Post Bellum

Act I: Primordium

There was a slight shuffle from inside the bathroom as Ron started to turn the handle. It was too late to stop: the force of his shoulder pressing against it flung the door open.

Ginny and Harry looked everywhere but at Ron. Ginny wrestled with her nightgown, tugging it down her thighs as Harry struggled to pull a shirt on. Ron stood there, open-mouthed and rapidly flushing, until Ginny gave up and shoved past them both with a strangled-sounding noise. The door started creeping closed so Ron forcefully shoved it back open. Harry looked up, finally.

"Ron, I can--"

"Don't bother," Ron hissed, backing away from the open doorway and the undeniable sight in front of him: the particular muss of Harry's hair, the gloss of saliva still on his lip, the smell. The memory of Ginny's thighs, Harry's bare chest. It made him want to be sick but Harry was standing inside of the closest loo. "I'm going back to bed." The tone of his voice made it perfectly clear Harry was not to follow.

Breakfast later was uncomfortable, to say the least. Molly served up conversation alongside the bacon, but no one responded. She eyed them all, hawk-like, and kept making comments about Ginny, who had begged out claiming a stomach ache. "The girl just can't stand to be seen without being done up," she said, fretting while she spooned Arthur another portion of eggs.

"S' enough, mum," Ron said, watching Harry shove a fork around his plate out of the corner of his eye.

"Women know these things, Ronald," she replied, settling back in her chair and taking a sip of orange juice. "Ginny's going through another one of her phases."

"Boys," Arthur supplied, winking.

Ron slammed down his fork. "I said it's enough!" He stood from the table, paying no mind to Harry, who looked faintly green.

"Ron!"

"I'm... going upstairs," he mumbled.

His mother's voice followed him as he left: "Well, I never...."

Ron stomped up the stairs, drowning out his father's reply.

---

One very timid knock. Ron rolled over. "What?"

"It's me." Harry's voice was as quiet as Ron has ever heard it. "I'm. Can I come in?"

"You'll do what you like, won't you?" Ron said sourly, rolling back over to bury his head in a fluffed pillow.

The door creaked open then shut with a soft click. "Ron?" Ron did Harry no favors. He adjusted the angle of his cheek against the pillow. "Right. I've just come to apologize. It, um. Wasn't. As it seemed, I guess."

"As it seemed?" Ron snarled, taking them both by surprise when he jerked himself upright and, in a fit, snatched up the pillow and clutched it to his chest. "It seemed like you were snogging my little sister!"

"Oh! You..." Harry was flushed red and gnawing his lower lip between his teeth. "You didn't see it all, did you?"

"I've tried to erase it from my memory, but what I saw was enough."

There was an odd mixture of relief and terror on Harry's face. "Ginny wanted to tell you. I knew you'd...." he gestured at Ron. "Be upset."

"How sharp of you, Harry." His fingers flexed around the pillow. "You knew I'd be upset over my best friend... feeling up or doing whatever with my sister."

"We were. We've been." Harry struggled to articulate, studying the posters behind Ron's bed.

A horrible feeling started in his stomach and washed itself through Ron's whole body. "You aren't serious."

Harry gave a short, embarrassed nod. "Yeah. We've been doing... that."

"You've been bonking my sister?" The words were deadly slow but really it hadn't sunk in yet. "You've been bonking my sister?" His voice cracked cleanly.

Harry shifted. "Yeah. But it's not--"

"Get out," Ron said, already standing in case he needed to shove Harry out. "Get out!"

"Ron, please--"

"I said," and he put a threatening hand to Harry's shoulder, his fingers trembling, "to get out."

"Ron...." Harry's eyes were desperate, a bottle-green Ron had never seen before. "I'm not hurting her, I promise, I would never."

"What about Dean, then?" Ron exploded, the thought occurring to him. "Did they break up?"

Harry's gaze dropped to his mouth. Something in his eyes shifted. "No. I imagine they're going to. I mean, I think she wants to, now."

Oh Merlin. "You're a sodding arse, Potter." He hadn't even intentionally thought to call Harry that, but the feelings welling inside were akin to those he found around Malfoy. Crisp, clear, uninhibited rage. "I can't believe you." Everything was different since Sirius died, Ron realized. Harry walked around now like he was owed something. "You were bonking my sister in our house. In our bathroom?"

"Ginny.... She's. She's great, awfully great, she's been--"

"I don't want to know what she's been."

"Well, ever since last year she's been different. She's grown up, I guess." Harry was speaking quickly, like he was out of breath. Like Ron was going to stop listening and shove him out at any second.

Which he was. "Ever since she stopped fawning after you, is that it?"

"Yeah, that's it. I hate it when people act... that way around me, Ron, and you know it."

"So you're saying you hated her for four years, until she got over you. And then you shagged her?"

"I didn't hate her! I just. I wouldn't have."

"Okay, you're done. This is done." He reached behind Harry and yanked open his bedroom door.

Harry hesitated, tried to catch Ron's eye. He finally gave up and shuffled out of the room.

Things had not been the same since.

---

It would have been better, Ron reflected, if Harry had fucked Hermione instead. Hermione was reasonable about things, rational. She would have sat Ron down, sat him and Harry down actually, and explained. Made them figure it all out. Things wouldn't have been the same but they wouldn't be like this, either.

Ginny tried to talk to him on the train. She said it had only been a few times, just a few times, why was he-- The Prefect's compartment door had been summarily slammed in her face. Ron wanted to tell her to explain it all to Dean, but it seemed like they did eventually break up over summer hols.

It did not take Hermione long to notice that Ron and Harry weren't speaking to each other, although Harry did keep casting anxious glances in Ron's direction. "Fine, what's going on?" Her tone was tired: another problem to layer on top of the others, another Triwizard Tournament-esque feud, another long and dangerous year.

"Harry shagged Ginny."

Hermione's eyes widened in surprise. "They're going out? Ginny never said."

"No, they're not going out. They shagged. I caught them this summer. I think it's stopped."

"Oh, Ron."

She went off to find Harry after. He wanted her to stick around, to try and tell her how he panicked he was at the thought of her interfering, maybe forcing Ginny and Harry to date. He didn't want to see them happy, not when he was so miserable. It was enough! Enough that they'd done it and efficiently torn Harry and Ron's friendship in two. No amount of apologies and her meddling would fix it.

It was bad. He couldn't look at his sister. He couldn't look at Harry. He kept imagining Harry's cock going inside of her, her slight breasts heaving, his glasses fogging up, their pale reflections in the bathroom mirror. The worst was imagining when he caught them, what they would have been up to before the door swung open. Ginny's legs around Harry, maybe balanced on the bloody counter, her nightgown bunched around her waist. The images kept him awake at night; he'd have to get up and walk or read or hit something to try and calm down.

The morning after telling Hermione, he sat down in the Great Hall and tried to ignore Harry, who was across from him. Hermione was at his elbow, saying things like "pass the salt," and "lovely day for Quidditch, isn't it?" Once or twice Harry murmured a reply, but not a sound came from Ron. She cornered him again just before Potions.

"Ron, this has got to stop. Harry's sorry, you're miserable, Ginny's a wreck. And once again I'm caught in the middle." There was a mocking tone to her voice Ron did not appreciate.

"That's your choice, isn't it? No one asked. You can bloody well pick a side; then you wouldn't be in the middle." He made to leave but she stopped him easily.

"I am not choosing sides! Leastways not between you and Harry, you're both acting like idiots. Harry won't come near you or Ginny for fear you'll kill him."

"He's got the right idea," Ron said savagely. "I'm not going to forgive and forget."

Hermione pulled herself up to her full, not-so considerable height. She tried to stare him down, looking the whole while like a miniature McGonagall. "This is not something to ruin a friendship over."

"Then what is?" he asked, making a second attempt to leave. She didn't try and stop him this time.

---

They ended up speaking out of necessity. Professor McGonagall, probably out of some misjudged sense of House responsibility, paired them for a research project in Transfiguration.

"Right." Ron rolled up his parchment and stared at a chart on the classroom wall. "How do you want to do this? I was thinking a practical demonstration."

"Ron."

"I could turn you into a toad. Or a cockroach. How about that?"

"Ron, I'm--"

"--and I could just leave you that way because you don't know when to shut up." That said, Ron glanced over to see Harry staring at him mournfully. "What is it?" he snapped, the product of two months of nearly unspent rage bubbling to the surface. McGonagall was eyeing them with a look of detached satisfaction.

"At least you're talking to me," Harry huffed, pulling up a chair to Ron's desk. "That's something."

"Not by choice." He busied himself with unrolling his parchment again and writing, in as neat a script as he could manage, both his last name and Harry's. "You didn't say what you wanted to do."

"I want." Ron didn't need to look up to know Harry was biting his lip and looking horribly pensive. "I want my best friend. I want to pass notes in Potions and talk about Quidditch scores."

"I reckon Hermione won't appreciate you passing her notes in Potions." Ron started outlining a list of possible projects. 'Look up origins of Animagi,' he wrote.

"Don't be daft! I meant you."

Ron sighed wearily. "I know that."

"Ginny and I stopped... well, you know?"

"I know." He found he could look at Harry but not directly in the eyes. "I know you did." Ron focused on studying the way a cowlick shifted the direction of Harry's part, just near his hairline.

"I won't go near her, I promise. Hell, I don't even want to anymore, truth be told."

"You are saying the exact wrong things, Harry. I have to hand it to you." He bent his head and wrote 'Switching Spells??'

"Would you stop... writing that?" Harry's Seeker-quick hand reached out suddenly and ripped the paper out from under Ron. The quill dragged an ugly, inky line down the page and the nib ripped a hole. "Look at me, talk to me. Tell me what to say so I can fix this."

"Isn't really something you can fix," Ron explained, pulling out a new sheet of parchment.

McGonagall started round to their desk, seemingly fed up with waiting for the two of them to patch things up. Ron lazily kept writing nonsense ideas while Harry scurried to lean in and look busy. "So," he whispered, "if I can't fix it, what I am supposed to do? Just forget about you? Forget about my best friend?" He said it outraged, like it was an insult.

"It can be done," Ron hissed back, flinching when Harry's grunt of exasperation hit his ears. McGonagall nodded at the pair of them before moving on to another desk.

"God, Ron. I wouldn't be this upset if you... shagged Hermione!"

Ron felt vaguely amused. "I'd rather you had."

Harry looked repulsed. "What?!"

"Well." He stopped and tried to formulate the words. "She's. Smart about stuff. I'd know she was thinking if she did it. And she'd be able to set things back to right after." It sounded a lot more logical in his head, if Harry's expression was anything to go by.

"I didn't understand any of that. Are you saying Ginny wasn't thinking when... when we...?"

Ron shook his head. "Not really. I just wouldn't feel like this."

"Like what?"

"Betrayed, I think." Everything failed to come out right. Hermione's previous scolding, her going on about him 'acting like an idiot' and overreacting started to seem less and less ridiculous.

"Betrayed? Ron, if I was you, I think I'd be more upset if I shagged Hermione than Ginny. I mean, you." He dropped his voice again. "You like Hermione."

"Well, yeah."

"But it would still be better? You don't like Ginny, not like that."

He could feel his ears turning red. "Of course not! That's not even the point. It would be different. And for your information," Ron glanced around to see if anyone was listening, "I don't like Hermione like that any more than I like Ginny like that."

It took a few moments, but Harry's brow furrowed and he leaned in even closer. "But I thought.... You don't?"

"No!" He didn't really have to fake the shudder. "Can you imagine dating her? 'Ronald, why did you think I would be partial to chocolates? Is it because you believe the stereotype that all girls must like chocolates? Because I am NOT all girls.'"

Both Harry and Ron struggled to hold in laughter. "Oh, I suppose that's true." He glanced over at Ron's makeshift list and smirked at it before continuing. "Listen. Does this mean we're all right? I'm really tired of listening to Malfoy gloat about 'the wrong sort.'"

"Yes, it would rather crush his little soul if he saw we had one up on him," Ron mused, finally setting down his quill. "But this isn't over, not by far."

Harry nodded enthusiastically. "I know. I'll try hard to make it up to you. I won't go out with any girls you like, I'll stay away from Ginny."

Ron stared at him levelly for a moment, deciding. "You promise?"

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley?" McGonagall's stern voice broke in. They distanced themselves and looked at her sheepishly.

"Sorry, Professor," Harry said.

"Yeah, sorry."

"See that you stay focused or I shall have to take points," she admonished, though there was something about her Ron guessed was pleased.

He turned back to the project and continued compiling ideas. He was halfway through writing 'Link between Potions and Transfig' when Harry's quill startled him, the hand holding it knocking his own hand away.

'I promise,' Harry wrote.

---

Things progressed in a slow manner. Harry still sat across from him at lunch but Ron would occasionally ask him about classes, or Quidditch, or Neville's latest blunder, whatever happened to be on the roster for that day. They eventually decided on doing their project on the links between Transfigurations and Defense Against the Dark Arts, often discussing it over meals while Hermione watched, looking pleased.

"I'm glad you two are trying to patch things up," Hermione said to Ron one night, after dragging him to the common room for a study session. "Things are a lot happier."

"Yeah, I guess so," he said, tapping his quill impatiently, as he couldn't remember the properties of mugwort. "Er, can you help me with this?"

She sighed at him but held out her hand for his notes anyway. "How's your project coming along?" she asked.

Ron watched her eyes as she read. "Well. Harry's just gone to check if Professor Williams would possibly give it to Snape to grade it for Potions too."

"Don't hold your breath," Hermione snorted. Snape had given her an abysmal score on the last exam and she was still harping about it to anyone who would listen. "But it's a nice thought." Finished, she handed him his notes. "Mugwort's leaves are used the same as wormwood in Potions."

"Great, thanks." He scribbled that down. "Er, does Harry talk to you about it?" He'd been wanting to know what Harry said out of the buffer of Ron's hearing; he wondered if he was as remorseful and apologetic.

"A little. He's happy you're speaking. Oh!"

Ron looked up at her, startled. "What?"

"I forgot. Harry and Cho are going out. Or," she laughed mockingly, "that's what the rumor mill says. Harry hasn't said a thing."

An odd feeling of irritation started to overtake him. Already? He had little doubt that if Cho wanted it, Harry would date her in a heartbeat. Even if she was, as Harry described it, a 'vapid human hosepipe.' "I can't believe him," he seethed. Hermione looked taken aback. "It's just on to the next, isn't it?"

"Ron?"

He rolled up his notes with an angry swish of his wand. "I think I'm done studying, Hermione."

"All... all right."

---

"Is it true?"

Harry looked more than a little shocked to see Ron sitting on his bed. "Ron? What are you doing?"

"Are you going out with Cho?"

With a bemused expression, Harry dumped his satchel on the floor near his bed. "No."

"That's not what Hermione said." He raised his chin stubbornly.

"Yes, she did tell me you'd probably be after my throat for that." He sighed and took a seat on Neville's bed, idly grabbing the nearest post for support. When Ron didn't speak, he sighed again. "I shagged her last week, if that's what you're trying to figure out."

Ron didn't know what to say. "Are you trying to fuck your way through the entire student body, or something? Is this your idea of 'making it up' to me?"

Harry's jaw dropped. "I didn't think you'd care!" He blanched. "Oh, Merlin, you don't like Cho, do you?"

"No, of course not. But here you are, fucking around after messing with my sister!"

"Am I supposed to check with you every time I fancy a girl?"

"You don't fancy her, you shagged her." And yes, his mind supplied. You are supposed to check.

"Ron, this is stupid, and I want to go to bed. Can we talk about it tomorrow?" Harry did sound tired.

"Yeah," he bit off. "We'll talk about it tomorrow."

---

Tomorrow turned into never. The fury Ron had felt the night before, while it still lingered, didn't seem very reasonable in the light of day. Hermione lectured him at breakfast about 'meddling in people's private business,' and all he had to say on the subject was "Harry's my best friend, that makes it my private business too." Harry, luckily enough for Ron, was not around to hear it.

Ginny was. She tried talking to him again.

"Just forget it, Ginny."

She studied him. "Nothing's changed, then? I'm still your sister?"

He snorted. "Obviously."

But everything had changed. He could get by with Harry; Harry was just his mate, but Ginny was his sister. When he looked at her, she seemed different. Older, dirtier. Every so often he'd picture her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she and Harry.... Well. Things had changed.

---

Harry broke up with Luna just before winter hols. She didn't seem too torn up over it, but you never could tell with Luna. Ron was mostly glad; at least he wouldn't have to put up with whispers of their trysts in the Astronomy Tower (really, how obvious could you be, doing it in the open like that?). There was still an air of tension between Harry and Ron, although they both tried to put it aside. It was easy enough to do, with Quidditch and exams and training for You-Know-Who's defeat.

Harry and Hermione both stayed over at Hogwarts in order to keep practicing. Ginny went home as Bill and Charlie were going to be there, but Ron ultimately decided to stay over too, not really wanting to go home to a claustrophobically full house another year.

It was somewhat of a relief that there was no chance of Harry's shagging anybody; everyone else who stayed over was either male, repulsive, or... Snape.

"Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger."

They both looked up at him expectantly. "Sir?"

"Have you seen Mr. Potter? I assigned him detention and he's predictably nowhere to be found." There wasn't one hint of politeness in Snape's tone.

"Can he do that during break?" Ron whispered.

Hermione elbowed him sharply. "Ron, why don't you go check the tower?"

"... Yeah."

The trek to Gryffindor Tower always seemed so desolate, without the bustle of students. Even if they weren't crowding the halls, when school was in there was the thought of them. He gave the password to the Fat Lady and jogged up the stairs.

"Harry?"

No sign of him. His bed was made and his cloak was in his trunk.

Ron was on his way to admit defeat to Snape when the muffled sound of water running sounded. Of course. Harry was in the showers. Silly git probably lost track of time.

"Harry?" He pushed into the nearest bathroom. A blast of steam hit him full on. "Merlin it's sweltering in here." Ron was close to trying all the stalls.

"Oh, fuck." It was Harry's voice, albeit filtered through the shower of running water in an acoustic room. "Oh fuck, yes," he groaned.

Ron froze. Harry was fucking someone in the showers.

---

He didn't mention it. He sat at dinner and listened half-heartedly to Hermione's questions about detention and Harry's stupid jokes about Snape. Ron carefully studied each and every person seated trying to figure out which one of the girls Harry'd been with in the showers.

In the showers.

It wasn't as if his friend was a... slut. To Ron's knowledge this was the fourth partner. Compared to others in their year, Harry was practically a virgin (unlike Ron, who was literally one). Four people for a teenaged boy, Ron reasoned, wasn't an incredible number. And after what Harry had been through... Hermione kept talking about comfort and closeness. It made sense.

But it still made Ron furious.

---

Harry came to stay at the Burrow during the latter half of summer. Ginny wisely decided she'd stay with Hermione and then, ironically enough, Luna during Harry's visit. Some of the ever-present tension had eased - it had, after all, been exactly a year since Ron had caught him with Ginny.

"I can't believe this is going to be our last year at Hogwarts," Harry said dazedly. He had been randomly spouting variations on the same theme for weeks.

"Yes, I know. Do you think you'll get a flat in London or something?"

Harry shrugged. "Dunno. It'll have to be somewhere safe on account of Voldemort."

"Yeah," Ron agreed lamely, not wanting to think about that. "Too bad you can't stay with the Dursleys."

Harry looked up, wide-eyed and shocked. "Ron, you know I don't--"

"I know, I know. I was just saying. Because that's where you're safest." He sheepishly cleared his throat and tried to think of something to change the subject to.

"I'm never safe," Harry muttered, appearing to calm down again.

---

Dumbledore started cooping Harry up even more. Ron hadn't thought it was possible to do so: no Hogsmeade weekends, no access to the Floo Network, no Quidditch, and he'd had to cancel DA meetings for the last two weeks running. Harry only moved back and forth between classrooms, the dormitory, and Snape's dungeons.

"He agreed to start with Occlumency again," Harry explained, looking tired and sunken after another lesson.

"Why did he do that?"

"Well, we don't actually speak outside of the lessons. I reckon that's a big part."

Hermione broke in to ask how Harry was feeling. "I'm all right," he said slowly, perhaps trying to convince himself. "I'm tired. It's really draining."

Ron got the feeling, when Harry cast multiple wards around his bed at night, that he was practicing more than Occlumency.

---

The year was proving to be a whirling, ceaseless distraction. Time went by so fast Ron almost forgot how he went to sleep each night and woke up each morning. There were exams to plan for, endless tests to pass, Slytherins to avoid.

Harry had determinedly set time aside each week for DA meetings when there was an attack on the family of a first-year from Ravenclaw. There was little doubt in Ron's mind how hard Dumbledore and the others must have been working Harry. His spells, formerly a little hesitant and reserved (as if he was afraid of them blowing up in his face or turning into stigma like Parseltongue in second year), were blasting out at full power with nary a blink.

Harry set them routines, first in pairs where Ron had to think quickly against Hermione's clever wand-work, and then alone, casting things they scarcely understood. They revisited easy defense spells, casting on objects; blowing them up, knocking them over, inflating them, shrinking them. It was busy, tiring work and there was no question as to if they were going to need it.

The Ministry gave daily statements to the Prophet: endless reassurances that "everything is under control," and "the general populace need not worry over You-Know-Who's return last year." The only Auror reports people caught wind of had to do with run-of-the-mill incidents. They were, apparently, leaving everything up to Dumbledore, and Dumbledore was leaving everything up to Harry.

Stupid prophecy.

Ron watched Neville accidentally combust a pillow and at least had the guilty relief of knowing they had the better pick of Boy Who Lived.

---

The entire class of seventh-years kept paranoid watch during the Leaving Feast, unable to believe Voldemort hadn't attacked once during Harry's final year at Hogwarts. Gryffindor sat around in their pointed black hats, whispering fearfully, clammy hands clutching wands under the table.

"He's not going to attack," Harry suddenly said. Everyone, even a few students from other houses who had overheard, looked up at him. "He knows I'm safe here."

This put most everyone at ease, although a few still wore pinched and anxious expressions, not entirely convinced. Hermione watched Dumbledore's speech and toast, mouth set in a taut line.

"What's to stop him from striking as soon as we arrive at Kings Cross?" she whispered so only Ron could hear her. "The second that Dumbledore's gone..." She shuddered, staring unseeingly at her plate.

Harry reached over and touched her arm. "Hermione, it's going to be fine."

"I wish I had your confidence," she said, snorting, and reached with shaky hands for a final sip of Pumpkin juice.

Ron knew it was bad, seeing Hermione frightened. Somehow it had never looked this bad, not before he stood on the edge of this precipice.

Hogwarts was behind them. No one knew what was ahead.