Silence
By soul release
All Regular Disclaimers Apply.
Summary: The silence was unbearable, torturing, as she begs for him to return to her and break the silence. RonHermione
The silence was unbearable, torturing, stifling. She wondered if it would rain today; then, maybe, the distant pitter-patter of the raindrops would break this dreadful feeling, even if it meant a cloudy day.
She hated cloudy days, sheets of rain, and she remembered staring out the windows at Gryffindor towers, hoping for sunshine, abandoning her letters and books completely for once; she liked sun and flowers and blue skies, never the clouds that always seemed to shadow the earth.
But she hated silence even more.
Haunting and deadly and sinister, she didn't like it at all. It sent shivers down her spine, escalating into raw electricity that knocked her over senseless. And she would feel faint and nauseous and weak for the rest of the afternoon that even reading her favorite Shakespeare poetry books couldn't rid of.
It was unnerving, silence; she wasn't used to it. Before this, she lived a life of laughter and humorous banter and bickering, with Ron, of course, by the hearth in the common room, never this unearthly quiet.
Silence only reminded of her of how wrong the world had become.
(He's gone; they searched everywhere for him, but couldn't find a trace -)
(There's got to be reason; it's only been five years; he can't be dead -)
When he'd been here, there had always been something – laughing, bickering, teasing; now the hallways were empty, the rooms absent of life, and silence conquered and she knew, with heartbreak, that he was missing.
Silence only reminded her that he'd gone.
Oh, Ron.
Come back.
Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry, she admonished to herself unconvincingly, hopelessly because tears were already trailing down her faded cheeks, but she couldn't find the strength to brush them away, shun them. He wasn't dead; he couldn't be dead.
(He's gone; they searched everywhere for him, but couldn't find a trace -)
(It's been five years, Hermione; we're too late; he's gone -)
Oh, she missed him terribly, everything about him – the blueness of his eyes, his ravenous hunger for Chocolate Frogs, his jokes, their rows – even his idiotic laugh which she'd called despicable. It was strange how time could make even the most unlikely things so precious.
Come back.
I love you.
She suddenly became so weary of all this, felt so lonely and worthless and tattered; she just wanted to fall asleep and forget this, and that maybe when she woke up, he'd be here, and everything would be okay. And she wouldn't feel so jaded and cynical and worn no more.
Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.
She slowly got up, dazedly, in a tragic sort of gracelessness, and reached for the black coat she'd received years before, wrapping herself with the red scarf – the scarf he'd given her for her birthday what seemed like eons ago. How long had he been gone? Five years, and yet it seemed like eternity.
She looked at herself blankly – clad in black with only a touch of life, a touch of red around her thin neck – at the dullness of her brown hair and her vacant eyes; she remembered when they used to glimmer, but that seemed like so long before – before he'd gone missing and her entire world came crashing down.
She'd barely survived the collapse.
She just wanted to escape all this silence as she walked slowly into the park down the street, the silence that had halted her blood so undesirably so many times. Her eyes traced the children laughing by the baker's shop and a group of cheery women gossiping about the most recent hairstyles to the seniors meeting on the street, and she looked away. She couldn't remember the last time her house had been full of this.
Life.
Come back to me.
She found herself ambling down a park, without knowing which direction she was truly heading, without knowing why she was doing this. The day was beautiful, though she was not; reaching blindly, her gloved hand clasped onto the little black book of quotations in her pocket and brought it before her, but her eyes blankly stared at the stanzas and lines, not exactly comprehending the sweetness of the words and metaphors.
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
Tears drowned her thoughts, and she once again, stood bleary-eyed and flushed in the middle of an autumn afternoon; she missed him, missed him, missed him so much. She wanted to be in his arms, and feel so safe and wanted and complete.
Please; break the silence.
Something vaguely warm touched the skin of her neck – something so eerily familiar, but she wasn't sure what it was; was she dreaming? She tilted her head and noticed a pair of recognizable hands crossed at the start of her collar bone, around the red scarf.
They looked so strongly like Ron's hands – the hands she'd held in seventh year's ball, at Hogsmeade, in the battlefield.
Was she dreaming? Surely, she must be. And she closed her eyes and opened them again to realize that they were still there, and her heart was torn between anxiety and hope, confusion and love, happiness and despair, and she wasn't so certain what to think anymore. This must be a dream.
Instead, she just said softly, shakily, afraid to cry from joy– "Ron."
He didn't say anything, but just held her in his arms, and kissed her temple, and she knew, for sure, that the silence had already been broken.
"I'm here."
END
I actually like this one-shot quite well; Ron and Hermione are so cute together.
Gah, I can't wait until the sixth book comes out
Please review and CC; reviews are good and make me happy ... well, not that you care. But still, review please.
Piano exam tomorrow – (has to stop procrastinating and writing fics and goes off to play piano)
- soul release