It was pouring.
Pouring anger, and sadness and fear. Oh, the fear was coming down hard. Fear was filling the small crevices in the ground, overflowing the river nearby. Fear was flooding through her life, through this tent in which people, friends, were screaming at each other. Flailing, gasping for air, drowning in the fear.
She watched their mouths open and close, she could feel the vibrations of their shouts of antagonization and hatred. She couldn't hear them though, she wouldn't hear them. They're best friends, aren't they? Her best friends. Her boys.
She whispered, more to herself than to anyone. "Please stop fighting. Please." They couldn't hear her. They were too loud, the rain was too loud, the fear was too loud. "Please". They would never hear her, of course, not that it mattered. Not that her input would ever mean anything to anyone. Not that she mattered.
She couldn't take it. She was weak. She had always been weak. She couldn't handle so much of what the three of them had faced.
She couldn't handle the troll first year, or the gauntlet of protection to the Sorcerer's Stone, she couldn't handle the Basilisk, she couldn't handle the Womping Willow or Professor Lupin's moonlit form, or the horde of dementors approaching; she couldn't handle watching the fourth wizard in the Tri-Wizard Tournament risk his life all year, she couldn't handle the Ministry of Magic battle, or watching Sirius fall through the veil; she couldn't handle watching Ron and Lavender eat at each other's faces, or watching the death eaters eat at the castle. It had been Harry and Ron who got her through all of it, they had done it together. They had been through so much.
But now they were fighting, drowning in their own boiling, rapidly rising fear.
She knew of course how this night would inevitably end, but her immediate conscious convinced her, no, he'd never actually do it.
It still wasn't a surprise when Harry shouted "THEN GO!" or when Ron asked her "Are you staying or what?" She told herself her answer couldn't change. She knew she had to work toward this, she had known she would suffer. He wouldn't really leave anyway. He'd never leave. He was her knight. He wouldn't leave. He wouldn't leave her.
And yet, she watched him walk out of the tent into the rain, pitch head first into a pool of fear, and pull her with him. She ran out after him.
"Ron! Ron, please! PLEASE!" she begged, she screamed at the top of her lungs. Passion and love and fear spilling from every pore of her body. She saw him look back, so briefly. She heard him impossibly over the rain, saying "You chose, Hermione."
"Please, Ron, no. No no no no NO!" Her eyes saw him disappear, but her brain didn't. He wouldn't leave her. He'd never leave her.
"Ron, come back! Ron!" She shouted. Her feet pushed her forward, despite the rain, despite the fear. She moved farther, farther still. She was cold. "Please, Ron. I need you, I love you." The words were desperate, and begging, and true. "I love you, I love you, please!"
She stopped moving. Everything stopped moving. The Earth itself stopped in it's slow rotation and revolution. But the rain continued to fall. The fear continued to flood. And so still in herself, she understood. She understood that he left, that he wasn't coming back, that she was too weak to save him, to keep him from leaving, to love him.
She stood, flooded with fear for him, her love, and what would happen to him and his family. She feared for Harry, and how Ron's desertion would affect him, and how he would manage to fulfill his mission alive. She feared for her parents in Australia, what if they were sought out after all? She feared for the muggle-borns being taken into the administration and exiled. She feared for the students at Hogwarts under the power of Snape and Voldemort. She feared for herself. Even if she made it out alive, she'd never let go the events of this year. They'd scar her for life, certainly.
These things flooded her suddenly, and she sank under. There was everything quiet, and calm. There was everything nice. Everything slightly blurred, none of the definites she had always loved, that were suddenly hurting her. No sharp edges. There, in the midst of a pool of fear, she forgot her fear. But it still was all around her, in her hair and eyes, and mouth, and lungs. Mind, heart, and soul. She was choking, drowning.
Then she was back at the tent. She decided to be strong now. She decided to swim through the fear, and take control. She had to. For everyone she held dear. For Ron.