It takes place right after the Battle.

Well, not quite right after the Battle. Right after the Battle he and Hermione go right at Harry. Because, of course, Harry was alive then. He hadn't been just a bit ago, so it'd been a bit of a shock for all of them.

Ron reckons he's still in shock.

Then Harry had dragged them to the Headmaster's office to talk to the Dumbledore portrait, and to break the world's most unbeatable wand. Ron's in shock over that, too.

And right after that, he and Hermione ducked somewhere and snogged for a bit- Ron can't believe they accidentally outed their relationship that way. Much less that it had been Hermione to make that move. And, well, after the snog he remembers rather late and stupidly that he has a family that needs him, and that's when the conversation takes place.

Fred has been taken to another room with the other casualties of the Battle. George and Lee are somewhere together not coping, and his mum and dad are doing the same thing but right here in the Great Hall, and it only takes a moment for Ron to feel utterly useless here.

Even Percy is doing better than him, he notes, watching Percy with his arms around Mum, crying. Ron swears under his breath and turns around, then notices Ginny standing behind him.

"Nice," she says, of the swearing, and Ron almost swears again before considering that he'd be proving her point.

"Don't sneak up on me," he says, a bit too high strung to laugh it off. They are both pretending not to notice that at his sudden movement, they'd both moved for their wands.

"Sorry," she says. "Bad year, I take it?"

Ron really can't do anything but laugh at that. "You could say that."

Ginny grins. "Yeah, us too." She sends a discreet glance at the rows of the injured, where the Healers are still working on the people too badly hurt to Apparate.

"Yeah, Neville told us," says Ron, and he's suddenly aware of how utterly exhausted he is. He sits down gingerly at the nearest dinner table, stretches his legs out stiffly, gestures for Ginny to join him.

"Ah, that's nice," she says, a murmur. He doubts she'd intended to say it out loud, so he ignores it. They sit in silence.

There isn't much they can say. They just won a war. They just lost a brother. How do you reconcile that?

"So, why'd you break into Gringotts yesterday?" Ginny asks, not looking at him.

Had it only been yesterday?

"To get a cup," says Ron. "It's kind of a long story, you're better off asking Harry or Hermione. They know more than me."

She lets out a pffft sound. "So was the cup one of You-Know-Who's… things?"

"Yeah," he says. "Long story. What about you?"

"Why did I break into Gringotts?" she asks, and smiles slightly. Sometimes, Ron thinks that she has spent too much time with him and the twins.

"How was your year?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know. I had it pretty good, really, I left earlier on. Seamus was telling me some things that-" she shudders.

Ron nods. He has the feeling she doesn't want to discuss it more, and she confirms it a moment later. "So if You-Know-Who is dead, what do we do now?"

"Well, we probably have to make sure he is dead," says Ron. "Fooled us once, hasn't he?"

"I've missed you," she says, and shakes her head. "What do we do now, though?"

"Take a nap," says Ron. "Rebuild the Ministry. Take a lot more naps."

"I'm good with that plan," says Ginny.

"Take care of our brother," says Ron, and they both glance over at where Percy is still sitting with Mum and Dad. "Take care of our parents."

Ginny nods. "Kinda wish it'd all just," she stops and tilts her head, looking up at him for the first time. "Be over. No more You-Know-Who, no more problems."

"He wasn't all the problem," says Ron. "The other problem was people letting him do it. Helping him."

"Do you blame them?" asks Ginny, and she glances down. "I know it isn't right to, but…"

She trails off and they sit in silence again. "Yeah," says Ron. "I know."

He considers telling her that he understands, though- that he knows what it feels like, that choice between safety and family, or doing something dangerous but right. He remembers Xeno Lovegood, remembers what it meant to choose family. To be a coward and abandon the cause.

But Ron is not quite brave enough for that, not yet, and so he says nothing about it, and Ginny, maybe sensing his discomfort, changes the subject. Of course not to something happy, though. They aren't quite ready to be happy, either of them.

"We lost so much of the DA," she says. Ron nods, and glances again at the wounded. Lavender Brown is there, with Parvati. Ron, last year, would have cringed and looked away.

And Lavender last year had been lively and bright, but she lies there pale and feeble and he doesn't cringe thinking about her.

"What were we thinking?" says Ginny. "That we took him on. What made us think we were-"

"We did," Ron points out. "We did win-"

"Harry won," she says. "We just died. If You-Know-Who wasn't dead, we'd have lost."

"Maybe," says Ron. Ginny sighs.

"They duelled to kill, Ron. But I know- I know a lot of the DA duelled to Stun." There's a pause. "They would have won."

There's another pause, longer. Ron hadn't duelled to kill, either. He wonders if he should have. They would have been happy to kill him. They had been happy killing Fred and Tonks and Lupin and so many others. It's only fair to kill them back.

But Ron doesn't want to kill people. He supposes that's another brand of cowardice- even if he knew they'd go on to hurt others, he wouldn't kill them. Spare his conscience. Selfish, really.

"But they didn't win," says Ginny, in a tone that makes it clear that she at least is done with hypotheticals. "We did."

"Doesn't feel like we did," says Ron. And it's true. He is exhausted. He's a little hungry. He has to pee. And there are too many bodies, too many kids in St. Mungo's- hell, too many kids still at Hogwarts injured- for this to be a victory.

"Yeah," says Ginny, and he knows she's thinking the same thing. "Well."

"Well," he agrees.

"I'm going to take that nap," she says, then looks at him again. "And then I guess we start rebuilding."

"I guess so," he says, and she nods.

"Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're back."

"Good to see you, Ginny," says Ron, and smiles. She nods and stands up, almost falls over, says quickly that she's okay. Ron watches her hug Mum, then start for the exit. Luna Lovegood detaches from Neville and Hannah Abbott to catch up with her, links her arm with Ginny's.

Ginny has grown up, Ron thinks, and he wonders how long he's known that.