Disclaimer: Characters, setting etc belong to JK Rowling.
Letting Go
At night his face haunts me; I hear his voice in my dreams, whispering things to me, whispering all the things he used to whisper during those long nights that summer. I was so scared and he was all that kept me sane, without him I don't really think I could've got through it - now he's gone and I'm drifting again. All that's left are these dreams and the memory of his smile. Sometimes I can't sleep, too scared to face him knowing that I will betray him even though I know he never could've betrayed me and sometimes I beg for sleep so that I can see him one more time and pretend for just a few more blissful hours that he's still here with me.
My life was not supposed to be this way. I was never supposed to fight a war and to lose everything before I ever really had it. My parents are still somewhere in Australia and half my friends are dead. All that would be irrelevant if I had him though.
It's been two years now, and I stand here as I have every other day since he left, staring down at the tree. It's a willow – bent with age, leaves brushing the ground - that stands alone deep in the bottom of a hidden valley behind the Burrow, and right about now the flowers are in full bloom, and the branches dance merrily in the breeze, beckoning me. I will never answer their call. Deep within those branches is a swing, old and warped but just big enough for two, and it is there that we would sit for hours on end talking about the world. It was there that I fell in love. We met one warm afternoon, as I sat so afraid of my future and he showed me how to let go. From then on we met once a day to just be together and talk for hours on end, and slowly but surely I grew to love him, and he, I. This place is all I have left of him now; well, there is a grave, but it's so cold, so blank and heartless, so unlike him with his fiery hair and dancing smile – he was so alive and to stand there and know that beneath my feet he lies cold and still breaks my heart over and over again. No, that's not him anymore, this place is.
It was here that he found me, still standing, immovable against the winds. I could feel his warm hand on my shoulder and his nervous smile as he stood beside me. It was his brother after all. It didn't stop me resenting the intrusion, or having to stop myself from flinching away as he brushed his lips against my cheek. He loves me. I know it, the world knows it, and he's waited so long for me without even knowing why, but soon he'll ask me the question and I will be forced to answer. I won't say no, how can I? You could say we have been dating for the last eighteen months, but I don't think it counts as dating if you are in love with someone else. It's a shame he doesn't agree.
The sun has begun to set, and gently he places his hand on my back and guides me back towards the Burrow as though walking a small child home again. They think I'm fragile, about to break from the stress and I can see why. To be honest, I'm past protesting; nothing I said has changed the fact that they supervise me constantly, only allowing me these few hours by myself every other day. Today is different from those other days though, I can feel it. Something's changed. His hand is shaking on my back, and he's awkward and jerky., every so often he opens his mouth as though to speak before sighing and closing it once more – I think I'm more afraid than him because I know what's coming and I had hoped - prayed really - that I had had more time.
We stop by a fence halfway back. The field behind us is in full bloom, poppies, foxgloves, and daisies sway in the breeze, colours all the richer in the fading light – I can't take my eyes off them. Slowly I raise my head, looking at him and waiting. As he starts to speak the world blurs and falls sideways on its axis. He asks me to marry him with eyes like a puppy dog and a hopeful smile painted on his face. I say yes. Everyone knew I would and it breaks my heart that I have, but there's no other choice – what am I supposed to do? He will care for me like no one else and at least with him I can pretend, pretend that he's the one I love and not just some imposter – in the dark they both look the same. Taking my hand he pulls me forwards happily, I bow my head as though fighting a smile. His family wait outside the Burrow, lined up in a row; they see his face and smile, erupting into a noisy chatter, and the night swirls past in a blur of congratulations and colour.
I can't get my mind off this afternoon and what I have done, I feel so dizzy and sick, the world is spinning and it feels like vertigo. All I can see is the two of us standing against that fence. The party has faded away completely. Slowly his face blurs and it's not him I'm saying yes to, but the one that lies cold and dead in some soulless graveyard: the smile twists up on one side, the eyes deepen, and it's his voice telling me he loves me. The irony. We had planned to marry, you know. As soon as the war had gone we would tell them all, get married within the month right there under our tree. No, the face I saw in my head was just a sick caricature – the eyes too watery, the smile all wrong, and the face too round. I know well enough that the whispers in my dream will never be the same now, it doesn't matter that he's gone; he will know what I have done, and he will punish me. Maybe he just won't visit me anymore, or maybe he'll tell me how much he hates me. Either of those is easier than knowing the truth – he'd smile at me sadly and tell me to be happy. Then he'll leave and I'll be alone. I'm letting go again.
I am Hermione Granger and three years ago I fell in love. This year I will marry Ron Weasley. It's just such a shame I fell in love with Fred. And nobody knows.