I do not own Harry Potter, nor Wilfred Owen's poem Dulce et Decorun Est
It was an unhealthy relationship from the start. The constant need for someone to be there in the days and weeks after the battle, to hold her hand at the funerals while cameras were shoved in their faces, and he was right there ready for the taking.
When reality began to sink in, she needed someone to hold her through the night terrors, through the awful bloody pain that slammed into her body at times and no-one new why. In return, he was a shadow of his former self, shaking at any loud noise. It took her a whole hour to calm him down when Mrs Weasley dropped a plate once when they were round.
She really did love him, but if life had taken a different path, she doubted they would have lasted. Their desire for human contact, along with shared experiences made them ideal partners. Oh, she knew how he had longed for her, but had they been granted the chance to be a teenager, rather than being thrust into the cruel, dark world so young, her heart may not have craved the attention so much.
So together they stuck it out. In a world where there was no mental health provision, where there wasn't enough money to provide treatment for some of the most basic long term injuries of the survivors, they were the least of anyone's concern. Of course, she had read enough books to see the signs of PTSD in all of them, but where should they go for help? Were they going to go to a muggle doctor and say "I have PTSD from fighting in a wizarding war when I was 18"?
But they were the lucky ones. She would never forget the faces of everyone she killed, nor the faces of the 50 Hogwarts Students who were slaughtered that night. When she returned to Hogwarts, the classes were empty, the entire upper school lost half it's numbers. The younger students never lost that look of fear in their eyes, but she daren't ask what happened at Hogwarts while she was on the run, because the thought of knowing the true horrors scares her.
Oh the blood, the never ending blood. It felt like her hands were covered in the oily gloopy substance. No matter how hard she scrubbed her hands, she was still a murderer with blood on her hands and their souls on her conscience.
Settle down, raise a family, do everything except think about the horrors of war. And she tried. Rosie and Hugo were the best things that ever happened to her. Ron was a kind, loving husband who she adored. But some how she can't help but think it would have been better to die, rather than sit with a bottle of wine every night to try to drink away the pain. The old lie they tell to children ardent for some desperate glory, that they should go and die for their country, well at least she lived.
