All That Remains
Ron lay as still as possible, unwilling to disturb the sleeping girl cradled in his arms.
He was amazed at how very precious she had become to him. A part of him was frightened; it felt like she carried his heart in her pocket everywhere she went. He felt vulnerable, exposed. They were closer than ever, sleeping next to each other every night now. But they hadn’t talked about it; about what it all meant.
He felt like a bloody girl, wanting to talk about feelings and things. But this was Hermione, and this was important. It was the most important thing in the world, actually.
He wanted to be sure she knew that he wasn’t messing her about. He wanted her to know that when he kissed her, it wasn’t just a randy bloke kissing a pretty girl. It was so much more than that, but he didn’t know how to say it. He had all of these ... emotions bubbling up around his chest and they got all tangled together and confused and he just ... he just didn’t know how to deal with it all, really.
Hermione had once accused him of having the emotional range of a teaspoon. He wondered what she would say if she could see inside him to the tangled mess of grief and love and fear and joy and…too much of everything.
He was fairly sure that Hermione kept her emotions neatly categorized in boxes, to be taken out at the appropriate occasion. Ron’s emotions could never seem to manage appropriate.
At Fred’s funeral he had been astoundingly preoccupied with the feeling of Hermione’s hand in his, at the amazing things that small contact did to him. Then on a private walk to the lake with Hermione he had only been able to feel the gaping hole in his life, the indelible stain on his heart left by the loss of his brother, the terrible gnawing guilt of being alive when Fred wasn’t. He simply couldn’t manage to have the correct emotions at the appropriate moment.
Hermione groaned softly in her sleep and his entire body tensed, prepared to pull her out of whatever horrors her mind went to. She simply snuggled closer, her hair tickling against his nose. He began to relax in inches. It had been difficult to accept that they were truly safe now; his body was still wired to fight at any moment. He couldn’t sleep without his wand under his pillow. He even found himself waking up periodically to check that Hermione was alright, that Harry was in his bed.
He glanced over at the empty bed squeezed tight against the wall across from them. Harry wasn’t back yet. He had developed an uncanny knack for leaving them alone when it was tactful to do so.
Their twin beds were small, and Ron’s feet had a tendency to hang off the end, but he didn’t mind at all. He was secretly thrilled that there was so little space that Hermione was forced to practically sleep on top of him. He had tried to give her the bed and sleep on the floor at first, but Hermione had told him not to be an idiot after he had woken up shivering. The instant she had thrown back the covers and commanded him to get in would forever be one of his most favorite moments.
She whimpered, tiny lines appearing between her brows and around her mouth, like she was attempting to frown or shout or something.
He was worried about her.
She spent so much energy suppressing her emotions during the day; determined to be practical and useful, that she was overwhelmed by them at night when her mind lay open and vulnerable. The nightmares had become a regular part of their routine now. Something they dealt with each night and then ignored over the breakfast table.
Ron felt his blood boil with helpless anger. He hated feeling this way. He needed to be strong for her, and for Harry, and for his family. Because he wasn’t strong enough before. He couldn’t be there when they really needed him most. He had let them take her from him, and hurt her so badly that she was still feeling echoes of the pain. He had stood and watched while his brother was killed, taken from all of them forever.
He had to be stronger now, a better Ron. For all of them.
…
George sat at the kitchen table and watched Harry bustle around, making them both cups of tea. Fred would have thought it was funny, being served tea by the savior of the wizarding world. Only, Harry hadn’t been Fred’s savior, no one had.
George put his hands under the table before Harry could see them shaking. He didn’t know why they did that sometimes. There was no reason for it.
Harry sat down across from him and slid a steaming cup of tea across the table. George wondered how long it would take him to get up the courage to look at him. He should have been proud, really, to be something that the Boy Who Lived was finally afraid to confront.
But he wasn’t proud.
No one looked at him anymore, not really. To tell the truth, he found it difficult to look at himself, and had started to avoid reflective surfaces. His own father could only meet his gaze with a kind of pained squint, like he was trying to focus only on the parts of him that were George, and not a Twin.
…
Harry watched George carefully wrap his hands around his cup. He was fairly sure the tea was too hot to hold like that, but George didn’t seem to notice if there was pain.
Harry looked at his face for the first time, and struggled not to show a reaction. George looked like absolute hell. Like an escapee from Azkaban halfway through a life sentence. It hadn’t even been that long, since … But it had been a lifetime for George. His cheeks were sunken in, his eyes barely visible beyond the thick ring of bruises that swallowed each orb. His eyes … were staring right at Harry, and Harry didn’t know what to say. George broke the silence.
“So, what brings you skipping down to the kitchen?”
Harry scratched his head. “Oh, well. I couldn’t sleep, I guess.”
George shrugged. “Naw, not with Hermione screaming like that, I reckon.”
Harry looked at him sharply “How did you know that was Hermione?”
“Well, unless you or Ron have developed a magnificent falsetto, then that was definitely a girl.”
Harry leaned forward, tea forgotten. “But, how did you … how long have you known Hermione was sleeping up there … with us?”
George sipped his tea. “You mean with Ron. Unless the three of you are far more interesting than we ever gave you credit for!”
Harry struggled not to wince. George still used “we” sometimes when referring to himself. Harry was suddenly battered with the endless waves of guilt that had followed him off the battlefield. So many lives …
George continued. “I guess I’ve known for a while now. The three of you aren’t nearly as stealthy as you seem to think you are. You know, we’ve been working on some things for that at the shop, real secret agent stuff, and …”
He stopped abruptly and looked into his tea like he was trying to pass an exam in Divination. Then he simply stood and walked out, Harry heard the back door click shut moments later.
He didn’t need to look out the window to know where George was going. He was going to the small mound of freshly turned earth between the garden and the Quidditch pitch.
George had declined the offer to bury Fred at Hogwarts. He had said it would be cruel for him to have to listen to lectures throughout eternity. Then he had quipped that it was only slightly less cruel for him to have to watch Ron play rubbish Quidditch. Everyone had been relieved that he could still joke like that, but Harry had seen that it was costing him dearly. George was putting on a brave face for his family, but Harry doubted that he saw anything as a joke anymore.
Harry sipped his rapidly cooling tea and decided that he had given his friends enough time to compose themselves. He cleaned the kitchen with a wave of his wand and crept back to the attic as silently as possible. Ron was awake when he got there, his wand pointed at the door when Harry opened it. Harry nodded at him and crossed to his bed, feeling completely exhausted.
He cocooned himself in the warmth of the handmade quilt and fought back the ghosts long enough for sleep to overtake him. He dreamed of golden snitches and red haired girls and a slowly burning fire that relentlessly consumed the entire world.