No Sonnet
Rasielle
He writes her a poem, and even when she ought, she cannot forget it.
- - - - -
She takes a breath and fingers the note, fumbles as it falls and comes open. Bending down, she picks it up, opens it. Reads it.
'Hermione, my 'Mione,
I know your patience for me is tiny
But you shouldn't yell at me anymore
Because I don't know what we're waiting for
But it's you I love, Hermione,
Only for you I'll write lore
Or whatever you'd call this
Some form of poetry.
I guess.
Ron'
It's difficult to read, but when she finishes, her fingers shake and the note falls, yet again; but it doesn't matter. She begins to smile.
- - - - -
Dawn is breaking and all awake to the sky's vibrant morning show, but she had been up before then, a long time before then, thinking, thinking. Surely the boys were safe where they were, for they had the professors with them and the Headmistress McGonagall and their own ability of resisting danger, but she cannot stop herself from worrying. And she had been so furious with them before, so outraged that they thought to keep her here with Ginny as a nurse, of all things, and that the fighting could be too extreme for her, as a girl.
Yes, she was scandalized, but when she saw the injured wizards and Muggles, some bloody and some frighteningly not, but none of whom brought her hope for the war, she kept her peace and did not scold the boys for their chauvinistic speech - for it was indeed a different way of saying she could heal them the best, and that it was best that she would.
So she watches Ginny approach, whose arms were unseen under all the bandages and bottles of necessary things, and she takes a few and swans over to the tent. The tent flap is open today, she sees, and that usually meant new patients; this did not do anything to lift the weight on her heart, but then again, what could?
She could hear Ginny follow her, silently but firmly, could hear the determination in her walk and the way the grass crunched helplessly under her footsteps. Her fire too had been waning the past few days, but the two took to the practice of not speaking as they saw to the needy, not speaking even when off duty, as there was never a need for words.
No need for tears, either. Tears were before the war, for the beginning of it, for the shock in advance. But now they worked in the eye of this tumultuous storm, and there was time not for tears but for blood and bandages and prayers and skimpy news reports from messengers, and the constant hope that their boys would make it back alive.
She and Ginny halt when they saw Gwendolyn was coming near, a once-beautiful golden-haired woman who lost her glow as she lost her husband. Only, she did not know as they knew - although they were instructed to tell her, they did not, could not.She will know before the war is out, and she will hate us for withdrawing the news, Ginny had pointed out. But it does not matter anymore, Hermione had countered. Too many lives lost, too many to be lost. We cannot tell her now, not when there's so much to do. What if she chooses to stop nursing because of her grief, or throws herself into the war itself?
But her argument was not heartfelt; her voice faltered towards the end.
So now they watch Gwendolyn and see in her face a slideshow of news. Very bad news, news that would bring down the day before it ever truly started. Her face is dirty, pale; her lips white, her yellow hair frizzy and no longer striking. Her white hands move distractedly, pushing at her hair, touching her face, wringing one another, never still.
"Ginny, Hermione. Hi." And the two girls almost hate her for the falsely reassuring greeting.
"I... don't know how to tell you."
'We've lost the war; Voldemort has taken power. And Harry, he's dead.' Maybe they were difficult words.
"You've heard of the most recent battle, right? We've only gotten the entire report yesterday."
Ginny and Hermione nod, not impatiently. For this, they had all the time in the world.
"Harry... he's..."
... dead?
"He's all right, he's alive, he managed to escape; thank you, Merlin!"
Hermione could hear Ginny's intake of breath, knew it was the only joyful sound they had heard since they became nurses for the war. So what was wrong?
"But the others aren't. Not at all. Remus has been injured, he's in the tent right now, and Tonks is there too - Ron isn't, they said his case was too hopeless and it would be useless to send him here and according to the messenger, he died right this morning -"
The bandages and bottles fall and hit the floor, not breaking but sending up fast clouds of red dust, dust that hides itself in the air. They… they didn't even send him here. Didn't…
Hermione's mouth falls open, and the red dust - so well blended with the air - fills it.
- - - - -
"Still writing - fraternizing - with the enemy, Hermione? That's just like you. You can't stand outcasting anyone, even those out to do Harry in."
"Don't say that, Ron; you know it isn't true! The things you say - why do I even bother putting up with you?"
"With me? So it's all easy with you, isn't it? There you are, with your - your... your books and your Krum and -"
"Really, Ron!"
"…and your big hair, and..."
She groans and hides her face in her book, not even looking up when he grunts in something sounding funnily like resignation.
- - - - -
"Hermione? Ginny?" Gwendolyn was asking in a voice that got thinner with every other word. Hermione could only watch long enough to see a hand - small, Ginny's - swing around to smack the tactless blonde.
- - - - -
"Ron? What's this?" she asks him, taking the note with a heavy look of wariness. She means to take it nimbly, but he shoves it into her palm, not looking her in the face.
"A... a poem. I wrote it."
"A poem?" Her voice nearly cracks. She can't say whether she wanted to laugh or to cry. "You don't write poetry, Ron. You don't have to start."
"Okay, it's not a poem."
"Then what is it?"
"Hermione, maybe if you tried opening it, you'd find out."
Her face tightens a little, with the ever-familiar look of a rising temper. "Don't get snarky with me, Ron, I'm just playing along with this game of yours..."
"Snarky? I write you a poem and you call me snarky?"
"You said it wasn't - "
"Just read it!" She could only just feel his departing, featherlike kiss as he bent forward, stepped back, and rushed away.
- - - - -
Ginny and Gwendolyn are arguing now - Gwendolyn is hysterical, as it seems that Ginny chose that particular moment to spill the news about her dead husband - but Hermione is not in it. No. She's putting a hand to her neck and imagining she is still wearing that scarf he knitted for her, so clumsily and so affectionately thatwhen he gave it to her, shehad burst into tears...
- - - - -
And, like a dream, like magic, she is indeed wearing that thick, loose, and formless scarf again, playing with it with one idle hand, smiling and smiling and ready to laugh as she, waiting for the lunch bell to ring, reads - over and over again - that note. The meter was off, and the rhyming waso so terrible that it was funny, but in her eyes, no sonnet could've compared.