Sunlit

They sat facing each other across a small table. Cold northern light was just beginning to stream in through the high windows, draining Ron's face of the little color it had.

"You owe me an explanation."

"I wrote."

Ron produced a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and threw it angrily onto the table. "No, you didn't, Harry. You just sent this."

"Well I thought I had written."

"You've got to give this up this protest," he said in a strained and clipped voice.

"I haven't come this far just to give in now."

"The Ministry won't let you simply resign."

Harry shrugged his shoulders dismissively. "Then I simply won't go to work anymore."

"You're not serious."

"You're right, I not. I'm actually planning to come into work two hours late everyday, knick spello-tape and quills from the Ministry, declare Mondays and Fridays to be Hawaiian shirt day, and quote lines from Office Space until somebody hexes me back into sixteenth-century Siberia for saying 'sounds like someone's get a case of the Mondays.'"

"Do you think anybody's going to understand?" Ron pressed on as though he hadn't heard Harry. "People will say you've got cold feet."

Harry's eyes glittered like broken shards of cold green glass and Ron didn't know why he suddenly though of drinking Butterbeer while gazing at Padma's red amber bracelet, strung like sunsets, on her thin left wrist. Ron took a trial deep breath. "Look you think exactly as I do about the Ministry and the war, and you do nothing. All right, that's your choice. But don't come here lecturing me about cold feet. This is the hardest thing I've ever done. And If I hold out long enough, there's nothing else they can do."

"There's a lot they can do." Ron seemed to come to a decision. "As a matter of fact, I've been pulling a few strings on your behalf."

Harry smiled to hide his anger. "Good. If you've been exercising your usual tact that ought to get me at least five years for being a menace to society."

"There's talk of shutting you up in St. Mungo for the rest of the war."

"And that's the result of your string pulling? Thanks."

"No, the result of my string-pulling is to get you another Board. You must take it this time."

"You can't put people in asylums just like that. You have to have reasons."

"They have reasons."

Harry began to feel scared in spite of himself. He laughed nervously. "My resignation? Well that doesn't prove me insane."

"And the hallucinations? The corpses in London?"

A long silence. "I had rather hoped my letters to you were private," Harry said finally in a low voice.

"I had to persuade them to give you another Board."

Another long silence.

"If you go on refusing to be boarded they will put you away."

Harry leaned forward. "I wouldn't believe this from anybody else, Ron. Will you swear it's true?"

Ron raised his right hand. "Yes. Gryffindor's honor."

For a moment Harry still hesitated. Then, with an odd little gasp, he said, "All right then, I'll give way."

Ron,

I believe those who have the power to end it are deliberately prolonging the war. Although this war began as a battle of defense and liberation it has now become a battle of aggression and conquest, and I can no longer be a party to prolong the sufferings for ends, which I believe to be cruel and unjust.

Enclosed is my letter of resignation. Give my regards to the unit.

H. Potter

Ron waited for Hermione to finish reading before he spoke again. "The 'H' stands for 'Harry' of course," he said awkwardly. "In case you didn't know."

"I didn't know. In fact," Hermione replied, folding the paper and running her fingertips along the edge, "I seem to be extremely uniformed lately. It's just that The Daily Prophet seems to find the latest hairstyles to be a bit more newsworthy than trivial events such as Seamus' disappearance or the oppressive ordinances enacted against giants and werewolves."

Ron's mouth twisted. "Perhaps the situation isn't appropriate for you to suddenly launch into yet another witty political critique."

"Now I don't know about that," Hermione said, looking around the room. "Simply add a coat of pastel paint or a sentimental portrait of two starry-eyed lovers protected by hovering cupids and I believe the rococo style of the French salons will be captured quite nicely."

"Don't." Ron tried a different track. "Harry is being classified as mentally unsound."

"What?" Hermione frowned, something in her face changing despite her resolve to remain cool and indifferent. "On what grounds?"

"Spell-shock. Surely it's better for him than in prison though."

"'Mr. Potter is suffering from a severe mental breakdown, and therefore not responsible for his actions.' I'm not sure I'd prefer that to prison, and I'm quite sure Harry would prefer a 12-by-12 cell."

Ron looked down at the back of his hands.

"And they're sending him here?"

He had nine freckles on the back of his right hand. "It's rather more specific than that. They're sending him to you."

Hermione felt a sharp wince at the shock, a gathering of the forces of resistance, rolling through her stomach. "What? Why?" she asked, her voice strained.

There were only eight freckles on the back of his left hand. "Because Harry listens to you."

"He didn't listen to me about the Firebolt in our third year! He didn't listen to me about the Department of Mysteries! And he certainly never listened to me about doing his homework!"

"He's more likely to listen to you than to anyone else though."

Hermione looked down at the caduceus badge that she wore on her robe, and then across at the same badge on Ron's robes. She turned away, hunching her shoulders.

"I suppose they have remembered to send the file?" she murmured after a long silence.

He nodded and flashed Hermione a sardonic smile as he rose to leave. "He'll be here Friday."