Silence
All Hermione was able to concentrate on in the days after Dumbledore's death was the silence. The silence. It was deafening. She saw the sun rise over the trees in the morning and the sky fall into darkness in the evening. She felt the tears on her cheeks and she saw the tears on everyone else's. She tasted the breakfast they served the morning after and she smelt the wet grass of late June, but she could not hear a word. The only thing she heard was the silence.
As soon as she heard the news she had grabbed onto Ron like a lifeline and he had grabbed her right back. Through it all he was there, standing next to her as the first hours of day began and as the sun turned the last hours a muted red, his tears falling into her hair, his arm bumping against hers as they ate in the Great Hall, and their hands interlocked as they sat at Dumbledore's funeral, the smell of freshly cut grass overwhelming them.
She stared up at the priest, speaking of Albus Dumbledore's life, and didn't register a sound. She felt her eyes glaze over at the sight of Harry, inconsolable in the front row. She felt her heart give an unsteady jump as Ron's hand enveloped hers. She felt her throat tighten up at the sight of his tears and as she pushed her forehead against the side of Ron's shoulder, she let the soundless sobs rake her body.
After the ceremony, as the rows of people stood up, Hermione ducked around them, not knowing what was to come next in a wizard funeral and not eager to know. As she climbed the stairs to the astronomy tower her head was buzzing with the silence and she felt her chest swell. She let her knees sink into one of the steps, feeling the stone scrape her legs, and opened her mouth to scream away the silence. But a hand came to rest on her back and the shouts died on her lips.
And then Ron's questioning eyes were right above her.
"It- it's just so quiet," Hermione felt herself say up to him.
She felt her eardrums give one piercing pop as Ron sat on the stair next to her, her head falling onto his shoulder. And the first thing she heard amongst all that silence was Ron, lips pressed against her head, whispering, "I know."