BEATER 2: Write about Ron's relationship with a member of the Order of the Phoenix (aka Sirius Black), Additional Prompts: (object) skull, (image) ww featureadams. htm, (word) potential, (song) For the Rover - Nickelback

Magical & Mundane Literature: Genres TASK 2: Write about an post-apocalyptic/dystopian future.

Word Count: 1,033

trying to breathe

Somehow, Ron had never quite realized how grim funerals can be until right this moment. And that's despite the fact that he's attended more than he cares to name in the twenty short years of his life.

(There had been that of his father, of his brothers Charlie and Fred, of Seamus, Neville, Pansy, and Blaise whom he knew from the few years he spend at what he supposes can classify as a school, even that of his old rival Draco had died a honorable death.

It is not a complete list, not by far.)

And now he's standing here over Harry's grave with only Hermione, Luna, Ginny, and Sirius left on his side since they had been separated from the rest of their group a few years ago — he has to believe they are still alive — and he can't even cry anymore. It is like he has used up all of his tears, a thought which makes him even sadder.

Nevertheless, he cannot bring himself to show any outward emotion, instead just standing there stoically.

It's not what Harry would want. He would like them to just move on, and he deserves to know they care. This is neither.

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"Do you ever get the sense that human skulls probably should bother you more than they do?" Harry had once asked on a rare day they weren't fighting for any supplies or trying to find a new safe place to sleep for the foreseeable future. It's a reasonable question, after all this place is filled to the brim with them and none of them had even really reacted anymore.

"Since I can't see them, I just keep pretending there are none," Ginny says, absently moving her hair out of her face to reveal a set of scars over what had once been her eyes. "So far it's been working fairly well."

"Desentiation is a horrible thing," Hermione agrees from her place halfway underneath Harry who in turn is also halfway on top of Ron. "Given how many of them are lying around, it's not all that big of a surprise that we got used them."
"Doesn't make it any bloody less horrible," Ron responds. He really despises how he can look directly at a human skull without any hint of disgust now. The sadness, too, takes an ever increasing moment to register.

Sirius doesn't say anything. He just looks on with a sadness in his eyes that screams 'I'm sorry you have to go through this.'

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There's an arm placed around Ron's shoulder-stump from behind.

Sirius, the man who has lost just as much as Ron had himself, if not more.

"Does it get any easier?" Ron asks. He doesn't even know why, he knows the answer.

"No," Sirius responds softly. "You just get more used to the hurt as time goes on."

The moon rises above the abandoned farm that is currently their home. Not much of the food here is still edible and it's clear that the people who had lived here hadn't gotten a chance to flee.

Harry had wanted to bury them and now he is right there in the ground there with them, in the only grave marked with more than just an empty cross — after finding a bible, cross, or both in every room of this house it felt safe to assume.

"He deserved so much more," Hermione states, absently caressing her swollen stomach with what is left of her right hand, the scars a stark contrast to her dark skin.

Ron's not sure if he hopes the baby is his or Harry's. On the one hand, there's the potential that they have something left of the man they loved, but on the other hand the child deserves to meet his parents and if it's Ron's it is at least sort of the case.

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The first time the three of them had laid together was the very same night Ron had lost his arm when a landmine exploded too close to him.

It was fairly easy, just barely after they had ran away from the town that had housed them for their lives so far.

Their parents — well, those of Ron and Hermione — told them a tale of cities much grander than the huts their town had consisted of. They told the tale of progress and innovation, destroyed by a desperate war for resources when there had been other options all along.

The new government does not like these tales. They want to appear as saviours when they are not.

They had destroyed their town when Ron had been eleven and he and the other children had been told to run to the river until they could no more.

The only adults that appear after them are Ron's mother, Bill, Harry's godparents, Tonks, and Kingsley.

Their numbers only decrease over the years.

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Sirius is the adult who had been in his life the longest.

He's the one who held all of them when they needed it, even when he looked like he needed it just as much himself. He's been their rock, their leader.

And Harry had been his son in all but blood.

Ron knows he must be trying to feel strong, but Sirius, too deserves the chance to be weak at times. At least now that they are all grown up in every relevant sense — it's not like they ever had much of a childhood in the first place.

He turns around so he can give the older man an one-armed hug — the only kind Ron can still give — and before he knows it, the three women have all joined in.

"We'll get through this. We'll survive," someone whispers against Ron's back. Maybe it's Luna or maybe it's his sister. It only becomes clear once Luna responds from the side.

"Together we can make it."

Ron's not sure if they're just saying this, but it's a nice thought.

The kind of thing Harry would have said, they all know that.

Sirius's eyes meet Ron's and both of them finally start sobbing.

He never thought that only barely being able to breathe through tears could be this comforting.