Wild Strawberries
He has a garden of his own, now, and one day he discovers wild strawberries, straggling along the back of a messy patch of shrubs. They're tiny, and very red, and when he eats one the sweetness of summer melts on his tongue and all through his mouth. He gags on it. All he can think of is his brother, his twin and mirror-self.
The pair of them had discovered the patch of wild strawberries at the Burrow when they were eleven, the day after their letters to Hogwarts had arrived and they had been the centre of attention for once. But on the day after that they had been in the way again, and knowing that they would soon be leaving home had sent them on a frantic exploration of their playground, committing every facet to memory. All these years later, he can't remember which one of them it was who tumbled down between the laurel bushes and yelped in delight. But he remembers the intensity of that first taste, and scrabbling in the dirt to scoop up as many as possible for himself, and the silent agreement to keep it a secret all to themselves, and tumbling into the house twenty minutes late for dinner with a guilty flush on their cheeks.
It became a ritual for them over the years, waiting for the letters to arrive before they allowed themselves to race down the garden, throwing themselves into the space below the bushes and wrestling over the sweet berries, careful not to waste a single one. As they grew older and knew more of worldly cares, it felt like a last refuge for their innocence, a space entirely their own and away from the world. The letters stopped coming for them, but not for their younger brother and sister, so the ritual persisted for one last time.
They had nearly been men, that last summer, and yet together they had crammed into the hollow beneath the leaves and savoured the fruits off the vine. He remembers snapping at a berry that his brother held in the air above his mouth, freckled hand dodging away to avoid his teeth and waiting until he sighed in frustration and relaxed back to the ground, narrowly missing another cluster of red, before gently releasing the fruit and allowing it to drop into his waiting mouth.
The next year, he walked down the garden, ignoring the marks of the violence that had been, until he reached the spot where the bushes had burned. He lowered himself to the ground with the aid of his cane, and plucked a single strawberry from the plants that attempted to cover the bare patch of earth. The colour was closer to that of his brother's blood than of his hair, and as sweet as it surely was, he knew it would be bitter in his mouth. The scattered fruits on the ground made him think of the way the blood dripped from his brother's corpse and pooled on the ground, and before he knew it he had pulled out his wand and scorched the earth once more.
It has been more than ten years since then, and he had almost forgotten about it until these hidden landmines reminded him. He draws his wand to remove them, but pauses as the laughter of a child rings faintly from the house. A slow smile graces his face, and he kneels, only a little stiffly, to gather all the berries he can see. He carries them back to the house, washes them, then rations them out to his family. He watches the delight on their faces, and he feels at peace.