It was twilight at the Burrow and Harry was at the kitchen table, a cup of very strong tea in his hands. It was a few weeks after the final battle – or more? He wasn't sure, the days all blended into each other. Pots of very strong tea had been in surplus these past few days, that was for certain. When Mrs. Weasley wasn't up in her bedroom crying as quietly as she could, she was making pots of tea and making sure everybody had a cup in their hands at all times, even if it got a bit lukewarm. Just take it, she kept saying, it'll help.
It's twilight at the Burrow but Harry's cup of tea is the last one Molly is making for the night. He's oddly alone in the house at the moment, which he always thinks of in the context of its bustle, of cheerful red-haired youths flitting into and about the rooms at any given time. But in the days after the Battle of Hogwarts early nights have become the norm in the Weasley household. Ginny's cup of tea is next to Harry at the table, still steaming slightly; she had been sitting next to him while they murmured quietly to one another, her fiery head on his shoulder, but when she started to doze off he insisted she go up to bed. They all slept much more these days, or at least they pretended to. The house was quiet enough. Sad enough. I'll come look in on you before I go to sleep, Harry had promised Ginny when she protested. Be quiet, she'd replied, or they'll hear you.
The absence of noise was unnerving but conducive to the way they all stayed up or slept fitfully into the early hours of the morning. Even the ghoul was quiet.
Fred was gone. George might've been gone too, the way he shut himself in his room all the time. None of them could blame him for it. For the first few days the cups of tea Molly made for him went untouched, a couple of them lined up outside his bedroom door, reminding Harry of Dudley this time last summer, just before he set off in July. After that, she gave up on the tea, but spoke to him from outside of the door. She still couldn't bring herself to go into George's room, their room, the twins' room. Hardly any of them could, except Ginny, who went in there most evenings, before he went back to live above the joke shop. None of them knew what she said to him, or didn't say, but they knew it helped.
Despite the sadness and bleakness, there were bright spots. Charlie had come home for the summer, denying himself the therapy he knew his dragons would bring him, because he knew he was needed at home. Fleur was pregnant, and she came round with Bill many weekends, and other weekends they all headed over to Shell Cottage, giving Harry blessed time with Ginny to sit on the beach and talk, and oftentimes, not speak at all. It would take him time to get everything out, and Ginny knew it. She didn't press him, never pushed him.
There were sources of smiles and laughs too. Ron and Hermione were inseparable, never seen without each other, always touching in some way, but never in a way to make you uncomfortable, only to make you see a recognize the love in a way you hadn't before. They were always pink in the face too, as if embarrassed by their own public display of affection for each other. This made Harry laugh into his tea a lot, and Ginny would always pretend to drop something so she could laugh too. There was one evening where they were all smiling and laughing, for Ron had just opened a cupboard and hit Hermione in the back of the head, apologizing profusely. To Harry's surprise instead of reprimanding him she'd burst out cackling. Mrs. Weasley had pulled open a few drawers, searching for something for Hermione's bruise on her head, and pulled out a joke wand. Promptly she'd burst into tears, and the happy mood had dissolved as they all encircled her in a hug. This had been when George stormed outside to go back to his flat, clearly determined to wait to cry until he was out of sight.
And yet, amongst all of the pain, all of the loss, all of the trauma, there was comfort in being together. All of the families that had been brought together by the war. The Weasleys, the Potters, the Grangers, the Delacours. Andromeda and Teddy, who Harry and Ginny visited every afternoon they could. All of their school friends, who they saw often when returning to Hogwarts to clean up. The funerals came one after another, Harry thought they'd never end, but he felt he needed to be present at each one. It was exhausting but it felt like a duty he could not abandon. Ron kept gently asking Hermione when she wanted to go to Australia, and steadily she grew testier about the whole thing. Not until all this is sorted out, Ron, I've told you, she'd say. She insisted she was going by herself, and each time she did she was met with incredulous looks from Ron and Harry (they didn't even bother to humor her notion that she'd be going anywhere near Australia without their help and company.)
Harry took a sip of his tea. Finally, Hermione had relented a couple days before; the three of them had realized that reconstruction was going to be going on indefinitely, the funerals would surely never end, and life had to go on. Hermione's especially. The Burrow was practically her home now, but Ron had not forgotten the family she left behind, and wanted her to know that there was no time like the present. And so they decided that they would leave on August the first, the day after Harry's eighteenth birthday.
Two days from now, in fact. Kingsley had been contacted and a Portkey was arranged for them the following afternoon, after Harry's visit with Teddy. It would be tough, Harry thought, swallowing a particularly hot gulp of tea, a lump in his throat. Leaving everybody when everything was still so tentative, leaving Ginny –
He swallowed again. He would not allow himself to go there. They had been through so much already. They had so much time, all the time to be together, though truthfully, he thought, pulling his collar away from his neck, no measure of time looked like it would be enough. He would miss Ginny's seventeenth, leaving on August the first, and that hurt him. It was like last year. The night of Harry's birthday, leaving on a long journey and not knowing exactly when he'd return, or who he'd return with, if Hermione's Memory Charm was so powerful that she wouldn't be able to reverse, or have to get the Australian Ministry involved.
He forced himself to think about something, someone else. Luna had sent him a letter; it had arrived yesterday morning. She and her father had returned, she'd retrieved him from Azkaban, and they were home. She'd invited them all over for tea. While Harry and went over at once, Ron grumbled about Xenophilius being "less trustworthy than a Slytherin with nothing to lose" and Hermione felt it best to remain home with him.
All these days that had blended together, he'd taken them for granted, just like the days before he walked into the forest again. Well, he wouldn't let that happen again. Not this trip, and not when he returned. He became dimly aware that the kitchen tap was dripping. He looked at it, his wand a few inches from him on the table, and closed his eyes. Finally, a sound in the Burrow. He relished in it, and was startled when the door rattled open.
It was Hermione, holding a plastic Muggle shopping bag, her bare legs slightly more browned than they had been when she left, her bushy hair pulled haphazardly at the back of her neck. Ron followed in behind her, sweat glistening slightly on his freckled forehead. He grinned briefly when he saw Harry, and then indicated the pot of tea on the table. "Any left?"
"Ginny left her cup here," said Harry. "Have it if you want."
"Cheers," said Ron, sitting down. He was breathing a little heavily. They had walked to the village and back, Hermione had needed some things from the Muggle shop.
"Aren't you hot, mate?" said Harry, watching Ron drink the boiling tea.
Ron just grinned, slopping some tea down his front. "Hermione tried to make me try one of those capa -whatsists again –"
"I did not –" began Hermione indignantly, but catching the playful look on Ron's face, she stopped and smirked, holding back a laugh. Since they'd gotten together the bickering had become a lot more affectionate, Harry noticed, and as the two were more in sync they could always tell when one was winding the other up. Ron patted the chair next to him, and Hermione sank into it, placing the shopping bag onto the table. She leaned into him, and he gave her a sip of Ginny's tea.
"Don't go swapping germs now," said Harry. "We're about to be on the run again, there's no time to be stopping off at any clinics and testing you lot for diseases –"
Hermione kicked him under the table, a look of reproach on her face, threatened by the beginnings of a smile. Ron snorted.
"I'm going to shower, that walk killed me," he said, yawning. He stood up and stretched dramatically, then reached out a long limb to grab the shopping bag. "I'll take this up for you, okay?"
Hermione nodded, going slightly pink. Everyone knew she had been kipping in Ron's room most nights, especially Harry, who took her sneaking in in the middle of the night as his cue to go downstairs to Ginny's.
"I think I'm going to shower as well," said Harry. "We can start packing for afterwards."
"I've already started," said Hermione shortly, indicating the beaded bag around her shoulder, and they both laughed. "But wait a moment," she added, touching Harry's arm as he made to get up and listening to Ron climb the stairs up to his room. "I wanted to ask you something."
Harry sat back down, and began fingering his wand absentmindedly. "Yeah? What's up?"
Hermione looked a bit nervous, her eyes darting from the kitchen sink, to the clock in the corner, which Mrs. Weasley had turned to face the wall, and back to Harry's face again. "Well – I don't know why I'm asking now – it's been so long; you know –"
"Mm-hmm," said Harry.
"And I don't even know why it matters anymore, seeing as – well, seeing as Ron and I –" she "humph" -ed awkwardly, and Harry snorted some tea down his nose.
"Spit it out, Hermione," he coaxed patiently.
She laid her hands on the table and leaned towards him, her voice quieter now. "Harry – I wanted to know – what did the Horcrux say to Ron when he destroyed it?"
"What makes you think it said anything at all?" said Harry carefully.
She waved a hand impatiently. "Because – because it said something to me, when I was destroying it. I did a bit of reading on Horcruxes, and the few who have destroyed them said it preys upon your weaknesses as a last resort, to stop you from killing it –"
"Did you tell Ron what it said to you?" Harry interrupted.
"He was there," said Hermione, impatient again. "I didn't really have a choice; I didn't think it was going to air all my secrets like that –"
Harry swallowed. "Hermione, why don't you just ask him -?"
She bit her lip. "He did tell me a bit about it, that it talked about his insecurity, about me, and when I asked him what, he wouldn't say… Harry, I just, it's taken so long for us to get together, and I'm worried he might get shy again. I need to know so that I can reassure him if that happens."
Harry, who just this morning had been brushing his teeth next to Ron when Hermione came in the toilet looking for her hairbrush and promptly began snogging Ron with toothpaste frothing around their mouths, found it quite hard to believe that Ron would ever be threatened by Harry or anybody ever again. But he felt after everything, he may as well humor her.
He took a sip of tea. "It showed you kissing me," he said.
Hermione slopped some of Ginny's hot tea down her bare legs, not pausing to register the pain. "What?"
Harry raised an eyebrow. "What? Does that disgust you that much?"
"No, of course not, it's just – I always knew Ron was jealous, I just never knew of, of you." She sounded shocked. "At least not in that way. Not of you… with me." She was breathless. "Really?" She said again.
"Hermione, are you really that daft?" said Harry.
She rolled her eyes and looked crossly at him. "Shut it, Harry. I just never thought –" She got breathless again. "You – you and me!" She began cackling.
Harry cracked a smile, unable to stop himself from laughing with her. "I know, I never thought he'd worry about that either."
"And here I was, thinking it would've shown Krum… that I'd have to burn anything to do with him." Hermione was holding her stomach with her hands, laughing heartily.
"I'm glad you find the idea of us together so funny," said Harry.
"No, it's not that, Harry, don't be silly, I know you're a real catch," said Hermione, drying the tea off her legs with a towel. "It's just… such a relief. He's certainly not worried about that anymore."
"Which is why I couldn't understand why you wanted to know so badly," said Harry. "Christ, you being you, I thought you would've figured it out by now."
She shrugged. "I've been a bit too preoccupied to do any critical thinking."
"Isn't 'preoccupied' your natural state?" asked Harry.
She poked his arm with his own wand, which was lying on the table. Harry rubbed his sleeve, where a small hole had burned in the sleeve.
"Ginny got me this shirt," he complained.
"You liar," said Hermione. "It's Dudley's. I shrunk it for you when I was packing your things last summer."
"Touché," said Harry, grinning.
"We really do have to pack," sighed Hermione. She bit her lip, and her expression became serious.
"Are you all right?" asked Harry. "I mean, are you nervous? About finding your mum and dad?"
"Of course," said Hermione. "I'm nervous they'll be angry with me, and rightly so. But I did it for them. To protect us all."
"I know," said Harry. "They'll understand. This will all work out. I know it will."
Hermione smiled at him, her eyes far away, and reached out a hand to his. He held hers and gave it a squeeze.
Ron suddenly appeared at the bottom of the staircase, clambering down. He was considerably more subdued than earlier; that was how it was in the house, the moods came and went, and the littlest thing would put Fred in one's mind again, and all the others who had been lost. His eyes focused on their hands. Hermione and Harry looked at each other, panicked, thinking about the topic of their conversation and if they'd been too quick to laugh about it.
He paused a moment longer, and then looked up into their faces and smiled brightly. "When you two nancies are done having your heart to heart, would you mind helping me with the packing? I'm shit at those Extension Charms, Hermione, you know that by now."
Hermione gave Harry a quick smile of relief and happiness, and got up. "It's because you don't listen, Ron," she began. Harry followed them up the stairs, grinning. His two best friends, together. Why did he ever worry about it? They figured it out just fine by themselves, and they were better friends, better people, together and in love, and he was eager to spend the next month with them, and after that, the rest of their lives. They'd earned it.