Harry Potter One Shots

On the Subject of Grief

All rights belong to the author, fragilestrength

And I don't wanna hear you tell yourself,
That these feelings are in the past,
No, it doesn't mean they're off the shelf,
Because pain is built to last,
Everybody sails alone,
Oh, but we can travel side by side,
Even if your faded,
You know that no one really minds."
-Heal Over by KT Tunstall

The only way Hermione could think to describe it was "death watch," but that was inaccurate. Fred was already dead. She would have called it shock if she hadn't known that it was precisely fourteen days since his passing and that they were all long past shock. As it was, she could only call it some sort of twisted vigil, a cultural difference between Muggles and wizards that she had not yet encountered. She felt like an intruder sitting there, watching what was left of the Weasley family grieve. Vaguely, she wondered if Fleur or Harry felt the same and answered her own question immediately. This was the only family Harry had, and she was relatively sure Fleur was incapable of feeling uncomfortable. No, she was all alone in her uneasiness, all alone in her inability to draw some ridiculously small comfort from the familiarity of those around her.

Ron was on her left, beside her on the couch. He had pulled his legs up to his chest and his chin rested there, cobalt blue eyes staring unseeingly forward. Harry was on her right, head in his hands, and Ginny was curled, cat-like, in a love seat, eyes closed, head tipped upwards as though praying, and Hermione could see the clean streaks that her tears had made as they fell. Poor George - who was perhaps the worst to watch, to analyze - leaned over the back of Ginny's arm chair, neck craned at an awkward angle as he stared unblinkingly into the fire. His face was pale, drawn, eyes sunken. Percy seemed to find some fractionally small comfort in pacing. Hermione had passed a half hour pretending that she could see the rut that she was sure he was wearing in the already thread-bare rug. Bill was watching it rain, standing in the doorjamb protectively close to the chair Fleur was stretched out in. She had fallen silent after several failed attempts at lightening the mood and was now apparently asleep, frowning and pale faced as though even her dreams were full of despair. Charlie was splayed out on the floor biting his fingernails off slowly, one by one. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were curled up on the one remaining couch, Molly's eyes closed as she rested against her husband's chest. Hermione watched them the most when she couldn't stand the grief any longer, pretending that maybe one day that might be her and Ron - or, when her cynicism got the best of her, Harry and Ginny.

Hermione Granger didn't know much about grieving - she'd always skipped past the grieving process, bottling it up, leaving her in a perpetual state of denial and unreality - but she thought that maybe the Weasley family was taking things too slow. Two weeks from the fact and nine days from the funeral, and still every moment was spent here, waiting stiffly, silently in the sitting room, lost either in thought or in numbness, Hermione couldn't tell. She had attempted to escape several times ("Really, - I don't mean to intrude, I'll just go and be with my parents-") but every time Mrs. Weasley had shut her down without opportunity for appeal ("Hermione, dear, you know we love you like a daughter - please stay!"). She was forced to stay by the bite of Mrs. Weasley's weakness in the "please", watching the family grieve and feeling out of place. Since yesterday when Fleur had finally given up any hope of conversation and Harry had stopped smiling sadly around at them all, waiting optimistically for a smile that both he and Hermione knew would never come, it had been silence. A new routine. Which made it all the more shocking - glaringly, blatantly obvious - when Ron had slowly, long limbs popping slightly, finally risen to his feet.

All heads, save George and Fleur's, snapped towards Ron at once and the slightest ghost of a smile flickered on Hermione's face as Ron cringed away from the completely horrified looking glares as though they were causing him physical pain. He'd broken the silence - the vigil? - and, Hermione noted dryly, from the look on everyone's faces he might as well have just jumped off a bridge. Through the drowsy, melancholy fog that was enveloping her mind, Hermione wondered if people even thought about committing suicide in the wizarding world. She shook that thought aside as she was jerked back to the present by Ginny's shaky voice.