When She Sleeps

When She Sleeps

I. Out of Bad Faith

She looks so beautiful when she sleeps.

When the sun rises I'm going to stand next to the good guys. That could be potentially very interesting, and slightly deadly. My imminent doom is drawing uncomfortably close and I'm thinking about how Granger looks when she sleeps.

Again, as though I don't do this before every battle. I hate being predictable. This disgusting habit began that first nightmare, just before the first battle. For an unknown reason the five of us gather around a nice fire, all perversely optimistic, and oddly together just before anything bad happens. Ha, I'm not alone in my predictability.

For some reason I feel better, much better.

That early dawn we were doing this sitting. Potter polishing wands, many wands; not actually sure they were all wands, some might have been very unfortunate sticks. I sit gaze haughtily even though I know I'm not invulnerable to my father's wrath. At the time I was worried about daddy dearest, but now I am invulnerable to him, after all, the dead don't usually walk.

She killed him.

The night I began to realize how pretty she is she still had his blood under her nails and we were still letting her fight. Not anymore, now we keep her here to make sure the tents don't walk away. Weasel started that tent bit. He worried more about her than his brother sometimes. He's got to know he's been in love with her since the moment she got a letter from a bird. Poor guy, he suffers the same ailment as we all do.

We're all in love with her.

II. Remember to be Lucky

Goddamn she looks good when she sleeps.

Wish she wasn't sleeping in Fred's arms though. Not that I don't want Hermione to be happy its just that...why can't she be happy with me? How long has it been since I met her? Doesn't fell like we've known each other since we were eleven and now so suddenly we're seventeen, not graduated, and we're supposed to be all grown up.

I hope to God we can pull this thing off. Lupin used to refer to it as the end of days, as the apocalypse, as the last day you've got on earth. So today I took his advice and did the strangest thing I could think to do on the eve of the last battle. Today I walked with Hermione in the cemetery. It took a while to make it through the plains, over the miles and mountains of the dead, but she said she wanted to remember.

It had to be had for her, waddling over all those plots. Seeing the people she loved...she loved them all, even the ones she killed. She killed Lucius Malfoy, Draco says she saved him and he kisses her on the cheek affectionately, trying to pull off the big brother act.

Silly waste of time, I've been the big brother forever, and I'll be there until I die because she doesn't love me. Ironically I could die tomorrow.

Not that I want to die. I want to be here after that to see Hermione still sleeping in Fred's arms, to see her snuggling down, his hands on her angelically rounded belly just ready to burst. She keeps saying she's keeping that baby inside until this hell is over despite the protests of the healers and my sister who has declared herself a midwife.

Fred's smiling; bastard doesn't know how lucky he is.

III. Following the Leader

A goddess is sleeping across the fire. She's my best friend, but I am not in love with her. It's funny to think I used to be. I can still remember eyeing her over my hand of cards as she rubbed her eyes over a load of homework too large for anyone.

Believe me when I say large, I know a lot about burdens.

Sometimes I used to wish she'd fall back to sleep on her books just so I would be there to witness something pure in my otherwise sordid life.

Life wasn't good to me until I fell out of love with Hermione Granger. By that time I'd been rejected by everyone but Neville, who turned out to be just what I needed, still need him even though he's gone. Ron took our girl to see Neville yesterday. They had a family reunion with her parents and Dumbdlore, with Lupin and Cedric and with George too. Fred and I don't go to the crypts too often. I just don't want to remember like Hermione does, and Fred can't seem to forget. So we stay here and talk. A lot, we talk more now than we've laughed together.

We try not to let on about the talks that we have, but Malfoy seems to know. Not that he cares. Malfoy is a strange...specimen and I haven't figured what to think of him though. Hermione trusts him though.

So we want to trust him because she does.

We all do what she does.

IV. Chosen

Hermione looks so gorgeous when she's sleeping that it takes my breath away, a strange occurrence in itself. You think I don't know how lucky I am to be holding this angel right now, to be feeling her body beat in dual time as she carries a child, our child? If you think I'm still ignorant than you're a fool.

George used to watch too. He always watched before I spoke. Maybe she should be sleeping with him now and I should be six feet under. Maybe, but that's not the way it happened. Instead I'm the one who caught her when she fell from grace. I was in the right place at the right time to see that she couldn't find the answer in one of her books.

It was her that was in the wrong place. She's always in the wrong place. Why does she love me? It would be so much better for her health if she'd love Ron or...ewe...Malfoy. They'd take care of her like a real boyfriend.

Heck, Ron would have purposed and Malfoy'd have an idea what she's talking about when she starts ranting about Faust. Who the hell is that? Please tell me it's not an old lover.

But she picked be to sleep for.

V. The Sleeper Sings

My goodness she looks beautiful when she sleeps.

That little glowing bundle in my daughter and she is the flower after the death. A little wisp of red hair and big brown eyes, hands curled to fend off the world and a blanket knitted by a doting grandmother who apparently thinks the mother is stupid enough to take the newborn out naked.

I took her out today. I want her to remember her godfather. Gracie mustn't ever forget that the day we entered heaven was the day she was born and the day a blonde haired man died on the other side of the curtain as she came screaming into life.

Not ever forget. Her daddy doesn't like that. I suppose he'd like me to tell her one day that her middle name is Georgina for no particular reason, but I can't tell her that kind of lie.

I love Fred, but not all wishes come true. When the five of us, there used to be five at poker, now there are four, would sit around that fire and hope I used to pretend to be asleep. Sometimes I really wasn't pretending, and I'd crack my eyes open and number the stars. Forgiveness for Draco. Luck for Ron because maybe someday he'll realize how much he doesn't love me. Quiet for Harry, and answers for Fred.

Someday I may be able to figure out just why I let him catch me, but I don't have the time.

Gracie's waking up.