The war was getting under everyone’s skin.

Even those who wore bravery like a second skin—the lion-hearted, the battle-worn, the ones who laughed in the face of danger—couldn’t always hide the quiet erosion of fear. It was in the way people stopped lingering in doorways. The way they flinched when fireplaces roared to life. The way names were whispered instead of spoken aloud.

Witches and wizards were vanishing. Some were never found. Some came back in pieces. And the headlines didn’t lie anymore—they didn’t have the strength to pretend everything would be alright. The Ministry didn’t bother spinning false hope. It had become clear: nowhere was safe. No one was untouchable.

Bill had always been the eldest, the protector. The kind of brother who’d stand between danger and his siblings like a human shield, even if it broke him apart. He was always steady, always listening, always wearing that tired but gentle smile that reached his freckled cheeks and warm brown eyes—eyes that looked older now, as if they’d seen too much, too fast.

And tonight, the hours dragged cruelly on.

You should’ve been home two hours ago.

He knew you’d been working late shifts at St. Mungo’s—curse damage had become the busiest floor in the hospital. The war had made healers into something close to soldiers, stitching together what dark magic had torn apart. And you never left on time anymore. He knew that. But tonight, the clock ticked too loudly, the fire crackled too sharply, and the shadows curled along the walls like something waiting.

The second you stumble through the floo—soot-streaked and exhausted—Bill is already standing in the living room, red hair a mess, still half-dressed in the clothes he wore when he came back from a late Order mission. His wand lies abandoned on the coffee table, tea long gone cold beside it. The moment you step out of the grate, you see it in his face: fear, raw and unhidden, just barely masked by anger.

“Bloody hell, you scared me.”

His voice isn’t loud, but it’s taut—wired with panic and the brittle edge of helplessness. He storms forward, hands half-reaching for you before falling back to his sides, curling into fists.

“You were meant to be home hours ago. No word, no owl—nothing. I thought—” he cuts himself off, jaw tightening.

He paces once, then stops, eyes raking over you, searching for blood or bruises or some sign that you’ve been touched by the horrors he’s been imagining for the last two hours. His breathing is too fast. You can see it in the rise of his chest, the way his hands tremble despite being clenched so tightly.

“I thought maybe someone got to you before you made it back. Merlin, I hate this—this waiting. Every time you’re late I think it’s the last time I’m ever going to see you walk through that damn fireplace.”

His voice cracks a little at the end. And then it happens—he exhales, like something inside him caves in all at once.

Before you can answer, he closes the space between you in three strides and pulls you into his chest with a fierceness that steals the breath from your lungs. One hand knots into your healer’s robes at your lower back, the other cradles the back of your head like he’s shielding you from the world itself.

You feel his heartbeat, hammering like a war drum beneath your cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, breath ghosting against your temple. “I didn’t mean to snap. I just… I can’t lose you. Not you. Not when everything else already feels like it’s slipping through my hands.”