The crack seemed to shake the house, an ominous warning of what was to come. The wind picked up, whistling through the clinging ivy like a boy with a bell. Wolf! WOLF!
The young wizards had hardly enchanted the house. They had denied themselves the fear. There were a few charms to keep the muggles far and unsuspicious, and a simple and easily breakable cloaking spell that Hermione had insisted on, but all in all if someone wanted to find them it would be easy enough.
So when the crack sounded, a chill went down everyone's spine all at once.
Harry grabbed the closest hand- Hermione's- whilst Ron and George flung themselves around their little sister. They had been in the living room, debating over a game of wizard's chess, when they heard the sound. Now they were all moving slowly towards the front door, up to which a pair of shoes was clicking and clacking against the gravel. Slowly, Harry pulled his wand from his waistband. He watched the others do the same.
A low, persistent pulsing was the only sound for a moment as the footsteps reached the landing. Heartbeats.
Then, a rap at the door, and a voice.
"Ronald? George? Ginny?" Three ginger heads turned wildly to face each other, mouths agape, eyes aghast.
"Oh fuck," Ginny whispered, "Mum!"
"Ginevra! Don't swear!" came Molly Weasley's retort from the other side of the door. The panic, rather than being abated, seemed to have solidified with the confirmation of her presence. Ginny started running her hands through her unbrushed hair, Ron was doing up his shirt, Hermione uttered household charms under her breath, doing dishes, folding laundry...
Harry opened the door before Molly could become even more ruffled. They hadn't told her- or anyone- where they were retreating for the summer, and she had promised to respect their privacy (in response to which Ron had mouthed 'bollocks'), but her postcards and letters were becoming even more frequent, laced with small pleas that her children come home. 'I wish you could see it', 'of course, it's not as loud without you'.
She threw herself around Harry before the door was even fully open, burying him in her layers of coat and cardigan and other miscellaneous knitwear. It was as if she hadn't realised it was summer, either.
"Harry darling! It's so good to see you!"
To say Molly looked better was not to say she looked good. The last time Harry had seen her was at the Funeral, where grief had scoured her out so much there was no woman left, the husk of Molly Weasley rather than the full thing, the boxes of her boys equally inanimate as she was inside.
The hollows under her eyes were shallower now and the red in her cheeks had returned, but her hair was still limp, her clothes sagged off her. She was still mourning, just like everybody else.
As she stepped over the threshold Harry noticed half a bottle of firewhiskey balanced on a pedestal where someone had perhaps intended to keep a statue but had never gotten round to buying one. He lunged for it, tucking it into the loose waistband of his trousers and covering it with his baggy jumper- Ginny's baggy jumper, a tourist thing she had bought on one of their days trying to be 'normal people' and get away from all this. It sloshed against his t-shirt, settling in to the warmth of his stomach. He wrapped his arms around it protectively, cradling it like a pregnant woman.
Molly greeted Hermione next, like two mothers whose children had just had a playdate. Molly gave her a questioning look only she could decipher and she nodded reassuringly, tilting her head to one side. Harry didn't try to decrypt their unspoken tongue, trying to understand women only ever made his head hurt.
The reunion between mother and children was much more sober. They hugged her individually, and for a very long time. George was last. When Molly saw him, her eyes welled up and she bit back a tortured smile.
It was rare to see George cry. Of course, he had cried at the Funeral, and the wake the Weasley's had held after for their own, personal dead. It was not uncommon, either, to hear him crying out in a dream. But conscious, public crying even in front of the fragile and broken inhabitants of their grief-ridden abode was rare if not inconceivable.
When Harry saw George break down and cry in front of his mother, he had to look away.
Which didn't stop him hearing.
"It's alright mum, don't feel bad."
"I'm sorry Georgie, it's just... You look just like him..."
Molly stayed for tea. Ginny put the kettle on and everyone tried their best to look domestic and capable. Harry hadn't found a moment to stash the firewhiskey anywhere, so it sat in his lap under his jumper, cold glass pressing into his abdomen.
Molly had brought the real world with her. She gave them news of the Burrow, of the Hogwarts restoration, of proceedings at the ministry. Arthur had his job back, he had gone back to work last week, everybody was being awfully nice, which he bloody well deserved after all he'd been through in the last year-
The following silence was awkward until it wasn't, and Harry chuckled.
"Imagine if they'd really put me in Azkaban for using that patronus charm," he mused.
"Or if they'd arrested you for Cedric," Ron added. Suddenly the room was filled with stories of Ministry incapabilities and idiocies. Fudge was berated for his incompetence, Scrimgeour even more so. Once Molly got started she could hardly stop, recounting stories of unqualified Ministers and staff that Arthur had had to deal with throughout their marriage, stories which, now that her children were no longer children, she peppered with rude remarks and dirty tid-bits until the room was filled with roaring laughter.
"...so my poor husband, bad enough with words as it is, has to explain to the troll his boss is boinking that these particular muggle artefacts hardly deserve the incendiary treatment she has in store for them and she should just leave the cabbage children alone!"
Harry was laughing too hard to correct her, Cabbage Patch Kids, Molly, and beside him Ginny thanked him for leaving her mother the dignity, squeezing his leg under the table. The bottle shifted in his lap, not altogether due to intentional movement.
"You're looking skinny, Ronald," Molly sighed as Hermione cleared tea and brought out bread and a series of cheeses and spreads for dinner, "all of you are. Why don't you come home? I can get some more meat on your bones."
The group exchanged a look. It was true, nobody's clothes quite fit anymore (although Harry would protest that his clothes had never fit), but their dinners were getting larger these days. Some Sundays Hermione had even gone so far as to prepare a roast. Eventually, all eyes settled on George. He looked reluctant and worn. He didn't want more days of sobbing into his mother's arms. He didn't want to go back to the house he and Fred had grown up in, where they had concocted their first plans, their first pranks, their last ones...
Hermione was the one to speak, when the decision was made all but two seconds after the offer had been posed.
"I think we all need a little more time Molly. Stuff like this, it's taking a little getting used to."
"Of course," Molly nodded, trying to conceal the hurt she felt from being rejected by her children. "I understand. But come to visit, ok? Your father misses you." She rose to leave and Ginny asked her to stay. "No, I'd better go," she insisted, her voice quavering. She wanted to go because she didn't want to cry in front of them, but they pretended not to know and she pretended they had believed her blatant lie.
They returned to their game when she was gone, though everyone was less interested in the outcome. The sun had set long ago, but they kept searching for reasons not to go to bed. Ginny rifled through the cupboard next to the old television set and found VCRs of Marylin films, so they all settled down together and watched Some Like It Hot, revelling in the unaffected comedy of a man in a dress.
Harry caught George staring at the window, his face illuminated by the flashing screen. In his reflection, he patted his long hair down over the hole where his ear had been. He turned his head from one side to the other. With his ears concealed, Harry realised, he was almost indistinguishable from his late twin.
When the movie ended, teeth were brushed and bodies were clean, lemon-fresh and pyjama clad, Ginny knocked on Harry's door and crawled into bed. He pulled her into the crook of his arm and propped himself up with pillows, kissing the top of her head.
"Weird seeing mum today," she confessed. Harry agreed.
"You alright?"
"Yeah, yeah it's just... It's like I just remembered there's a world out there. A life to get back to. I don't even know what I wanna do." Harry shifted so that he could look at her face, something like pride in his eyes. "What?" she asked.
"You're just amazing," he shrugged. She punched him playfully in the stomach and he buckled, sliding down into the pillows and turning to face her.
"You're ready to talk about this now? About after?"
"I think so," she nodded, "it's bugging me now. Sooner or later the summer's gonna end and we're gonna have to give up Ivy House and move on. Hermione's gonna go back to school..."
"She said that?" Harry asked.
"Please," Ginny snorted, "have you met the girl? As if she'd give up the opportunity to sit the most prestigious wizarding exams." Harry laughed in agreement. "I think I'm gonna go with her. See everyone, finish off my education, play quidditch again..."
"Quidditch?"
"I was really getting good before everything started happening. McGonagall said she might even get a scout out to one of the matches, we just never got around to having any." Harry huffed, impressed.
"Shit, Gin, that's amazing!"
"Could be," Ginny shrugged, "it'd be nice to find out."
The two spoke about their futures into the early hours of the morning. It was amazing, Harry had never fully realised the extent to which he held back from speculating about what he would be, where he would end up, what he wanted from life. He had always assumed it would be asking too much to expect that he had any sort of future at all, what with a price on his head in the shape of a lightning bolt. But now, with Ginny in his arms, he felt as if he could do anything.
They stopped talking for a while, just looked at each other.
Before they knew it they were asleep. Neither of them had nightmares that night.