How many days did I stand over your bed? From the moment they stopped treating you I was by your side. You were bloody and swollen - dead to the world in your endless slumber, but somehow clinging to life. Others left. The family. Hermione. Ron. Eventually even our children were dragged away from their father's side by school, spouses, work. But all they saw was the surface - no matter how many times you'd battled back before - to them, you were left a husk, finally tossed aside after the darkest of harvests. They visited sometimes, I think more out of pity for me than you, but they came. Watching. Then they were gone again. Wondering from afar how long you would take to wither and fall.

I recognized the warrior who never surrendered, beyond the bruises and battered bones, despite the grim prognostications now made only in hushed whispers among the staff. They feared my wrath. The first night, they'd said you wouldn't make it and I'd roared like never before. They were cowards. Quitters. They dared to doubt you after you'd spent your life defying doubts? They had the audacity to speak to me about how much damage you'd suffered in your sacrifice.

Sacrifice meant death. I forbade them to speak of it in front of me. Especially in our room. They didn't.

They were the ones who were wrong. And I smirked when we were alone, reveling in the shattering of their sense of superiority as you confounded them again and again. No matter what dark shadow or deathly illusion their science sought to place over your future failed them and then - finally - you opened your eyes.

I'd imagined what would happen when you did that thousands of times. The deep green occupied my mind daily. Would it flutter back to life slowly? Would it snap into focus suddenly as part of a panicked awakening? Would I miss it? Maybe coming back with food or from your bathroom to see you sitting on your bed wearing the weary smile that still danced in that vibrant color.

I'd never imagined this. Blank. Then you spoke with none of the problems they'd predicted and perfect, cutting clarity: "Who are you?"

"It's a rare condition," they'd said.

The trauma and swelling that had kept you comatose for so long wasn't the culprit for your lost memory. Instead, it was a tiny bit of shrapnel, a shard of brick from the building they surmised, that had taken that. It wasn't that you were incapable of remembering - they'd tested that. It was simply that you didn't anymore. Language...motor control...facts. All had remained intact. But that miniscule fragment, almost infinitesimally small, had ruined your recognition. You couldn't connect them with people. You couldn't connect faces with names. You didn't know you. How could you know me?

The months that followed tested us all. The wizarding world was abuzz with your condition. It didn't take long for the Ministry to decide it would have to move you on. But I refused to rebuild from the ground up. I left the Prophet for a new quest - finding each and every person I possibly could who knew you, who'd interacted with you, and making sure they contributed their memories to a growing supply stored in a special vault at Gringotts. Through it all I made sure I was with you every morning and every night. I was your wife.

I expected the day that followed the procedure - the reinstallation of memories - to be one of celebration. I knew it would be the day that brought you back. I was waiting for you when you woke and for the first time in a long time I was wearing a smile along with the ponytail and Harpies tee that had become my visiting uniform.

"Consistency will be best," they'd told me.

Though you seemed to give me a longer, deeper look this time, we only had those moments before the healers whisked you away. There were tests to be done with objects and photos. They wanted to see if you could still use your wand. Instead of you, it was Hermione who hugged me.

"Don't rush things," she told me.

But after their tests were over, we were talking again, reliving the memories you'd regained...in a manner of speaking anyway. You had questions. So many questions. I filled in the gaps as best I could. Together we were rebuilding the connections.

But within a fortnight you were different. It was Sunday when you were supposed to come home. I'd arranged everything - a small gathering - just Hermione, Ron, and the children. Not even the grandkids. Not yet. Instead, you told me you needed to stay. There was a healer they'd recommended to address the impact. Readjustment.

A month later you were in residence at his facility. Visitation was rarely permitted in the Memory Ward and though I took advantage of every hour, I only ever made you uncomfortable.

Then came August 22nd.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," you said, looking out the window instead of at me, your tone deafeningly flat.

I knew before I asked, perhaps I always should've, but I had to hear it from you. "Are you coming home?"

"I've gotten a flat set up."

I forced myself to stay silent. I'd had enough practice after all this time, sitting like a statue so I could appear as unaffected as possible. Part of it was determination then. But only part. Now, as that began to crumble away, I was left to suppress - for just a few minutes longer - what hid behind it. My fear that things would never be the same.

"It's not...I...I realize I wouldn't be here if it weren't for everything you've done," you said. "It's...you've done more than anyone could ask, more than the healers...everyone's told me." You looked at the window again as the sun shone in on us. "I'm supposed to love you. And I know I should. But...all I have are images. And a ring, a face, a name. I can't live with you and lie to you at the same time."

I closed my eyes and squeezed back the tears.

What was it they said? If you love someone, set them free.

And so you had your flat. Friends visited. Even the children. I stayed away. As time dragged on people asked me when I would file. When I would take down the photos. If I'd stop wearing my ring. The press surrounded me, not you. Interviewing a man who didn't understand who he was except through the eyes of others couldn't even get them a decent soundbite anymore. Eventually they got bored of my answers too. Never.

It was true, their speculation. That I cried when nobody was watching. That I resented our friends, our children for the fact that you wanted them - no, welcomed them - when you refused me. Those were moments of weakness, but didn't I deserve at least that much? When you were injured, when you were recovering, they'd held me up as an ideal of strength. Ideals aren't human.

Still, they were only moments. I knew from that last time we'd spoken that I couldn't live if I let them become more. They were still my friends, my children. And though I'd never been happier than when we were we - I was me and I didn't surrender.

The Prophet preferred to keep its interim hire. The major magazines wanted statistics and perspective pieces more than they wanted a match reporter. I'd survived beyond the prime of the gameday journalist by force of quill, but now? Fortunately, I found an upstart who appreciated those skills and my deeper knowledge of the British and Irish game. 1-2-3 had an owner-editor, a small staff, and a limited domestic circulation, but it was my new home.

When I'd moved into my apartment the first thing I'd felt was peace. Since the moment I woke up nearly everyone around me had concerns or expectations. All of them expected me to remember and if not to remember to become the man they'd always known. They had restored as much as they could of my old life - your personal mission - but none of them, you least of all - seemed to understand that everything I knew about myself was still foreign. I knew my life's experience as if I'd read it from a textbook. No matter the effort they couldn't recreate the connections, the emotions, the meaning that had made me who I was.

While lying awake and alone in my bed I imagined that you must hate me. You were the one I'd pushed away because you were the most complex. Love - let alone love for a specific person - was something almost impossible for me to comprehend. The fact that my memories were divorced from the emotions I'd had when making them left me unmoored. How could I know love when for all practical purposes I'd never fallen in it?

The fact I didn't live with the others helped. Visits were shorter. I could find emotions on my own in between. And as they slowly rebuilt the gaps in my memories of them I could...I hoped anyway...learn my way back without the burden of falling constantly short of expectations. So I saw them. I allowed them into my life on my terms. For that, you had to hate me. I had no doubt.

Eventually though, peace and the occasional visitor were no longer enough. I'd long since grown tired of the celebrations thrown in honor of my recovery and felt entirely out of place at the ceremony marking the anniversary of the attack that had put me here. Wearing a uniform and medals, performing a ritual I had to be coached on quietly though I'd done it hundreds of times before. As I was forced to give wave after wave and later handshake after handshake I realized that it was because I wasn't just a stranger playing a part for those who knew me. I was stranger in my own life.

It took longer than I liked for work to come, but it also took longer than I liked to find someone who didn't want me just to impress customers. I'd spent much of my free time on Quidditch. At first it was just for a release of energy since it seemed after being reloaded that I knew how, but once I did, they were the first memories I truly reconnected with. Though I told everyone it was the visceral nature of sport, I knew that was a lie. It was simply easier with sport because it didn't require connecting with people to find the feelings again. So Ron arranged an interview with his favorite side, the lowly Chudley Cannons. I could tell there were more than a few skeptics, but in the end, they brought me in on a short-term contract as a scout. I enjoyed the work and the escape inherent in always being on the move.

One day, that all came to a screeching halt when I was assigned to a friendly between the Chudley and Holyhead reserves. As I took my position several rows back in the center of the pitch, I saw a woman - really saw one - for the first time since everything had changed. The match wasn't due to start for at least half an hour. But as I approached, the freckles spackling her neck came into focus and I realized it was you. Ginny.

I'd planned to turn, to slink to an adjacent stand, but before I could you caught my stare. Surprise. Curiosity. A hopeful smile. I sat next to you. I owed you that much, didn't I? For the hours that followed, through poor play and pouring rain, we both broke up taking notes with talking. First it was players, then tactics, then friends. There was an effortless familiarity that had only scarcely happened with anyone else.

I considered the recent past - that which felt most authentic to me - and I realized it wasn't the first time. Maybe there was a reason I'd been able to spend days talking to you when hours with others depleted me? It was before I'd reintroduced to the concepts of pragmatism and hedged expectations. Before they'd flowed into fear. I hadn't even begun to relearn the resilience and strength I was assured I'd always possessed and I'd caved to it.

But you didn't hate me. The match over, I had reports to deliver, you had a profile to write. You reached for my hand for a moment, but your eyes flashed up and met mine. You pulled back and hurriedly walked away.

I looked after you. You never looked back.

I saw you next at a new eatery on Diagon Alley. You were at a business lunch. I was...alone. I'd taken such care with who I saw and how often it wasn't something I was accustomed to anymore, feeling the absence of another human being. You left, offering me a half-smile. It didn't fill the space.

Then it was Hogsmeade where the half-smile was a nod from two stands away. We talked by the turnstiles and I walked you back to the portkey zone that had been arranged for the press. Next? A charity ball. I found you actually talking to the organizers in a corner. You abhorred the affairs as well. You let me have my idle chit-chat for a moment, but you started to walk away.

I stopped you. You told me to get out of the way. I told you we should talk. The fierce expression on your face flinched. We stepped into an outside hallway and I told you there was something about you. That being around you unlocked things in me I'd hidden from with everyone else. You told me I didn't know what I was saying. You bolted.

It was the last time.

It was no more chance meetings. No more tiny conversations. I was open. You were smiling - not half-smiles that felt stolen - the smiles that I could see in the recesses of my mind. We ate together. We shopped together. One day, you took me home.

Could I get used to this again? I didn't know the answer that day. For awhile we lived like roommates.

One night I heard you crying. You were alone. I left the guest bedroom and held you until you were done. You rolled over and hugged me tightly. I kissed your forehead. And I remembered.

You were never alone again.