Heavy raindrops fell upon the browning canopy, clacking along the crisp leaves like unlucky dice. Hermione clutched her tea close, the rising steam a threadbare veil against the cold. She used to love the soggy days of autumn, full of crackling fires and Butterbeer, thick blankets and shared body heat. But now it just reminds her of a familiar loneliness that was once lost to time.
Ron had left before, on a similarly dreary day, back during their hunt for horcruxes. In those isolated woods, his jealousy hung about him like a noose. I get it. You choose him. For days, the simple words played on repeat in Hermione's head. You chose him, you choose him, you choose him.
But her voice brought him back, he had said.
"Like a siren," Hermione mumbled in jest, but as soon as the words left her mouth, she blushed. How stupid she felt for suggesting she had such a pull on him. Her head was bent, attention focused on their intertwined fingers, not yet wanting to look into his face for fear the smoldering truth in her eyes would give away her upper hand.
"No, not like a siren," Ron replied, his voice gravelly and low, "like a truth, or an answer to a prayer. It was as if my own soul was calling for me, a whispered promise to take me back home."
Hermione's head lifted to meet his blue eyes then, misty and wanting. Their hearts pounded loudly and quickly, each beat reverberating and multiplying in the space between them. The desire to feel him against her became urgent and aching, his touch the only way to dispel the need vibrating against her skin. With closed eyes, Hermione moved to extinguish the small distance which separated their lips but found herself disappointed when their foreheads softly met instead.
"I don't deserve you. Not yet," Ron breathed against her lips, "But I will prove myself to you, and when that day comes…"
Slowly, he leaned back, just far enough away to allow his hand to cup her chin. He dragged a gentle thumb across her lips causing them to involuntarily part.
"…it will be sweeter than any song a siren could sing." His eyes glowed like hot coals and her skin seared under his gaze. When Hermione thought she could no longer bare the torturous stare, Ron stood up and moved toward the entrance to the tent.
"I'll take first shift until Harry gets back from town," he said and let the canvas door shut behind him.
"I love you," she confessed aloud to the empty room. In that moment, she knew things had changed. Their love was all or nothing now, and whether Hermione liked it or not, there was no going back.
It would take years before she realized Dumbledore had been wrong about one thing. Creating a horcrux with murder and malice was not the only way to split a soul. In love, a piece of yourself is spliced from your body, tender and unwittingly, to be kept alive in the beating breast of another. And once that love is broken beyond repair, that piece is lost forever.