George, Fred, Hermione, Tonks
It's times like these that George wonders what if would be like without a twin. Fred is so much a part of him that, until a few short months ago, he never would have even been able to fathom the idea. But fighting a war in which you honestly can't tell whether your side is going to win or lose, facing the possibility that for you, tomorrow may never come – it sets a person thinking bizarre things.
Things he never would have otherwise thought of.
He imagines it would be like losing Bill or Charlie or Percy or Ron or Ginny, but much harder, much more intense. He imagines it would be like a candle being snuffed.
When you're sitting in the protection of the dark all day, waiting for your next command, you have all the time in the world to think up metaphors and similes and oxymorons and hyperboles…it keeps you sane.
It's times like these that Fred misses Angelina the most. When George isn't near him. Fred can't miss anyone if he's with George – George won't let him. And he won't allow himself to miss George. But when he's away on mission, with someone he can't joke with to ease the tension, he wishes she was there to reassure him that everything was going to turn out.
He wishes he could hold her, and that she could hold him back, that he could whisper sweet nothings in her ear, that he could rest his head on the life growing in her stomach that would now just be beginning to show, the life he helped create, the life that would be his if this war ever ended, if he lived through it to go back to her.
But of course he will survive, he has a reason to want to live. They decided on Sirius, if it's a boy. Harry was touched by the gesture, but it was really the only thing they could do to even begin to express their gratitude. Sirius had done so much, he had been through so much. Someone had to recognize that fact.
It's times like these that Hermione wishes she was a Muggle. That she had never heard of the wizarding world. That she was just plain Hermione Jean, the smart girl down the road with the frizzy hair and the buck teeth, although she had grown out of those.
She knows she shouldn't, she realizes that she has a great and wonderful gift, but when she's sitting in the library at Number Twelve, thinking up strategies with Snape – there are no formalities in war – and worrying about her parents, prime targets, she wishes life could be easy again. She is sick of worrying.
She worries for her mum and dad, two of the most wonderful people she knows, who just want to be dentists, who never asked to be drawn into this world, this war that they will never be able to forget. She worries for Angelina, who puts on a brave face everyday, thinking up new spells, a brilliant mind, dying on the inside. She worries for Mrs. Weasley, who has not one, but seven children at risk in the war, and whose greatest fear is that one day, she's going to look at the clock and discover they're all dead. She worries for Remus, because he's lost everything he holds dear, except for Harry, and Harry's the only reason he's hanging on.
And of course, she worries for Harry, because he's her best friend, and after all, in the grand scheme of things, what's one more person to worry about?
It's times like these that Tonks knows why he became an Auror. She remembers what it was like before all this madness started – and all she wants is to be able to help make things like they were before. Everytime she walks into Number Twelve and sees Remus in Sirius's chair in the sitting room, staring into the fireplace, that fire in her burns just that much brighter, and she wants to fight if it's the very last thing she does. And she will win.