"There has to be another way?"
Harry finds his thoughts drifting back to Ginny, she is never far from his mind at the best of times.
He's certain that she would know what to do, she'd been blessed with the ability to think outside the box.
But Ginny isn't there to offer her advice.
Harry finds Hermione's tear filled gaze.
His hope fades.
"Ron, there isn't any other way." Harry cuts across his best friend's pleas.
Ron's stopped listening, he's pacing around the small, box like room, the mirror image of a lion trapped in a cage.
Harry's heart burns, and he hears Hermione's soft, desperate sobs.
It's too much...
No-one can ask him to do this.
The Universe can't ask him to do this.
He thinks of Ginny again, her smiling, brave face, he feels her invisible presence next to him.
Help Ron!
Harry knows Ginny would do it, she'd summon those resorces of strength she possessed, and she'd safe her brother, despite the cost.
Perhaps it's thoughts of Ginny that bring the next words to his mind.
"If you love..."
The wrong words.
Something snaps inside Ron, and suddenly Harry is face to face with his friend's red and blotched features.
It doesn't look like Ron, something is gone from his gaze, replaced with a desperate madness.
Ron tugs hard at the front of Harry's jacket, bawling the material with his clenched fists.
"No Ron, stop!" Hermione cries, her hands struggling between them, trying to prize them apart.
"Don't you dare, ask me how much I love my wife!" Ron bellows, gnashing his teeth.
Harry knows this rage, he's felt it before, the utter devastation of loss. His soul turning inside out.
But it's different, Ginny is dead.
Nancy will still be alive, just out of Ron's reach.
Harry thinks he could easily live in a world that still contained any version of Ginny Weasley.
"Harry isn't questioning," Hermione finally manages to pull them apart.
Ron fixes her with a reproachful look, and Hermione shuffles a little closer to Harry reaching for his hand.
"It was always the two of you against, me." Ron spits, bitterness getting the better of him.
Harry's fingers enclose around Hermione's trembling hand.
It's been a long time since any of them brought up that old spectre, but still it hovers in the corners of their shared vision, that great betrayal shaped elephant in the room.
Hermione glances up at Harry for a moment, but he doesn't respond he watches as his best friend slowly sinks down into a nearby chair.
Ron clutches at his head, his elbows resting against his knees, his face hidden from view.
"Ron." Letting go of Harry's hand, Hermione moves forward, reaching for Ron.
Harry stops her before she reaches him, she draws back with a questioning look.
He just stands there, trying not to stare at his friend, instead Harry's eyes move around the room. It's small, but probably not as small as it actually looks, what gives it, it's dominative appearance are the various lopsided shelves cramped with books.
Harry thinks of 12 Grimmuld Place for a moment, of the bookcases, which seem to spill into most of the rooms.
The ones here are different however, filled with the names of talented Muggle poets and authors.
A shuddering breath brings Harry back into the room.
Mutely Ron gets to his feet, pulling his wand from the pocket of his slightly too small jacket.
He's been crying.
His face is drained of any hint of colour.
Ron clears his voice.
"I'll do it."
Next to Harry, Hermione begins to make a gesture, but Ron cuts her off firmly.
"She's my wife, I'll do it."
Harry nods his head, before snaking one arm around Hermione's slender shoulders keeping her in place.
"Do you want us to wait up here?" Harry asks, unsure of what tone to hit in his voice.
In the end he sounds business-like, and detached, something he doesn't feel inside.
Ron turns, his back facing them, the bob of his head the only indication that he has indeed heard Harry.
He steps forward, and Hermione's hands fly up to her mouth as she tries to stifle a cry.
She fails terribly.
Harry holds onto her, the force of her tears vibrating through her body into his.
Ron closes the door behind him.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Nancy Webley stares at the man standing in her living room.
He's unnaturally tall, with a hint of a paunch, slightly thinning bright copper hair, and clothes that don't seem to want to fit him properly.
"So," She says, for something to fill her mouth with.
Her forehead knots into a tight frown, her head feels fuzzy.
"...what was I saying?" Nancy asks the man.
"Goodbye." The stranger replies quickly, before adding in a strange tone of voice.
"We we're saying, goodbye."
Nancy gets up from her chair, and makes her way towards the man, who stares at her with a watery expression.
Has he been crying?
Why has a strange man been crying in her house?
The situation begins to feel wrong somehow, things like this don't happen do they? People don't simply sit drinking their tea completely alone in one moment, and then glance up at the next to find a completely inexplicable man standing before them.
"Well, goodbye Mr," Nancy holds out her hand, keen to remove the stranger from her home as quickly as possible.
"...Weasley." Mr Weasley responds, staring at her out stretched hand.
He doesn't shake it, and eventually she removes the offer.
"Well goodbye Mr Weasley, it's been," Nancy does her best to shepherd Mr Weasley in the direction of the front door.
She's not quite sure what it's been.
She opens the door.
"My friends." Mr Weasley says as if in some sort of daze, causing Nancy to wonder if he isn't on drugs.
She panics a little at the thought of that, a strange man in her home off his face.
"Friends?"
But from behind Mr Weasley she sees a middle aged man and woman making their way down her stairs.
At the sight of this, Nancy decides she should probably take herself off on a long holiday somewhere, preferably somewhere hot.
Holding hands, the dark haired bespectacled man, and curly haired woman make their way out of her home.
All eyes seem to turn now on Mr Weasley, whose lumbering form hovers over the threshold.
Nancy decides to just do it, and gives Mr Weasley a heavy push.
He looks back at her stricken.
"Nance."
Nancy quickly slams the door in his face, relieved to have escaped the situation unharmed.
She shudders a little, leaning her back against the solid form of the door.
The fuzzy feeling in her head begins to fade.
Making her way back into her living room, Nancy decides now might be the best time to start looking for cheap flights and accommodation to Australia.