395July 21, 2010
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the beautiful Ms. Rowling.
A/N: I apologize if it doesn't flow just so or if the grammar is sketchy. Love you all!
Suddenly I know that I'm sleeping.
Strangely, I can hear the conversations happening around me. Healer Rainer and Kevin are worried and sorry that they didn't believe Remus and me. Remus is angry that they doubted our seriousness. George is angry that Ron and Hermione don't know that I'm here. Fred and Tonks are worried that I'll be awoken by Remus and George's arguing. Remus baits George into guilt by reminding him that the Weasleys couldn't help me either.
Suddenly I'm glad that I'm sleeping otherwise they'd know how downtrodden they are making me feel. It doesn't help that Kevin has come back in and has started interviewing Fred and George on my one day at the Weasley house. One day. And what a horrible day it was too. I spent all of my month with Remus wondering if they were angry with me for leaving them, that is until I saw Ron again, and Mrs. Weasley, Bill and Charlie. They wouldn't have done me any favors if they didn't care for my presence any more.
If only I could have told them how every shadow and dark corner of the Burrow reminded me of crouching Death Eaters and of dark hexes spiraling toward me from nowhere. If only I could have told them how every creak of a floor board or stair reminded me of the heavy approaching steps of new tortures, pain and derision. How, with six people wandering the house, setting off joke fireworks and shouting between rooms, however amiably, the walls seemed to close in and familiar, friendly faces turned fiendish and frightening, all pleasant motives changed to dark deeds and threatening statures. How all I wanted was to hole up in the bath tub with the door locked or to go pealing away from the house in the dark of night and never stop to look back, maybe then I wouldn't have felt so guilty.
I wish Fred and George wouldn't talk about my embarrassingly short stay with them; it was humiliating enough living it the first time but to now see it from their perspective brings fresh shame to the entire situation.
"The night we brought Harry home to the Burrow had been a hard day for every one," George began. "Fred, Ron, Ginny and I were sitting in our room late at night talking about how different Harry seemed. How physically he was beat up, nose still swollen and dark from what looked like a painful break, stomach littered in shades of yellow and puce (most of which we'd only managed to glimpse from his awkward sleeping positions in the Hogwarts hospital wing). He also had and a small hobble that accentuated how hunched over he walked and suggested at another break or at least a sprain.
He looked great considering the circumstances. Otherwise, he looked like he'd just come out of the losing side of a bull fight and was promptly struck by a bus. His humor had changed too. He wasn't interested in any of the things we tried to distract him with. No game, joke, new invention, or bogey hex could bring even a glimmer or hint of happiness to his features. He was too preoccupied with the memories he could see, and the terror that we couldn't.
Mum sat him down at the kitchen table as soon as we'd arrived home. The trip took an exceedingly long time. For some reason, Harry refused to go near the Floo in The Three Broomsticks which we intended to take back to The Burrow. When dad tried to lead him up to the hearth, he pushed his way back, forcing chairs, tables, even Ron and Ginny in front of him so that he couldn't be dragged into it.
"Harry, calm down," dad had said. "What's the matter? It's just the Floo. You've taken it before; there's nothing to be afraid of."
But the look on his face said differently. Harry was downright terrified and didn't care that we all saw it."
"For me, that really hit home," Fred cut in. "We've seen Harry run headlong into some pretty dangerous stuff more than a few times-"
"-and seen him blindsided by something no one expected-" George dropped in.
"-but his being that upset really told everyone that, if we tried to force him into it, we would probably break him." Fred and George were silent for a moment while the memory replayed itself and they contemplated the gravity of all of their choices from that moment on before George continued.
"In the end we walked over to the Hogsmeade train station, Harry's bag hanging over my shoulder, light and virtually empty except for a ratty set of clothes, a toothbrush from Madame Pomfrey, and a book with a chocolate frog from Hermione. Even after our tickets had been purchased and we'd waited for nearly an hour for the train to arrive, he was still hesitant about getting aboard. In the end, mum sent us onto the train first under the guise of finding a compartment for the whole family and then stood with him alone, coaxing and gently guiding him toward the train despite his obvious reluctance. We shamelessly gawked and gaped through the window at how mothering that would have sent us to an early grave from embarrassment, slowly wheedled him into hesitant submission. We lost sight of him as they boarded and silently agreed when he appeared at our doorway to say nothing of the rosy, blotchy stains in his cheeks, only to invite him into a game of his choosing and treat him as if he had only been to use the loo and nothing more. Inwardly though, we all breathed a sigh of relief; it had taken so long we were worried the train might have left without them.
There were very few people on the train and as much as we tried to keep up a lively conversation to hide the vacuum, Harry remained withdrawn and stared almost exclusively out the window. For the first part of the trip, mum sat with him and held his hand tightly; you had to be blind to miss how nervous and upset he was. After our trip was nearly half over though, she whispered something in his ear and left our car with dad to go sit in another. Maybe she thought he would feel more comfortable if she wasn't there; perhaps it was a thought that we could cheer him up if we had more freedom of speech and action. Whatever she thought, it didn't work out. He couldn't be deterred from his staring for any extended period of time and his hands clenched and crushed each other in his lap, seemingly without his own notice. There were a few moments where he turned to us and attempted to engage but he couldn't bring himself to spit out more than a couple miniscule words. After what felt like very short minutes, he would turn away again, either to stare out the window or close his eyes, probably pretending to be somewhere else.
Passing through King's Cross station went considerably better than I thought it would. When I fully expected another episode like the one in The Three Broomsticks, he instead allowed himself to be calmly lead away from the platform through the barrier and to a waiting car by mum. His passivity was only an outward gesture though. He had his eyes tightly closed the whole time, discreetly hugging mum's arm as if he were a vice grip and spent the whole of the walk taking in one long, deep breath after another.
The car ride home was much like the train with all of us straining for conversation and he sitting alone, quietly tense and waiting for normalcy to kick back in.
When we finally pulled into the drive and stepped out of the car, mum asked him if he was tired from the journey and wanted to take a nap before a late supper. When he shook his head no, she insisted that he sit at the kitchen table and she would fix him something to eat. He looked keen on disinclining her request but didn't look like he could bring up any words to express his feelings so he sat down with a sly, slightly defeated look aimed at Ron. I didn't notice if Ron made any reply, but he must have because Harry shook his head and, after propping his elbows on the table, rested his face in his hands. Mum shooed us away then. The last we saw, she was offering him tea and biscuits, homemade rolls, just about anything close at hand. He declined most but held a biscuit in his hand for good measure. Then she spelled her knitted blankets off the couch to hang in the doorways so we couldn't see in anymore. After that we couldn't hear anything else either. Mum's Silencing Charms have always been first rate when she's in a worrying mood.
That was when we headed upstairs for some sibling discussion time. Mostly we talked about how hard it was to see Harry so despondent and tried to figure out what had happened that was so horrible that he wouldn't even look at us for most of the day. His agoraphobia was another hot topic of discussion although Fred and I feared that our guesses were far closer to the truth than any of us would have liked or felt comfortable with.
Later, when we came down from our room for supper, Harry looked even more worn down than before. His hair, much longer and scragglier than I'd ever seen it hung over his face while his head was hung low and although his shoulders tightened as if preparing himself to look up at our faces, he never forced his head to move. As Ginny passed behind him on her way to her seat, she spied a wad of tissues grasped firmly in his hand which lay equally firmly in his lap and she gestured to us to fill us in. Mum gave her a warning look at that and Dad reached over to pat Harry on the shoulder, trying to bolster up some of his courage, I suppose. He nodded at that but otherwise only brought his face up enough so that he could see his place-settings. While mum laid plates of food across the length of the table, everything from roast beef and boiled potatoes to corn and fruit salad, she placed a simple bowl of chicken soup in front of Harry and quietly commented, "Here you are, dear. Maybe this will calm your stomach, ease your nerves a bit." Again, Harry looked down to his lap, almost as if he were ashamed.
"Are you sick, Harry?" Ron asked concernedly. Of all the topics we had talked about upstairs as to his current mood, Harry being ill hadn't been among them. He shook his head though so we were left to wonder what could be bothering him. He's never been nervous at our house before and none of us could figure a reason why he would be all of a sudden. Ginny confirmed mum's words though; she hadn't missed the way his hands twisted in his lap or how his feet kept hooking and unhooking themselves from the legs of his chair like the rest of us had. When most of dinner had passed and he had barely managed a few spoonfuls, all of which were, regrettably, closely watched by all of us, mum suggested again that he go up and take a nap or simply retire for the night. He nodded slowly and cautiously excused himself from the table; we were all fairly silent as we listened to his muted thumping up the stairs to Ron's room and the nearly silent click of the door latch before anyone dared speak.
"What's going on? What did you talk about while we were upstairs?" Ron asked mum after a moment.
Solemnly, mum replied, "Nothing dear; he never said a word.""
I had trudged up the stairs slowly, trying to maintain some semblance of outer and inner calm. Really, all I wanted was to sprint up the stairs and slam the door, block out all intruders. It took a great deal of strength to not prop a chair underneath the doorknob of Ron's room. After all, how would I hide that when he finally came upstairs to go to bed himself?
I sighed exasperatedly – I would have to face Ron tonight. True, I've wanted nothing more than to see him and Hermione again, all of the Weasleys, but Ron would want to know. Know things that I wasn't ready to talk about and, being Ron, he wouldn't relent until I gave him answers or shouted at him and I didn't want either. Instead I did as Mrs. Weasley had suggested and lay down on the spare bed, still fully clothed and although I couldn't sleep, it gave me time to think over the day. Fruitlessly I tried to analyze my fear, calm myself, and make up fake stories to appease this most wonderful of families. In the end, I let my face lay on my pillow and my eyes water, remembering how I still didn't feel safe in the kitchen downstairs, crying harshly into Mrs. Weasley's shoulder, both mother and father rubbing my back, trying to ease my terrible anxiety.
How could I not feel safe? How could all of the terrible things that I'd encountered this summer not fade even slightly under the warmth of their hands? How could my mind betray me so deeply, urging me that Death Eaters were around the corners, behind the china cabinets and mantelpieces, telling me that they were watching me and if I didn't watch for them, I would lose every member of the family I loved so dearly?
"With a great jolt through my heart I heard a tremendous bang! from below and a clatter of dishes. Raised voices drifted upward and I heard Mr. Weasley beginning to shout. Fear and adrenaline flooded my system and I leapt from my bed, my back to Ron's window, hands groping for the latch while my eyes stayed steady on his door, waiting for the knob to turn. It was a moment before my hearing began to register and I understood Mr. Weasley's shouting to be at Fred and George. "No fireworks in the kitchen, boys! Look at what you made Ginny do in her fright!" Another moment and nervous, mischievous giggles escaped and I could see in my mind Ginny glowering playfully at her brothers, warning of retribution as if it were actually happening before me.
Tearing my eyes from Ron's tarnished brass doorknob to glance at the clock, I knew that Ron would be up soon and so I forced myself to clear my mind of all of its riotous thoughts which eventually turned to simply thinking of less terrifying things. I was grateful that I could crawl back into bed, drying my face from the cold sweat that had broken out, flip my pillow over, and resettle before the door opened and Ron came in. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep, even when he whispered my name, came over to check and see if I was sleeping or ignoring him. Thankfully for me he bought my act and left me alone.
My blissful deception wasn't to last however. Just like every night before this that I spent in the infirmary, the nightmares descended, only this time, they were louder. The pounding feet on the stairway echoed and shook the floor boards. The shouting in the hallways crescendoed and fell as doors were thrown open and closed, rooms torn apart in a frantic search for this now frail version of me. As the door to Ron's room burst open and dozens of Death Eaters exploded inward, I sat up, panicked and shaking; breathing hard and eyes darting about the room, settling on the tauntingly closed entrance, waiting for it's movement.
Ron woke nearly as quickly as I and didn't hesitate to ask me what was wrong. After calming my breath a tick, I reached up to rub at my eyes which were stinging with exhaustion and fear. I shook my head, ashamed that I had let myself be suckered into believing that Death Eaters had actually tracked me down so quickly. I lay back in bed again, turning away from Ron, even when he repeatedly called my name.
"I'll go get Fred and George," he even threatened at one point when I still refused to speak but his threat was empty. Instead he said, "You can tell me anything, you know. You're my best mate and I won't tell any one else if you don't want me to." But while his sentiment felt good it didn't ease me and I stayed quiet, silently trying to convince myself that my world was not going to end in a crooked, colorful house in the depths of the country while I was knee deep in a family of still six.
I laid there for hours, glancing at Ron's Cannons clock every few minutes and feeling a little more despairing every time a half hour clicked by. When two-thirty in the morning arrived, I decided to go downstairs. Perhaps a change of scenery would help me sleep; perhaps a biscuit or a glass of water would ease my frantic mind.
In the end, neither worked so I settled onto the couch in front of the hearth, trying to ignore that I had spent much of the last month in this way and closed my eyes. The noises of downstairs were much different than those from the third level – the scraping of tree branches were replaced with the rustling of thousands of tiny brush twigs scrittching on the paneling. A breeze whistled in from under the kitchen doorway and windows. Crumbling ashes and logs in the hearths shifted and coughed on the stones. The stairways creaked with a phantom weight. Even the wind chimes squealed against each other like keys forcing into a lock, deadbolts sliding back dangerously to let in the unspeakable demons of our waking world.
I sat up again in a sweat, pressing my hand firmly against my chest, willing my heart to stop hammering with such fervor. Sound rushed in my ears skittering, squeaking, whispering, and hunting until a voice drowned them all out.
"Harry?" Mr. Weasley asked, all too awake. "What are you doing down here at this time of night? You should be up in bed."
Without saying anything, I turned to the clock on the mantelpiece. 3:10. My heart sank at that. I had slept for all of fifteen minutes.
"Having trouble sleeping?" he inquired. I couldn't bring myself to answer, just breathe. He crossed the room in an allaying but deliberate fashion. "Bad dreams?" Reluctantly, I nod. "You are safe here," he stresses as he sits down in the chair near the couch. "The floo has been closed off; extra wards were placed on the house. We may not have all the repelling charms of Hogwarts, but we have enough to fool most any one. The Aurors came by and made sure of that."
I nod noncommittally at that, trying on one hand to convince myself of his truth, on the other to just appease him and go back to nursing my own fears without the mortification of another's presence.
"Yes sir, there are no stronger wards out there that can be put up in such a short time; Kingsley said so himself. Only used the toughest charms out of the most advanced and ancient books; even added a special family protection charm with Molly just before we left to get you. Only a fool would come by here and try to break in." I fell quiet then. Charms from the most advanced and ancient books – that meant they could be tracked down, researched for counters. It was only a matter of time…
Mr. Weasley must have been trying to interpret my facial expression, incorrectly at that, because he said, "You are family to us, all of us. You have been since Fred and George pulled those bloody bars off your window three years ago. I'm afraid while their intentions aimed for freedom you were really just pulled into the captive madhouse of The Burrow." He patted my arm and I smiled more inwardly than outwardly. "The spell works the same, blood relations or not; you've nothing to worry about." I nod again, but feel far less reassured than I had been only minutes before.
"Is something else troubling you?" he asks, still observing me closely. "Something you haven't told us about yet? Please don't feel closed off from us, Harry. If there is anything at all bothering you, we want to know so we can help you." Thinking dismally on how terrified I am of being captured again and the fear that had overwhelmed me when I was taken the first time, I can't quite bring myself to think of anything else and am forced to shake my head 'no.' "Well, I'm glad for that," he comments kindly. "Would you like a cup of tea? I couldn't sleep myself and was just coming down to get one. Helps to put my mind at ease." Feeling restrained, I nod and give a pithy smile of agreement.
We sit at the kitchen table for quite a while after that but he insists on retiring before four rolls around and walks me back up to Ron's room with a promise that I'll see him again at breakfast. I didn't know whether to be elated or depressed.
"I didn't hear anything from Harry for the rest of the night after he had gone up to bed," George continued to tell Kevin, his quill still scratching quickly, not as fast Rita Skeeter's Quick Quotes, but fast nonetheless. "You heard him come down the stairs and then go back up with dad, didn't you?" he asks Fred and he replies affirmatively.
"I went down to the landing, the one that we spy on people from," he said, addressing George. Back to Kevin he explained, "You can see the living room and hear pretty well, but it's hard for others to see you unless they know where to look. He messed about in the kitchen for a short bit before coming back in and laying down on the couch. There were a few times that I thought he had fallen back asleep, but then he would shift or take a breath and I just knew that he was awake.
I waited awhile before I did anything. I kept telling myself that whatever he was thinking about would blow over and he would crash. There were a few times that I almost went down to talk to him, but I couldn't get mum's words out of my head. 'He's been through a horrifying ordeal, loves. I imagine he's rather embarrassed about the whole thing, and is obviously still very upset. None of us can ever dream of what he's been through; we'll have to be very careful when interacting with him.'
When I couldn't sit idly by anymore and tear myself apart with "Can I or can't I help him?" I went and got dad. I figured he's always been good at cracking us open, maybe Harry would respond to him as well. That and, you know, he's seen his fair share of horrors working at the Ministry and since he started helping Dumbledore with some… research…" he hedged, "well, I figured that he would be the best of any of us to try and get through to him.
I felt bad about waking Dad up, but he insisted that he'd been restless anyway and that it was no matter. I still wanted to go down and talk to Harry myself but I really didn't know what to say. We'd tried to open him up all day and nothing had worked – we hadn't even put a dent in his shell. There was one time when I thought he might have said something to us on the train, but instead he just took a breath and went back to the window.
I stayed on the step and listened to him trying to reassure Harry for, gosh, the next thirty minutes or so but Harry was firm. I think the most sound dad got out of him was a hum. I finally heard them heading back toward the stairs and I took that as my cue to escape to my room. Dad dropped by before going to bed himself and said thanks for letting him know that Harry was upset and that he'd see me in the morning. I wanted to pump him for information, but something about the way dad's shoulders sat told me that I wouldn't like whatever answer I got. Instead, I crossed my fingers and prayed that everything would be at least a little bit better in the morning."
Though my focus is drifting in and out of consciousness, through deep and light sleep, my mind fills in the blanks and when I hear Kevin mumble a question, I somehow know what he asks.
"He looked really awful when we saw him again," Fred replies. "He was sitting at the kitchen table long before any of us got there. He looked small, and frail, almost as if he was a complete stranger in our home and was waiting to be caught after breaking and entering; as if he was preparing his soul for a lifetime prison sentence. His eyes were thick and red; I knew, we all knew, that he hadn't slept the night before. I could hear him breathing in and out, slowly and measured. He didn't even know that George and I had come in until he heard the clatter of breakfast bowls in the cupboard when George went to grab some. I've never seen him start so badly in my life. He's a tough kid, always has been, but, I mean, we've pulled some really nasty stuff on our brothers before and never gotten such a reaction. We asked him if he was okay and he kind of nodded."
"A little too fervently, if you ask me," George cut in.
"Agreed," Fred continued. "The rest of the family slowly trickled in after that and the next twenty minutes or so were like a whirlwind around him. I could see it on his face – I watched him. He just sat there, hunched in on himself, yet unyielding as stone. It was as if the whole world was running on super speed and he was running in slow motion. And still, with every noise he started, or took a deep breath, or closed his eyes tightly. Every time his shoulders tensed, his fingers clenched another shade whiter – every jump became bigger than the last.
When mum finally put breakfast on the table, he looked at about the edge of his very last destroyed nerve. We'd all calmed substantially since we came down; everybody had noticed how jumpy he was. He seemed so nervous the whole time that he didn't even serve himself; Mum filled his plate for him. Before we were a third of the way through, he had his glasses off and was leaning deeply into his hand, very cautiously taking tiny bites of his eggs. Occasionally he would shake slightly with withheld panic, I think, but it wasn't until Ginny accidentally lost her grip on her fork and it clattered to her plate that he lost it entirely. He dropped his own fork then and pulled in on himself completely with both hands over his face and began to shake in earnest.
"It's all right, Harry," dad said immediately, jumping out of his seat and resting a hand comfortingly on his shoulder. The rest of us fell completely silent. Even after Cedric died, and – and his godfather… he had been strong, and now, then, something had broken him. It was then that we all realized, I mean fully realized, how bad off he was. Dad pulled him from his seat then, whispering soothingly, "Come on, let's go out to the porch," and, "Yes, it's going to be all right," things like that. Without thinking, we all pulled our chairs in so that they could pass, Dad consciously or unconsciously shielding him from our view. They went out by the living room and we could see Dad setting him down on the front stoop but after that, they were out of our view from the window.
Mum was flustered. We were all shocked. In the silence we could hear him trying so hard not to cry and Dad trying anything he could think to say to get him to calm down. After a few minutes, which felt like hours because of how awkward we all felt, mum made a mug of hot chocolate for Harry and brought it out to them. I don't know what happened out there exactly but when she came back in, she told us to finish our breakfast and go up to our rooms.
Ron, being Ron, immediately asked why and mum only said, "There's too many of us around right now. I think we are overwhelming him."
"But he's always loved being around all of us," Ron replied, "he's told me so at least a dozen times."
"Ron," mum replied solemnly, "I'm sure while he was... away… a lot of terrible things occurred, and I wouldn't be surprised if they happened when a lot of wizards were present. I know that you are thinking he shouldn't be afraid of us," she cut him off with a hand in the air, "but the mind is a very vulnerable place. What he may hear and see in reality is probably being misconstrued in his head to make him think that he is back, wherever he was. There's nothing that we can do about it except try and ease him out of it and in order to do that, we need to ease him into the size of our family again. So I say again, when you are done with your breakfast, go up to your rooms and we'll get you when we are ready for you. Please," she insisted when we all looked at her with surprise. "Trust us on this. Just, leave your plates on the table and go," she insisted gently.
Ginny nodded although confused, picked up her toast and headed out of the room and up the stairs; Ron, George and I followed her up, whispering to each other the whole time and agreeing on slipping some of our prototype communication strings to each other so we could keep talking – we thought we could come up with a way to bring him back ourselves even though our efforts thus far had been futile.
As it turned out, we were all confined to our rooms for the better part of the morning with only a few updates from Ginny on how he was doing. She could just barely see him and dad out her window if she stood on her bed to get the steepest possible angle. They went in shortly after we were banished though and when mum saw our extendable ear strings wriggling down the steps, she yanked them so hard we lost them and she threw them in the bin. The one thing we all knew for sure though was that he still wasn't talking, not really. We managed to catch him saying that he was scared before mum caught us but that was all. None of us were allowed downstairs for lunch so mum brought us sandwiches and lemonade but when she came up to collect our plates she brought Ron down with her.
Later he told us that Harry really didn't say anything to him, he still sadly denied any sort of verbal communication but consented to playing a slow game of chess."
"Ron told Ginny later," George cut in, "that he's never put so much concentration into a single game before. He could see that Harry was still very upset and he worried greatly that by beating him by the normal margin that Harry would just feel worse, but knew that if he let Harry win, he would know and that would also make him feel worse. He played his hand carefully setting up some of his pieces to take falls but did it carefully so that Harry wouldn't know he was being had. Ron let himself win in the end, he had to, but he'd orchestrated such a close game that he thought Harry would accept it and even feel good about it. He did feel better after the game, but his hands had shaken through the whole thing and continued to do so afterward; even his eyes were still red, his face pale with exhaustion.
"They didn't talk much," George continued, "Ron tried to get him to say anything but he wouldn't make a sound, much like now apparently."
"After another hour or so had passed, Mum had Ginny come downstairs to help with some baking; Harry's favorite biscuits of course," George continued. "We could hear from our room how quiet things were below and we wondered if Mum and Dad's plan was working. After the kitchen timer had dinged a few times, Fred and I decided not to wait for a formal escort and trod as normally as we could down the steps."
"From the spy landing," Fred picked up, "we caught dad's eye and he gave us the nod, a none-too-pleased nod, but a nod just the same. We came down talking about the wonderful smell and how we hoped Ginny hadn't spoiled them or put puking pastilles in them to try and cheer Harry up but Ron only said later that his gaze turned downward and he held his rook all the tighter in his fist.
"We came out with a plate of biscuits and messed about ruining their chess game like we usually do in the common room at school trying to joke and banter like always but to no avail. We even tried dragging Harry to the back porch for a brotherly chat-"
"Because brothers do not do heart-to-hearts you know." George cut in.
"You get suckered in when you only have a sister," Kevin replied morosely to a few chuckles but quickly urged them forward.
"But he wouldn't respond to us. He would only shrug or nod blandly and when we finally went back inside he retreated to the washroom and didn't come back for nearly twenty minutes. Gradually it grew to be like breakfast all over again and dad sent us back to our rooms in reverse order, apparently just before another meltdown that lasted nearly as long as the first.
For dinner we all ate separately. Mum and Ginny together, George and I in our room, dad, Ron and Harry up in Ron's room. It was very subdued and very unnatural for us but we all figured it was for the best. Mum went around and collected our plates when we were finished, dad grabbing our glasses. We only learned in the morning that shortly after that Harry left the burrow for good. It was hard thinking the last that we saw of him was as he was in a panic, struggling to retain himself and that we, however inadvertently, had caused it. He's always been like a little brother to us and to see him so distressed one minute and then find out that he's gone to who-knows-where and who knows if we'll ever see him again the next was... was..."
"Hard," George states simply and without fuss. "Ron was especially broken up about it. He raged for days at mum and dad for not telling him that they were recommending Harry be resituated. He couldn't understand, none of us could, why Harry needed to be away from us but word through the warping ivy is that he's been doing better with Remus which I suppose is all we can hope for."
"So we're sure now you understand what the quarrel between us and Remus is about," Fred added in deftly and I note with despair the use of the term "us" instead of "George." "Ron didn't speak to either mum or dad for nearly two weeks and rarely came out of his room either. We only knew he was alive by a toilet flush and the sight of his owl swooping out of his window with a heavy letter. It should be Ron and Hermione here now, not us. We're sure they've made themselves literally sick with worry over losing Harry twice and we know it would mean the world to them to see him again, no matter what condition he's in, no matter if he can talk to them or only sleep through their visit."
"They need to be here, Kevin," George states with finality, "and we need you to convince Remus that they need to be here too."
"I'll do what I can," Kevin replies earnestly. "He seems like he can be a tough customer, but I'll give it a go. Thank you, honestly. Thank you both for telling me all of this. I think it's safe to say that we probably wouldn't ever get this story from Harry and I doubt Remus knows all of it, although he's already surprised me with his depth of knowledge if Harry really doesn't speak as you all say."
"He doesn't. Or at least didn't, maybe he speaks more to Remus than they're letting on."
"It wouldn't seem all that odd to me. A person in Harry's situation would want and need a confidant and all good confidants are excellent liars," Kevin said with a slight smirk. Without opening my eyes, I know the twins are smirking too; they are after all the best liars at Hogwarts. "Although, I have to ask, could there be any major reason that Remus would keep Harry's closer friends away?"
"No," Fred says after a moment of thought, "other than for protection and safety, for all of them, nothing that I can think of. George?"
"You think I have an idea?" he stated incredulously. "I've been angry with Remus for weeks, terrible to him to his face and you think that I have an idea that would justify his actions?"
"Never mind then," Fred said in mock defense. "Kevin, George says 'no,'" he finishes in a teasing, overly-professorial tone.
"Prat," George mutters.
"Eh, you love me," Fred says offhandedly.
"Doesn't change the truth," George replies.
"Touché," Fred says.
"But seriously," George says, readdressing Kevin, "you've got to find a way to get Remus' knickers untwisted because it's brutal the way he's ignoring our brother and their friend. Harry had terrible nightmares and panic attacks when Ron was around and could at least try to calm him down; I can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like without either of them for so long."
"I promise to do what I can, but I make no guarantees," Kevin repeats. "Remus seems to be very straightforward, no nonsense, and if he can truly read Harry as he suggests he can, then maybe there are motives that we don't see. Maybe Harry doesn't want to be seen by his two best friends."
"What?" Fred and George both reply, flabbergasted.
"It's not terribly uncommon," Kevin asserts. "Sometimes victims just don't want to be seen by those that know them the best; they feel inadequate, embarrassed, and I'm guessing if Harry could speak, that would be one of the things he would tell us. At least I hope he would. I would sincerely hate to find out that Remus or anyone else has just been keeping him holed up for no good reason. I'm sure that's not the case," he continued then stated a little more uncertainly, "don't you two think so?"
There was a considering pause in the conversation which slowly made my skin begin to crawl. They would never – sure, some Order members would love to keep me locked up and in a safe place where they knew that nothing could happen to me, but not without my consent. And Remus especially wouldn't do something like that. I was working up the nerve to speak and refute his questions when my breath was, surprisingly, saved by George. "You're right," he said. "For as angry as I am at the whole situation, logically, nobody would ever do anything to hurt Harry in any way. He's too important to all of us. He's family," and with a sigh of relief, some of the embarrassment from the last thirty minutes has melted away into a comforting peace.
If nothing else comes of this, at least I can wrap myself in the warm knowledge that they aren't angry with me; now I just have to wait and see if I can say the same thing about Remus.
Please, whoever is out there, don't let him hate me.