On Leaving

The Auror office changes completely after dark; the constant white noise of flying memos, shuffling papers, muted conversations and the scratching of quills on parchment stops completely when the door closes and the wing is shut down for the night.

I'm not technically supposed to be in here right now, but being an Auror I know the password and the door enchantments. I'm rather good at breaking them now, which is pretty ironic, if you think about it.

There are three minutes till midnight and I'm still wondering why I'm standing here.

When I said 'Auror' I really meant ex-Auror, as of 6 o'clock this evening.

I quit.

I'm not sure yet what I was thinking going in to this mad job...I suppose part of me still wanted to feel the rush you get after the release of a powerful spell or when an opponent falls at your feet. Of course, some of it was following Harry's lead.

He's my best mate and it made sense: Ron and Harry, the war heroes. Ron and Harry, Aurors. I always follow Harry, and that's okay, really. I left him once, and he would have died if I hadn't come back.

I get nightmares about that sometimes.

The office is very faintly lit with the blue light filtering in through the charmed windows. There is always a full moon in the Auror office. I've never asked why, but it gives the desks a faintly ghostly look, and disguises the stacks of magazines, books, and whatever else the senior Aurors have cluttering their workspace. In the corner there is a cluster of smaller, open tables where the trainees take exams and study or relax between shifts. It's not uncommon to walk in and see two or three of them passed out at one of them, exhausted after a grueling night.

I slide into one of the chairs facing the window, and stretch my legs out under the table. They always bump the chair opposite of me. When we were in training, Harry usually sat there and he griped if I knocked his chair too much.

We have proper desks now, and a cubicle like area to spread out in. Mine is - okay, it was - nearest the east window. Harry's is the farthest from the door, a little across the room.

He was sitting there this afternoon when I told him I was leaving.

~~~

"I can't do it anymore."

Harry, who had been dozing at his desk, raised his head off his arms and looked at me blankly.

"What can't you do anymore?" He asked scratchily, and rubbed his eyes. There were dark circles under them and a hint of 5 o'clock shadow along his jaw. Mechanically he reached for his half empty coffee mug and took a big gulp. "Blech."

"This job. I'm handing in my resignation."

"Are you mad?" He spluttered, spitting out a mouthful of coffee onto one of the reports he'd been reading. "When'd you decide that?"

"Last night."

"How can you?" he whispered harshly. "There are a million projects you're working on; think about all the shite still out there, are you really going to walk away from it? What about last week, Ron? How can you leave that still operating in this world?"

It has been a terrible couple of months in the Auror office. Every couple of years since Voldemort fell, we have to deal with an upswing in Death Eater-esque mania...some effing idiots that try and blow something up or target muggle-borns. We were in one of those phases lately, and it was nastier than I can ever remember it being. Our whole department was in chaos; we had people on recovery, people searching for the madmen who organized this shite, people researching War records and interrogating old prisoners....We've only just got a cap on it all.

I've never seen things like I had these last months, not since the War, or as long as I've been a member of the Auror department. There are things that should be kept sacred and apart from rest of the madness, and there are things that can make only an expectant father mad with fury and righteousness and terror.

I'm not saying that only fathers can appreciate war crimes and psychopaths, but sometimes you need a child's face of your own hovering over the cold, frozen expressions of the perished ones to make it real.

When I close my eyes I'm flooded with the memory of misshapen hands and feet the size of my palm, or bright eyes gone dull and formerly pink lips that will never laugh again, or smile, or grow old enough to kiss.

Hermione has the sweetest face of anyone I know; she smiles and her cheeks glow and she's bursting with life and happiness. We're having a baby soon. These days, whenever I'm on duty all I can see is her smiling face, lifeless, pale and lying haphazard amongst a sea of bodies that have been abused by hate.

It makes me sick.

We've lost good people this time around. Parents - men and women who will never go home again, who will never be visited by their children at lunch, who won't see their sons and daughters get their Hogwarts letter, go to school, grow up or fall in love. Their spouses have to raise them alone, and I've attended enough memorials to know that death is always harshest on the ones who survive.

You see, I'm not afraid of death.

I'm afraid of leaving her alone.

If I was afraid of dying, I wouldn't have fought a War with Harry, I wouldn't have signed up for this job, and I wouldn't have devoted the last six years of my life to putting away the darkest Wizards and Witches of our time. If I'm gone, there won't be anyone to prevent her death from becoming anything more than a nightmare. She won't be able to bring in our kids to see me at work, or have me kiss them goodnight. Hermione is more than capable, but I'm not willing to take the chance.

His voiced cracked slightly when he spoke again, his face incredulous. It shook me out of my reverie. "Are you going to leave me to do this alone? What about Hermione? What about the baby?"

"What about your baby? What about James and Ginny?" I countered heatedly. "Harry, how can you leave them every day?"

I know it wasn't really fair to pull that one out. It was low. But mind, I was as close to contained hysterics at this point. You try not sleeping for a couple of days and arguing completely rationally.

Harry stared at me hard for a few minutes. I noticed that his hands were clutching his desk so hard his knuckles were white, and suddenly his eyes were overbright. He didn't relax his grip on his desk when he looked away.

Harry was never a terribly subtle person, and after knowing him for as long as I have, reading him is second nature. I could only see the back of his head, but I knew that among all the crap piled on his desk all he was seeing were the pictures plastered to the fraying fabric of the cubicle walls, in scattered frames and taped to the drawers of his overflowing file cabinet.

Pictures from school; of me and Hermione and himself, Quidditch and Hogsmead.

A picture of mine and Hermione's wedding.

His wedding: Ginny in her gown, the wedding party, Mum and Dad. The two of them on their honeymoon.

Of her laughing and covered in flour, trying to bake with a belly far too large for their little kitchen.

The two of them, curled up in bed with the tiny James nestled between them for the first time.

Of Ginny, balancing a larger James on her hip and patting her expanding stomach.

James, waving a toy broom. James, screaming and covered with something orange and sticky looking, and Harry, also covered, but laughing.

My mum and Dad, at their 40^th wedding anniversary.

Ginny in her Holyhead Harpies uniform, after a match.

Harry's whole desk is covered with pictures, newspaper clippings and odds and ends he's drug over from home. Hermione and I spend a lot of time at his and Ginny's house, and it isn't much different; they have covered the whole place with photographs and prints and memorabilia.

I know that all he can see now is his family, all around him.

"Ron."

"What?" His voice was so low that I had to lean to hear him.

"I understand you, you know. I have to think about that everyday too. But," he added, raising his head and looking at me, "I can't not do this. Somebody has to. And if not me...dammit, stop it, I know."

I closed my mouth and swallowed the comment I'd been about to make. Even shrouded by heavy lids and black smudges, Harry's eyes gleam green and bright with a fierce determination. During the War he always looked haggard and worn, but the set look of his eyes never changed.

It's a little disconcerting if you're not ready for it, but like I said, I'm used to Harry and I've been looking at those same eyes and the same expression for years.

Quietly, he said "Ron, for all the reasons you need to leave for your family...those are all the reasons I need to stay. I can't...I can't trust anyone else to do this."

This I understand.

Harry will always be the one with the "saving people thing" because he's Harry.

And Harry is the hero.

I've come well beyond being jealous over this, because you can't change what makes a person them, and if you tried to take the "hero" out of Harry, he wouldn't know what to do with himself. He'd feel completely helpless.

Hermione will tell you I'm a hero too, in my way. I suppose this is true enough, but you can't escape the fact that even though we're "Harry and Ron", we're different people.

I have to do things my way this time.

I nod stiffly and try to think of something else to say. Harry is still looking at me in a lost sort of way, but there must have been something in my face that made him think he couldn't talk me out of it - and he would try, because he's Harry, and I'm Ron - but I know Harry well enough to recognize his sigh of resignation when it comes, so I clapped my hand on his shoulder and started picking my way back to my desk. When I glanced back he was staring at the opposite wall with his fringe falling across his eyes and looking tired.

~~~

The little table is littered with coffee stains and blotches of spilt ink. Behind me, a dozen miniature desk clocks chime midnight and it causes such a ruckus that I decide I've really been here long enough.

I know I did what was best, but that doesn't mean that I have no regrets and it stings when I see my name badge gleaming in the rubbish bin. Replacing the wards is easy though, and the door doesn't make any noise when it shuts behind me.