Let thunder roar & raindrops pour

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Rumble. Rumble. Flash. Flash. Rumble. Rumble. Flash. Shake. Shiver. Tremble.

The thunder growls like an angry dog, rolling across the sky and every now and then the darkness lights up with a sheet of lightning. It crashes all around and the rain, torrential, pours down on the roof like the beating of the drums. The storm is directly over the house and the wind is howling around setting doors to banging and causing the Burrow to creak alarmingly.

He sits in a dark corner of the bedroom with a blanket wrapped round his shoulders. He trembles as another growl resounds around the house. He has a fear of thunder and he kind of wishes he was at home where his grandmother would comfort him. He loves his Uncle Harry but he doesn't want him to think he is a pansy. So he just sits quietly trying so hard not to look out the window and trying to drown out the nose by wrapping the blanket around his ears.

Just then the door creaks open and he peers out of his blanket to see five year old Lily Luna Potter coming into his room in her tiny maroon dressing gown with her fiery red hair tucked behind her ears. She wanders over to him in the corner and crouches down beside him gently patting his arm with a hand that still has lingering baby chubbiness.

"It's okay, Teddy," she tells him seriously as she parks her little bottom on the floor next to him. "You don't need to be scared."

He bristles with indignation because she's five and he's fifteen so surely he should be comforting her instead of it being the other way around.

"I'm not afraid," he says, a statement that is undermined when there is another clap of thunder and he trembles next to her. She smiles and pats her little chubby hand against his arm once more before she rests her head against his bony shoulder.

"You've always been afraid of the thunder, Teddy," she says quietly, "just like Uncle Ron is afraid of spiders and Daddy is afraid of Mummy. It's okay to be afraid sometimes."

He smiles a little as the room is illuminated by another flash of lightning.

"What are you afraid of Lily?" he asks her as yet another clap of thunder resounds around them.

She looks thoughtful for a moment, her little brow creased in concentration before it brightens suddenly.

"Nothing," she tells him.

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Fourteen years later Lily's nineteen and he's twenty nine. They're sitting in the same bedroom at the Burrow. Outside the thunder rolls and the lightning spasms across the sky. His eyes dart wildly around the bedroom as a hand tightens on his arm.

"It's okay to be afraid," she murmurs.

He smiles.

"What are you afraid of Lily?" he asks.

She ponders for a moment.

"Losing you," she whispers, "that's what I'm afraid of."

"That's a silly fear," he replied squeezing her to him.

"So is yours."