"Alright so let's see. Carry the four equals nine carry the six and then ---" a groan was elicited out of Hermione Granger's throat when she heard someone knocking on her door. She was so close to figuring out the answer to the problem. They could wait.

She turned back to the parchment she had been writing on and continued to solve out the problem. "That's seven carry the four then all of that needs to be divided by that which means ---" The quill that she had been holding between her thumb and forefinger snapped as she was one again brought out of her study by a pounding on the door.

She stood up, grumbling about how disrespectful people were by not calling before showing up on her doorstep, and made her way to the front door of her single bedroom flat.

She twisted the doorknob and opened the door quickly, her mouth opening as she prepared to berate whoever was standing at her door, pounding hard enough to shake the walls, at this time of night. As her eyes adjusted to the dark outside, her eyes and mouth opened wider in horror. Her boyfriend was standing on her doorstep, his usually pale skin was a sickly, grayish color and his usually bright and full of life blue eyes were lifeless.

She reached out a hand to touch him, to prove to herself that this was all a trick, when she noticed the growing spot on the front of his shirt. "Ron?" she asked tentatively. Her voice was naught but a whisper as she looked on. The stain continued to grow, and in doing so it began forming words across the redhead's chest which looked as though they belonged on a Halloween decoration.

centerYOU'RE NEXT, MUDBLOOD FILTH/center

She managed to wrap her arms around the lifeless corpse of her boyfriend and pull him inside, the blood from the front of his shirt seeping through her own until they were both covered in the sticky red liquid. She wanted to scream, to cry, to run out and kill whoever had done this to her poor, innocent boyfriend. The only thing she could manage to do, however, was keep the bile that had begun rising in her throat at bay before passing out on the spot, her head falling onto his chest as if they had simply fallen asleep like that.

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By the time Hermione woke up, she was not the only living person in her apartment. Nor was the body of her now former boyfriend laying in the hall by the front door. The curly haired brunette had been moved by unknown forces so that she was now laying on her bed covered by various blankets in an effort to dispel the cold air permeating the small space. Despite having at least three large, down comforters covering her small body, the cold was still piercing through her, numbing her.

It was around that time that she heard the voices. They were whispered so she couldn't make out much of what was being said, but she knew they were there. She lifted the heavy blankets from her body and stood on shaky legs. She had no idea how long she had been laying there, but she knew that it wasn't nearly long enough.

She didn't bother looking in the mirror that leaned against the far wall. She knew what it would show her. So rather than looking at the horror of her current appearance, she began making her way towards the voices down the hall.

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"How are we supposed to tell her that the love of her life was murdered? We don't even know who did it. You know that if we tell her that she will go out of her way to go looking for those damn people and she may never return. I won't let us risk that."

"She already knows that he's dead. It's just a matter of how or why that she might not be aware of yet."

"You think she knows?"

"She was passed out on his corpse, mum. Of course she knows."

"Well yes but maybe ---"

"Maybe what, Molly? Maybe she hit her head and can't remember? She remembers. One look at her and you can tell that much."

"But maybe ---"

"Maybe what, Mrs. Weasley?" a tired voice came from the archway leading into the kitchenette and four separate hearts broke at the sight of her. Her hair, always so frizzy and sprightly, lay flat and matted against her head. Her bright chocolate eyes that had always been so filled with curiosity and wonder, not to mention always filled with love for her friends, stared back at them with apathy.

"Hermione," the young redhead who spoke kept her voice at a soothing level that caused the brunette to look at her with disdain that she knew the girl didn't deserve.

"I am not a child, Ginny Weasley. I will not be spoken to as if I am merely a child who has lost their puppy."

It hadn't yet occurred to the girl that everyone else in room was feeling the loss of the young man who had been floating on her doorstep. Granted none of them were feeling the loss of what she considered to be part of her soul, but they were feeling a mother's loss of her child; a sister's loss of her brother; the loss of a best friend; and the loss of a student who had become a friend after the many years they had known one another.

She took a deep breath and turned to look at her best friends, "how long was I out of it?"

The only male figure in the house at that point turned to her gently and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Two days." At the sight of the blanched look on her face, he shook his head. "We figured it was probably because you hadn't been getting much sleep since you were so busy working lately. Then the shock of ---" he couldn't bring himself to finish the statement so she didn't force him. She just nodded so he would know that she understood.

"We are sorry, Hermione. That you had to find out the way that you did." The eldest woman came over from where she was standing against the counter and made her presence known. "If we had known that they were going to go after Mr. Weasley we would have had more people watching over him."

Hermione shook her head. She didn't want anybody in the room at the moment to feel bad about what had happened. It wasn't their fault, after all. None of them would have left such an awful note for her carved into the body of the man she loved. "He didn't want people following him around. He was always trying to lose the people who were tailing him; which is probably how he ended up getting caught in the first place."

It seemed that nobody had thought of that possibility, but as soon as the words had left her mouth they realized how true they were. Ronald Weasley had hated that he had to be tailed by Aurors when he himself was trying to become one. He had been nearly finished with his training, along with their best friend Harry Potter, and he was set to graduate the program over the summer.

"We won't be able to keep it a secret for very long."

It amazed the girl how nobody around her was crying over the fact that such a wonderful boy had lost his life, she included. She figured that they, like she, were still in shock over the whole situation that it hadn't yet occurred to them what this would mean. "I want to see him."

The four around her all looked back and forth between one another as they tried to figure out what to say. After an extremely pregnant pause, Ginny spoke up. "I'll go with you."

They decided to leave that afternoon when the sun would be high in the sky. They were wary about stepping out in public because of the attack but they knew that there was no other way to go about it. He had been taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and was being held there until they set up the funeral for him. They had also decided that he would like to be buried at the school. Other than the Burrow, it was the only place that they could all call home.

It wasn't until they had come back to Hermione's flat hours later that it slowly started sinking in that he was gone. Yet still, the tears eluded the brunette. Instead she held his sister as she let the tears roll down her cheeks, needing comfort that nobody could give. Losing a boyfriend was far different front losing a brother. Ron and Ginny had had a type of bond that was not easily broken no matter how stubborn they both were.

Hermione held her friend until the wee hours of the night, long after the girl had fallen asleep with tear streaks running down her cheeks. She had simply sat in the overstuffed elephant chair looking out the window towards the moon and wondered why the tears wouldn't come to her eyes. She had never felt more broken, and yet she wasn't able to cry. She tried not to think about the idea that that would mean she didn't love him as much as she thought she did. She knew this wasn't the case.

The tears would come. In their own time, they would come.

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bA/N: Hey guys thanks so much for reading this story. I'm not a huge fan of Ron (at all) but I tried to make him sound like a great guy for all of those people who do like him. My story doesn't have a beta, so if you find any mistakes let me know and I will try and fix them for you.

Please review and let me know what you guys think. If you're going to sit there and tell me what an awful writer I am, though, at least tell me why you think that so I can do what I can to become better.

xoxo LadyMalfoy/b