Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter 21

Remembering

When I re-materialize inside my bedroom, he's sitting on the edge of my bed.

Roughened elbows rest on his knees; shaggy hair obscures his face as he stares at the object in his hands. Long fingers are curled around a small silver frame no larger than his palm. For a moment, we are motionless. Silent. I watch his chest rise and fall once, twice, three times before he replaces the photograph face-down on top of a small stack of sweaters next to my suitcase.

He runs a hand over his face, a sigh slicing through the quiet of the room, before his blue eyes meet mine.

I know what will happen before it happens.

He reaches a hand out to me, and I take it, feeling the familiar compression as we apparate away.

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The flowers are in bloom, just like Harry said they would be. White, pink, and lavender, all trimmed in glittering frost.

It's quiet here too, but a different sort. The silence here blankets the air like the soft white powder that is settling on the ground, moonlight caressing the crystals. Our breaths hover in front of our faces in small, white clouds, but the haze does nothing to blot out the etched stone in front of which we stand.

Allie Reneé Potter

Warm hands settle on my shoulders-large, strong, familiar. Hands that have held mine in fear, in love, in sorrow, and in happiness. Hands that have pushed me far beyond my comfort zone and shielded me from harm. Now, they feel like anchors keeping me tethered to reality, snatching me back from the enemy, saving me from myself.

"I won't pretend to know what's going on," he begins, his voice hushed, as though he may disturb those who lie sleeping around us, "But if you're leaving, it can't be good. I know you, and I know that you think you can handle everything on your own without telling anyone about your problems, and I'm not saying that's wrong. But I do think it would help-just a bit-if you talked to someone. And maybe that someone isn't any of us."

Chapped lips press against my temple, and he makes to step back and leave.

"Don't."

The word escapes me without my consent, but the desperation in it rings out across the headstones.

"Don't leave."

I crumble. It starts slowly at first, tiny grains of my composure loosening, then falling. By the time his arms wrap around my shoulders and crush me to his chest, I am an emotional landslide, sobbing out the same incoherent apology over and over into a well-worn Weasley sweater.

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"Bloody hell, Hermione."

It's an hour and a half and a long story later, seated on a cemetery bench when he speaks that oft-spoken phrase. I nod in response as I watch tiny snowflakes melt when they hit the arc of Ron's heating charm. I take a moment to admire the strength of his spellwork.

It took years for me to notice a change it Ron. It was subtle, sneaking. The bickering between us began to taper into good-natured squabbles. What was once a friendship, held-sometimes barely-by the string that was Harry Potter, became a bond that could survive unaided. After a while, even Harry began to notice the metamorphosis of Ronald Weasley. The underlying current of jealously that ran beneath their brotherhood trickled down to nothing. He no longer felt the need to compete with The-Boy-Who-Lived, and he slowly began to warm to the realization that, perhaps, he was the one who really had it all: a loving family, unfailing friends, and an adoring fan-base from his dream career. He is still the Ron we know and love, only greater.

We sit in companionate silence as he mulls over my recount of the last few days. I take the time to observe him, his baby blues staring across the headstones. He is a giant who manages to fill any leftover space around him. Where Harry is lean and defined, Ron is bulky and muscular with a build reminiscent of a male gymnast, like an upside-down triangle. Harry is polish and sharp edges. Ron is rough, blurry, and slightly rumpled. Hard and soft. Steel and oak. Scotch and vodka. Each the physical antithesis of the other.

My eyes have slid from the ever-present five o'clock shadow that darkens his jaw to his ruddy, freckled cheekbones when he speaks again.

"She loved you, Hermione. She may not have understood why you were going, but she still would have loved you just the same."

He's being too nice, side-stepping the potential to hurt my feelings.

"No," I reply, "she'd have been disappointed. She saw us as a unit, Harry and I, and I would have been breaking that."

"You don't know-"

"But I do."

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. The ghostly fingers of a headache creep across my temples.

"There was a moment last Christmas when we were sleeping by the tree. She woke up and was asking Harry questions about us. Why weren't we together, and didn't we love each other. He saved it in his pensieve. She would have thought I was abandoning them, Ron…that I was leaving them for something I thought was better.

"I don't want to leave. Playing into his game is the last thing I want to do, but I can't let Darren take that folder public. I feel like he's backed me into the corner of a room that's slowing filling with water-it's his way or drown, and I can't decide which way to die."

I pull my hands away to see Ron hunched over, knees on his elbows, staring ahead.

"Well, that's just it, isn't it?"

I turn to him, confused.

"I, I, I. We're the Golden Trio, Hermione. When was the last time you ever solved something this big alone?"

His simple comment silences me.

His brow is furrowed, and for a moment, I see him in first year astride a stone horse, zigzagging his way across a black and white room.

"You don't see a way out, because that's not what you do. I'm the Strategist. I look at what we have and where everything stands, and I figure out the easiest way to get where we want to go. Harry's the Enforcer; he's the one who carries out the plan and has the blind nerve and quick thinking to come up with an exit strategy."

"And what am I?"

"In the end, you're the Protector. You're the one who looks at everything and tells us what we haven't thought of or what's wrong and how to fix it. You take the parts Harry and I mucked up and make them whole. You know that the devil is in the detail. But above all, you know that keeping us safe and the protecting the plan are tantamount. From what I can tell, you're arse over elbows in solutions and details, when what you really need is a plan and a quick exit…"

I thread my left arm through the crook of his right and lean my forehead against his shoulder.

"But I started this alone. And I'm so far in that I don't even know if it's possible to turn around and start over with a different goal."

"Here's the thing; you've carried on all these years protecting-protecting me, protecting Harry, protecting Allie, and your parents, and God knows who else, but you forgot to protect yourself. You've been so bloody busy being independent that you keep forgetting that we're always here to catch you."

I sigh.

"But this will be such a mess."

He nudges my head with his shoulder.

"Since when have Harry and I run away from a mess? By now, I'm starting to think messes are our specialty."

This gets a small chuckle out of me.

"Hermione, you have to stop seeing this situation as a problem to fix."

I quirk an eyebrow at him.

"And start seeing it as…?"

His grin bleeds across his face as he bows his head to meet my eyes.

"A chess board."

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