It was a little late to be ordering coffee, but Charlie did so anyway, bringing the hot cups back to the table where Harry sat. He had intended to take Harry out to a local pub to talk, but one look at Harry standing bleary-eyed in the doorway had told him that the last thing Harry needed was a drink. He tried to sip the coffee, but it was much too hot, so he watched his companion instead.
"So, tell me, how have you been?" It was a painfully stupid question, but it was the best he could come up with at the moment.
Harry gave a small laugh. "Rotten. Good to see you, though. And you? The dragons haven't eaten you yet, I see."
"No, not yet," he agreed. "I've been doing rather well, actually. Been kept busy by work." Which was the best he could hope for really, to be kept busy enough not to think about anything else. "I would have expected you to be busy, too."
"Yeah, well..." Harry trailed off, seemingly unable to finish the thought. "I could be busy. But now the war's over, what's left to do? It's all just loose ends. The Ministry can handle it. Besides, there are so many new people signing up to be aurors, now that the immediate threat is gone, that they don't really miss one like me."
His dismissive tone worried Charlie. "That's not the way Hermione tells it in her letters. She seems to think there's still a lot that needs to be done, a lot that hasn't been finished. And she said that the Ministry has been understaffed, not overstaffed."
"Yeah, well, that's Hermione, isn't it?" he asked scathingly. "Always makes a big trouble out of nothing, that one."
"I'm going to see her tomorrow," Charlie offered.
Harry gave derisive snort. "Good luck. She hardly comes out of her office lately. It's going to take a miracle to get in to see her. Of course, she still manages to find the time to drop in on unsuspecting friends." He swallowed a mouth full of coffee.
The conversation was not going in a direction that Charlie liked, so he changed subjects. "I went to see Fred the other day. You two should talk more. It would be good for both of you, I think."
Harry gave another short, harsh laugh. "Yes, because you seem to do that so well yourself, keeping up on these nice little visits. It's been, what, a year since you were last in England?"
"Yes," Charlie answered quietly, suddenly annoyed with Harry's callousness. "Since Ron and Ginny's funeral, in fact."
Harry gave a jerk at this and quickly looked away. Charlie felt a small amount of satisfaction at the reaction he had produced. It burned at him that Harry had not taken the time to visit their graves. If anyone had had such an obligation, it was Harry, who was the sole reason for their deaths. But watching Harry he immediately regretted his harsh sentiments. The mere mention of Ron and Ginny had made him go pale. When Harry finally looked back at Charlie his eyes were blank and haunted.