This is definitely intense and pretty sad. I cried while writing it. I'm not really sure why I wrote it, but it just came out. Let me know what you think!
Ron Weasley sighed as he leaned back against the tree. He was sitting in his and Hermione's favorite spot at the Burrow. It was just over the biggest hill. He couldn't see the house, even if he was facing that direction, and no one from the house could see him, not even from the top story. All he could see was an enormous stretch of land, hills, and grass waving in the breeze. He had first showed this spot to Hermione in the summer before their sixth year.
She had found it so beautiful and perfect, and had sat with him for a long time. Harry hadn't been with them, and Ron found that he was okay with just being with Hermione for a while. When she wasn't spending time with Ginny, talking about girly things, or cooped up in Ginny's room reading a huge book, she spent time with him. They talked and laughed and shared their thoughts about how everything was changing around them.
Ron sighed when he felt her there with him. He turned and smiled as he saw her bushy hair poking out from behind the tree, on the side she was hiding.
"I know you're there, Mione," he told her softly. Hermione poked her face out, stuck her tongue out at him, and finally came round the tree and collapsed to the ground beside him. Her hand danced softly across his jean-covered thigh, hovering just over his knee.
He knew by that crease between her eyes that she was going to ask him a question. He grinned to himself and waited patiently. Three, two, one…
"Ron?" Hermione asked softly. He held in his chuckle.
"Yes, Hermione?" he said quietly. He turned to look at her face. It was just as beautiful as always. Her cheeks had a faint pink tint, he thought probably because it was very warm out. The summer evening was hot and stuffy, but Ron couldn't imagine a better place to be with his girl at the moment.
"Do you love me?" she asked him finally. Ron felt his face register surprise.
"Of course I do, Mione. You know that," he told her softly. She smiled back at him faintly.
"Okay," she said softly. Ron looked at her carefully, and sighed.
"Why, Mione?" he asked. He knew that he had done the right thing by asking her about her question when she looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
"It's just…been a while. Since you told me. I just, you know, wanted to make sure," she explained. Ron couldn't help the grin that stretched across his face.
"Mione, I've loved you since third year when we had that row and I realized how much I really missed you. I've loved you all through our school years and our summers. I've loved you so much for so long. I love you as much as I love Chocolate Frogs. I will love you until-," he stopped as Hermione cut off his sentence, finishing his last statement.
"-there are no more stars in the sky."
"And I'll love you long after that," he told her quietly, his face crinkling in confusion. Hermione always finished this statement, and usually spoke her bit after, but he could see that her heart wasn't in it this time. "Is something else wrong, Mione?" he asked her. It was hard for him to ask her this, but he remembered when they had talked about being more open with each other.
"No," she said defensively, turning her face away. Ron knew that she was lying, because her voice was all rough, like when she cried. When Ron managed to coax her into turning back around to look at him, he smiled at her gently and kissed her tears away. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
"Tell me," he whispered softly in her ear. Hermione turned to look up at him, her brown eyes glistening as more tears fell down her cheeks.
"I miss you," she told him simply. He balked at this.
"I've been here the whole time, love," he told her softly. She blanched at the endearment.
"No you haven't, Ronald," she said, her exasperated tone surprised him. When had he been gone? He couldn't remember.
"Where have I been?" he asked in complete confusion.
"Gone," Hermione told him simply, in that matter-of-fact way that she had. Ron cocked his head to the side as he willed his brain to think. Suddenly, everything came crashing back down on him. His hands, at first so strongly supporting his Mione, shook as he slowly remembered…
"I'm sorry," he told her. Hermione looked at him; her big eyes were full of tears again. They were dripping down her face, but he couldn't wipe them away anymore. His hands were shaking, his arms were shaking, his legs were shaking. All of him was shaking. Ron shook uncontrollably as he felt his eyes stinging with pesky tears. They dripped down his face, landing on his jean-covered legs. They landed on his shirt-Hermione's favorite, it was faded blue. She liked it because it matched his eyes.
Ron's sobs wracked his body as he felt the hole in his heart and chest rear up, dragging him under. Waves of pain engulfed him. He sobbed and cried like he had the day of the last battle. When his brother had been taken from him, when he realized that the girl he loved had been snatched from his arms, brutally murdered by the witch his mum killed because he just couldn't point his wand anymore.
"Hermione," he moaned.
A strong hand seized his shoulder, and then another helped pull him up. He allowed his best mate to drag him up to the house, and through the back door, through the kitchen, and up to his bedroom. He heard the sound of his best mate's voice, and then his sister's.
"I don't know why he goes out there," Harry said softly. Ron just buried his face into the pillow on his bed.
"It was their place, Harry," Ginny answered her husband softly. "He misses her."
"It's been five years, Gin," Harry said.
"It still hurts," Ginny explained simply. Ron heard Harry sigh heavily.
"I miss her, too, Gin, but I've moved on. I've accepted it. He hasn't," Harry told his wife carefully. His voice sounded thicker, somehow, to Ron's ears.
"Harry, please don't cry. I can barely hold it together when Ron does…" Ginny trailed off miserably.
"I hate it that she's gone, Ginny. I hate it that I can't help him!" Harry said with his voice full of angry, rage-filled tears.
"Me, too," Ginny whispered. "Me, too."
"Hermione," Ron whispered. He heard her voice, clear as day, answer him back.
"Ron, I love you," she said softly.
"Until?" he asked brokenly.
"There are no more stars in the sky," she answered him.
"And I'll love you long after that," Ron finished.