Snatched the characters from JKR, snatched the title from Boys Like Girls. Don't sue me!
.x. Hero/Heroine .x.
The mood in the Hufflepuff common room that night was grim. Frightened. Dark. The Badgers sat huddled together in quaking masses, shaking and sobbing as one as they all waited the bloody dawn. The battle was long over, and all that was left to do was sit and pray that Harry had been wrong.
But Harry was rarely wrong.
The only time he was had been the last time the House had been so somber. This was a foreign familiarity to the other sixth years, but something new and uniquely unbearable for Justin Finch-Fletchy. He hadn't felt anything this awful before, not even the night after Harry Potter had brought Cedric Diggory's body back from the graveyard – he'd been petrified the last time any Hufflepuff had felt this.
It seemed as though it had been hours, and yet no one had spoken. Ernie had opened his mouth to say something once, twice, three times; but he hadn't, and neither had anyone else. Because this time Harry wasn't wrong about Draco Malfoy or Professor Snape. Because this time Dumbledore wouldn't come down at breakfast and tell them everything would be all right. Because Dumbledore was dead, and, without Dumbledore, what was left for them?
Justin rose from the group, startling the students whom surrounded him. A bleary-eyed Susan Bones, whom had been beside him, looked up, confused. "I can't take this anymore." He headed towards the boy's dorm and Susan followed after a moment's hesitation, tripping over Ernie as she left.
When she entered the room, she was surprised how much it looked like her own – she had never been in the boy's dorms before. She could envision what the room must have looked like in the daylight, on any other morning. Its rich mahogany four-posters with draped with their golden bedding should have looked majestic in the star-hung twilight, but instead the covers were unmade, the jug of water lay cracked and empty on the carpet and the nightstand it had rested on had been turned over in the rush to join in the fray. Most of the curtains on the beds had been left haphazardly open, but one bed remained resolutely shut and she knew exactly who was behind it. She approached the bed cautiously, drawing back the material only several centimeters, just enough to see Justin's blue eyes. "You can't shut yourself up like this, you know."
"Why not?" He pulled the curtains shut again, and by the time she had reopened them, he was lying curled on his side, the wrinkled comforter pulled over his pajama-clad body.
"Please. It's better, when you're not on your own."
"Bollocks. How would you know?" He looked at her over his shoulder.
"Uncle Edgar and Auntie Amelia, for starts," she said plainly, and Justin turned away again, embarrassed.
"I'm sorry, I forgot…"
Susan hesitated for a moment, and then turned away. "I'll be down, if you decided that it is lonelier, off on your own."
A pale hand shot out and grabbed her wrist loosely. "Don't leave me."
"I want to go back down with everyone."
"Stay. Please."
She looked at him. His curls were falling in front of his face and his eyes were focused on her. He was scared. She could see that.
Justin pulled the curtain back further and she lay down next to him and closed her eyes, pulling the blanket over her own cold body. One of his arms wrapped around her waist and another had found its way to her auburn hair. He had never seen her hair out of its plait before. She felt her cheeks redden at the thought of lying with a boy she had known for six years in their pajamas, in his bed, in his room, curled so intimately. The thought of kissing him entered her mind once, but it wasn't the kind of situation for that. He was simply holding her, and, for the moment, it seemed to make all the difference in the world. She opened her eyes again – there were tears rimming his eyes.
"Justin…"
"It's just hard to think that…that he's gone. That Hogwarts is gone."
"Hogwarts isn't—"
"Do you really think they'll keep the school open after the Death Eaters have broken in? And without…without…?"
She didn't. Not really. But she couldn't tell him that – it was too cruel of a truth. "Even if Hogwarts ends, you'll still be a Hufflepuff. You'll still be a wizard."
And quite suddenly, he broke. A strangled cry issued from his mouth, and before she had realized what was happening, his head was resting on his shoulder and her hands were on his shaking shoulders. "I can't go back there. I can't go back to being a Muggle, Susan."
She shushed him softly, lifting his chin up so that she could see him. "They can't take this away from you." She nuzzled his neck without thinking, and he could feel her breath on his skin giving him goose bumps. He leaned forward further so that he was leaning over her, his weight supported on his right arm.
"But what if I don't see Diagon Alley again? Or Hannah or Ernie or…" He swallowed nervously, and decided there was nothing for him to lose at this point. "Or you?"
Simultaneously, they leaned together so that their foreheads were touching. Her hands were still touching the soft, worn cotton of his top, and she began to cry behind closed eyes. "I don't know."
He wiped a stray tear away with a pale hand, and began to stroke her drained cheek. "Are you trying to make this hard?"
"I'm trying to make it easier."
"How do you reckon you're doing that?"
"Because now at least you know that when I write you, it won't be for the same reason that I'll be writing Ernie or the others…"
"Justin, this is wrong. Dumbledore is dead. Hogwarts is dead, we shouldn't be—"
"Dumbledore would have wanted this. He would have wanted people to be honest with each other, don't you think?" He got up, kissing her forehead softly before he left the bed. "Just promise to keep in touch, as long as it's safe, okay?"
"Come back." She indicated a spot beside her on the twin mattress and he joined her as requested. She rested her head on his chest and slipped her thin fingers between his. "Stay with me. Please."
"Always." He rested his lips on the crown of her head for a moment before sleep claimed both of them, assuaging their worries and fears, if only for a couple of hours.