This is the first full-length story I've ever attempted. Author's notes will be at the end of the chapter starting with chapter two. I would appreciate any feedback (even if it's criticism) to help me improve as a writer. I might be in the market for a beta reader if my current one doesn't pan out. I'm pretty awful with dates/ages so if I mess something up and you notice it, please let me know so I can fix it. I will post once a week or every other week to give people time to point out any errors to me so I can fix them before posting the next chapter. Enjoy!
Ron Weasley sighed as he leaned back in his office chair, folding up the newspaper he had been reading, and setting it to the side. It had been six months since rogue Death Eaters leftover from Voldemort's reign had attacked the Potter residence; six months since his sister and her unborn twins had been unfairly ripped from them. He tried not to dwell on it, instead filling his mind with menial tasks and small talk with his coworkers to keep from breaking down at work, but it was at night, in the safety and comfort of his own home, where he allowed himself to grieve fully and without abandon.
If it wasn't for his wife, he didn't know what he would've done or how he would've coped. She couldn't take the pain away, nothing could, but the comfort and understanding she gave him were all he could really hope for. She was the glue that held him together, and Hermione always knew what to say or how to console him when he would break down at night. It did get easier as time went on, but there would always be a hole in his life where his sister used to be. His best friend, on the other hand, had no one. Hermione and he were there for Harry as much as they could be, but Harry had taken to avoiding not only both of them but everyone from their family as well.
Harry had lost everything that night. They had just gotten back from a raid when the house was attacked. Both he and Harry worked as Aurors for the Ministry of Magic. Once they had gotten back to the office and finished paperwork, they had parted ways to go home to their wives.
Ron had made a quick stop by the Burrow to see his mum and dad before heading on home. He had barely gotten inside the front door to hang up his coat on the rack before Hermione rushed to him and told him that the Potters had been attacked.
The rest of the night had been a blur. He could remember a lot of people shouting, most were crying, and in the middle of it all was Harry. He hadn't cried, screamed, or shown any other outward appearance to the fact that what had transpired had bothered him at all, but Ron knew. As soon as he saw the dead and haunted look in his best friend's eyes, he knew that Harry would never be the same again.
Ginny's funeral had been hard on everyone. His mother and father were particularly devastated. Parents weren't supposed to bury their children, and yet now they have had to bury two of them. Fred had died during the Battle of Hogwarts two years previously. And so, fresh from the pain of having to bury a son, they had to watch as their baby girl and their unborn grandchildren were also lowered into the cold and unforgiving ground.
Harry had been as quiet and guarded at the funeral as he had been on the night of the murders betraying no emotion, but Hermione and Ron knew better. They had been his best friends for nearly ten years. They knew it was a carefully constructed facade meant to mask the pain that lurked in the now lifeless eyes that always stared back at them. Bright eyes once filled with a magnetic vibrancy you only heard about in stories were now hardened by the pain of great loss. It was a shame honestly. Even during the war and after coming from the Dursleys, his eyes shone with a sort of mirth and lightheartedness that you wouldn't expect from one in his situation.
Ron thought back over the past six months and knew that his best friend was wasting away before him and for the life of him, he didn't know what to do. Hermione had told him that there was nothing they could do and just had to wait on Harry to want to help himself. They couldn't make someone want to get better no matter how much they wanted to.
As the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months, and Harry kept getting worse, Ron was desperate to bring his friend out of the darkness that he had been living in. Every day saw him paler with near permanent bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. Ron's mom, Molly, would complain that he hadn't been eating enough. Harry hadn't been around to The Burrow since the night Ginny had died.
Ron knew why, of course. Other than the fact that he was trying to avoid memories of Ginny, he absolutely hated it when people pitied him. Harry had once confided in him that he would rather be looked down on with hate and malice instead of pity. It was a feeling Harry never really got used to after living at the Dursleys for ten years and for every summer until he was seventeen.
At that moment, Harry walked into the room, breaking Ron from his stupor.
"Captain Robards needs to know if you've finished drawing up the plans for the rescue mission," Harry said.
Shit, that's right, Ron thought. He had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he had forgotten that he had been given the task to come up with a strategized battle plan to rescue a young Muggle woman and her daughter from a Death Eater stronghold on the east coast of Wales. They had been kidnapped 2 weeks ago and were in a race against time to save them. Ron doubted whether the mother was alive or not. She was a muggle after all, and the death eaters had no use for a Muggle. The intelligence they had gathered however showed that the little girl was incredibly powerful and was an empath of some sort. The results weren't very clear.
Ron smiled internally. He was an excellent strategist and battle-planner and upon Harry's insistence, had been made Robard's second in command at the mere age of twenty. He never wanted to be Head Auror. That job, he figured, would be reserved for Harry when Robards retired. Ron was paid modestly and commanded a certain sort of respect in the Ministry, which was enough for him. Let everyone else deal with the real responsibility.
"I've started but until someone can get me plans of the building or I can see the building myself, I can't get personalized results," Ron replied.
"I'll see if Robards will let me stake out the house then," Harry said already moving towards the door, "I don't want to see this thing end up bloody."
"Alright, just let me know what he says and what you find out," Ron said
They both nodded at each other, and Harry quickly exited the room. Ron knew there wouldn't be any small talk. The concept of small talk was probably foreign to Harry now. Ron knew better than to push his best friend.
Ron looked at his watch and sighed. It was time to go home.
He quickly stood up. Ron grabbed the cloak off the back of his chair, threw it over his shoulder, gave his office one last sweeping glance, and then exited as he closed the door behind him.
Upon entering his kitchen after dusting himself from the fireplace, he spotted Hermione standing near the stove stirring the contents of a pot with her wand and reading instructions from a cookbook that Molly had given her as a wedding gift. Hermione had never been a great cook, but Ron admired that she had bothered to learn for him because Merlin knew Ron was useless in the kitchen.
He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her as he planted a kiss on her cheek.
She leaned back against him and sighed, saying, "How was work, Dear?"
"Relatively boring," he replied. "Robards is trying to rush me coming up with these attack plans to rescue that Muggle and her daughter, and yet we don't even know what the place looks like or anything. Harry said he would convince Robards to let him stake out the place and try to get some intel."
"You talked to Harry?" she asked, "How is he?"
"Same as usual," Ron said simply, "and that's what scares me. It's been six months since Ginny died and he's still hell-bent on ignoring the fact that she's gone. He's trying to pretend that nothing is wrong, that everything is okay, but we both know how he is, and we both know that it's not. By the time he gets around to accepting the fact that Ginny is dead everyone else will already be healing and I think he'll feel more isolated and alone."
"You don't think he'll do anything stupid do you?" she asked quietly as she moved to set the table, "I'm scared for him, and I know you are too, but do you think he would...?"
"Try to hurt himself?" Ron asked.
"Yeah," she replied
Ron looked at his wife and saw the fear and concern in her eyes, "I don't know. I would like to think we know Harry better than that. He's never struck me as someone to do something like that but then again, I've never seen him in such a fragile state before."
There was an awkward silence and then, "I made spaghetti."
Ron chuckled as they both sat down to eat. "This is why I love you."
"Because I made spaghetti?" she asked quizzically.
"Because you know how to keep the dark thoughts in my head at bay," he said, "You make all the worry disappear; and, because you made spaghetti."
She laughed and the rest of the meal was spent in light conversation about work.
Hermione worked for the Wizengamot helping write up laws. She was only a glorified secretary right now, but he knew his wife was ambitious. He knew one day she would be the one making the laws that governed their kind and the kind of any other magical race.
In a department that was mainly full of purebloods and old aristocratic families, his Muggle-born wife excelled almost naturally. The downfall of Voldemort had brought real change to the wizarding world.
Ron could actually see his wife becoming the Minister in a decade or two.
They both heard a thud come from the sitting room and Ron glanced up warily, " Wonder who that could be? We weren't expecting company, were we?"
Hermione shrugged as they both got up to go see who their guest was that had arrived via fireplace during dinnertime.
"Harry?" Hermione said as his wife rounded the corner with him not far behind, "What are you doing here?"
He rounded the corner to see Harry, disheveled, with eyes darting around the room erratically, standing next to their fireplace.
"Mate?" he questioned, "What's going on? Are you okay?"
"I um I..." Harry stuttered out.
Ron knew it was going to happen before it did. He moved away from the doorway and rushed to Harry just as Harry slid to the floor in a heap.
"HARRY!" Hermione shrieked as she moved to where Harry lay as Ron turned him over onto his back.
"We need to get him to St. Mungo's," Ron commanded, his Auror instincts immediately kicking in as he carefully picked him up, "Can you Floo call my mum and let her know?"
"Of course, love," Hermione said shakily, "We'll meet you there.
With a nod, Ron disappeared with a pop.
After Ron had brought Harry to St Mungo's, everything had turned into a blur. Healers had rushed him to a room where they were no doubt poking and prodding him and running diagnostic tests on him to figure out what the matter was.
Hermione and his mother had arrived shortly after he did and together, the three of them sat in the waiting room trying to distract themselves from the fact that a family member was sick, and they didn't know how to fix it.
"It's going to be okay, you know," Hermione said grasping his hand and linking her fingers between his. "Harry is strong. He'll bounce back. I don't know what happened, but I know this isn't going to be the end of our best friend."
"I know," Ron said taking his thumb and absentmindedly running it over the top of her hand. "It still doesn't stop the worry."
"What even happened?" Molly asked, "All I know is Hermione Floo called me and said Harry was in St. Mungo's and that I should come along. She didn't give me any details."
"We were eating dinner," Ron said, "We heard someone enter the house through the Floo, so we went to go see what was going on. Harry was just standing there looking ready to pass out. Said he needed help and then collapsed."
"That poor boy," Molly said with tears in her eyes. "He's not taking Ginny's death easy, is he? I mean, not that we expected him to. We knew it was going to be rough, but even I couldn't see something like this happening."
"He was bound to have a breakdown soon, Mum," Ron said. "He didn't cry when she died or at her funeral and he's been hiding his feelings for the past six months."
Ron felt guilty. He should've seen the signs. He should've been there for his friend. He knew he was headed for a breakdown but sat back and did nothing. He had been so worried about not pushing his best friend that he hadn't been thinking of any worst-case scenarios that could arise in the meantime.
"Excuse me, but are you lot the family of a Mr. Harry Potter," a voice said, breaking Ron out of his train of thought.
"Yes, we are," Hermione said as Ron looked up to a middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair wearing the green robes of a St Mungo's healer. "How is he? What's wrong with him?"
"You can follow me to his room," the witch stated. "I'll tell you there."
The three got up and followed the Healer up two flights of stairs to the third floor. The witch had opened a door and as Ron walked through, he noticed a sign that read 'Potion and Plant Poisoning.'
"Huh," Ron thought worriedly, "Had he been poisoned?"
They followed past a small help desk to a door on the left side of the hall which she quickly opened and ushered them inside before closing it with a snap.
Harry lay on a standard hospital bed covered up to the chin in thin hospital sheets. His hair was all tangled and matted and his breathing was slightly irregular. Ron's mother gasped as she saw the state her son-in-law was in, and Ron had to admit it didn't look pretty.
The Healer moved over to the bed where she waved her wand over Harry checking for vitals, before turning back to them.
"He's malnourished," the Healer stated, looking at them in turn, "He is severely depressed, and I imagine that it's causing a whole host of issues, the main one being he wasn't taking care of himself properly. The biggest problem though was his use of Dreamless Sleep Potion for the past two months straight."
Molly gasped and put her hand to cover her mouth.
Ron just grimaced as the woman continued, " As you know, Dreamless Sleep Potion shouldn't be taken over an extended period of time. It can bring a whole bunch of unwanted side effects including dependence and sometimes even coma. We were lucky his mind was strong enough to reach out for help when he did. Any more Dreamless Sleep Potion could've been disastrous and perhaps, even fatal."
"He's going to be in and out of consciousness for the next couple of days, I expect while we flood what we can out of his system. The rest is up to him," she said looking back down at Harry sympathetically.
They all thanked the Healer before she left, plunging the room into an awkward silence. No one seemed to know what to say. They just kept sneaking awkward glances over at Harry on the bed before staring back down at their hands in their laps.
Molly stood up abruptly. "I should head home and let the others know what happened and that he's going to be fine. Arthur will probably be getting worried."
She gave them both a quick hug before slipping out of the hospital room.
"You should go home and get some rest," Ron said turning to his wife. "We can take turns staying up here."
Hermione looked like she wanted to argue but slowly nodded her head and stood up.
"All we can do is wait," Ron said standing up with her and walking her over to the door, "and be there for him when he wakes up."
"I know," she said as she leaned into him, kissing him softly on the lips before continuing. "But that's the hardest part, isn't it; waiting?"
"For us, yes," he said quietly, "Now go on. I've got things handled here for a while."
She left and then it was just Ron in the room with Harry asleep on the hospital bed. He moved back over to the chair he had previously vacated before sitting down and trying to get comfortable.
This was turning out to be the longest night of his life.
