One Day, Two Hours, and Thirty-Seven Minutes
"This is why I hate astronomy class," Ron moaned as he arrived in the Common Room with Harry, his hair tousseled. "We have to wake up at eleven, go to class for midnight, and then come back and sleep for about an hour before we have to be up for potions the next morning."
"Oh, come on, Ronald, stop complaining. Everyone else manages to do it. Somehow, you're the only one who seems to care," Hermione snapped, stuffing her books into her bulging bag. She was quite wrong in her statement, however – pretty much everyone else in the Common Room was yawning and stretching. After double potions with the Slytherins that day and the prospect of having more potions first thing in the morning tomorrow, everyone felt as though they were even more tired than they really were.
"Come on, we've got to get going," Ron said. "Hermione used up enough water in the shower to make the Sahara Desert a fifth ocean."
"Honestly, Ron, do you have to complain about how much water I use every day in the shower? I mean, I am a girl. It's our nature," Hermione said, slinging the bag up over her shoulder and falling over backwards in the process. Despite the fact that Ron seemed to be a bit annoyed with her at the moment, he thrust out his arms and caught her before she hit the ground.
"My goodness . . ." she murmured, her heart pounding. "Thank you, Ron."
"No problem . . ." he murmured back.
Harry grinned and said, "I think you need to take a couple of those books out of your bag, Hermione. Someday, Ron might not be there to catch you."
"No, no, Harry, it's fine. I'll be there," he said too quickly. He froze in his tracks, though Hermione and Harry kept walking. Hermione was blushing slightly to herself when she turned around to face him.
"Ron, are you alright?" she asked casually.
He shook his head slightly and replied, "Yeah, of course. Come on, let's go. I don't want to be late again."
Hermione thought it was a bit odd that Ron actually cared about whether or not they got to a class on time for once. She had a feeling it had something to do with the comment he had just made, but she let it go and followed after he and Harry.
As usual, the trio arrived in the Astronomy tower a few minutes after midnight. The teacher was scrambling around frantically, checking telescopes and star charts. The rest of the class was staring at her as though she were crazy.
"What's going on here?" Harry asked Seamus.
"Professor seems to think that in a day, two hours, and thirty-seven minutes, the sun will go out and we'll all be dead. She says that we'll all be frozen to death by 2:42 tomorrow morning," Seamus whispered.
"Actually, Seamus, if the sun were to go out, it would have probably already have gone out, and we just wouldn't see the full effect of it for that amount of time," Hermione butted in.
"Bloody hell, Hermione, do you have to intrude on everyone's conversations all the time? It gets a little annoying after awhile," Ron snapped.
"Like you care. You weren't even involved in the conversation, Ron, so your response to the situation doesn't matter to me at all," Hermione snapped back.
"Come off it, you two! You're constantly at each other's throats!" Harry hissed.
"Sorry, mate," Ron mumbled. "If Hermione would stop being so rude and selfish –"
"Me? You're the one yelling at me!"
"GUYS!" Harry bellowed. The two of them were silenced.
Looking around, the teacher was still searching through everything she owned to find whatever she was looking for.
"Professor, are you alright?" Harry asked timidly.
"No, Mister Potter, I'm not!" she cried ecstatically. "The sun is going to go out in one day, two hours, and . . . thirty-four minutes, and I haven't said goodbye to my husband yet!"
"What makes you think the sun's going to go out?" Hermione pursued.
"Haven't you noticed? It gets much darker much earlier than it's supposed to these days."
"Yeah, because the clouds are blocking the sun," Hermione contradicted.
"No! It's because there is no sun! And have you noticed that the air is much cooler than it should be in April? It's been down in the teens some nights, when the coldest it's supposed to get is into the thirties! The sun has gone out, I tell you, and in one day, two hours, and thirty-three minutes, we will all be dead!" she exclaimed.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged glances. They didn't really believe her. After all, in this temperature zone, the weather was never predictable. And so what if it was getting darker earlier? What did that mean?
"You don't think the sun's really gone out, do you, Hermione?" Ron asked, a touch of concern in his voice.
Hermione busied herself stuffing her books into her bag. "Of course not, Ron, don't be ridiculous. I think that if the sun had gone out, we would have known it by now."
-
Hermione awoke seven hours later and took another shower. She smiled to herself as she turned on the water and let it fall over her frozen body. She knew that Ron would comment on how much water she used once they met up in the Common Room later.
She didn't really understand why she loved him so much. It was one of those love-hate things. Some days, she couldn't stand him, with how he turned everything she said into a huge, full-blown argument. But at the same time, every time that he looked at her, her heart melted into a puddle. Every time he smiled, her world suddenly came brighter.
Then she came to wondering – if the sun really were to go out, and she really did only have . . . Twenty hours and twenty-eight minutes left to live, would tell him how she felt? The teacher had warned them that they had to say goodbye to those they loved. That included Ron. But what if he rejected her, minutes before her death? Would she really want her last thoughts to be about how Ron didn't love her? And what would it be like, knowing he didn't love her, wherever she went after death? Would he go with her?
She shivered. She didn't want to know what it would be like if the sun were to go out. At the same time, she couldn't help but note that the days were getting colder. Only yesterday, it had been about thirty degrees when she woke up that morning. Now, it was more like twenty.
Twenty hours and six minutes left before the sun went out.
-
Ron awoke later than Hermione or Harry had. A small chill flew up and down his spine. He looked down at himself and realized that, once again, he had slept with his shirt off. He chuckled, remembering the dream he had last night. He had accused Hermione of using too much water in the shower, and then they were late to Astronomy, where the teacher had informed them that within one day, two hours, and thirty-seven minutes, the sun would go out and they would all die.
He winced as his bare feet hit the stone floor. It was absolutely freezing. He slipped his feet into his soft, warm slippers and reached for his shirt that he had left on the bed post. He wondered why he had slept with his shirt off. Oh, yes, of course, it must have been the other dream he had had. Where he was swimming with Hermione. He often did that – if in his dreams, he took his shirt off, he would have done it in real life. He laughed quietly, thanking God for not making him take his pants off in the dream. Yes, and Hermione was in a yellow, polka dot bikini. He smiled, fondly recalling the dream. She had kissed him softly, and he had felt like his heart was about to burst. And then she had commented on how hot he had looked without his shirt on.
For some reason, he had been having a lot of dreams like that recently. Even if they weren't completely devoted to Ron and Hermione doing something romantic together, they usually had Hermione in them. He knew that she would have commented that that was probably because he thought about her a lot, and usually the things you've been thinking about a lot appear in your dreams. He had been thinking about her a lot, but not about how they fought all the time. Mostly about what a great person she was, and how shiny her hair looked when the sunlight that shone through the stained glass windows reflected off of it, and the way her eyes danced when she smiled at him.
As he continued to get dressed, however, he remembered a horrible part in his second dream. For some odd reason, the whole thing about the sun going out had appeared in his mind again. The two of them had been swimming together and splashing each other playfully, and he had just picked her up bridal style and spun her around and kissed her and told her he loved her. But he remembered that in the dream, her smile had faded as she pointed up to the sky. The sun had turned black, and then disappeared all together. He had tried to shield her from the cold that had begun biting at his bare back, but he watched as she turned whiter and whiter with iciness. And then, she just started to turn black altogether, and he knew that she was dead and had frozen to death. And he had held her to his chest and cried and pleaded for the Earth to take him so that they could be together, but it wouldn't take him.
And he had stood up and looked around, and all he saw were dead bodies, frozen on the ground. It was too cold for it to snow, so it was like the world was just completely covered with ice. He picked her up and hoisted her over his shoulders and tried to walk, but the grass had turned to ice beneath his feet, as well, and he just slipped and slid all over it and called into an empty world. And then the sad, horrible truth sunk in. He was all alone, in a cold, dark world. And the Earth wouldn't take him.
Remembering the dream, he shivered. He almost ran over to Harry's bed, just to make sure he was still there. But what was he thinking? That dream had been crazy. First of all, Hermione would never kiss him and tell him that she loved him. It was impossible.
Second of all, he was cold, but not that cold. He had slept with his shirt off, after all. In the dream, however, he remembered a biting cold that nipped at his ears and tore at his chest. This cold was no where near as bad as that had been. Still, it was colder than it had been yesterday.
He stopped moving as the realization sunk in. The second dream had not been real, but the first had. The sun was going to go out.
But then he remembered what Hermione had said. "Of course not, Ron, don't be ridiculous. I think that if the sun had gone out, we would have known it by now." He sighed with relief. Hermione was always right.
But what if for once in her life, she wasn't right? He looked to the clock that stood on his bedside table.
Nineteen hours and forty-five minutes until the sun went out.
-
"Hermione!" Ron called, running down the stairs to the boy's dormitory. "Hermione!"
"I'm right here, Ron. What's wrong?" she asked.
"I just had the world's most horrible dream," he said quietly, stopping himself before he said anything else.
"What happened?" she questioned mildly.
He sighed and said, "Don't worry, it was nothing. It was just a nightmare. I'm overreacting."
She walked up to him and asked, "Are you sure? You don't look so hot." She put the backside of her hand to his cheek. "My goodness, Ron, you're absolutely frozen!"
His heart skipped a beat. "No, no, I'm fine. Don't worry about me. I just . . . threw the sheets off last night by accident," he lied nonchalantly. But he turned to Harry and said quickly, "I need to talk to you. Privately."
"Er . . . okay . . ." he said. Ron grabbed his arm and dragged him over up to the Boy's Dormitory.
"Harry, that dream seemed too realistic. It was absolutely the worst dream I have ever had in my life. And I once dreamed that I was eaten by an Acromantula," he hissed.
"What was so horrible about it?" he asked quietly.
"Well, at first, it was perfect. I was swimming with Hermione in the lake, and I had kissed her and told her I loved her, and she had smiled and told me she loved me back."
"Doesn't sound too bad so far . . ." Harry murmured.
"Well, yeah, but then it turned sour. She pointed at the sky and it turned dark. It was like what the teacher said yesterday. The sun had gone out, and then I looked at her, and she had turned black as the sky had and she had frozen to death. And I knew that I had tried to protect her but I wasn't strong enough. And then I went looking for you, but you were dead too, and so was Ginny and Seamus and Dean and Lavender and Dumbledore and I was the only one left. And I kept asking the cold to kill me, but it wouldn't, so I was the only one left," Ron said quickly, as though it were all one sentence.
"Wow," Harry said quietly. "That sounds . . . horrible."
"Yeah. And then, when I woke up, I realized that the sun was going to go out," he finished.
"Ron, stop worrying!" Harry cried, shaking his shoulders. "The sun is not going to go out, you are not going to watch Hermione freeze to death, and you are not going to be the only one left! I can promise you that! Hermione said that the sun won't go out, and she's always right!"
"But what if she's wrong?"
"She won't be! I promise you, she won't, Ron," Harry said. "And, well . . . even if she is right, you will die with everyone else, so you'll be able to be with her soon enough and you won't be alone."
Ron sighed and said, "But the sun won't go out, right?"
"No, it won't. So stop worrying," Harry said.
Ron took a deep breath and replied, "Okay. Thanks, mate."
Just then, he heard Hermione call to him, "Come on, Ron, Harry. It's 7:42! We have to be at breakfast by 7:45!"
Despite Harry's confidence that Hermione was always right, and despite Hermione's cheerfulness, Ron couldn't help but think that in exactly nineteen hours until they could possibly all be dead.
-
The whole rest of the day, Hermione noticed how tense Ron had become. He was extremely jittery, and whenever she brushed by him and happened to touch him, he felt extremely cold. She thought that he might be sick, but he claimed to feel fine. It was not in his nature to deny being sick if it could get him out of potions with Snape.
It wasn't until lunch that he finally spoke.
"Hermione, do you really think the sun has gone out?"
"Ron, I already told you yesterday. Of course not. She tells us crazy things like that all the time, and they're never true. Like, remember when she told us that a meteor was going to strike Hogwarts and we got all worked up about it only to find that nothing was wrong?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, I suppose you're right," he said, shrugging it off. But despite the fact that she seemed completely confident in her statement, she wasn't exactly sure about it.
Fourteen hours and forty-two minutes left until the sun went out.
-
That night at dinner, everyone seemed completely normal. No one else seemed worried about the end of the world, for some odd reason. No one else seemed to care that the loves they had worked so hard to get close to could be gone in a few seconds where time seemed to freeze. No one else seemed to notice that the Astronomy teacher was still freaking out about the end of the world, and the rest of the teachers seemed to become a bit more nervous, as well.
No one, that is, except Ron.
Or at least no one was showing it. Because everyone was laughing and joking and teasing and kissing as though there was absolutely nothing wrong. Was he the only one who was nervous about all of this? Was he the only one who realized that there were only six hours and forty minutes left to live?
That was how it seemed to him.
They were just finishing up their desert (six hours and three minutes left to live) when Professor Dumbledore stood up on the podium at the front of the Great Hall, the twinkle that usually reflected in his eyes completely extinguished.
"Attention all students!" he shouted. His voice was quavering, and Ron felt his heart sink into his gut. He looked to Hermione, who grabbed for his hand and squeezed it as hard as she could. Normally, he would have been in ecstasy, but right now, he was way too nervous to even notice.
"I have, earlier today, been informed by our Astronomy Professor that the sun has been extinguished," he said calmly. Ron had no idea how on Earth he could maintain that kind of calmness, whilst everyone around him was screaming.
"SILENCE!" he shouted. Everyone was silenced. Nobody moved. He continued, calmer than before, "At first, I did not believe her. Who would think that, without any evidence, the sun had been extinguished? But I check it out, and I am sorry to say, but we are all going to die. You have exactly six hours to live."
"Six hours?" Ron cried. "Six hours! That's no where near enough time to say everything to everyone I need to say it to!"
"Hermione couldn't have been wrong! Hermione is never wrong!" Harry whispered to himself.
As for Hermione, her eyes widened and she simply sprinted out of the Great Hall to God knows where.
"Hermione, wait!" Ron called. But she had disappeared before the words had even reached his lips.
-
What does Hermione Granger do five hours and fifty-two minutes before her death?
She sits down at her desk and writes letters.
She prayed that the one to her parents would get there in time, but as for the one to Viktor, she knew there was no hope. All she could do was that she hoped he knew that even though they were no longer together, she still loved him very dearly as a friend.
As for her parents, she wrote everything she could think of to write in five minutes. She knew that the owl needed a lot of time to get to where her parents were, so she had to try and keep it short and sweet. Knowing Hermione, however, "short and sweet" meant about five rolls of parchment.
By midnight, she was pacing the floor. She only had two hours and forty-two minutes to tell him. He was right there. She had to tell him. She didn't want to die alone. Then why was it so hard?
-
Where the bloody hell was she? Ron had been searching the school for hours. He had looked in the Girl's Dormitory, only to be informed by Lavender that she had left a couple minutes ago to find him. Time was ticking, and he only had fifty-three minutes left to live – and to tell Hermione that he loved her.
Images from his dream flashed through his mind. He didn't want to watch her freeze over. He didn't want to watch her die. And he didn't want to be alone.
In his dream, he was alone because everyone else was dead and he was the only one left. In reality, he would be alone because they would both die without Hermione knowing how he felt.
Perhaps that was worse, he thought.
Forty-eight minutes left to live.
"Harry, have you seen Hermione?" he asked frantically.
"No, I've been looking for her, but I can't find her anywhere! Where's your sister?" Harry shouted over the rest of the students' screams.
"She's looking for you. I think she's in the Common Room," Ron panted.
Harry looked at him somberly. "I knew I would die someday. I just didn't think it would be this soon," he whispered. Ron nodded, blinking back tears. Harry looked out the window and gasped.
"Ron, it's Hermione! She's outside!" he cried.
"Outside?" Ron mused. "What the bloody hell is she doing out there at a time like this?"
"I'll go find Ginny. You go get Hermione. I'll meet you out there with her," Harry ordered. He turned and ran, and Ron knew somewhere inside him that even though they planned to meet, if Harry couldn't get outside fast enough, that might be the last of he would see of his friend.
Ron ran as fast as he could to Hermione. He took all of the shortcuts he could remember from the Marauder's Map, but that only made things worse because he could not remember them well. But with only thirty-one minutes left to live, he found Hermione, sitting on a stone bench on the side of the castle.
"Hermione! What the bloody hell are you doing out here? I've been looking all over for you!" he called to her. He saw her look to him, tears glittering behind her eyes.
"Ron!" she called back, running to him. All he could do was stand there. He looked up to the sky and saw that rain clouds were covering the sky. No sooner did he notice that he felt rain drops on his head, quickly gathering volume. He wondered why they weren't snow yet.
"Oh, Ron, I don't want to die!" Hermione whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and crying into his shoulder. He held her tightly to him and laid his head gently on top of hers.
"Neither do I, Hermione, neither do I," he said quietly. He softly kissed her head and listened to her crying. He hated it when she cried. He hated any pain she felt.
"Th-there are s-s-so many things I d-didn't g-g-g-get to do," she stuttered, wiping tears from her eyes as she straightened up to look at him.
"Like what?" he asked, restraining the tears behind his own eyes.
"Like . . . like . . . like this."
Ron was too taken aback to say anything else. She simply put her hand on the back of his neck, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him. He kissed her back, and it was long and deep. And it took up about thirty seconds of the precious time that they had left to live. But for all either of them cared, it could have taken up all of the time they had left.
"That is mostly why I don't want to die," she whispered to him.
Ron smiled at her and whispered back, "Me neither. But this is one of those things that not even magic can control. There is nothing we can do but sit back and wait for the end."
Her mouth open slightly, her eyes averted from his, she said, "Well, there is no place I would rather die than in your arms."
"Than you shall die there," he replied. He didn't care anymore. He let them come.
"Oh, Hermione," he whispered, the tears now streaming down his face. He doubted she could tell. It was raining anyways. "Oh, Hermione, I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you."
Hermione said nothing more and just waited for him. He put a finger under her chin and raised it to his lips. And they used another minute or so of their time.
-
By the time that Ginny and Harry arrived outside, hand in hand, there were only six minutes left to live.
"Ginny!" Ron cried, running over to his younger sister and hugging her. "I don't know what to say, except . . . I guess that you're the best little sister any guy could ever have. Love you, Ginny."
"Love you, too, Ron," Ginny said, crying.
Hermione went to Harry and said, "I can't believe the world is going to end this way."
"I know. I just . . . I just wish we had more time," Harry replied grimly.
"I think that I am ready now more than ever to die," Hermione stated, looking to Ron (who was still hugging his sister) and smiling slightly.
Harry grinned and said, "You told him, didn't you?"
Hermione grinned back and said, "Told him what?" Her hands shook as she looked at Harry. This was not the death Harry deserved. Harry deserved to die bravely and gallantly like his father. She knew there were so many more things Harry wanted to do that he would never get to. That was why she hugged him as tightly as she could and softly kissed his cheek.
"Goodbye, Harry," she whispered.
"Goodbye, Hermione," he whispered back.
When they finally let go, she backed up and took Ron's hand. She wanted to share one last kiss with him over anything. So she reached up to him and turned his head so he was looking right at her. They leaned in to each other and kissed, for the last time in forever.
They withdrew from each other, their clothes and hair and skin soaked with rain that was supposed to be snow. They had forty-five seconds left to live.
"I love you, Hermione," Ron said to her, his voice shaking.
"I love you, too, Ron," Hermione responded sincerely. She felt his large, rough hands closing over hers. She had been completely serious when she had said that she would rather die in his arms than anywhere else in the world. So instead of just holding his hand, she stood as close to him as she could get and wrapped her arms around his neck, his encircling her waist. They stood like that, her head resting on his heaving chest, looking to the horizon, where the sun was supposed to rise in four hours or so. But they knew that within ten seconds, they would no longer be alive to even wish the sun was rising.
Seven seconds. Despite the rain, she never felt warmer.
Five seconds. She looked to Harry and Ginny, who were sharing their last kiss, as well.
Four seconds.
Three.
Two.
One.
His grip tightened around her as they waited for the cold to come. Ron closed his eyes, but all he could see was her turning white, whiter than white, then black. He pressed her body to his, her head closer to his chest. If they were going to die, he wanted her to die knowing that he tried to save her.
The four of them stood there amongst the raindrops and the trees and the dew on the grass and waited to freeze.
But they didn't.
"Are we dead yet?" Hermione squeaked.
"I don't think so, 'Mione," Ron said inaudibly. "I think we're still alive."
"Maybe it takes awhile for the cold to sink in completely and to freeze us. After all, it takes more than a couple seconds for water to freeze," she thought aloud.
"Well, until then, I won't let you go," Ron said to her. "I will never let you die without me there to tell you it's alright."
Hermione smiled and said, "Well, until we die, let's go and sit under that tree."
Ron let go of her, but took hold of her hand instead. He walked her over to the tree, where he sat down and beckoned for her to sit as well. She sat beside him and laid her head on his soaked chest. He leaned down and kissed her softly before saying, "Goodbye, Hermione."
"Goodbye, Ron," she replied for the second time that night. She knew that she would never wake again, but that was fine with her, because she had said all she needed to say and done all she needed to do.
-
Three hours and twenty-one minutes before, they were supposed to be dead. But instead, Ron awoke to a wonderful site – something he thought he would never see again.
"Hermione!" he said, awaking her. She opened her eyes and rubbed them. Looking around, she saw Ginny and Harry standing on the same hill she and Ron had stood on last night, their fingers intertwined.
Her heart stopped. Last night. If there had been a last night, that meant that there had to be a today. And that meant that she was still alive.
She looked up and saw Ron's smiling face. He leaned over and kissed her softly. Then, he pointed to the horizon.
"Look, Hermione!" he said excitedly.
The sun had never shined brighter.