I don't know where this is going to go. I hope it's happier than this.
Chapter One: Ron
Fluorescent lighting brushed pale hollow cheeks, light brown eyes back lit blending into a caramel glaze. Red strands tangled among lighter red eyelashes. Blink. Wet sorrow painted pale freckled cheeks.
He wanted his death to be discrete, just friends and family. Here they were mourning in silence, fluorescents buzzing, offering this unearthly glow blue glow over a still body. Black hair lay jagged over his forehead, barely cuffing ears and cheeks. Eyes forever resting close, blue veins visible in stark relief against the damned fluorescents.
And the stench, it wasn't the stench of death although he would forever associate this terrible scent to this macabre scene. This death wake. His nose stung, as if the very air was attempting to wash and cleanse him from the inside out. Wash him away, wipe him away from existence. The air stung and pinched his senses, pulled him bodily down, forcing him toward a seat, his head lowered.
The floor was wet now as well. He could almost see his reflection, and all the past grieving fathers, mothers, brothers, and lovers. Almost touch it, instead he ruined it, his shoe rubbed a rough path across the floor. A patch of dirt marred the floor.
He would leave it. Physical evidence left to stain the damned linoleum, stain it, and wreck it. Evidence.
He was waiting. His sent the patronus several minutes ago, telling his family to be here, and soon. He could only assume they were caught navigating muggle London. He and Harry were already living in muggle London for some time.
Three months into Auror Academy and Harry tells him. Two weeks later and Harry asks him for a favor, his hands shaking, spit covering his chin, he'd just thrown up.
He agreed of course.
And that was exactly the moment he apparated to Hogwarts to kick and scream and yell and ask why the fuck this was happening to his friend. He screamed himself hoarse at Dumbledore's grave, he knew it was useless, and he'd gotten dirty after he clutched madly at the ground and refused to let go, even when it had started raining.
He desperately wanted to blame Dumbledore but, fuck, he couldn't and he knew that. They, especially Harry knew what they were getting into when he gathered the Hollows it was foolish to think otherwise.
This, this was the price of foolishness.
And he was grasping so fucking desperately now, to the hope that the Hollows were more truth than myth, screaming for it.
He would kill for it.
Anger, irrational anger boiled up inside of him, burning his insides, and he shot up from the recliner. He had to move, couldn't stay still. Not while his friend, was fighting death.
Dumbledore had sent them on a chase. They were half blind, chasing white rabbits.
Large windows look out toward the busy street below, rain patters against the window, a frost is already gathering at the edges. Dementors approach in his mind, a screech and he is thrown forward violently, the windows freeze and he can hear the ice forming it is so cold. Then all he can hear is laughter, Fred and George's laughter, a spider coming alive in his hands, his acceptance letter, and his sibling's achievements towering above him.
A polite knock breaks him out of the waking nightmare. He has to shake of the greasy hold of the Dementors effects quickly because he knows what this is. He doesn't care to figure out how they managed to find them, but he takes his wand out anyway.
Ready.
The journalist and photographer are the last people he is expecting to see. Rita Skeeter and Creevey. His stomach lurches at the sight of Creevey, and although he usually dismisses all journalists as scum, he can understand why these two are here.
He just can't understand how.
They enter quite, solemnly they don't even glance at the still bed. Sit in a ratty couch, waiting. Neither uses magic, to make the stiff backed couch more comfortable or larger. Magic is never used during a fallen wizard's death.
It's not long after that George appears, his entrance his like before quiet and respectful. He sits, on the other side of Creevey, collapsing almost immediately onto himself, head in hands.
He has to be strong now. He invited everyone here, they have come because of him. It is an unusual wake, but this is how Harry wanted it. Discrete.
He can only hope that their last conversation wasn't false hope after all.
Several minutes pass and everyone has arrived. All of them wearing faces of grief, some not so visible, but still grief stricken none the less.
Wizard's don't celebrate joyfully, play loud ballads, or enjoy enormous potlucks. In the face of death wizard's gather, raise their wands. It's ridiculously simple, almost comedic, what are you saluting? Better yet, who are we saluting? Is it God, Merlin, or Death, perhaps? Our wands raise, the tip lights up and we bid farewell, but of course one goodbye is hardly efficient. Humans are greedy and needy two thousand goodbyes would never be enough. It's this one gesture that is meant to be the sum of all farewells. The light glowing at the tip of everyone's wand is a part of our core. Life. The sum of all goodbyes.
He means not to bury Harry, and he informs his family of the news. There is some confusion, it is a strange decision. To not want to be buried, but Harry had expressed the fear quite thoroughly that if the Hollows worked he would not want to wake six feet under.
Instead a tomb is erected much like Dumbledore's and he wonders if Dumbledore had the same fear. The burial is just as short and formal as the wake and no doubt Harry would have been proud of it.
It is the waiting that he thinks will kill him. A day after and he can barely take his eyes off the plot. It is next to Fred's and for a vicious second he wishes it was Fred who had the Hollows instead of Harry.
His family begins to worry after two weeks and he still hasn't left his room, or returned to work. Guild consumes him, smothering him in a black smog that he can barely see past. He regrets listening to Harry, and searched for a cure straight away, destroyed the Hollows immediately.
Except its too late and all he can see when he closes his eyes is Harry slowly deteriorating, the blood in his mouth, as he retched and sweat ran coated his hair. He was in pain and he did nothing.
He was right there and he did nothing. Let him die, just watched him die. Even nodded along as Harry told him how to arrange his funeral.
He feels sick, and his stomach clenches. He throws up, nose running, he wipes his nose and eyes. Everything tingles and aches. Scrubbing his face roughly he smells a putrid, rancid scent, disgusted he throws his shirt off.
He has neglected himself, forgotten himself, so lost in his mind he forgot he had a body. A voice whispers in his ear, a disturbing reassurance, Harry telling him to take care of everyone, but don't forget to take care of the most important person, you.
Angrily, he knocks over his bed-lamp, it crashes to the floor, breaking into a million pieces. A globe sits on his sidetable, shadows swirl within the glass dome. A sneakoscope. Harry had given it to him.
For one mad second he almost breaks that two. But he doesn't. He'd done everything Harry wanted so far he wasn't going to destroy him even more.
He killed his best friend, he wasn't going to do it a second time.
He finally leaves his room for the first time in two weeks. He leaves the Burrow for the last time, unable to face the consequences of his actions.
He packs his apartment, taking only the essentials. Harry's things remain forgotten.
He returns to work, and nothing else.
For the next five years he wakes up, goes to work, does his job expertly, goes home, and sleeps. And nothing else.
For the next ten years he is Chief Auror and has never been beaten in a duel, his temper rivals the legendary Mad Eye, and his Kingsley Shacklebolt's most trusted logistics advisor.