About Harry

Chapter 17 - Now, you know what I'm feeling

That night he woke up thirsty, Ginny was still sleeping somewhere else in the house, Harry didn't know where, but probably in Lily's room. A place he was avoiding with care.
Going down the stairs he heard voices coming from the kitchen. He softened his steps and stopped beside the threshold careful not to step in the pool of light coming from the room. He leaned against the wall hidden in the darkness of the alleyway listening to the familiar voices
'.... I know, but I don't know what to do...' she was speaking under her voice, her tone anxious, full of tears.
She is always crying now.
'I don't recognise him anymore. He scares me, he has got that look! So full of anger! I feel he may hurt me if I get too close.'
Don't get any closer then.
Harry didn't move, he was scarcely breathing not to be heard. Words were going through his ears but failing to reach his brain.
Now Molly was replying 'Ginevra, I don't know... You should come here. Ted said to leave him alone. I don't know if it's wise to pressurize him. It must be awful after all that had happened in his life to lose Lily too. He loved her so much'. The blatant pity in her voice finally managed to sneak under his armour causing a spasm in his heart.
Yes, I loved her very much.
And that unexpected slash threatened a break down that terrorized him. Something inside him turned that beginning of pain that he wouldn't have known how to handle, detouring it in that sea of anger that was growing in him for days without any possible outlet.
'I cannot stand aside and abandon him in this condition. I cannot! He didn't eat anything since it happened. I have no idea how he can still stand and then, he is still wearing the same clothes as the funeral. He hasn't changed not even to go to sleep, his shirt is all bloody and ripped, he doesn't even seem to notice and....' She faltered '...I'm not sleeping in the same bed with him anymore. I can feel he doesn't want me there... I don't understand. I loved her too, I'm suffering too!' new sobs quaked her, drowning her words.
Sharry, lowly and silently, left the wall and got back to bedroom. He didn't need to hear anything else. He felt upset against her for confiding this to Molly, she pictured him like a mad man!
However, it didn't take much for him to discover the truth in her words. A glance to the mirror in the room was all that it took; it gave him back nitid image of himself, not shaded by his feelings.
He hadn't changed since the funeral, and he was indeed still wearing that shirt. He was sane enough to see an alarming symptom.
Although, it was the common sense to give him a prod; surely, he didn't want to be carried in St. Mungo's because he was believed crazy by everybody. He had, at least, to give the appearance to be a man in control of his faculties.
He undressed, put his dirty clothes in the laundry basket and left the tatters forming his shirt in a corner with the intention of throwing it out the next day. He took a shower, shaved and changed the bed's linen.
Normal things, normal people do.
He slipped under the duvet this time, to sleep like a person who hasn't got a trouble in the world. His wand was on the bed side table. Ginny must have left it there while he was sleeping. Relief pervaded him, he took it and holding it in his hand, like a talisman that could save him from distress, nodded off.
The next morning, after another nightmarish and restless night, he made sure to be out before Ginny would awake not to be pestered with requests and by her tears.
Another day was spent quietly at work in the silence of the empty ministry. He felt tempted to spend the night there. There was a sofa, and it happened before, when he had to stay late, to use it. But the habit was stronger than this new unhealthy instinct that prodded him in any way to hurt Ginny and his steps conducted him with a sense of heaviness toward home.
Ginny wasn't waiting for him at the door this time as Harry feared and he was glad. Perhaps she finally understood he wanted to be left alone.
He got to the room and sat on the bed limply taking his head in his hands. He was tired, so completely and overwhelmingly tired.
How long is this going to last? Is it going to be like this forever?
Then Ginny's voice startled him; she had appeared on the threshold. 'I want you to eat something' she stated determined.
'I'm not hungry' he replied blankly hoping she would go away.
'It's four days you are not eating anything! You must have something!'
'I ate something at work'
'I know you didn't'
'Ginny, please, leave me alone.' He begged her trying to keep the irritation, ready to spurt out, under control.
She didn't reply but didn't even leave. She advanced in the room, but he didn't budge from the bed, exactly as if she had left, getting aback to his elucubration. The silence become bleak, but Harry didn't have any intention to put an end to it. She understood it and tears started to line her face. Harry knew it even without looking at her and the annoyance took possession of him immediately 'Ginny, do me a favour and stop crying for heaven's sake!' he said harshly. How could she not understand that tears just enrage him more?
'Why are you behaving this way?' she said sobbing.
'Why?!' he looked at her exasperated 'What do you think? Does nothing come to your mind that happened on Christmas day?' he asked nastily.
'I know you are suffering, but I'm suffering too!'
In hearing this fury hit him like a wave, the pounding in his head reawaken straight away, deafening.
'You are suffering?' he asked advancing on her menacingly.
She nodded and backed up against the wall, scared. He stood in front of her, 'You are suffering??' he barked slamming a hand on the wall just a few inches from her face. She flinched and stopped crying instantly, terrified.
'Let me explain something to you. I had to go through this over, and over, and over, in my life. I have seen people dying around me more than I can count. I had to live with this all these years. And now it happened again, and I have never loved anybody as I loved Lily.' He bowed to have her face in front of his own, to be able to look straight into her eyes, just a few inches from each other. His voice was almost a growl, his eyes, full of that anger he felt, pointing on her 'And now, you come here, and you tell me that you are suffering. Think better! You don't know what suffering means. You have no clue of what's happening inside me'.
He stepped away, his head throbbing harder than ever. He had to get away from her before something unpleasant happened.
A sob escaped her. She caught up with him reaching out for his shoulder; she didn't realise how dangerous he was at that moment. 'You could explain it to me! I only want to help you! Just tell me how!'.
At being touched his fury exploded. Everything was blurred in front of his eyes. He didn't want to be touched. He knew that something nasty would have happened, he had warned her, and she hadn't listened. Now she had to pay the consequences of it.
He turned and got her wrist twisting it forcefully. 'Do you want to understand? Do you want to help me?' he growled again. He saw her in pain, but it was the fear on her pallid face that spurred him.
'All right' he said maliciously, 'I'll explain it to you' and she pushed her on the bed. He took off his sweater throwing it on the floor and unbuttoned his belt.
'Harry, what...?' she said trying to stand up. He pushed her back again. Quickly he tore down her trousers and knickers. She was alarmed now, she struggled trying to stop him, tears in her eyes 'Harry please, don't...'
Harry forced her back down, grasped her wrists with one hand and blocked them on the top of her head, 'You said you wanted to understand, didn't you? You said you wanted to help' He said looking in her eyes with venom 'This is how you can help me'.
He drove himself between her thighs, immobilising her with the weight of his body, and was inside her quickly and brutally. He started to move with force trying to placate his wrath. She couldn't possibly take pleasure out of it. He knew it, and it was as he wanted it. He didn't want her to feel any pleasure in it. He wanted her to suffer. He wanted her to share what he was feeling inside.
Powerlessness.
Powerlessness in front of something you cannot win.
Pain.
Pain that, doesn't matter how hard you fight, will subdue you.
And devastation.
That was all it was left in him.

She didn't struggle. She didn't try to free herself. She submitted passively, tears filling her hollow eyes, to what he was doing.
Harry kept going until he could resist no longer, the culminating moment came, impetuously, extinguishing the fury that was raging in him in a last poisonous thought:
Now, you know what I'm feeling.
And then he was empty of all emotions.
He let Ginny's hands go and fell on her panting. The anger was gone. The pounding was gone.
The void in him lasted only for a couple of seconds. Two seconds of mercy in his devastated mind.
But it was only like when the sea is retracting, before the tsunami comes, destroying everything. His mind was leaving space for grief. And grief hit him hard. An ache so powerful, and deep, overcame him entirely.
Those three days of anger and hate accumulated in him turned in something much worse.
And he wept.
He wept in pain, sobs reverberating in all his body. He cried for Lily, for himself, for Ginny and for his kids. He cried for all that happened to him in the past and what was happening now. He couldn't stop.
Ginny was still lying under him, immobile, her chin trembling, tears sliding silently.
This right up before the sudden breakdown. Thos sobs shook her. Shock was replaced by surprise.
Her arms slowly move to enfold him, then they pinned him, spun her head to kiss his hair and Harry kept on crying until tears were at an end. They cleaned his mind from all that had tormented him. When they stopped, he was quiet, and empty again. Exhausted.
Ginny slipped from under him and cuddled him lovingly.
He felt like he had been sick for a very long time, weakened by an illness. He closed his eyes under Ginny's caresses.
Caresses he didn't deserve. A love he didn't deserve.
After a few minutes Ginny left the room. She was soon back, with a cup of fuming tea. She kneeled on the floor beside him. 'Drink this, it will make you feel better'.
He didn't take the cup and looked at her. Her pale face was illuminated by the moon's light coming from the window. The curve of her neck looked like it was painted, her skin smooth and fair. She was so delicate and beautiful. And he felt so much love for her that it pained him and revulsion against himself overpowered him 'Ginny... I'm sorry. I'm a monster.' He said in what was no more than a whisper wanting to caress her but not feeling worthy after what he had done.
She shook her head with a small smile 'It doesn't matter, don't worry about it'.
'But it does matter!' he replied, 'You just wanted to help me, and I...' he couldn't say aloud what he did, so repulsive it seemed to him now 'I'm a horrible human being.' He concluded.
'I think it did help you and you are not horrible. You are a good man really, just very much troubled. Don't think about it anymore.' She kissed him and he raised on his elbow to take the cup offered.
He sipped in silence the hot drink that comforted his spirit. The guilt was remaining however, one more scar to add to the multitude he already had, on his skin and underneath, that could never be erased 'I don't really know what I've done to deserve you.'
'Well, you defeated the darkest wizard of all times...' she joked caressing his head.
He smiled at her 'You are the best thing that ever happened to me, and I would fight him hundreds of times more to have you.'
'You have me already.'
It was his stomach that gave an answer to this affirmation growling noisily. Ginny chuckled 'Let's go to the kitchen. And Harry...?'.
'Mmh?'
'I'm glad to have you back.'