The Hollow Beneath Hogwarts

9. Move Along

Hermione woke the following morning feeling hollowed out. Not better exactly. Just emptied.

She had cried herself to sleep sometime after midnight, curled tightly beneath the blankets while exhaustion dragged her under. By the time she finally drifted off, her eyes burned, her chest hurt, and every thought felt heavy.

The argument with Ron replayed endlessly in her head. His face. His anger. The hurt underneath it. She hated that this was how things had ended before they left.

The room around her was quiet when she opened her eyes. Too quiet. Ginny's bed remained untouched.

Hermione stared at it for a long moment before sighing softly. Ginny had gone to Ron's room after the fight and never returned.

Honestly, Hermione could not blame her.

After about ten minutes alone the night before, there had been a soft knock at the bedroom door. Harry stood there looking exhausted, one hand shoved awkwardly into his pocket.

"Can I sleep in here?"

Hermione had immediately moved over to make space.

Ron, apparently, had taken Harry's trunk from their shared room and dumped it out into the hallway without so much as a conversation. It was childish. Petty.

And painfully, unmistakably Ron.

Harry had looked more sad than angry about it.

Now morning sunlight spilled weakly through the Burrow's crooked little windows while the house creaked awake around them.

The atmosphere downstairs was strange. Busy. Purposeful. Like everyone was trying very hard not to think too deeply about what was happening. Thankfully, there was not actually much to pack.

At least not for Harry.

Most of Harry's belongings fit into one trunk anyway. Clothes. School robes. A few photographs. His invisibility cloak. Odds and ends collected over the years. Usually the trunk was crammed with textbooks too, but they had not bought school supplies yet.

And there were absences now.

Painful ones. No Firebolt. No Hedwig's cage perched nearby.

Harry tried not to think about either for too long.

Ron had rather unceremoniously evicted Harry from their room, so in retaliation—or perhaps guilt—he had packed Harry's trunk himself sometime during the night.

Harry discovered this with mixed horror and amusement when he levitated the trunk downstairs and unpacked half of it again to make sure Ron had not accidentally folded socks around breakable objects.

Or intentionally hidden angry notes in his jumpers.

"Honestly," Harry muttered while reorganising things by the fireplace, "I think he just shoved everything in blindfolded."

Hermione smiled faintly from the kitchen table where Percy, Charlie, and herself had spent nearly an hour packing her books alone.

Hermione owned an alarming number of books. Charlie picked up one particularly enormous volume and frowned. "How many books does one person need?"

Hermione looked personally offended. "That's a first-edition translation of Advanced Defensive Spellwork."

Charlie blinked. "...So too many then."

Percy ignored him entirely and continued carefully stacking books into neat organised piles while Hermione charmed labels onto boxes.

Once the books were packed, Hermione added clothes, framed photographs, little trinkets, parchment sets, and various sentimental odds and ends she had accumulated over the years.