Harry Potter opened his eyes and squinted.
The sun was shining through the small attic window of Ron's bedroom directly onto his face. He groaned and pulled the coverlet higher, but as soon as his eyes had opened, a torrent of seemingly unending memories has begun cascading through his mind.
The battle at Hogwarts. Walking alone into the woods. A flash of green light. Circling Voldemort, knowing that only one of them would come out alive. Yes, he reflected, it was all well and good to be able close a novel once one is done perusing the heroes adventures, but when one is the hero, well, let's just say the story doesn't end after the novel's shut.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the memories away and to go back to sleep, but after a few minutes of staring at the black insides of his eyelids and at the dizzying green splotches of light created on them by the light streaming through the window, he admitted defeat, and opened his eyes again.
Sighing, he glanced around the room. It was hard to believe it had only been two weeks. Two weeks of funerals. Two weeks of Mrs. Weasley bursting into tears every few minutes. Two weeks of stiff upper lips instantly transforming into trembling lower lips the second their owners were behind a closed door.
Life in the Weasley household was simply not the lighthearted affair it had once been. Not that Harry could blame them in the slightest, he too was grieving. There had been so much tragedy and so little time to process it. He was just a bit more used to having to deal with death and hiding one's emotions than the average person. And as far as he could tell, there really was no good way to deal with it. Oh of course everyone always said you had to "talk about it", but all talking about had managed to do so far, was to up the rate of Mrs. Weasley's eyes filling with tears from every few minutes, to every few seconds.
The best way to deal with pain, in Harry's opinion, was by the deceptively simple means of "keeping busy". Speaking of which, he reached for the half finished comic strewn across Ron's floor, which he had begun reading the night before. When he lay in bed at night, eyes open, seeing again the horrors of the last battle, "The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle", often provided the perfect distraction. Yes, he mused, whether Martin was trying to walk his pet gerbil on a leash, or putting his trousers on backwards, his odd anecdotes often provided the perfect distraction from reality.
He was just getting to the part where Martin was trying to make his toaster fly by harnessing the great powers of "elextrisitee", when a sudden creak of the heavy oak door to Ron's room caught his attention. Glancing up, he found himself staring into a pair of large brown eyes which were, of course, he sighed inwardly, rapidly filling with tears. "Hermione", he whispered, "what are you doing up so early?". The door creaked fully open, and Hermione Granger, one of his best friends, tiptoed in on her fuzzy blue slippers, and plopped herself down onto the bottom of his bed.
"Well, lately I've barely been sleeping anyway, but of course last night I hardly slept a wink! I can't believe I'll be seeing them today! What if they're so angry with me? I just miss them so much!". She began in a whisper, but ended at a slightly hysterical pitch, and two fat tears slowly rolled down her cheeks.
Of course, Harry inwardly cursed himself for forgetting, Hermione would be seeing her parents today for the first time since she had placed them under the imperius curse a year ago. Harry watched as her fingers nervously played with the frayed edge of her dressing gown, unsure of how to reply. The spell she had placed, had convinced her parents that they were Wendell and Monica Wilkins, a childless couples whose dearest ambition in life was to move to Australia, which they had promptly done.
Hermione had of course, done this to protect them, but Harry could see that her parents might not be too happy to have spent a year of their life not knowing who they really were, under a spell which their own daughter had placed on them. Hermione had wanted to go to her parents directly and lift the curse herself, but considering the delicacy of the situation, two curse breakers from the ministry would instead go this morning to collect her parents, and remove the spell from them.
He cleared his throat nervously, discussing feelings was not one of his favorite pastimes, "listen, Hermione, you're their daughter- they'll always love you no matter what. And I'm sure that they'll be able to understand that you did it to protect them.", he tried to verbalize what he knew was the truth, but he wasn't sure he was doing a very good job of it.
"Oh but thats just it!" she replied sadly, "I'm their child, they'll feel as though they've failed in protecting me! Especially if they ever find out what we've been up to this past year." She sighed.
"What's going on?" a sleepy voice came from the bed on Harry's left. "Do you bloody well know what time it is?"
"Oh Ron, thank goodness you're awake!" Squeaked Hermione, as she promptly flung her arms around him.
She jumped off the end of Harry's bed so quickly that one her fuzzy slippers went flying and smacked Harry in the face. As he rubbed his cheek, Harry thought about the fact that although he was at once relived that Ron and Hermione had finally admitted their feelings for each other after a solid four years of dancing around them, they would never again be the same three friends they once were.
Of course there were many other reasons that they would never again be the same; they had survived the war, they had lost family and friends, Harry had killed Lord Voldemort.
He sighed again, and glanced up at his now awake, other best friend, Ron Weasley. Ron's eyes were half closed, and his bright red hair stuck up at odd angles, but aside from that, he was looking rather pleased to have his girlfriend's arms wrapped around him at such an early hour. Annoyed at the morbid turn his thought's had yet again taken, Harry reached once more for the comic book, only for another creak of the door to cause him to glance up.
"Oh hello", Percy Weasley stepped lightly through the doorway and stared down at Harry, Ron and Hermione, "thought I heard voices. Listen, I was just about to start fixing breakfast, and since you're all awake, I thought I might as well see what you want. How does bacon and toast sound?" This whole sentence came out in rather a rush, as though Percy had more words to say than he was able to properly cram into a sentence.
Yes, the one exception to the Weasley family growing much more quiet was Percy, who seemed to think it was his duty, after the three years in which he had refused to speak to his family, to be as talkative and helpful as possible now, in order to somehow make it up to them.
"Blimey Perce, do you have any idea what time it is?" grumbled Ron from his bed, who seemed annoyed that Percy had cut off Hermione's hug.
"Why yes", came the prompt reply, "it's exactly a quarter to seven". In response, Ron merely groaned and pulled his pillow over his head, but Hermione, who had been furiously scrubbing her eyes on the sleeve of her dressing gown, squeaked, jumped off the edge of Ron's bed, and said: "Oh my goodness! They'll be back in only three hours and fifteen minutes! I've got to go start getting ready! Why on earth didn't any of you tell me it was getting so late?", then dashed out of the room, nearly bowling over Percy, who was still standing in the doorway. "Oh yes, her parents are coming home today." Remarked Percy while he straightened his glasses, which had been knocked askew in the collision. "Well, if you're both fine with bacon and toast, I'd better go pop back downstairs and start making it, nearly everyone's awake by now." Percy stepped back out of the room, neatly closing the door behind him.
It seemed that everyone else in the Weasly household was having trouble sleeping as well, because Harry remembered that in the past, prising the boys and Ginny out of bed before noon was a task of nearly Herculean proportions.
As the smell of bacon wafted upstairs, Harry finally shrugged off his blanket, and started pulling on a jumper and a pair of trousers. As he was pulling up his socks, Ron suddenly spoke, "after everything that's happened, how do you just keep doing it, day after day. I mean- most mornings I'll be laying here in bed, and just the thought of having to get up- and see a world without...well...Fred, nearly does me in. So... that's why I don't like waking up early, 'cuz when I'm here, safe in bed, I can just pretend it never happened, and that...and that he's still here..." At this point, Ron's voice broke, and Harry awkwardly looked away. In the new, "after the war" reality, he reflected sadly, it was nearly impossible to get down to breakfast without having at least two people burst into tears and expect you to somehow know how to fix the unfix-able.
"Listen, mate... it's hard", he began slowly, trying to formulate a good response, "But the only way is to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep going through the motions of living. Because otherwise, if you just lie here in bed, I guarantee you that it will eventually destroy you."
Glancing at Ron's red rimmed eyes, he decided it was time to share something personal,
"the summer after Sirius died was one of the worst summer's of my life. Sirius was like a father, a brother, a connection to my parents. He was my shining hope that one day, I would get away from the Dursleys, and finally...well, finally have a real family, I suppose. And then he was dead. And it was my fault. When I got back do the Dursleys, I didn't get out of bed for three days. I couldn't eat, sleep, nothing. Eventually, on the third day, I could hardly move, I knew the Dursleys weren't about to come rescue me, I think they were relieved I was being so quiet and unobtrusive and had no intention of spoiling it. I knew I was on my own. I felt like... I might as well just give up...give up and die, but I thought about you and Hermione," he cleared his throat awkwardly, "and I knew that there was still something to live for, so I got up, and put on my shoes. I know it sounds stupid, but after I did that, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. I kept living. And in some ways, as hard as it may feel, living is much, much easier than letting go."
Slightly embarrassed with what he had just revealed, Harry quickly shoved his feet into his shoes, grabbed his wand, and stepped out of the room, gently closing the door behind him.