Shall I call on you to guide me well
To see our hopes and dreams fulfilled?
- Honour, by VNV Nation

No one wore green anymore, and they had let the grass begin to die out.

The parched lawn crackled under their feet, splitting beneath their heels, as it yellowed and baked in the sun. It hurt Harry to step on it, and he would take the dirt paths if he could.

"Can't help but want to water it," he said, fisting his bangs and twisting them away from the rusting rims of the glasses that he kept forgetting to replace. They were too tight on his nose.

Ron nodded, with a touch to his elbow. "I know."

No one spoke about green, or thought about green, unless they received one of those letters, unless someone wasn't coming back from the pub or the market or the front step or the alleyway or their bedroom.

The owl swooped in very low, and blinked quietly, and demanded no payment. It would be gone before they broke the seal.

this is how

 

The banners -- Ravenclaw that year -- tossed and tangled, wind shrieking through the gap between quavering glass and the window frame, and Harry bundled them with both hands, forearms locked.

Ron returned with ties and said, "We know he's coming, at least." He tapped his wand to them, and they knotted like wielded steel.

Harry said, gently, "Ron, he's always been coming."

The ties held, and the quiet settled in his stomach, turning it over and yellow like the Dursleys demanded their eggs. Sunny side up.

"So then at least he must be tired," Ron said, "I'd sure be."

There was that shadow of grime along the side of Ron's nose again, like a ghost, and Harry paused before, "There are curtains, still, in the south corridor."

They walked briskly towards it.

this is how

 

The parchment was crumpled on the edge of Dumbledore's desk, a small misshapen ball. Ron should not have been in there.

"I'm securing the dungeons, for the first years," Harry told him, and waited for Ron to say, "Be right there."

Ron said, "I never got why she went and shrank them, her teeth, you know? Never really noticed myself, but. But they were fine. They were kind of just her, weren't they?"

The parchment should not have been in there. Dumbledore had cleared out his things before he left. The Ministry needed anything, everything.

"Are you going to," Harry paused. "Let me have a look at that?"

"No, I don't think so," Ron said.

The fireplace crackled and Ron breathed along with it.

There was ink, traces of scribbles along the turned in edges, but nothing Harry could make out.

"I could just tell you," Ron said, "You see-"

Harry shook his head. "No, I should just-"

"Strong central movement in downtown London," Ron recited, and Harry swallowed and said, "Ron, stop."

"Three fallen at the Granger household. Five more wounded in the town over. Bentley has been missing since Tuesday - might have gone over to the other side."

"Ron," Harry said.

"They weren't bad, were they? I mean, Malfoy laughed at her, but Malfoy was such a wanker and he. I should ask him. I bet he was just saying that, anyway. He asked her to the ball this year, did she tell you? Turned him down flat."

"No, she didn't tell me," Harry said, and clasped Ron's hands in his, his thumbs at Ron's wrists. "I bet that's quite a story."

"It is," Ron nodded, and he told it with their backs pressed up against the armchair, legs criss-crossed across the floor.

this is how the world ends

 

"This is it," Ron said, at the same time as Harry said, "So this is," and they both meant goodbye.

not with a bang

 

"Harry, look at the sky," Ron said, and Harry lifted his head from the damp slope of Ron's wrist. It was cooling his brow.

Dust was creeping closer, and Hogwarts loomed up from the ashes, a familiar backdrop of arrogant crumbling brick. If Harry pressed his mouth to its walls, he knew, it would taste like victory melted upon victory, over and over. Hogwarts had seen this sky before.

The sky was laid wide open before them, smoke clearing, and clouds dotted it like a line of tomorrows, all headed east. Harry took a sliver of it into his lungs, shallow testing breaths, and imagined east: spices and thin dusty roads and an army of sandal sheathed ankles and flying carpets.

He thought, 'If we went there, actually went there, it wouldn't be like that.'

"I'm looking," Harry said, and let his sword rest on the grass, and then his arms on his knees. He watched Ron, still standing, from the ground.

"I take it back," Ron said, and laughed like Harry hadn't heard in a long time. "Don't look so much. Don't like the face it gives you." Right leg braced, he bent slowly and pressed his mouth to Harry's.

He kissed Harry as if he had done it before, mouth moving slick and easy, tasting like sweat and earth, until their eyes closed.

but a whimper

~ fin

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