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Aurors Harry and Ron Potter-Weasley were the first people in the Ministry’s history to serve as joint Heads of the Auror Office simultaneously. They had been in the job for years, and many of the Dark Wizards who had attempted to rise after Voldemort’s defeat had been captured thanks to them.
Many people had assumed the two of them would choose a different path after spending so much of their lives fighting Voldemort, but that was simply who Harry and Ron were. If they weren’t chasing Dark Wizards, bringing them down, or investigating something, they weren’t happy.
But those fifteen years as Aurors hadn’t been all smooth sailing.
They had accumulated more scars, countless visits to St Mungo’s, and even the loss of Ron’s right leg.
By now, he was used to living with his metal leg. The adjustment had been difficult at first, but these days the limp in his walk was barely noticeable.
It didn’t really stop him from doing anything. Ron had never been much of a fan of long-distance running anyway.
But if there was one thing that still darkened his expression, it was storms.
Whenever the nerves at the end of his stump began to ache and sting, he already knew bad weather was on its way.
His husband, Harry, knew it too.
And he hated seeing what those days put Ron through.
But this wasn’t an ordinary storm. According to the Muggle weather reports they occasionally watched on the telly, it was the worst electrical storm recorded in years, and Harry was already inclined to believe it from the moment he saw Ron limping more than usual as he came over to pour himself some tea that morning.
“Love, are you alright?” Harry asked, watching him with concern.
“Somewhat. It’s already starting to hurt…” Ron muttered under his breath, taking a sip of tea.
“I sent a message to the Ministry. We’re staying home today.”
Ron knew exactly why he had done it, so he didn’t question it. He simply replied,
“Thanks, love.”
Harry waited until his husband sat down beside him, then leaned over to kiss his cheek while gently rubbing the join between Ron’s stump and his metal leg through the fabric of his pyjama bottoms.
The morning passed quietly and lazily, the two of them watching films on the television they had enchanted to pick up dozens of different channels. Then the thunder began.
Harry felt Ron tense immediately beside him.
He knew the leg had been hurting all morning, but the redhead, rather than complain, carried on as though nothing was wrong, and that broke Harry’s heart every time.
Outside one of Grimmauld Place’s windows, the world had turned almost white beneath the sheer amount of rain pouring from the sky. The wind battered the trees, and branches could be heard striking the windows of neighbouring houses.
At one point Harry turned to see what Ron was doing and caught sight of him trying to make his way towards the bathroom. He hadn’t made it.
Instead, he ended up vomiting onto the sitting-room floor.
Harry knew it.
He knew Ron was far worse than he was letting on.
“Ron! Oh no, no… come here. I’ve got you. Easy,” Harry murmured, Vanishing the mess with a flick of his wand before helping his husband upstairs.
He settled Ron into the bath and filled it with hot water, hoping it would ease at least some of the pain.
Ron was so pale that Harry feared he might pass out, but then he heard him grunt and grimace as the water finally rose high enough to cover him completely.
“Darling, I’m going to make you some tea. Stay right here, alright?” Harry pressed a kiss to his pale forehead and hurried downstairs.
The storm showed no sign of easing.
If anything, the thunder and the wind sounded even fiercer than before.
Harry hurried upstairs with the tea. He hated leaving Ron alone when he was like this, worried he might be sick again.
He found him with his cheek resting against the edge of the bath, and as Harry approached, his stomach dropped.
Ron was trembling.
“Love? What’s wrong? Has the water gone cold?” Harry asked, setting the tray down before kneeling beside the bath to check. The water was still hot, yet Ron was shaking and somehow looked even paler than when Harry had left.
“It feels like everything in there is tightening up. It… it’s bothering the prosthetic. I think my leg’s swelling,” Ron replied between shallow breaths.
“Okay. Right. We’re going to do this. Come on, I’ll help you out, and when we get to the bedroom I’m taking the prosthetic off.”
Ron nodded.
Usually he never had to remove it. The prosthetic was connected to his nerves and functioned almost like a real limb, but in emergencies they sometimes had no choice.
It was painful.
That was why they avoided it whenever possible.
Harry helped his husband back to their bedroom, drying him off and dressing him in a warm pyjama shirt and his boxers before settling him on the bed.
“Hold onto me, love. I’ll make it as quick as I can, alright?”
Ron gripped Harry’s shoulders, squeezing his eyes shut as he braced himself for the inevitable pain.
“Three… two… one!”
Harry pressed where he needed to and pulled hard.
The metal leg detached with a sharp movement.
Ron let out a roar of pain that echoed through the room, his fingers digging into Harry’s shoulders hard enough to hurt.
Harry barely noticed.
Compared to what Ron was going through, it was nothing.
He eased Ron back against the mattress, watching him shake with pain, his face twisted into a grimace. Harry piled several blankets over him and warmed a towel with magic before carefully placing it against the end of the stump.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, love. I know it hurts…”
Despite the cold weather outside, sweat covered Ron’s forehead from the intensity of the chills.
That was when Harry realised the pain had left him delirious.
Ron began mumbling things that made little sense unless you knew him as well as Harry did.
“No… I shouldn’t have done it… shouldn’t have done it… shouldn’t have left… shouldn’t have left him…” Ron muttered between pained breaths.
To anyone else, the words would have been meaningless.
Harry knew exactly what he was talking about.
It wasn’t the first time Ron had drifted back to the moment he left Harry and Hermione during the Horcrux hunt.
“That’s over now, darling. You saved my life and you came back. That’s what matters,” Harry said softly, wiping his forehead and stroking his hair.
“At least… at least I think… I think I paid for what I did. Losing my leg… I deserved that…”
“Don’t say that, Ron.”
Harry’s voice cracked slightly.
“You don’t deserve bad things happening to you. Ever.”
Ron only whimpered softly, eyes still closed.
“I love you. You’re the person I love most in this world, and all I want is for you to be alright. Don’t say things like that.”
Even knowing Ron was delirious, Harry hated hearing him speak that way about himself.
Especially about his leg.
He gently stroked the edge of the stump where the magically warmed towel rested and remained beside him, keeping watch, until eventually Ron’s breathing eased and the tension slowly left his face.
The rest of the evening and well into the night was a constant back and forth.
Ron barely touched any food, but Harry managed to coax a few slices of toast and some pumpkin juice into him between pained breaths and quiet complaints. The pain would ease for a while, only to come rushing back whenever the storm intensified again.
Harry had already given him a pain potion, but it had done little beyond granting a few precious hours of relief during which Ron managed to sleep.
By the early hours of the morning, Harry drifted in and out of sleep, fetching water, renewing the warming charm on the towel resting against Ron’s stump, soothing him whenever he became delirious from the pain, and simply letting Ron rest his head in his lap because it seemed to help.
“It’s not fair that you can’t sleep either,” Ron murmured at three in the morning.
“Love, don’t worry about me. I just want you to feel better,” Harry replied, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “Besides, I know this isn’t how you want to be feeling.”
Ron was lying on his side, one arm wrapped around Harry’s waist while Harry continued stroking his hair.
“You make me feel better. Much better. Come on, lie down and let’s try to get some sleep. I don’t think the storm’s going to get any worse now,” Ron said softly, shifting to make room for him.
Harry settled beneath Ron’s chin while the redhead wrapped both arms around him. With Ron’s neck so close, Harry leaned up and pressed a kiss there.
“Get some rest, love.”
“You too, darling.”
From that point on, they managed to sleep through the remainder of the night and, thankfully, the first thing they saw in the morning were weak rays of sunlight slipping through the curtains.
“Feeling better?” Harry asked without opening his eyes.
“Much better. Though I’m desperate for the loo… Accio cane,” Ron muttered.
A walking stick flew into his hand and, carefully balancing on his remaining leg, he made his way to the bathroom before immediately returning to curl up beside Harry again.
The previous day had been miserable.
But at least what awaited them now was a day of rest, laziness, and as much cuddling as humanly possible.
The End