of all time. And maybe they were right. Maybe it really was yet another joke that Hermione wasn't in on.

Because she didn't get it. She doesn't get it. Why is sex worth destroying yourself over, why is it like this with Harry and why, why, why is it what it is with Ron?

When she has sex with Ron, Hermione takes la petite mort to unseen heights: rigor mortis. She can't control it. Her limbs completely freeze, lock down (one time when Ron was drunk and happy, he jokingly said sex with her was like humping a chair. She actually laughed before she realized how disappointed he must be), and she spends the duration of it wondering if what she's experiencing this time is normal anxiety or a full blown anxiety attack. The new 'he loves me, he loves me not.'

She just spent too many years not quite getting him, almost losing him, having him and not having him, then having him again. How can she possibly be calm about being with Ron if he is so tenuous? So easily lost?

What if she messed it up somehow? She'd get it wrong, and then he'd be gone; adrift, absent.

She knows what that feels like. Mind you, she doesn't blame him for leaving when he did during the war anymore (much), she's forgiven him (mostly), and her abandonment issues are waning (kinda).

But with Harry...

No thought processes are needed. No baggage, no burdens. Just bodily release, physical stimulation prolonged until that sweet rush of dopamine.

Faster, she pleads, already at the point of begging. Now.

Stop back-seat driving, he groans, and then fucks her so deep she can't reply because it feels like the head of his dick might reach her throat.

It had seemed right almost, in the beginning, that they would find escape in each other. It's ridiculous how much of her young life had centered around Harry Potter, The Boy Who Barely Lived. And now that the War was Over, and everyone was instructed to Be Happy and Move On and Live Well and every night when she closes her eyes she sees blood on the walls of the school she grew up in, and she sees the faces of children turned inward in Death, so clearly, so vibrantly, can smell the stench of ash and fire and something that is rotting and there's pain and there's fear and she sees it all so perfectly —

Photographic memory. What a gift.

Sex with Ron makes her feel like she could be all alone any second. Sex with Harry wipes all traces of Death from her mind.

Hermione still hasn't regained her breath as Harry reaches down to rub her clit in slow, firm circles, his mouth just hovering over hers, her pussy twitching and throbbing and gushing around him.

Her eyes roll back as she gasps, sinks her fingernails into his shoulder.

"You like that?" he teases, his teeth nipping at her neck.

"Y-yes, don't stop," Hermione moans, grinding against him.

Harry slows down his pace even more and she whines; needy, shameless. She's actually aching for it.

She wants to scream when his hand leaves her clit to slide aimlessly up her stomach, but he almost makes up for it by kissing her mouth (rare) and groping her breasts (less rare), a few shades shy of bruising. It's a good hurt, though, the best hurt.

She shivers, whines again, burns.

"Whore," Harry says, smiling against her lips, and something poison floods her chest but she laughs anyway, because it still sounds wrong enough coming from him to be funny, and because it isn't like she can fault him for inaccuracy.

(Sometimes it almost feels like they're normal teenagers.)

"You're not supposed to laugh when I say that," he complains, still smiling as he kisses (!) her again, his tongue warm and good in her mouth. He bites down on her bottom lip and tugs slightly, then thrusts inside again; she slams against the wall and vibrates, has to clench down her teeth and groan at the sensation. "It kills the mood."

She can't respond immediately because her mind's blurring, her thoughts a mess; all she can feel is heat and him him him.

Sometimes, she wonders if Harry may erase her one night, make her forget herself forever. The grand disappearance of Hermione Granger.

Then she wonders why she doesn't care.

"You're not supposed to be shagging me," she breathes out.

Hermione doesn't know why she always challenges him like this, as if this was all his fault. Surely it's hers more than his; he is just a man, after all, prone to his desires. She's the one who is supposed to be better.

She is always supposed to be the better person, every day, in every context. That wears down on a girl, gnaws at the bones; especially for a girl like her.

Harry pulls back to stare at her, his green eyes suddenly flat.

If he were anyone else, his expression would have frightened her.

(But most of the time, they know that they aren't.)

"Yeah," he says curtly, slipping out of her and stepping away. Hermione almost cries out at the sudden coldness, the loss of him, the harsh dose of reality. "I'm not."

She deflates. Damn her mouth. "Harry, I...I was just being...I didn't mean to say that —"

Hermione always forgets how strong he is until he's pushing her onto a bed (or couch, or chair, or kitchen table), when she's completely under his control. It's hot, she had to say. He thought so too, although he wouldn't say it out loud.

So she's both relieved and excited when she hits the mattress, but she really needn't have worried; it's not like he can just walk away either. He needs this as badly as she does. Maybe more.

Hermione stares at a torn catch on his cotton fitting sheet as he slides his hands down her back and over her hips, the one she made with her fingernail a week ago, and vaguely wonders if Harry cleans his own sheets; and if not then Kreacher must, and thinking about Kreacher makes her think about Dobby which makes her think about knives which makes her think about blood which makes her think about — about — no no no no —

"Harry, please," she begs again. The longer he wasn't inside her the more time she had to think and thinking, right now, in this capacity, was pure torture. And Hermione knows exactly what torture feels like.

Comeoncomeoncomeoncomeon

Without warning, he plunges into her from behind. She gasps at the hiss of pain, but pushes back against him for more, always more.

He grabs a fistful of her hair and yanks hard; her head cranks back and it scares her how much she loves it, that bite in her scalp, his cock pounding into her. Her back is arched into a crescent, stretching, stretching, she might break, she might shatter, and it feels so good, it feels so good. It hurts so bad.

"Oh God..." Harry almost sounds like he is in pain, but this is not highly unusual; he sometimes talks to himself when they shag. Half-sentences, partially formed words; she can't make sense of it, and doesn't try to.

Growing up, Hermione had never, ever ignored Harry's pain. If he groaned suddenly, slapped a hand to his scar, doubled over, hell, if he just said I'm fine to her funny she was always right there next to him, eyes big and eyebrows furrowed: What hurts tell me what hurts I can fix it I can fix you just tell me what you're feeling I'm here I'm here I'm here.

But right now she does. For just these few minutes out of the night, she doesn't drop the world to fuss over him.

It's her time to be selfish, her time to be the messed up one.

He doesn't slow down, slams in and out of her at a relentless pace, which she likes best. Pleasure swirls in her stomach, flashes through her as if she's been flayed open. She moans, writhes, presses back against him; his hand grapples at her waist and her thighs are burning with the strain and like this, Hermione comes, hard, shaking, toppling into the abyss.

Her mind goes white. Blank, empty.

Annihilation.

She's really, honestly, so grateful to him.

She gasps for air as his teeth scrape her neck, and reaches behind her just to hold onto him. Harry is always so difficult to touch, even when they do this. He leans away from hugs, ends kisses quickly, can't hold hands in public, not even with Ginny. So the few times she can get away with it are precious.

His body is warm.

The bed is wet beneath them.

He's still hard inside her.

It feels like this moment will never end.

Harry stills as he lathes his tongue across a patch of skin behind her ear, bites her and sucks, draws heat to the surface, and she's boneless against him, she's nothing, nothing; more concept than person. Deconstructed.

It's liberating, not being a person.

Harry's fingers press a little too hard into her skin as he draws in a rattling, wet breath. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..."

Hermione does not know who he is apologizing to, or what he is apologizing for, but knows by now not to ask.

And then he is flipping her over and his face is right there, so close, lips parted but jaw clenched so tight he's almost shaking. His hands pin her hips down as he moves inside her, hard, hard enough to hear the slap of skin bouncing off the walls accompanied by the bed's clanging percussion.

She feels almost numb from the waist down but holds him close, wraps her legs around him again and digs her heels into him, slides her fingers through his hair; whispers the words that get him off.

"Harry, I need you to...Just come inside me, I need it, to feel you...I need you so much—"

(Basically just variations of needing displaced in a sexual context. He's always been the stereotypical savior type.)

Harry chokes on his moan and freezes, arching slightly, hips stuttering, and she feels the heat of his release rush into her body as he reaches his own orgasm; looking her dead in the eye up until the very end.

He always wants to watch her face when he comes. She's never sure what he sees there.

Once he's finished, he closes his eyes and forgets who he is; or perhaps forgets who she is, and holds her after he collapses. Really and truly, just for a few seconds. His arms circle around her so he's warm and solid against her body, fully present. He gives her a comforting squeeze of pressure, and then she feels his lips press gently against the base of her throat. Feather light. Genuine. Sweet.

It's so queer, so out of character, that Hermione stiffens in response.

Harry feels it and sits up, dresses himself, doesn't look at her.

She hesitates, then, feeling slightly guilty, and almost reaches out to him. But they have a good routine that mustn't be diverged from, compromised, by indulging sentiment; no matter how fleeting. Because it was working. This was working.

She blinks at him without seeing any dead faces.

"Ron and I are going to visit my parents this weekend," she says quietly. "You can come, if you'd like. You've still never properly spent time with them."

Harry tugs on a loose pair of jeans and shrugs. "I'll go if you really want me to."

Hermione's mouth turns into a line. "I'm not ordering you to go, I'm just letting you know that you can if you want."

He shrugs again as he fiddles with his belt; utterly, annoyingly blasé, the way he almost always is now when he's not actively inside her. "I don't really care either way."

Feeling inexplicably angry, Hermione crosses her arms and glares at him. Not that she's actually allowed to take any moral high ground here, but surely it would be deemed courteous to at least give someone your full attention when your cum is still cooling on the inside of their thighs.

"How can you not care? They're my parents and you've hardly said two words to them ever since — "

Hermione stops herself from continuing because she realizes she's speaking to him as if he were a boyfriend. Which he is not. It's a bad habit, one that she must break.

Harry raises an eyebrow, suggesting that he was thinking something similar. "There's no, like... real reason for me to meet your parents..." he says warily, looking almost worried. "Right?"

She bristles, fights her instinct to be offended. "I know. I just thought it could be nice. You prat."

He breaks into a grin, and her heart gives a strange, echoing lurch because of how much he looks like the old Harry. Maybe he's not gone forever, then. Even though the old her might be.

He sits back down on the bed and brushes against her legs. A cool swirl of electricity erupts where they touch, and Hermione kind of hopes they'll have sex one more time before she leaves.

No; fuck. She wants him to fuck her. Nothing more, but certainly nothing less.

"I don't really think they would be happy with that many wizards around though," he muses, trailing his fingers down her leg. "Just...from what you've told me about them."

His statement instantly takes her out of the mood.

Instead, she thinks about the way her parents flinch every time they see her wand. How when she looks down at her plate at dinner, she catches them watching her closely, terrified of her, leaving their own meals untouched. As if she'll Obliviate them again because they irked her that day. Like maybe she put magic in the food! In the tea! In the air! Don't even breathe or our terrible witch daughter will kill us all for 'the greater good'!

Once while staying with them, there was an incident where she had moved her arm quickly to stop a plate from falling as she did the dishes, and in response, her mother gasped aloud and fell to her knees, her eyes so wide they were more white than brown.

It should have made Hermione feel sad, sympathetic, guilty (as if she hadn't enough of that), but all it did was exasperate her. She had just...just had enough, enough of them not understanding her, enough of them fearing her, enough of the thinly veiled panic she can easily see through whenever she visits. And in that moment, with all her agitation and sorrow mixed inside her busy, busy mind, she called her mother a 'Muggle' under her breath in a way synonymous with 'idiot.'

Hermione still cries about it every day.

"Yeah," she murmurs, briskly sitting up and tucking her legs beneath her so that Harry can't touch her anymore. "Three's a crowd."

"Miss Ginevra Weasley!"

Ginny steps forward. Again, the crowd reacts with cheers, but this time, more than a few men gaze at her, love-struck. Or, more likely, lust-struck. But there isn't much of a difference.

"Here she is, here she is. As we all know, the dazzling Ms. Weasley has been the object of our young hero's affection for quite some time...and so I've heard, quite a few other handsome wizards as well."

There's snickering in the audience and Ginny struggles to keep a smile on her face. Delegated to the role of girlfriend of the hero. Again.

"It's a compliment, my dear, I promise! Your beauty is positively legendary. And without your affections, I'm confident that young Harry here would never have found the drive to make it through his fateful journey. Am I right, lads? You lot would overthrow a dark lord for her any day, wouldn't ya?"

Men whoop in agreement and whistle at her. Harry's fists clench, but not as tightly as Ginny's do.

"But in all seriousness, we cannot overlook the loss Ginny has suffered of her beloved brother. She has handled it with impeccable grace, and we are all in complete awe of you, my dear girl."

The tip of Ginny's wand glows hot. She presses it into her hand, hisses at the pain. She takes it away, observes her palm, and casts a healing charm on the black circle it left behind. Lights the wand again.

She's been at this for almost an hour.

The springs on Fred's bed creak as she draws her skinny knees up close to her chest, his old Quidditch jersey spilling out like a dress over them.

She twirls her wand between her fingers like a baton, the way Fred and George showed her after they turned eleven and just got theirs, shiny and new. The only new things anyone in their family had ever received. Ginny had been so jealous; they would always catch her trying to steal their wands from their bedsides, but they never snitched on her, never.

None of them even thought of wands as weapons back then.

Exhaling hard through her nose, Ginny digs the tip of her wand into the arch of her foot, tries again with the thinner, more sensitive skin. It burns terribly, horribly, but still no tears come, which was the whole point of this.

She never cried over Fred either, not even at his funeral, not even over his corpse behind the battle lines.

Emotional pain, she doesn't cry. Physical pain, she doesn't cry. What she used to think was strength formed after a lifetime living with insensitive brothers now strikes her as a possibly serious emotional disturbance.

But Harry likes that she doesn't cry, and she likes that he likes that.

Ginny catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and frowns deeply. Dewy cheeks, rosy lips, powdered cinnamon freckles, twitching beetle-wing eyelashes; she looks like a sweet and delicate flower.

She has the fleeting urge to set herself on fire.

Not for the pain or anything, she wasn't really a masochist; but just for the physical, chemical change it produces.

(Hermione once told her that fire purified, made things clean. Through the years, Ginny's considered swallowing it on many occasions.)

But this time she wants to scab herself over, reform herself into something heinous, unapproachable. No more men touching her shoulders, her arms, her hair, her face, staring down her shirt. No more girls glaring at her, sizing her up, writing her off.

A walking, talking scar. Cool.

And maybe then she'd finally find out if Harry actually loves her for her insides, and not just for her outsides that she never felt really and truly matched.

But of course, if he did stop loving her because she turned ugly, Ginny would just make herself beautiful again and forgive him anyway.

Because she loves him enough for the both of them.

It isn't...it isn't perfect, she and Harry. It isn't exactly how she dreamed of it when she was eleven. He disappears for lengths of time. Doesn't always tell her where he's been, where he's going. He shuts off from the world, sometimes. Doesn't let her or anyone in, most of the time.

It's still good though, because love is always good. Just not perfect. Ginny tries, she really tries her best to be exactly what he needs her to be at all times. She sometimes has dreams of herself literally bending over backwards for him, his green eyes squinting down at her, frowning, and she makes sure to smile blindingly bright; the more it hurts the bigger she smiles. She bends and bends until her spine finally snaps, shatters, and she crumbles to the floor, her vertebrae pierced cartoonishly through her torso. Right before she dies (awakens), Harry sighs and shuffles his feet, disappointed.

Not good enough, not good enough, not good enough.

She wakes up from these dreams breathing hard, smoothing her hands over her spine again and again to make sure that it is intact. But she doesn't cry. Not her. It just motivates her to be better. To try a bit harder, to smile a bit warmer, to be the best that she can be until it really is perfect.

Because if there is one thing Ginny knows, it's that love is patience. Love is sacrifice. Love is pain.

A small coughing noise alerts her to someone's presence. Her mum lingers in the doorway, fidgeting, clutching at the frame as if she might fall over, showing her weakness. It makes Ginny's mouth fill with spit.

"Ginny? Sweetheart? I'm...Why don't you come downstairs? I just made some tea and...and biscuits."

Ginny can't even muster a glare today. She's tired. She's always so fucking tired. "Leave me alone. And close the door behind you."

Molly tries not to wither, but she doesn't fully succeed.

"You're not the only one hurting, Ginny. I lost a son. A son."

Ginny clenches the bedspread so hard her fingernails bend backwards. Silent tears roll down her mother's cheeks and she doesn't know if she hates them or wishes she could do the same.

"Good thing you've got plenty more then, eh?"

Her mum makes a noise between a gasp and a choke, and Ginny feels just contrite enough to leave and not come back for a couple days.

Daughter of the Year material, right there.

She stands up to Disapparate. Maybe to go see Harry, maybe to go be alone, she isn't sure. But her mum mistakes the sudden movement for one of reconciliation, and surges forward to engulf her daughter in a hug as she breaks out in even heavier sobs.

"W-we can g-get through this, we can," Molly cries into her shoulder. "It's just...I don't know what to do. I really don't know what to do."

With tremendous effort, Ginny raises her arm to rub her mother's back consolingly. Molly cries and cries, and Ginny feels like she's about to combust, like she can't possibly contain the emptiness inside herself pressing against her skin. Like she's literally cracking up.

"I-I don't know how you can be so strong," her mum says as she pulls back to look at her. "But I am so thankful for it. You know we all depend on you, Ginevra, especially Geo—"

"—I have to go meet Harry now," she says quickly, wrenching herself free from her mother's grip, eyes darting frantically away, left, right, over her mother's soggy face, anywhere but there, needing needing needing to be anywhere but here, swallowing a foreign lump in her throat and fighting the sudden red-hot urgent unseemly desire to drive her fist into the wall.

Her breath is coming far too fast, and shallow; it matches the rhythm of her heartbeat.

Molly's eyes crinkle with concern. "Are you...Are you sure you're...?"

A sudden pop! and Ginny's gone.

She opens her eyes to Grimmauld Place, breathing like she'd just sprinted there. It's as ugly and dark as ever; Harry still hasn't gotten around to renovations, even though every day he says he will. It's empty, devoid of his presence; she can just feel it.

That's probably a good thing.

She needs to go flying. It's the only thing that seems to take away the anger; flying so fast the wind tears at her eyes, so high she can't even see the ground that she's so desperately running away from.

She practically does run through the house to get outside, as she knows where Harry keeps his brooms in the yard. But before she even fully leaves the foyer, Ginny accidentally bumps into a desk. A vase falls over from her impact and crashes to the floor, skitters across the wood, splinters and scatters. Mocks her.

Not good enough, not good enough, not good enough.

A strange violence wells up inside of her and she shrieks at the broken vase as if it was Voldemort himself. It feels good. Almost as good as flying.

When Harry finds her later (minutes later, hours later, who knew?), she's still screaming.

"And finally, the man at the center of that terrible war. The man that your children and your children's children will tell tales about. The one true savior of the Wizarding World...HARRY POTTER!"

Harry steps forward. If the crowd was loud when the others were announced, it was nothing compared to this. The noise could burst eardrums. Men, women and children alike were openly sobbing. The rest were cheering with almost religious fervor.

"Without Harry, all that we know and care for, would be utterly lost. Inside of this man, is all the goodness of the world."

He was mostly surprised by how lost he was.

The guilt he expected, wasn't a big deal by now. Pretty ho-hum, actually. Same ol' same ol'.

No, it wasn't the self-hatred that was unbearable. It was just that before now, he always had a road stretched before him. Even when he wasn't conscious of his proverbial fate of a dead man, he still had a predetermined plan. Go to school. Protect his loved ones. Defeat Voldemort. Try not to implode in the process.

Now it's over, his destiny fulfilled at the tender age of seventeen, and he imagines he feels how every other man in the world feels. Free to make his own decisions, form his own path without the constant threat of doom and death.

He's not sure if he likes it.

Life used to be so vital. Every drawn breath was a miracle. And now colors are neutral, food is bland, sex routine.

Well, okay, not with Hermione. He knows why he feels the need to shag her, disgraceful as that is in itself, but doesn't know why he's always so rough with her. He never feels the urge to do anything above making polite love to Ginny, after all.

Maybe it just added to the much needed adrenaline.

Or something.

But the moment after he empties himself inside Hermione the dullness always returns, and returns with a vengeance. He muses that this must be what addiction feels like. Enough is never really enough.

Dully was the best way to describe his initial reaction to the news of their engagement. A ghost of something briefly flared up inside his chest when Hermione told him, but it quelled when he saw the contentment on her face.

It still didn't sit quite right with him though.

"You're both so young."

Hermione laughs. It's quiet and sounds far away, her new laugh. The one that's less funny. "It will be a long engagement, trust me."

He just stares at her. "Then why even do it now? Why not wait?"

Hermione takes a moment to consider the ocean. She looks gray in this light, just like everything else. "Because we need something to look forward to, to hope for. Something...solid to hold on to."

She crosses her legs. They're sitting in the sand, coats drawn tightly around their bodies, both shivering a little, but her more than him. She looks strangely small.

It's always freezing here but it's one of Harry's favorite places to just sit and think, and Hermione puts up with the cold for him. Actually, she puts up with a lot of things for him; always has.

But it is calming to be surrounded by nothingness, and he thinks she gets that too. She might be the only one who gets that.

Or maybe he was just projecting; romanticizing the moment. Lying to himself. Something he does a lot these days.

The wind whips Hermione's hair around her face and Harry debates tucking a curl behind her ear. His hand twitches to do so, but it feels as if it isn't his place. Like that particular act of domestic affection wasn't for him to ever do with her.

She goes on, breaking him of his reverie. "And, you know. Ron and I love each other."

He gives her a hard stare. He feels a sudden desire to test her. Provoke her. Trip her up, somehow. "Do we love each other?"

She refuses to meet his gaze, but her mouth turns up at the side. "Probably."

Another flare in Harry's chest. Might be rage. Might be hatred. But towards what, or whom, he isn't sure. "Shouldn't we talk about that?"

"Probably."

They say nothing for a moment. Then Harry pushes her down into the sand because he can.

For a while he just stays like that; staring down at her, his body hovering slightly above hers. It takes him a while to realize that he's breathing hard, acting wild, especially since Hermione is looking back up at him so serenely. He shakes her by the shoulders, and still she doesn't flinch.

"Are you almost done being weird?" she asks flippantly when he stops, her eyebrows arched. "Because I do have things to do today."

Harry stares at her again, more than a little dumbfounded. He finds it incredible how unafraid of him she is. Sometimes foolish.

Doesn't she know what his hands have done?

"How come you're never scared of me?" he demands of her.

The corners of her mouth twitch as she fights a smile. "Why? Are you going to hurt me?"

Harry blinks. He hadn't expected that answer. "No. But I could, if I wanted to."

"I could hurt you if I wanted to," she replies matter-of-factly.

After regarding her for a moment, Harry holds Hermione's cheek with the palm of his hand, suddenly feeling something close to tenderness. It's strange, alien. A memory of an emotion that might not have even come from him.

"But you won't," he murmurs, his thumb sliding across her cheekbone.

"But you won't," she repeats.

He kind of wants to laugh, or maybe cry, or scream; but instead he brings his mouth down upon hers. Fierce. Demanding.

Her sea-chapped lips instinctively part, gritty but pliant, and he feels his body flush with heat as her tongue slides against his own. He licks the roof of her mouth and tastes her guilt, her sadness, her love.

At least, he's pretty sure it's love.

"Don't marry him."

"Harry..."

He raises her arms above her head and parts her thighs with his knee. With his left hand holding her wrists together, his right snakes down under her jeans, under her knickers, finds her clit. Her eyes close and she arches against him, sighing sweetly. A surge of possessiveness courses through him when she does.

"You're mine," Harry says quietly, watching her face, trying out the words to see if they felt true.

They didn't feel right.

But they didn't feel wrong either.

Hermione slowly opens her eyes again, and her breath comes in small whimpers as he continues to rub the hard nub between her legs. He loves when he can get her make those needy, dirty sounds, express desire in such an uncharacteristic way.

It's the only time he understands why people like power.

He slips two fingers inside of her slick heat and she shudders.

"Say it. Say you're mine." He's hard, unconsciously rubbing himself against her leg.

She starts to say something, but it turns into a moan as his fingers pick up speed.

When she does answer at last, her voice is soft, almost pitying.

"Don't you...don't you have enough?"

Her reply surprises him so much it causes him to actually jerk his fingers inside of her much harder than he ever intended, ever dared, and her whole body shakes beneath him as she comes, her mouth open but unusually silent.

Harry rolls off her and stares at the gray sky, suppressing a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. All he can hear are the waves crashing and Hermione gasping beside him.

No, he doesn't have enough, he decides.

He isn't sure if he has anything.

"Now, I'm afraid our young heroes have announced that this will be their last public appearance they will ever make regarding the war."

The audience gasps in horror. A few people shout 'No!' in disappointment.

"I know, I know. But it's been almost a year now, and I'm sure they will be wanting to put this mess behind them."

The audience nods solemnly. Yes, they understood. The past is the past, best to leave it there.

"But, Harry here wants to say a few parting words. Harry?"

Harry stands next to the announcer. The audience seems to stand up straighter and straighter the closer he gets to them.

Harry clears his throat before he speaks.

"By now, I'm sure you've all heard every detail of the war. Every name of every death. And of how much my friends and I have been involved in ending Voldemort's reign."

It's utterly silent except for Harry's voice.

"And I appreciate all of the support I have been given. But there is one last thing you can all do for me."

A woman's voice from the crowd rings out.

"Anything! We'd do anything for you!"

Harry's eyes harden.

"Leave me the fuck alone."

He turns his back on the stunned audience, seizes Ginny's hand, and walks off the stage. Hermione and Ron follow closely behind.

They all loathe the word hero.

A/N: Re-edited this for like the third time, seriously, and in a month I'll probably hate it again and edit it some more lol, but please let me know what you thought! And if you're interested, the sequel to this is a multi-chapter fic from Harry's POV called Nine Tenths of the Law, but I'm in the middle of editing that too so you'll probably notice some inconsistent writing (Chapter one is better than chapter 2, chapter five is better than chapter 4...etc) But still, take a peak at it if you liked this!