Bathwater

Keeping the Peace

"Like you really know about war," Ron looked over his shoulder, making Ginny aware that she had not been silently thinking these things to herself, but rather had voiced them to her brother and Hermione. "You weren't there for half of the shit we went through. Only we know what it was like not to have allies, to be living in forests, cold and—"

"I don't know what it's like? Me?" Ginny demanded, her pale, freckled cheeks growing red. "Me who was possessed by Voldemort?"

Hermione wedged herself between the siblings, hoping Ginny would not launch herself to beat Ron with her fists until his white skin was a few shades of blue and green. "Please," she said carefully to both before fixing her worried, brown eyes on Ron, "let's just eat before classes start."

Ron looked down at where Hermione had placed her hand on his chest. He took a shaky, deep breath before pushing her touch away. He turned back to the Gryffindor table, yanking a plate full of his favorite breakfast foods and stole silverware from an unsuspecting girl nearest to him. He dropped himself down in an open space, also aggressively reaching for a goblet of pumpkin juice that splashed as he did. 

Knowing better than to comment further on the matter, Hermione sat beside her best friend with only a tiny, sympathetic smile aimed at Ginny. 

She understood where Ginny was coming from, of course. The girl had been in love with Harry Potter the moment her eyes first spotted him at King's Cross Station—before he ever became the Savior, the Chosen One. Long before he became one of the strongest wizards alive. Of course Ginny loathed how everyone had turned their backs on him, unwilling to accept the concrete evidence that Voldemort had come back from the dead, raising his army of Death Eaters and monstrous fanatics to kill on his command. She would never forgive the world for leaving him defenseless, for letting him lose so much before they lost, too. 

She would never forgive the world for forcing a boy to become a man in order to save them. 

"And where have you been?" Ron demanded with a mouth full of scrambled eggs when Harry approached the Gryffindor table. 

Harry grinned at the pieces of food Hermione was disgustingly brushing from her shoulder, yelling at Ron to close his mouth. "McGonagall summoned me," he told his friends before pressing a light kiss on Ginny's forehead, wrapping an arm warmly around her waist. "Just wanted to make sure I was sure I wanted to be here. She said she'd allow me to return next year in case I need more than a few months to...y'know, recover."

"Doesn't McGonagall know Mum had this conversation with you before we boarded the Hogwarts Express?"

Harry shrugged at Ron's comment. "She worries. That's all."

At the awkward, tensed silence that was forming around them—the one that had been following them around every time they were together, the one that was intent on reminding them the war they had won had left them with different kind of scars—Hermione cleared her throat, forcing a big smile on her face.

"This year is going to be great, isn't it? Absolutely boring."

Harry offered her a chuckle. "Is that a good thing, 'Mione?"

"Considering you three have never had just a boring year," Ginny chimed in with a grin, "I'd say yeah, boring is good. Quidditch matches and Hogsmeade trips."

"And studying," Hermione stressed, brows knitting. "This is our last year. We have to graduate with exceptional N.E.W.T.s if we even want a chance to get into a respectable university, let alone qualify for respectable jobs."

"There's nothing boring about Death Eaters, is there?" Harry, Hermione, and Ginny stilled at Ron's cutting words. All three of them twitched to reach for their wands as an instinct before they followed his line of sight.