Author's Note: I wrote this way back in February or March, I believe. It is the lonely little product of SAD (seasonal affective disorder), too many re-readings of Deathly Hallows, and my freaky obsession with Hermione and her emotions. Therefore, pure, unadulterated angst. You have been warned.
Also, a huge thank you to Rhi for HP of the Mugglenet Fanfiction Beta Boards for her invaluable comments and encouragement, without which I may never have mustered up the courage to actually post this. :) You rock, Rhiannon!
He's gone and he's not coming back.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p. 311, American Edition
He was gone, only his big footprints and her terrible anguish marking that he had ever existed.
The feeling filled her senses, occupied her brain. Her lungs seemed to fill with ice, her body crumpled, her fingers turned white and numb. She curled up into a chair that night, her goose-bumpy skin covered in cold rain, her body wracked with convulsive sobs, a blanket--oh, cruel irony--a blanket from Ron's bunk her only comforter. It smelled of him, smelled of pine and wool and autumn, and the too-familiar scent made her eyes prickle and then flood, the tears pouring through her trembling fingers.
She could not breath or think right, could not feel anything but the acute pain of her need--her need to see him lift the tent flap, wet but there; to see him come back to her; to hear his snores fill the night air with a soft buzzing, her lullaby; to see the sleepy-eye on his face when he woke up; to feel the satisfaction of making sure he washed up properly.
But she could not do any of this, not now, perhaps not ever. Now she could only carry bravely on, hiding her pain inside, devoting herself to making sure that Harry, at least, survived the quest.
And as for her? She, for all practical purposes, had already died, died on the inside, her heart shriveled and capable of nothing more than a pained, slow, reluctant beating.
She would not, could not let those words be the last that ever passed between them, but she knew no way of rectifying his gross misapprehension that she had chosen Harry over him. She had chosen to keep her promise; she had never chosen a life without him! But he had left before she could explain; she knew what it looked like to him—like she didn't care for Ron, like she didn't want him, and she hated herself for it.
But it was cold comfort, that she hadn't wanted this. For it was real, and it could not be undone.
Perhaps she--or horror of horrors, Ron!--would really die, not just emotionally, as she felt dead already, but physically, and die with this between them. With only this, awful hurt and horrible misunderstanding, as their bond.
Surely they had had more than that!
But no: on some subconscious level she had wanted more than that, wanted his big warm hands to hold her thin cold ones, had wanted him to comfort her when she cried, wanted to know how his kiss felt. But she had only wanted and had never lived. Not enough.
So she sobbed harder, matching the rain that fell above for volume, muffling her gasps in the red fabric of his blanket, crying for what they had never had, mourning for what might have been theirs.