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"I can't do it," Ron said quietly, watching his muddy trainers instead of Harry's face. "I'm sorry."
"I don't blame you," Harry told him, "really. You didn't have to do this."
Ron snorted. "Course I did."
"You could've...you didn't have to stay."
Ron looked up, then, and he might've been trying to smile but his face was too swaddled in bandages to tell for sure. "Of course I did," he said, then looked away.
They listened in silence to the hustle and bustle in the hospital wing muffled only by a thin curtain that barely concealed their beds. This was a space meant for broken bones and misTransfigured noses, not war wounded, and the noise carried a little too well.
"So what will you do?" Harry asked. "I mean, if you're not applying to the Aurors. Do you know?"
Ron shrugged with his one good shoulder and peeked through the gap in the curtain. "Dunno. Haven't really thought about it, you know?"
"Yeah," Harry said, and watched Ron watch the Healers racing from bed to bed.
--/--
So it hadn't really been a surprise when Ron started his apprenticeship at the hospital, not to Harry. The rest of the Weasleys ranged from enthusiastically surprised to blankly incredulous, but at some point in the last year or so Ron had sprouted a thicker skin and didn't seem to notice either.
"You?" Fred�maybe George�had asked with a snort. "They're going to let you be a Healer?"
"Eventually," was all Ron replied.
"I think it's wonderful," Mrs. Weasley said with her eyes shining.
Ron shrugged, both shoulders working now.
Nobody was surprised when the Aurors accepted Harry; he fancied that Scrimgeour had been awaiting the application the way little children wait for Father Christmas. Luckily Kingsley was in charge of the training program now, and promised to treat Harry like a proper recruit rather than a Ministry mascot.
"Don't think," he told Harry, "that taking down just one Dark wizard makes you qualified, no matter how many Horcruxes he had."
Harry knew it was meant as a joke but he answered, "You don't have to worry about that," quite in earnest.
Ron surprised Harry in the dead of one night�not by talking, because they were both used to lying awake and fitting words into the silence�but by asking, "What do you think she'd be doing now?"
Harry's thoughts froze, and his breath felt stuck in his throat.
"Probably something at the Ministry," Ron said after a little bit, with a painful little quaver in his voice. "Or house elves. Or both."
But she hadn't talk about Spew in ages, Harry thought, but his tongue was too numb to say it.
"Yeah," Ron said more firmly, "she would've applied to the Ministry so she could free the house-elves...get special rights for werewolves...that sort of thing. Probably would've done it, too, inside ten years, don't you think?"
No, Harry didn't think. He couldn't, and he didn't really want to. In the darkness he stayed silent, and Ron eventually rolled over and went to sleep.
--/--
They moved into their own flat soon after�Ron promising to pay back his share of the rent once he was off the apprentice's stipend�and this was how they spent their evenings: they studied different books side-by-side with swiftly chilling take-away at hand, and they didn't speak. Ron was up late most nights practicing different potions, and as he emptied jars and bottles and tins, Harry took them to the living room for target practice.
On Sundays they ate dinner at the Burrow and made small talk about their jobs. There were different days for different graves scattered through the month, but those Sundays they always visited Hermione. Harry stood back and watched anything but the stone marker: Ron conjured a single flower for her and ran his fingers through the engravings without reading them.
--/--
Summer faded.
Ron seemed to improve as time went on, at least, as far as Harry could tell. He ate more and he talked more: at those Sunday dinners he could be counted on to trot out at least one funny anecdote about the hospital as he rotated through each ward. He seemed to genuinely enjoy the work, but Harry was never quite sure because they had separate bedrooms now. It was astonishing how much you could learn about a person by watching them sleep.
Harry's job was little different from what he'd been doing for the past three years except that he was now getting paid for it. He didn't see the point in talking about it with people who were already trying to forget. If someone asked him a question, he would answer, but for the most part he stared at the gaps between chairs, looking for the faces that were never coming back.
One day they arrived a bit later than normal and Mrs. Weasley didn't get around to clucking her tongue until dessert. "Ron, why didn't you tell me you got a commendation from the hospital?"
Harry looked away from the hole between Ginny and George in time to see Ron's cheeks go faintly green. "'Snot important," he mumbled into his cake.
"Nonsense," Mrs. Weasley said. "I was talking to Hestia Jones the other day and she said the Director himself awarded it to you!"
"Blimey," Fred said. "Who'd you shag to get that?"
"Fred! Hestia said it was something about protecting one of the senior Healers�"
Ron swallowed. "A bloke came in with hallucinations and attacked Healer Fidgel," he said softly. "I disarmed him and put him in a body-bind before he could harm her."
And his voice was so low and so flat and so sad that Harry couldn't bear it anymore. "I'm going to have a bit of a walk," he said standing up.
Ron said, "I'll come, too."
They paced each other around the back garden in silence, and they didn't even look up, and when they did go back inside Ron made certain to change the subject.
--/--
One night Harry dreamed that Hermione was scolding him in the Common Room. You're behind on your Transfiguration practice, she said, wiping at the blood that streamed down her face, and you can't do a Summoning Charm, and Ron is sad, and you got a T on your Herbology essay!
What am I supposed to do? Harry asked her. How am I supposed to fix it?
You're not trying hard enough!
I don't know what to do!
Why don't you study more? Why don't you understand?
You're supposed to help me!
Ron woke him up with a thump on the door. "Mate? You okay?"
"Yeah," Harry croaked, and scrubbed at his own cold sweat. He half expected to find Hermione's blood under his fingernails. "Yeah...dreaming."
Ron was silent for a long time. "All right," he finally said, barely loud enough for Harry to make out. "I'm working a long shift today."
"All right."
"See you tonight."
It was four o'clock in the morning on nineteen September. She would've been nineteen years old.
--/--
New Aurors were trained in hand-to-hand combat on the principle that they shouldn't be completely helpless if disarmed. Of course, they weren't supposed to be disarmed, and Harry rather thought that the sorts of enemies who would be able to disarm them were not going to wait around for a punch in the stomach, but this was how the training had gone for a hundred years and he wasn't going to complain.
Not when Kingsley spent the morning knocking him on his arse without a piece of wood in sight. Not when he had to concentrate fiercely and unlearn his half-remembered Dudley-deflecting techniques. Not when the bruises and the twinges and the scrapes could take his mind off things infinitely more painful.
In the afternoon Kingsley said, "Now I'm going to watch you practice."
"With who?" Harry asked.
Kingsley opened a cabinet in the far corner of the room and inside there was a golem made of dull, unglazed clay; it stepped forward when Kingsley tapped it with his wand, footsteps clicking. "This is Bob," Kingsley said. "He's bewitched for this kind of drilling. Don't worry, he can't actually hurt you�Moody himself put that charm on. Got sick of reattaching arms, he says."
Harry examined the statue, which was human-shaped in only the most general sense: its arms and legs were oddly proportioned and its face had the barest bumps and dents for features. "Am I allowed to practice with this on my own time?" he asked.
"Sure, if you want�I can show you the spells before you go." Kingsley tapped the golem again, and it assuming a fighting crouch. "Now let's get to it."
--/--
Harry spent the rest of the afternoon dodging ceramic fists and bruising his knuckles on a sculpted jaw. Kingsley sent him home early with a short list of the incantations for Bob and instructions to ice some of his nastier bruises.
The flat was dark and empty, and Harry lingered there only long enough to be certain that Kingsley wouldn't catch him coming back.
--/--
He had to Floo home; something in his right shoulder had sort of popped, and he couldn't even raise his wand high enough to send Bob back to the corner cabinet. The flat was dark again, but when Harry stumbled swearing from the fireplace he heard movement in the kitchen before Ron tottered out, clutching some sort of a bottle in one hand.
"'m home," he called dully, bracing himself against the top of the chair with his left arm.
"What the hell happened to you?" Ron blurted.
"Practicing."
"Practicing what, how to resist torture?"
Harry was too tired to snap at Ron for overreacting. He clutched his right arm to his chest and started to limp towards his bedroom. "Gonna grab a shower," he announced. Maybe the hot water would help put his shoulder right.
Ron stopped him with one hand and flicked on the lights with the other. It made Ron look very pale and bleary-eyed, and they were standing close enough for Harry to smell liquor on his breath; he studied Harry intently, though, before he said. "Get in the tub and wait for me."
Harry blinked at him.
"Healer's orders, Potter."
In the misty bathroom mirror, Harry decided that Ron wasn't quite overreacting; he was bruised and swollen and scraped raw by rough clay in places he barely remembered being hit. It had been more important to keep moving, kept attacking, until his mind went blank and there was nothing there to hurt him. He realized he couldn't raise his arm high enough to remove his own shirt.
Ron came in, having traded the drink for some potions. "What's the matter?" he asked.
Harry suddenly noticed every sore spot on his body at once, and felt very old. "I hurt my arm," he said softly, squeezing his eyes shut.
He heard Ron set the bottle on the edge of the sink, felt Ron run a hand across his shoulders. "Which one�right?"
"Yeah."
Ron helped him get the shirt off and probed Harry's shoulder gently; his fingers felt strangely cool and soft, unreal. He lifted the arm until Harry hissed aloud, then traced a curve of muscle with his wand tip. Whatever had popped while he was sparring de-popped with a stab of pain, but it faded quickly and the arm worked properly again.
"Into the tub with you, now."
Ron fiddled with his bottles by the sink while Harry finished undressing and climbed into the hot bath. He felt strangely numb for all his aches and pains; he couldn't bring himself to feel very interested in the purplish liquid Ron added to the water, or the way he rolled up his sleeves and knelt by the edge. "Lean forward," Ron said. "You look like you've been beaten, you know that? With pointy sticks."
"I was sparring with Bob."
"Who the hell is Bob?"
"A statue."
Ron started rubbing something thick and herby-smelling over Harry's back: it went on shockingly cold but warmed almost immediately, warming him more that mere bathwater could. "On second thought, I don't wanna know," Ron grumbled. "What made you think getting the shit beat out of you by a statue was a good idea?"
"I was winning," Harry mumbled.
Ron pushed Harry's sweaty hair off his neck and rubbed the potion it, practically massaging the knots out. The smell of drink was gone from his breath. "What made you think she'd have wanted this, mate?"
Harry didn't answer. He couldn't answer. A weak dig about wanting him to get drunk instead drifted between his ears, but his tongue was too glued up to say it. He didn't want to think about what Hermione wanted, he just wanted to forget�except, no, he did want to remember her, but remembering always lead to missing her, and missing her hurt more than he could bear.
What Hermione would've wanted didn't matter because Harry had to keep going. For her sake. For his own. Any way that he could manage to, he would.
Ron finished whatever he was doing and tugging Harry's shoulder. "Lean back for me."
Harry started to, but he was suddenly aware of something rising below his waist�it was ridiculous, when he felt so disconnected from his body, so numb. "Um."
"I can't reach your legs like this, mate."
"I'm all right."
"You were limping."
Harry sighed, shut his eyes again and leaned back, resigned; he couldn't feel embarrassment, not now, not on top of everything else. Ron didn't say a word, just reached through the water to probe his ankles and rub the same thick lineament into his calves. There wasn't anything about the touch that should've been sexual; perhaps it was just warm water and adrenaline and being touched at all by somebody else, even Ron, even today. Perhaps he was just going mad. Ron was downright professional about it, though, working his way up Harry's thighs and stomach, soothing bruises and sealing scrapes and probing for damaged bones all while ignoring the world's most inappropriate erection. There was no reason for it to feel good, not here and not now, but at the same time he was so exhausted...
By the time Ron had cleaned and closed the last cut on his face, Harry felt bonelessly relaxed and on the verge of dozing off right there in the tub. Ron splashed him a bit and said, "You're going to want to rinse that ointment off, it dries like cement."
"'kay," Harry said. He considered asking if sleeping in the tub would be a feasible alternative.
"You're getting pruny, too."
"Mmm-hmm."
"You can't sleep in the bathtub, Harry."
When had Ron become a Legilimens? Harry slowly sat up and groped for the soap, grumbling to himself in a way that made Ron crack a faint smile.
Ron left him in privacy, popping in only once more to leave a clean pair of pajamas and a couple of towels. He looked like he wanted to say something, something serious again, but changed his mind; when Harry finally dried off and shuffled to bed, he noticed a light still burning in the kitchen. He paused in the hallway a long time before going into his bedroom and shutting the door behind him.
--/--
As it happened they were both doing poisons the first week of October. Suddenly the nightly routine changed, and they were sitting knee to knee or hip to hip, reading out of each other's books and confusing their curries as they tried to understand this Dark ritual or that common household brewing accident. Ron trotted out more notes from Potions class than Harry ever remembered him taking, and they quizzed each other over symptoms and antidotes long into the night.
"You're looking better," Bill commented to Harry one Sunday. "Both of you."
"Thanks."
"Is Ron doing better?"
They sat up all night poring over books and scrolls and ignoring the person who should've been there, helping them understand it all. But they were talking. "I don't really know."
"What about you?"
"I'm fine."
Harry did well on his poisons module and moved on to concealment and disguise. Ron went back to studying on his own, but somehow they didn't quite break the habit of sitting close enough to read each other's notes. Harry remembered that they had sat like that in school, too, once upon a time, before dark lords and hormones had intervened; once they had sat practically in each other's laps to study and revise, and Hermione had sat across from them and tutted. But that was a long time ago.
--/--
Ginny found him in Hogsmeade while he was doing his examination in concealment and disguise. He had walked the high street all morning, surrounded by students and villagers and totally ignored: it was a strange, liberating feeling, and also somewhat frightening, when even people he knew and liked looked through him like a stranger, or a ghost. Kingsley let him remove the spells for a lunch break and Ginny practically pounced on him when she noticed.
"How've you been? How's Ron? What're you doing up here? D'you have time to talk? Kingsley, does he have time to talk?"
Kingsley laughed and gave them an hour before he excused himself from the table. Ginny took his seat. "I'm fine," Harry told her. "I'm up here for training. Concealment and disguise."
"I was wondering why I hadn't heard you were here already. You must be doing well."
"Have to, to pass."
"Of course. What about Ron? He's crap at keeping up with letters."
Harry shrugged. "Fine, I guess. I don't really know."
"Don't really know? What, you flat together, don't you?"
"We're busy."
Ginny scowled and sipped her butterbeer. "You're a real boy, Harry, you know that?"
"Well, I was the last time I checked." That made her laugh.
They chatted about her classes and his training and even gossiped a bit about the teachers and some students Harry knew. It was strange in an entirely different way, and unsettling, because he had a feeling that if he let himself, he could pretend all too easily that this was a life he hadn't had, a road not taken because it was never open to him in the first place. Ginny seemed to catch on.
"Does he talk to you about her?" she asked suddenly. "Hermione, I mean."
"No," Harry said stiffly. "We don't talk about her."
Ginny sighed. "I know he won't talk to me about it...I thought maybe because I wasn't there, or something."
Harry wasn't there either. Harry had run away in search of help and left Ron alone to watch her die. By the time he had returned she was already cold, and Ron's hands were stained red from stroking her hair, and he was crying without making a sound. He didn't speak again for over a week, in fact, and that was only to inform Harry point-blank that he wasn't going anywhere with out him.
"Why'd you wanna know?" Harry asked, reluctantly, wishing for a change of topic.
Ginny toyed with her empty glass. "I just...Christmas is coming."
"Yeah."
"I'm worried."
There was nothing for Harry to say.
"Sorry," she said. "I just...never mind. Let's talk about something else."
"Like what?"
"Like...I dunno. Are you seeing anyone?"
He choked on his drink.
"Sorry," she said with a cringe. "Um. How about the Cannons?"
"I'm not seeing anyone," he said when he got his breath back. "Why?"
She shrugged. "I'm not either."
A moment hung suspended in time and space. Harry cleared his throat once to dislodge a lingering tickle and again for effect. "Er. Did you. When we broke up�were you angry with me?"
She seemed to think for a while. "Yes. I was when it happened."
"But not now."
"Not now." There were circles of condensation on the table and she traced them with her fingers. "I talked to her about, Hermione I mean, just before. We talked about it."
"And?"
She took a deep breath. "She told me that you have a saving-people thing. I agreed. And I sort of realized...you're too busy saving me for anything else, you know?"
Harry didn't know, and he didn't have an answer. Kingsley came back and Harry spent the afternoon sneaking up on people in shops to prove they couldn't see him. That night he lay awake thinking about the way things could've been, and mourned a little for the roads he would never get to take. But only a little.
--/--
December brought foul weather and Christmas cards, and Ron started working extra shifts at the hospital. After the first week he looked tired; after the second week he looked exhausted; after the third, Harry didn't see him at all, and only half the time heard him come back late at night or leave in the early morning. He found himself missing the leg pressed against his while he studied his evenings away and the tiniest noises of someone else breathing.
Ron surfaced that Sunday barely in time to visit the graveyard before dinner, but he didn't conjure flowers or trace the letters of her name this time: he just pressed his forehead against the stone and knelt with his shoulders slumped around him. Harry wondered if he was thinking about blood on snow and how they'd started the year with a funeral.
"I hope you're all coming for Christmas," Mrs. Weasley said at dinner. "Charlie's just written to let us know he'll be in Thursday morning."
"Can't," Ron said. "I'm working."
"Not on Christmas!" she wailed.
"Picking up a shift for Brocklehurst. Her sister just had a baby."
"What about Christmas day?" Mr. Weasley asked.
"Working then, too."
"Oh, Ronald..."
Harry tried to catch Ron's eyes, but they were pointed at his plate, though not fixed on anything in particular.
--/--
So Harry was alone on Christmas Eve as he made the rounds of all the graves he could think of: friends and teachers and people he just barely knew, but wanted to visit just in case no one else did. It was late and very cold by the time he got to Hermione, and he couldn't stay longer than it took to conjure a single flower on Ron's behalf. He couldn't stand it, even though a part of him suggested that he should've stayed all night.
The Burrow was lit up and jumping with people�Charlie had brought a fiancee and half the Order had arrived. Harry got yanked inside and pulled from hug to handshake to slap-on-the-back, and everyone was wishing him a merry Christmas, and everyone was smiling, and it was almost too much to handle at once. The twins dragged him off to look at a pair of naughty trick suspenders they were developing and he savored the chance just to breathe.
But no one can sit out a Weasley party any more than they could linger at the edges of a whirlpool. Harry ate and drank and chatted, listened to stories and laughed�laughed!�at jokes and the twins' product line. Some part of his mind was aware of teetering, like he was on the edge of some precipice, barely in balance. But it wasn't until the end of dinner when the toasting started and Mr. Weasley stood up to say "To absent friends," when everyone went silent and grave and the party seemed to deflate like a balloon, burst like a dream�
Absent, and never coming back�
He shouldn't have come to the party, he should've stayed at the graveyard, he shouldn't have forgotten�
"Excuse me," he mumbled, bumping George and treading on someone else's foot. "I need�excuse me�a bit of air�"
"Are you feeling well�?"
"I'm fine�"
He stumbled into the garden and choked a bit on the frigid air, stepping in slushy puddles where a steady rain had begun to change over to Christmas snow. The cold grounded him, somehow, cleared his mind. He couldn't break down; she'd be so disappointed. She would want him to carry on however he could. But he didn't want to forget her, didn't want to forget anything, even though he was so damn tired�
"Are you all right?"
He jumped when Remus spoke, and nearly slid off his feet. Some great Auror he was. "Yeah," he said quicky. "I'm fine."
Remus handed him his cloak, which he didn't put on, and stood next to him to watch the fat flakes mixed with rain. "The first year," he said, "is the hardest."
"What do you mean?"
"You're not the only one who's ever lost such a very dear friend, Harry."
Harry stared at the puddles; he was tempted to walk away, but this was Remus, and he couldn't. "I told you I'm fine."
"You're not."
"I'm dealing with it."
"Have you talked to Ron about it?"
"Of course not."
"Maybe you should."
Harry wrung his cloak in his hands and concentrated on his breathing: if he couldn't talk to Remus he certainly wouldn't talk to Ron. She had been his girlfriend, after all. There just weren't words for this kind of thing.
If Remus had any more advice to give, it was cut off by the arrival of a large tawny owl to the party. Harry's mouth went dry when he recognized the lime-green envelope clutched in its beak.
--/--
"He's resting," Hestia Jones said as they bustled down the halls. "One of the other apprentices got a bit�er�enthusiastic with the calming charms. He specifically asked for you, though."
The halls of St. Mungo's were Christmas-bright and Harry was not panicking. Really. "Is he all right, though? He's not hurt or anything?"
"Oh, no," she said. "Just groggy right now, I think. He had a pretty severe panic attack."
"Why?"
She looked at him with a raised eyebrow and he knew she knew about Hermione. "I'm not completely certain. We were working on a patient�a girl hurt at a family dinner. Somebody started throwing hexes and a wine bottle shattered in her face."
And Harry could picture it clearly with that: the broken glass, the blood on the snow. There probably hadn't been any ancient artefacts at a family dinner, no Horcruxes to destroy, and the girl must've lived but the image itself was enough. "And he just...wigged out."
"In the middle of a charm. He could've scarred her for life."
She led Harry through a door marked Employees Only into a sort of lounge area�there was a table with a tiny sparkling tree, a cooker with a coffee pot and a notice board on one wall. Ron was stretched out on a shabby sofa, with his legs hanging well over one arm. He looked exhausted and a bit ill but still plenty alive, and Harry's fear receded. Nothing wrong really. At least nothing that hadn't been wrong for a while.
"I'm going to chalk it up to stress," Hestia said calmly, with the emphasis of hidden meaning. "He's got a good record so far�no reason to blemish it. Overwork and the holidays, is all."
"Right," Harry said, crouching by Ron's face. Ron's eyes twitched and opened slowly, showing wide pupils. "You there, mate?"
"Harry," Ron said, and flung a clumsy hand onto his shoulder. "Harry. 'M tired."
"I know you are, mate."
Hestia said, "Weasley, you need some rest. I don't want to see you in this hospital tomorrow or Boxing Day, do you hear me?"
"Yesmmmm," Ron's said, his eyes slipping shut again.
Hestia sighed and looked at Harry. "Can you make certain he gets some rest? Fidgel will have my ears if she thinks I've been traumatizing her apprentices."
"I'll see what I can do," Harry said. He tugged on Ron's arm. "Let's go home, mate."
"Don't wanna."
"Don't wanna go home?"
"Go Burrow."
Harry considered this while Hestia said, "That's right, Molly's dinner! I don't remember if I sent a card�do tell her I'm sorry I couldn't be there, will you?"
"I will." Harry tugged on Ron's arm again and urged him up. "Come on, we're not Apparating from here."
"Can't Apparate at school," Ron mumbled, but Harry dragged him upright anyway and pointed him to the corridor.
"Merry Christmas, Harry," Hestia said gently.
"Merry Christmas," he said back, and guided Ron out of the hospital.
--/--
He was ready when he Apparated them both to the Burrow's back garden. "Is he all right?" Mrs. Weasley said anxiously. "Is he ill?"
"He's fine," Harry said without lying. "Healer Jones said he was overworked. And sorry she couldn't come to the party."
Mrs. Weasley patted Ron's head and tutted. "I told you that you were working too hard, silly boy, what were you thinking..."
"'lo, Mum," Ron mumbled groggily. "When's dinner?"
Mr. Weasley took Ron's other arm and said, "We'll take him up the back stair and put him to bed. No reason to make a show of it."
"I can get him," Harry said, with a sudden burst of something possessive in his chest.
"Nonsense, it's no trouble at all..."
They steered Ron up the Burrow's back staircase, up all the flights to his old bedroom. The wallpaper was checked with light and dark patches where the Canons posters used to hang and the old orange duvet had been replaced with a thick cheery quilt, but the roof still sloped and the ghoul still rattled its own faint holiday tidings. Mr. Weasley Summoned a pair of his own pajamas and Switched them for Ron's uniform when it was clear he wasn't up to dressing himself. "There. Just need to get you tucked in�"
"I'll take care of him," Harry said. "Really."
"Are you sure?"
"We're fine. Go join the party, people must be looking for you."
Mr. Weasley went back downstairs with a skeptical backwards glance, but when the door was shut Ron said softly, "Thanks."
"'snothing." Harry pulled back the quilt and Ron clumsily climbed underneath. The calming charms were starting to wear off, probably, but the dark circles under his eyes wouldn't. "Get some rest. You're not allowed back at work tomorrow."
"I know."
Going back to the party now was out of the question. Harry pulled out the chair from Ron's old desk and angled it so he could see the bed. He'd have to run back to the flat to get them both a change of clothes at some point, but not until Ron was sound asleep. He wasn't leaving this time. Maybe this was better than staying at the graveyard all night; or maybe, if you took away the heating charms and dry clothes, it was pretty much the same thing.
--/--
One year ago they found the fourth Horcrux, the fantastic Ravenclaw mirror. One year ago, Harry let Hermione try to disarm it. One year ago Harry hadn't been fast enough, clever enough, powerful enough. Enough.
In the chilly silence of Ron's bedroom he could see the burst of glass and magic from the bewitched mirror, her lacerated face, her blood on the snow as they dragged her outside, beyond the magical barriers, in search of what help they could find. And he had Disapparated, had left her and Ron alone, because he didn't know how to break this curse and he couldn't watch her die. He'd brought back half the Order�too little and too late.
--/--
"Harry," Ron said abruptly and without a hint of a slur. "I'm sorry."
"'Salright," Harry said immediately, scooting the chair closer to the bed. "I wasn't going to stay much longer anyway."
"No," Ron said, and started to sit up in bed. "I'm sorry about Hermione."
Harry's mouth went dry again. Maybe you should, Remus had said.
"I just," Ron said, looking at his hands on the bright quilt blocks. "I didn't help her. I couldn't help her. But I promised�we promised each other, before, you know, not to let you try to do this by yourself. No matter what...happened."
"I didn't know."
Harry's own voice startled him, and it startled Ron. He looked up sharply with eyes wide and hollowed by lack of sleep. "We did," he said, in a different tone�like he'd just realized he was talking to another human being. "We promised...but I thought it'd be me, Harry, honest. She was so smart and you were so powerful and I just...was." His eyes slid sideways. "I thought it'd be me."
It was too late for Harry to back out of the conversation now. He shifted himself from the desk chair to the end of Ron's bed, thinking of all the school nights they'd spent chatting on each other's beds in the Gryffindor dorms, and the nights they'd lain awake together since the Christmas before. It felt like somebody else's past. "It wasn't your fault," Harry told Ron, feeling vague and useless. "She knew what she was risking, didn't she?"
"She did," Ron said, and Harry hadn't realized it was a genuine question until it got answered.
It was a different kind of silence they sat in now, neither empty nor strained to breaking. Harry truly didn't know what to say next, but for the first time in twelve months he was confident that something was going to be said.
"I wouldn't've left anyway," Ron said. "Even if we hadn't promised."
"I know."
"She would've come back to haunt me if she thought no one was looking after you."
Harry snorted. "You think I need looking after?"
"She always did."
Hermione had made certain his homework was turned in and his robes were buttoned the right way up. Hermione had ensured Harry knew everything important and understood the hard parts. Hermione had reminded him to eat his vegetables and pay attention.
And Ron had followed him into the Forbidden Forest, in the end. And Ron had carried him out again. And it was Ron who tried to fix him when he broke. "Thanks," Harry said.
Ron shook his head. "I would've done it anyway."
"Still, thanks."
Ron turned his head and looked out the sloping window, where the snow was starting to build up in the corners. "I keep waiting, though," he said slowly, "to read about�that curse�I know it was probably too rare to be part of the hospital syllabus, but every time I open a book I sort of expect to see the answer, you know?"
"Answer to what?"
"What would've saved her."
He didn't say it with anguish or particular grief, just in that quiet sad way that made Harry hurt inside. "You couldn't have known," he said immediately, creeping up the edge of the bed now. "I looked in just about every spellbook in Grimmauld Place and I couldn't figure out that curse�"
"I know," Ron said tiredly. "I know there was nothing I could do. But I keep wondering, you know? Maybe there was something in a class I slept through, or if we'd done our NEWTs properly�"
"Yeah, because the NEWTs committee is real thorough about advanced Dark Magic�"
"There might've been something to help," Ron said. "To at least...make it easier." He sighed. "I just feel like I let her down."
A spark of anger flared in Harry's chest, a reaction to all the other emotions squeezing down on him. "That's what this is all about, isn't it?" he asked. "The whole Healer thing."
"It's not�"
"It is." He had scooted far enough up to poke Ron in the chest now. "You're working yourself into the ground because you're guilty about Hermione dying."
"People who live in glass houses shouldn't Summon stones, Harry," Ron said with a bit of his own temper�the temper Harry hadn't really seen in over a year. Temper he suddenly wanted to see again.
"You're saying," he said, "that it's got nothing to do with her?"
"I'm saying I was sick of hurting people and getting hurt," Ron snapped. "I wanted to try my hand at fixing things for a change."
"And it just so happens that when a brown-haired girl comes in with her face all cut�"
"What about you?" Ron demanded. "You didn't become an Auror because of all the people you couldn't save?"
"I'm good at what I do�"
"And so am I," Ron said harshly, "but the difference is I don't have any of that Chosen Savior crap going to my head�"
"It's nothing to do with that!"
"Then what is it?"
The spark went out, and Harry felt deflated and tired. He turned away from Ron and pressed his face into his hands. "I dunno. I just...don't know."
He felt Ron's hand on his shoulder, long strong fingers and wide warm palm, circling. It reminded him of the bathtub on Hermione's birthday, except that had been a clinic touch, detached; this was immediate and warm and it hurt in a whole different way. "It's not your fault if it's not mine," Ron said softly. "I want my share of the blame, too."
Harry almost laughed, but his throat felt full and sticky; he shook his head instead. "I'm sorry, mate. I'm so damn sorry."
"You don't need to apologize to me."
"She was your girlfriend."
Ron swallowed, but his eyes didn't move. "That doesn't mean she's the only person I'll ever love."
The hair on the back of Harry's neck stood up and he looked away, trying instead to put into words what had been squeezing his heart out for the past year. "Everybody who died," he stammered, "I miss them. And I made choices�things might've been different. But Hermione, I really failed her. Both of you."
"If you failed�"
"You weren't the one supposed to protect her while she broke the charms."
"You think I wasn't trying to anyway?"
Harry swallowed. "I miss her," he blurted. "Because I still need her."
Ron nodded slowly. "Me, too."
That did it. Harry couldn't remember the last time he cried at all, much less in mourning, but he felt the tears spill over and all he could do was try not to make too much of a scene. He held his breath against the sobs and screwed up his eyes and let it happen. There had been a time when Ron would've shied away from such a display, when Harry would've pulled away and hid it. Now Ron took Harry's glasses off and kept that one hand where it was, pressing steadily into Harry's back just barely left of centered on his spine. And Harry let him.
"Thought I was supposed to be helping you," he said, when he could take a breath without hitching.
"It is," Ron said. "It's about me if it's about you."
"Because you're looking after me, right."
"Not just that."
Harry got the same chill-down-the-spine feeling when he looked at Ron, and realized how close they were actually sitting, how far he'd ended up from the creaky desk chair. Ron inhaled deeply and kissed him, not on the lips but sort of on the corner of the mouth, slowly; Harry had plenty of room and time to move away, if he wanted to.
He didn't.
He tilted his head enough to make it a real kiss, because he was tired and this was Ron, who understood. Ron exhaled and grabbed at Harry's sleeves, just shy of rough, pulling him closer. Once again the rest of Harry's body seemed to act independently of his aching heart, as kissing turned to groping turned to rutting himself against Ron's leg shamelessly with dizzying speed. And Ron squirmed and thrust back, gasping between kisses and embracing Harry almost too tightly to breathe. It didn't matter, though; it was enough. Just enough, for now.
They collapsed into a tangle afterwards and were still. Harry's head dropped to Ron's shoulder, where he could hear and feel Ron's wild pulse as well as his ragged breath. Ron brushed Harry's hair from his face, which somehow felt more intimate than everything before. "All right?" Ron asked, with a thick throb in his voice that had little to do with sex.
"All right," Harry said, and squeezed Ron's hip in what he hoped was a comforting manner.
Ron sighed again. "We should both get some sleep."
"Yeah."
"...thanks, Harry."
Harry didn't know what to say to that, so he shrugged, and started to squirm out of shoes and trousers.
"You don't have to mourn her forever, you know," Ron said softly as he made room for Harry under the quilt. "You're allowed to move on."
Harry actually chuckled. "Physician, heal thyself."
"What?"
"Never mind."
--/--
A mere holiday could not interfere with Mrs. Weasley's Sunday dinners, and Harry and Ron visited the cemetery as usual before. Harry stood back and took in the crisp sun and the tufts of snow running down to mud; Ron crouched by the headstone with a flower and whispered a few words.
"Hold on," Harry said when Ron stood. "I'd like to�I mean�"
"Sure," Ron said, brow creased. "Don't need to ask."
Harry approached the headstone from an angle, unsure if there was some sort of etiquette to observe. Should address the stone or the ground? He crouched, as Ron had; Ron took a few steps back, an offering of space. Harry cleared his throat.
"Just so you know," he said softly, "I'm looking after him. Haven't been doing too good a job of it, but I'm trying."
There didn't seem to be anything else to say. He stood up and walked back to Ron. "That's it?" Ron asked.
"That's it."
They left the cemetery just like the fifty-two weeks before, except where their hands snuck down to meet each other.