When I find him, Harry is curled on my bathroom floor, the top of his head pressed flat against the tub, his glasses floating in a cloudy soup of toilet water and sick. At the sound of my feet against the tile, he drags his head around, opening one clenched eye a slit, and then turns back toward the toilet.
"Everything's under control, here," he says, wrapping his fingers around the porcelain. "Go back to bed…" Pulling himself up, then slumping forward onto the rim, he says, "Just toss my cold carcass out with the rest of the rubbish in the morning." He rolls his face on the edge of the bowl and spits. I snatch his glasses out from the sour muck as his body heaves, just before he can honk all over them, again.
His hand scrabbles against the tank, feeling for the flush, as I stand at the sink pumping hand soap, covering the lenses and wire frames. I scrub as the water runs from cold to tepid, from tepid to hot. Seeing steam, I leave his glasses beneath the boiling stream in the basin and pull a towel from the rack as he sinks to the floor. I double it over and kneel, then push my fingertips around the curve of his head.
"Up," I say. He rises and I slide the towel beneath his ear.
"Thanks," he says, then groans, turning his face into the plush, white cotton. His voice muffled, I can only make out the words, "hate", "die", "puddle", and "Ron's dribble."
I kill the hot water and prop his glasses against the green tumbler I keep the ear buds in. "Ron hardly uses this bathroom," I say, grabbing a face cloth from the stack on the shelf and soaking it with cold water. Stepping around him, I flick the hallway light on and the bathroom light off. His profile re-emerges, wincing in the dimness. "So," I say, kneeling over him, "if you were to die in anyone's dribble, it'd be mine."
I smooth the wet cloth against his forehead. His eyes close as the edge of his lips curl up slow.
"Dirty girl," he mutters.
"Mm. You'll be all right for a minute on your own? I'll be right back." I touch his shoulder and stand. He nods once and curls up tighter on the tile floor.
I hope this doesn't turn out to be a singular phenomenon applicable only to Weasley's, but I've found the best way to alleviate most of the sickness from guzzling a fifth of clear, pine smelling liquor is two thick, spongy slices of white bread with a nice hunk of Cheddar in between. The principle theory is solid: Lower the blood alcohol level by eating. Still, it's just enough to get one through the night, so I go ahead and rummage for the hangover potion while I make tea. Ten cheese sandwiches won't fix the mess he'll be in the morning.
I leave the potion on the end table next to the sofa where he was sleeping and carry the mug and the plate to the bathroom. He rolls over with his eyes closed when the plate clatters against the tile.
"I've brought you some tea. Can you sit?" I steady him with my free hand as he hoists himself up. He stares at the mug and swallows hard. I can see the sweat glaze the skin beneath his eyes. Daunted, he turns back toward the toilet.
I sit in the doorway and push the plate toward him. "Harry, eat this. It will help, I promise."
He stays heaped across the toilet lid for a minute, then sits up and wipes his face, then hands, on the damp cloth. I hold up the plate and he takes the sandwich, bites off a corner, and chews. He doesn't require an audience, so I wedge myself inside the door frame, lean back, and shut my eyes. Across the hall, through the bedroom door, I can hear the sucking sound of Ron's snoring. Apart from that, the flat is silent except for the mush noises Harry makes as he chews. Eyes closed, listening as one rhythm plays over the other, I don't realise I've begun to drift until Harry's voice pulls me back to the bathroom.
"Thanks, Hermione."
"Hm?" I blink and lift my head, dazed.
"And here I was beginning to think," he says, laboriously shifting to lean against the open door, "you didn't care, anymore."
"About…?" I nudge the mug closer to his leg. Grasping the handle, he lifts. Light sketches across the top of the tea as it trembles in his hand. He squints down into the liquid darkness, presumably searching for cream. "It's black," I say. He stares at it a moment longer, then takes an experimental sip.
He swallows then mumbles into the mug. The words slip unheard around the brim, and I shake my head and lean forward. "Pardon?" He pulls the mug from his lips, sloshing a few drops of tea down the side, as his eyes roll up to meet mine.
"All night, I'm waiting." He raises his empty hand, then swipes it through the air. "And nothing. Not a word when I'm swimmin' through that bottle at the pub… head lolling in the toilet- still, you keep to yourself." His voice sounds seared and low, and his face hangs in my direction as he speaks. "I mean, I've been… monumentally stupid tonight, Hermione… beyond intolerable. And you," he leans back, draws his knees up, and points at my chest, "you haven't so much as huffed in my direction. And, honestly, I'm sick of waiting for the dressing-down, so if you if could just go ahead and have done, I think we'll both sleep a whole lot better, tonight."
I blink at him, stung, disarmed. Even through the heavy lids and the slight slur, I can tell he's not playing. He means it. All night, he's just been waiting for the vicious, harping bint to come out and crack her whip.
This is what Harry thinks of me.
"Right," I look down and fiddle with the hem of my pyjama top. "I…I've nothing to say. It's only been a few days. You're allowed a little time…" To grieve, I almost add, but stop myself. "And… I suppose it doesn't feel like my place, anymore. You're a grown-up, now, wearing your big boy pants…" I glance at him and he grins, undermining my point completely.
But then his face changes, droops down. He lets loose a twisted chuckle then closes his eyes. "Yeah. We're all grown up, now, aren't we?"
And I can't pin-point the inherent tragedy of these words, but I feel it stretching between us, an allusion to freshly painted walls, to empty cupboards and a hallway lined with boxes, rattling with the few things he bothers to call his own. This phantom outline of his new life, it's just another forever empty space where something good used to be, and, suddenly, I have to tilt my head back to hold in the tears. He shouldn't be here, anticipating a tongue lashing on my bathroom floor. He should be elsewhere, curled around sweet-smelling hair and freckles, still cocooned in the adolescent faith that everything, with this person beside him, could be all right.
But that's over, and he won't tell why, so I'm lost for the right thing to say. Instead, I look for something to do. I collect the plate and am searching for the face cloth when I see the black smear against the tile. The trail of whatever it is leads to the black tip of Harry's white sock.
"What's happened to your foot?" I reach up and flip on the bathroom light. The black turns to red.
He doesn't open his eyes. "Bashed it on the way. Aches a bit," he says.
"A bit? Take that sock off so I can have a look." I stand and step around him as he tugs at the elastic around his ankle. He slides the sock away and shows me five blood stained toes, the largest split deep down one side of the nail.
"This," he says, "is why I shouldn't drink." He bends the bleeder, squinting dispassionately down as the tiny, red chasm of flesh spreads and closes.
"Stop. You'll make it worse." I leap up and burst through the bedroom door, heading straight for the medicine cupboard in the master bath. I grab the Essence of Ditany and then detour to my night stand for my wand. Ron stops snoring and raises his head.
"Whas happenin?"
"Nothing. Harry's cracked his toe. I've got it."
Back in the bathroom, I settle a legs length away and draw Harry's foot into my lap.
"Once, when I was little, my dad sliced his finger on the mower blade," I say, waving my wand, clearing away the dried blood. "At the time, I thought I wanted to be a doctor, so I was hovering around, getting in the way. The cut was really deep, and even I could see he needed stitches, so when he sent me to look for the Super Glue, I sort of suspected he was just trying to get rid of me while he sewed himself up." I pick up the little bottle, unscrew the dropper top, and squeeze, measuring. "So I hurried, found the glue, and ran back. Hold still, now." One drop of Ditany sinks into the split. There's a hiss and a wisp of green smoke. "And I was so disappointed. He was just sitting on the side of the tub, waiting with his finger wrapped in a cloth. No needle. No thread. And I must have looked entirely deflated, because he laughed at me, then he let me run the bead of glue over his cut while he held the skin together." Harry's toe is whole again, the new skin pearl pink and glistening. "I wish he could see this."
"So, bust your toe open on the coffee table next time you go round." I snap my head up to find Ron's shoulders, stiff and bull-broad, filling the doorway. He's looking down at me, the set of his face flat and mean as his eyes bore into my lap. I look down to Harry's foot. The top branching with blue veins and the knobby suggestions of bone, the rectangular toes, the pale apricot wash of the sole- it's all cradled in my warm palm as my thumb stretches behind the lump of his ankle and into the fine, dark hair of his leg. A pulse of hot/cold panic rolls through my body, and when I look back, Ron has turned from me and is speaking to Harry. "All right, then, mate?" he says.
Harry looks pinned, as if the sudden swell of tension has forced him flat against the door. "Yeah. Good."
Ron nods, then turns and slouches back to the bedroom. The door thuds softly as it closes behind him.
"Well," I say, guiding Harry's foot to the floor, "I think we've spent enough time in the loo for one evening." I begin to reach all over, manically gathering the detritus of the night. I snatch the towel and face cloth from Harry's side and lean for the mug, but he covers it with his hand.
"'S not even cold, yet." Close to my ear, the texture of his voice, the scratch and stir of air around each sound, seizes me. I take a long breath. The smell of pub- of smoke and wood wax and a hint of stale grease- lingers in my hair and on his shirt. I turn my face to his, near enough now that he can see my weariness clearly. "Ron's angry," he says. "I should go."
"No." I sit back on my heels, clutching the laundry in one hand. "Whatever it is, it's nothing to do with you." I Vanish the cloth and towel to the hamper in the bedroom, then stand. I grasp his wrist and help him from the floor. On two feet, he staggers a bit, and I raise an eyebrow and smirk.
"Ah, there it is." He grins, circling his finger sloppily through the air in front of my face. "That's what I've been waiting for." I pluck his glasses from the sink and hand them over. He fits them over his ears as I move past him to pick up the plate and the mug. "I've got those," he says, taking them from me. "I'm heading that way."
"We could swap," I say. "I'll take the sofa, and you can bunk with Ron."
He snorts and shakes his head. "I'm lonely, but, no. Thanks."
It comes at odd times, now, the overwhelming compulsion to just hold him near. I stopped acting on it years ago. For so long, it's been someone else's place. Tonight, though, I reach out, wrap my fingers over his shoulder and pull him close. His hands are full of dishware, but he sags against me, heavy as the dead, and, for a few seconds, he lets me hold him up.
He takes a deep breath, then sighs it away. He says, "Maybe this is what I was waiting for," then he's through the door, shuffling down the hallway, the plate dangling at his side. I want to follow, to make sure he'll be okay, but Ron's in the bedroom, not snoring. I take a last look at the bathroom. The smear on the floor is gone, wiped away by someone's clothes, but Harry's sock lies bent on the floor. I pick it up and clean it with my wand, then stretch it over the doorknob and turn out the light. The bulb in the hallway I leave burning, just in case he needs to find his way.