Title: Days of Awe
Author:  Lorien_Eve
Pairing:  Harry/Ron
Rating:  PG
Genre:  Drama/Angst
Archive:  You’re more than welcome, just let me know!
Spoilers:  Just from OotP.
Disclaimer:  They’re all J.K. Rowling’s.  Sadly, not one of them belongs to me.  I promise, the books would have a much different rating if they did.
Feedback:  Yes, please!
Summary:  Harry and Ron are separated in a battle against an army of Death Eaters. Harry thinks Ron’s dead. Ron thinks Harry’s not coming back. They find consolation in other people and places. Lives are changed and loves are destroyed when they meet again.

Author’s notes: A huge thanks to Lena, who, only through dedication and a strong stomach, was able to beta some of the later chapters.

Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering in order that they may have existence.
-Leon Bloy

“It’s nice to be home,” Harry said, taking off his coat and hanging it on the peg next to the front door of their flat in London.

“You’re not kidding,” Ron sighed, not bothering with hangers and throwing his own coat into the nearest chair. He laid the side of his face against Harry’s back and put his arms around his waist. “Sometimes I don’t think these days will ever end.”

Harry knew exactly what Ron was talking about. They both worked as Aurors for the Ministry of Magic, and rarely a day went by when there wasn’t a simple excitement that they had both made it home at night. Like locating the mate to an odd sock, or discovering a forgotten knut in your pocket.

“What’s for dinner? I’m starved,” Harry said, raising one of Ron’s hands and kissing the back of it before picking up his discarded coat and hanging it in the closet for him.

“I guess it’s my night, is it?”

“It certainly is. I can’t believe how soon you’ve forgotten the disaster that was my roast beef last night.”

Ron patted his stomach in sympathy. “No…I haven’t forgotten.”

Ron moved into the kitchen, and a few minutes later, Harry winced as he heard the clinking of pots and pans, mingled by Ron’s cursing about the poorly organized cooking aids.

“You okay in there?” Harry called, almost getting up off the sofa to go and inspect.

“I’m fine…” then a mumbled ‘goddammit’… “It was just a skillet getting knocked loose,” Ron explained from the kitchen. “I’m fine!”

Sure, he was fine. In the sense of heavy, falling utensils, sauces that heated and boiled until they were scorched and dry, stove tops that burned red with a warning he never heeded, and hot handles that he never bothered using mittens with. Yeah, he was fine, alright.

But Harry didn’t bother him. For one thing, Ron would always get defensive anytime Harry tried to help him, and chase him out of the kitchen, claiming he knew damn well what he was doing. And for another thing, Harry knew almost as little about cooking as Ron did.

Despite the clamor and Ron’s almost incessant cursing, Harry didn’t leave his seat on the couch until Ron announced, quite irritably, that the meal was done. Harry had been writing to Hermione, who he didn’t see often but tried to owl a couple of times a month. Setting his nearly finished letter down on the table, along with his quill, he followed Ron’s voice into the kitchen.

Harry started coughing immediately, his lungs constricting against the dense, gray smoke. He bent at the waist, gasping for breath in between coughs, his eyes watering in the thick haze. When he started becoming seriously worried about death by asphyxiation, he bowed back into the living room, still coughing and waving his hand in a futile attempt to thin the oppressive fumes.

Ron followed only seconds later, his hand also fanning the air furiously.

“What the hell…were you trying to…cook?” Harry asked between breaths.

“Spaghetti.” Ron said simply, as if anything culinary was simple for him.

But if Ron called it spaghetti, spaghetti it was, and Harry ate it because he was hungry. It wasn’t bad, even though the noodles were a little spongy and the sauce was a little runny, and there were no meatballs because Ron thought handling raw meat was something only Muggle butchers did. Though it was almost inedible, Harry didn’t think it was necessarily ‘bad.’

Ron finished eating before Harry did, though Harry didn’t know if it was from hunger or the idea that if you eat fast enough and hold your breath, you won’t taste it. But when Ron moved behind his chair, wrapped his arms around his shoulders, and kissed the back of his neck, too-done, soggy spaghetti was the last thing on Harry’s mind.

“Did you finish that letter to Hermione?” Ron knew him so well that he knew exactly what he had been doing before dinner.

“Just about.”

“Let me finish it. I wanted to say a few things.”

Harry took Ron’s hand, and they walked into the living room together, sitting down on the sofa. Ron took the rolled parchment and quill and scribbled a few last words as a postscript. Harry took it from him, wanting to finish his own narrative, and curious as to what obscenities Ron had surely written at the bottom.

It wasn’t anything too bad, just some fun chiding about the House Elf Liberation Front and a plea for tickets to the upcoming Quidditch World Cup if Viktor could wrangle them.

“Krum’s not even playing this year,” Harry said, laughing and shaking his head as he read Ron’s addition.

“He could still get us tickets, though, right? He’s famous.”

Harry glared at him, letting him know that fame wasn’t everything and that it didn’t always guarantee seats in the top box for the World Cup.

“Right…” Ron replied nervously, looking back down at the piece of parchment.

Harry sat the paper on the table and leaned over it, finishing his own portion of the letter. He explained that the nearly illegible writing at the bottom was Ron’s (though Hermione knew this by now) and that he was sorry for the intrusion.

“All done,” he said at last, jerking the paper away before Ron could grab for it. He rolled it up and tied it neatly before walking over to Hedwig’s cage and attaching it to her leg. She flew off with a satisfied hoot, and Harry returned to his vacated seat next to Ron.

“So what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?” Harry asked, clasping Ron’s hand as he sat down.

“The hell if I know,” Ron replied, rubbing Harry’s knuckles with his free hand. “Moody’s been trailing that pack of Death Eaters for months now. Maybe he’s got some leads for us to follow. Or maybe Shacklebolt’s finally cracked the code on that threatening letter Walker received.”

“Do you ever get tired of it?” Harry whispered wearily, laying his head on Ron’s shoulder.

“Every day,” Ron said matter-of-factly. “But someone’s got to do it, haven’t they? May as well be us.”

“Yeah.”

But Harry was tired of it always being him, and even more tired of the fact that he’d gotten Ron involved in it.

“Listen, Harry,” Ron said, turning so that he was resting against the arm of the sofa and pulling Harry over to him, “this is what we chose to do – you and me. But that doesn’t mean that we always have to like it, or that we can’t be scared.”

“I know,” Harry spoke into the collar of Ron’s shirt.

They spent a lot of nights like this, even though they had been Aurors for years. It only seemed to get slightly easier, just a little less difficult. They would take turns encouraging, reassuring, and helping each other forget. Even if it was just until the next attack, kidnapping, or death. Ron had made Harry feel better this time, and he tilted his head up to kiss him.

“Thanks,” he said with a smile.

“Anytime,” Ron said, rubbing his back and returning the kiss. “Wanna go to bed?”

Ron had other ways to make Harry forget, though he'd never tell Mrs. Weasley about them.