I Wrote this inspired by the line "Can't put your arms round a memory" from the song with the same name.
I used to say that I'd never write a post-war fic, and absolutely not one in which a character died. Now I did, and I feel horrible. I'm very satisfied with the fic and all, but I don't get how I could to that to them! It's so evil.
Oh well…*sighs* It became a good fic, anyway.
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Harry held the photo in front of him, looking at it with a tired sadness in his eyes. On the photo, Ron was still looking very boyish, in Hogwarts robes and that special smile of his. Harry had a small problem with the fact that wizard photos moved. He didn't really like it. Especially not when the person on the photo was…well… not moving anymore.
The last time he'd seen Ron he had still had a shred of that boyishness left. Harry hated to think about it. Hated to remember it, but he had understood that the memory of that moment would never leave him. He could see it as clear as it had been when it happened. Maybe even clearer, you can't really think when something like that is happening.
It had been sunset, or rather, it would have been if the sky wasn't full of bleak clouds. He'd found Ron somewhere, he couldn't remember where they had been, he'd tried for such long time, but his mind had been so set on other things that the place became unnecessary.
As soon as he saw his best friend, he'd known it was to late. He had sat down by Ron's side, taking the blood soaked boys hand.
"Ron, I'll take you out of here."
"It's no idea Harry." He could remember the exact way Ron's voice had sounded in that moment, the small smile on his lips, the trembling in his body. It still made him sick.
"Of course it is! I'll take care of you. They can save you."
"Harry, you're a real hero. Maybe the Only real hero, but not even you could save me. " And then Ron had coughed, and Harry had placed one of his arms around him to help him sit up. Their faces had been close, he'd been able to feel Ron's breath, see the small sweat drops on his forehead, the dribbles of blood from his mouth. It had made him more desperate than he'd been ever before, and, as he now knew, ever would feel again. Because the thought of loosing Ron, his best friend, his first friend, was much more hopeless than anything that happened to that point during his battle with Voldemort.
"You can't die Ron! You can't. You can't leave me alone here." He'd been crying without noticing, grabbing Ron harder, as if it would make life run back into the dying body.
"I'm sorry Harry. I'm really sorry." Ron had started coughing again.
"I love you Ron". Harry had wrapped his friend in his arms, hugging him softly. "We'll be together forever. You can't die. It's not real. Nothing of this is. You can't die. I love you." He had stroked his hand trough Ron's hair, just to flinch back when he felt another big, open wound. Ron had looked up at him, eyes dimmed by the pain and blood loss.
"Sorry…." And then Ron had sighed, and he was gone. The heavy thing Harry held in his arm had become only a body. He'd felt is so surely, the exact moment when it changed from Ron, the only person who was worth anything, to a lump of muscles and fluids, fluids that made the ground damp and red. And Harry hadn't been able to cry anymore. There had only been silence.
And silent it was now, silent in his office as he stretched his arms from holding onto nothing, an imaginary Ron made out of air. Harry sighed, he put the photo back where it belonged, in a drawer in the big, never used cabinet in the back of his office and went down to meet the teachers. After all, he was the headmaster now, and there was no reason to sit around and sob about what happened thirty years ago.
