Chapter Text
When they got back to the house, Ron hesitated, hurriedly searching his mind for something, anything, that would put off what they had to do now. But Harry was already walking towards the back door, his arms loaded with the flowers he’d chosen, and Ron knew he had no choice but to follow, even as the ache in his chest grew more and more painful.
Clutching the stem of his bouquet tightly, he trudged straight through the house after his best friend, pausing only briefly at the door to the kitchen to tell Dobby, “We’ll be back in a while.” The elf only nodded in response and sniffled quietly to himself.
Ron found Harry waiting on the back porch for him, in almost the same position as he’d found him that morning, staring off in the direction that they were about to go. Gripping his shoulder, he waited for Harry to look at him before asking his friend if he was ready. He didn’t expect an answer, and the only one he received was Harry starting to move.
The pair exited the back gate and started on the path that led deeper into the surrounding forest. Where they’d walked slowly and taken their time on the trip to and from the village of Godric’s Hollow, on this narrow dirt road both of them were moving swiftly. It certainly wasn’t because they were in a hurry to get there, so Ron figured it must be more an urge they shared, that told them to just get it over and done with.
It was only a two minute walk and as they neared their destination Ron briefly wished that they’d gone slow. He wasn’t ready for this and his steps faltered. After a few deep breaths, he continued on after Harry, reminding himself that he was never ready for this, that no matter how much time he took to steel himself, this still managed to take the wind out of him. And it did; as they entered a small clearing and spotted what they’d come for, Ron found it difficult to breathe.
There in the middle of the clearing was a small burial plot surrounded by a spiked, black fence. Three headstones were inside, seeming to glitter under the bright sunlight that shone its way through the trees. Harry walked through the gate first, Ron only a few steps behind, willing away the tears that had suddenly sprang to his eyes. Blinking a few times, he managed to get himself under control and watched his friend, trying to focus on anything but what they’d come to do.
Harry stopped at the first two only briefly, laying a bouquet of flowers at each and staring at the headstones for a few, long moments before moving on. Ron knew that the reason he didn’t stay longer at the graves of his parents was because on this day, they were not here for James and Lily. The raven haired young man walked to the last headstone and looked down upon it for a minute or so, before moving to sit cross-legged in front of it, laying his flowers at its base.
Ron slowly made his way over to the small bench against the fence and sat down heavily. He rubbed his weary face with a hand for a moment before leaning back and continuing to watch Harry. His friend didn’t say a word, just sat there in front of the headstone, his hand stretched out so that his fingers could slowly trace the words, letter by letter, in a touch so tender that it might have been used on the girl they were mourning herself.
Without even consciously deciding to, Ron read the words that he already knew by heart, words that he wished he’d never seen, words that were burned into the flesh of his heart. He’d chosen them himself, probably the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, and he wondered what she would say about the simple memorial.
Hermione Jane Granger
1979-1998
We’ll always miss you,
We’ll always love you.
When they’d lost Hermione, they’d lost the last of the warmth that was left in their lives. Back before the war, he’d always thought that if the trio was a person, either he or Harry would be the heart, where Hermione would be the mind. It had seemed that way, right up until she’d died. That was when he realized that she had been the tie that kept them from shattering and when she had left them, they’d fallen to pieces. They’d needed Hermione, badly, and not just because she kept them on the right path. They’d needed her because she was their very heart.
Sometimes it seemed like another lifetime ago that he’d found out she was dead, gone forever. Other times it felt like it was just yesterday, the pain was so raw. He’d loved her, there had never been a question about that, she had been his best friend, but it was only after she was gone that he realized that the feelings he had for her besides that weren’t just a crush, that he’d been in love with her.
Often Ron wondered why Harry had been the one to break after her death, and not him, but he knew the answer to that. Harry had seen her die himself, had been told by those who did it that she was dead because of him and it had destroyed him. Ron knew he would have lost his mind too had he been in Harry’s position. Even so, often he asked himself why he had been the one left in control, why he had been the survivor.
”I’m so sorry, Ron … we got there … it was too late. Harry’s alive, he’s been taken to St. Mungo’s, he’s in very bad shape … they’re not sure he’ll make it through the night.”
“Hermione?”
“She … I’m so sorry, but she didn’t make it, Ron. She was … gone, before we even got there.”
His father had been the one to tell him and Ron wished that it had been someone else, someone he didn’t know. He could barely look at his dad now without hearing those words echo through his mind. He could never remember being in as much pain as he was after he’d been told. His entire world had fallen down around him, his life shattering with a sentence, his heart breaking with a word; gone.
As he sat on the bench, staring, unseeingly, at the gravestone in front of Harry, Ron could feel his chest constricting with the emotions once more. His throat felt dry, his eyes burned, his stomach rolled, and breathing was getting harder and harder. This happened every year, his soul shattering as he remembered that day. It was a vicious cycle; his heart would break, he’d take a year to put it back together the best he’d could, only to reach this day again.
They’d been captured, Harry and Hermione, while Ron had gotten away. Many times over the years he wished he’d been caught too, that he’d died right beside her, but that was not how things had played out. The two of them had been held by the Death Eaters for no more than an hour before Voldemort had decided to break Harry before murdering him and fulfilling the prophecy. That decision was recorded in the history books on the twentieth of May as being the day Voldemort made his last mistake.
As Ron wasn’t there, he wasn’t exactly certain of what had happened, but after Harry had been rescued, near death himself, the Aurors had taken the memory from him and Ron had been offered the chance to see. Knowing that he would more than likely witness Hermione’s murder, Ron refused, but did ask that they give him a brief overview, so that he’d at least have some understanding of what Harry had gone through.
The Death Eaters hadn’t just killed her in front of him; they’d beaten her, tortured her, violated her … everything horrible they could think of, they did, before finally putting her out of her misery. The Aurors told Ron that even though Harry had been a wreck while watching these things happen, Hermione had stayed strong. They had brought her to tears, they had made her scream and beg, but even at the end of it, they had not broken her. Even moments before she was killed, brutally, she had been telling Harry that it wasn’t his fault; she believed in him; she loved him; she loved Ron.
The pride Ron had felt at hearing that, at knowing that she’d gone on to the next life just as strong as she’d been in this one, had been drowned out by the pain in his chest and the heaving sobs that rubbed his throat raw. Hermione had been the most beautiful person he’d ever known, she didn’t deserve to suffer like that.
Her death had been the trigger for Harry, it had been the moment he had snapped, but apparently, his mind had gone out in a blaze of glory. The Aurors said that he sent out three surges of magic, each so strong that they’d registered highly on the muggles Richter Scale. The first had smashed the magical bonds that had been holding him in place, the second had killed all the Death Eaters in the room, while the last, and strongest, had reduced the self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort to nothing more than a pile of ashes.
Then he’d crawled to Hermione’s body and held her as he cried until he passed out. He’d never recovered, but on a different level, neither had Ron.
In a way, Hermione’s death had killed all three of them. Ron had expected that they would be changed from the war, he had been prepared for that, but he’d never thought that it would reduce him and Harry to mere shells of the men they’d once been.
Ron had allowed himself to imagine the scene only once and even all these years later he could still hear her screaming in his nightmares, he could still hear Harry’s broken sobs. He hadn’t even been there and the dreams about it were still enough to have him retching over the side of his bed when he woke up in a cold sweat.
He was snapped from his thoughts when he realized that Harry was standing directly in front of him, looking at him with that blank expression of his. Ron hurriedly wiped away his tears, but was able to crack a small smile when Harry said, “Rowena Ravenclaw enchanted the staircases at Hogwarts herself.”
Ron’s theory about Harry’s random facts brought him back to Hermione and the impact her brutal death had had on their friend. If he thought really hard, he was sure that he’d heard her sprout off many of the things that Harry said at one point or another. Thus, he believed that Harry only said things that he’d heard Hermione once say and that sign of just how deeply her murder had hit Harry was more than enough to stifle any anger Ron may have at his friend.
And there had been anger. He hated himself for it, for getting angry with Harry over Hermione’s death, but there had been times when he’d felt his blood boil because of it. Why hadn’t his friend been able to save her? Why didn’t he release those bursts of magic before they had killed her? Why did she have to be on that stupid mission to destroy Voldemort to start with?
The guilt he felt after those thoughts crossed his mind could have rivalled some of Harry’s finest moments of self-pity. Ron knew that none of it was Harry’s fault, not really. It had all been Voldemort’s. And Hermione had been far too stubborn a woman to turn back from something she felt she had to do. Knowing that didn’t make it any easier to live without her though.
When Ron blinked back to the real world again, Harry had moved and was now sitting in between his parents graves. Ron knew that meant it was his turn, but he gave himself a long moment before rising to his feet. His legs were beginning to ache, but he was able to make them function long enough to get him the few steps it took before he was in front of Hermione’s grave. Then he let them give out and dropped to his knees.
He placed the bouquet of roses next to Harry’s lilies and then sat silent for a while, warm tears spilling down his face as the familiar crush in his chest got stronger. When he spoke, his voice was ragged and hoarse. “Hey, love,” he muttered, trying to find something to say. “Harry’s doing well … he’s eating by himself now and hasn’t had a nightmare in a while … I suppose I’m doing alright too.”
As soon as he said the words, he felt bad for lying to her, the one person he knew he could have told absolutely anything to. He continued with an apology, “Alright, that’s a lie, I’m sorry. I’m not doing alright, and I don’t think Harry is either, but … well, we’re surviving, which is pretty much all we can do without you.” He glanced over at Harry before taking a deep breath and saying, “I miss you, Hermione. More than anything.”
His throat choked up and his chest started to heave so hard that for a brief moment, through the cloud of grief in his mind, he worried he would get sick on her grave. It was that thought that forced him to control himself, to take deep breaths and wipe away the tears that were streaming down his pale face.
Not being able to speak anymore, he simply knelt in front of her grave for quite a while. When he was finally able to pull back into himself, all he wanted to do was get as far away from there as possible. He looked around and saw Harry sitting on the bench, ready to go whenever he was, and he was well past that point.
Turning back to the marble stone, he kissed his fingers and then ran them across her name, whispering his goodbye, telling her he’d see her next time they visited. He tried to get up and failed miserably, his legs aching beyond belief. Suddenly, Harry’s hand was on his arm and the raven haired man was helping him to stand. With one last look at Hermione’s final resting place, they hobbled from the burial plot together and started to make their way back down the path.
The sky was beginning to darken as the day headed towards its end and while one part of his mind focused on how worried Dobby would be when they got back, all the larger part could think about was how happy he was that this dreadful day was almost over once again. There was a whole year left until he had to suffer through it again.
Her voice drifted over the wind to him again, ”Oh, for crying out loud, Ron, it’s just a day!” and the smallest of smiles appeared on his lips, battling against the ache in his chest as he tightened his grip on Harry.
End.