Archive of Our Own

“We reached for each other, and I thought of how many nights I had lain awake loving him in silence. ”

- Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

Harry

Dumbledore dying was the beginning of the end. 

Harry could feel the energy shifting in the aftermath of the battle, the way the air had changed in the hallways of Hogwarts. Each day that he was stuck waiting to be whisked away from Privet Drive that summer was a day that he spent wondering how many people were dying because of him. Every time he closed his eyes, an image of Ron’s face gone slack passed behind his eyelids. His dreams were plagued by death. He found that it was much easier to just stop sleeping.

When the Order appeared on his doorstep to steal him into the night, he wrapped his arms around Ron tightly and wondered whether it would be the last time he got to hug his best friend. The thought was fleeting, forced away as Hermione wormed her arms around his waist for her turn at hugging him. 

His eyes trailed over each of the people standing in his living room, comforting himself with the knowledge that each of them was there. They were all alive. Alive, and willing to help him before he’d even asked. Harry felt like a ticking time bomb. How long could he ask them to continue risking their lives? A small, horrible part of him wondered if eventually they would realize that he wasn’t worth it.

“Alright, Harry?” Ron asked, grinning in a way that didn’t quite meet his eyes. The sound of his voice made something inside of Harry melt—the part of him that had frozen itself to make the hurt lessen.

“Better, now that you’re here,” he replied, and meant it. 

---

Losing Hedwig felt like losing a piece of himself. It felt a bit silly to feel so devastated over the loss of an owl, though he tried to not think of it that way. She’d weathered his summers with the Dursleys year after year, providing his only connection to the outside world when he felt all alone. She’d often been the only thing that kept him going mad at times, the only thing that assured him that the Wizarding World wasn’t some beautiful fantasy he’d come up with in a half-crazed mind. 

Hedwig had been his very first friend.

Harry decided that he did not want to think about Mad-Eye’s death. Every time he remembered it, he wasn’t sure whether to sob or punch something. Every cell in his body wanted to seek out that cowardly bastard Mundungus, and show him what he really needed to be afraid of. He knew it wasn’t helpful, of course. He couldn’t really blame Dung for not wanting to die. But that didn’t stop the anger that tore through his chest right along with the grief.

He very carefully avoided worrying about what would happen to their cause with one of their best soldiers gone.

And what was almost as bad—George had gotten hurt. George, who had accepted him into his family without question; who had been an unerring support, even when members of that family weren’t; who had teamed up with his brother to bring a little extra light to the darkness. George, whose blood had stained the couch cushions and still managed to crack a joke. The guilt that ate at Harry’s chest was nearly overwhelming.

He lay awake that night long after retiring to bed, eyes tracing a hazy brown splotch on Ron’s ceiling. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. Every time he tried to close his eyes, images of the night’s tragedies flashed across his eyelids. Hedwig plummeting to the ground. Stan Shunpike’s pale face. Hagrid’s limp body draped over the motorbike’s handlebars. Andromeda Tonks’ worried eyes.

“Harry?” Ron’s voice broke through the darkness sometime after midnight. “You awake?” 

“Yeah,” Harry said, startled by the huskiness of his voice. There were tears in his chest that he hadn’t realized had built up. He cleared his throat. “Can’t sleep.”

“Me either,” Ron replied quietly. It sounded both broken and relieved all at once. “I- You think Moody’s really gone?”

“That’s what Bill said.” He hated it, hated the thought of the man dying for him. Moody wasn’t supposed to die. He was meant to be invincible. So many things had tried to kill the paranoid man, but nothing had succeeded. Nothing until Harry—

He forced himself not to follow that line of thought. After all, he hadn’t been the one who’d cast the curse. He hadn’t been the one who’d left him to die. (He had been the one Moody was protecting. It was his fault, when you got down to it.)

“I’m sorry George got hurt because of me,” he added, quiet enough that if they had been anywhere else besides Ron’s bedroom he wouldn’t have heard it. There was a shuffling sound, the blankets moving and the bed creaking until, out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see the fuzzy shape of Ron’s long pale face turned his way. 

“Harry,” he said, and something about the way he said it sounded so broken that Harry had to close his eyes against it. “Harry, you can’t think that I- I mean, you don’t think that anyone blames you, do you?”

Harry shrugged. It went quiet for another moment, long enough that he was almost sure that Ron had fallen back asleep. Then the bed creaked again before Ron whispered across the dark expanse of his room. “C’mere, you prat,” he called, and Harry found himself tumbling across the room and falling onto Ron’s bed before he could tell himself not to. He held himself painfully still at Ron’s side, scared that breathing wrong would scare the other boy off.

Instead of pressing himself against the wall, Ron pulled the blankets tightly around them both. He let out a small sigh, turned his body towards Harry, and shook his head. “You’re an idiot, you know,” he said. It wasn’t a question. Harry shrugged again, swallowing against the lump in his throat. Ron huffed in annoyance and rolled his blue eyes. “Merlin, Harry, it’s no one’s fault but Voldemort’s.” 

Though Harry privately disagreed, he figured that it would be more effort than it was worth to argue the point. In any case, his eyelids were growing heavy. He found himself rolling towards the warmth of Ron’s body instinctively, tucking his head awkward against his friend’s chest. Before he knew it, Harry drifted off to sleep, lulled the sounds of Ron’s breathing and the rhythmic thumping of the Attic Ghoul. 

For the first time in a very long time, he didn’t dream.

---

Harry woke up the next morning to find himself curled tightly against Ron’s chest, one of Ron’s long arms wrapped around him and pulling him closer. He resisted the urge to pull away with a start. Leaning against the other boy was one thing, but cuddling with him in their sleep was quite another. 

He removed himself as carefully as possible, slipping out of bed and replacing his body with the pillow off of his cot. Then he hurried downstairs for breakfast before Ron could wake up and find him tucked underneath his chin and clinging to him like he was the last good thing left in the world. 

(Though, to be frank, he may as well have been.) 

Mrs. Weasley was thrilled to see him, fretting over his messy hair and piling his plate high with the food that he’d been denied with the Dursleys. In all the chaos of the previous night, she’d only managed to hug him tight to her chest and scan him briefly for injuries before her attention had been called away. Clearly, she felt that she needed to make up for lost time.

Her fretting stopped just short of wiping the dried drool off of his chin, but barely. By the time he managed to escape her, Arthur had settled at the table with the Prophet open in front of him. Harry dropped into a seat at the table next to Hermione, who looked up from beneath her wild curls and frowned at him suspiciously. 

“Morning, ‘Mione,” he said, as brightly as he could manage. He hoped to stave off her worry, but he could tell from her sharp look that he’d failed. Still he smiled as cheerfully as possible, and reached around her for the pitcher of orange juice. “Sleep well?”

She frowned harder, narrowing her eyes. “Hardly,” she said bluntly, staring at him in that one particular way that she always did. Like she was combing his eyes for secrets. Harry looked away as his cheeks began to flush. “Are you alright, Harry?”

He stared down at a pile of scrambled eggs that could not have looked less appetizing. “Peachy,” he mumbled. He remembered Hedwig’s final screech before going suddenly limp. His stomach flipped, and he shoved his plate away from him as subtly as he could manage.

Ron chose that moment to drop into the seat on Harry’s other side. He frowned over at Harry, glancing between his face and the full plate. “You going to eat all that, Harry?” he asked, pointing at the several strips of bacon that Molly had slid onto it before he could protest. Harry shook his head, and something in his expression must have looked slightly ill because Ron didn’t question it. Hermione sniffed in disapproval, but Ron sent her a look Harry couldn’t read, and she turned back to her book.

Ron helped himself to Harry’s bacon, but not before he pulled the plate back to Harry. “Eat,” he muttered, quiet enough that only Harry and Hermione could hear him. “You didn’t get much sleep. Need the energy.”

Harry bit back his reply. Ron hadn’t gotten much sleep either, probably less than him. He’d probably spent hours worrying over his brother in the darkened room while Harry slept peacefully at his side. If he was anything like Harry, he likely had been unable to wipe the image of George’s blood spilling across his face from his mind. There were deep dark circles bruising the skin beneath his blue eyes that gave it away. 

Still, Harry said nothing. It wasn’t worth the fight. He  forced himself to chew a forkful of eggs that he couldn’t taste with only a small glare in Ron’s general direction. Ron turned to  fill his own plate and Harry found himself leaning heavily into Ron’s side. 

For once, he wasn’t able to pull himself away. Instead, he let himself soak in the warmth radiating off of his friend’s skin. Ron leaned closer to him, patting Harry’s thigh comfortingly beneath the table with one hand. Harry felt his blush returning, but Ron moved to sop up his beans with toast without comment. And, well, Harry wasn’t going to say anything if Ron wasn’t.

Harry allowed the conversation to drift on around him, not taking anything in. It distracted him just enough that he managed to eat half his plate before he decided that he was full.

---

“No,” Harry said immediately, staring between Ron and Hermione. He was sitting on the bed as they stood in front of him. For a moment, he felt almost like a child in front of them, about to be scolded for doing something stupid.

 “I won’t let you risk your lives for me. Are you crazy?” His heart pounded in chest and seemed to be making its way up his throat. He couldn’t lose Ron and Hermione. Everyone else had been bad enough, but if they followed him on the Horcrux hunt and they died… 

“If that’s your worry, Harry, then it’s too late,” Hermione snapped. For a moment, he saw the tiny, bushy haired girl on the train, the know-it-all who raised her hand so high in class that she nearly fell out of her seat. The years of stress had hidden most of that little girl out of view, but she was still in there. Her brown eyes flashed just as determinedly as they had when the pair of them were standing in front of a row of potions so long ago. “We’re on Voldemort’s radar already, it’s not like either of us can go back to Hogwarts.”

“Then stay at the Burrow!” Harry insisted. He knew that yelling wouldn’t do anything, but he couldn’t stop himself. His breathing was labored, and the blood that had started to pound in his ears was almost as loud as his thoughts. “Go into hiding. Go find your parents and hide out with them. But don’t follow me on a suicide mission and get yourselves killed for it!” 

Ron looked stricken, his face pale beneath his freckles. “And what? You wander around alone until Voldemort catches up and murders you?” he asked incredulously. His voice was loud, so loud that Harry flinched back instinctively and Hermione’s eyes darted towards the door. Ron seemed to notice, letting his voice drop to one that was low and husky with emotion. “Sorry, mate. I won’t let that happen.”

Harry found himself on his feet, stepping forwards until he was nearly nose-to-nose with Ron. (Or would be, if he was taller. More accurately, he was Adam’s apple with him, which was both amusing and humiliating at that moment.)

It infuriated Harry how much the closeness made his heart speed up in his chest. He channeled that frustration into his voice, which had gone thick and gravelly. “I’m not letting you die for me.”

“Unfortunately, mate, you don’t get a choice in it.” Ron replied. His face was blank, as if he hadn’t just admitted that he didn’t care if he’d died on Harry’s behalf. Hermione looked a moment away from agreeing with him, her jaw set in determination.

Ron stepped back just enough to lock eyes with him, staring him down until Harry had to look away. There was desperation on Ron’s face, and a steely glint that told Harry he wouldn’t win this battle. For a moment, Harry saw a smaller version of him, too, clinging to a giant chess piece as he made the choice to sacrifice himself for Harry for the first time. 

“Fine,” Harry said with a sigh, his shoulders slumping forward. “It’s your funeral.”

Hermione nodded, whispered something that he thought was meant to be encouraging, and hurried off to help Mrs. Weasley with wedding plans before someone came looking for them. Harry made to follow her. He felt a pressing urge to find a secluded corner to cry in. Ron’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. Though he’d barely put any weight on it at all, it might as well have been as heavy as an anchor.

“You have to know that no one is dying because of you,” he insisted, his voice just as strained as it had been in the dark of his bedroom. “Harry, you aren’t making anyone do anything they don’t want to do.”

“I might as well be,” he muttered, before shifting his shoulder away from Ron’s hand and slipping out of the room.

Since he didn’t turn back, he didn’t see the way Ron’s face crumpled as he stared after him..

---

There were only five days between their arrival at the Burrow, and the trio’s planned departure. Harry spent most of them in a fog of panic, which did not go unnoticed by his best friends. 

Almost invariably at some point in the night, Ron would shift aside for him, lifting his faded Chudley Cannons blankets to let Harry slide in beside him. At first, Harry would lay stiffly at his side until he fell asleep and would slip out before Ron woke. Eventually, he stopped making the effort. It was far easier for both of them if he let himself relax as Ron cuddled up to him. 

Their last night in the Burrow, the night of Harry’s birthday, Harry leaned his head heavily against Ron’s shoulder. “Do you think your mum knows?” he asked, large green eyes focusing on the strangely shaped splotch on the ceiling. 

Ron hummed, dislodging Harry as he rolled onto his stomach and threw one long arm haphazardly across his middle. He pressed his cold nose into Harry’s neck and laughed as he shoved his head away. 

“I think she’s in denial,” he admitted finally, his breath brushing across Harry’s face as he spoke. It smelled of the spearmint toothpaste that he’d brushed with before sneaking the tube into his waiting rucksack. “Dad knows, I think. He’s seen the ghoul. But he’s always been better at that sort of thing than Mum.”

The familiar sense of guilt washed over Harry. He hated the thought of upsetting Mrs. Weasley anymore than he already had in the past six years. She had done so much for him, and this was how he repaid her? He rolled onto his side so he was facing Ron in the dark. Ron’s arm tightened around him, pulling him closer until Harry was enveloped in his warmth. 

“D’you think they’re mad at me?” he asked quietly. In the light of the day, he’d never dare ask it out loud, but in the dark, with just the two of them, Harry felt safe. Harry very rarely felt safe. He relished the feeling.

Ron scoffed. “Not likely. Mum thinks you hung the bloody moon, and Dad thinks you shat out the stars,” he said, smiling through the dimness. Harry huffed out a laugh. 

Then Ron’s voice got quieter, more serious. “They’ll understand. They fought the first time ‘round, remember.”

“But your mum-”

“Will get over it,” Ron said firmly. “I’m an adult, aren’t I? And as of today, so are you. ‘Sides, she’s far more concerned with trying to get Ginny to go back to Hogwarts. Reckon she won’t even realize we’re gone until it’s too late”

 Harry hummed an agreement and curled forwards, tucking his head just beneath Ron’s chin. He yawned, and felt more than heard the rumble of his friend’s chuckle. “Get some sleep mate. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.” 

Harry fell asleep before he could form a reply.

---

After the brief respite that was the Burrow, being back in Grimmauld Place was almost physically painful. Not only was the building dark and dreary and drafty, filled with elf heads and sneering portraits and Walburga Black’s screech — he was seeing ghosts around every corner, too.

Not real ghosts, of course. Not the kind that roamed the halls of Hogwarts and offered help with homework and interesting stories if you took the time to befriend them. 

No, he expected to see Sirius leaning on every doorway and lounging in every room. He kept turning as if he’d find his godfather waiting for him with a secret smile and joke. And of course, though he knew Sirius was long dead, his heart kept breaking when he wasn’t there.

He knew that Hermione and Ron could tell something was wrong, but in his defense, something was wrong. Everything felt  stilted and distant. Like they were stuck in the past and in the present and like there was no future to look forward to.

Each night he found himself lying awake in his cold guest room, too afraid to search out Ron now that they had left the bubble of the Burrow. His nightmares woke him up screaming on a regular basis, which he was sure that the others heard. At Hermione’s insistence he hadn’t stopped sleeping, exactly. But if he stayed awake after being roused by his nightmares, well. He’d long since become good at pretending to be far better rested than he actually was. 

It was Hermione who’d had enough first. 

“Oh honestly, Harry, just share a bed with Ron,” she sighed after the fifth time he dozed off above his cereal one morning. Harry’s eyes snapped open to find her sharp gaze trained on him. When she noticed he was looking, she pursed her lips and raised one eyebrow. It was a look that Harry knew well. Hermione had given it to him when she was particularly unimpressed with his behaviour. She had always reminded him of McGonagall when she lobbed it in his direction.

His eyes darted towards the staircase, though he hadn’t yet heard Ron’s heavy footsteps making their way down them. “What?” he said, mouth gaping like a goldfish’s. Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed like he was meant to know what she was talking about. Again, he was reminded of their professor, which was both terrifying and amusing.

“I’m not an idiot, Harry,” she said, sniffing indignantly. 

Harry dropped his gaze to his cereal, his messy locks falling in front of his face. “It’s not what it looks like,” he mumbled, biting his lip. Surely Hermione was upset with him. After all, if anyone should be… should be cuddling up with Ron at night, it should be her. He remembered the birds that she’d sent after Ron the previous year and wondered whether pecking scars would distract from the one on his forehead.

Hermione rolled her eyes again, and wrinkled her nose. That must have been exactly the wrong thing to say because her voice went soft the way it did when she spoke to Neville or Colin—to people that she pitied in a fond sort of way. “I know, Harry. Not that it would be a problem if it was.”

She leveled him with a meaningful gaze that he couldn’t keep. Harry’s cheeks were so warm that the bottoms of his classes were fogging, and knew they were probably red enough that Hermione had noticed by now. He studied a whorl in the table closely, as if he were going to be quizzed on it. “Harry,” she said, prodding his shin gently with her toe. “Are you alright?”

Harry spun his spoon in between his fingers. “How did you even know about that?” he asked, daring to glance up from under his hair. Hermione’s eyes held nothing but warmth and exasperation. If anything, she looked like she was trying to suppress a smile. She tilted her head to look him in the eyes, which did nothing but make him feel worse with how much she cared.

“Sometimes I get worried at night,” she admitted, and now it was her turn to look embarrassed. Dark brown eyes dropped to the tabletop for a moment. “I can’t sleep until I know that everything is alright. Did you know that Mr. Weasley stays up rereading the paper until he’s sure everyone is asleep?” 

She shook her head with a fond smile, before looking back up at Harry. “I peek into Ron’s room, just for a second, just to make sure you’re both… alive, I suppose. You always seem better rested the morning after I see you in the same bed.”

Harry felt his heart swell for Hermione, who had noticed and yet said nothing, who had worried each night in silence. He nodded. “Somehow, the dreams aren’t as bad,” he admitted. She deserved a real answer in exchange for the one she’d given him. He paused, watching her closely. He recognized the way she bit her lip and furrowed her brows—she was embarrassed. Hermione had never been good at exposing her weak spots.

  “You could wake us up, you know.”

Hermione smiled softly. “I know. Just seeing is enough,” she assured him. Something in her voice told him that she was telling the truth. 

There were heavy footsteps near the top of the stairs, like a mountain troll was wandering in their direction. She tilted her head to indicate towards them. “Just ask him,” she said with a note of finality. She paused, then grinned slyly. “He sleeps better, too.”

They both returned to their bowls before Ron made it downstairs. Hermione leaned over her copy of the Prophet, pen in hand. Watching the way Ron poured out his cereal with heavy eyelids, Harry realized she was right — though of course, she almost always was.

He wondered when he and Ron had become so codependent. Almost immediately, he stopped that line of thought. (He knew the answer. It had started with a pair of boys meeting on a train six years before.) He resolved to at least try to sort out their sleeping situation — if not for himself, then for Ron’s sake.

---

Remus showing up at Grimmauld Place was a surprise, almost as much of a surprise as learning that he’d gotten Tonks pregnant. The announcement had stunned the dining room into silence. Hermione’s mouth dropped open a little, and all the blood seemed to rush from Ron’s face. Harry cleared his throat after the quiet stretched on too long, choosing his words carefully.

“I didn’t even know you liked her,” Harry said, frowning at Remus. The man shifted awkwardly, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He wouldn’t meet Harry’s eyes.

“Yes, well, ah, you see,” he stammered. “Things happen.” Harry decided he didn’t want to think too much about what ‘things’ meant.

He couldn’t help but worry for the baby though. He knew Tonks, and he knew Remus, and he knew that having a baby wouldn’t stop them from fighting in the war. They were both too stubborn for that, too self-sacrificing. Once, he imagined Andromeda Tonks performing a sticking charm on Tonk’s feet to keep her from going off to fight. The image carried him through an entire day.

He knew what it was like to be orphaned by Voldemort, was the problem. He didn’t wish it upon anyone. Harry prayed that his gut feeling was wrong, that their future child would grow up with both parents around if not together. Just because Harry had lost his mum and dad before they’d had a chance to be a family, didn’t mean that every child born to war ended up like him, after all. The Weasley family was plenty proof of that.

Remus stayed for a few days, seemingly making every effort to distract himself from his situation. Harry was a little infuriated with the man, and kept badgering him to let go of his ridiculous hero complex and go back. Remus simply smiled tiredly and prepared himself another cup of tea each time Harry brought it up. 

Harry couldn’t complain too much, though. Remus was helping them plan to break into the Ministry and get Slytherin’s locket back from Umbridge. It was on his last day with them, a few days before they’d planned the break-in, that he found Harry going over plans in the library while Hermione and Ron were otherwise occupied.

“So,” he’d begun, startling Harry from his study of Ron’s rough map of the Ministry’s atrium. He leaned casually against the table, crossing both his arms and his ankles and looking like the picture of nonchalance. It reminded Harry very much of Defense lectures in his third year. His heart ached for a simpler time. “Does Ron know you’re in love with him?”

It took a few seconds for the question to register. Suddenly, his head whipped up from the map. He stared at Remus with wide eyes, feeling quite like he’d had the rug pulled out from beneath his feet. In fact, he glanced down to make sure that Remus hadn’t somehow done just that. 

Unsurprisingly, the rug was still there, just as worn and extravagant as it had been moments before. A woven snake flicked its tail at him and slithered to another corner of the leafy pattern. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he finally managed after a pause that had certainly lasted too long.

Remus laughed. “Please,” he said. For the first time in a very long time, Harry could see Moony the Marauder and not the man with twenty years and war between them. “You stare at him the way that James used to stare at Lily. And vice versa, now that I think about it. You’ve inherited Prongs’ doe eyes.” He chuckled, and for a moment, Harry allowed himself to be grateful for the comparison to his father’s eyes for once. Then his brain returned to the conversation at hand and he felt his face flush.

Inwardly, Harry cursed his father for ever becoming friends with a man who was perhaps even more observant than Hermione. “That’s ridiculous,” he managed, looking down at the plans in front of him and adding a question mark to one line of Ron’s nearly indecipherable scrawl. He’d have to get Hermione to translate later, he thought as he pointedly did not look up Remus.

“Is it?” Remus asked, his voice more amused than anything. Harry’s shoulders stiffened. He bit hard on his lower lip, drawing his eyebrows together.

If Remus wasn’t upset about it… if he wasn’t questioning beyond a bit of amusement, maybe he was okay with it. After all, of the Marauders, Harry was almost sure that Remus had been the least quick to judge — he was lacking Sirius’ temper, Peter’s  later treason, and his father’s… well, he wasn’t entirely sure, but he’d seen for himself that James Potter had been the ringleader in their chaos

. It couldn’t hurt to ask the question that had been nagging Harry for years, ever since he realized that he was, perhaps, a little bit queer. He coughed a little, like he had to loosen the words from his throat.

“Would my mum and dad hate me for it?” he asked, staring down at a spot in the table where the wood grain dipped away from its straight path. “If they knew?”

Remus’ footsteps grew closer, and then he was standing beside Harry. He rested a gentle hand on the small of Harry’s back. “Harry,” he said quietly. “Your mum and dad wouldn’t have cared. I promise.”

“How do you know that?” Harry asked again, blinking hard against tears that he didn’t know had been building behind his eyes. He closed them tightly in an effort to keep them at bay. 

He’d never voiced this particular fear out loud before. It had been there for years, nagging at him as he grappled with crushes on Krum and Cedric and even Bill. It had become especially persistent after all hopes of feigning heterosexuality had died when he and Ginny broke it off and he became aware of how painfully in love with Ron he was. “How can you possibly be sure?”

There was a chuckle from beside him, wry and yet somehow melancholic in the same instant. “Because they were just fine with Sirius and I,” Remus said, as casual as if he hadn’t just admitted something huge to Harry.

Harry’s head shot up. “You and Sirius…?” 

“Since we were fifteen,” Remus nodded. He smiled, looking fond, but there was a glassy look to his eyes.“Though, we debated whether the years he was in Azkaban counted until his last.”

And Harry’s heart broke for his godfather all over again. A sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob exploded from his throat. Sirius had died for Harry. He had died to protect him because Harry was too stupid to tell the difference between a real vision and a fake one. Harry had caused Remus to lose Sirius after barely getting him back.

It seemed to Harry that all he knew how to do was ruin people’s lives.

“I have to go,” he said suddenly, turning stiffly and hurrying out of the library. He made it to his room before the tears began to fall, but it was a close thing. By the time he left it, his dinner had gone cold.

---

There was so much blood.

“Harry, my bag! Get the dittany,” Hermione screamed, her hands fluttering uselessly over Ron’s wounded shoulder. Harry’s hands felt like mittens, uselessly pawing through her bag. His brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton. He heard her shout in the distance, but Hermione sounded like she was underwater and a world away. “Harry!”

His wand, he remembered, and suddenly the bottle was flying up from the depths and into his hand. He scrambled over to his friends, shoving the small vial into Hermione’s hands, and then turned to Ron.

The other boy was in agony. His eyes were rolled back into his head, tears streaming down too-white cheeks and into the hollows of his throat and collarbones. He let out a strangled groan when he caught sight of his shoulder, and Harry hurriedly turned his face away from the gaping mass of skin and muscle and bone and blood.

“Look at me, Ron,” he muttered, voice far calmer than he felt. 

“H-Harry,” Ron gasped, then let out a scream of anguish as Hermione dripped the potion into his wound. His back arched as he cried out, and it was all Harry could do to keep him still enough for Hermione to finish. Ron twisted his head to stare as his shoulder began to knit itself back together, and let out another cry — this one a cry of fear. Harry shushed him, grabbing his chin between his hands and turning him away again.

“Sh, Ron, it’s alright, we’ve got you,” he said, leaning as close to Ron as he could to block the man’s view. “Hermione’s going to make it better. I’m right here, mate, it’s alright.” Harry was sure that his friend could feel the way his hands were shaking, his dark skin looking so much darker with all the blood drained from Ron’s face. 

“Hurts,” Ron said weakly. There was sweat breaking along his hairline, which Harry wiped away with the sleeve of his robes. (Runcorn’s robes, technically, not that it mattered much anymore.) 

Ron was leaning into his touch, his eyes fluttering closed. “Don’t let him fall asleep!” Hermione hissed. Harry glanced up at her, and saw that she looked just as frightened as him, her face flushed and hands shaking as she dug through her bag. She pulled a water bottle from its depths, passed  it over to Harry with hands that trembled uncontrollably. “Make him drink first, as much as he can manage. He’s dehydrated.”

Before Harry could reply, she was standing, shuffling away from him to start casting wards. He saw her discreetly swiping at her cheeks before she pulled out her wand, and decided that perhaps he should look away.

Ron groaned as Harry shook his uninjured shoulder gently. “‘M tired,” he mumbled, letting his head fall heavily into Harry’s lap as he shifted to sit him up.

“Hermione says you have to stay awake,” Harry said gently, poking him in the cheek as if he were simply waking him for breakfast and not after a potentially fatal splinching. “C’mon, mate, drink the water. Nap time’s later.”

Ron groaned, but he sat up, leaning most of his body weight into Harry’s side. Harry held the bottle up for him, tilting it back so Ron could drink. A good amount splashed down the front of his robes and into his lap, but Ron didn’t seem to care. They sat in silence until Ron was able to take his own sips, the color returning his cheeks slowly but surely. The skin of his shoulder was a brilliantly pink scar where it had knitted itself back together. 

From what Harry remembered of his fourth year potions class, the wound would likely never heal entirely. Oh well, he supposed. That was fine so long as Ron was alive. 

He sat back on his heels, and managed to let out a small sigh of relief. The whole ordeal was too close for his comfort. Harry was quite sure that losing Ron would break him beyond repair.

Harry spent a long time just staring at his friend, watching for any sign that Ron was hurting more than he should be. He winced when he rolled his shoulders back a bit, but made no more serious signs of pain, and Harry’s pounding heartbeat began to slow.

The only sounds were Hermione’s mutterings a short distance away, leaves crunching beneath her heeled shoes. A bird twittered from a tree. The wind whistled. A leaf drifted towards the forest floor from a tree above, then hit the edge of the wards and bounced away. 

“Thanks for giving us a scare, mate,” he said finally, breaking the silence. Ron offered him a shaky grin.

“Always like to keep you on your toes,” he replied. His voice was still hoarse from the screaming, but it was there and Ron was still with them, so Harry didn’t much care. He poked the man in the side.

“The almost dying bit is my thing, though, and I’d like to keep it that way.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, he knew, but it was real enough. 

“Not if I’ve got anything to say about it.” Ron’s voice was serious, perhaps more serious than Harry’s joke had prompted. Then he scrunched his nose and leaned further into Harry tiredly. The contact did something funny to Harry’s stomach and made his cheeks flush brilliantly red. 

To distract himself, Harry squeezed Ron’s good shoulder, eased him off of where he was sitting half in Harry’s lap, and stood carefully. “Right then,” he muttered, looking pointedly away from Ron and towards Hermione. “I’ll set up the tent while you rest.” 

He brushed off the back of his jeans and hurried away, stumbling over to Hermione’s bag to extract the tent. He’d practiced setting it up in the orchard with Ron and Hermione before they left, in the spare moments they could sneak away before Molly or Fleur or one of the other Weasleys whisked them off to do something or other and distract them from their plans. He struggled to recall the spells now with Ron’s recent brush with death so close to the forefront of his mind. Between that and his internal panic over the number of muggleborns that he’d put at risk simply by existing, by wasting time instead of killing Voldemort faster, the spell that should have been second nature evaded him.

If he shoved aside the funny sick feeling in his chest from watching Ron kiss Reg Cattermole’s wife, well, that was his business.

Unfortunately, his lack of memory ended up with the tent looking a little inside out and backwards, tangled around itself quite impossibly. Harry let out a frustrated huff. He paused for a moment to press the heels of his hands to his eyes, as if he was pushing back tears that were threatening to fall as every emotion hit him all at once.

And then a warm body was pressing against his back, chin resting on his head, and Ron’s long fingers wrapped around Harry’s hand. “Say the spell,” he muttered. 

Harry sniffed, but managed to speak without stuttering; Ron’s presence, real and alive, steadied him just enough to recall the spell. Ron guided his wand in the correct movements, flicking upwards at just the right time to cause the tent to twist itself into the proper position. As the stakes drove themselves into the ground, he stepped away and offered Harry a small smile. 

“Alright, mate?” he asked, and Harry saw it for what it was.

“Perfect,” he said. “Now get out of those bloody robes before Hermione starts crying again.”

---

He’d thought that, perhaps, the bed-sharing would end when they moved into the tent. Ron had been quick to shuffle aside for Harry at Grimmauld when he’d appeared at the door of his room with nothing more than a mumbled “took you long enough.” But with changed circumstances - Hermione’s presence, the tiny cots, the increased awareness of their own mortality - he was sure that he’d have to remember how to fall asleep on his own.

When Harry finally stumbled into bed after Hermione took over watch, he collapsed into his bunk fully clothed. The memory of Gregorvitch lying dead on the floor was burned into the back of his eyelids. Despite his exhaustion, Harry couldn’t fall asleep. He was too conscious of a dead man’s screams echoing in his memory. Hermione’s scolding reminders to practice his Occlumency weaved in between the screams into a distracting chorus.

The bunk above him, which Ron had long since crawled into, creaked as Harry let out a small groan of annoyance. He sucked in his breath quickly. He didn’t want to wake Ron, who was still recovering from his splinching. 

Harry forced his eyes closed and rolled onto his side. Maybe if he lay still long enough, sleep would come to him. 

But now all he could see was Ron’s blood staining the leaves and dirt outside. Ron’s bone peeking through a fleshy gash, surrounded by red, red muscle torn apart. Ron crying, sobbing in pain and Harry not able to feel his fingers, not able to move fast enough and Ron was dying, fading away and it was all Harry’s fault-

“Shove over, mate,” Ron’s voice shook Harry from his nightmare, his large hands gently shoving Harry close to the wall. Harry was suddenly aware that he was damp with sweat, his face sticky and stiff with tears. In a desperate attempt to keep from getting Ron disgustingly damp, he pressed himself against the wall of the tent, feeling it give a bit behind him before the spells stopped the fabric. But Ron was onto him, scooping one arm around Harry’s back and tugging him close so they were squeezed chest to chest on the small bed.

If Ron’s single bed at the Burrow had been cramped for the pair of them, the bunks in the tent were even smaller. Harry failed to understand how just Ron fit in one of them without his long limbs hanging over the edge. As it was, the pair of them had to practically become one, Ron hooking his ankle over Harry’s and wrapping his arms around him. He hooked his chin over Harry’s head, so Harry’s face was pressed against the front of his bad shoulder. Harry tried to shift away to save him some pain, but Ron’s arms only tightened around him.

“Nigh’ H’ry,” he mumbled. His breathing slowed and deepened almost immediately, brushing the hair on top of Harry’s head back with each exhale. 

He should have shoved him off, sent him back to his bunk and steeled himself for a long night of nightmares, but Harry couldn’t do it. Instead he burrowed into Ron’s chest, tangling their legs together and twisting his fingers in the other’s well-worn Chudley Cannons shirt. He breathed in, inhaling the scent of toothpaste and aftershave potion and Ron. A scent that just hours before, he’d nearly lost forever. 

There would be time to protest tomorrow. Right now, all he wanted was a good night of sleep. 

---

Harry was angry. Angrier than he’d been in a long time. Maybe angrier than he’d ever been before. The rage pulsed at the edges of his vision, turning everything a blurry, muted version of itself. 

Even a breeze blowing in the wrong direction could make his hands curl into fists so tight that he could feel his nails biting into his palms. A crackle from Ron’s radio would set his teeth on edge. The tiny scratch of one of Hermione’s quills on parchment made him want to scream.

The worst was when Ron talked to Hermione. His teeth would set and his heart would pound and his fingers would curl into tight fists at his side. He’d taken to biting his lip to keep himself from lashing out, which was worn raw and bleeding by the end of his turns with the locket. The jealousy that sat heavy in his stomach and coated his throat was worse than any he’d ever experienced before. 

Sometimes, Harry could shove it aside, simply brooding while on watch or wandering around the tent and not saying anything to the others. But sometimes, when one of them tried to speak to him, it came spilling out, and he wasn’t able to stop himself. 

“D’you want some of this?” Ron asked, holding up the box of the cereal. He shook it to get Harry’s attention, and the sound made him want to scream.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you ask Hermione ?” he spat, wrinkling his nose like his best friend’s name left a disgusting taste in his mouth. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wanted to stop himself, but he felt like he had no control over his own voice.

Ron frowned. “I would, but she already ate,” he said slowly, eyebrows drawing together in concern. “You alright, mate?”

“You alrigh’, mate?” Harry repeated mockingly, in an oafish voice that would be far better suited to an imitation of Grawp than of Ron. 

Ron huffed, eyes narrowing. “You’ve been a prat recently, you know that?” His voice turned steely and cold. Harry didn’t reply, except to square his shoulders and turn his head away from Ron. He didn’t want to talk to him anymore. “Oy! I’m talking to you!”

“Well, I’m done listening,” Harry told him in a voice that was only a few meters off from a growl. 

“Harry,” Ron was annoyed now. Harry could hear it in his voice.

“Bugger off!” Harry snapped, loud enough that he heard Hermione yelp outside. He turned to face Ron, fists raised for a fight. At that moment, Hermione bustled in, her long curls whipping wildly in the wind, and ran to stand between them.

“Take it off, Harry,” she snapped, pointing at the locket that was lying cold against his breast bone. The anger in his throat seemed to condense itself, and he reached up to rip the thing off his neck. He threw it to the ground, breathing heavily. 

A wave of calm washed over him, followed by intense guilt for being so horrible to Ron. Hermione shook her head. “Well, I think it’s my turn, don’t you?” she said primly, pursing her lips as she looked between the boys. They both had the good graces to look shamed by her raised eyebrows. “Your turn on watch Harry.”

Harry slipped out of the tent without looking at either of them.

---

If Harry’s anger seemed to drown him when he wore the locket, Ron’s was like a neverending tidal wave. When he’d first run off, there had been a moment of quiet, which had echoed in the tent louder than the yelling had. It had been a relief, almost, to not be arguing. 

And then Hermione let out a quiet sniffle, and Harry fully registered what had happened.

“He’s gone,” he said dumbly, the words dropping out of his mouth and into a ball at their feet. 

“He is,” Hermione confirmed. Her voice was thick. She was clearly doing her best to hold back tears which turned her dark eyes glassy as she stared, open-mouthed at the opening to the tent.

“He won’t be able to find us again, will he?” It wasn’t a question. Harry knew the wards that Hermione had put up around their campsite like the back of his hand by now, and her spellcasting was textbook perfect. Harry himself had never been good in school but when he tried he was a quick study, and he’d long since memorized them. 

Hermione shook her head quickly, blinking in an attempt to usher away traitorous tears. It was no good, and they fell freely down her cheeks, tracking through the thin layer of dust that covered everything they owned after so long spent in the tent. “He won’t,” she agreed.

“We’ll stay as long as we can,” Harry told her. She nodded, and turned further into the tent. He heard shuffling in the bedroom, and knew she was crawling into her bunk to cry. He quite wanted to join her. Delayed tears were now pressing insistently at the backs of his eyes, but someone needed to keep watch. He gathered up the cursed locket and made his way outside to sit by the door. 

It was chilly outside, and the locket felt like ice in his fist. He wanted to chuck it into the woods, this thing that had driven Ron away from him, but it would do no good. They needed to destroy it in order to destroy Voldemort. Losing the thing would do nothing to bring Ron back.

They stayed at the campsite for another day and a half before Hermione appeared at his shoulder mid-watch. “We have to leave, Harry,” she whispered, the words barely breaking through the chilly late autumn air. 

“I know,” Harry said despairingly, his green eyes searching the woods fruitlessly. Maybe if he searched a second longer, just waited one more second, Ron would reappear. He was sure that the other man would be looking for them by now, after more than twenty-four hours without the locket’s effects. He was likely cold and hungry. Harry couldn’t remember if he’d been wearing his coat when he’d stormed out. He only distantly remembered him snatching up his bag. 

And that was if he was still out there at all, not captured by Death Eaters. They were wanted men, now, after all. Undesirables. If caught, he’d certainly be tortured and then slaughtered. Harry’s heart seized in his chest and he took half a step forward, desperate now to go out looking for him. 

“Harry.” Hermione’s voice was stern, the hand on his shoulder heavy, and he flinched away from her before he turned around. Her dark eyes were sad and rimmed with red, her curls trying to escape the messy updo she’d pulled them into. Her nose was going pink, and whether it was from the cold or crying he wasn’t sure. 

She dropped her hand, looking a bit put out, but then drew herself up to her full height and squared her shoulders. “We have to leave. He’s not coming back to us,” she said, sounding far more sure than he knew she felt. It wouldn’t take all that much convincing to get her to stay another day, or week, or even a month-

But no. Harry knew they had to leave. The longer they stayed in one place, the more they were at risk of being found. His shoulders dropped, and he nodded, reaching out to squeeze Hermione’s hand in his own. Had her hands always been so small compared to his? “Let’s go then,” he agreed, squeezing her hand reassuringly before he dropped it. He led the way back to the tent to begin packing, which didn’t take much time. They had to keep mostly packed up, after all, just in case they had to make a quick getaway. 

Hermione took down the wards as he disassembled the tent. As he stuffed it into her bag, they shared a long, desperate look. Not for the first time, he wondered if the bags under his eyes were as large and dark as Hermione’s.

The apparition squeezed his breath from his lungs, and with it, took his last hope of seeing Ron again.

---

Harry rose from the frozen lake gasping for breath. His lungs ached as he sucked in the crisp, cold winter air. His legs faltered beneath him as he was dragged to the banks, sending him crashing to the icy ground. He could feel himself shivering violently, his chattering teeth threatening to bite through his tongue as he lifted his eyes to see his savior. A blurry form bustled about in front of him, nothing more than a shadow topped with a slash of bright orange.

Something soft and warm was shoved towards his hands insistently. “Put these on, mate, before you freeze to death,” a familiar voice whispered through the darkness. 

“R-Ron?” he gasped, squinting. 

“Yeah, it’s me,” Ron said quietly, and yes that was Ron’s lanky form moving through the dark. “Now put on the bloody sweater.” 

Harry tugged the warm shirt over his head, breathing a sigh of relief as he was enveloped in it. Ron dragged him to his feet and helped him put his jeans back on, holding him steady at the shoulders and Harry blindly stepped into them. Harry was still shaking from the cold, even as Ron slid his glasses onto his face and uttered a warming charm. He didn’t stop shaking until he was wrapped tightly in the taller’s arms, half-sobbing against his chest in shock and delirium and relief. 

“You’re alive,” he managed, words coming out half-muffled in the layers of Ron’s jumper and coat. “Thank Merlin, you’re alive.”

“I should be the one saying that,” Ron said, the words rumbling against Harry’s cheek. Harry pressed himself further into his friend, as if letting go would make Ron disappear again. “You nearly drowned.”

“You saved me,” Harry replied. He was suddenly aware of the cold, heavy weight against his chest. The locket, chain still wound too tight around his throat, was choking him. He couldn’t breathe, still, the chain was burning his skin and he couldn’t breathe oh god he was going to die-

Ron wrenched the locket off of Harry’s neck, throwing it to the frozen ground where it writhed in place for a moment. Harry’s ears were ringing. “Hate that bloody thing,” he mumbled, taking large, gulping breaths as he reckoned with nearly dying twice in less than five minutes.

“Understatement of the century,” Ron agreed, grinding it under the heel of a heavy boot. The untied laces whipped against the ground as he stomped down, though the locket appeared untouched when he moved his shoe away. He hummed, barely interested. “That was satisfying.”

“I bet,” Harry agreed, grinning up at Ron. In the breaking dawn he took in his friend’s face. It was healthier than it had been when he’d left, fuller. His skin was still pale, it always was, but his cheeks were just a bit pinker and there were more freckles crowding his skin. The dark bags beneath his eyes weren’t gone, but they were far lighter than they’d been. Harry drank it in hungrily. It felt like it had been centuries since he’d seen the man last. 

Ron seemed to stare back at him just as determinedly, but there was something sad in his eyes as he searched Harry’s face. Harry wondered how he must look to him - too skinny, surely, probably thinner even than he’d been after summers with the Dursleys. Hermione kept tutting over him, her face tightening when she caught sight of his ribs as he changed, but he kept spooning extra portions of their rations onto her plate when she got preoccupied. He was used to starving. She wasn’t. 

“We should get back to camp,” he said finally, breaking the silence. He glanced towards the horizon line, where the sun was breaking through the trees. “Before Hermione wakes up.” 

Before she thinks that I’ve left her too, he thought, his heart seizing. Before she leaves, and we lose her forever.  

Ron looked relieved at the thought, eyes flashing with a spark of something that almost made Harry’s heart flip jealously. “Lead the way,” he said, and Harry squared his shoulders, scooped the locket up in one hand, and led him back towards their campsite. 

They were mere feet away when he stopped abruptly, Ron thumping into his back when he tried to continue forwards. He grunted, rubbing a hand along his face as if to wake himself up, and frowned down at Harry. “What’s the hold up?” he asked, eyes flicking through the trees as if he would be able to see the hidden camp.

“We should destroy the locket now, away from the tent,” Harry explained. He stared down at the scuffed, muddy rubber toes of his sneakers. They were cracked from so many weeks of hard use, but there was no way he could get a new pair. If this ever ended, that would be his first purchase. New sneakers and an ice cold butterbeer from the Three Broomsticks. 

If Three Broomsticks was still standing, at the end of this. If he hadn’t killed Rosemerta and her pub too. If Hogsmeade still existed, after Voldemort was done razing everyone who stood in his way to the ground.

“Hermione-”

“It’s safer this way,” Harry interrupted, holding the locket out to him. The chain was freezing in his fist, sending a chill up his arm and into his heart. “Here, you should do it.”

Ron frowned. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice quiet. Scared. Harry had rarely heard Ron sound truly terrified, but he did now, and it was almost more chilling than the piece of Voldemort’s soul he had clutched in his fist. Ronald Weasley wasn’t supposed to be scared. 

“You deserve to kill it,” he said gently. Ron nodded once, briskly, and set his jaw in a way that eerily mirrored Percy. Of all his siblings, Ron probably looked the most like Percy - both were tall, gangly, less muscled than their other brothers - but Harry’d rarely noticed. When he set his jaw in a certain way, however, and steely determination flashed in his blue eyes, Harry could see it. It made his heart ache all over again. 

If it weren’t for me, Percy might never have left the Weasleys, he thought. It was a stupid thought, he knew. There were some things that Harry had no sway over. But he remembered his fifth year and the things that Percy had said about him, and knew that he’d had some hand in tearing their family apart. Just another thing I can never rectify.

He set the locket down on the ground, handing the sword over to Ron. The other man stared at the Horcrux, looking green beneath his freckles. For a moment, Harry wondered if he’d made the right call, if maybe this was too much for him. But then Ron seemed to steel himself, squaring his broad shoulders and raising the sword high over his head. Harry squeezed his eyes shut as he brought it swinging down, knowing that in just a few moments, Voldemort would be one step closer to death.

---

Hermione was still bleeding. Fleur said that her wounds would heal with hourly application of dittany and plenty of rest. Luna and Dean planned to sneak into Hogwarts in a week’s time, just long enough to regain some strength after spending weeks locked in the Malfoy’s cellar. Griphook didn’t trust any of them except for Bill, which Harry thought was fair, and locked himself in his room the moment they’d pointed it out to him. Mr. Ollivander whiddled a long piece of driftwood, and smiled dully at anyone who spoke to him.

Harry buried Dobby by the sea, and used a spelled chisel borrowed from Fleur to carve his name into the stone. He sat staring out at the crashing waves for a long time before anyone found him.

He didn’t look up when Ron settled beside him on the sand. He leaned heavily against Harry’s arm, the same way he did while they were working on homework in the tower.  His presence was warm and steady, and Harry couldn’t resist laying his head on the taller boy’s shoulder after a long moment of silence. 

“You’ll catch a cold,” Ron warned. A breeze swept over them, making Harry shiver as he noticed the cold for the first time. He’d wrapped Dobby in his jumper, so now he wore only an old t-shirt with a couple of holes in it. He thought the shirt might have once belonged to George.

“Maybe,” Harry agreed, but it was vague and detached. Ron looked down at him and frowned.

“Fleur is making stew,” he tried. There was no response from Harry this time. The pair sat in silence for several minutes, watching the ocean and listening to the wind whistle through the reeds. It took a moment before Ron managed to add, “He was good, Dobby was. I’m sorry.”

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m tired of it,” he admitted. “I’m tired of watching everyone leave me.”

A pang of guilt shot through Ron’s chest, and he found himself dragging the smaller boy into a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” he said again. His voice was so quiet that it was almost a whisper. Harry shook his head furiously as he burrowed closer to Ron.

“No apologizing,” he muttered. The sweater that Ron was wearing was thick and warm. It smelled like Mrs. Weasley’s shortbread cookies and pumpkin juice, with just a hint of woodsmoke from the fireplace. It was familiar and safe and-

With a start, Harry jerked away from him, staring at Ron with wild eyes. Ron furrowed his brow. “What is it, mate?” he asked. “Are you alright?” 

That smell… 

Harry remembered the lesson on Amortentia the previous year. It felt so long ago, like decades had passed instead of months. He and Ron had avoided each other’s eyes through the lesson, both far too embarrassed to even think of discussing what they each smelled. But that particular combination of scents - pumpkin juice, shortbread cookies, woodsmoke - brought Harry immediately back to that moment in the Hogwarts dungeon. 

“Fine,” Harry said stiffly after a moment, curling his hands into fists to hide their shaking. He still stared at Ron with wide eyes. Now was not the time, he decided, to examine what that particular revelation meant.

Ron narrowed his eyes at him, searching Harry’s face. Seemingly without thinking, he reached across to brush a windblown lock of hair from Harry’s eyes, and it took everything in Harry to not jump at the touch. “Your nose is turning pink,” Ron observed. “Let’s get you in front of the fire before you freeze, huh?”

He unfolded his long limbs and rose to his feet, offering Harry a hand to pull him up alongside him. Harry marveled at the way his long, pale fingers seemed to slot perfectly between Harry’s thin, dark ones, before he was tugged gently down the hill and back to the cottage. Ron didn’t let go of his hand until they were crossing the threshold, the door safely closed behind them to keep out the chill.

“There you are!” Fleur exclaimed, looking up as she set a pile of napkins down on the dining table. She looked relieved at the sight of them, and Harry realized guiltily that they’d been out for far longer than he’d said he would be. “I have just finished making the, ah, beef bourguignon. It is not the same as Molly’s stew, but I hope you will like it?” 

She looked nervous, but hopeful, as if she thought they might reject her offer. More than anything, she looked at them with such sincerity in that moment that Harry was suddenly hit with an overwhelming urge to cry.

“Smells great, Fleur!” Ron assured her. Her smile brightened just a bit.

Harry nodded quickly. He choked back his tears as much as he could, so his voice was only a little strained when he said, “Honestly, you could have just made us sandwiches and tea and it would feel like a feast. I’m sure it’ll be good.”

Fleur’s eyes rested on Harry’s face, and some of the light left them. Her smile turned a bit sadder. He wondered if she was seeing him now, or still seeing the kid he’d been when they first met three years before. Then she shook her head, and her smile was back. She pulled two chairs out at the table. “Sit, sit,” she commanded. “Bill just went to get Luna and, ah, Dean? Yes, Dean. I will take some later to the others.” 

They both sat obediently in the offered chairs, and Fleur placed bowls of broth heaped with beef and vegetables in front of them, and a basket of bread in the center of the table. Harry tucked in gratefully. The bourguignon was good, and it took all of his willpower to not devour the whole bowl as fast as he could. After eating so little for so long, Harry knew it would only make him feel sick. 

To distract himself as he slowly worked his way through the food, he opted to say nothing and just let the conversation wash over him. It felt almost like having dinner at the Burrow, if a little more subdued. 

Shell Cottage was homey in a way that he hadn’t expected, with rooms lit by warm-toned lamps and dried herbs hanging from the windows. The downstairs was surprisingly open, to let the breeze in on hot days, Bill said. There was no formal dining area, just the large oval table in one corner, by the door. From where he sat, Harry could see into both the living room and the kitchen, which were otherwise separated only by foot of the stone staircase. There was a small bathroom beneath the stairs where Harry had changed clothes once they arrived. Beside that was the smallest guest room, where Griphook was currently resting. Upstairs, he knew, were the other four bedrooms and two larger bathrooms.

It would be, in Harry’s opinion, a nice place to raise a family. He hoped that Bill and Fleur would live long enough to get to do so.

He was interrupted from the moment of reflection only when Dean laughed at a joke a little too loudly. The sudden volume caused Harry to jump a bit, his head shooting up instinctively to scan for danger. His startled gaze caught Ron’s attention, who placed a hand on Harry’s knee. He left it there for several minutes, until Harry returned to slowly working his way through the meal. No one else seemed to notice his odd reaction - or at least, if they did, they were too polite to mention it.

When it was finally time to go to sleep, after Hermione had eaten and Fleur had wrapped her wounds in a poultice of yarrow and dittany, after everyone had listened to Lee’s Potterwatch report come from the crackling radio, Ron and Harry insisted on making a pallet on Hermione’s floor. 

“I can sleep on the couch,” Dean offered, “And Luna can share with Hermione. Surely you want to sleep in real beds for once?” 

Harry and Ron exchanged glances. Harry shook his head. “No,” he said, giving Dean a tired smile. “You’ve spent ages sleeping in a cellar. Take the bedroom. We’ll be fine.”

Fleur fretted over them, insisting on transfiguring a blanket into a comfortable bedroll and surrounding the spot with several throw pillows. “I must change out the bandages,” she warned them. “Surely you will wake.” Harry waved off her concerns - with the poultice, she would only have to come in every four hours to check on Hermione. While in the tent, you were lucky to get more than three hours before shifts on watch would change. Four hours and the ability to go right back to sleep sounded like a luxury.

Fleur finally turned out the light and closed the door behind her, and the bedroom fell silent. From his place a few inches from Ron’s side, Harry could feel the warmth of Ron’s arm. His glasses were still perched on his nose, so he could still see the shells moulded into the window frames. The only sounds were the ticking of a clock on the side table, and the three of them breathing.

Harry counted the ticks of the second hand. After four minutes of total silence, Hermione began giggling in her bed above them. “Merlin,” she whispered into the darkness. “It feels like we’ve been sentenced to an early bedtime.”

“Feels like Mum’s going to come in and scold us for talking,” Ron replied in the same low whisper. He sounded like he was fighting off a chuckle of his own.

Laughter bubbled in Harry’s chest. “Why is this so weird?” he managed to say. “We’ve slept in the same tent for months.”

Hermione hummed thoughtfully and shifted in the bed. “I expect its because we don’t need to be alert. We haven’t been safe like this in ages.” That made sense, Harry thought. It was odd to have a real wall between him and the outside world. It was odd to know that there were more people nearby than just Ron and Hermione, and that those people didn’t want to hurt them. It felt a bit like his first night at Hogwarts after growing up in the house on Privet Drive.

After a moment of quiet, Hermione sighed, sat up, and flipped on the lamp beside her bed. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” she admitted. “I slept so much when we got here.”

Ron rolled onto his side to look at her, and leaned up on his elbow. “Read a book,” he suggested. “I’ll get the bag for you.”

“The light won’t bother you?” she asked nervously, furrowing her brow and looking down at Harry. He pushed himself upright and crossed his legs.

 Though their odd sort of nest on the floor was quite large, taking up a good portion of that half of the room, he and Ron had been laying flat on their backs only a few inches apart. Now, sitting, his knee nearly touched Ron’s chest. Harry felt his heart flutter nervously and felt his cheeks heat up beneath his glasses. “Not at all,” he said. He offered Hermione a smile and was satisfied to receive one in return. “I don’t really think I can sleep either.”

“Even if you can, the light has never bothered you,” Ron confirmed. “I’m wide awake, ‘Mione.” 

The other man finally sat up, twisting his shoulders until his back gave a loud pop, and then stood up to retrieve Hermione’s bag. He held the bag out to Harry. “Here, your Accio is more accurate.”

Harry summoned the book Hermione quietly requested, a muggle novel, and passed it up to her. She thanked him and carefully readjusted her pillows before she settled back into them.

“I haven’t seen you read something like that in a while,” Harry noted, raising his eyebrows. “You’ve just been researching, every time I’ve seen.” 

Hermione glanced over at him, and looked a bit sheepish. “Yes, well, I haven’t felt like I should,” she admitted. “I mean, if I have the time to read, I should be reading something important. But I figure, we’re stuck here for at least a little while, and we don’t know our next step yet, so-”

Harry cut her off with a shake of his head. “That wasn’t a judgement, Hermione,” he said. “Take some time off, please. Merlin, you were tortured by Bellatrix, if anyone deserves a break, it’s you!” 

“You too, Harry,” Ron added, dropping back to the floor after he tucked Hermione’s bag in between a pair of pillows by their feet. “You don’t need to act like the fate of the world is in your hands all the time.”

Before Harry could protest that the fate of the world was literally in his hands, Ron reached around him to pull open the drawer of the bedside table. His chest brushed up against Harry’s arm as he dug through the drawer, and Harry felt his breath catch in his throat. Hermione shot him an odd look, her lips pursed almost like she was trying to hide a smile, and he glared back up at her. Finally, Ron pulled away, a small stack of old copies of Which Broomstick, Witch Weekly, and The Quibbler in his hands. 

He dropped the magazines onto the blankets and grinned. “Knew they’d still be there,” he said brightly, sounding far happier than he had in ages. He picked up the top magazine, a Witch Weekly, and suppressed a laugh. “Hey, Harry, reckon you want to learn which Quidditch hottie is your soulmate, or,” he leaned over to peer at the cover of another magazine, “What your signature color should be this fall?”

Harry didn’t bother to suppress his laugh this time. “Give me the soulmate,” he demanded, smiling even more broadly when Ron flipped open the tabloid and began to read the questions off to him. To their delight, Hermione called out her own answers without ever looking up from her book.

---

The next morning, Harry would wake up with his head on Ron’s chest, the taller boy’s pale, freckly arms wrapped tight around his torso. The last thing he remembered from the night before was leaning against him as Hermione read out from her novel, Ron commenting needlessly every few lines in an effort to make them laugh. Eventually, the calming rumble of Ron’s voice from his chest and the steady sound of Hermione’s Reading Voice must have made him drift off. 

Harry stayed still, listening to the steady beat of Ron’s heart beneath his ear, the murmur of voices drifting up the stairs and through the cracked bedroom door, and the soft chirping of birds beyond the window. Hermione must have already awoken and been cleared to move around, as her bed was empty. 

He lifted his gaze towards Ron’s face, making sure to only move his head a little. He could just make out his friend’s jawline. Like everywhere else, his jaw and neck were smattered with freckles. There was one in particular, right where his jaw met his neck, that was a bit darker than the others. That would be a good spot to kiss, Harry thought idly, before the thought fully registered.

Immediately, he felt his cheeks begin to burn. On instinct, he ducked his head, burying his face in the worn t-shirt that Ron had worn to bed. He stirred at the movement, squeezing Harry just a bit tighter for a second. “Morning, ‘Arry,” he croaked, voice rough with sleep.

“Morning,” Harry replied into his chest, unsure whether it would be worse to sit up and pretend that everything was normal or to stay where he was. “Sleep alright?”

Ron hummed sleepily, presumably a yes, and slipped his left arm from around Harry’s shoulders to scrub the sleep from his eyes. His right thumb circled gently at Harry’s shoulder where it still lay, as if that were completely normal. Tension that Harry hadn’t realized he’d been holding slowly left his shoulders after a few seconds.

Feeling a bit brave, Harry moved the arm that he’d flung across Ron up, until he found Ron’s left hand. Ron flipped his palm up to intertwine their fingers without saying a word.

Neither made any move to get up until Bill’s laugh grew louder, and his heavy footsteps began to move up the stairs.

---

“A dragon!” Ron laughed, wringing his shirt out into the dry grass. “We just rode a bloody dragon! Merlin, Charlie’s going to be jealous.” Harry could picture the second-eldest Weasley’s face when he heard about that particular adventure, and snorted out a laugh despite himself. His chest, which had felt heavy with anxiety for days —for months— felt unusually light.

He tried to remove his damp shirt, but it got tangled with his glasses above his head. Harry flailed uselessly for a moment before he heard his friends laughing from somewhere behind him. “Okay, very funny,” he complained. “Someone help me get this off!” 

With Ron’s help, Harry managed to emerge from the shirt, and the three of them were quickly changed into dry clothes. Harry’s messy hair was still dripping water down his back, but he couldn’t find it in himself to complain much. They’d broken into Gringotts and survived, cup and all. He could hardly believe it.

“Shame about the sword,” Hermione said, twisting her damp hair into a thick braid. “Though I really can’t begrudge Griphook. In Goblin culture he has every right to it.”

“Didn’t have to leave us locked in the vault though, did he?” Ron asked, but he was grinning nonetheless. “You know, I think they may have noticed that we broke into Gringotts.” And then he was loping across the space between them and yanking Harry into his arms, tucking his head under his chin and squeezing tightly. Harry could have sworn he felt Ron brush a kiss into the top of his head before he pulled away, turning to tug Hermione into a much briefer hug.

Harry felt his cheeks reddening. “What was that for?” he wondered, furrowing his brows together.

Ron didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. “I don’t know,” he said. “Just felt right.” Harry really didn’t have anything to say to that, and Hermione was busy digging through her bag, so they fell into silence.

They stared at each other for a long time, Harry taking in Ron’s broad shoulders, his eyes that were so bright against his pale skin and dark eyebags, the way his hair glowed almost golden in the setting sun. There was dried blood on his temple and a thin scar on his cheek, cutting right through the freckles. He’d rolled up the sleeves of the flannel Hermione had dug out for him, so Harry could see the whorls of scars that covered his forearms, two years old and only just starting to fade from pink to silver-white.

Just when the silence started to turn a corner into something, Hermione interrupted by clearing her throat quite pointedly. “Where to, now?” she asked, her eyebrow arched and lips pursed. She had a look in her eye that was vaguely familiar, and Harry wasn’t quite sure where he recognized it from. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

Suddenly pain shot through his scar. His knees gave out under him as he clutched at his forehead, and distantly he felt Ron catch him before he hit the ground. Images flashed through his mind of Malfoy Manor, of Voldemort screaming out a Killing curse. Anger — no, sheer, unbridled fury — shot through his body, a burning cold that he felt all the way to the tips of his fingers.

When he came too, it was as he gasped for air, reaching up blindly. At some point Ron had gently lowered himself to the ground, and Harry found himself tucked up against his chest as he cradled him protectively. Hermione watched with her eyebrows drawn together, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. 

“Hogwarts,” Harry said when his lungs began to work properly again. “He’s going to go to Hogwarts. The last one is there.” 

Ron and Hermione locked eyes over his head, and he felt Ron’s head nod above his.

“Well then,” Hermione said. She straightened her shoulders and squared her jaw. “Let’s apparate to Hogsmeade.”

Harry stumbled to his feet, holding onto Hermione’s shoulder until he was sure that his knees weren’t about to give out again. He took a deep breath and steeled his nerves. “Let’s go home.”

---

The Room of Requirement was packed full of students, and for just a moment all three of them forgot how to breathe. Ron squeezed Harry’s wrist, which he hadn’t let go of since Aberforth had pulled them into the Hog’s Head, and Hermione pressed against his other side. They must have looked terrible - thin, exhausted, and wide-eyed, shying away from every touch. But Dean, who had spent most of the year in hiding himself, offered a half smile from the edge of the crowd in understanding and Neville seemed to place himself between them and the crowd. 

Harry squeezed both of them by the hand and forced himself to press forward.

“Ron!” Ginny’s voice was the first that Harry recognized as she threw herself through the crowd, squeezing around students to her brother’s side. She pulled him into a tight hug, then pulled away to slap around the back of the head. Her gaze was hard, but her hands were shaking. “I thought you were dead.”

Ron’s ears turned red. “I couldn’t bloody well send you an owl, could I?” he sputtered, but then he caught her eye and realized that she looked seconds away from crying. His voice softened and he drew her back into his arms. “Missed you too, Gin,” he muttered.

Ginny turned to Harry next, wrapping her arms around him before he had time to process what was happening. He tensed instinctively; after so many months with only Ron and Hermione, his skin prickled from the human contact. She let go quickly and offered a sad smile. “Missed you too, you git,” she said, and he knew she understood.

Ginny turned to pull Hermione into a conversation, and Harry turned back to Neville. It was easier to focus on him, this boy who had grown into a leader, than it was to think about the desperate children crowding around them and waiting for answers. Ron slung an arm around his shoulder, and Harry’s limbs untensed ever-so-slightly.

“Is this it?” Neville asked, and his voice was so tired. Almost resigned. 

Harry nodded, his eyes downcast. “This is it,” he confirmed. 

“What do you need?”

Ron’s hand ghosted over Harry’s shoulder as he pulled away and headed for Seamus and Dean. Harry levelled him with a steady gaze, and Ron nodded. He glanced around, caught sight of Ginny and Hermione and Luna bent over a table, and took a long breath.

“We need something from Ravenclaw.”

Ron

Ron thought it was strange, how in the midst of so much chaos everything could move so slowly. 

He was a strategist at heart, always trying to think four steps ahead of his opponent, and have two back-up plans besides. Months on the run had made him jumpier, sharpened his senses, made him observant in a way that he’d never been before. He marked all points of exit the moment he stepped into a room. (The way Harry had been doing for years, a part of him remembered.) 

Ducking through the halls with Hermione, sneaking into the Chamber, those things had been easy. For a moment, he felt like he was eleven, twelve, thirteen, back when the danger had seemed so much less real. Back when he was still learning that murderers and monsters weren’t just something in the twins’ scary stories. 

He could even almost imagine that Harry was with them, sneaking under the invisibility cloak. That they were trying to find out what Snape was up to, or sneak a dragon across the grounds. Except that Harry wasn’t with them, that he was making his way into the Ravenclaw tower alone - or, well, not alone. He had Luna. But Ron wasn’t there to watch his back.

It made him nervous. 

It was surprisingly easy to get into the Chamber of Secrets while mimicking Harry’s midnight parseltongue ramblings. He and Hermione gathered fangs into their arms methodically. Sure, there were only two horcruxes left, the diadem and that stupid snake. But he wanted to be sure that there wasn’t another situation where they lost their only weapon. 

Hermione stabbed Hufflepuff’s Goblet, her arms straining to keep the fang still until every shred of You-Know-Who’s soul screamed out its death. When the cup clattered to the floor, a melted, blackened hole right through the badger insignia on the side, Hermione hauled herself to her feet. “Let’s go,” she muttered, and turned to leave the Chamber. 

Ron sent the cup flying with a slightly petty kick, and hurried after her.

Which had led to them running through the castle, ducking around deuling bodies as they headed for the Room of Requirement. As they headed for Harry. 

Ron’s legs burned from the effort, his heart in his throat. Near him someone yelled out a string of curse words as a spell shattered the window. He sent a shield charm their way without stopping to see whether they were friend or foe. He wouldn’t stop until he saw Harry safe and alive.  

You-Know-Who’s words ricocheted around Ron’s skull - Give me Harry Potter - and a terrified part of him feared someone had given Harry up to the Death Eaters. Or perhaps, even worse, that Harry himself had walked into the dark wizard’s trap in a desperate hope to stop more people from dying. 

As if that would stop You-Know-Who.  

He nearly slammed into Harry as he and Hermione rounded the final bend to the corridor hiding the Room of Requirement. In a hurried effort to keep himself upright, Ron dropped the basilisk fangs tucked under his arms. He threw long limbs outwards, steadying himself, as one hand grabbed Harry’s shoulder and hauled him more solidly onto his feet. 

It took everything in Ron to keep himself from crying out in relief. Distantly, Harry and Hermione discussed the diadem, the Chamber, and the plan. Ron mentioned the house-elves without really hearing the words leave his mouth, and Hermione gazed at him with eyes that shone with grateful tears.

Harry said something else, but Ron was far too busy staring at him, taking in his features as if memorizing them, making sure he was all there , not a piece missing. 

Flashing green eyes still peered out from messy, over-long bangs. His warm brown skin was still marred by the scar-white lightning bolts cutting across his left temple. No new bruises marked his skin, though there was one under his eye that had darkened to a mottled purple-blue, and one across his jaw that was finally yellowing.

“Harry,” Ron breathed, and he surprised himself by saying it out loud. Harry swung a confused gaze in his direction, and Ron cleared his throat. “Lead the way,” he added awkwardly. Hermione rolled her eyes and dug a sharp elbow into his ribs as they headed into the Room.

---

Ron was sure that someone had sucked all of the oxygen out of Hogwarts. That had to be why his chest felt tight, even as he took large gulps of air. 

Fred stared up at the ceiling, eyes glassy and lifeless, with a ghost of a smile still on his face. Percy sobbed beside him, begging, pleading for their brother to say something, but Ron could barely hear him around the ringing in his ears. 

He lurched away from the alcove where they’d hidden Fred’s body, nearly throwing up the bit of bread and butter that he’d had at the Hog’s Head mere hours before. “I’ll kill him,” he mumbled. He gripped his wand tighter in his hand, so tightly that his nails left deep crescents in his palm. “Where is he? I’ll fucking kill him!”

It took both Hermione and Harry to shove him behind a tapestry and several long moments for Ron to calm down. Finally he slumped back against the wall, breathing heavily. “I want to kill him,” he repeated. “I want to kill the fucker that killed Fred.”

“And you will,” Hermione said, her voice high and frantic. There were tear tracks running down her cheeks. “You’ll have a chance, Ron, you will. But we have to- We have to kill the snake, we have to end this or else-”

“Ron.” Harry’s voice cut Hermione off, and the girl gave a grateful sob. She pulled away, burying her face in her hands for a moment to ward off tears. Ron turned to look at his best friend, and was startled to see that Harry’s face was drawn tight and ashen. “Ron, please, I- I can’t do this without you.”

His blood was still roiling beneath his skin with anger. It was a different kind of anger than the locket’s—where that anger had been ice cold, had come from the outside in, this anger burned bright and hot and ached to burst out of his chest. 

Harry’s green eyes met Ron’s. “Ron. Please,” he said again, this time so quiet it almost couldn’t be heard over the chaos beyond the tapestry. 

Ron grit his teeth and nodded. There would be time for revenge later. Harry needed him now. 

The fight around them made Ron’s head spin. He barely registered yelling out spells, ducking under flashes of deadly green. He watched Colin Creevey hit a Death Eater with a stunner and immediately take a killing curse to the back, watched his knees crumple and hit the pavement before his face had even slackened.

Harry gave a loud shout, and Greyback was blasted away from a struggling Lavender. Blood coursed from her throat and turned her dark blonde hair a sickeningly bright red. She gasped for breath, blood bubbling from her lips, the same lips that Ron had spent half of sixth year attached to. He forced himself to keep running. Distantly, he heard Parvati scream Lavender’s name.

He ducked under the killing curse of a man he vaguely recognized as Pansy Parkinson’s father. Ginny spun Parkinson’s direction from halfway across the courtyard, her red hair flying behind her like a banner. She hit the man with a scream of “Crucio!” Ron was both horrified and proud as he watched the Death Eater’s body seizing from the corner of his eye.

It wasn’t until they were in the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack that Ron finally took a moment to catch his breath. It didn’t last long, because soon You-Know-Who’s high, raspy voice cut through the silence and down to Ron’s bones.

They crouched in the darkness, Ron’s knees touching his chin, and waited as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named killed Snape just feet away from them. Ron closed his eyes, and remembered the teacher’s sneer. He remembered the insults, the jeers, the cruel edge to his words.

He remembered Hermione’s face when Snape called her a know-it-all. He remembered Neville’s biggest fear. He remembered Harry flinching back at the man’s words. He remembered every point lost for Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff. Every taunt, scowl, and insult. Every time he encouraged bullying and received no consequence. 

Maybe Ron really was a horrible person, because he felt nothing as the man took his final gasping breaths. The world would be no worse off without Severus Snape in it.

---

Ron’s blood ran cold at You-Know-Who’s latest declaration. He turned away from Fred’s body and scanned the crowded Great Hall, searching desperately for the familiar glint of light off of glasses, or a glimpse of messy black curls. 

“Where’s Harry?” Ginny asked. She met Ron’s eyes and must have seen his panic, because her voice raised to a pitch he’d never heard come from his sister. “Ron, where’s Harry?”

He swallowed around the lump in his throat, but found that he couldn’t force his voice to work. His silence seemed to be answer enough for Ginny, and she choked on a sob.

Ron’s father placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “We’ll find him,” he said firmly. Ron was sure he’d never heard his father sound so serious. There was none of the usual spark in his dark eyes. “I’ve already lost one son today. I will not lose another.”

It was those words that made Ron shove away from his family, jogging down the row of bodies (so many bodies) and past those that were injured. “Harry!” he yelled, not at all ashamed of the desperate edge to his voice. “Hermione? Where are you?” 

Hermione appeared beside him almost instantly, grabbing onto Ron’s sleeve. “Where’s Harry?” he asked. He nearly missed her reply over the blood pounding in his ears.

“I thought he was with you. You don’t think-” She cut herself off abruptly, unable to say the words that hovered at the back of both of their throats. Her grip on Ron’s sleeve tightened. “We have to stop him.”

With a heavy feeling in his chest, Ron looked over the Great Hall. It was filled with those who had been grievously injured, billed with dead bodies, filled with mourning members of the DA and Order alike. A small voice in the back of his head, a memory of Harry’s voice, whispered at him (“because of me, won’t let you risk your lives for me, its my fault, died for me”) and the heaviness sank to his stomach. 

“I don’t think we can, ‘Mione,” he said quietly. Hot tears built at the backs of his eyes, and Ron blinked them back. “I think this is the part Harry has to do on his own.”

---

At first, Ron thought that Hagrid was carrying a pile of rags into the courtyard. The figure in his arms seemed so small, Ron was sure that it couldn’t possibly be a person. The approaching army was laughing, shouting jeers as the defenders of Hogwarts gathered in the courtyard. Hagrid let out a great, horrible sob, and Ron’s blood ran cold.

“No,” he whispered, clenching his hands into fists. His ears burned as he forced himself to avoid showing emotion. George gasped quietly behind him, clearly having made the same realization as Ron, and placed a shaky hand on Ron’s shoulder. Ron muttered a quiet prayer to a God that he didn’t believe in. “Please. Not Harry.”

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named — no, Riddle, the fucker didn’t deserve the reverence the moniker implied, didn’t deserve to be called by his stupid nicknames — strode at the front of the pack as his army breached the gates of Hogwarts. There was a terrible smile on his face that from this distance made him look like a grinning skull.

His terrible voice seemed to emanate from inside of Ron’s head, his words bouncing around his skull. It took a moment for them to register.

“Harry Potter is dead.” There was a hint of amusement in Riddle’s words. This whole thing was a joke to him. Ron could barely keep himself upright. “He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone.”

Ron felt his knees begin to buckle beneath him. He surely would have fallen to the cobblestones beneath his feet had Bill not wrapped his hand around Ron’s arm to keep him from falling. His heart pounded in his ears. ( Not Harry. Not Harry. Not Harry. Please, not Harry.)

Riddle continue his speech, but Ron couldn’t hear it over the blood rushing in his ears. He wasn’t sure whether he was going to cry or throw up. Hagridsobbed Harry’s name, and it across the courtyard as Riddle and his men finally came to a stop.

The crowd shifted as they finally got a look at the body cradled in Hagrid’s arms. Bile rose in Ron’s throat as he took in the limp body of his best friend. Hermione choked on a sob and pressed her fist to her mouth. Ginny buried her face in Luna’s shoulder. The familiar sound of Seamus cursing came from somewhere behind Ron. 

“NO!”

The scream that cut through the muttering was so horrible that Ron was sure it could not have come from McGonagall. And yet the professor stood at the top of the stairs, looking quite surprised at the word that had come ripping from her throat. When he caught sight of her face, weary with the efforts of protecting Hogwarts, Ron realized for the first time that she was far older than he’d thought. 

Ginny let out a wordless scream next before collapsing against Luna in tears, barely able to stay standing. Ron couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his sister cry. Riddle and his followers began to laugh, Bellatrix Lestrange the loudest of all. 

“What will you do without your savior?” Riddle jeered. “He was nothing more than a weak-willed little boy after all!” 

“No!” Hermione sounded as though she’d hit her voice with a half-dozen severing charms at once, ripped to pieces and flung into the wind. Ron winced. 

The laughter got louder. “Scream all you want,” Riddle cackled. “It will do nothing.”

The beating of Ron’s heart grew even louder. Some desperate part of him hoped Harry had survived the Killing Curse once again. That there was a chance, no matter how small that he was sleeping, pretending, that screaming loudly enough or fighting hard enough or loving deeply enough  would bring him back. 

“Harry! HARRY!” He didn’t even realize that he’d screamed for the boy until the words had already left his mouth. If not for George and Bill’s grips, he would have bolted forwards, Riddle be damned. He strained against their hands before he finally gave up, sagging back into his oldest brother’s chest. 

“Not my Harry. No. Please,” he muttered.  The crowd began to move around him, whispering to each other. A few raised their wands, prepared to fight. Neville stood eerily still a few feet away from Ron, clenching his teeth so tightly that he could see the tendons tightening at his temple. 

“SILENCE!” Riddle screamed, and with a flash the entire courtyard fell quiet. Ron’s tongue felt like lead in his mouth. The fucker had placed a spell over them all to keep them contained, caged just like Harry must have felt in those last few seconds. 

Riddle commanded Hagrid to place Harry’s body at his feet. He circled the body for a moment, kicking at one of Harry’s splayed arms with a smirk. Somewhere inside of Ron, he felt his magic straining against Riddle’s spell in outrage. Not my Harry. Get the fuck away from him.

“He beat you!” Ron yelled, and the charm broke, and the defenders of Hogwarts were shouting and screaming again until a second, more powerful bang extinguished their voices once more.

“He was killed while trying to sneak out of castle grounds. ” The horrible grin seemed to stretch on the man’s face, too wide to be human. How many pieces of a soul can be torn off, Ron wondered, before you ceased to be a human? Riddle’s voice rose, delight seeming to emanate from him in waves. “Killed while trying to save himself—”  

Ron strained against the magic containing him once more. But it was Neville who broke free first, surging forward from the crowd towards Riddle a blur of dark hair and Gryffindor red. In that moment, Ron never would have guessed that this was the same nervous boy he’s shared a dorm with for six years. His heart seized as Riddle casually disarmed him, as he was thrown backwards again. 

He closed his eyes, barely paying attention to his surroundings anymore. Ron couldn’t do it. This was where he drew the line. Neville, who was surely about to be slaughtered in front of them; Harry, lying cold and lifeless on the cobblestones; Fred staring blankly at the ceiling in the Great Hall. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t watch.

“I’ll join you when hell freezes over! Dumbledore’s Army!” Neville called. Ron heard the answering cheer, but couldn’t bring himself to join in. His voice felt as though it was caught in his chest. His thoughts felt too slow and too fast all at once. Harry’s dead. He’s dead. He’s gone. Ron wasn’t quite sure when he’d started to believe it. 

Hermione shrieked, and Ron’s eyes shot upwards. Where Neville had been standing was a column of brightly burning fire, so hot he could feel his nose turning pink from where he stood. A choked half-sob,half-scream escaped his own throat, and he found himself clutching at Hermione’s hand. 

And then the world exploded into chaos around them.

From Hogwarts’ gates a crowd of wizards burst forth, sending spells at the back of the crowd of Death Eaters. Centaurs galloped behind them, shooting arrows into their ranks with Grawp close at their heels. Ron caught a moment’s glance of Charlie in the crowd before those gathered on the steps of Hogwarts were spurred into action, and he became preoccupied by dodging curses.

Hagrid shouted from somewhere in the courtyard, “Harry! Where’s Harry!” and a part of Ron wanted to search for him. The thought of not only losing Harry, but also his body— Ron didn’t even want to think about it. But he was swept into the Great Hall by the tide of people, and he forced himself to not think about him.

“Ron!” Neville’s voice came from behind him, followed by a flash of red hitting a Death Eater that had just sent a Killing Curse directly at him. Ron just barely managed to dodge the spell, and Neville slammed into his side. “I killed the snake!” 

“Good job, Nev- Oi!” Neville ducked under Ron’s arm as he shot a spell towards Greyback, who’d been about to leap towards them. Together, they fought the werewolf back. Ron grit his teeth and resisted the urge to scream out. He threw a sheild in front of Neville, who laughed loudly and bumped his shoulder against Ron’s. 

For the first time that Ron had seen, Neville looked as fiercely determined with his wand in battle as he did when practicing with the DA. The werewolf lunged towards Neville, but he hit Greyback with a slicing hex that made the wolf stumble backwards as his chest was slashed.

“This is for Lupin,” Ron hissed. He took a deep breath, conjured all the hatred in his bones, and cast Avada Kedavra for the first time in his life. Greyback looked in the split second before the green spell hit his face and he dropped to the ground.

There was no time to relish in the victory. There were still more enemies to take down. Neville darted away from Ron to help Seamus fight Rudolphus Lestrange. Over the din, he heard Bellatrix let out a killing curse, and his mother shout. 

“Not my daughter, you bitch!” floated across the crowd, and Ron’s heart seemed to stop. He shoved his way towards his mother’s voice until he found a break in the crowd. In the middle a clearer space, his mother fought Bellatrix, her red hair coming loose from its normally carefully pinned buns. A small braid stuck nearly straight up at the top of her head.

Ron locked eyes with Ginny across the circle, and his heart slowly began to do its job once again. His mother screamed, and Ron turned back towards her just in time to see Molly Weasley throw killing curse at Bellatrix. 

“Is that Harry?” someone yelled, and Ron whipped around. In the center of the Hall, Ron saw Riddle facing down with… with Harry.

He had barely processed that Harry was alive before the duel began. Ron felt as though his feet were glued to the floor, staring between the moving crowd at Harry. Slowly, those around him began to slow to a stop. All eyes were locked on the duel in the center of the Great Hall. Ron hardly noticed, too busy watching them.

Harry’s dark hair was damp with sweat, plastered to his forehead and obscuring the jagged lines of his scar. His cheeks seemed hollow, the dark circles under his eyes making him look more like a skull than a boy. Blood stained his clothes, turning them mottled red and brown, and his palms were scraped raw. 

His eyes, so green they nearly matched the Killing curse he’d twice survived, were drawn tight around the corners. Ron’s chest tightened as he recognized the expression. Harry was afraid.

The two men were shouting at each other, but Ron hardly recognized the words. Harry’s mouth cracked into a manic grin, and the familiar bolt of red from his wand collided with Riddle’s Curse. Ron’s heart felt as though it was trapped in his throat as Harry gripped his wand, his muscles straining. 

There was a crack, and the Killing Curse doubled back on itself. Ron caught the half-second in which Riddle’s eyes widened in realization before he crumpled to the stone below their feet. There was a heavy silence for just a moment as everyone processed what had happened. Harry’s gaze was hard as he dropped his wand arm to his side and stepped away from the body.

Then the crowd surged, as the Death Eaters realized that their leader was truly dead and that they couldn’t apparate to safety from within Hogwarts’ walls. Order and DA members threw themselves forwards, using wands and hands alike to trap as many as they could. Others just turned to each other, crying and celebrating the end of the terror. 

Ron knew he should help his friends, but he stayed still, letting himself be jostled by the rush of people. He muttered Harry’s name, and Harry turned as though he’d heard it. Their eyes locked, and suddenly Ron was able to move. 

He threw himself across the Hall just as Harry did, colliding with each other in the middle. Ron wrapped his arms around Harry’s shoulders and he pressed his face into his shoulder. He was barely aware of the tears dripping from his face and soaking Harry’s hair. 

Harry pulled back just enough to lock eyes with Ron, searching for something in the bright blue. Ron’s heart swelled, and he found himself leaning down just as Harry raised onto his toes. Their lips collided in a clash of teeth and tongue and salt from the tears that mingled on each others’ cheeks. 

They slowed, the kiss turning from desperate, life-or-death, to something soft and sweet and gentle. Harry’s lips were warm against Ron’s, slightly chapped but real. Harry was warm and real and alive, and in Ron’s arms. He pressed as closely to him as possible even as Harry’s stubble scratched his cheeks. Harry’s hands slid up Ron’s chest to loop around his neck and pull himself further onto his toes, his fingers playing with the hair on the nape of Ron’s neck. 

Hermione’s voice came from behind them, half-amused and half-frustrated. “Is this the moment?” she said. When they both ignored her, she huffed and crossed her arms. “OI! There’s a war going on here!”

Ron pulled away from Harry reluctantly, taking in his kiss-swollen lips with a grin. “Nah, ‘Mione,” he said. “Not anymore, there isn’t.” He ducked his head to recapture Harry’s lips, threading his fingers into his hair. 

Hermione huffed, and Ron felt Harry laugh against his lips.

Three Years Later

Harry blinked sleep out of his eyes as sun streamed through the curtains. Ron’s bare chest rose and fell slowly beneath his arm as he continued to doze, the barest smile on his lips. Harry felt his heart warm, and snuggled closer, pressing his nose against Ron’s freckled shoulder and breathing him in.

Ron shifted beneath him, the arm wrapped around Harry’s back rising to comb through his hair. “Morning,” he said quietly, peering down at Harry with squinted eyes. Harry pressed a kiss to Ron’s shoulder as a reply, tucking his face into the crook of his boyfriend’s neck. 

Harry felt more than heard Ron’s chuckle, and he pressed Harry closer for a moment. “Sleepy?” he asked, trying to suppress the smile that threatened to cross his lips. 

Harry shook his head and smiled against Ron’s skin. He wasn’t tired - in fact, he’d slept relatively well, with only a handful of nightmares rousing him in the darkest hours. “Just love you,” he said, pressing another kiss to Ron’s pale shoulder.

Ron felt his heart flutter the way it always did when Harry proclaimed his love. He pressed a kiss to Harry’s forehead, right in the middle of his scar. Slowly, it had begun to fade in the three years since the war ended, finally fading from pink-brown and irritated, to shiny white. He lifted a hand to gently caress Harry’s forehead with a thumb. “Love you too, H’rry,” he finally replied. “Do we have to get up?”

Harry rose to his elbow and squinted down at Ron, who, without his glasses, became a blob of strawberry-and-cream skin and splotches of orange-brown where his freckles blurred into each other, all topped with a swath of copper. 

“You may be one of the saviors of the Wizarding World, mate,” Harry replied, “but that won’t stop your boss from docking your pay for not showing up.”

Ron laughed, and sat up properly, brushing his hair off of his face before passing Harry his glasses from the bedside table. “George can stuff it,” he said, though he still rolled off of the bed and headed for the closet.

Harry laughed, tossing a pillow at Ron’s back. He missed by a long shot, the pillow hitting the dresser two feet to the left of the door. 

“There’s a reason you weren’t a chaser, Harry,” Ron said as he emerged from the closet with a light purple button down thrown over his shoulders. 

“Maybe,” Harry agreed, his smile a flash of white in his warm, brown skin. “But you’re definitely a keeper.”

It took Ron a moment to process the joke, during which Harry waited patiently for a reaction. When it finally registered, Ron snorted and his ears turned red with embarrassment. “You’re ridiculous is what you are,” he decided. Harry laughed and finally pulled himself from the bed. “What’s on the schedule today, then?”

“I’ve got a meeting with Head Auror Jones in an hour to officially hand in my resignation, and then I’m picking Teddy up at eleven,” Harry said casually as he pulled one of Ron’s sweaters over his head. When he emerged, he found Ron frozen, jaw dropped and halfway through putting on a belt. Harry grinned back.

His smile, combined with the way that the sweater slipped just enough to show Harry’s collarbone and the edge of his t-shirt, made Ron’s heart flutter again. He shook himself from his surprise, and raised both eyebrows. “You’re resigning?” he asked in the same casual tone.

Ron wasn’t particularly surprised when Harry confirmed this. Though he’d been a full-fledged Auror for less than three months, Harry had been unenthused by the job since far before training had ended. After a year of recovery, they had started Auror training together, as was expected of them. Halfway through, at the end of the first year, Ron had left the program to help George run the joke shop. Harry had also begun to realize that he didn’t want to fight for the rest of his life around then, but he’d felt an obligation to continue. 

“Surprised it took this long, honestly,” Harry continued.

Ron shrugged. “You have a saving people thing,” he said, before shifting his focus to more important matters. “Bring Teddy by the shop later, yeah? We’ve just cleared the color-changing crayons for production, and we need a tester.”

The rest of the hour was filled with banter interspersed by kisses that nearly made them late. At the door, they finally parted ways with one last, lingering kiss. Ron turned further into Diagon Alley, towards the intersections of Diagon and Vertic where Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes towered over the surrounding buildings. He tossed one last glance over his shoulder, as he walked, hoping to catch a last glimpse of Harry for the moment.

As he did most days, Harry stood at the bottom of the stairs to their flat, watching as Ron headed off to work. He liked to linger, to watch Ron move through the world, striding with a confidence that had taken years to slowly build. When he saw Ron turn his head, he lifted his hand in a wave that the other returned. 

At last, Harry turned up the street, towards The Leaky Cauldron and its Apparition Point. He, too, had a particular stride that he hadn’t before the war. He reached up to rub at his forehead out of habit, fingers tracing over the familiar branching lines of his scar.

Those who’d fallen still haunted Harry, their deaths weighing heavily on his shoulders on the harder days. Some nights he dreamt of laughter cut short, of crumbling stone, of bright green light. There were weeks when eating seemed like an insurmountable task, when the thought of speaking to anyone made his skin crawl.

Ron still looked towards George at times, eyes searching for a brother that wasn’t there. Some days he couldn’t close his eyes without seeing Fred’s slack face, Harry’s body in Hagrid’s arms, blood pouring from Lavender’s throat. He’d gotten the recognition he’d dreamed of as a child, but it had come at great cost.

But good moments began to outweigh the bad — Teddy’s first birthday; the birth of Bill and Fleur’s daughter; Hermione, Ginny, and Luna’s graduation from Hogwarts. There were weddings and birthdays to celebrate, teas with friends and dinners at the Burrow. A future that Harry and Ron had never allowed themselves to hope for, once upon a time.

The scar would not pain Harry for the rest of his many years. All was well.