A/N: Two quick things...
1. Take a moment to listen to the song that inspired this fic, if you'd like. It's "Steal His Heart" by Emily and The Woods, and you can find it on YouTube by removing the spaces from this link -
http : / / www . youtube . com / watch?v=iOYdTx8ElXE
This fic is a bit dark and angsty, and it's very much a concept fic, so don't take the plot of it especially seriously. It's kind of a dreamy 'what if' sort of oneshot...
2. I'm nearly done with the final Sharing Sleep chapter and it will be the next thing I'll post on here. Thanks for sticking with it!
And now, the lyrics that inspired this fic:
Get in my boat, we'll sail away
I've always been scared, scared of the sea
I'll give you some string, you'll find your way home
And I will be waiting, when you return
Stand on the shore, arm is outstretched
The stars in the heavens are doing their best
He calls my name, and I meet his eyes
Now I have lived, I might as well die
Of the Sea
Sunset seemed to pass over him like a blanket. He'd long ago accepted that he'd never see the shore again, that his path home was nothing more than a series of fading memories. It was almost too simple, but perhaps it was best that way.
His overused muscles remembered the way he'd directed every limb to row the tiny boat he'd woken up tied down to. Those first few hours, attempting to aim himself towards something, away from the endless world of salty water in which he was floating.
His chapped, sunburned skin remembered the way he'd given up at dawn, collapsing back into the bottom of the tiny wooden boat to squint up at the rising sun. It hadn't taken long to burn, to remove his shirt as sweat dripped down the centre hollow of his chest. And it hadn't taken long to freeze again, his thin cotton undershirt the only thing to trap in his own warmth for safe keeping.
As night fell now, he tried to remember how many times the stars had spread their canopy over him, for how many days he'd been lost here. But it didn't really matter, did it. He might not want to know, really, to count the hours and determine how much longer he'd have to live. He'd once thought it'd be nice to know the exact, approaching moment of death, to be able to set things right before taking his last breath. But faced with it, he understood how wrong he'd been. If he went now, it would be in a dream, without knowing which exhale would silence the pounding of his heart. And it was much more peaceful that way.
He feared they'd find his body one day, and he hoped that they wouldn't. Lost seemed so much more magical than dead, so much less permanent.
He closed his eyes, and tried to once again call up the last retreating memory of life before this. His last day with her.
They'd stood on the shore, eyes out towards the sea. But he'd been looking sideways at her for a long time, and he didn't think she'd known he had. He'd caught her once, in his peripherals, glancing in his direction. And he'd begun to wonder, through his secretive grin, if either of them had really cared about the beauty of the ocean, compared to their proximity and the growing heat of their bodies, inches apart.
His jeans were rolled up to mid-shin, not difficult with a pair so short for his lengthening frame. Her skirt caught on the wind as he looked her way again, and he'd called up some measure of courage, surely much more of a requirement than the teaspoon he kept picturing, the maximum size he'd assigned to his own fantasies lately. If it could fit inside of that teaspoon, surely, he could give it to her, and he could fill it up all over again.
If only he'd known years ago, how he could have simply given away what he'd been holding onto. If only he'd known how much more room he could make for more, if only he'd given what he had to her first.
If only he'd known how she longed for the very thing he was afraid to give. He wouldn't have been so afraid after all.
He'd said something to her then that he'd since forgotten. It seemed that words no longer stuck in his memories, only the way they'd felt before and especially afterwards. The way she'd smiled up at him brilliantly and leaned those last few inches against his side. Water splashed at her bare feet and ankles, and he remembered the darkness behind his own eyelids as he'd closed his eyes to feel her completely.
The next thing he could remember was the way his heart had pounded against his ribs, the way her palm had laid out across his chest, fingers stretched as she looked up through glowing sunset into his heavy eyes. And he'd known it then, that it was his turn. He'd bent his head with a purpose, and kissed her. Because there had been an absence of bravery, or so it had seemed. And he'd made too many wrong turns. And he wanted to be the one to do something right, this time. Not just to be the one returning to apologize, after making a mistake.
Her lips had been impossibly perfect, smashing to bits all of his imagined ideas of what a second kiss with her would be like. And he had experience now, to remember. But it wasn't like the first time. It was like every time they might have for the rest of their lives. And in the moment, it had seemed they'd have so very many more moments yet to come.
Her hands had drifted up his chest, over his shoulders, to link around his neck, pulling her own body up and closer to him. He'd attached his arms around her lower back, using the arch of her spine to draw her closer still. A wave had crashed harder around his own ankles and they'd laughed against each other's lips as his rolled up jeans darkened with salt water and her skirt floated around her again. He'd lowered her to the sand, flushed skin as the sky darkened towards night, moon visible now above her head.
He remembered telling her he loved her. He remembered the way her tears had rolled off the edge of her jaw to drip down into another crashing wave. He remembered how he'd felt her heart pounding, as she froze against him, neck bent back to look up into his eyes before breathing deeply against his chest.
He remembered... the way her lips had curved gently over each of her words as she'd echoed the ones he'd spoken right back to him.
And now, with the sway of the ocean beneath him, he was so very glad he'd done it. He smiled, no hint of bitterness there, as his life, behind him, looked less bleak than he'd expected it to, this close to the end. He'd once thought, if he'd died in the war, at least he'd have died for something. But there was too much regret in dying before he'd made things right with her. And he'd done that now, hadn't he.
He finally knew what it was like, to no longer fear or wish for something you could never have. To be ready. He wanted to tell Harry what he'd discovered, that he knew what it had been like for him, to accept it... He wanted to scream across the ocean to him. But the unknown miles were yet too far, and the words, through his parched throat, could never have made the journey.
His heart beat a distant rhythm, and he knew he had to try one last time to reach them. Because though he knew it was useless, he also knew it was what they would have wanted. Drawing up all of his remaining, fleeting strength, he clutched the edge of his boat and pulled himself upright, hardly breathing as his tired eyes raked over the endless sea all around him.
He cast his eyes upward, following the pattern of the stars. He tried to call up nights with Harry and Hermione in the astronomy tower at Hogwarts, maps of far away light spread between them. And he took a chance on direction, sure he was right but knowing it didn't matter now. Wherever he was, they'd made sure he was too far to make it home again.
He recalled, for the millionth time, falling asleep next to her, fully clothed and exhausted, Shell Cottage offering a peaceful backdrop for recovery. The gentle sounds of his brothers' voices downstairs had made him smile. And her hair across his pillow had made him... impossible. How had he managed to arrive there, at that very moment? He wasn't sure he liked to know, to question what he'd received.
And then, pain. Across his back, his chest... But he couldn't see, couldn't speak, and the next thing he remembered was this. An ocean, a whole world as far as he could see in any direction. He wondered if Harry had caught them, the ones who had done this... stolen his wand, tied him to the rough wood of the inside of a rowboat, set him out to sea so far that no one could ever find him.
He'd spent what had to have been days out here terrified that Hermione was in danger... that they'd taken her, too. But somehow, he'd been able to know, and was at an odd sort of peace at last, about her safety. Harry would take care of her. Harry would be with her.
It wasn't how it had been before. It wasn't that he thought they wouldn't need him... or want him. He knew she did. But he also knew that she would be alright. That they both would.
Perhaps it was in knowing that he had no choice but to believe it, here without any way to see them, to tell them once more that he loved them. It was a kind of closure, to imagine them in years to come, smiling again and...
His arms had given out, dangling limply over the edge of the boat, halfway buried in the water. He'd nearly forgotten he'd been trying, propelling himself in the right direction. He rested his cheek on the edge of the boat, eyes slipping shut.
And then, furrowing his brow, he realised... he couldn't recall the last words he'd spoken. It was almost silly, to spend what could be his final moments considering words, words which had no meaning now. But he couldn't remember them, and he found that he needed to. If he couldn't remember them, he'd create new ones. He opened his eyes, focusing on the mesmerizing sway of the ocean.
"Hermione..." he sighed.
He wasn't sure how much time passed between his breaths, but once he'd retrieved enough oxygen to speak again, he smiled.
"Harry..."
But the word wasn't fully out of his mouth before a pulsing orb of blue light appeared, out of nowhere, hovering above the sea, feet away from him.
His eyes were drawn to it, like a mirage in the middle of a desert, or a hypnotist's pendulum.
But a strange sort of recognition flared, and he lifted his heavy head from the edge of his tomb, lips parting as comprehension slowly dawned.
He remembered now! Oh, God, he remembered... And he could have laughed, at the beautiful, perfect coincidence. That he'd unknowingly chosen the night before his capture to give her his only way back.
The memory returned like a blow to the head, complete with all of the words he'd said, the words he'd let slip so far away for the much more prominent memory of touch.
"Hermione," he'd said, standing in the middle of the guest room at Shell Cottage, lights out. "I want you to know that I won't... won't ever leave you again."
"I know," she'd nodded, but he hadn't quite believed her.
"As long as I've got a way back, it's a safety net, isn't it? You don't have to believe me..." and he'd reached into his pocket. "Take this."
She'd widened her dark eyes at the deluminator in his hand, sliding her gaze up to his own glowing eyes to shake her head gently.
"It's yours," she'd said. "Dumbledore gave it to you-"
"I know," he'd said gently, "but I don't need it anymore. I won't."
"Ron..."
"Just keep it safe for me, yeah?" He'd smiled at her then, and he'd actually watched her believing him. She'd finally known he wouldn't leave her. She'd known exactly as well as she'd known his heart. Which, just then, had been quite an awful lot.
She'd taken the deluminator from him, because she'd also known he needed her to. And she'd clutched it to her heart, breathing deeply for a moment as she'd looked so deeply into his eyes...
And now, as he'd been watching death close in around him, she'd found him. He wanted to cry with joy, with the sheer perfect impossibility of saying the right words, at the last moments, the last dying moments that remained in which he could be saved.
But before he had the chance, she materialized, feet away from him.
He honestly thought, for a moment, as he finally saw her, that it must all be a beautiful part of death's pull, hallucinations to lull him towards a falsified happy ending. But as her eyes landed on him, she gasped, tears cascading down her face... and she dropped into the water.
"Hermione!" he cried through an underused throat, probably a nearly inaudible call, but the strain cut through him anyway, and he coughed as he scrambled upright again, ducking over the edge of the boat, ready to dive...
But she resurfaced, head and neck rising through the dark water, gasping in a breath as her soaked hair clung to her pale face.
"R-Ron..." she sobbed, "oh my God, I found you..."
He stretched out a long arm in her direction, trembling all over. If it wasn't real after all, it was close enough.
She pushed towards him, one sweep of her arms to propel her in his direction, and then... she touched him, her frozen fingers clasping his. And he pulled her in, until she was inches from him... until there was too much noise, and his head was throbbing. He only realized that it was his own sobs that were breaking the ugly silence that had solidified in the air around him days ago once she'd pulled herself inside the boat with him, shaking and squinting into the darkness.
And some perfect amount of strength returned again, giving him just enough to pull her firmly to him. And all of a sudden, they were lying on the floor of the boat, Hermione's cold body pressing his down into an inch of water. Her hands were inside the back of his shirt. Her mouth was open against his neck as she cried. He weaved his fingers up into her hair, and a series of distant memories clicked vibrantly back into place.
"You found me, you found me," and he clutched her on top of him, his own hands seeking the warmth of her skin, traveling up underneath her own clothing. "You fucking brilliant, perfect-"
But she lifted her head from his neck and silenced him with kiss number three. He melted down into the floor of the boat, seeking the comfort of her full weight collapsing his lungs as he smiled against her mouth. He kissed her with all of the promises he now realised he'd wished he'd made. He'd made so very many excuses, lost here, alone. He'd decided that it didn't matter. But it did. Every moment they might have had now returned, not only possible but real and solid and visible.
He laughed against her lips, and she echoed his nervous relief, pulling back from him to meet his sore eyes with her glistening ones. It was too dark, but somehow, her silhouette stood out against the most gloriously star filled sky imaginable, here with no lights to obstruct or alter their intensity.
"Come home," she whispered, hardly able to release the words through her hitching breath.
But she pulled herself off of him, untangling their limbs to kneel, removing hands from skin and replacing them with fists clutching at the torn cotton of his shirt. He knelt before her, knees scraping against splintering wood, and she flattened the front of her torso to his again, closer and closer until the end of her nose touched his and she closed her eyes, shuttering out a breath. His hand dropped low on her back and he felt the perfection of her wand tightly bound to her belt.
With a wonderfully familiar pull, he was leaving his own grave, body sucked away with hers to wherever she called home. He didn't consider the moment of his return, how the world would look when he arrived. Because it didn't matter, not now that he could feel her, now that he was no longer dreaming.