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Harry twirled Hermione around, humming softly to the music in the background. Days and days of the same thing, over and over again. He sighed, resting his head on her shoulder.
“I’m tired, Hermione,” he said softly.
She sighed too, a little huff of a breath. Her sighs were always lighter than his, less resigned to their fate than he ever would be.
“I know you are. But just a bit more, I promise.”
“I could turn myself in,” he said after a moment. Then all of this would be over. He wouldn’t have to keep up with a fight that he knew he couldn’t win. He could rest. Maybe Voldemort would let him be the one to feed Nagini her snake chow or whatever it was that snakes ate. Notoriously, snakes liked him.
Actually, maybe not death eater snakes that potentially ate humans. That seemed like a bad move.
“Harry Potter you will not,” Hermione said bossily.
“I’m tired of being hunted. Look around you. We’re living in a tent! And we have been for months. Ron left. We’re all alone, hiding from the world. And it’s not going to get better.”
How could it? His best friend left him, the war was growing. Harry saw more wanted pictures for him each day. He heard people in the forest looking for them. And what then? What happened when they found him? Did it even matter at that point? He was just so tired of continuing to fight without actually fighting.
“It will get better, Harry James,” Hermione told him forcefully, holding him by his shoulders. “It will. You said it yourself: we have something to fight for.”
He smiled slightly. “Each other.”
“Exactly. And these rubbish sweaters you insist on wearing.”
“Hey! They’re comfortable,” he laughed. And, secretly, they reminded him of the Weasley family. Mrs. Weasley always made them sweaters, and now any sweater just felt extra warm, like it had her motherly touch. “Besides, you don’t have to insist on wearing my sweaters.”
“Yours are warmer,” she smiled. “You know how cold it gets in the winter.”
Harry laughed. And when they resumed dancing to the same old song they’d been dancing to for the past week, Harry felt lighter somehow.
They would win this war, for each other if for nothing else.