Lucky Ones

[hermione]

I will have to tell you how it came to this one day:

A girl standing by a lake, letting the light spring wind brush her thick hair against her cheek as she twists a glimmering necklace around her finger. This scene will only last for a second, you see, for at any moment, they'll be calling for her; a friend, an acquaintance, a teacher maybe. They'll shout out her last name, tell her that for being about to graduate on top of your year, Granger, you certainly have a knack for being late for things.

And the scene will end there, I'm afraid. Not because the girl is being whisked away, pulled from the rippling Technicolor splendor of the lake or because she's about to pull the necklace off and drop it into the deep pockets of her robes. But because in that instant, she's outgrown the stage of childhood she's tried so hard to preserve. She can't be called a girl anymore, not really: technically, she hasn't been a girl for a number of years. The graduation is the last step, she'll suppose, and then the scene will end. Because it's no longer a girl standing by a lake, but a woman standing by the lake, if that really matters.

I will have to tell you about how we became the people we are one day. We can go sit down somewhere, the Three Broomsticks or maybe a muggle coffee shop I haven't visited in years. You can order a Butterbeer or a cappuccino [I promise you they're quite nice] and I'll explain the scene, the lake, the necklace. You can even see it if you'd like. I probably shouldn't still be wearing it.

I will have to tell you about how it came to this one day.

---

>>one year earlier<<

[ron]

He rolled open the parchment letter with careful fingers, shaking as he read his mother's unsteady and tearstained note...

We need you to come home, something's happened...

It was how it always happened, really: the dream [crying/graves/shrill laughing that makes his blood freeze over], the bolting upright from his sleep, the cold sweat, the quickened breathes.

His dreams were always in black and white, static, like the screens of ancient muggle televisions that he had seen in store windows.

The dull aching in his back brought him back to his surroundings. The hard wooden floor covered in a layer of dust, the blankets he used as a makeshift bed, the sound of Bill gently snoring in the other room. He could make out his sister's body on the couch next to him, her chest rising and falling with each breath. He reached for Ginny's wrist above him to glance at her watch. 3 AM.

He could still see his father's tears when he closed his eyes hard enough.

The bitter taste in his mouth came back again, the retching in his stomach. Ron pushed back the musty quilts and stumbled blindly for the bathroom, gagging as he emptied the contents of his stomach.

Every night. Without fail.

He leaned his back against the bathroom wall, picking at the ugly floral wall paper. Who the hell would ever thing of that as good décor?

He pushed the door open again and tip toed down the hall, making sure his footsteps were inaudible when passing by the closed door of Fred's room.

But maybe it was because they were all walking on eggshells around Fred.

Ron reached for the dresser drawer they have moved into the living room and pulled out a pair of shorts, shedding his pajama bottoms and pulling them on. He scrawled a quick note to his siblings in case one woke up [none ever did, but still] before grabbing the extra key to the flat. He tripped over Bill in the kitchen, who snapped awake before immediately falling back asleep. Ron slipped the key into his pocket before scurrying outside the front door.

He traced his fingers along the chipped orange paint of the apartment building hallway. Electric blue smoke shot out from the door to his left. The old witch who lived there must be trying to cook again.

He clamored down the five flights of stairs to the lobby, waking up the painting of the elderly woman in a ballroom gown ["Out for another run, Mr. Weasley?" she yawned] before pushing open the double doors into the night.

The summer air hit him like a wall, but he had been beginning to like the heat. The burning of his muscles, the panting until his almost couldn't breathe.

Running wasn't his exercise of choice, of course, but Quidditch no longer seemed to be an option. Never mind the fact that hit have been his own idea for he and Ginny to sell their broomsticks to make sure they had enough money for school books in the fall. Because it was the right thing to do. The responsible thing. Doesn't mean that it didn't hurt when he watched some kid buy his broom for half of what he had originally paid for it and listened to the boy talk about using it for kindling.

He sprinted harder. Maybe he could outrun the pain.

We need you here, Ginny too...

He could hear the crickets, the sound of his sneakers slamming against the pavement...

It's George, oh God Ron...

Keep going...

Fred found his body in the storage closet of their shop...

Run faster...

George...

Dead...

Killed...

Funeral...

Come home...

No one had ever expected something like this to happen to George Weasley. George, who was the mastermind behind Canary Creams. George, who had sent a Hogwarts toilet seat by owl to his little sister. George, who had turns a hallway of his former school into a swamp.

No one ever saw it coming.

He probably didn't, either. But a group of Death Eaters needed an easy and quick meeting place and that joke shop, yeah, the one around the corner, run by those redheaded twins...

Fred will forever blame himself for his brother's death. If only they hadn't gotten into that fight, although what it was about, he can't for the life of him remember. If only George had gone with him and Lee to the pub. If only he hadn't insisted on being the one to lock up.

Could've, would've, should've. Didn't change the fact that a small group of men stormed the shop to meet up, forced George behind the counter, killed him with a smirk.

Avada Kadavra. Words that seemed to slip in and out of Ron's dreams.

Maybe that was the moment the war became all the more real.

George would've hated it. The funeral. Granted, there are very few people who would take pleasure in their own funerals. You'd have to be downright mad. But he couldn't have stood the tears. The solemn faces. Ron kept half expecting him to jump out from behind a tree with a giant grin and a crate of Vanishing Head Hats.

He didn't, though. Jump out. And his parents were forced to bury their own son.

Percy stood in the back and said nothing. Although Ron could've sworn he saw him take their mom's hand.

But no one took it harder than Fred. They had been one since they were kids. FredandGeorge Weasley.

And he suddenly had lost his other half.

Everything after that was a blur: their father losing his job [showing up to work more often drunk than sober was not proper ministry conduct], Bill's idea that maybe he should look after Fred, Ginny, and Ron for the summer, the realization that their family no longer had a steady source of income, the scramble for enough money to get through the next year.

The flat with the four of them was a good idea in theory. A place for them to stay in London, Bill would take some time off work, spend more time with his younger siblings, allow Arthur and Molly to grieve along. In reality, a one bedroom flat for four of them made for an uncomfortable living arrangement, with Fred taking the bedroom, Ginny the couch in the living room, Ron the floor next to her, Bill the floor of the kitchen.

It didn't really matter, though. It wasn't as if Ron was actually sleeping.

He hadn't rested a full night in over four months. Not since George had been killed.

He finally slowed his pace down before stopping completely. He leaned up against the wall of an empty shop, letting his body heave and sputter.

The nightly running certainly hadn't hurt him in any way, he had to admit. Ron Weasley had always been tall and lanky for his age, all pointy elbows and bony knees. It seemed that, at age seventeen, he had finally outgrown the awkward stage that had plagued him for all of his adolescence. Slightly more muscular, he no longer looked like the kind of kid you worried about walking into door frames.

Harry and I are worried about you. We haven't heard from you in a while.

Please write back.

Love, Hermione.

Right. Like she fucking cared about him. How nice of her to fit in a letter or two during her summer in Bulgaria with her perfect Quidditch super star boyfriend. How very kind.

Because how the hell would she know what he was going through?

She wouldn't.