Harry hadn't opened the curtains since they had arrived in Lupin's apartment.
It seemed as though he had finally collapsed into himself, as she watched him lie there in bed, on top of the comforter, staring at the glow that sun produced through the curtains.
He didn't cry. He didn't move. Didn't say anything. Simply laid there, staring, all flat, dull green eyes and wrinkled jumper that Mrs. Weasley made him. He was so still sometimes Hermione had to watch the slight movement of his collar slowly pulling away from his throat to make sure he was still breathing.
Grief seemed to curl itself around him like a second skin, some sort of perfect-fitting clothing that wrapped around Harry, changing him completely. It flattened his eyes, whitened his skin. Shrunk him, somehow, so his stomach was concaved beneath his too-big clothes, his ribs and hips and collarbone jutting out so sharply Hermione bit her lip in worry. It seemed to seep into Harry himself, into his skin and his hair and his atmosphere, clinging to the air he breathed. It was the last straw, all that Harry could take before his mind and his body and everything he'd worked so hard to keep from crumbling finally shut down.
"Harry," Hermione whispered, padding across the rug of the office Lupin had turned into a makeshift guest room that housed the both of them while the Ministry and Dumbledore were trying to sort things out.
She saw him move, only slightly. He shifted so he was further away from her, turning his head so his hair blocked the view she had of his face.
"You need to eat."
She wondered when she'd become the stronger one in all of this; when exactly that transformation had occurred.
"I'm not hungry," he whispered, his voice hoarse and nearly inaudible.
"You must be, Harry," she saw him wince when she said his name, and turn further from her, onto his side. She could see the knobs of his spine trough his worn jumper, the wings of his shoulder blades.
"It should have been me, you know. It was supposed to be. He shouldn't have even been involved." It came out of nowhere, and Hermione's stomach retched at the blatancy of it, his coming out and finally admitting that Ron was gone. Forever. Hermione had come to subconsciously accept that Ron was gone for only a little while, that he was safe somewhere. Not that he had been murdered by Death Eaters.
A vision of his cold, blank stare made Hermione collapse onto the bed beside Harry. She was shaking at the memory of it all, while Harry stayed perfectly still. Frozen.
"Can you see me getting old, Hermione?" His voice was so soft Hermione had to strain to hear it, but it had a kind of childlike innocence and fright in it that made the tears in her eyes spill over.
"Harry…" she warned, her voice shaking as much as her hands. She didn't want to think about it, any of it. She'd spent the past few days busying herself over worrying about Harry. She couldn't come to terms with what exactly had happened. She couldn't. Hermione knew she couldn't.
"He was supposed to, and you know it. He was supposed to have kids and work somewhere in the Ministry and get gray hair and play chess everyday. He was. I'm not. I'll never get old, I'm not supposed to."
"Harry…" Hermione whispered, shaking her head. She knew she was supposed to comfort him, to tell him he was wrong and that she'd had dreams of them being old together. But she just sat there, on his bed, with tears running into the collar of her unwashed blouse. Her senses were both acute and blurred: contradictory. She could hear his breathing and see all of the dust motes highlighted by the yellow glow from the curtains, yet she couldn't feel anything, like the whole of her was completely numb.
"It was supposed to be me. You think so, his family thinks so, Lupin, Dumbledore. I see it when they look at me," Harry finally turned to look at her, and Hermione was surprised to see that there were no tears on his face, just a blank, worried sort of expression that made Hermione ache.
"Stop," she said, with more force than she'd meant to, and finally laid down, facing him so the length of their bodies were pressed together, their noses almost touching, "He… It wasn't right, there's no denying it. But that doesn't mean that it was your fault. You're right, he was supposed to be old. He wasn't done with life, or growing up, or living. Ron wasn't done, because he was still young and still had so much to…" Hermione broke off, avoiding Harry's eyes. She didn't now where she was going, words spilling out of her mouth like tears. "Ron wasn't done, but he chose to go fight. And that changes everything. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. It was a choice, and that's what makes it different. It was Ron's choice."
She moved closer to him, wrapping her arms around his slight frame, feeling him breathe. She felt him swallow, inhaling sharp, hesitant breaths. There was a brightness in his eyes that told her that he didn't believe her, that he was still going to carry around the burden of his best friend's death like he carried everything else.
He wasn't young like Ron had been, or Hermione still hoped she was. He never had been. His life had been shadowed by all things evil, and Harry was the only person that seemed to be able to fight them off. He'd been burdened with heroism, and Hermione finally realized she'd never be able to shield him from that like she had been since she'd first noticed the dark flases his eyes often had back in first year. Her Harry was destined to be Harry Potter, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Harry bent his head to bury it in the crook of her shoulder, and she felt him relax against her. She curled herself around him, tightening her grip as if just to feel him, to wake up her nerves. To feel anything.
"It wasn't your fault," she whispered again, but he was asleep for the first time in days.