Ron
I got on the train at four a.m. The train to Wales.
It was where he was. I was sure of it.
I fell asleep very soon, and dreamed of before, and of after.
I woke up to the sight of thin rays of sun, the sound of an announcement - "We will soon be arriving -" and the memory of only after.
*dream*
It is cold, and Ron Weasley is standing outside in the rain, looking from one gravestone to the other. He is tall and worn, perhaps in his fourties, you might have said if you saw them. He is twenty-six.
His best friend would have been twenty-six today, but things turned out differently.
It is cold, and his sister is crying in the new car, a slick black still with the Muggle smell of industry and oil and change in the dark clean leather. She is crying for the boy, and for herself, and for the other lost one.
They had never found the other one's body. They filled the casket with letters and pictures and gifts.
It is cold, and the damp on his cheeks is only from rain, but if you look at him under a certain light, as it started to pour, he appears to be sobbing. His eyes scream agony. He puts on a black Muggle hat, but water from the wet tendrils of the long ginger hair that is plastered to his forehead still drips, and water pours off the sides of the hats.
It is cold, and Ron Weasley looks across the graveyard at the freshly dug earth. He has just buried his father. There is no one left to mourn but he and his sister.
*****
Harry
The walls were cold and made of stone, and he knew nothing more but a sharp pain in his head and darkness. The darkness, he knew, would be eternal, but the perhaps pain would not.
That was all he cared about or thought of.
I got on the train at four a.m. The train to Wales.
It was where he was. I was sure of it.
I fell asleep very soon, and dreamed of before, and of after.
I woke up to the sight of thin rays of sun, the sound of an announcement - "We will soon be arriving -" and the memory of only after.
*dream*
It is cold, and Ron Weasley is standing outside in the rain, looking from one gravestone to the other. He is tall and worn, perhaps in his fourties, you might have said if you saw them. He is twenty-six.
His best friend would have been twenty-six today, but things turned out differently.
It is cold, and his sister is crying in the new car, a slick black still with the Muggle smell of industry and oil and change in the dark clean leather. She is crying for the boy, and for herself, and for the other lost one.
They had never found the other one's body. They filled the casket with letters and pictures and gifts.
It is cold, and the damp on his cheeks is only from rain, but if you look at him under a certain light, as it started to pour, he appears to be sobbing. His eyes scream agony. He puts on a black Muggle hat, but water from the wet tendrils of the long ginger hair that is plastered to his forehead still drips, and water pours off the sides of the hats.
It is cold, and Ron Weasley looks across the graveyard at the freshly dug earth. He has just buried his father. There is no one left to mourn but he and his sister.
*****
Harry
The walls were cold and made of stone, and he knew nothing more but a sharp pain in his head and darkness. The darkness, he knew, would be eternal, but the perhaps pain would not.
That was all he cared about or thought of.
