Sleep
"There is a time for many words, and there is a time for sleep."
-Homer (The Odyssey)
The Gryffindor common room is empty. Mercifully, gloriously empty.
The dim morning light, barely glowing in the windows, hasn't done much to illuminate the room nor the winding stairs as Harry climbs. He doesn't give much thought to where his feet are leading him, just feels vaguely grateful that his old dorm is empty too as he pushes open the door.
There's no fire in the grate, no trunk with clean robes, but his bed of the past six years seems to have been kept for him as if his dorm mates or the house elves or the castle itself had been waiting for his return. It is Harry's bed, despite his prolonged absence, and it welcomes him. Somehow he feels simultaneously like he hasn't slept here in years, and also that barely any time has passed at all.
Harry crosses the room mindlessly; he's barely kicked off his poor tattered trainers and slid under the cool crimson blankets when he lets sleep find him before anything else can.
The trickle of people coming through the doors of the Great Hall had been gradual but unending as the minutes since the battle had passed into one hour, then two, maybe more. Ministry workers, reporters, Aurors would rush in, apprehensive yet eager to witness the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts. Parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, friends would enter frantically, searching wide-eyed until a child rushed into their arms and they would cry together. Sometimes no child would greet them, and their cries were of a different kind.
"Has anyone seen Harry?"
Ron turns in response to his mother's question, tearing his eyes away from the enormous double doors, which he had been watching blankly.
"I haven't seen him," Mr. Weasley answers his wife. "Not since…"
These are the first properly put-together words any of the Weasleys has uttered in a while. Ron's mother has had her face buried in Mr. Weasley's chest until now; the sad, tired expression she bears grows more worried as Ron and the others shake their heads, no.
"I'll go look for him, Mrs. Weasley," volunteers Hermione. She had been drifting off, but Ron knows she would jump at any chance to be helpful.
Molly looks at Hermione gratefully. "You don't mind, dear?"
"Of course not. I'm sure he hasn't gone far."
"I'll go too," Ron mumbles as he rises from the table at her side.
His mother opens her mouth again, hesitating as if afraid to release any more of her children from her sight, but then presses her lips together and nods.
"We'll be back," Ron promises.
In an attempt to escape the unpleasant sensations around him, Ron trains his eyes on the doors ahead of him and his ears on the tapping of his and Hermione's worn shoes on the stone floor. But he can't fully ignore them as they pass the anguished faces in huddles of families and friends, in smaller numbers than usual. There's the chill of a draft which blows in through a large hole blasted through one of the doors by some curse, leaving goosebumps up and down his arms. There's the occasional wail of grief coming from the direction of the too-long line of bodies at the other end of the otherwise eerily hushed hall.
But another sound-Hermione's voice, asking, "What do you think? Gryffindor tower?"-is a good one, a blessed, warm sound to Ron's ears as they stand at the foot of the staircase.
Ron nods. They say nothing else but take one another's hands, and they begin to climb.
Harry bolts awake, reflexively yanking his wand from his pocket and pointing it in the face of his attacker.
Hermione quickly removes her hand from his shoulder. Disheveled and pale and gaunt with hunger, yes, but her stricken face shows that she has not attacked him.
"Sorry," Hermione says. "I'm so sorry, Harry, I didn't mean-"
"S'okay," Harry says, breathing deep to calm his racing heart and lowering his wand. He rubs his eyes with knuckles until he sees stars.
Ron, who'd pulled his own wand out in defense of Hermione, lowers it and lets it drop onto the bedside table as he moves to sit on the right side of Harry's bed.
"Have you been up here this whole time?" Hermione asks.
"I guess so. How long has it been?" Harry responds as Ron begins a yawn which lasts an alarmingly long time.
"Not sure, exactly, a little while…" answers Hermione. Ron finally finishes yawning and slumps, apparently against his will, sideways until he's lying supine at Harry's side.
"So, um… how are you, Harry? I mean-" Hermione stammers, looking concernedly at Harry's equally gaunt face and drooping eyelids. "Are you… well, are you okay?"
"To be honest, Hermione, I don't know. All I know is that I've never been so bloody tired in my life."
"Hear, hear," says Ron's muffled voice.
"I'm sorry I woke you, it's just you were lying so still when Ron and I came in, and I just wanted to make sure you were at least breathing, and-god," Hermione moans, "I've never been this bloody tired either."
Harry falls backward with a dull thump on the mattress. He pulls back the sheets beside him in an invitation to Hermione before rolling on his side to give her more room. Smiling a tiny, amused, loving smile at the two young men now fast asleep in front of her, Ron having already begun snoring softly, Hermione climbs under the covers next to Harry. Realizing her wand is digging into her thigh, she slides it out of her pocket and reaches back to place it gently on the other nightstand before slipping into her own dreamless sleep.
The sight of the Trio, as Ginny liked to call them (and a nickname which had caught on over the past year among their classmates), curled and contorted on the bed sized for one, would normally be enough to make her laugh out loud.
Ron's leg is curved up and over the footboard, dangling an almost-kicked-off shoe from his big toe; Hermione's face is squashed into Harry's shoulder blade; Harry is drooling onto Ron's shoulder, with the glasses he hasn't removed pressing owlish indentations around his eyes.
Yes, under different circumstances, this image might be quite comical. But now, seeing them entwined uncomfortably but so securely and inseparably, she somehow just feels lonely.
Down in the Great Hall, a simple breakfast had been served at the four house tables. The hall was still abnormally somber and quiet, but the presence of food seemed to enliven the atmosphere a bit. None of the Weasleys seemed particularly appetized, though. Ginny had stared at her toast for several minutes, and then found herself looking for Ron with the habitual urge to tip her uneaten food onto her ever-ravenous brother's plate.
After a while, McGonagall had announced that the staff was in need of volunteers to repair the worst of the exterior damage to the school. While Bill, Charlie, and Percy jumped at the opportunity to help, and properly to occupy themselves with something more tangible and substantial. George appeared to not have noticed that anything was happening around him. But Mrs. Weasley had suggested Ginny go looking for Ron, Hermione, and Harry, recognizing Ginny's restlessness but apparently not wanting her to participate in any more of the action.
Ginny had opened her mouth instinctually to argue. She wasn't sure what her mother's objection was-it wasn't as if she was volunteering to uncover more bodies or face down more bloodthirsty Death Eaters. If only her parents knew the responsibilities she'd taken on this year…
But she paused as she looked from her father's drained expression to her mother's eyes; they were no longer filled with tears, but there was a deeper grief than Ginny had ever expected or wished to see there. And something else-much stronger than worry, something closer to desperation. A desperate need, maybe, to protect her youngest child, to preserve whatever remained of her innocence, as much as she possibly could.
So Ginny kissed her mother's cheek, rose from the table, and made her way toward the common room, thinking she'd check at the lake if she had no luck in Gryffindor tower.
The common room had been mostly empty, save for a third year who was pacing while talking aloud and pressing a little black Muggle device to her ear, and the first-year siblings, Ali and Zara. Ginny felt a pang of grief seeing the twins together, who looked timidly at her when she entered through the portrait hole. She asked them what they were doing up here.
"We hid when they took the other first years out," Ali explained.
Zara straightened up tall. "We wanted to fight! But… we got locked in," she added sheepishly.
Ginny repressed a sigh. These two had pushed all year to be part of the DA, but she'd drawn a line on many occasions, especially towards the end, because of their age. The thought of these tiny people jumping into a deadly battle made her feel a little ill.
As she gazed at them in exasperated astonishment, it dawned upon her that she had taken the place of the protective, stringent adults she'd grown up resenting. And she wondered how similar the look on her face was to the one she'd just seen on her mother's.
After suggesting that the twins head downstairs to look for their family, Ginny climbed the stairs to the seventh years' boys' dorm, which had gone mostly unoccupied for most of the year thus far. She knocked lightly and, receiving no response from within, pushed the door open to find the Trio tangled up in one another.
Now she stares at Hermione, without whose advice and homework help and hugs she'd gone all year. They'd had a brief reunion down in the Great Hall earlier, but it had been short, stunted by everything else.
Her eyes land on Ron and she stares at his sleeping face, paler than he's ever been, with dark, puffy circles below his eyes. But they're reminders that he's here now, one of the missing pieces of the Weasley puzzle returned. Though a gaping hole has been ripped into their family with Fred's death, she pictures Ron, home as he should be-not an ugly, oozing ghoul in her brother's bed.
And Harry. She's thought about the moment she'd reunite with Harry Potter nearly every night since August, and in her head it'd gone about a thousand different ways. For now, though, she just looks at him as his chest rises and falls, and forces herself to believe that he is alive.
They all look terrible. She's not sure which of them she's missed the most.
Feeling maddeningly distant from her best friend, her brother, and the boy she's in some degree of love with, Ginny leans against a wardrobe and slides to the floor. She takes a stabilizing breath and shuts her eyes…
When she hears someone begin to stir, Ginny's eyes flutter open. It's Hermione, blinking the sleep out of her eyes as they adjust to the more brightly lit room and land on Ginny. Something in Ginny's expression makes Hermione swing her legs out of the bed and spring across the room at her, wrapping Ginny in a tight hug.
"I can't believe you're really here," Ginny says into Hermione's wild hair.
"I can't either," Hermione replies with a little sob.
They embrace for a long time, Hermione's tears slowly dripping onto Ginny's shoulders, both having so much to say but not knowing where or when to begin. For now, just holding one another is enough.
Hermione wakes Ron as gently as it is possible to wake Ron, and coaxes him out of the bed with the promise of a meal downstairs.
Ron sits up in the bed and pulls his shoes back on, but looks back at Ginny questioningly, then at Harry, then at Ginny again. For a moment, Ginny's afraid he'll object to her being alone with Harry, despite the latter still being fast asleep, but he just nods slowly and follows Hermione from the room.
Now that she is alone with him, Ginny's not sure what to do. Harry hasn't even stirred since she first entered the dorm, so in a way she still feels alone with herself. She perches as lightly as she can at his side, though she's sure the Hogwarts Express could come running through the room without waking him at this point. Harry's features are as haggard as the others', and he's quite filthy. She considers trying to Vanish the grime away, but is sure it wouldn't do well to accidentally wake him with a wand pointing in his face. Instead, she settles for pulling off his glasses and setting them aside.
Finally, she notices Harry's hand is clenched into a fist, in which he's still holding his wand. Ginny wiggles it free from his grasp and places it beside his glasses on the bedside table.
That, if anything, will wake him up, she worries as he begins to stir softly. But he merely flexes his hand, shifts around a bit, and carries on sleeping. A small part of her wants to wake him, and another, larger part of her wants to curl up beside him. But that feels invasive, somehow, so she just sits and looks at him.
There's time later, Ginny says to herself. We have time now. And she lets him sleep.
A/N: thank you so much for reading. I know it's not the most original story but I'm just getting back into writing. reviews very welcome!