Lover of the Light

The Worst Is Yet To Come

Lover of the Light

Chapter Ten: The Worst Is Yet To Come

Some days he was angry, incredibly so, and some days he was sad. It was never quite a surprise anymore—he knew that either staggering emotion was going to fill his head and run with his blood the moment his eyes blinked to life after a night's sleep filled with terrorizing memories. It was repetitive, it had been so for ages that he didn't really know if any other emotions existed beside the two that defined him nowadays.

When he was angry everything blurred into red and dust. He saw blood on the walls, saw powder of broken down plaster invading the air and becoming like fog through the corridors as he attempted to head to class or sit still during a lecture. When he was angry, nothing could stop him; nothing was safe. His fingers were always tingling at the tips with an itch to punch something, to destroy something, or to grab his wand and blow the walls around him. His heart beat more tensely, a little faster than usual, and it caused him pain. When he was angry, his mind filled with rage and he swore he saw black and nothing more. The background disappeared, along with himself for however long that flash of fury lasted.

When he was sad everything was still blurred into red and dust, but it all moved too slowly. He walked through the corridors, bumping into fellow students without knowing since all that displayed in front of him were walls painted with blood and corpses littered on the floor. When he was sad, he lived that day with a knot stuck in his throat, bubbling guilt in the pit of his stomach that rivaled the hole in his heart. His eyes stung with tears that were weak, that were his truth, and that were never-ending. When he was sad, he felt like there was no escape, not in the present nor in his sleep. Memories followed him like ghosts.

He told himself every night, when the dormitory was dark and the heavy breathing of his roommates filled the space, that he was going to try to move on. He told himself every night, repeated and repeated like he was writing lines on parchment that it wouldn't hurt the next day, that he wasn't going to remember. But every morning when his ears perked up from movement going on outside his four-poster and the light of the sun flashed against his thin lids, it was still there. He remembered it all.

There were moments when he told himself that he needed help, that maybe he'd gone absolutely mad and everything that he was feeling, everything he continued to remember, were just the signs that he needed to be locked up. He'd find some resolution, a push to make his feet move and lead him towards one of the three that he cared for, but he never made it to them. Who was he to ruin everything they were trying to accomplish?

Hermione was one of his best friends, a girl he'd been harboring feelings for since Second Year—but that didn't matter now; it hadn't for a while. His memories and refusal to see the light at the end of the tunnel squashed what could've been between them, and on the days that he punched walls and roared like a monster, he was glad to have cut the string of possibilities with her. He'd already caused her pain, he didn't need to add more. He knew that she'd be there for him always, to listen and soothe, but life was never easy for the Golden Trio and the fates had given her nightmares of her own to handle.

Ginny was a different story. Whenever his feet would try to lead him towards her he'd stop the movement before he made it to the third step. His sister had been there already; she had cried and yelled and suffered just like him. But unlike him, Ginny was strong-willed and more determined than he's ever been. Ginny got tired of hurting, Ginny got tired of having nightmares, and Ginny got tired of wasting her life in mourning. His sister woke up one day in the summer—one where he spent all night sitting underneath a tree and staring at the lonesome grave that invaded the Burrow's backyard—and she decided to move on. He wasn't going to dampen her progress.