At first it felt like ice running through her veins. The there was sharp pain in her heart. Not a metaphorical pain like in poems. It was real. It was grief.
She could feel it as it crept up her throat. Then it stung her nose and all the strength that she possessed could not keep it from piercing her eyes and causing the salty drops to escape the place they had accumulated and gathered for so long.
Hermione cried. She was done with being strong, done with building a wall around herself that allowed no grief or sadness to pass through it and strike her. She was done with constantly having to fortify and rebuild this wall as more and more death reports came in. She was done with being strong when all she wanted was to be vulnerable.
So she cried. Softly at first, which everyone expected. The grief would not let up though, it would not accept this meager attempt at emotion. So she sobbed. Tears flooded out of her with no force at all and she thought her body could not possibly contain the vast amount of water needed for her to let it all out.
She dropped to her knees and rested her elbows on the floor. She would not cling on to someone else as if they could possibly lend comfort to this unbearable pain.
She felt the blood soaking through the fabric of her shirt and it made her feel stronger. She let her arms fall and she rolled to him, feeling his blood against her skin. She pushed herself so their hips and torsos were touching. She reached over and embraced him. She knew soon they would pull her off him and she would have to move on.
But this moment she would cry. This moment she would grieve and let the pain course through her because it cleansed her of all the horrible feelings she had held in a secret dark corner of her broken heart no matter how full-proof she thought her wall was.
She will him to be alive and herself to be dead but she knew neither would come true. She would be watched carefully after this. Everyone would make sure her life wasn't taken, especially by herself.
But none of that mattered now. She needed to be with him.
After some murmurs of people who were distant shadows at the moment, Hermione felt hands pulling her up, away from him. Every inch put between them made the pain worse and worse until she was sure her heart would explode.
"Noooo!" she shrieked as she was dragged farther and farther away. "Ron!"
She reached a bloody hand towards him as they turned a corner and he was blocked from view. She continued to cry as she realized that this was it. She would have to move on. The wall would have to go back up.