Multiplicity
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters or settings herein.
Just a little piece about what life might be like for the Trio now that they've left Hogwarts.
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There's the one that makes all of Ron's hair above the neck fall out—chunks of copper locks drifting to the floor; waking up finding his eyebrows are all gone; eyelashes that get in his eyes and make them water—though it all mysteriously grows back after only a couple of days. And there's the one that turns Hermione's hands bright green for three weeks—Ron laughs at night at how upset it makes her and how much she tries to pretend she doesn't care. Then there's the one that makes Harry talk backwards—literally, every single word coming out backwards—for several hours, and they discover that the boggart in the closet is the only one that can understand him.
There are others—the one that makes Ron as clumsy as Tonks, the one that renders Hermione unable to do anything but sing for forty-five minutes—and Hermione was not blessed with musical talent—and the one that causes Harry's eyeballs to spin around in his head, which Ron actually found pretty cool, except for the fact that Hermione starts screaming her lungs out. There's one that sticks all the furniture in the room to the ceiling and the one that makes stormy breezes blow through the house and the one that makes the teacup come to life and start cursing in six or seven languages—Ron thinks that there's no way anyone can not find that funny, but then, Hermione's always been the exception to everything.
Spells, of course. Found in crumbling books, learned from Tonks or Lupin, developed by Hermione herself. Drilled and practiced and exercised and gone over again and again, till perfected and polished and smooth and second nature. Leaving behind headaches, bruises, stinging thumbs, split lips, aching arms as they try--and most of the time fail--to sleep at night. Blocking spells and shielding charms and protective wards. Spells for maiming and disabling and paralyzing and even killing—though they try not to use those unless absolutely necessary. Anything and everything that might conceivably prove useful in the futurethat hauntstheir daydreams, their nightmares, their prophecies.
All of this, of course, between long treks and journeys to corners and edges and nooks of place and time; between hours spent in libraries pouring over reams of biographies and indexes and encyclopedias as histories and appendices—work even Hermione grows tired of after awhile, though she pretends she's still excited, and they pretend they believe her. Between battles, short and explosive and violent and hot, which leave scars and cuts and aches and broken bones and nightmares no one speaks of. Between nights cold and silent and weary and sleepless and endless. Between days scorching and dusty and tired and windless and torturous.
Between and after and before all of this, they stumble back to Grimmuald Place, collapse as far into the house as their last vestiges of strength will carry them, on floors and counters and sofas and beds in kitchen and ballroom and bedrooms and hallways. They snatch seconds and minutes and hours of sleep.
And then they drag themselves upright, wands in hands they never leave, and prepare and practice and plan. All of that, of course, takes up most of their time. But they manage to find five days here and two hours there and forty-five minutes there and thirty seconds here. And when they do, they cook eggs and cookies and orange juice and baked potatoes and eat popsicles and baked beans and Chocolate Frogs and hotdogs and old birthday cake that they never got around to eating. They read Muggle comic books from the corner store and play Exploding Snap till their eyebrows are singed and fly brooms through the corridors, Hermione screaming and clutching a laughing Ron while Harry catches the Snitch again and again with as much triumph as at any match, and have food fights instigated by Harry himself. They write letters and look through picture albums and clean bathrooms and chase Cornish pixies.
But they do not cry, though they laugh on the surface, and they do not plan the future beyond the next mission, though they reminisce, and they do not argue, though they tease, and they do not push, though they prompt, and they do not dream, though they sleep, and they do not voice regrets or could-have-beens.
And on the very rare times when they are at Number 12 and have a whole night in which they do not have to practice another spell or cross-reference a might-be Horcrux, they climb up onto the roof of the house and lie on their backs, Ron's arm around Hermione's waist, and her head on his shoulder, her hand in Harry's.
And they watch the stars.
That is all. They do not talk or tell jokes or doze or make wishes or cry. They simply stargaze.
And for a few minutes, a very few minutes, all the rest falls away. The Death Eaters and Horcruxes and Prophecies and battlefields and curses and expectations and weariness and hopelessness and regrets and burdens slip away under the whisper of wind and starlight.
They simply are. Together.
And it is those times, silent and starlit, that give them the strength and fortitude and courage and determination and perseverance and energy and hope to fight and run and plan and breathe and search and walk and fight and love.
Most of all to love.
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Nothing fancy, of course, but it came, and so I wrote it. Feedback is appreciated.