Love is hope: Life after sixth year

***

Hermione remembered something:

“What did Amélie see, Harry? What did she say to you?”

Harry fidgeted uncomfortably... He opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted when he heard a thumping noise in the corridor...

***

Hermione and Harry looked at each other briefly, before jumping out of Hermione’s bed. It wasn’t like they were doing anything wrong, they’d just been talking, but the call of reality reminded them that it was quite inappropriate to be there together with the door closed...

Exiting the girls’ bedroom, they found a heart-wrenching scene in the corridor. Ginny was standing in front of the boys’ bedroom looking dejected, trying to keep the tears from flowing, her face pale save for the violent red spots on her cheeks. Luna stood next to her, for the world looking off in space, like always, but Hermione could see the unshed tears sparkling in her eyes.

Running up to them, Hermione asked what happened. Ginny hiccoughed that they’d tried to talk to Ron but that he’d shoved them outside, barricading the door. She choked on the rest of her statement so Luna finished for her:

“Ronald still believes he killed Mrs. Weasley. He doesn’t want to know that it wasn’t his fault. And he doesn’t want to know that she’s only in a coma”

Hermione’s heart ached, and she felt Harry standing behind her. Even before he spoke she knew what he was going to say.

“Just leave him alone, he just needs some time alone...”

Hermione whipped her head towards Harry, her anger fuelled by the desperation she felt.

“No, Harry! I won’t allow him to wallow in guilt like you do!” Seeing the hurt look on his face, her anger ebbed a little, and she continued soothingly: “Don’t you see Harry? He thinks he’s murdered his own mother! We can’t leave him to work it out himself! He’ll just go mad! Please, we have to talk with him, we’re his friends, and this really isn’t the time to leave him alone!”

“I know we’re his friends, Hermione! Do you think for a minute that I would forget that? But you know Ron as well as I do! He’s stubborn as hell, and if he doesn’t want to see anyone, he means just that. What do you want me to do? Burst into the room and put him in a full-body-bind so you can talk some logic into him? News-flash: logic won’t help here!”

“Stop arguing!”

Three stunned heads turned to Luna. Ginny had been sniffing, ignoring all of them, and Luna had seemed... well, elsewhere... But now all attention was on Luna, who’s expression had yet to change from absent-minded to angry, but the sparks in her eyes betrayed her mood not being indifferent.

“Look, you’re both right. Ronald needs his friends, but he doesn’t need someone telling him how he should or shouldn’t react! He just needs help sorting out what he’s feeling!”

Ginny seemed to have come out of her stupor and whispered: “She’s right you know”

While Hermione was contemplating all this, she barely noticed Harry frowning and taking out his wand. She was more then just a little surprised when she saw him blast the door of the boy’s dorm with a strong Alohamora! The door banged open loudly, making her wince slightly. Apparently the door hadn’t been as warded as they’d supposed…

This made Hermione think that maybe Ron really did want them to go talk with him... or maybe Ron just assumed he could trust his friends to leave him alone? Well, Hermione was not going to have a friend of hers plunging into depression, no way! At least not until she had done anything in her power to prevent something like that to happen...

Anyway...

They all stepped towards the entryway gingerly, expecting a raging Ron to throw anything he could get his hands on their way. But what greeted them, wasn’t what they expected in a million years…

Ron just sat there, at his desk. Calm, too calm… His stare was one that reached eternity… Empty, cold. He was so pale, he seemed like a statue. It was all Hermione could do, to not burst into tears, like Ginny. Even Luna looked disturbed. Harry, though, had developed the uncanny ability of showing a poker face… But Hermione could still see the swimming greenness in his eyes, that betrayed the multitude of emotions behind them…

Ron didn’t say anything, and Hermione had never heard a silence so loud. He didn’t even react to them being in the room… For one of the rare times in her life Hermione was at a total loss of what to do… They had to try something! Before anyone could choose a certain course of action, they were all startled by a huge commotion downstairs…

Even Ron seemed to show a little shift in posture, but remained nevertheless zombie-like… Deciding to go investigate the growing sounds of distress downstairs, Hermione and Harry left… Ginny was still sobbing, but Luna had an oddly determined look in her eyes, and the two other girls stayed put.

Racing downstairs, Hermione’s thoughts were again going one mile an hour. Couldn’t they catch a break? It had been- how many hours? -with too little sleep and too much situations and information to cope with all at once. What would they get on their plate now?

Bursting into the kitchen Hermione gasped when she saw a stretcher carrying Mrs. Weasley. She looked pale and medical amulets were levitating above her. A shallow rise and fall of her chest was the only visual evidence that she wasn’t dead. Around her still form the kitchen was in total chaos, the fire in the hearth was burning green, and Remus and Tonks were standing beside it from both sides, wands drawn, as if expecting Death Eaters to come through any moment.

Dimly Hermione realised Bill was ordering Winky to zap his mother to her room. And Mr. Weasley was apparating out of the kitchen, presumably to their room in Grimmauld Place, to take care of his wife. No sooner had the stretcher vanished, or the fire flared again. This time Snape came out with a limp body in his arms.

Hermione gasped. She could only recognise the body as a boy, possibly her age, but the side of his face that was in her line of vision was burned beyond recognition. Snape stumbled to the kitchen table and laid the boy on it.

Glaring at Harry, he grinded out: “You will have him accepted to this house, Potter! And he will get proper care. Put him in my room!”

With that he pulled his Death Eater mask over his head, making some of them gasp, and apparated out of there. Startled out of their wits, they heard someone enter the room: it was Ron! Before Hermione could have any triumphant ideas of him getting out of his stupor, she looked at his expression feeling mounting horror inside her.

Luna and Ginny were on either side of him, trying to restrain him at his arms. Ron’s face was set in an ugly, twisted scowl, so pale that even his freckles seemed to disappear. He hissed in a voice almost foreign: “What’s he doing, here!” pointing at the motionless body, “Get him out of my sight! Now!”

Everyone seemed petrified confronted with Ron’s hysteria, and confusion started making place for understanding. Tonks, who was the closest to the boy’s head, carefully turned his face the other way, and gasped. The blond, almost white hair, gave away his identity more then anything else. Burned, bloodied, unclean,… Malfoy was almost beyond recognition…

Hermione’s attention was back to Ron, who’s eyes seemed to almost budge out of their lids and his nose flared with taking great breaths. When he seemed ready to let out a new string of hysteric sentences, Amélie appeared from a corner of the kitchen.

It was clear she didn’t understand the situation fully, but she was looking at Ron with pain clear in her blue eyes. Her appearance did seem to startle Ron enough to calm down a little.

You could have heard a pin drop in the kitchen, when Amélie held Ron’s gaze and brought up her hand slowly, as if not wanting to frighten him in this state of mind. The tension came to a boiling point when she gently laid the palm of her hand against his cheek. First, it seemed like nothing would happen, but then Ron’s eyes widened suddenly, while Amélie’s mouth opened in a silent scream.

Before anyone could react to this strange turn of event, Ron’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and the boy fainted. Amélie fell to her knees clutching her head, tears streaming down her face.

Making all of the occupants in the kitchen jump, Moody’s voice boomed through barking orders.

Bill took his youngest brother to the boy’s dorm, with Luna and Ginny following them. Remus and Minerva took Draco Malfoy to Snape’s room at Grimmauld Place and had another Order member Hermione didn’t recognise follow them. From what Moody shouted, Hermione deduced that the witch was good at Healing Charms.

Tonks had to apparate back to the Ministry and from there on to the hospital to assist Shacklebolt and her other fellow Aurors. In the mean time Hermione knelt in front of Amélie, who’d been trembling on the ground.

As soon as Hermione had hugged the girl, she had returned the gesture clutching her like it was the only thing she could do to stay sane. While she was soothing the girl, she heard Harry come out of his stupor and demand an explanation from the ex-Auror.

Looking over Amélie’s head, she saw Moody’s magical eye swirling around the kitchen, and finally settle firmly on the girl in her arms. Noticing they were alone in the kitchen, she didn’t expect Moody to respond to Harry’s demand.

But to her great shock, Moody started explaining what had happened.

They had wanted to keep the fact that Mrs. Weasley wasn’t really dead a secret. It could’ve played into their favour to have the Dark think they were all thorn up about her dead at her youngest son’s hands and leave it like that. But she had to be treated at St-Mungos, and it was difficult to keep things contained there, so there had been a guard put up to ensure she was safe.

Young Malfoy had been brought in the hospital too, and there had been a ministerial guard at his room, considering the Dead Eaters had tried to kill him. But the Order hadn’t really bothered to look into the fact that he could use their protection as well.

So they had been none the wiser when Snape had burst into the secured area around Mrs. Weasley with the limp burnt body of the youth in his arms… Snape had been one of the Dead Eaters ordered to go finish off the young Malfoy, as an example of disobedience to the Dark Lord. His room had been set in Black Fire, Dark Magic. And it was all Snape could do, to save his student without being spotted by fellow Dead Eaters…

The spy had quickly put up an anti-apparating shield, and run to the Order guard, notifying them. That’s when they’d brought Mrs. Weasley up here, together with Malfoy and that’s why Snape had to get back as soon as possible. They couldn’t risk Snape’s exposure…

Moody concluded his story with a remark of how difficult it must have been for Snape to manage getting the boy’s body out of the malevolent flames, since they usually pulverise the body until nothing is left… So now this house was hiding two people who the rest of the world thought of as dead…

Silence met the wizards and witch in the kitchen after Moody’s story, and Hermione noticed Amélie had fallen asleep on her, tears still wet on her cheeks… Moody’s magical eye as well as the normal one, were fixed steadily on the Muggle girl.

“I wonder…”

Moody’s cryptic statement stayed without following explanation, because at that moment Dumbledore came into the room.

“Not now, Alastor. Could you go check if everything’s in order at St-Mungo’s with the remaining Order members? The Ministry is present, there”

Hermione asked herself briefly, why the Professor couldn’t go check everything himself, but then she noticed he looked extremely tired. After Moody had disapparated, Harry opened his mouth, but was stopped by Dumbledore’s raised hand.

“Please, Harry… I will gladly answer all your questions in a few hours, but I do need some sleep, as do you. I will be reinforcing the wards around the house, and I trust you will ensure the house accepts young Mister Malfoy… Miss Granger, you will see to it that Amélie here gets to a more comfortable place to continue her sleep, yes?”

With a tired nod, Dumbledore set off out of the kitchen. Hermione glanced at her watch and was startled to see it was only 7.30 am! Had it really been only that amount of time? Less then eight hours, and all of this had happened? She felt her head spin, but pushed those thoughts out of her head, and got to her feet gently.

Amélie woke up and allowed Hermione to pull her up. She hadn’t noticed Harry had left the kitchen, but now he was back, and helped her with the sleep-drunk Amélie. Hermione could only assume he’d somehow done what Snape demanded, and Dumbledore suggested. But how he was getting the house to ‘accept’ people, she didn’t know.

This, however was the furthest of her concerns for the moment. She supposed her body could do with a bit of sleep, as well as food, for that matter, but her appetite wasn’t up to normal, feeling sick just at the thought of food… Amélie broke through her thoughts:

“Can we go check on your parents first, ‘Mione?”

Hermione had planned to go over there after dropping Amélie off at their room, but she supposed she could make the detour with Amélie. Looking at Harry, she saw him looking insecure, and not wanting to part from him yet, she asked him to come with.

When they neared the room where her parents were, Winky plopped into the corridor.

“You is not to wake them! Winky just given them the potion to sleep. Madam Gillian told Winky to do that, so you is not supposed to wake them!”

Hermione vaguely recognised the name of the Order witch that had been ordered to take care of Malfoy. So that’s why she had been here in the first place, Dumbledore or maybe McGonagall must have summoned her to take care of her parents. Relief flooded her, now she could be certain they would make it…

Reassuring the House Elf, Amélie and Hermione tiptoed to the door and opened it quietly. Hermione walked in and saw her mother and father, both bandaged, sleeping relatively peacefully. They looked quite fine… Her father a bit pale, perhaps, but they lived…

Her father’s quiet sleep was disrupted when he frowned and started breathing a little heavier. His mumbling was barely audible, but she could hear the panic when he called out for his wife in his sleep… Hermione went over to her father and put one of her hands on his forehead. It was a bit warm and sweaty, but his temperature wasn’t too elevated…

Softly she tried to sooth the sleep of the man who must’ve done this a thousand times for her, when she was little… Before she could get too emotional, she stepped back, relieved when she saw her father sinking deeper in the mattress, calmer then moments before. She saw Amélie tuck her sleeping mother in, and together they walked out silently.

Joining Harry at the door, they turned the corridor to the stairs to go up their bedrooms. Just then Luna exited the boys’ room. Catching up with her, Hermione asked her, how things had been. Luna, her spacey self, explained the events after Amélie had ‘calmed’ Ron ‘down’.

“Bill had taken Ron up to his bed, here,” Luna nodded her head to the door, “and then Bill said to Ginny that he was going to check how their mother had been, and if maybe his dad needed anything to get her comfortable here… But he hadn’t seen that Ronald had just awoken…”

Hermione dreaded the rest of the story… The flitting emotion in Luna’s stare wasn’t all that comforting either…

“Ronald went hysterical again, shouting that his mother was dead, and that he should know since he killed her… Bill just stood there, and Ronald started yelling at him to go away, so he did… when Bill was gone he started yelling again, about him killing his mother and Ginny having to go away…”

Hermione cringed at that. The sheer torture of these emotions her friend must be going through… she couldn’t begin to imagine… And how Luna managed to sound so detached when she told them…

“And Ginny suddenly stopped crying, and she just slapped him. Real hard too… She started yelling too, telling him that their mother wasn’t dead, that she was in a coma. And that if he thought he was such a powerful wizard that he could perform the Avada on the first try, that he’d better start thinking again…”

Hermione started contemplating how they had managed to not alert anyone with all that shouting, since she knew all too well, that when a Weasley started bellowing… well, let’s just say the neighbours would have heard it… But then she feared for Ginny’s and Ron’s lives… Both of them explosive enough when they were mad, but this time they would’ve got enough fuel to disable the whole island with their tempers combined…

“It’s a good thing really that I placed a Silencing Charm on the room…” Luna continued, seeming a bit pensive when she said this, “Anyway, after shouting at each other, they both burst out in tears, and embraced and they just cried themselves asleep”

Luna shrugged and looked back at them from the ceiling, indicating that the narration had almost ended: “I just didn’t think I should wake them… I suppose they could both use the comfort of family… I was just staying to see that they didn’t kill each other, and then I was going to go to sleep myself”

With that Luna turned and went up the stairs, probably with every intention of getting some sleep after all. Amélie turned to Hermione and Harry:

“You probably should get in there and check on them. I’ll just go with Luna!” Turning away from them, she hurried to catch up with Luna, after she’d cast a quick look of assurance behind her shoulder.

After the younger girls were both out of sight, Hermione felt her fatigue overwhelm her. Looking at Harry, it was obvious he was tired also. They carefully entered the boys’ room. When Hermione’s eyes had become used to darkness inside, she saw that someone, probably Luna, had closed the curtains and pushed Harry’s bed, against Ron’s.

Presumably, she had done this redecorating, to give Ginny more space, if she would turn away from her brother in her sleep. But both Weasleys seemed pretty still, on Ron’s bed. They were both fully clothed, and on their sides. Ginny’s head faced with her brother’s chest. Both pairs of cheeks wore the streaks of their tears…

Hermione hadn’t the courage to ask, but didn’t want to leave Harry. So avoiding an awkward question, she just ignored common sense, and climbed on Harry’s bed, laying down on her side. Her back to Harry, she brought her hand up and pulled Ginny’s hair away from the girl’s clammy face. She closed her eyes and felt them prick. To her relief, though, she felt the bed sag a little when Harry climbed in behind her.

No words were exchanged, and she got as comfortable as she could, avoiding touch and too much noise… They were all fully clothed and they lay above the sheets, but Hermione couldn’t help but thinking that if their mothers knew… Silent tears slipped passed her closed eyelids: especially Mrs. Weasley… if she weren’t already in coma, she would have gotten there just fine, had she seen the four of them sleeping together.

Of course, her own father would have a few choice words to say also… More tears slipped down her cheeks, and she forced these nonsensical thoughts from her brain. There would be time later to think things through more thoroughly… once she’d have some sleep, and could hopefully think more straight…

***

It felt like she’d slipped into darkness only five minutes ago… Hermione didn’t open her eyes, but concentrated on the voices she could hear, and tried to identify what was being said…

“… difficult. How do you deal with almost killing your own mother?”

“Well, in my case… I just try not to think about it…”

“Huh?”

At this point, Hermione shot awake. Was Harry blaming himself for his mother’s death? Why? Was he taking blame again? This time he’d gone too far!

Before she could go into lecture-mode, however, Ron had yelped in surprise at her sudden movement. This brought her thoughts back to the previous events…

“Ron! Are you alright?” She couldn’t keep the concern out of her voice, and she knew he wouldn’t like it that she was coddling him, but she just couldn’t help it.

Before the wizard could respond, Ginny groaned:

“Do you guys always make such ruckus?” Stretching she yawned, then blinked: “Urgh! Remind me never to cry before sleeping again! Bloody headache!”

While Ginny grumbled, Hermione’d had more time to wake up properly. Glancing at her watch she saw it was almost noon.

Deciding she’d have to wait for any in-depth discussion for the moment, she suggested out loud to go down, and get something to eat…

***

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