Author's Notes: Not mine, just playing with it.
Empty Tables, Empty Chairs
It was Mum who started the whole thing, although I still don't know if it was an accident. We don't talk about it much, even now. We were back at Grimmauld Place for the summer. None of us wanted to be there, but it was the only way Harry could be with us and we all needed that.
She did it the first night, set a place at the table for Sirius. Harry and I came to dinner last and I thought he was going to break something when he realized there were three empty chairs. Instead, he looked right at Mum and nodded. I don't think I really realized until that moment how much he needed her.
We kept it up back at Hogwarts, a spot at the Gryffindor table for Sirius. Dean Thomas, that berk, tried to get in the way, smarming up to Ginny, but I set him straight pretty sharply. It must have gotten around, as these things always do, because the next night at dinner, Ernie Macmillan huffed around making sure there was a empty chair for Cedric. Macmillan could be a little pompous, but he always had his heart in the right place. I miss that.
The Ravenclaws were next, when Tonks was killed in a small Death Eater foray into Hogsmeade. After that, the losses came fast and furious and Filch had to start bringing in extra tables. Kinglsey, Amos Diggory, Hestia Jones, Moody, the list just went on and on. I thought the hardest day had come, when Professor McGonagall set the empty place for Dumbledore, but I was wrong.
That summer, we were all at Grimmauld Place and it looked like none of would ever see home again. They got Bill, who surprised them in an attack on Gringotts. Took out four Death Eaters and won the loyalty of the goblins, but we lost him. Hermione had to set the table that night.
The war eventually ended, as all wars eventually do. You-Know-Who was brought down by his own arrogance and cowardice and I realized that was all evil was – arrogance and cowardice. People started living again, but I couldn't. All I saw were empty chairs. I couldn't eat in crowded restaurants because it made me angry. For years, I hardly ate at all, it seemed such a betrayal.
I got into a spot of trouble, for punching out some guy who said Mudblood in a bar. They let me off easy, I guess, with a warning and some community service. They said I had a hard war, with so many losses, but I don't know about that. There are just some things we shouldn't condone.
It was Mum who saved me, of course. Christmas dinner, back at the Burrow, at last, she seated Charlie's first born in Bill's chair. I was upset at first, but she looked at me and said "It's time you stopped eating dinner with death, Ron. It's time we all stopped." I finally asked Hermione to marry me that night. Our son will be born in a few weeks.
He'll sit in Harry's spot.