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Hell arrives, and my sentence is revealed, the most atrocious one: To believe that I'm alive and it's she who has died. Today it has been two years.
Fernando Savater (Writer and Philosopher) remembering his late wife.
(...)
A stone; that's all that's left. A small gravestone in a small Muggle cemetery outside London.
Even though it's almost Christmas, the morning is beautiful: A light breeze and a warm sun that appears and disappears among the clouds. We are returning from placing flowers on Hermione's grave. Harry, Ginny, her parents and I. Like each and every fucking anniversary since her death.
Three years later and I still can't understand it. How is possible that, of the most wonderful person who ever lived, only a dusty stone remains. How can, so much passion, so much intelligence, so much goodness, disappear into nothingness? What kind of justice exist in this obscene world?
It's like a fucking joke of fate. What years of danger at Harry's side or a long and bloody war had not accomplished, had been achieved by a handful of stupid Death Eater wannabes who were not even capable of apparating. In less than a week, the Ministry's Aurors had captured them all. But what good was that to me? Not much. Knowing that they would spend the rest of their fucking lives in Azkaban wasn't going to bring her back.
Across the street, I see the Leaky Cauldron. It's not my favourite place, but its fire whisky tastes just like anywhere else's. It doesn't take me half a second to decide that I don't give a shit what Harry or Ginny might say; I need a drink, and I need it now.
A scream and the squeal of tyres on the asphalt makes my head turn. Something huge is coming at me. I'm a trained Auror; I should be able to dodge a car easily, but for a moment nothing matters to me. I just stand there and see it come to me. It's only been an instant, maybe a tenth of a second, but when I want to react it's already too late. I expect to feel a blow, or pain... or something, but I feel nothing. Everything just disappears, including me. My last thought is for Hermione.
(...)
"Ron... Ron, wake up!" Someone's talking... and shaking me.
I immediately open my eyes. I'm not lying in the street, on top of a puddle of blood, as I expected. I'm in the Burrow, sitting on the sofa next to the fireplace. I turn to see who has woken me up and I see her sitting next to me, smiling as if returning from the world of the dead was the most normal thing in the world.
My mind simply stops working. Hermione is next to me, in the Burrow. Perfectly alive, and simply perfect. In these years nothing has changed, she has the same bushy hair, the same sweet smile, the same warm eyes. My chest hurts... a lot. I feel pain, anguish, joy, happiness... I don't know what I feel, too many things.
"Hermione, you are... alive." My voice sounds odd, strangled.
She stops smiling and looks at me with a scowl. "Of course I'm alive. What did you expect? Ron, what's wrong with you? You're crying."
"You were dead, Hermione..." That's all I can say. My throat is closing up.
"Ron, it was only a dream. I'm fine."
Then I realize. This is a dream. Hermione is still dead and I'm just stupid.
"Fuck... I'm dreaming. Aren't I? This is just a dream."
Hermione looks surprised and a little scared. "Don't talk nonsense, of course, you're not dreaming."
I hide my face in my hands. I cannot look at her face while I explain that she is dead, that she is only the product of my unbalanced mind.
"Don't you understand, Hermione? I'm dreaming... or dying, who knows; I was hit by a car on the way back from visiting your grave... Harry always forces me to go. He thinks that by seeing that stupid tombstone I'll accept that you're gone... that I'll get over it faster... He has no fucking idea. It's easy for him. He's got Ginny and her daughters. But me. What the fuck do I have?"
"Ron, you're not feeling well. Nothing you're saying makes any sense. I'm not dead and Ginny is Terry's girlfriend... She never forgave Harry for leaving her behind during the war."
"That was before you... You were kidnapped and killed when you were going to do a job interview at the Ministry... When you died, I... Well, I guess I got a little disconnected from reality... I spent six months in San Mungo. Harry locked himself up in his house and stopped eating, talking... everything. The only one who could get him out was Ginny; a year later they were married. Now they are happy and have two beautiful daughters, twins: Lilly and Hermione... After you. Sometimes when I look at them I imagine that they are us. I'm sure we would have had beautiful children."
I look up. Hermione is biting her lower lip, as she used to do when she was nervous. She is also crying. She looks beautiful.
"Ron, I don't understand... How is it possible?"
"What I regret the most is that I could never tell you how incredibly wonderful you are... You've been the best thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life. So many years together and I couldn't even confess to you how much I loved you... how much I love you. Not a last kiss, not a goodbye. Nothing."
I am crying again, or maybe I have never stopped, I try to clench my jaws and control myself. I'm supposed to be an adult... but I can't. It's as if all these years came back at once, all the pain, the despair, the loneliness... All the tears I haven't cried during these years are now being released, burning my cheeks as they fall down.
I feel Hermione's arms around me, and I hold on to her, pressing her against me with all my might. She returns my embrace and all I can do is sob like a child.
(...)
I wake up with a start. I'm in a hospital bed. I recognize it immediately: San Mungo. It was only a dream, another one of my fucking, sodding dreams.
Ginny is next to me, sitting on the edge of the bed. She puts her hand on my arm, trying to assure me. "You were dreaming."
"I was dreaming about her." No need to tell her who I'm talking about; she knows it as well as I do.
I close my eyes, trying to hide my tears. I feel Ginny's soft hands wiping my cheeks.
"Don't worry. It was just a nightmare, Ron. Nothing more."
"No... The nightmare isn't when I sleep, it's when I'm awake."
She doesn't say anything... there's nothing to say, she just runs her hand down my arm, trying to give me some solace.
The next day I'm discharged. Apparently, Harry managed to cushion the impact with a spell. I don't know whether to be grateful to him or to hate him. Maybe it would have been better if I had died right there.
They try to convince me that I should spend the night at his house, that I'm not fully recovered, but they don't succeed. I have a date with a bottle of whisky at my house. Drinking until I pass out may not be very smart, but it's the only way I can survive. Five glasses later, I pass out on the floor in front of my fireplace.
(...)
My skull is going to explode and everything is spinning. It seems that I can't stand alcohol as well as I used to... I hear someone whispering and suddenly everything calms down in my head.
I open my eyes. She's kneeling on the floor in front of me.
"Are you feeling better?"
"Fuck. I'm dreaming again..."
"No, Ron. You're not dreaming, you never did. It was all real. You made some kind of incredible involuntary magic and went back in time to warn me... You saved my life."
"But you... they said that they kidnapped you, that you tried to escape. They killed you and burnt your..."
"I was prepared and waiting for their attack... they never had a chance. I modified their memories so that they would believe that they had managed to capture me."
"But... Why?"
"At first, I wasn't entirely sure about your warning. This time travel thing was too unbelievable. But when I was attacked... I realised that I would have to fake my death. I know it's a horribly cruel thing to do, but I had to do it. If I hadn't died, Ginny would never have forgiven Harry, and even more important, you wouldn't have come back to warn me. I would have created a temporal paradox."
"You faked... your death?" I've never been more furious. Six months in San Mungo and then over two years of hell... Without realizing it my hands are around her neck. She does nothing, she lets my fingers go around her throat while she keeps talking.
"You don't know what these years have been like. Not knowing how long I had to wait. Seeing how you were suffering, and knowing that it was all my fault. I felt so alone... And so guilty. But I had to do it. I know that after what I have done you will never forgive me... I just want you to know that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Her hand is on my cheek, caressing me. She's crying too.
I slightly press my fingers on her neck. She looks at me. There is no fear in her eyes, only suffering and love. I can't take it anymore and I pull her towards me. Her lips are warm and wet. Her arms are wrapped around my neck and her body sticks to mine.
"Ron, I will never leave you again." I almost don't understand her, she's whispering it without stopping kissing me.
A frightening thought goes through my head. "What... What if this is only a dream."
She covers my face with little kisses and smiles in such a way so hers that makes my soul melt.
"Then you'll always dream of me."
She is right, as always. I don't care anymore if I'm dreaming, dying or totally deranged. She is with me, and that's all that matters.