Author's Note: I am making no guarantees as to the future of this story. All I know is that I felt like writing and so I am. I think it will probably follow a very non-linear fashion, going back and forth between events from DH and the aftermath before the epilogue. It will probably focus on Ron and Hermione with a little Harry thrown in now and again. Hope you enjoy it and review if you please. Thanks for reading.
MJ
June 1998
A face hangs above her, stark white with dark circles around sunken eyes. A sickening grin spreads across dry lips forming silent demands to her deaf ears.
Her body is numb, unfeeling to the bruised bones and torn flesh and her will to fight is slipping away, a solitary feeling of helplessness settling in her mind.
The figure atop her is becoming more vicious in its demands and she watches as those silent lips form their last words. She braces herself for the blow; an unforgiving pain contorts her form and vents screams from her throat before dragging her down into an impenetrable unconsciousness.
Only a moment passes before she surfaces, her shrieks still pouring from a ragged throat. A warmth surrounds her followed by the calming tones of his voice, low in her ear. The screams die to whimpers then just heavy breaths.
She settles back into him and finally opens her eyes, drawing in the comforting sight of his small moonlit bedroom. He grasps her tightly, trying to quell her violent shaking, trying to absorb any of her pain. He'd take it all on himself if he could, anything to make her nightmares, her recent reality, disappear forever.
He lies back down, taking her with him, every inch of their bodies in the closest of contact. Her shakes have been replaced by the slow heaving of her chest as silent sob wrack her body.
Tomorrow she will pretend and he will watch her mask slowly crack until the night descends and they repeat this routine, always falling asleep to a river of tears bleeding through his shirt.
His nightmares are not of his own death. Nor of his mother or father or best friend, though he knows of the devastation he would feel losing any of them. His nightmares are of her.
They come in flashes.
A bone white hand clutching a silver knife to her throat, the deep gash, welling with red, that knife left on her perfect neck, the weight of her unconscious body in his arms.
Every moment her life was at risk flashes before him when he closes his eyes, a mockery of each one of his failures with her.
So he lies awake, watching her disturbed sleep and waiting for inevitable nightmare to wake her with her own cries.
May 1998
She woke with a start. Her wand at the ready, pointed at dark figures that were already fading from her memory. She squinted in the diffuse morning light, streaming in from a nearby window, and made a quick assessment of her surroundings. The boy's dormitory in the Gryffindor Tower. They'd come up here yesterday morning, as the festivities had carried on below in the Great Hall, and had immediately clamored onto one of the four-poster beds together, falling asleep within minutes.
Hermione looked back at the two boys beside her. Glasses askew over closed eyes and a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth, Harry looked peaceful for the first time in years. . His hand lazily clutched the newly repaired holly and phoenix feather wand against his chest, which rose and fell slowly in calm waves. Ron too wore a slight smile on his face. He slept with one arm stretched out along the space Hermione had been laying and the other against his side, wand also in hand. She took a breath, letting go of the nightmare, and laid down, fitting herself back into the space between the boys.
Facing Ron now she examined his face for signs of injury. Small cuts and bruises were scattered about his freckled pale skin but nothing horrendous. Black smudges of ash and dirt covered most of him, as herself and Harry she was sure. She reached over the small gap between them to rub at a particularly dark one across his nose without thinking. His eyes fluttered at the contact and she quickly pulled her fingers away. He wrinkled his nose and yawned before opening his eyes slowly and focusing on her face so close to his.
"You're here."
He reached a hand over and lightly brushed her cheek with his fingertips.
"I am."
They smiled at each other. He traced an invisible line with his fingers over her shoulder and down her arm to her hand, clasping her small one in his large palm.
"It's still over?"
She nodded solemnly. The question could have seemed odd but she knew what he'd meant. The previous day could have been a dream after the nightmarish year they'd had.
"And we're still here." A grin spread across his face as he said it.
"We are," Hermione responded, muffling a small giggle with her hand.
Ron's smile grew wider and he too tried to cover a laugh. They stared at one another, both trying desperately not to wake Harry with their restrained giggles, their bodies shaking with the effort.
Finally the tension was too much and Hermione dissolved into complete hysterics, bringing Ron right along with her.
Harry floated out of sleep as the laughter pierced his dream.
"Oi! What is going on?" He groaned and sat up, blearily staring at his two best friends rolling around on the bed.
"It's over!" Hermione choked out.
"And we're still here!" Ron managed a minute later.
None of them knew what exactly was so funny about their survival, but as Harry collapsed next to his friends in a fit of shared laughter they were, for once, only thinking of one thing, the present.