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Every evening, when Harry had prepared for bed, brushed his teeth, put on his pyjamas and slid beneath the blanket of his too big for one person bed, the sounds came back to him. A car honking, breaks being pushed to their limits, glass breaking and his own heart skipping beats. Whenever he thinks back on it, which he tries not to do during the day, he wonders how it was not him who had died. It should have been him, given how his heart, he was sure, had not beaten for multiple minutes, and yet he was still here.
It was in their bed that Harry had the most trouble. It was filled with memories of love and trapped him in a feeling of comfort and safety, but also of hurt and sadness. The knowledge that Severus was never going to come back and lie on his side, the side facing the door, ever again, was crushing in a way that nothing else in Harry's life ever was.
His therapist had told him that he needed to forgive. He did not need to forget, or to let go of his love for Severus, but he had to forgive. Both the driver of the wayward car, for it had been an accident, and Severus. It sounded stupid, and Harry was fully aware that it was so, but he could not help but feel like Severus had left him. That he knew what it would do to Harry if he was to be gone and still chose to be dead. It was not a rational thought, but sometimes those were the hardest to overcome.
Overcome, though, he knew he must. Harry knew that Severus would be the first person to kick his sorry ass if he was still here. He had always helped him control his emotions, was always there to ground him or to give him the needed push. Now Harry had to do it all on his own. It was hard, and he did not know how so many people managed it alone, but he gave himself some leeway. Surely it was harder to fend for your own, if you were used to getting help. In due time, Harry would learn to help himself.
Public grief, Harry soon found out, had an expiration date. It was not even a full month after Severus passed, that everyone else around Harry expected him to be back to his always smiling and politely happy self. People at work would invite him out for drinks and talk behind his back when he declined. "He's got to get over it some time or another“ and "I don't know what he saw in him in the first place“ were phrases he caught every now and then.
It was not like Harry did not try to get back out there. Not a 'dating' kind of back out there, but a 'enjoying life' kind of out there. He knew that Severus had been the one for him, and given that Severus had been quite a few years older than him, he had known that there was a high possibility he would one day be left behind. It's only that every time he had that unhappy thought, which really was not that often, he had imagined himself to be old. They should have had at least another forty years together.
Slowly, but steadily, he made some progress. His therapist said it was fragile, like glass, but when handled correctly, it would survive. That Harry only flinched slightly at the image of broken glass and was almost entirely able to block out the sight of a body lying lifeless in midst of it, he knew it too. He was getting better. The pain was never gone, but it grew duller each week. The hole in his heart, he knew, would forever stay, but slowly Harry thought, he might be able to fill it with different things. They would always leave gaps, enough to notice the hole was still there, but good enough to keep him afloat. He would persevere.
In the end it takes him around two years to, not be back to his former self – that was impossible, but to have moved forward. Past his grief and past seeing the memory of Severus everywhere. The key had been forgiveness, his therapist was right, but he did not only have to forgive the driver, or even Severus, he had to forgive himself. To get rid of the thought that if he moved on it meant that Severus was not important to him any more, that he did not love him any more, probably never had. In the two years after Severus death, Harry had felt guilty for every smile, every laugh, every moment he had felt happy.
On the third anniversary Harry did not visit Severus grave alone. He had met a nice guy a few months prior and from then on just had a chemistry that was right. When his boyfriend had first suggested he accompany Harry to Severus grave, Harry had been unsure. Would it be cheating? Should he keep this day strictly for himself and Severus? But he was glad that he accepted, when he stood in front of the headstone, engraved with the name of the first man he had ever loved and wrapped up in a coat and the arms of another man he thought he could grow to love as well. It felt good to be sharing this and in a way he thought of this as an introduction between the two. If his new partner was going to share the space in his heart, he might as well get to know the other inhabitant. For his love for Severus would persevere for as long as Harry himself did.