For Harry

For Harry

The Burrow without Fred and George, Ron Weasley decided, was amazingly dull.

Despite how annoying it was to have to de-hex breakfast each morning with them around, he found that he actually missed the sounds of explosions from their room, or how their pranks littered the living room table, or the way they could make Mum turn that special shade of mauve. Yes, life without them was quite boring.

He hadn't realised it last summer as they'd all been together in Grimmauld Place and had been too busy trying to spy on Order meetings to make things explode. But the Burrow was achingly empty now, what with his parents off constantly trying to fight Death Eaters and Ginny holed up in her room pretending to do her summer assignments but in actuality writing to Dean Thomas.

Ron stretched his impossibly long limbs and readjusted his back against the old willow tree that grew crookedly in the backyard. The first few days of the holidays he'd found it peaceful to sit under that tree and just think (not that he'd admit to anyone that was what he was doing), but the peace didn't last long with the arrival of a certain fellow Gryffindor.

"There you are, I have been looking absolutely everywhere for you. I even sent Crookshanks after you but he got distracted by the gnomes."

Looking up and shielding his eyes with his hand, Ron bit back an exasperated sigh at the sight of his bushy-haired best friend and fellow prefect, Hermione Granger.

He'd expected Hermione to be a welcome distraction from the blinding boredom that accompanied every day, but when she wasn't taking Ginny's side about Dean, or giggling with Ginny over who knew what, then she was pestering him with her concerns about Harry. There were only so many times he could say, "I'm sure he's fine, he'll be allowed to come here soon, and we'll be here for him, whatever he needs."

In actuality, a part of Ron was dreading Harry's stay at the Burrow which his mum had promised would be in a week or less, "if I have anything to say about it." Harry had left at the end of term brooding, explosive, and generally furious at the world--pretty much the way he'd been acting all year long. Only at the end, there was also an incredible feeling of loss Ron was quite sure he wouldn't be over by next week.

It was extremely selfish of him, Ron knew, to be only thinking of himself, but that selfish part of him rarely got any attention at all as he was too busy smothering it around Harry, Hermione, his family, Hogwarts...so in the privacy of his own garden, under the willow tree, he allowed himself to think thoughts he'd never dare say out loud.

Until Hermione stepped in.

Somehow in the past month she had got it into her head that they needed to Communicate. When he'd asked her what she thought they'd been doing for five years she only huffed and insisted that there was more to conversation than him asking her to copy her homework. This had left him very annoyed and secretly amused as he loved it when he made her turn that infuriated crimson colour.

So he'd been trying to Communicate with her ever since she'd arrived at his house two weeks into the summer holidays. It wasn't easy, because nothing with Hermione ever was.

"So you were looking for me then?" Ron said, tilting his head to the side and looking up at her, privately smiling at this since it was a rare occasion when he had to look up at her.

"Yes!" Hermione sounded exhausted, but Ron couldn't imagine why. Was writing love letters to Vicky while Ginny wrote to Dean such tiring work? Women. He would never understand them. "I thought we could chat for awhile."

Those were words he had come to dread. Innocent sounding, certainly, but what those words really meant were: "I'm going to sit here while you pour your heart and soul out to me." So far he had managed to tell her enough to keep her satisfied without actually telling her any thing of importance.

After all, best friend or not, he could hardly tell her that he was dreading Harry's arrival. No, that wasn't the right word. Harry was his best mate in the world, and he'd been dealt an awful hand in life that kept exploding in his face just when he thought he had it under control. And as a best mate, Ron knew it was his job to support Harry. He had to be there for Harry.

But the treacherous feeling that had been slowly building in him since his long stay in the hospital wing last term refused to be smothered. A voice inside his head that sounded scarily like Percy kept insisting that no matter how much of a hero Harry was, that didn't mean they had to indulge him when he was being a bugger to his friends.

No, he definitely couldn't say those things to Hermione, since Hermione would Hear No Wrong of Harry. Ron had long suspected (though he also long denied it) that Hermione fancied Harry. And why wouldn't she? He was the Hero. He was the sodding hero. She rarely, if ever, argued with him. If he made up his mind about something, she might make a few token protests, but then she went along with it. And it was that blind obedience that nearly got them killed.

"Ron? Are you listening to me?"

Ron shook those horrible, nagging thoughts from his head, and looked at Hermione again as she planted herself on the ground next to him, sweeping away some of the dirt as if that would make the ground cleaner.

"Not really," he responded, knowing that she'd rather hear the truth than a lie.

She made a face at him. "I was just thinking about Harry."

Of course,

thought Ron bitterly. It seemed like she did very little else. But he bit back a nasty retort and said instead, "I think we all are."

While one of the things he admired most about Hermione was her cleverness, she was also far too clever for her own good. He almost regretted how adept she'd become at reading him. Almost. Once he mentioned it to her, but she'd only laughed and told him that he was easy to read because he kept all his thoughts and emotions right on his face. He was like an instruction manual, she'd said, simple and straight-forward. Harry was more like a mystery, because she never understood what he was about to do next.

It all came back to Harry. Bugger Harry.

And it wasn't really fair to blame Hermione for not standing up to Harry, he hadn't been much better. In fact, he hadn't even put up a fight and she had, she had tried to make him see reason. But it was bloody hard to argue with Harry when he was in that state of mind, Ron knew, and there were times when it was just better to give in and let Harry get whatever it was out of his system.

And Ron would still be fine with that, if it wasn't for the nightmares.

He looked at Hermione again and realised she was drumming her fingers against the earth impatiently, obviously waiting for a response from him. He flushed slightly and shrugged, causing her to sigh deeply.

"Honestly, Ron, you act as if you're on another planet! I'm trying to talk to you and you're making it impossible."

He shook a few leaves out of his hair and said, "Sorry, go on."

She opened her mouth, then paused, looking at him quizzically. "That's it? No argument? No retort?"

Uh oh, she was getting suspicious, he'd have to bicker with her, or she'd know something was up. But at the moment he couldn't come up with anything better than, "Oh, yeah?" so he let it drop. Maybe he could pretend he had a headache, except that he was rubbish at play-acting. She was going to figure it out.

"I'm tired, is all." Ron decided not to push it by going for the fake yawn, it never worked anyway.

"Sick is more like it," Hermione said, frowning. "I've been here for what seems like ages, and one would think you're the ghost from the way you seem to haunt your bedroom. I've hardly seen you, you know. What do you do up there all the time?"

Start letters to Harry, crumple them into balls when they become notes of 'Weather is nice, wish you were here,' and start over again. And write in my dream journal. But you don't know I keep one of those, and I'm not about to tell you.

Aloud he said:

"I write letters. And what do you mean you hardly see me? Haven't we been 'communicating', as per your request?"

"Don't take that tone with me, Ron Weasley," Hermione said, her fingers tracing figures in the dirt though her eyes never left his face. "You've been avoiding me."

Maybe it was time to tell her. Maybe not.

"I've been avoiding Ginny," he said, lying as best he could. "She's still angry with me for sending Dean that Howler."

"Liar." But she was smiling to take the sting out of the word. Then her smiled slipped and she pressed her lips tightly into a worried line. The words seemed to slip from her mouth. "Are you having trouble sleeping, because I'm having trouble sleeping."

Ron gaped, but caught off guard the truth spilled out. "Yes," he admitted. "I've been taking a Muggle sleep aid, but it doesn't stop--"

Whoa, he'd almost gone too far.

"Doesn't stop what?"

Damn her, she was too clever by a half. He decided to stop fighting it. Let her think of him what she would; she already had negative opinions of him, a few more couldn't hurt that much.

"The nightmares," he said, letting the full weight of those two words fall over him like a blanket. It made him shiver and feel itchy.

"Ah," was all she said. Then she reached out and took his hand; shocked as usual by such close proximity, he felt like all his nerve endings had been fried.

"Why did you think you couldn't tell me you're still having nightmares?" Hermione asked, searching his face with her serious brown eyes as if looking for the instructions to make him open up. He hoped those were written in Chinese.

Ron muttered his response, hoping that she wouldn't hear it as this part wasn't exactly a lie. It wasn't quite the truth either.

"You thought I'd think you were a coward?" Hermione repeated, radiating bewilderment. "Whatever gave you such a daft idea? Ron, there are probably men a lot older than you who would have lost their minds if they'd been through the ordeal you just went through."

"So I ought to be grateful it's just the nightmares then, is that it?" He sunk lower against the tree, trying to scratch that itch between his shoulder blades on the bark. All he did was smack his head against the trunk. Ow.

"Oh, of course not, you're twisting my words as usual. I was trying to pay you a compliment, you twit. You always have to think the worst of me."

"Sorry," Ron said, and then immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say.

Leaning over him, practically lying against his chest, for one irrational moment Ron thought she was going to kiss him, but then she just nodded and pulled away.

"You are sick, aren't you? Why didn't you just say so?"

"I'm not sick, Hermione," he grumbled. Why couldn't she just let well enough alone? "I just haven't been sleeping well."

"The nightmares." She nodded as if somehow she thought she understood. She couldn't understand, no matter how much she had suffered in the Department of Mysteries, she still couldn't understand. "What are they about?"

Ron froze. She'd asked a similar question before, the night they were both in the Hospital Wing, where he'd actually felt like they'd made a connection, banded together and all that. But apparently that closeness was short-lived, because he hadn't felt it since.

He couldn't tell her about the nightmares.

"I won't tell you. They're too...personal."

In fact, they were the opposite of personal. He was having someone else's memories, someone else's dreams, and that someone was not as friendly as he was.

What frightened him the most was that he didn't know what else the brains had done to him. They weren't in the Department of Mysteries for nothing. One night he'd woken in a cold sweat to discover he'd been writing complex equations for nuclear fusion on his bed sheets. Weird, random knowledge kept popping into his head. He knew the gestation period for an elephant and before he hadn't even known what an elephant was.

But the worst was when he killed Harry in his dreams. Sometimes he'd wake up and still feel the blood on his hands. He scrubbed them so hard they started to bleed for real and then he couldn't sleep for days.

Of course, he showed none of this to Hermione, or his family. His mum worried that he wasn't eating enough and kept pressing food on him, which he ate because at least that seemed normal and everyone else would breathe a sigh of relief. Well, at least Ron's eating. Things can't be too bad if Ron's still eating.

Physically he was fine, albeit exhausted. It was at night that he was miserable.

The last day of term he'd made a quiet visit to Madam Pomfrey who suggested that he try to find the root of his dreams by writing them down. He'd been doing it ever since and was no closer to figuring it out.

"I thought we were Communicating," Hermione said calmly. "I'll tell you about mine if you tell me about yours."

"You've been having nightmares, too?" Ron couldn't believe his ears. She showed no sign of it, she was just as Hermione-ish as she ever was.

"Of course. Dolohov's face keeps looming at me from the darkness, and I keep seeing all of us fall, I replay the curse a thousand times in my mind, the feeling of my chest being ripped open." She shuddered, her entire body quaking. "And then, I know this is ridiculous because I wasn't even there, I see Sirius fall through that curtain."

Sirius. Ron choked back a sob, but apparently he didn't hide it very well because Hermione's eyes went wide as saucers and she gripped his shoulders, shaking him slightly.

"Ron? Ron, what's the matter?"

"No-Nothing," Ron stammered slightly, pushing all thoughts of Sirius to the back of his mind. "I'm sorry, you were saying?"

She looked at him like she'd never seen him before and he flinched. "For Merlin's sake, Ron, what's the matter with you? You aren't acting like yourself at all!"

"I'm sorry," he gasped; she was kneeling on top of him and he couldn't breathe. "I'm trying."

"Trying what?"

It started to come out, he couldn't have stopped it even if he wanted to. And he didn't really want to.

"Trying to be like myself. Trying to hold it all together. But I'm failing miserably, just as I fail at everything else. I can't do this, Hermione."

"Can't do what?" she asked softly, hold his large hand in her small one tightly.

"I can't be what Harry needs right now."

She made a small noise of surprise. "Who's talking about Harry?"

"You are. Ginny is. Everybody is. He's a constant presence, even when he's not here."

"Oh, Ron--"

But he cut her off. "I'm trying to steel myself, so that I can just be here for him, listen to him, let him grieve, and rant, and rave, and all the rest. But I can't, I just can't sacrifice my own feelings for Harry."

"No one's asking you to."

"Yes they are," Ron insisted. "You are. Harry is. Bloody hell, even my mum's made a few comments. 'When Harry gets here, we'll have to be very careful what we say.' 'We need to show him that we love and support him.'"

"All the more reason to stop bottling this up and get it off your chest now, Ron," Hermione said, ever sensible. "You never keep things like this inside. Tell me, talk to me."

He wanted to, Merlin's beard how he wanted to. But how far could he go?

"I miss Sirius," he said simply, surprising even himself. That wasn't what he intended to say.

"Well, so do I." Hermione's eyes flashed with impatience, as if to say, 'Get on with it.'

"No, you don't understand. Damn it, Hermione, I can't talk to you about this."

Hermione forced him to look at her, and then she said fiercely, "Make me understand."

Ron took a deep wavering breath and tried to put his thoughts in some kind of order. He felt so damned frustrated that all he wanted to do was let out a long stream of curses.

So he did.

And when he was finished, he actually felt better. Hermione was staring at him in shock and he figured she was going to scold him. If his mum had overheard that, she'd have cleaned his mouth out with soap. But then Hermione started to laugh.

"Well, that's a bit better, I suppose. Now, tell me, what's going on?"

Where to begin? "I haven't mourned, I haven't grieved, I haven't even let it sink in because I've been afraid of overshadowing Harry's pain, I mean, it was his godfather not mine, mine's some old friend of Dad's that I don't think I've ever met, but I still miss him and can't believe he's gone..."

He was rambling and so with great effort he forced his mouth closed. Then he realised he was crying. Shit. He did not want to cry in front of Hermione.

She leaned over him and pressed her face against his tee-shirt, her wild, curly hair brushing against his nose, making him want to sneeze. As he fought back the tears he noticed that something else was soaking his shirt straight through. Hermione was crying too.

"It doesn't seem real," she said, her voice quavering, pressing herself closer to him. Uncomfortable, he slung and arm around her shoulders and tried to comfort her. But he was shaking himself. "I've been so busy thinking about Harry and what he must be going through that I haven't even thought about how I feel."

Pulling back slightly, Hermione wiped her eyes and looked embarrassed. Why should she look embarrassed? It wasn't like he hadn't seen her cry before. But of course, her tears only made it harder for him to stop his.

"He gave me Pig." The words came out in short breaths between sobs. He couldn't seem to get control of himself and it was horribly embarrassing.

"Ron, Ron, stop it," she commanded, drying her eyes. When she realised that he couldn't, she slapped him sharply across the face.

He took rasping gasps of air, trying to force the oxygen back into his lungs. More confessions spilled out.

"If I'd stopped Harry from going to the Ministry, if I'd taken your side and made him wait, maybe Sirius would still be alive."

Hermione looked heart-broken. "Oh, Ron. You absolutely cannot blame yourself, that's ridiculous. We tried to talk to Sirius through Umbridge's fire, Kreacher tricked us. And after that there was nothing any one of us could say to stop Harry."

"But I am Sirius."

"What?" Hermione said, startled, peering at him like she expected to see Sirius's eyes peering out of Ron's freckled face.

Flushing slightly, Ron said, "Well, you know, there are parallels, between our time and his. Harry's just like his dad, no question. And you're like Professor Lupin, studious and smart, and I'm like Sirius, the hot-tempered best friend. Only...what if I betray him?"

Hermione sat back on her knees, shaking her head slightly as if trying to understand something that was far beyond her comprehension.

"What are you on about, Ron? Sirius didn't betray the Potters, you know that."

"But he thought he did, didn't he?" Ron said quickly, trying to get all of this out as fast as possible. The pressure that had been building in his chest started to loosen. "With all that Secret Keeper tosh. What if something like that happens to me?"

"Well, you'll know better than to repeat his mistakes! I've never met anyone more loyal to Harry than you, Ron. You ought to have been in Hufflepuff!"

"So I'm stupid now," he scowled.

"Honestly, Ron, we've had this discussion before. If there's one thing you're not, it's stupid. And it was Pettigrew in that generation who was the traitor. I hope you're not comparing yourself to him. Sirius was a good, honourable man. There are worse men you could be like."

"What am I going to do when Harry gets here?" Ron moaned into his hands. "Look at me, I'm like a raving lunatic. I ought to be locked up and forced to spend quality time with Luna Lovegood."

Hermione smiled. "That can be arranged, doesn't she live in the area?" When he didn't laugh she continued, "No, really, Ron, you are not a lunatic. You're human. Which means you have feelings, you're entitled to them."

"But not now," he said desperately, searching for some way to make her understand. "I can't fall apart now, Harry needs me."

"Yes, he does, but you're not acting like yourself. This isn't just about Sirius, is it? I know you cared for him, I did too. I truly grew to admire him. But this, this breakdown isn't about him. It's about you. What are you feeling right now?"

She was looking at him with such empathy that Ron longed to just say everything. But he didn't know how, he couldn't seem to get his tongue around the words.

"I suppose I'm just tired of putting my feelings aside so I can help Harry deal with his. That sounds awful, but there you go."

Her expression was thoughtful. "No, it sounds honest. Ron, you know, whether you'll admit it or not, that we sacrifice for Harry because he sacrifices for the world. And he needs us, whether or not he'll admit it. But hardly anyone looks at us and wonders what we're feeling. Because that's secondary to what Harry's needs are. When we signed on as his friends, we didn't know what we were getting into. But now we do, and there's no turning back. And even though it's hard sometimes, I'm all right with that. Are you?"

A breeze fluttered their hair and Ron thought about his role in life. It was always secondary, in everything, he was never the star.

But he was okay with that. Because Hermione was there with him. She was a Best Mate, too.

"Yes," he said finally. "I don't have much of a choice, do I? Mum'd flay me alive if she thought I was being rude to her precious Harry."

Hermione ignored his joke, and instead looking at him in an odd way that made his face heat up.

"You know," she said cryptically, "it's like Harry's the sun. He's so bright, and he does so much for the world that it's hard not to notice him, not to...bask in his light. But at the same time, because of it, it's hard to look at him for very long. Whereas you can stare at the moon for hours and not suffer any for it. The moon has its beauty too, it's power, but every morning it's overshadowed by the sun and we forget about it."

Ron could only stare at her, trying to figure out what it was she was trying to say. When she didn't add a clarifying thought, he cleared his throat, sat up, and said:

"Well, I suppose we'll just have to stick together then. We'll tag-team Harry. We won't let him brood. We'll keep him so busy that he won't have time to explode. I'm sure Ginny'll help."

Hermione smiled at that, and nodded. The moment, close and awkward, passed. "I think maybe you'd better let him win a few times at chess, it'll be good for him."

"Harry's actually decent enough to beat me on his own--once in awhile. You're the one I have to let win, or risk getting turned into a gerbil."

Stomping to her feet, Hermione's eyes narrowed. "That's not true, take that back!"

"I won't," Ron replied, getting to his feet and feeling better than he had in days. He stuck out his tongue at her. "And you can't make me."

The wicked grin that Ron loved spread across Hermione's face. "Want to bet on it?"

"Fred and George are the wicked gamblers in the family. Why, Miss Granger, I'm surprised at you!"

"Ooh!" Hermione shrieked in fake-anger and tore after him, chasing him all around the back yard.

Ron paused by the pond and scooped up a handful of frogspawn, waving it threateningly. Hermione came to a screeching halt.

"You wouldn't dare!" she gasped, shielding her face and hair with her arms.

"Want to bet on it?" he mocked.

He was ready to throw, but Hermione was saved by the timely intervention of Ginny who came leaping into the back yard.

"He's coming in three days," Ginny cried, bouncing around like she'd eaten one of Fred and George's helium-filled cupcakes. "Mum says we've got to set up the twins room for Harry."

"For Harry," Ron echoed, looking at Hermione and smiling slightly.

"For Harry," she said firmly, taking his clean hand and giving it a squeeze.

Wiping his dirty hand on his trousers, to Hermione's disapproval, and still holding her hand, Ron followed Ginny back into the house, and that night he slept better than he had in a long time, knowing that one of his best mates was just a few rooms away, there for him when he needed it.