Lost Memories // Drarry

Chapter 49: A Ring

Harry slumps into his chair and tosses his stuff in the general direction of the table. He's absolutely exhausted. He's so tired that he can feel it deep in his bones. It isn't the kind of tired that you can fix by getting a good night's sleep.

It's the kind of tired that makes you feel hollow and numb. It's the kind of tired that makes you lash out and not find joy in anything anymore. It makes your eyes dim and your head too heavy for your skull.

It makes you want to give up.

Harry has been tired for a while now. He's unhappy, and he knows it. He has just been scared to admit it.

He feels trapped. Sometimes he can't breathe. Harry will press against the walls that close in on him mercilessly but to no avail.

He was happy for a while. But then he started to feel empty. He felt emptier and emptier until he was like a black hole. All he does is suck the happiness out of the room. He just brings bad luck.

None of his friends hang out with him anymore. He stopped trying to reach out to them. It was clear they wanted nothing to do with his twisted self. They always came up with these wild excuses that pulled them away from their plans at the last second.

Harry isn't blind. He could see how uncomfortable they were around him. They walked around him on their tippy-toes, careful not to say or do anything wrong. They don't want the bad luck to rub off on them.

They hushed their voices when he neared and smiled awkwardly- like someone was tugging the corners of their mouths upwards. And then they just stopped replying. They didn't send letters. They didn't respond to his calls. They just disappeared and left Harry.

They left him to sink in on himself.

The only thing that kept him from disappearing completely was her- is her. She's always there to bring him back. His heart blooms, and he has the sudden urge to call her.

She'll make everything better. Her laugh will fill him up and pour out of him and light the room up until it becomes too bright that it's unbearable. He shakily searches for his phone. He convinced his friends to get them when they were still speaking.

He pulls her number up, but his finger hesitates over the call button. He shakily sets it down, and his eyes trail off into the room. But they catch on a toppled picture frame. It must've fallen off the wall because it lays face down on the ground beneath a tiny hole where a nail must have been.

He picks up the picture and looks at it as his breath snags. He had completely forgotten about it.

It's them together, and Ginny's smile is so huge that it makes a little grin break out onto his face. They both have tiny cones filled with ice cream in their hands. Shops can be seen in the background. They turn and look at each other, and Harry can see the love she has for him exuding out of her.

Harry is smiling into the picture too. He rarely ever smiles in photos. But they were so happy. They were traveling the world and enjoying life- genuinely. He felt so much lighter then. He didn't have a worry in the world. He had graduated with a job on the horizon and took some much-needed time off with his girlfriend.

Harry chuckles to himself as his eyes trace the picture. He was actually planning to propose during that trip. He knew it was soon, they had only been dating for over a year, but he just knew.

He knew that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

Harry smiles at the picture as his fingers trace the glass. They've been stuck in this weird in-between, and he knows they could both feel it.