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“Hermione, dear. Are you in here?” Molly Weasley called out softly as she entered the room. Fred and George’s old room. “We’ve been looking for you. It’s about to start.”
Hermione sat on the edge of Fred’s bed, dressed in a simple black dress. Her hair was thrown carelessly into a messy chignon. She hadn’t looked up when Molly walked in. It felt impossible to tear her eyes away from what was grasped in her hands. A scarlet jersey. The name, Weasley, emblazoned across the shoulders in a bright gold. The number five large and proud in the same glinting color down the back.
Molly made her way quietly across the room, mindful to keep her steps light, and settled down next to Hermione on the bed. Silent tears made their way down Hermione’s face, the moisture etching lines in her makeup. She didn’t care. She didn’t even know why she bothered with makeup in the first place.
“Come here,” Molly cooed softly; cupping her cheek and gently guiding her head to settle on Molly’s chest.
“I-I can’t,” Hermione gasped out as fresh sobs tore through her body. Her shoulders shook with the intensity and she couldn't help but take large gulping breaths. It felt like she couldn’t breathe. It hurt. Everything did.
“Yes you can, dear. You have to. He would want us to be happy again,” Molly said, her voice cracking near the end. Molly’s own tears trailing down her face and falling in thick droplets from her chin, adding to the growing wet spot on the front of her dress.
“I should have been there,” she choked out and sat up to look Molly in the eye. “I up and left to hunt for those bloody horcruxes and left him here! I should have fought right next to him and just let Ron get the basilisk fangs himself.”
“My dear … It’s too late for all that now. You had to destroy them. Fred knew that, just as well as you do,” she said consolingly. “It’s no one's fault but You-Know-Who’s,” Her voice now tight with anger at the mention of Him .
“I know,” she said, her shoulders sagging. Molly was right.
Hermione attempted to calm her breathing and swiped at the wetness on her cheeks and neck. She looked down at her bare fingers that still clutched his jersey. Her Fred’s jersey.
“He asked me to marry him before I left,” she said numbly, breaking the silence. “I told him to keep the ring until everything was over.” She let out a humorless bark of a laugh and squeezed her eyes shut to hold back a new wave of tears that threatened to come crashing down.
“Do you have the ring?” she said so softly Hermione almost didn’t hear it.
Hermione gestured to a small black velvet box that sat perched on the dresser on the other side of the room. She had found the box sat just underneath the jersey she was now holding onto like a lifeline. She had held the box for what felt like ages, rubbing her finger across the smooth material, but she couldn’t bring herself to open it. Fred should have opened it, not her.
Molly stood up and walked towards it; picking it up carefully like it may explode if she wasn’t careful. Knowing Fred, it might. The thought brought a hint of a smile to her face, before it disappeared just as quickly as it came. Molly gently opened the box and made her way back over to her. She pulled out a simple gold band; a modestly sized round diamond was placed in the middle, and two smaller ones joined it on either side.
“I want you to wear it,” Molly whispered. She picked up her left hand and slid it onto her finger.
Hermione stared down at her hand. The diamond simply twinkled back at her. Mocking her; a reminder of what she would never have.
“Molly I-” she started.
“Just for today… please,” she said pleadingly.
She simply nodded, she couldn’t argue today. In the quiet she felt new wetness settle in her eyelashes and stain her countenance. There was no use wiping them away now. She knew many more would be joining them soon enough.
“Let’s go, my dear. We wouldn’t want to be late to lay him to rest,” she said, putting out a hand to pull Hermione up from the bed.
She stood on shaky legs and turned to place the jersey flat on the bed. She ran her fingers across the fabric, admiring it one last time before following Mrs. Weasley out of the room, down the stairs, and into the living room where everyone stood waiting.
Mr. Weasley sat on the couch next to George, trying his best to comfort him. Oh Merlin, George… He still looked too much like him, even after what he had done. George’s hair was completely gone. In a fit of grief he had run up the stairs with the kitchen shears and locked himself in the bathroom. Bill had run after him, but by the time he got the door open it was done. Molly had tried to make it look better, even everything out, but he was still left with a patchy buzzcut. She looked away from him as quickly as she could. It hurt too much, rubbed salt into her gaping wounds.
She barely registered anything else that was going on after that. She briefly felt Harry squeeze her arm comfortingly and guide her to the Floo. Then she was gone, disappearing in the green flames.
*****
Hermione sat curled up on the couch at The Burrow. The fire was crackling gently, and a Celestina Warbeck record was playing quietly from Mrs. Weasley’s record player that sat in the corner of the living room. The music was barely a whisper, just a gentle warble caressing her ears. She was staring too intently at the soft flicks of the flames, and the way they made the ring on her finger glitter to be paying attention to the lyrics. She felt too numb. The funeral was long over now and everyone had gone to bed as it was nearing two in the morning, but she couldn’t sleep. Then a familiar melody graced her ears, slowly pulling her from that dark place inside her mind.
It was their song.
“That stupid little- ugh! Merlin, he’s the worst!” she ranted aloud as if the walls of the castle would come alive and agree with her assessment of Ron.
She walked quickly through the halls, determined and with a purpose. After the row she had with Ron over her going to the Yule Ball with Krum she felt like she couldn’t bear to be near him. Or even go back to the Gryffindor common room, for that matter. She needed to be alone. Stopping abruptly she looked around. Where was she anyway? Looking to her right she saw the tall, almost ceiling length portrait of a basket of fruit; the pear caught her eye. She was at the kitchens then. Deciding this was a good enough spot to mope, she slid down the wall and landed with a thump on the cold stone floor. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back.
Then she heard whistling. Oh who is it now, she thought, I just want some peace and quiet for Merlin’s sake. Opening her eyes she looked up to see a grinning Fred Weasley. One hand stuck in his trouser pocket, the other holding his dress robes that he had flung over his shoulder.
“Was Krum really that bad of a dancer, Granger?” he said, still grinning despite her obvious bad mood. “You look worse than when Mum doesn’t let Ron have dinner as punishment.”
“It’s your prat of a brother that’s the problem, not Krum,” she snapped.
“Well, being a prat is his constant state, you can’t expect much better from him, can you?”
“He’s just such an idiot. I tried to drop the hint that I wanted to go to the ball with him, but he’s so dense that when I brought it up he said he forgot I was even an option. He forgot! I just wanted to bloody dance with him. As soon as I found out about the ball all I thought about was dancing with him,” she poured out. It felt good to say it out loud. Then she remembered who she was talking to. “Sorry,” she said, quieter than before.
She looked up at him again. The silly grin was gone now, replaced by a quiet contemplative look.
“Since my brother was too stupid to realize he had the chance to dance with a pretty girl, why don’t you dance with me instead?” he asked.
“What?” she said, genuinely surprised. “The ball is over.”
“So?” he said, throwing the dress robes he held to the side and offered her his hand. “We can do it right here.”
“Okay,” she said tentatively and grabbed his hand allowing him to pull her up.
She shuffled closer to him. One hand in his and the other shyly resting on his shoulder.
“There’s no music,” she whispered, looking up into his warm brown eyes. Their proximity made his tawny colored freckles stand out all the more against his pale skin.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said, gripping her waist and pulled her closer to him.
He began humming a tune, guiding her to dance to it’s rhythm. She leaned her head forward to press her cheek to his chest; listening to the song reverberating through his body.
This was their song. She never bothered to ask what it was called, but she never forgot. This was it. She jumped up, throwing her cocoon of blankets off and practically ran to the record player. Snatching up the vinyl sleeve she scoured the song names until she found it, “You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me” by Celestina Warbeck. Yeah, you could definitely say he did that, she thought, a bittersweet smile playing on her lips.
She set down the vinyl sleeve and turned up the volume slightly before walking back to the center of the living room. She closed her eyes letting the music flow over her. Letting it transport her back. Back to when he was here. She swayed; back and forth, back and forth.
“You may not have played fair. But, frankly, I don’t care…”
If she thought hard enough she could feel his warm hand on her waist. His body flush against her; his chest vibrating as he hummed along. She twirled, hand up above her head like he was holding it, spinning her.
“‘Cause without you I despair. Lost in misery…”
She took a deep breath in; it even smelled like he was here, like pine and fireworks. Like the shop. She wrapped her arm tighter around the imaginary shoulders she was holding and bent her head like she was resting it against him. A stray tear escaped her closed eyes. If she opened them she was scared it would all go away, that he’d be gone again.
“Oh, babe, you charmed the heart right out of me.”
“I love you,” she whispered, more tears falling to follow the rest on their race down her throat, vying to be the first collected by the fabric of her shirt.
The phantom hand at her waist gave a small squeeze; a response, an 'I love you too'.