Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Burying Happiness

By: ChoCedric

As Harry stands at the burial, Arthur puts a hand on his shoulder as it shakes and heaves with silent sobs. "It's all right, son," he comforts as Harry stares vacantly at the coffin. He knows that the man is trying to comfort him, but no consolation can be received from those empty words.

As Ginny's coffin begins to lower into the ground, Harry knows that his chance for happiness is being buried with her, and it's going to be left to rot under the soil for eternity. The long, harrowing journey he went through to retrieve the Horcruxes and destroy Voldemort is pointless now, for there is now nothing to celebrate. Tom Riddle might be gone, and the world might be at peace again, but there's not peace inside Harry's heart. It's cracked, broken, torn, shattered beyond repair. Everything he wanted to come back to is gone.

The coffin is lowered, and people begin to place dirt on top of it. Arthur nudges Harry forward, but he can't bear to do it. To put dirt on top of her coffin would be forever sealing his state of unhappiness, of grief, of loss. Bellatrix Lestrange not only killed Sirius; she has now killed his love, his everything. He remembers watching, every second laced with horror, as she fell in slow motion. Her red hair looked positively angelic as she fell, and he had wished with all his might for her to get up again, for as fiery, fiesty, and full of spirit as Ginny was, it was strange to see her lying there so lifelessly.

But now, of course, he knows the horrible truth. Ginny is now six feet under the ground, and a distant look enters his emerald eyes as he retreats into himself. The war is over, but it'll never be over for the boy who was too slow to save his love. He dries the last of his tears and walks away from the grave with the other mourners, ready to put on a brave mask and trudge onwards, but knowing deep inside that his heart will forever remain buried beneath the soil with Ginny Weasley.