Not Too Late

I watch it being lowered. This can't be happening, my heart is screaming. They offer the shovel to Harry first, then me. No parents here to do it. At least they are together now. I stand above the hole with the wooden box and seriously consider jumping in. I just can not leave that. To be separated from the person there for the rest of my life. Instead I mechanically drop dirt into the hole. Then I limply hand it to the next person. I think it is Ginny. I can not even tell.

I should have known this was going to happen. How could it happen? How could it not? I wish it had not. There were so many things I needed to say. I was stupid. And mute. Maybe she knew. I mean, according to Harry I was pretty obvious. Which is pathetic because I thought I was hiding it well. Ugh. I stumble on a rock and walk even faster out of the fenced in graveyard, past Remus', Lily's, and James' graves and Sirius' memorial. And now her grave too.

I leave quickly through the gate, yanking at the muggle tie around my neck. I had gotten it from her for Christmas. It really is a nice tie, but choking me. I start to jog now, heading for the for the lake. When I reach the beech trees I stop, choking on tears and air. I remember a day better than this. When we sat under the beech tree and the sun was out and Harry still laughed. He can't laugh anymore, you know. I haven't heard him laugh in months. I don't think I can laugh anymore as I see us sitting there.

"Ron, you've got to do this work, do you want another detention from Snape?" I hear the ghostly memory saying.

"Come on, it's beautiful out! I can't do my homework now!"

I never really appreciated that, just thought she was nagging at me. In all honesty, I probably wouldn't have graduated Hogwarts if it weren't for her "nagging."

I can still see us sitting there, uniform robes undone in the front due to the summer heat. I don't want to remember this! I start running again, back to the castle. Thump, thump, thump. I climb the big steps. The very steps she whacked Malfoy on. I was so proud of her. I can't go here either. I burst through the doors and walk to the middle of the entrance hall.

The marble staircase glitters in the light, tauntingly happy. I am mad at it. How can it look so happy when she's…gone? How many times did I walk up these stairs with her? Countless. Priceless. I crawl slowly up them again, walking along the hall above with echoing footsteps.

Two floors up I see the alcove. NO! Why does everything remind me of her? Again, I can see and hear us, just the two of us. She was so beautiful. I want to be back in that memory. I want to revisit our first kiss. Right there, it had been. I had apologized after, but she had just told me to shut it. And then she had kissed me again. I had felt something fuzzy on my legs and wondered what the bloody hell she was doing. But then I figured it out it was Mrs. Norris. I had grasped her hand and we had run from there. All the way up to the tower where we finally stopped to giggle and breathe outside the Fat Lady.

I start walking again. Taking random turns and more stairs until I find myself outside the hospital wing. I pull the door, its creaking surprising me slightly. It swings shut behind me. Memories flood. Several from each year, of all the times we were here together. How many times had I fallen asleep next to her? Her bed a nightstand's width away from mine. That week we had spent here in fifth year. It feels like so long ago…

"Harry's really hurting isn't he?" her voice breaks our sleepy silence.

"We all are."

"Yah…Ron? Is this going to stop?"

"What the rain?" I said referring to the shower outside.

"NO! Voldemort! This madness! Are we ever going to get to be kids again?"

That was the moment I realized that the three of us had lost our childhood. Many of our friends had as well. I don't think we were aware of it slipping by us so quietly and quickly, as we fought against and evil we had thought would never return. I hadn't been a child since I was eleven. After that I had had the burden of knowledge. I often wondered if my life would be better had I never met Harry but then I reason I wouldn't be who I was today without him. But looking back on that day in the hospital wing, I wanted so much to give her back her innocence. I knew that if she looked in the Mirror of Erised, she would see herself as a little girl again. See all of us as children, happy and content with quidditch and complaining about too much homework.

Before everything happened. Before we jumped into the trap door in our first year. I want it back. The first train ride! It would change everything. Maybe change is exactly what I need. Or maybe the day I realized that I really liked that buck-toothed genius that she was. If I had done something that day, back in fourth year, we could have had more time together. I have so much I need to tell her. I can't now.

I leave the hospital wing and go down the stairs until I can't go much further unless I want to go the dungeons. I'm in the entrance hall again. Here I enter the Great Hall. It is eerily empty and the ceiling reflecting the gray day. I can see her everywhere. Sitting at the table reading her textbooks, walking up to the front of the hall to be sorted, running down the center aisle and hurling herself at Harry and I after we returned from the Chamber of Secrets, leaning up from our table and giving me a kiss on the cheek before my first game.

Maybe she loved me. I'll never really know now though. And she'll never know how much I loved her. I don't know why she should have loved me. I'm foolish, poor at my studies, gangly, freckly, easily embarrassed, irritating, and mute! How could I have been so mute? I should have told her. Why didn't I listen to that feeling in my stomach the last time I spoke to her? I should have told her! But I was worried she would be horrified and that I would be horribly embarrassed. Embarrassed, ha, I've been embarrassed loads of times. Embarrassment seems trivial compared to what I am feeling now. I think I could have handled it if it meant her finding out how I really felt. Three words. Three words and it would have been over and she would have known and I would have known. And then…maybe…we would have been happy. Everything would have been perfect. I perch on my old table, my feet on the bench. I fold my hands and bow my head down. I can't bear to think about this right now.

I hear the door crack open and look up. There she is. My heart skips a beat but then I realize I am just remembering this, too. She searches the hall for me. Then she walks over and surprisingly sits right next to where my feet are. I remember this; it's the day after we kissed. I can see myself at about sixteen sitting behind where I presently am.

"Hi, Ron."

"Hi," I say at the same time the shadow of me does.

She smiles at me. The young me and I smile. I seem to be able to catch her gaze. The memory looks at me, the older me. This isn't part of the remembrance; this hadn't happened that day.

"I love you, Hermione," I tell the memory girl. And she nods. And fades. And I know that even though I might have said it a bit too late, she still heard me.