It's your first time back home since he decided to be a hero again, home for the holidays, but you don't truly belong here anymore. You were excited to see your family, to see your little sister who you left behind, not so little anymore, though she never was. You walked up the front steps last night, he was flanking your right side and the girl with your heart in her hand on your left and you knocked, once, twice, three times. You could hear commotion inside and you swallowed nervously, excited to see the faces of some forgotten family members who had somehow made themselves scarce in your mind since he left for the hunt, taking you and steadfast loyalty with him. Instead, you were greeted with the pointy ends of two wands; you took a step back and held up your hands. "It's me, Ron!" you said, they couldn't see your face in the dark so one of the wands lit up revealing its owner to be your brother George. He surveyed you quickly and then ushered the three of you inside. It was late out, midnight on Christmas Eve and you were soon informed that everyone else except for George and his twin, the holder of the second wand had gone to bed. You all looked a little bit crestfallen to know you wouldn't see anyone until the next morning, but it was probably for the best.
You wake up this morning and you're happy for the first time in months. Your room is orange and it hurts your eyes a bit, but its familiar and warm and you never want to leave, though you know you have to soon. You get dressed and walk downstairs into a room that you can, right away, feel. You can smell sorrow in the air, hard metallic salty sorrow and you know that the other person in the room is the one with sorrow in her eyes. She's crying, you see as you look on her face but you can't really fathom why she's crying in the first place, after all, you're happy to be home, happy to see her. She bends her head low and her red hair covers her face, she doesn't want you to see her cry, crying is a vulnerability she just can't afford. What took the happy smile off your not so little sister's face? It's him. He must me the cause of her sorrow, because you know she loves him and you know that he broke her heart. "What's wrong?" you ask of the girl with the sorrow in her eyes. She picks her head up, holds it high and you realize that no boy can make her cry.
"I'm scared." And she's angry with you for leaving her alone to worry everyday if he was going to live and come back to her, if you were going to ever have the time to grow up. He broke her heart, sure, but you can remember her saying that no boy is worth her tears and her day of greatest shame would be the day an ordinary boy would make her cry. "Anyone who I don't love is not worth my tears, is not worth my sorrow." She once told you and you thought that was rather strong of her. She was always rather strong, though you never gave her the credit. You know she never cried because of a boy.
"Why are you crying?" you ask.
She looks up at you; her eyes puffy and red, her heart raw and open and you know that by leaving her you killed a part of her. "Because no one else will cry for you three." She states as if it was supposed to make sense to you just then. Heroes don't cry, that's what we're taught. He would be remembered as a hero, who never had the time to be young, who never had the life to love, who would lose a part of himself once this war was over and there was no one left to protect. You too would be a hero, for fighting the good fight, but to anyone who really mattered you would just be the boy who's heart was sold at age 11 to someone else too close for comfort and you were too scared to bring her back a step to look her in the face and tell her you loved her. Your sister cried for him, not because of him, she cried for his danger, for his life, for his heart because she knew he must be breaking inside, but heroes don't cry.
She stays home with your mother, watches people come in and out of the house like flurries in a snowstorm caught on the wind. She watches with open eyes and sees everything. She watches your mother cry herself to sleep, can hear the tears fall in soft pitter-patters on the wooden floors the nights your father is out on missions. She watches your mother tote around a clock, which tells her that everyone she knows and loves, is in mortal peril. She never cries in front of your mother because your mother is hurting so much that what she really needs is a strong person filled with love to tell her that everything is alright and we're all going to make it through this. And she tells your mother this, even when the world is falling down around her and she's never felt pain this intense before. You know she watches as your brothers come in late every night after working all day in their joke shop and then working all night for the ministry to develop inventions to maybe turn the tide of things. The only reason they come home is to show everyone that they're still alive, but they don't live here and she doesn't know how much longer they'll live at all. She waits up at night, developing terrible insomnia just to see their faces for a brief moment, and its not as if she can sleep anyways. No one can sleep anymore.
It's a terrible thing you did, leaving her behind. You know she was brave enough to come with you, but you really can't risk losing her. He certainly wouldn't be the same if anything happened to her. What neither or you realized was that it was all happening to her, it was all affecting her and she cried herself to sleep every night if she slept at all because she held it in all day. She used to be the happiest person you knew, and even now, when you know she's dying, she's more alive than anyone else you've come upon. She's the hero you wish you could be. The silent hero who you come upon in a story who is always there in the background, but you never really notice her.
You'll be celebrated because you went out to fight the good fight with him, to defeat evil and change the world and get the girl. You'll be celebrated because you never cried, nothing moved you to tears and maybe they shouldn't be celebrating that at all. She's the real hero, your not so little sister who stays at home and tells your mother it's all going to work out for the best. Who cooks dinner on those days when your mother is just too tired to even think about eating and then makes her eat anyways. Who waits at home for the newspaper to see if maybe you were written about, if he had made any progress. Who waits at home to make sure everyone is alright. She's the hero because she can cry. She's your hero because she isn't numb to it all, she can feel it and she feels even for what doesn't affect her, she's sad because sad things happen, not to her but to anyone worth caring about at all. She's your hero and you wish maybe that in the end you wouldn't be celebrated despite how much you know you'll enjoy the attention because as brave as you are, you're still a coward. You should tell that girl with your heart that you love her, but instead you fight the good fight, while your little sister cries because love is slowly being extinguished before her once very innocent eyes. Yes, she holds you all together, but who is there to hold her together? He certainly can't be.
"Come on," you say. "Chin up, it is Christmas Eve after all, and your big brother knows just the thing to make it better." You give her a long hug, breathing in her beautiful sorrow just as, you imagine, she breathes in your cowardice and maybe a bit of fire left in your clothing. "It's all going to be alright." You tell her, though you know it isn't and it'll never be the same. She's your hero, you'd never tell her that, but she is. No one will ever know that Ginny Weasley saved us all, even the Boy-Who-Lived and his best friends she won't be remember as a hero. But you know differently. They say heroes don't cry, but you know better. You wish you could cry like she does.