The sun was sinking steadily below the horizon, darkening one of the most beautiful days of August that there had ever been. Even the ancient cemetery was looking beautiful in a sort of deathly glamour. The trees were swaying in a gentle summer breeze as the birds flew home to their nests. The skies were cloudless but streaked with hues of blue and pink and orange. How it could all look so blissful, when everything was so wrong and so dark, was one of the most perplexing mysteries to all of a certain gathering.

For a solemn group of several people in black ruined any scene of beauty at this hallowed place. They were slowly progressing towards the wrought iron gates of the cemetery. A middle-aged woman was sobbing into her hands as her husband led her along, supporting her in her grief. From the woman's hands could be heard shrieks of broken sentences, mostly starting or ending in "My only daughter".

A bespectacled, black-haired boy in his late teens and a pretty girl with long, flowing auburn hair that contrasted deeply with her mourning dress robes followed behind the hysterical mother, their arms entwined. They, like the matron, had their heads turned down in grief, but there was little noise between them. The only time that one or the other spoke was to say tearfully, as they looked back at the grave of their lost friend, "Good-bye."

Soon the rest of the party had disappeared, leaving only one person standing near a grave: a lanky teenaged boy. His head, which sported the same fiery hair as the girl who has accompanied the young man with glasses, was bowed in a dejected way, his hands were in his pockets, as his cerulean gaze stayed fixed on one of the stones:

Hermione Jane Granger

---

19 September 1979- 11 August 1998

Ron Weasley stared at the tombstone, taking in everything that it read. One thing was wrong. August the Eleventh might remain the day that she had died, but today, the Twenty-First, would be the day Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger were separated.

It should have been him. Not Hermione. Not beautiful, intelligent, perfect Hermione Granger. He should have been tortured and then died at the hands of the sinister Bellatrix Lestrange. The climax and hopefully the conclusion of the war were supposed to have been the end of all of the pain and devastation. All it had done was cause more. The war was over, yet it had not left.

Flashback

"I can't believe that… he's dead," whispered a trembling Hermione.

Ron could not believe it. Hermione, the girl who always had everything together, who was always comforting others but took little time for herself, was breaking down.

Ron placed an arm around Hermione instinctively. She buried her face in his shoulder, looking for comfort.

'How could this have happened?' thought Ron.

Dumbledore was gone from Hogwarts, from the world, forever. Death, destruction, evil; that was what the world had been reduced to.

End Flashback

Ron wrinkled his brow, giving him the appearance of a man who was far older than eighteen. The furrows on his forehead had deepened long ago, but were more prominent than ever today. This was the face that he had come to use, instead of weeping. He had yet to shed a tear for the girl that he had loved. Inside, he was torn up, every fiber in his body shredded to nothing. "Silent grief," is what he had heard Ginny call it.

"Ronald?"

Ron raised his head to see a blonde girl standing in front of him, eyeing him quizzically. Her misty blue eyes had always given Ron the feeling that she could see his soul. Luna Lovegood had that way with people. Though she said things that either made little to no sense or that were blatantly honest, Luna reminded everybody that life was meant to be explored, to be ventured through until their was nothing left but hypotheses that were merely guesswork.

"Hello, Luna," Ron muttered to her, trying to keep the hate out of his voice. Everybody who had lived through the war knew how lucky that they were still here to enjoy a world free of Voldemort. Ron hated them for it. He hated that they were alive.

"We all desperately miss her, Ron," said Luna calmly. "We feel your pain." She reached out and touched Ron's shoulder comfortingly.

Ron said nothing, as there was nothing that could be said that would make everything all right again. He looked back at Hermione's grave.

The problem was that there was so much honesty and benignity in Luna's statement that Ron knew that he had to believe her, but his hardened heart prevented him from feeling anything save for a deep annoyance and anger at her words. She could not possibly feel his pain. Luna had not loved Hermione as deeply and as purely as he had. Hermione had been a good friend to Luna, and Luna likewise, but it was not the same. Ron and Hermione were supposed to have been married, and to have lived into their old age.

Luna would not give in so easily. "You need to talk about it, Ronald," she said fiercely, but still in her usual floating voice. "It isn't healthy to keep turmoil inside. You'll end up with-"

"Luna, this is not the time for made-up illnesses!" Ron exclaimed suddenly. "It won't help anything! Those ideas of yours are poop!"

Taken aback, Luna's eyes widened even more than was usual for her. Ron expected her retort, but none came.

"Are-aren't you going to say something?" Ron asked gently, changing his mood considerably. "Or yell at me?"

Luna did not speak in sarcasm in response to Ron. Once more, she showed her knack for blatant honesty, this time by asking a question that many would have asked in anger.

"Why? Should I have?"

Now it was Ron's turn to exhibit overly-enlarged eyes.

"Well… I just insulted you," said he slowly, "and you didn't really seem to mind."

Luna was silent for another minute or two, perhaps collecting her thoughts. Ron expected something more direct to the conversation, rather than what she said next.

"If she could have chosen a day to be laid to rest, it would have been today."

Ron became even more perplexed than he had been before, but he could hardly argue with Luna, even if what she had said was off of the current topic. If Hermione had planned out the day that her loved ones would bid her farewell, she would have wanted them to have been able to do so on a nice day, a beautiful day.

"Yes, she would have chosen today," said Ron, as finally a tear escaped him. "She-"

Ron felt his voice leaving him as a now steady stream of tears pouring from him took over. The reason for his lack of tears before was clear now. Nobody had talked about Hermione like Luna just had. Luna had said one of the things that nobody else would have said, something that was a little less than normal, but it had captured the beauty of Hermione's soul. That was what Ron had needed. He was allowed to grieve freely now. He was free to fall into somebody's arms and tell them that he was miserable, depressed, and felt unable to live.

And he literally fell into another's arms. Luna embraced him like a brother. He cried like a child, which was something that he had vowed never to do.

Everything changes when you allow yourself to fall.