Ginny
+1
Usually, Ginny loved fighting with Harry.
She loved it, because they were just like that, they had fun fighting, it was cathartic, therapeutic. They would scream at each other the most awful things, and then they were perfectly fine the next day. It was like a silent agreement of not taking offence by the things they said when they were mad. Besides, the fights that involved screaming were always because they were irritated at another thing or person, if they had a real problem that they had to figure out, they were very good at talking like adults.
So Ginny loved fighting with Harry. But not now. Now she hated it.
She was really angry, and really tired, and irritated and angry and exasperated and, had she said angry yet? She had a bad day at work, the training was demanding. She was cold and hungry, and she had a stupid fight with her coach and she knew she wasn't really angry at Harry.
It would have been really good fighting with him to release stress, but not like this, because Harry wasn't okay. She could see that he wasn't okay, from a neutral point of view, but her overwhelmed brain couldn't let her process it. He wasn't fighting back, he wasn't even defending himself, he was just agreeing with everything she said and he was... apologizing.
He was apologizing.
This was not fun at all, this in fact made her even more angry. She didn't want to be angry, but if she was going to be angry she wanted at least for Harry to be angry too, so they could fight like equals. She couldn't stop being angry and that made her more angry and it became a loop.
She was trapped in this loop of anger and screaming and Harry was not doing well, she could see it, but she didn't do anything about it. She kept screaming. And he kept apologizing.
And then he started to get nervous, she could tell, it builded up. All of the sudden he moved in strides to the door, put a hand on the handle, then retreated it and tighten the fist.
Ginny shut up. The anger inside her had now disappeared completely. Her chest sank, her heart ached, the silence in the room was now impossibly loud. She didn't moved, she stood perfectly still, the outside world couldn't have noticed how much her emotions changed, her face was perfectly neutral, calm even.
She watched as Harry walked back to the center of the living room and tried to look at her. He couldn't, her breathing was accelerated, his fist were clenching and he couldn't manage to raise his gaze. She didn't spoke. Harry suddenly turned around again and walked five steps towards the door before changing his mind once more. When he had repeated this process a couple of times and his frustration didn't seem to be diming, she decided to intervene.
"Harry, talk to me, what do you need?"
He didn't talked, but he looked at her, his eyes were teary, but he wasn't crying. He was taking deeper breaths now, barely managing to hold it in a few seconds. She realized he probably didn't even know what he needed, she decided to change the question.
"What do you feel right now?"
"I want to get away"
"Okay..."
It was a weird way to phrase it, though, because he didn't look at all like he wanted to get away. If anything, he looked like he was desperately trying not to run away.
"Why didn't you?" she asked.
"I don't want to go"
"You don't?" she asked raising an eyebrow, attempting a half smile.
"No" he said, and then he seemed to think for a second before he spoke again "I need to, but I don't want to"
"I see" she said "Why do you think that is making you need to get away" She had a pretty good idea of what it could be, but she wished Harry could identify it.
"Nothing, it just happens sometimes."
Bullshit, she thought. It did happen sometimes, that was truth, but right now it had a clear reason. Harry had successfully regulated his breathing, and now looked pale from exhaustion, but he was still alert ant tense, taking short steps towards the door before realizing he was doing it.
"God, this is stupid" he complained while he ran both hands through his hair and pulled from it.
"Harry..." she wasn't going to tell him that it wasn't stupid, he didn't need that, but of course he knew.
"No. Ginny, are you listening to me?!" He didn't yell, he didn't even raised his voice, but the words shut Ginny up immediately "I just need to fucking go, because my fucking brain is convinced that he is in fucking mortal danger and he put himself into fight or flight mode. I need to fucking run from... run from you" he sounded broken, then he muttered under his breath "such a fucking coward..."
"Well..." Ginny said, seating on the couch behind her, in her head, by appearing less intimidating or big, Harry would stop feeling like she was someone to run from. Maybe her logic was wrong, and maybe it was useless, but she needed to feel useful somehow "You haven't run yet... That sounds pretty brave to me"
He looked at her.
"Really?"
She nodded. "What do you think we could do to convince your brain that he doesn't need to run?"
Harry thought about it, but nothing seemed to came in mind.
"Do you need to be alone? Do you want to be with someone else? Someone that its not me?"
She fully knew that if he needed that he would tell her. And she wouldn't get offended, Ginny would be an asshole if she refused to understand when Harry had explained her explicitly. He had said that his brain was in fight or flight mode, that he logically knew he wasn't in danger, but that didn't stop his body from convincing him of running away.
Ginny watched as he sat on the floor, right at the end of the fluffy white rug. She knew he wished to sit next to her, but she also knew that he felt like he couldn't trust himself with physical contact in that moment. She lowered herself to the floor as well. They were several feets apart, but their eyes were on the same level, although he wasn't looking at her.
"Just no more yelling?"
"Alright" she said solemnly "no more yelling" then she grinned, hoping that he was watching her from the corner of his eyes "as long as you promise to get back to the fighting tomorrow"
She managed to get a laugh out of him. A short, wet, and teary laugh, but not a fake one, so that was enough.
"Of course" he said smiling.
They just stood there, in complete silence. Ginny had no idea how many minutes had gone by, she was used to silence, after all. Harry had taught her silence, and she was quite good at it. Silence didn't bother her, not when she was with Harry. After what felt as hours she felt Harry slowly getting up from the floor. He had been shooting random stares at the door, as if he was still debating if he should just take a quick trip to Paris, but to her pride, he didn't. He got up from the floor, she didn't comented anything, didn't even looked at him. He sat next to her, she put her head in his shoulder, sighing of relieve when he didn't flinch.
"You know I am very proud of you for staying even though you were really scared" she commented "And I think you should be very proud of yourself too"
"Mhm" he only replied, but she knew that she was getting to him.
"And you know this doesn't mean that you'll never have to run from now on, right?", he nodded slightly. "okay"
"I'm glad I didn't leave" he said.
She took a second to reply.
"Me too."