ron weasley character study
hermione watches her husband play chess, tired eyes flickering over the black and white board. he doesn’t play wizarding chess anymore, he claims it’s too violent for the fragile peace they’re trying to keep. his hands move pieces, shaking slightly. the shake, hermione knows, is due to the empty firewhisky bottle strewn sideways on the ground beside him. is it even empty? she doesn’t know, but she grabs a tea towel anyway, wiping the few droplets that fell from the discarded bottle. her gaze drifts back to her husband, as he gently pushes over a chess piece. the king, she thinks, but she never really learned the rules. he’s playing alone, which is sad, but he says it clears his head. the sweater that once ripped at the elbows from being too tight seems big on him, slipping off his shoulder blade and revealing clear bones that hermione herself has, hiden beneath her dress. she wants to reach out to touch him, but he’s already standing up, his game finished. they don’t touch much anymore, only at night, when nightmares or memories - neither can remember which is which- come slinking in from the darkness. hermione so desperately wishes she could help her husband, but she is barely keeping herself afloat and she knows she has work to do, piles and piles of papers sitting on her desk upstairs, to keep her up like they do every night.
harry is glad the war is over. he has just turned nineteen and he is so alive and he thinks that that is good enough. he downs another muggle shot and grins forcefully and ron, who’s already had twice the amount he has. harry thinks this is good for ron, going out ever friday. they get trashed and forget all about the war and being wizards and sometimes the women that wait for them at home. ron doesn’t, he never does, but sometimes as they take the night bus home, harry can tell by the way ron’s shaky eyes drift over to him, that he knows why harry took so long in the bathroom. harry always dances all night, pushing his best friend into pretty muggles over and over again, hoping something will stick. harry loves hermione, and he knows ron does too but they survived a war, and they won the war, so they deserve to do whatever they need to make them happy. harry knows ron needs a little bit of a distraction. he knows how ron feels when he looks at hermione because it’s the same way harry feels wen he looks at ron’s sister. love and hate and war and so, so many emotions. harry looks at the girl in front of him and he can see his best friend in her eyes and he can see her dead brother in her laugh and he can’t help but remember how she had opened that stupid chamber of secrets. he can’t help it so he thinks he’s earned the ability to make a couple of mistakes from time to time. harry glances over ron, as he takes one more shot, and he figures that getting trashed is enough for his best friend for tonight, and though harry wants to stay, he saw a pretty brunette walking into the back, and he so dearly wants to follow her.