Midnight in the Silence

Midnight in the Silence

It had been a quiet day, and Ron didn't need to consult tarot cards or tea leaves; he knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that it was going to be an equally quiet night.

He shadowed Harry through the bathroom and into the empty dormitory, both of them in pyjamas and bare feet, rubbing their hair with towels. Harry had been back from the hospital wing a day; he had brought the silence with him, a legacy of the tournament, and Ron was beginning to think it would stay for the rest of their lives.

Harry settled down on his bed, leaning back against the headboard. The heavy red curtains cast his face into shadow.

Ron hesitated in front of him. "Room for one more?"

"All right," Harry said. It was the first time he'd spoken in hours, and his voice was not quite his own, too rough and too cracked around the edges.

Ron sat, scooting up until his shoulder bumped Harry's and he was close enough to smell him, clean and soapy and alive. The quiet settled around them again, heavy and oppressive.

He listened to the castle at night; to the stones settling, to faint voices drifting up from the common room, to his friend's slow, steady breathing. Ron's eyes roamed the room, a messy, haphazard place, cluttered with shoes and parchments and piles of black robes. There should be a bloody end-of-term party in here right now, he thought angrily. Food and Butterbeer and dodgy jokes and Hermione sshing us every two seconds.

Ron watched Harry out of the corner of his eye, something in his stomach twisting at the sight of the tired face and hunched shoulders. He looked down at the thin arm beside his own. Their pyjamas were identical, Weasley hand-me-downs, and they were sitting so close together that the blue and white stripes overlapped seamlessly between them.

Ron's heart pounded. There was something wrong with Harry's arm, a dark, ugly line of red paralleling the blue.

"You're bleeding."

Harry looked down, then away. "It's nothing."

Ron stared at the thin line of blood seeping through the cotton, a sudden chill making him colder than he would have ever thought possible in June. He knew, of course, that Harry had seen You-Know-Who get his body back, that he'd seen the Death Eaters gather, that he'd seen Cedric Diggory die. He knew, because Harry had said so, from that narrow hospital bed. But when Ron had tried to picture what that meant, his mind had cast Harry behind a large, conveniently-placed tree, watching from a distance, well out of harm's way.

As fantasies went, he had been rather attached to it.

Ron looked up and tried to meet Harry's eyes, but his friend was carefully focusing all his attention on a spot on the blanket. Ron took a deep breath, then slowly, carefully, rolled the sleeve up well past Harry's elbow. "Madam Pomfrey -"

"No," Harry said. Ron could have predicted that too; Trelawney would be proud of him, tonight. "Sorry," Harry mumbled. "She gave me something."

"Where is it?" Ron asked, fingers shaking a bit as they gripped Harry's arm. "In your cabinet?" He didn't wait for answer, but turned and began rustling around in the top drawer of the nightstand. He came up with two little pots of salve, one purple and one green.

"The purple one first."

Harry reached for the jar, but Ron unscrewed the cap himself and dipped a finger in the gel. It was surprisingly hot - to burn away germs, he supposed. His hand shook a little as he rubbed it over the jagged, angry cut.

"Er... is it supposed to do that?" Little curls of smoke were wafting up from Harry's skin. Ron grimaced; that had to hurt.

"Yeah," Harry said. "You should've seen my shoulder, after that Horntail."

Ron picked up the green jar - Dr. Suture's Stick-It Cream, according to the label - and weighed it in his hand thoughtfully. He hadn't seen Harry's shoulder that night because Madam Pomfrey had healed it so quickly, before he and Hermione had even made it to the tent. But she hadn't been able to heal this.

"It was meant to bleed, wasn't it."

Harry flinched, and Ron thought for a moment that his friend would jump up and run away, although he wasn't quite sure where he would go. Not back out to join the crowd in the common room, he was sure. The same thought must have crossed Harry's mind, because he sighed, and said, "Yes."

"Bloody hell," Ron whispered.

The silence was back. This time, it seemed different to Ron; larger and much, much older than a couple of days. It was years of fear and half-knowledge, of eavesdropping on hushed grown-up conversations, of not saying a name. Of being told to stop asking questions and start thanking Merlin that a little boy had lived and saved them all.

The new-old silence was huge, and deafening.

Ron looked at Harry and knew that he should break it. It was the right thing to do. It was what Hermione would do.

"I'm a bloody great prat," he said fiercely.

Harry blinked. "Why?"

"Because - because I should ask you about this," he waved the little container around wildly, "but I can't. I can't. And because you were right, okay? You were right about - about what I wanted." He flicked his eyes up at his friend's face, at his scar. "You were right, and it's pathetic."

Harry made a small, negative noise.

"I'm pathetic," Ron went on doggedly, "because you were right and I'll do it again." He waved his hands helplessly, trying somehow to convey everything horrible he'd done that past November. "And I can't even ask what the bastards did to you." He stood up suddenly, on shaky legs.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked quietly.

"To get Hermione. She's the one you need."

Harry reached out and wrapped his fingers around Ron's wrist. "No," he said. He gave a sharp tug, and Ron sat down obediently.

"Hermione," Harry said slowly, "is wonderful. But you know... you know how she gets."

Ron did know. It was how she'd been, the past day or so - worried, flustered, feverishly scanning a copy of The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts while the two of them hovered in the corridor outside the hospital wing.

"And right now, I would go mad." Harry regarded him seriously, fingers still tight on his wrist, and in that too-hoarse voice said, "What I need - it's not Hermione."

He didn't finish the thought, didn't say I need you, but Ron heard it anyway, and it echoed around them throughout the rest of the warm, quiet night.