Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Darkness Falls
Part I: Darkness Falls

It was dark. So dark that he could hardly see a thing. Perhaps that was just as well, because he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to see anything. His other senses were enough to tell him that much.

People were screaming, yelling out in pain and anguish. It was almost enough to force Harry to wish he were deaf so he didn't have to hear it any longer. It made him cringe and raise his hands up to cover his ears in an attempt to block it out, but it didn't do any good. Even pressing his palms over his ears as tightly as he could - so much so that it was almost painful - did nothing to mute the cries of the people around him. If anything, they only seemed magnified, almost like they were coming from inside his own head, which didn't make any sense at all.

And dear Merlin, the smell. It reminded Harry distinctly of Fenrir Greyback when the hulking werewolf had attacked him in sixth year. It was blood, and sweat, and dirt mixed together, and if Harry wasn't going completely crazy, he thought he could smell death somewhere in there too. He wasn't even sure what death would smell like, but for some reason, he felt like this was it - a distinctly sour and rotting smell on top of everything else.

Even though he still couldn't see anything, Harry shut his eyes and opened his mouth to suck in a shaking cry. But that proved to be a mistake. Even the air tasted like death - overwhelmingly salty and bitter. It traveled into the back of his throat and backed up into his nose, making him cough on it. His eyes burned and watered, and it felt like he was choking on mere air, as ridiculous as that was.

Harry shook his head in an attempt to get away from it for all the good it did, because there was no escaping it. That horrid, horrible putrid smell was all around him, invading his senses. He could almost imagine it seeping into his very skin, something he didn't think he'd ever be able to wash off. He removed a hand from his ear and slapped it over his mouth instead, but it only seemed to catch the smell of decay inside him, making him cough even more violently.

Harry's legs suddenly felt like they were full of jelly. His knees were bending, caving in against his will, and before he knew it, the ground was rushing up to meet him. He threw his hands out to catch himself, but then he wished he hadn't done that. He thought he felt grass in between his fingers, but it was covered in something warm and sticky. Pulling his hands away in shock, his knees met the ground only to feel the same wet stickiness seeping into the legs of his trousers. Harry didn't have to think very long about what it was, because the closer he brought his hands to his face, the stronger the smell became - blood.

Harry retched violently, his stomach convulsing painfully around nothing. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten, but it had apparently been a while, because nothing came up. Just spit and after a while, stomach acid, because it burned his throat, adding to the acrid taste already there. Harry planted his hands into the ground once more in an effort to find some sort of support. And then he felt it. The first solid thing he'd come into contact with in this nightmare, something that he could actually grasp and hold onto and - dare he hope for it? - find comfort in. It was someone's hand. He wasn't sure whose yet, but at the moment, it didn't matter. It was a person, an actual person, which meant that he wasn't in this alone. Whatever "this" was.

But he knew. Deep down, he knew. He had been there way too many times before. It was the feel, the smell, the taste, the sound of war.

He stilled, clutching the hand of his unknown companion until the spasms in his stomach ceased. Harry coughed a few more times and wiped a trail of spittle from his chin. However, he had coughed and retched so much it occurred to him that there might be some blood there too, but he tried not to think about that now.

Then the next realization invaded his mind so quickly, it was like being punched in the stomach. Whoever's hand he was holding, it wasn't moving. The fingers were limp and lifeless in his own. It was as dead and used up as everything else in this world. Harry continued to tell himself that he didn't know who it belonged to, but that wasn't entirely true anymore either. In the time he had been holding it, something else occurred to him. That hand, those long and gentle fingers were familiar to him. And the wedding ring. The one that - if his assumptions were correct - had only been there for less than a year.

Harry still didn't want to know if he was right or not, but at the same time, he felt like he had to know. For some reason beyond him, he felt compelled to investigate further. Damn that blasted Gryffindor bravery.

Still gripping the lifeless hand tightly in his right hand, Harry reached out his left one, feeling blindingly into the darkness for anything to prove or disprove his suspicions. His hand met soft and worn robes, and those were familiar to him too. Harry didn't need any further proof - he'd recognize that old fabric anywhere, because he normally always found comfort in it. This was the first time that it filled him with complete and utter terror.

"Remus?" Harry gasped out. His chest felt so tight, he almost suspected that someone had put a Full Body Bind on when he wasn't paying attention.

For the first time since this nightmare had begun, Harry's eyes suddenly seemed like they were adjusting to the darkness. He thought he could make out the beginnings of shapes in front of him. Harry found himself wishing he was blind as well as deaf, because he really didn't want to see what was in front of him. Not at all.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to avoid it, but an odd feeling swept over him. It was as if he was physically incapable of keeping his eyes closed, because he kept opening them. Every time he did, he could make out more of the shapes surrounding him, which caused him to snap his eyes shut once more. And then just as before, they opened yet again, like his eyelids were being pulled apart by some unseen force.

He could definitely see Remus's body now, his head thrown back against the grass, his unmoving eyes staring up at the sky above them unblinkingly. But then Harry realized why he could actually see things now - the nearly full moon reflected in Remus's eyes, evidencing the growing light source. Where in the hell had that come from? It must have been hidden behind clouds only to make itself known at the most inopportune time. Of course.

Just beyond Remus, Harry noticed another unmoving figure lying in the grass. It didn't take Harry long to figure who that shape belonged to. The bubblegum pink hair was beginning to stand out obnoxiously bright in the otherwise dim and very depressing surroundings.

Harry sank down, the heels of his shoes digging painfully into his backside. He sat in that position for so long, his feet were beginning to go numb, that pins and needles feeling slowly creeping up his ankles into his legs. Harry barely even noticed this, he was so transfixed by the scene in front of him. He figured he must be in shock, because he couldn't figure out any other explanation for why he was just remaining there unmoving.

Nothing felt quite real to him anymore. Perhaps the images in front of him had truly caused him to go insane, because he didn't even know if he was or would ever be capable of understanding what this meant. It didn't quite make any sense to him. Not anymore.

Harry awoke with a start. He gasped in breath after breath of air, only to be surprised when it came freely and easily into his lungs. Gone was the horrible stench and taste of the putrid air from his dream, the tightness and burning sensation that had been gripping his body just a few moments before.

He was bathed in sweat, his skin crawling from the droplets of perspiration creeping along his body. As soon as he opened his eyes, they began to burn, the sweat from even his eyelids dripping down into them as well. With a shaking hand, Harry wiped furiously at his face, desperate to drive away that creepy crawly feeling.

It was still dark. So dark, just like it had been in his dream, but Harry didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. On the plus side, it meant he didn't have to see anything, anything that might be a leftover residual from his dream, lurking in the blackened corners of his bedroom to haunt him even further. Then again, a part of Harry wanted to be able to see so he could at least convince himself that there wasn't anything there. Things like that only happened in dreams, after all. The boogeyman was never there when you woke up. Only when you were in the clutches of your own nightmare world.

If he was well and truly awake that was. It wouldn't be the first time that Harry had been confused over something seemingly so simple. Perhaps that was what was the most terrifying about this entire experience - he wasn't entirely sure anymore where his nightmares stopped and his real world began. The two were beginning to intertwine so much with each other, they were becoming indistinguishable.

Not for the first time, Harry wondered if he was truly losing it. If the effects, the loss from the war had simply been too great for his mind to handle.

Unable to lie there anymore, questioning his own sanity for about the billionth time, Harry sat up. He threw the covers back and turned sideways, letting his legs drop over the edge of the mattress. He flinched slightly when his feet came into contact with the cold wooden floor. Resting his elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his hands, wondering when the war was truly ever going to be over.

Oh, there was no more fighting going on. Harry had dealt that last, fatal spell to Voldemort eight months before, and whoever had remained of the Death Eaters had crumbled without him. But that didn't mean the war itself was over. Not really. Because Harry still felt as if he was fighting another battle altogether, one that remained in his head, one that made him wonder if he really even knew what was happening at all.

There were exceptions to the rule, however. No matter which world he was in - this one or his still war-riddled nightmare - a few things always remained the same. The most important people to him were always absent from them, or else they were nothing more than limp dead bodies before him. His parents, Sirius, Dumbledore, Fred, Tonks, Remus…Nothing ever brought them back. Not even his dreams.

They were well and truly gone.

And that always made Harry think of Teddy. Harry was an adult, he was capable of taking care of himself now (if this nightmare world he constantly lived in could be called that, of course). Harry thought of the Weasleys too, going on without one half of the twins, but at least they had each other to lean on through this. Teddy was just a little baby, not even a year old, and the only family he had left in the world was his grandmother. This bloody war had doomed Harry's godson to the very grim reality that Harry himself had gone through - growing up and going through life without his parents.

This thought never failed to make Harry feel guilty. Remus and Tonks had given their lives in the war, and while Harry had never expected any less of them if it came down to it, Harry still felt responsible. There was one moment, one sentence that always echoed in his mind when he began feeling sorry for himself. One that had come from Voldemort himself during the final battle:

"You have permitted your friends to die for your rather than face me yourself."

It was like Voldemort was still in his mind, still speaking to Harry, still criticizing him for what he assumed had been cowardice on Harry's part. Harry never wanted anyone to die for him, least of all his friends! Harry had tried his hardest that night to find the last of the Horcruxes, to destroy Voldemort before anyone else had to die. He just hadn't been good enough.

Ever since that night, Harry had painstakingly gone over every step in his mind, everything that had led up to the fall of Voldemort. If only he had done some things better, if only he had been faster, if only he'd had more of a plan before he'd decided to storm Hogwarts…

If only, if only, if only. The words bounced around in his head incessantly. And then came Remus's words, the very last thing Remus had ever said to him:

"I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life."

A choked sob escaped from Harry's throat, and he pressed his palms against his eyes almost painfully. How was this supposed to be happier for Teddy? How was any child supposed to be happy without their parents? Harry found it ironic that Remus had been trying to comfort Harry, only to have those words haunt him every single night since.

Harry tried to remind himself that that hadn't been Remus, not really. It had been nothing but an illusion from the Resurrection Stone, but that thought did very little to comfort him. Harry wasn't sure which was worse - that he had depended so much upon that Resurrection Stone while he walked to his death, or the thought of walking into the forest for the last time completely and utterly alone, without so much as a ghost to comfort him.

Now he knew why the Resurrection Stone could cause madness. Not that Harry blamed his current state of mind on it, but he thought he might have been better off without it altogether - without "Remus's" last words hanging over him.

When Harry woke up on these nights after a nightmare, it was always the same - the same vicious thought processes over and over again. The very same ideas haunting him. The very same regrets making him feel like the world's biggest con artist. A hero indeed. A true hero would have been able to save more people than he had.

Harry sobbed again, and then came a soft rustling sound from behind him.

"Harry?"

The question was always the same - his name spoken in that gentle tone of hers. The one that normally could have soothed his cries alone, but which did little on the nights like these after the war. His answer was always the same too.

"Why did they have to die?"

She never knew who exactly he meant by that. Sometimes it was his parents. Sometimes Sirius, and Dumbledore, and Fred. More often than not, however, he meant Remus and Tonks. If one thing haunted Harry more than any other, it was that he had robbed of his godson of both of his parents.

Even so, she always answered that question the very same way.

"I don't know."

More rustling behind him, and a moment later, she placed her hands on his shoulders. She gripped them tightly, messaging his skin between her soft and gentle fingers. She continually inched closer to him while she was doing this, and then she abandoned her ministrations to instead wrap her arms around Harry from behind. She encompassed his waist, resting her hands against his strong chest before pressing a kiss to the middle of his back. She laid her head against his shoulder next and hugged him tightly, as if she could suck all of the bad dreams out of him if she only squeezed hard enough.

It was the very same position the two of them resumed every single night after Harry awoke from a nightmare (which was every night anymore). It was a bit of a comfort, Harry supposed, that they had a bit of a routine down in all of this. That despite all of the things changing around them, all of the uncertainly that still remained, at least one thing stayed the same.

Harry sometimes wondered why she even bothered with him anymore. This was about all their relationship consisted of anymore - her comforting him. That was wrong on so many levels. Not that there was anything wrong with her comforting him per se, but she had lost someone in the war as well - her own brother. She deserved some comfort as well, but Harry felt like he was so completely spent, he had very little energy to put into helping someone else at the moment. When Harry thought about trying to be the rock for her that she had been for him over the last several months, the idea was enough to nearly push him over the edge. He didn't have it in him to be anyone's pillar of strength. He just didn't.

"What time is it?" he asked. Every time they did this, every time she held him like she was holding on for dear life, Harry couldn't help but feel more and more pathetic as the minutes wore on. He couldn't sit like this with her anymore, feeling like the weakest and least capable human being on the planet.

Ginny pulled away from him, turning to look at the clock on her bedside table. Harry had asked her to keep it over there and to keep it turned against the wall. In the days immediately after the war, Harry had found it nearly impossible to sleep at all, and he'd spent his nights watching the minutes tick away, pleading for sleep to come to him. He wasn't having as much trouble getting to sleep now; his problem was staying asleep and keeping his nightmares at bay. If he could find out how to fix those things, then maybe he wouldn't feel like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown half the time.

"Five o'clock."

At least his nightmares had held off long enough to allow him to sleep until a somewhat reasonable hour. Considering that he was sometimes awake at one or two o'clock in the morning, being able to stay asleep for this long was a small triumph. Maybe, just maybe, Harry was working his way through this nightmare. But he doubted it.

Harry couldn't bear the thought of trying to go back to bed. He knew it wouldn't do him any good anyway. After he had a nightmare, he was always way too upset, the images way too fresh and clear in his mind to get back to sleep no matter how hard he tried.

Harry nodded and said, "I'm getting up."

"I'll go with you."

"No," Harry disagreed. "It's still ridiculously early. You stay here and go back to bed. Don't make yourself a walking Inferius on my account."

Harry had intended for his comments to be a joke, to lighten the heavy mood that had settled into the room, but it didn't come out that way. It had sounded angry and bitter, because he knew that Ginny never seemed to have any trouble sleeping whatsoever. She had lost someone in the war too, so why did it only seem to affect Harry so much? Not that he wanted her to have sleeping problems. He wouldn't wish what he was going through on his worst enemy, much less someone he loved. It just didn't seem fair though, that Harry was being made to deal with more than he thought he could handle while some people seemed to get off easier.

The war was over. Why couldn't he just be…happy?

"Harry…" Ginny began, her voice a soft pleading tone, but then she stopped again.

They both knew where he would be going when he left their bedroom - where he always went when he woke up in the wee hours of the morning to find sleep escaping him. He knew Ginny hated it, although she never said as much. He could tell in the way she looked at him afterwards, in the way she always tried to stop him before he went.

"Andromeda is bringing Teddy over for dinner tonight," Ginny said in an effort to change his mind, but things like that had hardly stopped him before. He was simply too far gone.

"So she is," Harry said curtly.

Ginny sighed, heavily and hopelessly. Again, Harry wondered why she was still with him, why she had decided to move in with him when he was such an utter mess. Perhaps because she wanted to keep an eye on him. Maybe because she thought that she could somehow make things easier, make things better for him, help him turn his life around. With or without her there, however, Harry knew he spiraling out of control, and nothing she could say or do was going to stop him.

He wasn't even sure that he wanted her to. It crossed his mind that he was testing her, pushing her. Seeing how far she would bend before she decided to give up on him altogether. Perhaps that was even what he wanted. The destructive path he knew he was on would be easier to keep up the fewer the people around him who cared.

"Don't you want to have a nice dinner with them?" Ginny asked, that pleading tone growing to a fever pitch. "Just once?"

"You know what would make it even nicer?" Harry snapped, and he didn't know why. He wasn't sure why he suddenly felt so angry with her, but it was probably because she was proving to be as stubborn as a hippogriff and wasn't about to let him go down without a fight. He turned his head, glancing back at her over his shoulder for the first time. "If Remus and Tonks were here."

"Well, they aren't," she retorted, the anger apparent in her own voice. "And nothing is going to bring them back. I know you miss them, and I'm sorry for that. I miss them too, but no amount of drinking yourself into a stupor is going to bring them back."

"You think that's what this is about?" Harry asked, his voice softer now, genuine curiousness replacing the fury that he'd felt only a moment ago. "You honestly think that's what I'm trying to do? Well, believe me, if I thought there was any way at all of getting them back, I wouldn't have made such a mess out of my life. I'd be doing something to make them proud, so they wouldn't be painfully embarrassed at how much The Boy Who Lived fell apart."

Ginny shook her head firmly. "You know they wouldn't be embarrassed by you," she said, her tone resuming its usual calmness. "They'd be afraid, just like I am, and they'd want to help you. But, Harry…you think that just because they're not here, they don't know what you're doing? Because trust me, they do."

Harry scoffed, turning around a bit to face her more fully. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? To think that they're fully aware of what a mess I've made of things?"

"No," Ginny sighed. "It's supposed to serve as a reminder that even though they're not here, they still very much love you, and they wouldn't want you to be beating yourself up over what happened to them. They wouldn't."

"Well, I'm sorry I'm disappointing them and you." Harry couldn't remain on the bed with her any longer. His anger had flared up again, and he felt the need to get out of there. To get away from the reminder that there was anyone in his life who still cared about him. He didn't deserve it.

Harry stood up, and he felt Ginny's fingers brushing briefly against his, reaching to him, trying to grab a hold of him, to stop him.

"Harry, that's not-" Ginny tried, but Harry didn't stop.

He made his way for the bedroom door, thrusting it open and disappearing out into the hallway. Ginny remained in her place on the bed, watching him go, watching his retreating back disappear around the corner of the doorway.

Once he left the bedroom, Ginny never went after him, and she wasn't sure why. Or perhaps she did and she just didn't want to admit it. This Harry - the one that felt driven to seek out comfort in a bottle - was so completely foreign to her. He was so far removed from the Harry she had known, she almost couldn't comprehend it. This wasn't her Harry. Not at all, and that scared her.

On nights like this, she supposed she felt paralyzed with fear, and that was what forced her remain in bed, allowing Harry to do what she was coming to hate. He was an adult anyway. It wasn't like she was in any position to dictate what he should or should not do with his life, whether they were involved in a relationship or not.

The thing was, she had a pretty good idea where this was going. They both did. Not even showing any interest in a family dinner with his godson was a warning sign. Sooner or later, Harry was going to be spiraling out of control. Ginny had tried her hardest to stop him before it got this far, but it seemed like the harder she tried, the further Harry got away from her.

Ginny realized it might be time to start calling for reinforcements before it got any further, but something hung over her head. A very real fear that she was beginning to think about more and more - she wondered if there was anyone alive who could help Harry now.

Harry plodded down to the kitchen, wasting no time in making his way over to the cabinet that held the drinking glasses. He pulled it open, grabbed a tumbler, then bent over. He pulled open the cupboard under the sink where they kept the Firewhiskey.

Ginny had asked him to get rid of it on numerous occasions already, but Harry couldn't imagine going without it now. Once he woke up from his nightmares and was unable to get back to sleep, it was the only thing that made the day easier. The only thing that helped him to forget until he was able to pass out from exhaustion again. Or from drunkenness, but he wasn't about to admit that to anyone, least of all himself. He knew it was a horrible thing to rely on, he knew that now more than ever, but right now, all he wanted to do was forget. At least for a little while, and this was the only thing that helped him do it.

He crossed the room and sat down at the table. He set down his glass, uncorked the bottle of Firewhiskey, and poured only the first what always proved to many more drinks. He never intended to drink that much, it just kind of happened. Before he knew it, one turned into two, two to three, and before long, he could barely even remember how many he'd had let alone how many loved ones he'd lost.

Harry downed the first glass, the liquid burning his throat painfully. God, he hated Firewhiskey, but at the same time, he loved it.

To be continued…