ethrosdemon ||| Harry Potter

War: In Nox Veritas
by ethrosdemon
naturallycalm@yahoo.com

Wind whipping her robes around her, Hermione rejoices being out of the elements and safely behind twenty sets of barriers. That is, for about ten seconds.

"I'm not after takin' no blows for himself no more, Hermione," Seamus doesn't even greet her, his normally cherubic face screwed up in what passes for a frown on him. He's wearing Muggle clothes, like he always does around the house, a habit he picked up when he went underground for a year. Wool socks, tattered jeans and a "Vote Labour" t-shirt. His fringe hangs in his eyes, and he looks somehow hollow.

She flips her bag onto the tiled table, shifts out the parchments she needs, and sits facing him. Seamus can hardly loom, but he gives it a good go. Face gone livid, hands whirling above his head, mouth puckered into a kiss of ire.

"Who was it this time?" She has no time for this. Actually, she can't remember when she *did * have anything approaching the time for personal business. Not her own, strictly speaking, but there never was a time when Harry's business wasn't hers either.

Seamus marches back to the stove, using a wooden spoon as makeshift wand, vegetables dancing and hopping into a pot. "Laura. Laura Madley." He indicates his supreme disapproval with a cyclone of cabbage.

'Here we go' thinks Hermione. Seamus had taken it upon himself in the past couple years to succour the most naïve and softest recruits. The people who were too sheltered by family or by fate to have seen much chaos or pain directly. Seamus looked out for those who needed to be taught what most of the inner circle had learnt by bad luck or through rigorous training their last years at school and first years working. His heart was expansive, and with so many he loved gone, there was always room for one more for him.

Hermione calls up Laura from her bank of 'hope they don't die on my watch'. A Hufflepuff possessing peaches and cream skin, golden ringlets she'd recently shorn into a bouncy bob, a saucy figure, and not a lot of sense about men. The sigh builds in her chest, but she figures it'd spark a high volume diatribe from Seamus.

Hermione hasn't seen Harry in almost a week. She'd been in Hogsmeade, one of their rallying positions, dictating the newest passwords and updating the group leaders on the antidotes to the Vomerus potions that had recently decimated most of Wales. After two weeks of constant puking, that flank was extremely weak, and they expected a full out assault somewhere else, the copious vomiting being a diversion.

All told, it wasn't a horrible conference. Snape only called her 'an incompetent, short-sighted schoolgirl' in front of more than ten people once. She only threatened to set him on fire twice. They were at a détente.

When she goes away, she assumes Ron keeps Harry close. Sometimes she's wrong. Ron has his own agenda, often unmentioned. He makes sure everyone stays alive, beyond that his behaviour becomes more erratic, the pattern shifting with his moods and particular objective of the day. Ron can't always be arsed to obsess jealously over Harry or to pull rank on one of Harry's fancies for the good of all involved.

Hermione gave up censoring either Ron or Harry when they were out of her sight years ago. It's just…too much. That's all there is for it. She has responsibilities, some for people who can't even conceive of magic or the looming apocalypse. Relinquishing imagined control over Harry and Ron cost her emotionally; it caused her to look far too closely at herself, her own failings and personality flaws. One of her main mantras is: 'I can't control everyone; they are sentient humans beings; their mistakes aren't my fault.' Like most self-affirmations, it only works when she really believes it, and that is rarely.

Still, the fact that Harry doesn't sleep alone isn't on the top of her agenda today. Since they left school, as far as Hermione knows, he hasn't spent a night alone in a bed, on a floor, in a field, cave, gutter. Never. Somehow people just accept it. Most people. Not Seamus, apparently. Not really Ron either, but that's a horse of a different color. Hermione envies his energy sometimes, the constant struggle to make sure there's some body filling the space next to him every time he closes his eyes. Maybe it's not the energy but the ability to expend it in that seemingly frivolous pursuit. Seemingly because the reality is that the impetus for a bedmate stems from his fear of never waking.

"She's a sweet girl, Mione." Seamus clinks glasses together to get her attention.

"They all are, Seamus." Her tone warns him to drop it, but this is Seamus, anything short of a blow to a head is flirting to him.

"Hermione." She waves her wand towards the scotch he sets on the counter, levitating it towards her.

"Was she crying?" He sends the glass over to her, and she attempts a smile, never too hard with Seamus.

"Don't they all, darlin'?" And that was pretty much the problem. His unconscious ramblings, usually nonsensical, often terrifying. They all cry at some point. It might be the next day, a few weeks later, depends on the person, how many nights they share with Harry, their own baggage. As many variables as life holds, infinite and very specific to an individual.

*They * always cry. Hermione hasn't ever, but she's spent some time wondering who makes *him * cry in his sleep. She wonders a lot about that, about lots of things, really.



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