Harry Potter One Shots

Reflection

All rights belong to the author, greatestheights

Ron's never liked his reflection, and these days, he hates it more than ever.

He sees the same old Ron in the mirror—tall, gangly, messy ginger hair, cobalt eyes, too many freckles, ears that never fail to give away his true emotions—and somehow, every time he catches sight of himself lately, he feels sick.

He may look like the same old Ron, but he doesn't feel like whoever that person is anymore. He feels old and tired and unbearably sad, and sometimes he thinks the weight of everything will crush him. He didn't know how much he'd miss Hogwarts—he sure as hell hadn't counted on this ache, this horrible ache inside him whenever he wakes up and finds he's not in the familiar four poster. He'd never thought this was going to be a jolly day trip, or anything, but he'd also never reckoned it would be so damn hard.

He's stopped sleeping at night, for the most part. He always tells Harry and Hermione he'll take first watch, and then never bothers to wake them up once they've gone off to sleep. Ron sits in the hotel room by the door or window, holding his wand loosely and staring unseeingly into space, edgy and nervous. Sometimes, he paces, other times he goes to Hermione's bed and watches her sleep, bites his lip to stop himself from whispering her name or stroking back her hair. She's so beautiful, she's so good, she's so...so...

So Hermione.

He can't bear the thought of losing her to this war, can't imagine life without her, and he lives with a constant, nagging fear that if he even allows himself a moment's rest, he'll wake up and find her gone—bed neatly made, all the girly things in the bathroom vanished—as though she's never existed to begin with. When watching her gets to be too much, he goes and sits by Harry, who he's equally as terrified of losing, and equally as protective of, but in a different kind of way. Harry may not be related to him by blood, but he's as good as Ron's brother—

the little brother he's never had—and dammit, the kid needs somebody to look out for him, somebody to be there for him while he's doing this bloody saving the world business. If Ron feels the burden of what they're trying to do, Harry must feel it a thousand...no, a million times over, and Ron hates to see his best mate suffer more than he already has. He hates to hear his troubled mutterings in his sleep, and he's startled when one night, he hears Harry murmuring,

"No, Dad, please don't leave...don't leave—no, Dad! No!" Harry kicks under the blankets. "No, Mum, don't save me...don't save me, I don't want to live Mum, just go, just go, please just—no, don't kill her—you...you..." Harry chokes out a sort of sob in his sleep, and Ron realizes with a horrible start that he's reliving the night they died.

Ron puts his head in his hands, angry for Harry and miserable for him, too—wishing that he'd never had to go through this, that none of them have.

"Ginny," Harry says quietly now, "no, not Ginny." Ron raises his head and stares intently at Harry, who is curled in a tight ball, trembling. "Please not her, I'll do anything...anything—"

Ron can't watch Harry suffer anymore, and he doesn't want to wake him up and tell him he's talking in his sleep. Harry hates it when Ron knows what he goes through, he thinks it makes him seem weak.

The nightmare will pass, it always does.

Ron goes back to sit by his post at the window, too tired to sleep.

Hopelessness at this level doesn't exactly allow for restfulness.

They're going to die.

Hermione thinks this matter-of-factly as she crawls out of bed and goes to the tiny, filthy window across the room.