Author's Note: my first published forray into Hermione's point of view. Generally I find Ron easier to write, but Hermione has a unique perspective on some events. Ron's leaving being one of them. So I thought I'd try writing her.
This was written for the Globetrotter Drabble Competition on the Harry Potter Challenge Forum posted by percychased for the prompt #21- Reykjavik. This was probably the hardest prompt on my list, so completing it makes me pretty happy. Thanks to NiftyGirl for reading through my angst fest. I do not own Harry Potter. Reviews are the best.
All around her the ocean stirred; an angry, boiling expanse of grey water that closed her in on three sides. She wondered vaguely if this small bay had a name, if perhaps someone somewhere had memories of this place.
All that she had memories of was him. It had never occurred to her before he had gone just how much of her life was catalogued around him. Every memory she had, even the ones of her summers at home were all filed away in her mind with a reference to him. There was not a single thought that she could think of without thinking of him, she had allowed him into her mind, allowed him to saturate through every part of herself. And now he was gone, and she felt hollow and empty.
She turned away from the sea when its crashing waves began to remind her of the way he had shouted when he left. On the distant horizon, she could just make out the sun, nothing more than a smoky outline in the pre-dawn light.
She had no idea what she was doing anymore, that wasn't entirely shocking as that's how he'd always made her feel. But this was different, infinitely more hopeless. She could handle not knowing how to impress him, not knowing how to make him notice her the way he had noticed Lavender, but this? How could she possibly handle not knowing how to breathe without him? She had no idea how they were going to do this without him. The three of them could do anything, but they weren't the three of them anymore and she had no idea how to make a duo stand as strong as the trio had.
This was always the time when she remembered how much she hated him. He had no right to leave the way he had, and yet he'd done it anyway. He'd left her all alone with this unsolvable problem before her. She was so angry she couldn't think. So angry that she could almost forget that she would give anything in the world to have him back.
"Hermione," Harry's voice was soft and gentle, the same way he had spoken to her since he had left. She turned to him, avoiding his eyes so she wouldn't have to see how his grief mirrored her own. "It's my turn to take watch." He gestured back at the warm glow of the tent invitingly, but she shook her head.
"I'm not tired." She insisted hoping that he wouldn't question her.
"You've been out here for hours."
"I don't want to go in." she said simply, her tone offering no opportunity for challenge. Harry met her gaze for a moment and gave in. She knew that he knew why she wouldn't go in.
He had slept in that tent. His presence was woven into every fiber of it, and when she was inside it his absence was a tangible presence. She had never stood on this bay with Ron Weasley and that made it easier to bear.
With a sad nod Harry made his way back to the tent and its ghosts and left her alone with the sea.