AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is an alternate-universe story, obviously. I wrote it after reading the Half-Blood Prince. Just a thought experiment really. I hope someone enjoys it.

Sometimes, thought Hermione, completely unexpected things happened, just because there was nothing else left.

The day they buried Ron was mocking in its brightness. The black mourning dress she'd put on too, too many times in the years of the last war felt heavy and oppressive. She felt guilty for the discomfort she felt in the heat, guilty that anything apart from his death could penetrate her mind. More than once her mind failed to focus on the sermon read by the gnarled old wizard on the platform; each time she felt she was failing him.

Later, any sharpness of feeling submerged for the moment under vodka and gin, she decided to stop feeling guilty, because after all, he wasn't there for her to fail any more. He didn't care what she did now. He was cold now, buried where she couldn't reach him. His feelings couldn't be hurt. She had to concentrate on making herself better and she knew it might take years.

Hermione sometimes forgot that Ginny had gone into the ground next to Ron. Next to their parents and Fred. The loss of Ron distracted her from anything else. She had not cried with Harry. She had not held him when he returned, triumphant, from destroying Voldemort and heard the news. The family that had loved him longer than his own, shattered, ruined. The deaths in vain, because the fight had already been won. Hermione had not, at the time, thought about this. She was still lying in bed holding herself and pretending it was Ron. She was still trying to comprehend that there was no way out of this with logic. No loophole that could be exploited with cleverness and luck. Still trying to accept that the only way through this was to feel.

It had been their first night together, Ron and Hermione, and it had been beautiful and she had cried afterwards because she would never again have that perfect moment, and then Ron had reminded her that they had their whole lives to try and make a better one. And the next morning the owl had come with the news of Mr and Mrs Weasley's capture and the children, of course, had ploughed straight in. The fight had been enormous and it had seemed so worthwhile, so dulce et decorum, that no one even noticed Harry was not there. It was only afterwards, stepping over pieces of people that she loved, that Hermione figured out what none of them were supposed to know: all of this was a distraction. Voldemort just didn't want anyone helping Harry to get to him.

She'd expected him to lose, but she was wrong. His survival though, his victory, didn't make anything different for her. She felt no relief or pride. She could not stop remembering how Ron had looked getting out of bed. How his smile formed on the left side of his mouth first. How upset he got when she took the piss out of him for anything. How he always got really, really offended on her behalf. The way he touched her, that last night… and then she felt dirty and guilty for remembering physical earthly things and not just his spirit.

Harry came into the Hog's Head while she was downing another glass of vodka. She'd dispensed with mixers a couple of hours ago. She saw his feet first. His face, last, was awful. She understood that his loss was just like hers and she wondered whether it was possible that he had loved Ginny like she had loved Ron. She had never thought such a thing was possible, but the lines, the etched scars on his face told her she was wrong.

"Hello, Hermione," he said, and sat down.

Grimmauld Place, where he was living now, was disgusting. Only one room was livable. Hermione knew he wouldn't use much of the rest of the house. There were food wrappers and tissues all over the floor even in here. Hermione didn't want to look at the bathroom, but she needed to wash her face. She looked in the smeared mirror and wondered if anyone would ever love her again.

"I know that later, I'll miss talking, and things like that, miss knowing him, but right now I really wish he was here so he could just fuck me. Is that too personal?"

"I wouldn't know the difference," said Harry. "Every voice I hear that isn't Ginny's sounds wrong to me anyway. And I know what you mean."

"I miss him inside me. I miss his arms. Falling asleep with him. Things like that. And I know the rest is going to be harder… but this feels bad enough."

"I don't want to be alone again. I've been alone for the rest of my life. I can't go back to it, Hermione. I can't live here on my own. Do you think it's even worth it?"

"I don't think I'd have the energy even to do anything about it, Harry. I thought about it. Picking up a razor blade or some pills. Or a wand! Taking myself to him again. If he is anywhere."

They were quiet for a little while. Then Hermione remembered something Lupin had said to her once, late at night when it was almost like it wouldn't be real if no one else heard it. "Did you know about Sirius and Lupin?"

"They loved each other?"

"Yes."

"I always thought they might have done."

"They knew they couldn't have each other. That the circumstances were too complicated, and even if they weren't, they were both too stubborn and traditional to do anything about it. But they still loved. Like loving a ghost. Lupin loved Sirius forever, he probably still does, and yet he gets on with his life anyway."

"He loves Tonks, doesn't he?"

"I expect so. But in a different way. It's like settling for something when you know you can only ever have second best. But it's not bitter, it's not sad. It's just the way things are."

"People always do it, don't they. People are always keeping things quiet, hiding what they really feel, just because things would be so much worse if they didn't. People live nice, happy, normal lives by forgetting about the things that would have disrupted them."

"There's always someone to go to, when the one you really love is gone. There's always making do."

"Tying up loose ends."

He kissed her and she kissed him back.

Later, when Hermione was trying not to let any part of her naked body touch the horrible stain on Harry's sheet, he said something. "I think we can get past that first bit, Hermione. That first bit of physically missing them. There's always another way."

"Yes, I think you're right," she murmured.

"Here we are, and we don't have anything else."

"Here we are."

"It will be all right, won't it?"