Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Not sure where this came from. Please enjoy nonetheless.
No one really knew why he kept going back there.
Oh, Hermione might have had her theories. She kept trying to ask him in roundabout ways to confirm or deny whatever she happened to be thinking.
Neville probably thought he was a nutter, but never really said as much. It was more in the looks he gave him every time he came back.
Luna just smiled at him slightly and waved him on his way, if she even noticed him at all. Sometimes he wondered if she knew.
Ginny probably had a very good idea, but she never said anything. For which he was grateful.
After all, sometimes he didn't even know why himself.
But they never stopped him from going.
The door didn't creak anymore. He'd made sure of that; it always signalled his entrance, and sometimes he liked to just wait in silence until she noticed he was there.
He took time to just stare at the stone before him, eyes following the contours as if to find something in them that he hadn't already memorized. Grey, a speck of sickly green or dirty black here or there from age. His eyes raked the stone, down to the fixtures attached to it. Grey. Grey-white. Grey-black. Green.
He tore them apart with his eyes, down to the last tiny shard.
But he never touched them. No, he wouldn't dare.
"Back again."
It wasn't a question, and thus didn't deign to expect an answer. His eyes didn't turn to the voice, nor did his stance offer any surprise. Same as always.
"Hasn't changed much since you came last, you know."
Also not a question. But this time his eyes turned from the stone and spared her a quick glance. Same as always.
"They give you any trouble?"
A question.
"No, but they never really do."
An answer. Same as always.
"How was your summer?"
His cue.
"Uneventful." With one last glance, as if tearing them from half-dried glue, his eyes finally turned to his left, and he offered a tiny smile.
"Well, that's boring." She gave him a look that said she wanted more information, and she wanted it now.
Same as always, really.
"Well, there's really not anything special about summer."
"Yes, but this summer you were seventeen. Isn't that a big thing?"
He gave her a small smirk. "Still not much different from every other summer I've had."
She pouted slightly, crossing her arms, as he finally took a seat against the wall.
"You never have any good gossip to spread around, you know that?"
His smirk widened. "And who would you tell?"
She fluttered her hand dismissively. "Doesn't matter. It would still be fun to know."
He let out a little chuckle, and she smiled at him.
"I like it when you laugh. You don't do it enough."
His face fell just a little, and his eyes dropped to his finger, tracing patterns in the cold stone floor. "Well, I try, you know."
She made a scoffing noise, and came to rest beside him. "You should try a little harder."
He gave her a look.
She rolled her eyes.
Silence reigned for a good few moments, and he felt his gaze drawn once more to the monolith—can it really be called that? It feels like one—before him, eyes following patterns only he could really see.
"Five years now, isn't it?"
He nodded slightly, eyes falling back to their space on the floor.
"Feels like longer."
He sensed the nod of agreement she gave him.
"And yet time just flies by."
"Well, you wouldn't really notice, would you?"
She scowled good-naturedly at him. But it wasn't a sore topic. No, nothing really was anymore between them.
After all, it had been five years.
Well, more like four, after he'd spent enough time working up the courage—and stability, really—to come back.
He drew his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, laying his chin on his knees.
Another silence fell, but it was not uncomfortable. Not anymore.
"The nightmares have mostly stopped now, you know."
She cocked her head to the side, but didn't say anything. She didn't need to.
"Oh, I still have them." He laughed slightly, a bitter edge coming into his voice. "But not like before."
He fingered the edge of his robe, knowing that a comforting hand was not forthcoming. If that was what he wanted—pity, more like—he'd have gone to Hermione.
That wasn't why he came here.
"Same as always?"
"Same as always."
Same as always.
"You know, sometimes I wish that bastard wasn't dead so I could kill him myself."
She didn't have to ask who he was referring to.
"But things would probably be a lot more complicated if he were still around." He continued speaking as if not expecting a response. Which he wasn't.
"They would."
"But you know, I can't help thinking all the time that if... if we had to have both or neither, I'd rather have them both back." He scoffed a little. "He's only been gone three months and already I'm wishing him back. It's like I hate the peace or something."
"That's only natural."
He raised his eyes to meet hers. "It felt so... unreal when he was gone, you know? Like everything was leading up to it, and then he was just... gone."
"He was."
"It was almost... too easy."
"But it wasn't."
This was what he wanted. Steadfast affirmation.
"No... no, it wasn't," he sighed. "And I know I'm wrong for thinking it... I just miss... I miss—"
But the tears were coming now. The tears that Hermione kept trying to coax from him, even all this time later. The tears that burned his heart and flayed his soul. The tears that he never let fall until he was here—safe—and knew no one would see.
No one but her.
No arms came to encircle him as he cried his silent tears. No voice whispered soft condolences—nonsenses—into his ears. No one told him it was okay—it's not okay—or it's fine to just let it out—it's not, not really—or that they understand—because they don't, they can't.
No, there was merely a pillar of support beside him; silent, watching, waiting for him to say what he always needed to say.
It was a few minutes later—she never moves, always just waiting—that he finally gave his eyes one last swipe and sat up a little straighter.
"I miss him. Even after all this time, I miss him."
She nodded, her eyes downcast slightly.
"He was the one who was supposed to get rid of that... that bastard, you know? He was the one. Everyone knew it." He gave a large sigh that ended in a watery cough. "He was the one..."
"He was. And he did."
He gave a half-hearted laugh that was more bitterness than anything. "You could put it that way."
She sent him a critical eye. "He did. And you know it."
Instantly, he sobered, the laugh—that really wasn't—dying in his throat with no effort as he sighed again. "Yeah, I know. All those years ago... if he hadn't... hadn't..."
"Died?" she offered, with a little quirk of her eyebrow that could have been insensitive but wasn't. It never was.
He laid his chin on his knees again, pulling his long legs a little closer. "Well, he didn't really have much choice in the matter."
"No, he didn't, but if he hadn't..."
"No one would've stood up to fight. I know."
She gave a little nod of satisfaction.
After a moment, he spoke again.
"But that doesn't mean I don't miss him."
"As you should."
Instant. Matter-of-fact. Almost thoughtless.
Comforting all the same.
"How did you feel when... when Voldemort was finally killed?"
"Not much different. He didn't really affect me to begin with."
He nodded with a sigh. "Yeah. I guess."
"But I was still glad."
He looked over at her, eyebrow raised over puffy eyes.
"I was. After all, while he was still around, there was a feeling of... things not being right. And he put you in a right state every time you came."
He snorted slightly. "So my state of mind was your main concern?"
"Well, yes. Not many people come to visit."
Silence fell once more.
"But I'd still trade peace to have them both back."
She nodded as though she'd expected nothing less.
"And I still wish I'd've been the one to kill him myself. But I guess everyone kind of got a hand in it in the end. Except..."
"He was the one who made them willing to do anything, remember. Even if he wasn't there for the actual fight."
He paused, and then a tiny smile made its way onto his lips.
"Yeah. You're right."
Not even the drip-drip-drip of water interrupted the blanket of quiet that gently settled on them.
His eyes travelled once more to the stone before him. Suddenly, as though something within him snapped, he got to his feet and stepped forward.
He was tired.
(Of being afraid.)
Now that everything was finished, he just...
(Of mourning.)
...couldn't help but think that he would have wanted him to move on.
(Of memories that he had to let go.)
The closure was there.
(Of waiting for something not coming.)
It had always been there. But he couldn't, not until everything was finished.
(Of being afraid.)
(Afraid.)
(Afraid.)
With a hand that no longer offered any hesitation, he reached forward and ran his fingers over the stone that had been haunting his nightmares for five years.
(Five long years.)
It felt no different from any other stone, but he knew what it was. What it led to.
(Darkness didn't scare him anymore.)
His light touch skimmed down and over the porcelain that was bolted to the stone.
(It was what had lurked there, what it had already done, that scared him.)
The metal was cold on his fingers, but he didn't flinch.
(Cold. Lifeless. Staring at him as though begging for breath again.)
Finally, they settled on the small engraving on the side.
(Snakes. They terrified him now.)
"I'm tired of being afraid."
He took a hold of the small—cold, lifeless, staring—faucet and, with a strength that he hadn't known he had, tore the ancient fixture from its housing.
No water sprayed. No porcelain shattered. No lightning struck and no thunder rolled. There was only the tiny thunk as the metal hit the ground, and then the small pop as his heel shattered the brittle metal into a million tiny shards.
And then there was silence.
She watched him turn, and he felt her gaze as he approached.
"I'm finally done with this."
There was no maliciousness, no fire, no sadness. Just acceptance. And perhaps even a small shard of satisfaction to echo the shards spread across the stone floor.
"Thank you."
He'd never said it before now. It had been a quiet sort of agreement that didn't need acknowledgment. Not in all the time they'd spent in this very place together.
His arms came up then, and even though she couldn't feel it, and he couldn't feel her, he settled them around her insubstantial shoulders and wrapped her in a pale echo of an embrace that was no less real than if they both had been alive.
"Thank you for everything, Myrtle."
And with that, Ron Weasley turned and stepped out the door, not looking back as it closed on silent hinges behind him.
"I don't think he's coming back."
Her translucent eyes turned to look behind her at the ghost of a small, thin boy.
"He's finally moved on," she responded quietly, floating back towards him.
There was a flicker of pain in his own eyes—eyes that would have sparkled like jade if they were alive, eyes that had sparkled like jade when they were alive—as he gazed solemnly at the place the boy—no, man now—had been seated against the wall, before skittering his stare to the small pile of metal shards that were all that remained of the snake-engraved faucet.
She watched as his gaze finally flickered to himself, and the vicious fang wound in his forearm that in death looked far less gruesome than it ever had in life.
Something in his eyes softened, and he turned to look at her again.
"Good."
She gave him a soft smile. "Sure you don't want to go after him?"
He hesitated for only a moment. "...No. He can't live in the past forever."
Then he turned a blinding smile on her.
"Besides, you said if I died down there, I could always share your toilet."
Fin.