time dripping like honey
Characters: Fred Weasley, Hermione Granger
Summary: This could not really have happened.
Prompts: Counting backwards, Clouds and "Higher Love" by James Vincent McMorrow
10
He grows old, something he has never imagined to happen when he was younger. He has always assumed that either his recklessness would do him in one nice day or that the heartbreak would finish him off. He is proven wrong. He is a born survivor - to the point that he sees it as a curse because he has outlived Percy (a heart stroke at fifty-four which had hardly surprised anyone who has known the man) and Bill (a poisonous artefact someone has smuggled into his brother's box).
He sits on his front porch, watching his nieces and nephews chase after their children and smiles. He may have been lonely a long time of his life yet if he looks back now, if he counts all the beautiful moments in life, he realises that he has been a lucky one.
9
He is counting backwards to keep from killing Ron. He cannot kill his brother even though that insensitive prick has just ripped out his heart and stabbed it a few times.
Hermione.
His stupid little brother really wants to name his daughter after the fallen witch, the one who has come so far just to crash and burn in the very last moment. He understands, in a way. She has been Ron's friend as well and his stupid little brother means no offence. This does not mean that it hurts any less. Quite the opposite, actually.
8
"You loved her."
"Correction," he says. "I do love her. There is no use in past tense when it's not over yet, is there?"
Because it is true. He has seen crushes and first romantic relationships fail in his time at Hogwarts because everyone had been young, young enough to make experiences first. No one has ever expected their friends to marry their first crush. And yet, there have always been those who had seemed older than the rest, even in the first grade. Those with eyes that seemed to hold the wisdom of the world - people like Hermione. When they have fallen in love, it has always seemed so much more meaningful, as if the stars, the sun and the moon were required to notice and to bless them.
He now knows that he has loved her that way. The way everything else seems to be wasted time. A better, more important kind of love - no matter how foolish that sounded.
"Do you hate me?"
"Not anymore. She chose you because she acknowledged what you could do if you would survive long enough. It may sound weird … but it if had been you instead of her, we all would be dead now. I do no longer hate you … however, I hate myself for being unable to protect her. I knew what loyalty meant to her from the very start."
7
Happiness is gone now. Completely. Breathing hurts, everything hurts. Working on stuff for the store hurts like hell because she has hated that she has liked it in a way and he has liked the way he has made her laugh before. However, within the ruins, he finds hope. Hope because he has loved her and because this will never be taken away from him. Hope because there is something to do. They have a society to rebuild. He nearly breaks down nonetheless when George remarks that she has once wanted them to sponsor her then-stupid-now-brilliant S.P.E.W. and for some reason, the one-eared brother is not surprised at the sudden generosity Fred shows as he donates a high amount of galleons to Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood who have taken over for her deceased friend.
6
He tilts up his head, stares at the grey, grey sky where clouds are hiding the sun beneath thick layers of even more grey and just before the first raindrop falls, a small drop runs down his cheek. It is over. It is finally, finally over yet - why cannot he be happy? Why can he only cry? There are so many people in this world. Some that run from the battles they have picked. Some that finally, finally come home after such a long time of being away. Some are liars, living in permanent denial of the easiest facts. Some have made mistakes, mistakes they have hidden and descended further into the darkness. So many people. Yet the only one who has mattered … was gone.
5
He somehow manages to reach her, her broken form, so small, so vulnerable all of a sudden. Brightest witch of her age. An epithet people surely will remember when they write their eulogies - because they will write them pretty soon, once all of this is over. Heroine of a war. A title that is absolutely meaningless in death. A title no woman her age should carry. He breaks down - because he loves her, still. She has died the way he has predicted she would go, protecting Harry. He wants to punch that prick, however, he knows that it would be stupid now … and utterly, utterly pointless. It will never bring her back. Doesn't change the fact that he wants to.
His twin brother knocks him out and drags him away as it is all over.
4
The way she moves into the line of the curse and then falls is tragically beautiful but then again, so has been everything about her for the longest time. He watches from afar, frozen and terrified because she is the brightest witch of her age and she should not fall like this, not this easily … not like a porcelain doll someone simply pushes off the shelf to see her shattered on the ground. Yet, she does fall and she does shatter and there is nothing, nothing he can do but to stand and stare.
He does scream, a second delayed, and rage fills his veins as he runs over to her and begs that no, no, she cannot be dead, not her, never her.
3
The memory is nice, it warms his heart as he laughs at his brother's joke. A joke that has never been less unasked for because this situation is not a laughing matter. He looks around, trying to spot her somewhere in the crowd yet when he sees her, he nearly wishes he would not have looked for her because she looks so much older. She should not look this old. She should look young and happy. He wishes he could go over to her and say something but for the first time in his life, he faces the realisation that there are no words left.
"Like a silent day in Paradise, huh?" George mutters, an incomplete quote from a book he has once read but Fred understands the sentiment connected to it and nods.
"And what a cold, silent day it is," he replies softly.
2
He comes to the conclusion that he does not hate Harry after a few months because it is not his fault. He is angry and desperate because love is one thing, the loyalty between others an entirely different one and he only wants her save - and she would have been so much safer than him than she could ever be with Harry and Ron out there, running and fighting, trying to get the upper hand in a fight that has never been supposed to be theirs because they are still just children, younger than him, younger than someone who plans on fighting and who is willed to die in a war should be.
1
"I am sorry."
Three words that end it all. Three words. Nothing more, nothing less. Three words are all he needs to understand - to understand that it is over. She will go away. She will do the same thing as his little brother - the same thing that his mum would yelled at Ron for if she would know. They will go with Harry and if necessary, they will for him because the prick is the boy who lived and they are his loyal friends, willed to fight and die for him.
"I know, Granger, I know."
Five words to seal a fate.