Xerosis

If We Could Only Turn Back Time | Long Road

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If We Could Only Turn Back Time
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Ever since he'd defeated Voldemort, Harry had felt as though there was something missing in his life. He'd long ago chalked it up to the Horcrux that had been a part of him for practically his whole life and forced himself to ignore the feeling. He'd become a decorated auror, married the girl of his dreams, and had three beautiful children.

And yet, here he was, fifty years later, surrounded by his family as they buried Ginny and that hole remained. Everyone was crying, except for him. Oh, he'd loved his wife, make no mistake, but she'd never quite filled that hole that had appeared after the war. Her death was just an addition to the hole already there, and he'd cried all his tears decades before.

"Why did it have to be Ginny who died?" Ron whispered as the procession of mourners finally finished filing out the floo and to the apparation point in the back yard. "Why couldn't it have been Malfoy–"

"Why did anyone have to die?" Albus muttered from next to Harry's elbow. He and Draco Malfoy's son, Scorpius, had been friends ever since their first year when they'd ended up in Slytherin together. Usually, Ron knew better than to say nasty things about the Malfoys around the young man, but he wasn't at his best right now. "What right do muggles have to–?"

"You really don't want to go there, Al," James said drily from just behind his brother. His girlfriend, Jessie, was a muggle.

Albus scowled at his brother, then glanced down at Harry with concern in his wide green eyes. "Dad, are you okay?"

Harry blinked up at his middle child, not really seeing the young man. "Fine," he murmured.

Hermione bustled over, then, and gently took Harry's elbow. "Let's get you to bed, Harry," she offered.

Harry glanced back at Ginny's casket, then let his sister-in-law lead him up to the second floor and the bedroom he'd shared with his wife. He paused for a moment in the doorway, but Hermione tugged him forward and since the other rooms in the house were full of visiting family, this really was the only place he could sleep. (Well, his room or the couch, but Hermione would never let him get away with the latter.)

Hermione coaxed him out of his outer robes and into the large, cold bed. When she started making sure the blankets were secure around him, he murmured, "I'm almost seventy, 'Mione. I can tuck myself in."

Hermione huffed and gave him an unimpressed look. "You've been walking around with that dazed look on your face ever since the attack. I'm not sure I trust you to take care of yourself."

"Hmm..." was Harry's only response.

Hermione sighed and settled on the edge of the bed next to him, absently tugging at a curl that had come loose. "We're all worried about you, Harry."

Harry shrugged and closed his eyes. "My wife is dead at the hands of a psychotic muggle and we're about two months from a full-out muggle-magical war. Better to worry about other things than me."

Hermione sighed again and leaned forward to gently press her lips against Harry's forehead, making the wizard smile sadly. "There's always time to worry about you, you self-sacrificing idiot." Then she got up and left the room, the lights dimming behind her.

Harry kept his eyes closed in the darkness, trying to imagine that Ginny was still laying next to him. Trying to imagine that his world hadn't gone completely insane a week ago when the muggle government first announced the presence of the magical world and the non-magical citizens of Britain started attacking anyone who might be magical on sight.

But there was no Ginny next to him and the muggle minister was a complete lunatic. Many people were going to die in this modern witch hunt and there was little Harry could do about it but watch it happen. What good was a hero against a terrified man with a gun?