"I never loved nobody truly,
always one foot on the ground,
and by protecting my heart truly,
I got lost in the sound, I hear in my mind all these voices,
and I hear in my mind all these words,
and I hear in my mind, all this music,
and it breaks my heart"
-Fidelity, Regina Spektor.
Time stood still. The screams of our friends and our foes seems to fade to an urgent, barely audible whisper. Everything we were fighting for, Life vs. Death, Good vs. Evil, it all seemed irrelevant at that very moment. I couldn't quite believe what the man standing next to me had just said. Only he was so much more than some nameless man. His voice seemed to pierce the clamour, a Cupid's arrow to my heart, only a hundred times more practical and realistic. How I loved the sound of his voice. But I always had. Its absence was one of the reasons I cried into my pillow night after night in that stupid tent. I loved everything about him, and since his return, everything good about him was thrown into sharp relief. I realised at that very second that we had both been struggling with our feelings since we were thirteen, that it wasn't just me. I had told myself that it was pointless, ridiculous. I remember blaming it on my hormones at one point, and attempted to throw myself into my schoolwork with greater effort than before, if that were possible. But who would have thought such a moany twat could be such a heart wrenching distraction? Suddenly, one tiny, insignificant moment seemed to creep into my mind. Divination in third year. The class I stormed out, actually. Crystal balls. I had just messed up my schedule, and missed Charms. The three of us had sat down at the same table. It seemed like the other two thought most subjects were rubbish, but I only agreed about divination. What a waste of time that was. "Professor" Trelawney had jut asked us if we needed any help and he had responded" it's obvious what it means. There's going to be loads of fog tonight". He glanced over at me with those brilliant sapphire eyes that seemed to query the humour of his own statement. But humorous was an understatement. He had unconsciously shown his uncanny knack of making me feel a hundred times better with just a throwaway comment. He seemed surprised when we burst out laughing, and I could see a flash of emotion pass across his eyes. Gratitude? Vulnerability? I couldn't put my finger on it. I couldn't determine his emotions, when all I ever did was be accurate and determined.
And there we were again, with another seemingly unimportant comment- house-elves. But what a comment. He had listened to me; even he persistently protested my ideas. For all his faults, for all his stubbornness, all our history-it didn't matter (he was never that good at history anyway). His heart, his soul was so deeply good that it didn't matter what had gone before. I knew what I had to do, but what a time to do it. When I had let my imagination run wild on stuffy days in the library or about to fall asleep on lonely summer nights, I imagined it being somewhere beautiful and romantic, not in this destroyed, sieged castle. This wasn't the Hogwarts I knew; it was something a great deal more wonderful, and terrible. Hexes were flying through the corridor, and every one of its occupants was facing death. Except the ghosts. "Fuck it," I thought," I'm doing it anyway". All these thoughts appeared to occur in a split second. Everything was still as it was. I still had my chance. I eagerly crossed the few inches between us and kissed Ron Weasley. He dropped his Basilisk fangs, with surprise or enthusiasm I couldn't tell. I couldn't quite believe what I was doing, but I knew the feeling of his hand in my hair, our intimacy, his indescribable smell was ecstatically, recklessly real. And he was kissing back. The tense front we had been trying to keep intact vanished. I heard my best friend mumbling something, but I wasn't listening. He cut short our embrace with an exasperated "OI! There's a war going on here!" We broke apart and looked at him. I was tempted to start laughing; the enormity of what just happened was having a weird effect on me. I glanced at my best friend in the world. I respect him so much. I could see exasperation, but acceptance in his face. He knew. He knew it was going to happen all along. But it was a tired face. Harry had to keep fighting, keep thinking, to stay strong. My personal triumph was just that, personal. "When people speak of this day it won't be about what just happened", I thought. It was the deciding day for the rest of the world. The rest of the world didn't really have time for romantic revelations. Neither did Harry, really. We quickly began picking the fangs we had dropped. Our hands brushed at one point, I looked up and Ron was beaming at me. He squeezed my hand, jumped up and ran after Harry. The complete randomness of what had just happened gave me renewed energy to fight with all my heart for what was to be the greatest victory of all.
The victory was over, and ours, but we had lost in so many ways. The sunset was dancing across the tables in the great hall, which were filled with happy, but weary survivors, fighters. However, our thoughts were about those who were not there. I couldn't quite believe that they were gone, Fred, Remus, Tonks. I half-expected them to come around the corner, Fred cracking a joke, Tonks openly laugh as she tugged at Remus' hand, our old professor obliging with a small amused smile on his face. The Weasleys were all sitting at the Gryffindor table, and l looked intently at their faces. Each one seemed to be experiencing different stages of loss. Ron was leaning on a nearby pillar. He was staring at the entrance to the corridor where the dead lay, and I could tell he was hoping for the same thing I was. He shook his head and his eyes filled with tears. I moved nearer him and took his hand. He swiftly pulled me into his embrace. I could feel his heart beating as I lay my head against his chest. His warm arms wrapped around me gave me an inexplicable sense of comfort of safety, of home. I pulled away and looked into his eyes.
"I love you, Ron."
He brushed the hair out of my eyes and responded in a broken whisper,
"I love you, Hermione."
He tilted my chin up to meet his trembling lips. He took off his jacket and draped it around my shivering shoulders. We stood there with our arms around each other for a few minutes, watching Harry being unexpectedly kissed on the cheek by Luna, and shaking Neville's hand with an intense gratitude. My personal triumph, what Ron and I had, suddenly seemed so centric to something much more important to everyone else. It was the reason why Lily Potter sacrificed herself, what Dumbledore had told Harry, what Voldemort had never experienced and what was to be his ultimate downfall in the end. Love.
Author's Note: My first fanfic! Please review! I don't normally talk in exclamation marks! I was listening to six songs on loop from Regina Spektor's second album Begin to Hope (Samson, On the Radio, Better, Apres Moi, On the Radio and Fidelity), so well done if you noticed any another themes from those, I just thought the quote and the start was the most relevant. I personally didn't think I'd write a Ron/Hermione as my first fanfic, but that's the way the cookie crumbles (speaking of which, I'm currently making muffins). Review and you get a muffin!(Muffins are made of your imagination).
EVERYTHING BELONGS TO J.K ROWLING, apart from the way I tell it. J.K Rowling wouldnt be making muffins while writing her Author's Note. She wouldnt even be writing a Author's Note, cos she actually has a publisher! (Oh, but she doesnt own the song Fidelity. Thats's all Regina.)
In the writing of this fanfic, I have stolen 4 concepts:
1. Potteruniverse
2. A Russian girl with a piano's ruminations on Fidelity.
3. The whole muffins are made from your imagination thing, its actually cookies, from Charlie McDonnell.
4. The whole "J.K Rowling would'nt" idea, from my best friend MrsDannyJones-Xx (who no doubt stole it from someone else). Go read her stuff, it's awesome, I proofread it. (She also introduced to the whole fanficwritingreadingthingy.)
I think I'm doing pretty well :)
Thanx for reading!