A/N: Isn't it lovely that Lewis Capaldi wrote an absolutely gorgeous song specifically about the TTWW Fred and Hermione? Oh, he didn't? Huh. Then what the hell is "Pointless" about?

I bring her coffee in the morning
She brings me inner peace
I take her out to fancy restaurants
She takes the sadness out of me
I make her cards on her birthday
She makes me a better man
I take her water when she's thirsty
She takes me as I am

I love when she laughs for no reason
And her love's the reason I'm here
She knows when I'm hurt and I know when she's scared

I'll wait for you
I'll wait for you
You'll wait for me too

From all my airs and graces
To the little things I do
Everything is pointless without you
Of all the dreams I'm chasing
There's only one I choose
Everything is pointless without you
Everything is pointless without you

31 July, 1997

Charlie

Charlie Weasley was having a truly lovely afternoon; the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and he'd just finished setting up the tent for his brother's wedding.

Married – Bill was getting married tomorrow. It was as jarring to his sensibilities as it was exciting and, while he didn't fully understand the much-discussed allure of Fleur Delacour, she was a genuinely kind person as far as he could tell, and fiercely, violently loyal. All things considered, he couldn't imagine a better addition to their clan.

He'd ducked into the kitchen with this thought in mind when he happened upon yet another witch that he reckoned he'd be related to sooner than later.

His mum and Fleur were at a fitting, Harry and Ron had snuck off with Ginny to toss the quaffle over the orchard, and nearly everyone else was arranging tables and chairs and every other manner of décor or dinnerware outside. That's why he was surprised to find Hermione sitting at the table in his mum's kitchen, totally by herself and surrounded by stacks of books and parchment.

"Hullo, Hermione," he greeted jovially, pouring himself a cold glass of water and watching her over the counter.

"Hi Charlie," she replied distractedly, lips pursed and scarcely looking up from the notes in front of her.

"Who did you have to kill to get out of wedding preparations today?"

Ignoring her lack of invitation to do so, he pulled out a chair and settled at the table beside her, carefully nudging a stack of books out of the way. Between Bill, Percy, and his father, he'd grown up surrounded by bookish types. Most of the time they were sociable, but on occasion they needed to be coaxed into eating a meal or taking part in human interaction, like a feral kneazle.

"I umm – I was just – I was – "

His lips quirked. "Hermione, are you having an episode? Should I go fetch a healer?"

"What?" She finally straightened and looked up from the parchment in front of her, eyes wide and alarmed. "Who needs a healer?"

Chuckling to himself, Charlie just shook his head and peered around her elbow, curious to see what had been so very captivating. As he looked, he saw… nothing. As in, literally nothing.

"Erm, am I going selectively blind or were you just very diligently staring at a blank piece of paper?"

Her cheeks flushed a little and she lifted her hands, going about untying and retying the messy knot of curls on the back of her head.

"It's not blank to me," she explained with a tired sigh. "It's just… proprietary information."

"Proprietary, eh?"

"Of the need-to-know sort."

"Ah. And I that it that I don't need to know?"

"No, not at present."

Charlie nodded slowly and finished his water, setting the heavy-bottomed glass on the worn wooden table with a dull thud. He studied the crease betwixt her eyes and did his best to breathe a hint of solemnity into his tone when he next spoke. Truth be told, it didn't come naturally.

"Look, I know that you, Ron and Harry are planning to leave after the wedding. If there's anything that I could potentially be of use for, I hope you know that you can talk to me about it. I might not be an auror or a curse-breaker or a genius-inventor-extraordinaire, but really, I'm no slouch."

Hermione met his eyes then with a kind of incomprehensible weight in her gaze, and he couldn't help but wonder, worry, about what exactly it was that they were setting out to accomplish. It only took a second for her to mask it again.

"I can't express how much I appreciate that, Charlie, truly. But the things I'd need to tell you to enlist any sort of useful assistance would put you at risk and I'm not – we're not – comfortable doing that."

He was about to argue, but it was clearly something she'd already thought all the way through and then back again. So, instead, he just cleared his throat.

"Do you have – and I mean this in the least macabre way possible – but do you have contingencies in place? Because if things go tits-up and the only people who know how to turn them tits-down again are six feet under, that's going to be a problem for the rest of us."

She sighed again and dropped her head into her hands, scrubbing and letting loose most of the hair she'd just tamed. It was then that Charlie felt a sudden, sharp pang of resentment on her behalf, toward Harry and his brother, no less. Flying over the orchard with Ginny while she sat inside and clearly agonised over… well, whatever it was she was agonising over. All he knew was that it clearly didn't concern just her.

"I have some plans in place," she admitted halfheartedly. "But nothing that I feel overwhelmingly confident about."

"Some plans are better than no plans," he murmured thoughtfully. "Is it the legilimency that's vexing you? Fred mentioned as much when I stayed there the other night. I know they have a few capable people among them, not counting old moldy-shorts himself."

"Mmhmm. I've tried to configure the language to use an unbreakable vow to counteract it, like a sort of magical cyanide capsule, but that just feels so... extreme. Rationally I know that someone that's been captured and questioned to that degree doesn't have much hope of surviving, but I just can't reconcile facilitating it."

"Well, I haven't the foggiest idea what cy-a-nide is, but what about occlumency?"

A cynical, slightly hysterical, laugh slipped out of her. "Unless you know of a way to develop impenetrable mental shields in the course of a few days, our only occlumens is a turncoat murderer with a penchant for mutilating people that I'm fond of."

"I mean, yeah, Snape was the only traditionally trained occlumens, but what about –" Charlie cut off sharply when Hermione jerked forward suddenly, her eyes wild and her hands gripping the edges of the table so hard that her knuckles turned white. "Bleeding hell, what did I say?"

"Charlie, finish that sentence right now."

"I – I was just saying that from what I understand Snape was a trained occlumens; he studied it, yeah? Practised at it for years."

"Are you implying that there's such a thing as an untrained occlumens? Someone naturally inclined to it?"

At this, despite the frantic edge on her voice, Charlie brightened again. Because it seemed as though he was going to be of some use to their cause after all.

"I'm saying," he leaned forward, "That certain magical beings are predisposed to occlude. Legilimancy is only intended for use on the human mind, so minds that aren't entirely human aren't necessarily subject to entry, as it were."

"Not entirely human, meaning – ?"

"Meaning werewolves, to name just one. Also, giants, goblins, vampires, house elves, veela... you get the picture."

Hermione's jaw dropped and then almost immediately snapped shut again. She looked around at the stacks of books and notes with unconcealed dismay, as if they'd personally betrayed her.

"How in the bloody buggering fuck is that not in any of the books that I've read about mind magics?!"

"Well for one, people that can naturally occlude don't need to read or write books to know how to do it. I'd reckon most go through their whole lives without ever knowing that they have the ability. For another, the people writing those books are bigoted cunts that don't recognise sentient magical beings as valuable, let alone equal."

Hermione looked about ready to hex something. "I swear to Merlin I'm going to find every descendent of the sacred twenty-eight and castrate them if I hear one more thing about blood purity, or lesser beings, or stupid, sodding, discriminatory –"

"Uh, Hermione?" Charlie interjected, grinning a little at the fire in her. It was a bit like sitting beside a dragon. He liked dragons.

"What?"

"The Weasleys are part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Might want to consider skipping a couple if you're about to go on a willy-chopping rampage."

Hermione's cheeks coloured a deep crimson and then, after a long second of silence, she snorted and clapped a hand over her mouth, failing to suppress a bout of fairly absurd laughter.

"Oh, Christ… Yeah, I suppose I probably should. Attached to yours, are you?"

"Only a little," Charlie tipped his chair back on two legs and gave her a raucous, conspiratorial grin. "A certain Puddlemore United keeper would be rather irate with you as well."

Her ears perked at that. The thing about dragons, which Charlie knew very well, is that the easiest way to tame one is to simply give them something to do that's more interesting than lighting everything around them, including you, on fire.

"Puddlemore – ?" Hermione's eyes widened with comprehension and then she grinned back. "Really? When did that happen?"

"League is on hiatus, and I've been back and forth to the isles a bit more frequently as of late for Order matters and wedding preparations."

"Are you going to try and keep it up long distance, then? After the wedding?"

"Dunno, really. It's one of those 'don't blink first' sort of situations. I don't want to be the one to bring up moving beyond a casual affair, because what if he doesn't want that, you know?"

"Is it, though? Casual?"

Charlie dithered at this, tipping his head back and forth like the answer was a loose marble that was rolling around and might slot into space given enough time. When this didn't happen, he shrugged.

"No fucking clue. I've been thinking about taking a break from work and hanging around here for a while; if things really take a turn and they lock down the borders – "

"You don't want to be stuck outside of them." Hermione nodded with a wince. "I don't like to think about it, but it could happen; they already have a massive foothold in the ministry. Likely far more than we have intel on."

"There's a little preserve in Wales that I have a connection at. Just a dozen dragons or so, but I could maybe pick up some work there, keep busy for a few months."

"There's always muggle travel, you know. I'd bet anything that even if they shut the borders to apparition and portkey travel that you could get on a plane without raising any alarms. You'll just need muggle identification and a passport."

Charlie tried not to let his puzzlement at that stream of thought show.

"Planes are… how muggles fly, yeah?"

"Yeah, here… " Hermione snatched a blank sheet of parchment and started scribbling furiously before pushing it toward him. "This is everything you'd need to travel the muggle way from Romania to Britain; the Muggle Government Liason's office at the ministry or the Romanian Consulate should be able to help you get them – although I wouldn't wait long with the way everything is going. And I'm sure Angie and Lee would be more than willing to help walk you through the rest."

"Thanks, Hermione," Charlie said a little skeptically, folding the parchment and shoving it in his pocket. "I appreciate it and all, but I'm not sure –"

"Hey," she said, starting to get up and organising her notes into neat stacks. "Do it or don't do it, it's up to you. I just wanted to make sure that you knew there were options if it comes to it. Contingencies, right?"

"Right," he exhaled heavily, getting to his feet and going to set his glass to wash in the sink. "Contingencies."

Fred

Fred Weasley was obsessed with the way his girlfriend tasted.

Odd? Perverse? Perhaps, but he wasn't ashamed of it. He was too blissfully happy about it to care much what anyone else might think.

Her tongue when it slipped between his lips and tangled with his.

Her pert, rosy nipples when they hardened to peaks under his touch.

Her cunt when she –

"Fuck!" Hermione cried out, gripping his hair and trying, to no avail, to press his mouth more tightly to her as she rode out her orgasm.

He happily obliged, lapping away until she was little more than a trembling pile of limbs, sprawled across his sheets. His cock twitched valiantly, but unless he resorted to apothecaric intervention, that part of the night was decidedly over.

"Was that five?" He lifted his head and rested it on the soft, warm skin of her inner thigh, dragging a thumb below his lower lip and then sucking it clean while he held her satisfied, hooded gaze.

"Six, you absolute terror," she corrected in an entertained, albeit gravelly, voice. "I'm not going to be able to feel anything below the waist tomorrow, thank you very much."

"That's a shame," he lamented, walking his fingertips along the gentle curve of her lower stomach. "Here I had this image of us sneaking away at the reception. We'd find somewhere quiet, and you'd pull up your skirt, and –"

"Enough!" She laughed and reached down, tugging at his arm until he shifted up to lie beside her. The balcony doors were open and it was a warm night, the sheets all but forgotten in a pile near their feet as the late July breeze drifted over them. That was fine by him; looking at her naked had come to be one of the great joys of life.

It was quiet for a long moment, Fred going about conjuring a glass and filling it with water. He offered it to her first and she nearly drained it before he refilled it and did the same. Then he vanished it and settled alongside her again.

"So, Remus?"

"Yeah," Hermione exhaled. "I'll talk to him the morning after the wedding, before we leave. I'd tell Bill and Fleur as well, but I don't know if half-bloods count and I don't have any way to be sure."

"What, not considering Hagrid?"

Hermione snorted, turning to rest her chin on his chest.

"I love Hagrid dearly, but he couldn't keep a secret from three first-years. I'm not about to wager everyone's lives on his ability to do it under duress."

Fred nodded. "Bit of luck that you thought to consult Charlie."

"I didn't, really. He just happened to catch me when I was reaching the upper limits of my sanity. His being an expert in magical beings was pure coincidence."

"Darling, I figured you'd learned by now not to doubt us Weasley men. We're an exceptionally capable lot."

"Well if I wasn't before, you can consider me a devotee now."

Fred chuckled and then, with only a little bit of impending dread, exhaled. Here, alone in his bed, it was easy to pretend that none of this was happening. That she wasn't really leaving and that they could stay like this forever, but every so often reality crept in. Every so often, it needed to.

He studied the ceiling overtop his bed for a long moment.

"You know, in all this talk of contingencies, there's something I've been meaning to discuss with you. I was waiting for the proverbial 'right time,' but I don't know if there is such a thing. If there's a right time for a conversation like this."

Expression turned a little more solemn as she studied his face, Hermione nodded and reached down, tugging the sheet up and pulling it over her breasts as she sat up. The way her curls tumbled over her shoulders was a work of art that would put the masters to shame.

"Alright, what is it?"

Tearing his eyes away, he rolled over and opened the drawer of his bedside table, reaching in and extracting a neat stack of parchment that had been tri-folded over itself. He thought about reading it, explaining what it was first, but in the end, he just placed it in her outreached hand.

He watched silently as she unfolded it and her eyes skimmed the first couple pages, expression neutral.

"I ought to kill you for plying me with orgasms before you gave this to me," she sighed, lowing the parchment after finishing page three and giving him a look. "Forty-nine percent?"

He nodded. "George gets the other one percent, to maintain majority ownership."

"I imagine there's a similar arrangement in turn for him?"

"There is," Fred confirmed, though he didn't much like to think about that.

"And if something happens to the both of you?"

"Then you and Angie become fifty-fifty partners. George talked to her about all of this yesterday."

Fred tried not to smile at that because, despite the presumably gruesome circumstances preceding it, he would give anything to see the two of them running the shop together. It might end in bloodshed – hell, it would definitely end in bloodshed – but he was fairly certain that Hermione and Angie could take over the world given enough time and resources.

In any event, he watched the emotions play out behind her eyes, reading them like a much-cherished book; fear, grief, anxiety, and finally, uncertainty. Discomfit.

"You're sure that you don't want to keep it in the family? I hardly think –"

"No. We talked it all over pretty thoroughly after what happened to George; Bill and Charlie have their own careers, Ginny is supportive but she has her own ambitions, and… well, Percy and Ron can bugger off."

Hermione snorted softly before her expression turned serious again.

"You know that the odds of my surviving this war are empirically much lower than yours, correct? I might not be the best basket to put your eggs in."

He mentally fought away even the notion of losing her, but he didn't argue. For as much he hated it, as much as it terrified him to his core, she wasn't wrong. And they'd decided a long time ago not to tell one another pretty lies.

"I know. And there are clauses in place involving my family if that does happen. But there isn't anybody I trust more, Hermione. This – the shop, the patents, all of it – it's my legacy."

She skimmed a little further, finding the aforementioned sections and nodding.

"Well, I suppose you'd be posthumously saving me from withering away behind a ministry desk."

He scoffed. "Oh, please. You weren't going to do that, anyway."

She raised a surprised brow and drew back. "And just what makes you say that? It's still my unofficial plan."

"Bollocks it is."

"It most certainly is! Where the hell do you get off –?!"

He rolled suddenly, pinning her beneath him and tossing the paperwork aside, securing her wrists on either side of her shoulders. Her hair was fanned across the pillow and he took care not to pull it.

"I get off right here," he said slowly, placing a chaste kiss on her lips and watching with glee as her expression transitioned to one of blistering indignation. "And here." He brushed his lips over the tops of her breasts, bared from beneath the sheets again. He continued down, kissing her stomach and her hips and the apex of her thighs, still swollen and pink from his earlier ministrations. He kissed her fingertips before offering a salacious smirk. "You'll need to turn over for me to get the last couple of places."

"Fred!" Hermione shrieked, fighting back when he playfully made to flip her. He surrendered after a second and crawled back up to hover over her, their noses nearly brushing.

"Presuming we survive this, I know you won't end up behind a ministry desk because you're made to live a life of adventure, Hermione Granger. I wasn't sure, when we talked about it on that balcony ages ago, but I am now. I've seen it firsthand. I've seen your heart and the fire in your belly, the way you absolutely light up when you try to solve a problem that otherwise seems unsolvable. I don't think you'll be satisfied pushing parchment, not after all is said and done, and I think you know it too. You need excitement and challenge; to do something that makes a difference. I haven't the foggiest idea what it'll be, but you'll figure it out. And, if I'm really, terribly lucky, I'll have the distinct honor of standing at your side when you do."

Hermione swallowed hard and looked up at him, eyes shining with something he hadn't seen in a little while. Something like hope. "I'm going to make a difference, am I? Well, no pressure, then."

Fred smiled and shook his head, simultaneously bemused and frustrated that she couldn't see what he saw. "You already make a difference. Every bloody time you draw breath, you make a difference."

He could see her starting to question that, question herself, so he changed topics back to their earlier discussion.

"What about you, anyway? Any last requests before you run off to save the world?"

"Well, I certainly didn't have a solicitor draft anything," she mused thoughtfully, clearly far more comfortable discussing her own prospective demise than the vast uncertainty of what came next if they lived through all of this. Lapsing silent for a moment, he studied her face in the moonlight, wanting to capture the image and hold on to it.

"There is one thing," she finally said, breaking the silence. "Check on my parents for me. You don't need to do anything, and certainly don't try and restore their memories. Just make sure that they're happy and safe."

"Alright," Fred said immediately, thinking it'd be something he'd do even if she didn't ask. He knew exactly where they were; he'd worked with Hermione on the tracking charms she'd placed on their wedding rings. "Anything else?"

"No, nothing that I can think of. I've made arrangements –"

"MEOW."

As if on cue, Crookshanks sat up from his perch atop the armchair in the corner, eyeing them sullenly and beginning to wash a paw. Hermione blanched.

"Oh! Crooks, darling, I didn't forget about you. I just –"

"Just hadn't had a chance to say it yet," Fred assured loudly, not a little fearful of how bloody perceptive his witch's familiar was. They were about to be flatmates for an indeterminate amount of time, and he wasn't trying to start that on the wrong foot. Or paw.

"Right," Hermione nodded enthusiastically. Crookshanks narrowed his gaze before curling in on himself again and shutting his enormous yellow eyes.

"I'll take care of the cat," Fred assured quietly. "Or at least, I'll supervise while Angie does; he seems to have a bit of a distaste for blokes."

"I know," Hermione considered. "I used to think it was just Ron and Harry, but now I'm not so sure."

Growing increasingly distracted by the woman below him, and willfully pushing aside the emotions associated with their various subjects of conversation, Fred playfully nipped at her throat and drew her attention back.

One thing he did know was that they didn't have many nights like this left, and he wasn't about to squander one on post-mortem logistics.

"Anything else?" He asked quietly below her ear, "Or can we put this to bed?"

"I think that's everything," Hermione assured, her breath catching a little when he traced his tongue along her earlobe.

"Good," he said. "Because I've decided six is a wretched, messy number."

"Messy?"

"Mmhmm, it's even and it has all of those rotten multiples."

"Right," she murmured, back arching off the mattress as he inched lower. "Multiples."

"Do you know what a good, prime number is?"

"What?"

"Seven."

Ginny

Ginny Weasley was waiting. Waiting until the sun sank over the hills and the crickets in the garden began to chirp and the frivolity of Harry's birthday dinner and anticipation for Bill's wedding the next day all quieted and ebbed to a soft, indigo slumber.

She waited until, somewhat arbitrarily, she decided that she'd waited long enough.

Then she got out of bed in just her pyjama shorts and vest. Ginny had the room to herself; since receiving a blessing of sorts from her mother, Hermione had taken full advantage of her freedom to come and go from the twins' flat, and that night following Harry's birthday party was no exception. She didn't fault Hermione, nor her brother for it. She wasn't a hypocrite, and Merlin knew that their remaining time together was borrowed at best.

Creeping across the room and then into the hall, she stepped carefully over the creakiest of boards – fifth from the left and third nearest the bathroom door – until she reached the bedroom diagonally across from hers. Then she reached out and lightly rapped her nails on the wood, a staccato tapping that interrupted the otherwise silent mien of The Burrow. Gods knew it wouldn't wake Ron, and her parents were below them and across the house.

When this was done, she turned and went back to her room, leaving the door cracked, curling into the pillows near her headboard, and waiting again. This was the time of night where she questioned herself most of all; because wanting was human, but still wanting after having been rather publicly rebuffed? Pitiful.

It needed to happen, she knew that. If the world thought that she was the cherished girlfriend of the-boy-who-lived, she'd be taken and tortured and Godric knew what else. It didn't mean that it didn't hurt, though. And she'd all but taken the broken pieces of her heart and handed them right back with a, "Hold onto them anyway."

Ginny was a little ashamed knowing that, if she saw another witch do the same, she might think them weak or tell them they'd do better to have a little self-respect, but it wasn't another witch. It was her. And self-respect was for people who weren't living every day with a sword over their heads.

It'd hardly been five minutes before the bedroom door opened and a tall figure stepped in, messy hair silhouetted and round glasses reflecting the blue-grey moonlight streaming through the window. Harry turned and shut the door behind him with a quiet snick.

These rendezvouses were normally silent affairs; predominantly wordless couplings when Hermione was kind enough to read in the den downstairs, or he'd meet her in the apple orchard beneath the stars. But that wasn't the case tonight.

"Silencio," Harry breathed, his holly wand in his hand. And just like that, they were in a bubble.

"I wasn't sure you were going to come," Ginny said, toying with a loose thread at the corner of her duvet.

"I wasn't sure I was going to either," Harry replied, sounding a little weary.

Both of them were lying.

Harry placed his wand and his glasses on her bedside table and turned the lamp on as low as it went, the soft light dancing and casting shadows. Then he crawled into bed beside her and Ginny, pitiable wretch that she was, pulled the blanket back before flipping it over both of them again and curling into his side like a puzzle piece slotting into place. His hand settled over the jut of her hipbone and she nestled her head into the crook of his neck.

"You're seventeen," she said quietly, dragging her fingertips over the soft cotton of his t-shirt in little, nonsensical whirls. Harry swallowed and his throat bobbed as he nodded.

"It doesn't feel like it." He angled his head down to look at her, and really, just damn him and those eyes. "Feels like I'm still eleven years old with no idea what the fuck I'm doing."

Ginny snorted softly at that. "Haven't you parsed it out yet? Nobody knows what the fuck they're doing. The older we get the more obvious it becomes that everyone is just… pretending. Reading their lines and doing the best they can with what they've got."

"Well in that case, I wish we'd been given a little more to work with."

They lapsed silent then and he turned his head, burying his nose in her hair.

"The day after the wedding," he said quietly. "I talked with Hermione after dinner and we're leaving the day after the wedding."

It hurt to think about, but it wasn't unexpected; she'd assumed as much, it was just that hearing him say it was different. It was real nad it made her glad that her face was hidden.

"Okay," she said, proud of her voice for remaining steady. It felt a stupid response, but what else was there to say?

Don't go?

Stay with me?

Wizarding world be damned?

"Gin, I need to ask something of you." Harry's tone changed a little and it put her immediately on edge. She didn't say anything, and he eventually took that as a cue to keep going. "If – if something happens to me –"

"No." Ginny jerked out of his arms and got out of bed like a shot, every fiber of her being screaming in protest and refusing to acknowledge what he was saying. "No, we aren't doing this."

Harry got out of the bed and stood in front of her, towered over her, with eyes pleading. "Ginny –"

"I am not having this conversation with you, Harry James Potter," she said flatly, refusing to look at him. They hadn't done it yet, the goodbye without goodbye, not even when he'd 'ended things' at the school after Dumbledore died. And she'd be damned if she was doing it tonight.

"Bloody hell, just let me talk, would you?" His temper flared to meet hers, combusting together in the way the often did. "I'm the one that's probably about to go and get myself killed, you can stand to listen to me talk about it for two minutes."

She bit her lip and rocked on her heels, resisting the urge to physically hit him. It was a low, dirty blow, and he knew it, but how could she argue with that? She'd sound like a petulant child, trying to cover her eyes and pretend the sky wasn't falling. It most certainly was. She could scarcely remember a time that it hadn't been.

"If something happens to me, I just have a couple things that I need you to do, okay? I don't – I don't trust anyone else besides Ron and Hermione to see it through, and they'll be with me."

They'll be dead, too.

He took a deep breath and steadied himself. "Make sure that Dobby is taken care of. I think he's still at Hogwarts, but if – if things get really bad, just make sure he gets somewhere safe. Buckbeak too; he's staying with Hagrid, but just check on him if you can, yeah? Make sure that Hagrid sets him loose if need be."

She nodded once, in a bid to keep going. To get this dreadful nightmare of a conversation over with.

"I also want you to look in on Dudley. Not Vernon and Petunia, I don't really care what happens to them, but Dudley… just make sure he's okay. Dedalus and Hestia are with them, so you should be able to send a Patronus. He never stood a bloody chance in that house, I can see that now, and he apologised to me before I left. He's not a bad person, and he doesn't deserve to die because of me."

She nodded again, albeit a little less genuinely. Her feelings toward the Dursleys were less then genial, but these were apparently Harry's last wishes. Who was she to argue about them?

"I'd – I'd like to be buried near my parents."

She sucked in a sharp breath and felt like she was going to be sick.

"Please, don't –"

"I know my body likely won't… but maybe just a marker or something? Something to keep me near them. I'd like to be near them. I think they'd like it too."

Seventeen. He'd turned seventeen that day. And he was telling her where to bury him.

Ginny stopped fighting and let the tears fall, pressing her knuckles to her lips. Harry closed the distance between them and pulled her tight to his chest before she could push him away again.

She wouldn't even if she wanted to; Harry was her haven. For all the world, she presented a valiant front, but this, there in his arms? It was the one place that she allowed herself to be fragile. To break.

"I know. I know, and I'm so sorry," he said, sounding as though he truly meant it. But she barely heard him over the cacophony of emotions swirling in her head. "There's just one last thing."

"You don't think you're asking enough?" She meant for it to sound angry, to cut and sound as furious as she felt at the world and their lot in it, but really it just sounded… sad. Intensely, profoundly, sad.

"I know I'm asking too much, and that I'm not being fair, Gin. I promise that I know that. And I know that you deserve better."

"I don't want better," she choked heatedly. "I want you. If you know anything, know that. That all I've ever wanted, out of all of this, was you."

He drew back and placed a knuckle under her chin, tipping her face up to his. He offered her a sad, glassy-eyed smile that said he already did know that.

"You can't fall apart. If I die, if everything that can possibly go wrong goes wrong, you can't give up. Even if you don't want to, even if it feels like there's nothing left worth fighting for, you need to keep fighting anyway. Keep the others fighting. You're strong Gin, stronger than I've ever been. The sun is going to rise, and tomorrow is going to come with or without me. I need you to fight for it, okay?"

She shut her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. Then she nodded, because, though he didn't seem to realise it, this was the easiest of his requests.

Would she do it for altruism's sake, like Harry? For destiny? For the good of wizarding kind? No. But if Tom Riddle took him from her, after everything else he'd taken from them, after personally violating her mind and her will, she would see him dead. If it was the last thing she did, even if she had to drag him to hell herself, she would watch the light leave his eyes.

"I love you," she said softly, wishing desperately that it was enough and knowing that it might not be.

Enough to save him.

Enough to keep him.

Harry tipped his head up to look at the ceiling and tightened his arms around her. Then he brought his forehead back to rest on hers, breathing her in while she did the same to him.

"I love you too, Ginny Weasley. Always."