Hi all! This is my first story ever! I'm excited to tell it!

This is mostly Hermione/Draco pairing with hints of Harry/Ginny.

This story is about heartbreak, grief, and beginnings. We shall see where the plot will lead to in the future.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, but I will play with him too. :3

Shooting Up Stars

Chapter 1 - Death

This story starts at an end.

My boyfriend died.

He was wonderful. Until I found out he was an addict.

I found out when he died. So much for Mr. Wonderful.

Who would have thought that Ron was a bloody cokehead? He was everything I ever wanted and everything I ever needed in a man. He was handsome, tall, caring, fun, a lover, and most of all, my best friend in the world.

No one knew about his "pastime" apart from his dealer.

Harry and I were the ones who found him. He hadn't shown up to any of his classes that day but that was nothing out of the ordinary, he wasn't exactly brilliant or motivated after all. Harry saw Ron sleeping in his bed in the room that they shared; however, he never woke up from that sleep. Harry rushed me over and it only took a quick touch to know that he was no longer with us. I have never touched a body so cold and lifeless.

Depressed, didn't even begin to describe how utterly hopeless and void I was after finding out that my Ron Weasley was dead.

It all happened so quickly. I sat motionless on Harry's bed in the corner of the room. Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were called immediately. Madame Pomfrey and Hagrid came in next. She diagnosed his death as an overdose of cocaine with a large amount of fire whiskey in his bloodstream. Snape came in after them with a variety of potions that were shoved down his throat quite forcefully by Dumbledore. Madame Pomfrey put a tiny hand on the Headmaster's shoulder and nodded her head sadly.

He was gone.

I wanted to shove everyone away from his body but I couldn't move. I wanted to reach over and touch his cheek and have him wake up like in the mornings. I wanted to kill him all over again for dying. I wanted to cry and yell and explode with anger and sadness and grief and every other emotion that was coursing through my body. I felt 1000 pounds of heaviness upon my heart. My brain just took in information without registering the reality.

Harry snapped. He ran over to Ron's body and beat him. He punched him in the face and all over his body. Snape quickly restrained Harry as he pulled on Ron's flaming red hair. This made Ron's head turn to the side. To my side. His eyes looked straight into mine. Lifeless. Emotionless. Brilliantly, beautifully, blue. Calm and sleepy.

Why? Baby, "goodnight," I whispered inaudibly. My eyes filled up with tears, the world blurred, Harry was sedated, Hagrid took hold of Ron's thin body in his arms, our eyes lost connection, and then everything went black. I fainted.

Happiness. Laughter. Sunlight. Red hair. Just a few of the things that floated through my mind as I opened my eyes.

I was in the infirmary, I could smell it. Dusty and sterile at the same time. The smell of sickness. It was all over me, all around me, it engulfed me. I needed to get out of this place. I wanted to run. Run through the Forbidden Forest and hopefully cross paths with a group of centaurs and die.

Death. It was easy wasn't it? Always right around the corner. His sickle pointed straight at your neck. Move in just the right way and you're a goner, right?

Hi Death. Nice to meet you. You're good buddies with my friend now. Do you want to get to know me too? Think I could pay him a visit soon? I sighed. As I closed my eyes again I drifted back into darkness.

I felt the presence of visitors. Screams of agony. I felt medicine in my body. I had terrible nightmares that changed into blissful emotion that flowed right back into nightmares. The cycle continued, endlessly it seemed.

I woke up again. This time feeling groggy and tired. Like I just woke up from the grave.

Grave.

Ron.

I cried. And cried. And cried. Endlessly. Madame Pomfrey refused to give me anymore sleeping potion to suppress the flow of emotions. She refused to give me anything to stop the pain in my chest. She refused to give me anything, period.

Harry was sleeping a few beds away from mine. Unlike me, he was restrained to his bed. His wild hair matted with sweat clung to his pale head. His scar was alarmingly red, his clothes were wrinkled and the bed sheets showed evidence of an obvious struggle on his part.

I was to stay here overnight for observation. It hadn't even been a day ago. Only a few hours ago? Really? What!

How was Ron even into drugs? It made absolutely no sense. And fire whiskey? How the hell did neither Harry nor I know anything about this?

"What the fuck Ron. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why. The fuck. Would you do that? You idiot motherfucker," I said to Ron as I stared at the ceiling. I always wondered if people could hear you after they died. If they did, I bet they heard you from above. I really hoped that at he was up there somewhere. Perhaps by now he knew if that magical reservoir of good souls, most people refer to as heaven, exists or not.

I knew that I didn't have to say that I loved him. He knew that. He knew that he was loved very much by me and Harry. Oh God, his parents, his brothers and Ginny. How horrible they must feel to know that their youngest boy has died.

At that moment, a disheveled red haired girl ran into the ward. "Hermione!" she yelled across the room as she came up to my bed red-eyed and puffy. She cried into my bed sheets which in turn made me cry all over again.

This woke Harry up. He screamed and yelled non-sense as he struggled against his restraints. Ginny stood and walked over to her boyfriend's bedside to calm him. Madame Pomfrey rushed to Harry's bedside to check on his state. With Ginny by his side the yelling was gone but he was still anxious and fighting against the bed. She summoned a small blue vial from the cabinet which relaxed his muscles into jelly.

"Ginny, my child, how are you feeling?" Madame Pomfrey inquired.

Ginny turned to the medical witch, buried her face into her chest and sobbed.

Harry and I could only look at each other. The pain for us could be nothing like what Ginny was feeling at the moment. She lost a brother today. She would remember him for the rest of her life long after she and Harry reconstructed their lives. A part of her died along with her brother today. They knew that for sure as they saw the tiny girl weep into the older woman's comforting embrace.

Yea, I killed Ron. It's important later on.

Review and I'll post chapter 2 within the week!