'The Dead Boy', Ron/Hermione, 12+ (sequel to 'December ‘63')
So, who remembers my slightly odd pre-DH next-gen fics about Harry dying in the final battle and leaving Ginny with his baby? Yeah, this is another sequel. Or, more of a prequel, really, about Ron and Hermione. It is actually my first proper Ron/Hermione fic. *cherry pops* Anyway, I’ve been trying to write this for a long time, and I’m so pleased that it’s finally worked. This fic is the last of the Harry-is-dead series and the last entry into that universe, and imnsho, it’s the best of the bunch. :D
Title: The Dead Boy
Ship: Ron/Hermione
Summary: ‘You’re saying Harry’s sperm can do Legilimency?’ Ron and Hermione in the years after Harry’s death, and the memories that force their way back into Hermione’s head. The sequel to December ’63 (Oh What A Night), which is the sequel to I’ve Never Asked, and the final (finally!) entry into the series.
Rating: 12+
Setting: AU/pre-DH
Word Count: Two parts; words ~22,500 overall
Disclaimer: JKR’s, not mine.
Notes: This is the final oneshot in my AU trilogy in which Harry died in the war, but left a daughter behind him. ‘The Dead Boy’ can be read without its two (gen and Harry/Ginny) prequels; however, if you are so inclined, they can be found here. The titles of Part I and Part II are from the lyrics of Scott Walker’s ‘Jackie’ and Blondie’s ‘Picture This’. Thank you, M and D, for everything; and thank you to anyone who loves this universe - you really did keep me going on this - particularly ruby_dupree. Not dedicated to my sister for reading the romantic bits aloud in a mocking voice and adding ‘I am going to rape you now’ to the end of all Ron’s sentences.
The Dead Boy
I: And All My Bridges I Would Burn
Let squalor be turned into tragedy.
~ E. M. Forster, Howards End
It takes them nine months to fall apart after he dies.
They try not to, of course; they try to use each other and their still fairly-new relationship for comfort; but eventually, whatever they are starts to die, and it’s difficult to know whether Harry’s death was what ripped them apart, or whether his existence was the only thing that kept them together.
*
It probably started to go wrong when - well, it started going wrong for Ron and Hermione when Ron burst into the hospital wing with a Healer only to see Hermione shake her head at him from where she knelt, spotted with Ginny’s blood and drenched in Harry’s, on the floor - but it probably started to go wrong for them, as a two, during the speech.
After everything, the new Minister for Magic stood up on the stage that had been erected in the Great Hall and spoke to the hundreds - maybe thousands - of people crowding the stone floor.
Wizardkind’s finest hour, he called it.
Apparently, Hermione had been present during it - that seemed to be the rationale behind why she was being given a medal. She didn’t remember much of the ‘finest hour’, to be honest - but surely it must have taken longer than that, because not even Weasleys give birth in less than sixty minutes.
And as the Minister droned on, she realised that he was not talking about the labour of Ginny Weasley, but about what had happened at the end - but the end, she thought, had only taken about five minutes, nowhere near an hour. It had all been over and done with in five minutes.
Someone was pinning something to her chest; blinking, she looked down at the medal with the little red ribbon.
It was then that Hermione looked up and out into the watching crowd for a familiar face - one particular familiar face, the face of an old friend - and luckily their hair colour meant that she spied her friend’s family standing at the back of the hall.
Most of them were watching with grim funeral faces and looked the way Hermione felt. All except the one Hermione was looking for: Ginny’s smile was focused on the baby in her arms.
‘Is there anything you would like to say?’ the Minister asked.
Startled, Hermione shook her head, but Ron stepped away from her (she was startled, too, that Ron had been standing next to her), nodded to the Minister, and walked up to the front of the stage.
‘Thanks, Harry,’ he said brusquely. ‘We owe you one.’
She reached out for his hand as he turned away, but he brushed past her, crossed to the edge of the stage and dropped down into the crowd.
Hermione looked at the Weasleys: Fred had closed his eyes; Mrs Weasley’s face had been turned into her husband’s shoulder; Ginny with eyes slightly wild was murmuring into the baby’s ear and didn’t appear to have noticed that anything had happened.
When Hermione looked up for Ron, she saw that he had gone.
*
The final nail in the coffin of Ron and Hermione’s relationship is her recovery: after nine months of clinging to each other and avoiding each other and doing nothing but looking at each other and thinking of him, she suddenly gets fed up and applies for a job at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour.
She works either the lunchtime or the evening shift seven days a week for (the thankfully still alive) Florean. When she moved from The Burrow back into her parents’ house many months ago, Ron made some half-hearted complaints, but now, when her job means that he barely sees her, he doesn’t raise so much as a whimper.
She starts to read Muggle books again, and learns how to make the perfect Coconut-Tuna Sundae.
A twenty-year-old half-Swedish, half-Italian wizard with light brown hair who works half her shifts with her (his name is Finn) asks her if she was mixed up in the war. She says no. He asks her if she’ll buy a flat with him. Again, she says no.
*
‘Here it is,’ said Madam Pomfrey the day before the ceremony, handing over the parchment form to Ginny, where she was sitting on her bed in the hospital wing.
Ron handed his sister the quill and unscrewed a bottle of the required red ink. ‘Ready?’
‘Course,’ she said, dipping the quill into the bottle, resting the form on an old potions book and starting to scribble.
Hermione rocked the baby in her arms.
‘She’s a real person, now,’ said Ron with an attempt at a grin.
There was silence, broken only momentarily by Ginny snorting at one of the boxes; peering over, Hermione saw her draw a dash next to the space marked Father’s occupation.
A few minutes past. Ron watched Ginny; Hermione stroked the dark red wisps of hair on the head of the real person.
‘What?’ Ron barked, suddenly grabbing Ginny’s hand; she froze, hand hovering over the half-finished entry for her daughter’s name.
Hermione glanced at the parchment again: all Ginny had managed to write of the surname was the first letter.
‘What are you doing, Ginny?’ asked Ron quietly.
‘What does it look like?’ Ginny snapped.
‘Ginny -’ Hermione started.
‘Look, I’ve already written the first letter; if you stop me now, I’ll have to get a fresh form.’
‘Have you thought about this?’ Ron asked. ‘Is it really the best idea?’
‘There’s nothing that needs thinking about,’ Ginny said, shaking her hand from his fist, and with a flourish, she finished off her Potter. ‘Done,’ she said, handing the form, quill and ink back to Madam Pomfrey and reaching out to Hermione for her daughter. As Hermione passed the baby over, Ginny said, ‘There’s something important I want to talk to you two about.’
‘What is it?’ asked Hermione.
Ginny wrapped her hand around her daughter’s head. ‘I want you,’ she said carefully without looking up, ‘to promise me something.’
‘What?’ asked Hermione.
‘That, as long as we live, and I think we three are going to live for a long time, that you won’t tell her exactly how Harry died. Or,’ she added before Ron could utter whatever mutinous exclamation he looked on the verge of, ‘that you’ll try as hard as you can not to. Delay it as long as possible. I mean, you can tell her the bare bones - but don’t go into specifics. Don’t go into - try to avoid why he died. Why he ran into Hogwarts in the first place.’ She looked up at them, her eyes beseeching. ‘I don’t want her to have that guilt.’
‘Ginny ...’ started Hermione.
‘You can tell her things,’ said Ginny abruptly, looking down again. ‘Actually, tell her everything. I know Harry always - always hated that he didn’t - he wished he knew more about his parents. But just don’t tell her that.’
*
‘That’s why I came here,’ says Finn one night in May as he flicks his wand at the sink of elegant glass dishes for the sundaes. ‘The war, the struggle, something to fight for … This country’s an exciting place to be right now - you understand?’
‘Not so exciting if you’re in the middle of it,’ Hermione says, pulling on her jacket.
‘So tell me, Hermione Granger,’ he says, throwing down a dish-cloth with one of his large, lightly-freckled hands. ‘What exactly did you do in the war? No lies, this time.’
She sighs. ‘I was Harry Potter’s best friend,’ she says. ‘I have a medal, if you want to see it.’
Finn stares at the washing-up. ‘Will you rent a flat with me?’
She smiles. ‘I’d like that very much.’
When she tells Ron, he says, ‘They’re looking for a new shop assistant at Quality Quidditch Supplies. I applied for it.’
‘Good for you,’ she says.
They are silent.
‘Do you mind me moving into Muggle London? You can come and visit,’ she says, not really meaning it.
After a second, he says, ‘I think it’s for the best.’
*
She and Finn don’t have sex.
Well, not usually.
Once, when they have finished off a bottle of wine, he confesses that he is still a bit confused about exactly to which of the sexes he is attracted, and she drunkenly offers to help him out.
She isn’t offended when, four days later, she sees him chatting up a young man in the Leaky Cauldron.
I turned a man gay, she thinks, before giggling with delight.
*
‘I’m never having sex again,’ Ron said in the spring when the cold was thawing and the crocuses were blooming and someone had finally taken a good look at Ginny’s stomach and McGonagall had called her into her office and sent her home.
‘Thanks for sharing that, Ron,’ said Fred.
Ron sat down heavily at The Burrow’s kitchen table next to Fred and opposite Hermione. ‘You won’t take it personally, will you?’ he asked her dully.
‘It’s fine by me,’ she said, glancing up at the window facing out onto the back garden. She was hoping for a glimpse of Harry and Ginny, but her view was obliterated by Bill, Charlie and George.
‘Oh Great Grunnion,’ said Fred with a revolted expression, jolting Hermione back into the kitchen; she felt an unpleasant mixture of embarrassment and resignation settle in her stomach. ‘You two are at it as well, are you?’
‘Piss off,’ Ron said, his face and ears glowing scarlet.
‘We’re not going to be hearing the pitter-patter of four tiny feet in nine months, are we?’ asked George from the window.
‘Shut it.’
‘More like four months,’ said Charlie, eyes still narrowed at the view from the window.
There was a silence as Charlie’s words filtered down through the humid air of the kitchen, until so recently filled with angry shouting, and then George left the window and came and sat down next to Fred. ‘I suppose a back-slap and a “get in there my son” is a bit inappropriate, given the circumstances?’
‘I mean it,’ Ron growled, ‘if you don’t shut the fuck up about me and Hermione -’
‘Well that’s the point, I’m not saying anything - at least not while the lady’s in the room -’
‘Ohhh -!’ cried Charlie with a Quidditch wince. ‘That’s got to hurt.’
‘What?’ asked Ron, looking up in anguish. ‘What?’
‘She just slapped him,’ said Charlie. ‘Right across the face.’
‘Oh,’ said Hermione, ‘oh, Harry.’ She bit her bottom lip and tried as hard as she could not to show how dangerously close she was to dissolving into tears.
‘Oh, God,’ said Ron, sliding his head into his hands.
‘And now …’ said Charlie. ‘And now he’s got his arms stretched out, all “Go on, hit me again - does that make you feel better?”’
George winced. ‘Bad move.’
‘And, yep,’ said Charlie with relish, ‘she just slapped him again.’
‘I’ve got to see this,’ said George, standing up again and returning to the window.
‘Good,’ said Fred decisively, leaning back and folding his arms. ‘He deserves a good slap.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Charlie with a shrug. ‘He hasn’t done that much wrong.’
‘He knocked her up!’ Fred cried in outrage.
‘Don’t say that,’ Hermione whispered to the table. ‘Just don’t.’
‘All right, he impregnated her -’
‘Shut up,’ said Ron fiercely. ‘I swear to fucking God, Fred, this isn’t a fucking joke -’
‘I never said it was a joke,’ said Fred darkly.
There was a silence. Hermione wound her hands into her hair and thought of Mrs Weasley’s slammed bedroom door and supposed that she must be sending an owl to Mr Weasley, summoning him home at once; she thought of how Harry had chased Ginny outside and swung her round to face him; she thought of his fear that Death Eaters were watching the house.
George turned around and folded his arms. ‘Where were you three at Christmas?’
‘Busy,’ said Ron.
‘You’re really going to have to come up with a better answer than that.’
‘I think that’s what Harry’s learning right now,’ said Charlie.
‘Don’t joke,’ said Hermione.
There was another silence. She thought of Ginny’s march to the back door in slightly swollen nightdress and bare feet and Harry’s shout of ‘Ginny! Don’t - don’t go outside!’; she thought of Ginny’s contemptuous gaze, her ‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do’, and the second slammed door.
‘Somebody say something,’ said Ron.
‘You told us not to joke,’ said Fred.
After a second, Ron sighed. ‘I still don’t know how this happened. As far as I know they haven’t seen each other since August. And that would be - what, seven months?’
‘Definitely less than that,’ said Charlie. ‘She’s no way seven months.’
‘And he hasn’t left us since August. So, unless these two have been doing some kind of weird Occlumency thing, I don’t see how -’
‘You’re saying Harry’s sperm can do Legilimency?’ asked Fred.
‘Now that’s what I call a party trick,’ said George.
‘We’ll have to get him to teach ours -’
‘October,’ said Hermione, abruptly raising her head and silencing the twins. ‘You remember … that night in October?’
She watched the memory and the realization dawn in Ron’s eyes.
‘We thought he …’ she started to tell the others, but the truth was suddenly so embarrassing that she had to mumble the rest of her explanation to the table. ‘We thought he was going to Godric’s Hollow.’
There was a silence.
‘I’ll fucking kill him,’ said Ron.
‘I think it’s gone a bit beyond the stage of getting a duffing up from big brother,’ said Charlie.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Bill darkly, speaking for the first time. ‘I could find it in me for a good few punches.’
‘I can’t believe him,’ said Ron, shaking his head. ‘I can’t believe him.’
‘Oh, Ron -’
‘He let us think,’ he cut in, ‘he let us think that he was going off to cry over his dead parents …’ He shook his head again.
‘Look,’ said Charlie, ‘let’s be honest: if anyone’s doing the slapping out of these two -’ he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the window - ‘it should really be the other way round.’
‘Domestic violence? Great!’ cried George. ‘What else is this melodrama lacking?’
‘That’s not what I -’ Charlie folded his arms. ‘All I’m saying is that Harry’s basically the innocent party of these two -’
‘Whose side are you on?’ demanded Bill.
‘Oh for fuck’s - grow up, Bill -’
‘Why don’t you grow some loyalty -’
‘All right, brother of mine,’ said Charlie, ‘how would you feel if the way you found out some girl you slept with five months ago was pregnant was by a Howler from her mother?’
Bill glowered. ‘Well, that wouldn’t happen to me,’ he said after a second, ‘because I am married.’
‘Subtle, Bill,’ said George. ‘Thanks for keeping your feelings on what should happen next in this tale such a mystery.’
Bill chose to ignore this. ‘I can’t believe he told you he was going to a graveyard, and instead he was …’ He looked out the window. ‘That little bastard.’
Hermione snapped. ‘Oh, shut up!’ she cried, standing up. ‘How dare you? Ginny is perfectly capable of making her own decisions! It’s not all his fault! What are you accusing him of? Rape? I -’
‘Hermione - Hermione,’ started Ron with his alarmed face, ‘that isn’t what - it’s not a question of -’
‘Yes, it is - don’t you see?’ she shrieked, dimly aware that she sounded like a banshee but really when had that stopped her before - ‘That’s exactly what it’s a question of - ridiculous, overprotective, sexist, misogynistic big brother - crap -’
‘He didn’t tell me!’ exploded Ron with a roar and a jump to his feet. ‘He slept with my little sister and he didn’t bloody tell me!’
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ she half-snarled. ‘That’s what you’re thinking about? That’s what’s upsetting you? That he didn’t tell you?’
‘Yeah! If - if he’d told me what was going to happen, I could’ve at least given him a bloody contraceptive charm -’
‘Don’t pretend that’s what this is about - of all the immature -’
‘I told him!’
She felt like she was the one who’d been slapped. ‘You what?’
‘You know what?’ Fred jumped to his feet abruptly. ‘I think I’ll go and check on Mum - see if she’s calm enough to face humanity again -’
‘Good idea, think I’ll join you,’ said George, hurrying for the stairs.
‘I - ‘Mione, don’t -’ Ron seemed to have shrunk. ‘It wasn’t - don’t get -’
‘You told him?’
‘Bill, shall we - er - go outside?’ asked Charlie.
‘I had to!’ yelled Ron. ‘He deserves to know if we’re a couple -’
‘He knew we were a -’ she choked out. ‘You didn’t have to tell him - the rest of it!’
‘I - it was just -’
‘It was just you filling him on all the details!’ she shrieked.
‘No! It wasn’t - I just told him it had happened, all right? No - no details. OK? I - if it was about anyone else, I would’ve told him stuff, yeah,’ he said hastily, looking around anxiously at his brothers, all frozen in the midst of their hurried exits - ‘but - it’s you. I know you and him are friends, all right? I wouldn’t do that to you.’
She didn’t know what to think.
‘Besides,’ he said, ‘trust me, he really didn’t want to know.’
A disgusted noise wrenched itself from her throat and she threw herself at the back door and pulled it open. ‘Are you two quite finished?’ she shouted, before she stopped in shock, for Harry was on the grass in front of Ginny on bended knee. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.
‘What?’ said Ron quickly, and he must have turned to the window, because then, ‘Holy fuck.’
She spun away and buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t look.
‘That, if I am not much mistaken, is a proposal,’ said Charlie. ‘He must have heard you, Bill.’
Two warm hands were pulling her gently forwards by the shoulders until she hit a solid chest.
‘It’s OK,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘We won’t watch.’
‘What is he doing?’ she whispered, the argument so quickly forgotten it must surely have happened to another person. Maybe it did. ‘How could he be so stupid?’
‘They’re both a bit stupid, aren’t they?’ he whispered in her ear, big warm arms wrapped around her.
‘Ginny deserves better than a wandpoint wedding,’ said George slightly morosely.
‘Ginny deserves better than some tosser who knocks her up and then vanishes for five months,’ said Bill darkly.
‘Yeah, because Harry’s face half an hour ago was really the face of a man who knew his girlfriend was pregnant,’ said Charlie. ‘He didn’t look like he was having a heart attack at all.’
‘He shouldn’t do this,’ whispered Hermione. ‘This is all … wrong … I can’t believe any of this is happening …’
‘M’neither,’ he murmured into her hair.
Goodness, she loved him.
‘This is one strange proposal,’ she heard Fred say.
‘Is he proposing to … it?’ asked George.
‘He isn’t saying anything,’ said Charlie, confused.
‘Maybe it’s a Legilimency proposal.’
‘That isn’t a proposal …’ started Bill.
‘It’s kicking!’ cried Charlie.
‘What?’ cried Ron and Hermione, looking up in unison.
‘I think it’s a bit early for vying over who’s going to make the best godparent,’ said Fred, but he didn’t look away from the window.
Ron and Hermione ran to the open back door and stared out. ‘Oh,’ said Hermione at the scene outside, ‘oh, you’re right, it must be kicking … Oh …’
Ron gripped her hand tightly. She gripped back.
*
‘Fucking thing,’ says Ginny, kicking the pushchair until it collapses in on itself. ‘It was mine when I was a baby,’ she says when Hermione shoots her an enquiring look. ‘Only of course the magic’s worn off the bloody thing so it’s no more use than a Muggle one …’ She chucks it behind the kitchen door in disgust.
‘Oh dear,’ Hermione says to the redheaded one-year-old in her arms. ‘Mummy’s cross with your pushchair, isn’t she? She’s calling it some very bad things, isn’t she? Do you think Mummy would like a cup of tea? Shall we go and make her one?’
‘You’re an angel, Hermione,’ says Ginny. Her daughter gurgles in agreement.
Hermione slides the toddler into the high-chair she and Finn keep for occasions such as this and puts the kettle on. ‘How are things?’
‘And that’s another thing,’ Ginny says darkly. ‘I’ve got to stop swearing around her. And don’t you start, either. She’s started repeating things.’
‘Oh, no,’ says Hermione, looking up from peeling a banana with amusement. ‘What’s she said?’
‘Nothing, yet,’ says Ginny. ‘Nothing bad, anyway. Apart from calling Neville a gnome ...’
‘Don’t worry, Ginny,’ said Hermione, mashing up the banana with a fork into a plastic bowl, ‘I’m sure -’
‘Don’t -’ Ginny interrupts urgently. ‘Make sure there’s no bruised bits - she doesn’t eat those bits -’
‘I remember,’ Hermione says softly.
She looks up. Ginny seems to eat and breathe exhaustion these days, but today, she looks even worse than usual.
‘How are you?’ she asks, placing the banana in front of the toddler. ‘There you are, sweetheart - are you all right?’
Ginny sighs and tries to smile. ‘Just tired, that’s all.’
Hermione goes and sits down next to her and together they watch the odd creature in front of them try to shove mashed banana into its mouth.
‘When will she be able to feed herself?’ asks Hermione conversationally as they watch her rubbing the banana roundabout her left ear.
‘A few months, I think,’ says Ginny. ‘Only finger food, though.’
‘Will you -’
‘I keep dreaming about Harry,’ says Ginny.
Hermione says nothing.
‘I haven’t dreamt about him in months,’ says Ginny. ‘Not since last summer.’
Hermione reaches for her hand. ‘I dream about him sometimes.’
‘I dream that we’re living together. And that we’re sleeping next to each other. And then I wake up and have to work out where he is, and every single day I have to go through everything again ...’
‘Oh, Ginny,’ Hermione says.
‘And I have to think about him. I don’t want to think about him. I don’t want to be forced to dwell on him every day, I don’t want -’
Hermione squeezes Ginny’s hand and she breaks off and squeezes back.
Hermione doesn’t know what to say, so she states the obvious. ‘I miss him so much.’
Seconds tick by.
‘I’m so angry with him,’ Ginny whispers. ‘All I can feel is anger. I mean, if he’d lived, God knows it wouldn’t have been perfect - so far from perfect - but it would have been easier. We would have had a flat, and money, and I wouldn’t be living with my parents ...’
Hermione swallows. ‘Did you ever ... talk about this? With Harry?’
‘Hermione, between the day I told him I was pregnant and the day he died I saw him twice.’
Hermione opens her mouth, shocked, but she still doesn’t know what to say. That can’t be right.
‘We did, actually,’ says Ginny with a little more softness: her tone is both embarrassed and unapologetic. ‘We ... well, we used to say what I’d just said. Get a flat, raise our baby. He said if all else failed, we could live in Grimmauld Place, and I said over my dead body.’ She shrugged bitterly. ‘But then dear old Bella torched the place and even that wasn’t an option.’
Hermione thinks of the months between March and July, months in which she was inseparable from Harry and Ron as the three of them did nothing but hunt Horcruxes -
‘It’s not your fault, Hermione,’ says Ginny. ‘I knew he had a job to do.’
Hermione holds her hand a little tighter.
‘I wish I wasn’t so lonely,’ says Ginny.
‘Oh, Ginny - I’ll -’
‘No,’ says Ginny. ‘Don’t even think about moving back to The Burrow - you’re so much better here. Honestly, Hermione, you’re much healthier - it’s better if you stay here. For both of us. Don’t you dare come back.’
Ginny looks so fierce Hermione has to believe her. ‘What about - Ron? Is he still at home with you?’
‘He’s just moved in with Dean and Neville,’ says Ginny. ‘And I don’t begrudge him it, honestly, he’s doing OK now, actually - I just -’
‘I understand, Ginny, really,’ Hermione says quickly, feeling a bit heartbroken by Ginny’s words and eyes and her own inability to help.
‘I love her,’ says Ginny. ‘I love her so much. And I’m so grateful to Mum and Dad and everything they’ve done, I really couldn’t have done it without them - it’s just -’
‘I understand, I understand, really,’ Hermione gabbles, putting her arm around Ginny.
Ginny’s head drops down onto Hermione’s shoulder. ‘I think we just wasted a banana,’ she says.
‘I have another one,’ says Hermione.
‘The least the idiot could have done was write a will,’ Ginny mumbles.
‘I understand,’ Hermione says again, while hoping with her heart of hearts that she never will.
*
‘Harry!’ Ron cried as he burst through the doors of the Hospital Wing, Healer in tow; taking a flying leap over the black-robed body on the smooth grey flagstones of the floor, he fell to his knees at his best friend’s side. ‘Harry - we’re here for you, it’s gonna be all right -’
‘No, Ron,’ Hermione sobbed from where she knelt at Harry’s side, clutching his hand. ‘No, we can’t … it’s too late.’
‘It’s OK,’ Harry said from the floor, smiling benignly. ‘I don’t mind going.’
His eyes behind his glasses closed.
‘No!’ shouted Ginny, and before Hermione knew what had happened, Ginny had flung herself at Harry’s blood-soaked form and grabbed the front of his robes. ‘Don’t - don’t - how could this have happened? How could this ...’ Her words became unintelligible through her sobs and she collapsed onto his chest.
Harry smiled. ‘Stay close to me, Ginny,’ he said. ‘I love you. I love you and our daughter.’
‘But we won ...’ sobbed Ginny. ‘We won.’
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s OK.’
Then, he took the hands of Ron and Hermione.
‘It’s OK,’ he said again. And then his eyes closed.
Oh, if only, thinks Hermione. If only it could have ended like that.
*
Hermione loves Florean’s, but after a year, she starts to feel discontented, and she starts to think. And then, Ron comes to see her.
It is a June day and the sky is overcast with thick pearl-grey but the air is hot, and Hermione’s hair is frizzing. It’s almost three and her shift is about to end, but Finn is at St Mungo’s and she doesn’t want to go back to an empty flat.
As she’s reluctantly untying her apron, she hears his voice say, ‘Oi, waitress!’
She turns around and sees him sitting at a table by himself, his freckles standing out brown in his face. He grins.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Oh, er, hello.’
‘Are you free?’
‘I ... yes, I suppose so,’ she says. ‘Do you want anything?’
‘Nah, I ... came to see you,’ he says. ‘Do you - are you free?’
‘Yes.’ She sits down at his table.
‘So,’ he says. ‘How’ve you been?’
‘I ... well, actually. You?’
‘Oh, yeah. Good, good.’
She reminds herself not to fidget. ‘Are you still working at Quality Quidditch Supplies?’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Half the week. And half the week I’m at Fred and George’s.’
‘Working with the twins?’ she asks with a smile. ‘What’s that like?’
He smiles lopsidedly and shrugs a shoulder. ‘It’s all right. They don’t bully me too much.’
‘Of course not,’ she says.
‘Are you happy here, Hermione?’
‘I ... what?’
He licks his lips nervously. ‘Are you happy?’
She pauses. ‘Happier than I was,’ she says cautiously.
He nods thoughtfully. ‘Are you happy ... working here?’ She says nothing. ‘Cause I haven’t minded my jobs, it’s fun sometimes and the wages are decent, but it’s not what I want to do indefinitely, y’know?’
Yes, she does know. ‘What do you want to do indefinitely?’
‘Be an Auror,’ he says without embarrassment.
‘So ...’ This conversation isn’t following the rules; she can’t fathom it. ‘How is that going to ... have you spoken to the Ministry?’
‘A bit.’ He grimaces. ‘I spoke to Shacklebolt, but he wasn’t that enthusiastic about his chances of getting me in without any NEWTs.’
‘But he’s the head of the department, surely he can ... What about the Minister?’
‘I’m not asking that prat Robards for any favours,’ he says darkly.
‘So ... what are you going to do?’
‘Well, I haven’t got much choice, have I?’ He shrugs. ‘I suppose I’m going back to Hogwarts.’
‘Will you ...’ She doesn’t know how to phrase it. ‘Are you ... happy to do that?’
He shrugs. ‘I kind of want to show I can do it, you know? And I don’t really want to cheat my way in to the department, anyway.’ He pauses. ‘What about you?’
She decides to be honest. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t want to change the world anymore?’
‘I ...’ Oh, for goodness’ sake, she tells herself. You are not going to be beaten by Ron Weasley at conversational skills. ‘You can change the world from an ice cream shop.’
He snorts. ‘How?’
‘In small ways,’ she says with annoyance. ‘You don’t need statutes of law to make the world a better place.’
‘Well, all right,’ he says. ‘But anyone can do that. What if you’ve got the brains to be changing the world with statutes of law?’
‘You’re saying I have a duty to work at the Ministry?’
‘I’m saying ...’ He tails off. ‘Only if it would make you happy.’
They look at each other. This is possibly the strangest conversation she’s ever had with Ron.
‘Ron, I can’t go back to Hogwarts,’ she says. ‘I’m twenty-one in September.’
He shrugs. ‘I doubt McGonagall will care.’
‘But ... everyone will be three years younger than us.’
He shrugs again. ‘I’ve lived through worse. Listen, I have to get back to the twins, but I’ll see you soon, yeah?’ She nods. ‘I just wanted to ... see how you are. Let you know what I was up to. That sort of thing.’ He stands up. ‘Look, I’ve heard that a certain someone turns two next month. I’ll see you at the party, right?’
She nods again. ‘Thanks for coming, Ron ... It was good to see you -’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says, and then he walks away and leaves her staring at the table.
Continue to I(b)
Title: The Dead Boy
Ship: Ron/Hermione
Summary: ‘You’re saying Harry’s sperm can do Legilimency?’ Ron and Hermione in the years after Harry’s death, and the memories that force their way back into Hermione’s head. The sequel to December ’63 (Oh What A Night), which is the sequel to I’ve Never Asked, and the final (finally!) entry into the series.
Rating: 12+
Setting: AU/pre-DH
Word Count: Two parts; words ~22,500 overall
Disclaimer: JKR’s, not mine.
Notes: This is the final oneshot in my AU trilogy in which Harry died in the war, but left a daughter behind him. ‘The Dead Boy’ can be read without its two (gen and Harry/Ginny) prequels; however, if you are so inclined, they can be found here. The titles of Part I and Part II are from the lyrics of Scott Walker’s ‘Jackie’ and Blondie’s ‘Picture This’. Thank you, M and D, for everything; and thank you to anyone who loves this universe - you really did keep me going on this - particularly ruby_dupree. Not dedicated to my sister for reading the romantic bits aloud in a mocking voice and adding ‘I am going to rape you now’ to the end of all Ron’s sentences.
The Dead Boy
I: And All My Bridges I Would Burn
Let squalor be turned into tragedy.
~ E. M. Forster, Howards End
It takes them nine months to fall apart after he dies.
They try not to, of course; they try to use each other and their still fairly-new relationship for comfort; but eventually, whatever they are starts to die, and it’s difficult to know whether Harry’s death was what ripped them apart, or whether his existence was the only thing that kept them together.
*
It probably started to go wrong when - well, it started going wrong for Ron and Hermione when Ron burst into the hospital wing with a Healer only to see Hermione shake her head at him from where she knelt, spotted with Ginny’s blood and drenched in Harry’s, on the floor - but it probably started to go wrong for them, as a two, during the speech.
After everything, the new Minister for Magic stood up on the stage that had been erected in the Great Hall and spoke to the hundreds - maybe thousands - of people crowding the stone floor.
Wizardkind’s finest hour, he called it.
Apparently, Hermione had been present during it - that seemed to be the rationale behind why she was being given a medal. She didn’t remember much of the ‘finest hour’, to be honest - but surely it must have taken longer than that, because not even Weasleys give birth in less than sixty minutes.
And as the Minister droned on, she realised that he was not talking about the labour of Ginny Weasley, but about what had happened at the end - but the end, she thought, had only taken about five minutes, nowhere near an hour. It had all been over and done with in five minutes.
Someone was pinning something to her chest; blinking, she looked down at the medal with the little red ribbon.
It was then that Hermione looked up and out into the watching crowd for a familiar face - one particular familiar face, the face of an old friend - and luckily their hair colour meant that she spied her friend’s family standing at the back of the hall.
Most of them were watching with grim funeral faces and looked the way Hermione felt. All except the one Hermione was looking for: Ginny’s smile was focused on the baby in her arms.
‘Is there anything you would like to say?’ the Minister asked.
Startled, Hermione shook her head, but Ron stepped away from her (she was startled, too, that Ron had been standing next to her), nodded to the Minister, and walked up to the front of the stage.
‘Thanks, Harry,’ he said brusquely. ‘We owe you one.’
She reached out for his hand as he turned away, but he brushed past her, crossed to the edge of the stage and dropped down into the crowd.
Hermione looked at the Weasleys: Fred had closed his eyes; Mrs Weasley’s face had been turned into her husband’s shoulder; Ginny with eyes slightly wild was murmuring into the baby’s ear and didn’t appear to have noticed that anything had happened.
When Hermione looked up for Ron, she saw that he had gone.
*
The final nail in the coffin of Ron and Hermione’s relationship is her recovery: after nine months of clinging to each other and avoiding each other and doing nothing but looking at each other and thinking of him, she suddenly gets fed up and applies for a job at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour.
She works either the lunchtime or the evening shift seven days a week for (the thankfully still alive) Florean. When she moved from The Burrow back into her parents’ house many months ago, Ron made some half-hearted complaints, but now, when her job means that he barely sees her, he doesn’t raise so much as a whimper.
She starts to read Muggle books again, and learns how to make the perfect Coconut-Tuna Sundae.
A twenty-year-old half-Swedish, half-Italian wizard with light brown hair who works half her shifts with her (his name is Finn) asks her if she was mixed up in the war. She says no. He asks her if she’ll buy a flat with him. Again, she says no.
*
‘Here it is,’ said Madam Pomfrey the day before the ceremony, handing over the parchment form to Ginny, where she was sitting on her bed in the hospital wing.
Ron handed his sister the quill and unscrewed a bottle of the required red ink. ‘Ready?’
‘Course,’ she said, dipping the quill into the bottle, resting the form on an old potions book and starting to scribble.
Hermione rocked the baby in her arms.
‘She’s a real person, now,’ said Ron with an attempt at a grin.
There was silence, broken only momentarily by Ginny snorting at one of the boxes; peering over, Hermione saw her draw a dash next to the space marked Father’s occupation.
A few minutes past. Ron watched Ginny; Hermione stroked the dark red wisps of hair on the head of the real person.
‘What?’ Ron barked, suddenly grabbing Ginny’s hand; she froze, hand hovering over the half-finished entry for her daughter’s name.
Hermione glanced at the parchment again: all Ginny had managed to write of the surname was the first letter.
‘What are you doing, Ginny?’ asked Ron quietly.
‘What does it look like?’ Ginny snapped.
‘Ginny -’ Hermione started.
‘Look, I’ve already written the first letter; if you stop me now, I’ll have to get a fresh form.’
‘Have you thought about this?’ Ron asked. ‘Is it really the best idea?’
‘There’s nothing that needs thinking about,’ Ginny said, shaking her hand from his fist, and with a flourish, she finished off her Potter. ‘Done,’ she said, handing the form, quill and ink back to Madam Pomfrey and reaching out to Hermione for her daughter. As Hermione passed the baby over, Ginny said, ‘There’s something important I want to talk to you two about.’
‘What is it?’ asked Hermione.
Ginny wrapped her hand around her daughter’s head. ‘I want you,’ she said carefully without looking up, ‘to promise me something.’
‘What?’ asked Hermione.
‘That, as long as we live, and I think we three are going to live for a long time, that you won’t tell her exactly how Harry died. Or,’ she added before Ron could utter whatever mutinous exclamation he looked on the verge of, ‘that you’ll try as hard as you can not to. Delay it as long as possible. I mean, you can tell her the bare bones - but don’t go into specifics. Don’t go into - try to avoid why he died. Why he ran into Hogwarts in the first place.’ She looked up at them, her eyes beseeching. ‘I don’t want her to have that guilt.’
‘Ginny ...’ started Hermione.
‘You can tell her things,’ said Ginny abruptly, looking down again. ‘Actually, tell her everything. I know Harry always - always hated that he didn’t - he wished he knew more about his parents. But just don’t tell her that.’
*
‘That’s why I came here,’ says Finn one night in May as he flicks his wand at the sink of elegant glass dishes for the sundaes. ‘The war, the struggle, something to fight for … This country’s an exciting place to be right now - you understand?’
‘Not so exciting if you’re in the middle of it,’ Hermione says, pulling on her jacket.
‘So tell me, Hermione Granger,’ he says, throwing down a dish-cloth with one of his large, lightly-freckled hands. ‘What exactly did you do in the war? No lies, this time.’
She sighs. ‘I was Harry Potter’s best friend,’ she says. ‘I have a medal, if you want to see it.’
Finn stares at the washing-up. ‘Will you rent a flat with me?’
She smiles. ‘I’d like that very much.’
When she tells Ron, he says, ‘They’re looking for a new shop assistant at Quality Quidditch Supplies. I applied for it.’
‘Good for you,’ she says.
They are silent.
‘Do you mind me moving into Muggle London? You can come and visit,’ she says, not really meaning it.
After a second, he says, ‘I think it’s for the best.’
*
She and Finn don’t have sex.
Well, not usually.
Once, when they have finished off a bottle of wine, he confesses that he is still a bit confused about exactly to which of the sexes he is attracted, and she drunkenly offers to help him out.
She isn’t offended when, four days later, she sees him chatting up a young man in the Leaky Cauldron.
I turned a man gay, she thinks, before giggling with delight.
*
‘I’m never having sex again,’ Ron said in the spring when the cold was thawing and the crocuses were blooming and someone had finally taken a good look at Ginny’s stomach and McGonagall had called her into her office and sent her home.
‘Thanks for sharing that, Ron,’ said Fred.
Ron sat down heavily at The Burrow’s kitchen table next to Fred and opposite Hermione. ‘You won’t take it personally, will you?’ he asked her dully.
‘It’s fine by me,’ she said, glancing up at the window facing out onto the back garden. She was hoping for a glimpse of Harry and Ginny, but her view was obliterated by Bill, Charlie and George.
‘Oh Great Grunnion,’ said Fred with a revolted expression, jolting Hermione back into the kitchen; she felt an unpleasant mixture of embarrassment and resignation settle in her stomach. ‘You two are at it as well, are you?’
‘Piss off,’ Ron said, his face and ears glowing scarlet.
‘We’re not going to be hearing the pitter-patter of four tiny feet in nine months, are we?’ asked George from the window.
‘Shut it.’
‘More like four months,’ said Charlie, eyes still narrowed at the view from the window.
There was a silence as Charlie’s words filtered down through the humid air of the kitchen, until so recently filled with angry shouting, and then George left the window and came and sat down next to Fred. ‘I suppose a back-slap and a “get in there my son” is a bit inappropriate, given the circumstances?’
‘I mean it,’ Ron growled, ‘if you don’t shut the fuck up about me and Hermione -’
‘Well that’s the point, I’m not saying anything - at least not while the lady’s in the room -’
‘Ohhh -!’ cried Charlie with a Quidditch wince. ‘That’s got to hurt.’
‘What?’ asked Ron, looking up in anguish. ‘What?’
‘She just slapped him,’ said Charlie. ‘Right across the face.’
‘Oh,’ said Hermione, ‘oh, Harry.’ She bit her bottom lip and tried as hard as she could not to show how dangerously close she was to dissolving into tears.
‘Oh, God,’ said Ron, sliding his head into his hands.
‘And now …’ said Charlie. ‘And now he’s got his arms stretched out, all “Go on, hit me again - does that make you feel better?”’
George winced. ‘Bad move.’
‘And, yep,’ said Charlie with relish, ‘she just slapped him again.’
‘I’ve got to see this,’ said George, standing up again and returning to the window.
‘Good,’ said Fred decisively, leaning back and folding his arms. ‘He deserves a good slap.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Charlie with a shrug. ‘He hasn’t done that much wrong.’
‘He knocked her up!’ Fred cried in outrage.
‘Don’t say that,’ Hermione whispered to the table. ‘Just don’t.’
‘All right, he impregnated her -’
‘Shut up,’ said Ron fiercely. ‘I swear to fucking God, Fred, this isn’t a fucking joke -’
‘I never said it was a joke,’ said Fred darkly.
There was a silence. Hermione wound her hands into her hair and thought of Mrs Weasley’s slammed bedroom door and supposed that she must be sending an owl to Mr Weasley, summoning him home at once; she thought of how Harry had chased Ginny outside and swung her round to face him; she thought of his fear that Death Eaters were watching the house.
George turned around and folded his arms. ‘Where were you three at Christmas?’
‘Busy,’ said Ron.
‘You’re really going to have to come up with a better answer than that.’
‘I think that’s what Harry’s learning right now,’ said Charlie.
‘Don’t joke,’ said Hermione.
There was another silence. She thought of Ginny’s march to the back door in slightly swollen nightdress and bare feet and Harry’s shout of ‘Ginny! Don’t - don’t go outside!’; she thought of Ginny’s contemptuous gaze, her ‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do’, and the second slammed door.
‘Somebody say something,’ said Ron.
‘You told us not to joke,’ said Fred.
After a second, Ron sighed. ‘I still don’t know how this happened. As far as I know they haven’t seen each other since August. And that would be - what, seven months?’
‘Definitely less than that,’ said Charlie. ‘She’s no way seven months.’
‘And he hasn’t left us since August. So, unless these two have been doing some kind of weird Occlumency thing, I don’t see how -’
‘You’re saying Harry’s sperm can do Legilimency?’ asked Fred.
‘Now that’s what I call a party trick,’ said George.
‘We’ll have to get him to teach ours -’
‘October,’ said Hermione, abruptly raising her head and silencing the twins. ‘You remember … that night in October?’
She watched the memory and the realization dawn in Ron’s eyes.
‘We thought he …’ she started to tell the others, but the truth was suddenly so embarrassing that she had to mumble the rest of her explanation to the table. ‘We thought he was going to Godric’s Hollow.’
There was a silence.
‘I’ll fucking kill him,’ said Ron.
‘I think it’s gone a bit beyond the stage of getting a duffing up from big brother,’ said Charlie.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Bill darkly, speaking for the first time. ‘I could find it in me for a good few punches.’
‘I can’t believe him,’ said Ron, shaking his head. ‘I can’t believe him.’
‘Oh, Ron -’
‘He let us think,’ he cut in, ‘he let us think that he was going off to cry over his dead parents …’ He shook his head again.
‘Look,’ said Charlie, ‘let’s be honest: if anyone’s doing the slapping out of these two -’ he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the window - ‘it should really be the other way round.’
‘Domestic violence? Great!’ cried George. ‘What else is this melodrama lacking?’
‘That’s not what I -’ Charlie folded his arms. ‘All I’m saying is that Harry’s basically the innocent party of these two -’
‘Whose side are you on?’ demanded Bill.
‘Oh for fuck’s - grow up, Bill -’
‘Why don’t you grow some loyalty -’
‘All right, brother of mine,’ said Charlie, ‘how would you feel if the way you found out some girl you slept with five months ago was pregnant was by a Howler from her mother?’
Bill glowered. ‘Well, that wouldn’t happen to me,’ he said after a second, ‘because I am married.’
‘Subtle, Bill,’ said George. ‘Thanks for keeping your feelings on what should happen next in this tale such a mystery.’
Bill chose to ignore this. ‘I can’t believe he told you he was going to a graveyard, and instead he was …’ He looked out the window. ‘That little bastard.’
Hermione snapped. ‘Oh, shut up!’ she cried, standing up. ‘How dare you? Ginny is perfectly capable of making her own decisions! It’s not all his fault! What are you accusing him of? Rape? I -’
‘Hermione - Hermione,’ started Ron with his alarmed face, ‘that isn’t what - it’s not a question of -’
‘Yes, it is - don’t you see?’ she shrieked, dimly aware that she sounded like a banshee but really when had that stopped her before - ‘That’s exactly what it’s a question of - ridiculous, overprotective, sexist, misogynistic big brother - crap -’
‘He didn’t tell me!’ exploded Ron with a roar and a jump to his feet. ‘He slept with my little sister and he didn’t bloody tell me!’
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ she half-snarled. ‘That’s what you’re thinking about? That’s what’s upsetting you? That he didn’t tell you?’
‘Yeah! If - if he’d told me what was going to happen, I could’ve at least given him a bloody contraceptive charm -’
‘Don’t pretend that’s what this is about - of all the immature -’
‘I told him!’
She felt like she was the one who’d been slapped. ‘You what?’
‘You know what?’ Fred jumped to his feet abruptly. ‘I think I’ll go and check on Mum - see if she’s calm enough to face humanity again -’
‘Good idea, think I’ll join you,’ said George, hurrying for the stairs.
‘I - ‘Mione, don’t -’ Ron seemed to have shrunk. ‘It wasn’t - don’t get -’
‘You told him?’
‘Bill, shall we - er - go outside?’ asked Charlie.
‘I had to!’ yelled Ron. ‘He deserves to know if we’re a couple -’
‘He knew we were a -’ she choked out. ‘You didn’t have to tell him - the rest of it!’
‘I - it was just -’
‘It was just you filling him on all the details!’ she shrieked.
‘No! It wasn’t - I just told him it had happened, all right? No - no details. OK? I - if it was about anyone else, I would’ve told him stuff, yeah,’ he said hastily, looking around anxiously at his brothers, all frozen in the midst of their hurried exits - ‘but - it’s you. I know you and him are friends, all right? I wouldn’t do that to you.’
She didn’t know what to think.
‘Besides,’ he said, ‘trust me, he really didn’t want to know.’
A disgusted noise wrenched itself from her throat and she threw herself at the back door and pulled it open. ‘Are you two quite finished?’ she shouted, before she stopped in shock, for Harry was on the grass in front of Ginny on bended knee. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.
‘What?’ said Ron quickly, and he must have turned to the window, because then, ‘Holy fuck.’
She spun away and buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t look.
‘That, if I am not much mistaken, is a proposal,’ said Charlie. ‘He must have heard you, Bill.’
Two warm hands were pulling her gently forwards by the shoulders until she hit a solid chest.
‘It’s OK,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘We won’t watch.’
‘What is he doing?’ she whispered, the argument so quickly forgotten it must surely have happened to another person. Maybe it did. ‘How could he be so stupid?’
‘They’re both a bit stupid, aren’t they?’ he whispered in her ear, big warm arms wrapped around her.
‘Ginny deserves better than a wandpoint wedding,’ said George slightly morosely.
‘Ginny deserves better than some tosser who knocks her up and then vanishes for five months,’ said Bill darkly.
‘Yeah, because Harry’s face half an hour ago was really the face of a man who knew his girlfriend was pregnant,’ said Charlie. ‘He didn’t look like he was having a heart attack at all.’
‘He shouldn’t do this,’ whispered Hermione. ‘This is all … wrong … I can’t believe any of this is happening …’
‘M’neither,’ he murmured into her hair.
Goodness, she loved him.
‘This is one strange proposal,’ she heard Fred say.
‘Is he proposing to … it?’ asked George.
‘He isn’t saying anything,’ said Charlie, confused.
‘Maybe it’s a Legilimency proposal.’
‘That isn’t a proposal …’ started Bill.
‘It’s kicking!’ cried Charlie.
‘What?’ cried Ron and Hermione, looking up in unison.
‘I think it’s a bit early for vying over who’s going to make the best godparent,’ said Fred, but he didn’t look away from the window.
Ron and Hermione ran to the open back door and stared out. ‘Oh,’ said Hermione at the scene outside, ‘oh, you’re right, it must be kicking … Oh …’
Ron gripped her hand tightly. She gripped back.
*
‘Fucking thing,’ says Ginny, kicking the pushchair until it collapses in on itself. ‘It was mine when I was a baby,’ she says when Hermione shoots her an enquiring look. ‘Only of course the magic’s worn off the bloody thing so it’s no more use than a Muggle one …’ She chucks it behind the kitchen door in disgust.
‘Oh dear,’ Hermione says to the redheaded one-year-old in her arms. ‘Mummy’s cross with your pushchair, isn’t she? She’s calling it some very bad things, isn’t she? Do you think Mummy would like a cup of tea? Shall we go and make her one?’
‘You’re an angel, Hermione,’ says Ginny. Her daughter gurgles in agreement.
Hermione slides the toddler into the high-chair she and Finn keep for occasions such as this and puts the kettle on. ‘How are things?’
‘And that’s another thing,’ Ginny says darkly. ‘I’ve got to stop swearing around her. And don’t you start, either. She’s started repeating things.’
‘Oh, no,’ says Hermione, looking up from peeling a banana with amusement. ‘What’s she said?’
‘Nothing, yet,’ says Ginny. ‘Nothing bad, anyway. Apart from calling Neville a gnome ...’
‘Don’t worry, Ginny,’ said Hermione, mashing up the banana with a fork into a plastic bowl, ‘I’m sure -’
‘Don’t -’ Ginny interrupts urgently. ‘Make sure there’s no bruised bits - she doesn’t eat those bits -’
‘I remember,’ Hermione says softly.
She looks up. Ginny seems to eat and breathe exhaustion these days, but today, she looks even worse than usual.
‘How are you?’ she asks, placing the banana in front of the toddler. ‘There you are, sweetheart - are you all right?’
Ginny sighs and tries to smile. ‘Just tired, that’s all.’
Hermione goes and sits down next to her and together they watch the odd creature in front of them try to shove mashed banana into its mouth.
‘When will she be able to feed herself?’ asks Hermione conversationally as they watch her rubbing the banana roundabout her left ear.
‘A few months, I think,’ says Ginny. ‘Only finger food, though.’
‘Will you -’
‘I keep dreaming about Harry,’ says Ginny.
Hermione says nothing.
‘I haven’t dreamt about him in months,’ says Ginny. ‘Not since last summer.’
Hermione reaches for her hand. ‘I dream about him sometimes.’
‘I dream that we’re living together. And that we’re sleeping next to each other. And then I wake up and have to work out where he is, and every single day I have to go through everything again ...’
‘Oh, Ginny,’ Hermione says.
‘And I have to think about him. I don’t want to think about him. I don’t want to be forced to dwell on him every day, I don’t want -’
Hermione squeezes Ginny’s hand and she breaks off and squeezes back.
Hermione doesn’t know what to say, so she states the obvious. ‘I miss him so much.’
Seconds tick by.
‘I’m so angry with him,’ Ginny whispers. ‘All I can feel is anger. I mean, if he’d lived, God knows it wouldn’t have been perfect - so far from perfect - but it would have been easier. We would have had a flat, and money, and I wouldn’t be living with my parents ...’
Hermione swallows. ‘Did you ever ... talk about this? With Harry?’
‘Hermione, between the day I told him I was pregnant and the day he died I saw him twice.’
Hermione opens her mouth, shocked, but she still doesn’t know what to say. That can’t be right.
‘We did, actually,’ says Ginny with a little more softness: her tone is both embarrassed and unapologetic. ‘We ... well, we used to say what I’d just said. Get a flat, raise our baby. He said if all else failed, we could live in Grimmauld Place, and I said over my dead body.’ She shrugged bitterly. ‘But then dear old Bella torched the place and even that wasn’t an option.’
Hermione thinks of the months between March and July, months in which she was inseparable from Harry and Ron as the three of them did nothing but hunt Horcruxes -
‘It’s not your fault, Hermione,’ says Ginny. ‘I knew he had a job to do.’
Hermione holds her hand a little tighter.
‘I wish I wasn’t so lonely,’ says Ginny.
‘Oh, Ginny - I’ll -’
‘No,’ says Ginny. ‘Don’t even think about moving back to The Burrow - you’re so much better here. Honestly, Hermione, you’re much healthier - it’s better if you stay here. For both of us. Don’t you dare come back.’
Ginny looks so fierce Hermione has to believe her. ‘What about - Ron? Is he still at home with you?’
‘He’s just moved in with Dean and Neville,’ says Ginny. ‘And I don’t begrudge him it, honestly, he’s doing OK now, actually - I just -’
‘I understand, Ginny, really,’ Hermione says quickly, feeling a bit heartbroken by Ginny’s words and eyes and her own inability to help.
‘I love her,’ says Ginny. ‘I love her so much. And I’m so grateful to Mum and Dad and everything they’ve done, I really couldn’t have done it without them - it’s just -’
‘I understand, I understand, really,’ Hermione gabbles, putting her arm around Ginny.
Ginny’s head drops down onto Hermione’s shoulder. ‘I think we just wasted a banana,’ she says.
‘I have another one,’ says Hermione.
‘The least the idiot could have done was write a will,’ Ginny mumbles.
‘I understand,’ Hermione says again, while hoping with her heart of hearts that she never will.
*
‘Harry!’ Ron cried as he burst through the doors of the Hospital Wing, Healer in tow; taking a flying leap over the black-robed body on the smooth grey flagstones of the floor, he fell to his knees at his best friend’s side. ‘Harry - we’re here for you, it’s gonna be all right -’
‘No, Ron,’ Hermione sobbed from where she knelt at Harry’s side, clutching his hand. ‘No, we can’t … it’s too late.’
‘It’s OK,’ Harry said from the floor, smiling benignly. ‘I don’t mind going.’
His eyes behind his glasses closed.
‘No!’ shouted Ginny, and before Hermione knew what had happened, Ginny had flung herself at Harry’s blood-soaked form and grabbed the front of his robes. ‘Don’t - don’t - how could this have happened? How could this ...’ Her words became unintelligible through her sobs and she collapsed onto his chest.
Harry smiled. ‘Stay close to me, Ginny,’ he said. ‘I love you. I love you and our daughter.’
‘But we won ...’ sobbed Ginny. ‘We won.’
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s OK.’
Then, he took the hands of Ron and Hermione.
‘It’s OK,’ he said again. And then his eyes closed.
Oh, if only, thinks Hermione. If only it could have ended like that.
*
Hermione loves Florean’s, but after a year, she starts to feel discontented, and she starts to think. And then, Ron comes to see her.
It is a June day and the sky is overcast with thick pearl-grey but the air is hot, and Hermione’s hair is frizzing. It’s almost three and her shift is about to end, but Finn is at St Mungo’s and she doesn’t want to go back to an empty flat.
As she’s reluctantly untying her apron, she hears his voice say, ‘Oi, waitress!’
She turns around and sees him sitting at a table by himself, his freckles standing out brown in his face. He grins.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Oh, er, hello.’
‘Are you free?’
‘I ... yes, I suppose so,’ she says. ‘Do you want anything?’
‘Nah, I ... came to see you,’ he says. ‘Do you - are you free?’
‘Yes.’ She sits down at his table.
‘So,’ he says. ‘How’ve you been?’
‘I ... well, actually. You?’
‘Oh, yeah. Good, good.’
She reminds herself not to fidget. ‘Are you still working at Quality Quidditch Supplies?’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Half the week. And half the week I’m at Fred and George’s.’
‘Working with the twins?’ she asks with a smile. ‘What’s that like?’
He smiles lopsidedly and shrugs a shoulder. ‘It’s all right. They don’t bully me too much.’
‘Of course not,’ she says.
‘Are you happy here, Hermione?’
‘I ... what?’
He licks his lips nervously. ‘Are you happy?’
She pauses. ‘Happier than I was,’ she says cautiously.
He nods thoughtfully. ‘Are you happy ... working here?’ She says nothing. ‘Cause I haven’t minded my jobs, it’s fun sometimes and the wages are decent, but it’s not what I want to do indefinitely, y’know?’
Yes, she does know. ‘What do you want to do indefinitely?’
‘Be an Auror,’ he says without embarrassment.
‘So ...’ This conversation isn’t following the rules; she can’t fathom it. ‘How is that going to ... have you spoken to the Ministry?’
‘A bit.’ He grimaces. ‘I spoke to Shacklebolt, but he wasn’t that enthusiastic about his chances of getting me in without any NEWTs.’
‘But he’s the head of the department, surely he can ... What about the Minister?’
‘I’m not asking that prat Robards for any favours,’ he says darkly.
‘So ... what are you going to do?’
‘Well, I haven’t got much choice, have I?’ He shrugs. ‘I suppose I’m going back to Hogwarts.’
‘Will you ...’ She doesn’t know how to phrase it. ‘Are you ... happy to do that?’
He shrugs. ‘I kind of want to show I can do it, you know? And I don’t really want to cheat my way in to the department, anyway.’ He pauses. ‘What about you?’
She decides to be honest. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t want to change the world anymore?’
‘I ...’ Oh, for goodness’ sake, she tells herself. You are not going to be beaten by Ron Weasley at conversational skills. ‘You can change the world from an ice cream shop.’
He snorts. ‘How?’
‘In small ways,’ she says with annoyance. ‘You don’t need statutes of law to make the world a better place.’
‘Well, all right,’ he says. ‘But anyone can do that. What if you’ve got the brains to be changing the world with statutes of law?’
‘You’re saying I have a duty to work at the Ministry?’
‘I’m saying ...’ He tails off. ‘Only if it would make you happy.’
They look at each other. This is possibly the strangest conversation she’s ever had with Ron.
‘Ron, I can’t go back to Hogwarts,’ she says. ‘I’m twenty-one in September.’
He shrugs. ‘I doubt McGonagall will care.’
‘But ... everyone will be three years younger than us.’
He shrugs again. ‘I’ve lived through worse. Listen, I have to get back to the twins, but I’ll see you soon, yeah?’ She nods. ‘I just wanted to ... see how you are. Let you know what I was up to. That sort of thing.’ He stands up. ‘Look, I’ve heard that a certain someone turns two next month. I’ll see you at the party, right?’
She nods again. ‘Thanks for coming, Ron ... It was good to see you -’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says, and then he walks away and leaves her staring at the table.
Continue to I(b)