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“Hermione?” Ron asked as he knocked on the door to the bedroom she shared with Luna. When there was no answer, he pushed through the peeling whitewashed paint of the wood and found her single bed empty with its covers drawn back and the window wide open. There was no Hermione though.
Ron tried to ignore the lurch in his stomach and reasoned that Hermione might have already gone down for breakfast. Maybe he missed her when he went to the loo. The thought failed to ease the tightness in his chest. It was only quarter-past six and in the week they had been at Shell Cottage, she would always wait for him to bring breakfast up.
He made his way back downstairs, careful to sidestep the creak in the stairs and avoid waking Dean and Harry up. Especially Harry. They silently acknowledged the dark circles under each others’ eyes and carried out the pretence that they were sleeping fine. Harry’s head was fixed on the battle between Horcruxes and Hallows. Ron’s was busy listening for a sign of Hermione’s screams. Only Dean’s light snores sounded in the night. Except when the screaming came. But tonight, there had been none.
As Ron rounded the corner into the kitchen, he found it empty as well. Empty except for the faint steam rising from the kettle’s snout. This time, he didn’t try to repress the panic that was spreading through his limbs, restless to find Hermione. She was better, sure, but still. She didn’t even have a wand on her, and she shouldn’t be going off on her own. It didn’t matter that there were wards in place.
He was out of the cottage with three long strides.
Fog spread like an opaque veil, letting the white of the sky converge into the greyish waters deep in the horizon. Ron’s chilled breath blended in with the mist when he called, “Hermione?”
Spitting rain hit his cheeks, and after a few steps, his fringe was flat against his forehead. The sound of spraying water against cliffs crashed in his ears, but there was no other answer.
“Hermione!” Ron shouted, whipping his head back and forth trying to find her. “Hermione!” He walked on the crunch of shells and pebbles. “Hermione,” he breathed out, his shoulders relaxing as he dropped to his knees beside her, the tomb before them. Even through the fog, he made out the words etched in stone:
HERE LIES DOBBY, A FREE ELF
Hermione turned to him, her hair flatter than normal with the rain, but her curls clinging to some bounce in the shape of soft S’s.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Ron said. He took her hands into his own. They were icy as if she had dipped them in the water and was waiting for them to turn blue. “You’re freezing.” Without hesitation, he shucked off his thick jumper from a few Christmases ago. “Here.” He prepared the woolly knit and pulled it over Hermione’s head. She lifted her arms up, letting Ron guide the sleeves over her.
Once resurfaced, she whispered, “It smells like you.”
“Sweaty?” he joked. Though Hermione smiled, she didn’t laugh.
“Like chocolate… And warmth.”
His stomach contracted.
He chose his words carefully. “How do I smell warm?”
“I don’t know.” Her brows furrowed. “It’s the smell of my duvet when I don’t want to get up from bed because it’s so snug. You’re the only person that smells like that.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Yes.”
Ron’s heart gave a lurch. Kneeling in the rain, her hair wet, her cheeks rosy, Hermione looked like she’d walked out of the ocean. Even in his well-worn jumper with frayed yarn and stitches poking out of place, she looked beautiful. And as if her looks weren’t enough to send him to his knees (which he already was), then he would bow to hear her say those words again.
But he didn’t bow nor beg. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Why are you out here? I couldn’t find you.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Nightmares? I didn’t hear you. I’m so—”
“Don’t be sorry. I just didn’t fall asleep.” That explained the sunken pits under her eyes. “I miss Dobby. I miss Hedwig. I miss Dumbledore and Sirius. And it could’ve been me, too.”
“Don’t say that. Never say that,” he croaked. Ron pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her shoulders to create friction and warmth. He let her head fall into him.
“It almost was, though,” Hermione mumbled into his sternum.
“Please, Hermione. We need you.”
She pulled back. “Is that all?” The question rang higher. A note threatening to break with a sob.
No. No, no, no, he wanted to say.
He waited too long, and Hermione moved further away, returning her gaze to the stone before them. The flowers that Luna placed in a vase twirled with a gust of wind. He took a moment to find his words.
“I was so scared,” began Ron, and he wasn’t sure if his voice carried over the rain and sea. “I’d never been so scared in my life. Not when I saw that queen attack me in first year during the chess match. Not when I saw you frozen like a statue for months. Not when I thought the Grim was about to kill me. Or when I was dragged under the lake for an hour. Or at the Ministry or the Astronomy tower when Death Eaters were attacking us.
“I was always doing something then. Acting. But at the Manor…” Ron gulped down the knot at his throat, blinked and let the tears wet his face along with the spitting droplets of rain. “I couldn’t do anything. I was powerless. Useless.” His heart was drumming, and he found that its rhythm was steady – an unmistakable calmness he didn’t expect. “I need you.”
Hermione sighed. “I want more than that.”
“I want you.”
“Then why did you leave?” It wasn’t a challenge. Her voice was full of pained curiosity.
“I-I…” No words came to him.
“You left me. If you needed me, wanted me, why did you leave me? I begged you to come back. I cried myself to sleep in your jumpers. That’s how I know what you smell like. I drowned myself in chocolate and warmth but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.”
“No, Hermione. I’m not enough. I wasn’t strong enough to fight off the damn locket. I wasn’t strong enough to protect you. I–”
“You were, Ron. You are. I don’t understand it, but I was so close… just so close to letting go. To letting her break me. But I heard your voice, Ron. I heard you say my name, and…”
“You came back,” he finished.
Hermione nodded.
He reached into his pocket until he pulled out the silvery apparatus. Holding it in his hands, he said, “I will follow you, Hermione. Wherever you go. In this life and the next.”
“Don’t say that. We’re not in some sort of epic.”
“Aren’t we? We’re not just in the middle of a war, we’re leading it.”
Hermione laughed, and this time, the smile glistened in her eyes. “So, I guess we need to win.”
Ron grinned and draped his arm over her, pulling her into him. Staring at the tomb, he said, “Yes, we do.”