Ron/Hermione
"Harry Potter is dead."
Ron Weasley feels like he hears it before everyone else. But it can't be true - Harry couldn't die, not in the space of an hour. He hears Voldemort shouting about how cowardly Harry was, how he died running away from the battle and Ron knows that there's something being left unsaid, because Harry wouldn't do that. He knows it can't be true.
But then he sees Hagrid, walking through the Great Hall, arms holding the Boy who Lived - but not any more - as if he's a rag doll, broken and battered and shattered into a million pieces. Tears are streaming down his face and it's then, only then, that Ron realises maybe it's a bad idea to get your friends and your heroes mixed up.
Then Hermione's beside him and all he can think is, Oh God, I'm too young to die, until her hand slips into his and she looks at him and they both know it's too late. This is it. The end, at last. There's so much he wants to say to her - that he wishes he'd kissed her sooner and that he's sorry he ever left her before Christmas and that he always wanted to take her to the Yule Ball and all he wants to do now is kiss her again. All of these thoughts swim in his eyes and they choke in his throat on the way up, never to be spoken. He's going to join Fred and Harry and his uncles and all the other people they were doing this for, but he can't even find joy in that, because he really thought they were going to win.
Hermione's hand stays in his and he wants to hold her and tell her he's sorry for everything, but just her looking at him feels like enough.
They march into death and although he wants to be noble and wish that she could have been saved, all Ron can think is, At least she's beside me.
