So here's part two, one more chapter to go. Disclaimer: I don't own the lyrics at the end of this chapter either, those belong to Rascal Flatts. Please Review!
Enjoy!
I am a hollow, broken shell, alone in the crowd that surrounds me. Hermione is here, freshly reunited with her parents, Remus and Tonks, blushing and bubbling, someone's hand always resting on Tonks' rounding belly. Fleur with her little sister, Gabrielle, still hollowed eyed over the loss of Bill, but smiling all the same.
They all have something, someone, to lean on, now that the war is over, someone to help them deal with the pain. Me? I have no one. My family is gone, my friends estranged, my love dying. I am lost and alone, with nothing but the torment of regret to consume me.
I smile and laugh along with them, as they pretend that all is well, that those who should be among them perhaps never existed, and that the beautiful raven-haired boy that lays in our midst is not there, that he never was.
This happens, every few weeks, they all come, bringing with them news of the rebuilding, the repairing, the continuing of life in the outside world. I do not really care. My world is here, with him, and my world is fading.
At last they leave, and I am left in peace again. I sit down in my chair, the one I have barely left for the past three months, and I take his hand in my own once more, still so cold and lifeless.
"Ron?" a soft voice whispers, quiet, kind, disgusting. I jump, not having realized Hermione was still there. "Ron," she says my name again, her voice filled with loathsome pity, like she understands, like she thinks she can help, "I-I spoke to his doctors."
I roll my eyes, all she has to tell me are the same empty words of hope the doctors have already given me, 'he is stable, it will take time, everything will be fine,' I do not wish to hear them again, I wish they would all just leave me be.
"They-they said… Oh Ron," She comes over to me, burying her face in my shirt. I tense, something is wrong.
"What did they say Hermione?" I demand, my voice cracking with disuse.
"They-they-" she stammers, "Ron, they plan to take him off of life support."
I stare blankly at her, not knowing what that means.
"Ron," she tries, misinterpreting my expression, "He just isn't healing, he isn't getting better. Holding on, it won't help anyone, it's time to just move on."
Oh, now I get it. "No!" I yell, leaping from my chair, "They can't do that! They can't just kill him! Not after everything. Not before I can…" Damn, I am crying again.
"Oh Ron, I know," she whispers, trying to hug me, she is crying too, "I don't want to let him go either, but we have to, Ron. He wouldn't want us holding on and forgetting to live ourselves. We-we have to just let him go."
I remain stiff against her comfort, fighting it, refusing to accept it, unable to accept it. I do not want to let him go. But in the end, I loose the battle, and I give in, falling weakly into her arms until we are both kneeling on the floor in a tight embrace, sobbing into each other's shoulders.
"I don't want to let him go," I whisper, "Not yet…not yet…"
It was nearly dawn; Hermione woke with a start, not even having realized she had fallen asleep. She sat up slowly, rubbing her neck.
"Ron?" she asked groggily, recognizing the shadowed profile standing at a window near her.
Ron jumped and turned, "You're awake," he said, stating to obvious.
"What are you staring at?" she asked, getting up to come look for herself. Ron stepped aside, letting her look.
"Oh my god," she gasped, staring open mouthed, "What is that?"
"The final battle," Ron replied grimly.
"What?" Hermione turned to stare at him, noticing that despite his seemingly numb, calm front, he was pale and shaking, with visible tear tracks striping his cheeks.
"Harry," Ron said, his voice was so emotionless it hurt, "He left to go fight Voldemort, it will all be over soon."
Hermione turned back to the window a gasp, trying to see through the thick, unnatural mist so heavy it nearly blocked out the fledgling sun. Finally at the core of the mist she was able to make out something, it was a blinding light, a dome, surrounded by black, misshapen figures. She bit her lip, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet anxiously.
"What's going on?" she asked, trying to see into the golden dome, "I can't see them."
"Your guess is as good as mine," replied Ron bitterly, turning away and flopping into the nearest chair.
Hermione turned to him, even in her anxiousness about what was going on down below unable to ignore the tearstains that blotched her friend's cheeks.
"Ron?" she asked quietly, moving away from the window to sit next to the red head, "You love him, don't you?"
He did not answer, instead carefully studying his hands, his eyes over bright once more.
"Does he know?" she persisted.
That was it, Ron broke, the tears flooding from his eyes once more, "No," he whispered brokenly, "And now I'll never get to tell him."
"Don't say that," she said, moving to sit next to him, putting her arm comfortingly around his shoulders, "He'll come back, and when he does just run right up to him and show him how you feel Ron. Don't worry, everything will be alright." Ron nodded numbly, with a loud sniff, but the tears did not stop. They both knew that the chances of Hermione being right this time were not in their favor, but neither could bare to say that.
But they did not stay like that for long. Moments later there was a huge BOOM! That shook the entire castle. They were on their feet and at the window in an instant. The dome had exploded, literally, leaving a huge, smoking crater where it had once been.
The students came tumbling down the stairs, falling over one another in their haste.
"What the bloody hell was that?" one shouted.
"Quick!" yelled Ron, heading to the portrait hole. The others were all right behind him, wands at the ready as they headed out.
Ron in the lead, Hermione only a step behind, and the students closely following, they cautiously crossed the lawn.
A chorus of gasps traveled through the group as the approached the charred edges of the gigantic hole.
Several "Bloody hells" where heard throughout the group as Ron stepped forward and slid down into the hole.
Slowly Ron crossed the desolate open expanse that was the bottom of that chasm, his eyes round with wonder as his stared straight above his head at the charred, twisted remnants of the front gates.
There was nothing but broken, twisted debris and soot everywhere, as plumes of fetid smoke curled up from the dead ground, making it hard to breathe. There were no people, not even any bodies.
"Harry?" Ron called desperately, "Harry!" No answer, no flicker of the presence he had become so accustomed to.
He was three quarters of the way across the great expanse when he saw it. A small, singed scrap of black cloth hanging over the edge of the hole on the far side. He began running, scrambling up the steep wall to the top. Where he fell to his knees.
"Harry," he whispered. The body was limp, pale, bloody and broken, but it was there, the wire-rimmed glasses broken in half, and the messy jet-black hair obscuring the eyes. Even through all the blood and dirt, there was no denying who it was. Harry Potter, the Chosen one, had fulfilled his mission.
But even so, as Ron Weasley sat there, cradling his love, he sobbed, the crystalline tears that flooded from his eyes leaving smudged spots on the bloody face, once so handsome and full of life, now marred and blank. Ron Weasley did not cry because Harry had succeeded in his mission, but because he himself had failed in his own, because he had missed his chance. And all he could hear in the silence the enveloped his ears were the words he had never said.
What do I do now that you're gone
No back up plan no second chance
And no one else to blame
All I can hear in the silence that remains
Are the words I couldn't say