Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to Paperboy Jacky, who gave me my very first review. Shout outs to everyone who read my first chapter, especially dani asmar potter and kmjb - thank you for following/favourite-ing so early on in the fanfic. I appreciate your support.
This chapter's a bit shorter, I hope you will excuse me. I'll mostly upload after 25th May now, because I have two major exams coming up before that.
I try to stay in character as much as I can. The only outright change I've made so far is exchanging lives - Ron died and Snape lives. Other than that, everything is canon compliant till the battle and I'll do my best to keep it so. Do let me know if I'm deviating or going too much OOC. Thanks. xxx
Chapter Two:
The funerals went by in a daze. Hermione stood before the graves of her loved ones and shed many a tear, till they would fall no more. She left pieces of happy memories before each grave. She lay a canary cream wrapper near Fred, a photograph of Teddy near Remus and Tonks and a toy camera near Colin Creevey. When she reached Ron's grave, she paused. "He has everything already," she mused. "He has my heart." Shivering in the cold, she conjured fresh flowers and kept them near Ron's tombstone. In the distance, she thought she saw a dark figure near Professor Dumbledore's grave, and just as she was about to make her way there to see who it was, Professor McGonagall strode towards the man and spoke to him in low tones. She turned away and sighed. The transfiguration-professor-turned-Headmistress seemed agitated and she thought it best to leave her alone.
She spent the next week at the Burrow, but the house felt quiet and empty. She'd often stumble across Mrs Weasley staring at a photograph of Ron or Fred and was at a loss as to what she should say or do. George had bouts of depression and he would sit in one spot for hours, staring into the distance. He'd then Floo away, presumably to his joke shop, and return in a much lighter mood. She even received a faint smile from him one day, although it didn't quite reach his eyes.
Mr Weasley was the silent rock of the family, keeping everyone afloat through their sadness. He spent many hours holding Ginny as she cried in his arms, stroking her hair and whispering soothing words into the little girl's ears. He slowly, but surely, got the family to smile once in a while, gently nudging them away from their grief. One day, he stopped Hermione on her way to her room and asked if he could have a word.
"Hermione, how are you holding up?"
Hermione looked into his sincere eyes and saw the concern written in them. "I'm… Not alright, I guess. It's so hard and I feel so helpless. But I promised him I'd not let life pass me by, so I suppose I should get around to doing that."
"Indeed. Maybe you could start by going out for some air, occasionally, or catching up with your school mates?"
She bowed her head. "Mr Weasley, I'm so sorry, I completely forgot about looking for a house, what with all of this-"
"Hermione, no, you misunderstood. This is your house as much as it is ours. You're family and we're not going to let you go so easily. I simply meant that maybe meeting others would ease the pain a bit, take your mind off everything. There's an order meeting next week, you could go out after that to Diagon Alley or meet some friends."
"I suppose I could do that…." She looked up at him, gave him a weak smile and said, "Thank you so much. This means a lot to me."
Hermione spent the next week reading the Daily Prophet, helping Molly in the kitchen and lounging around with Harry and Ginny. Their moods had lifted significantly, probably Mr Weasley's doing, and they laughed around occasionally. She often had to wander on her own though, for Ginny began expressing her love for Harry in ways which involved more than mere words; so she was forced to make herself scarce in order to avoid being scarred for eternity. She spent that time talking to George, who told her that he'd been seeing Angelina more often, and by the way his eyes lit up when he spoke about the ex-Gryffindor chaser, she realised that she was much more to him than just a girlfriend. Although she had promised herself as well as Ron that she would try to move on, she felt as though a huge part of her had been cut out. She was empty from within, a mere shadow of the once-lively young girl. She enjoyed the company of her friends, but rarely spoke, choosing to answer questions thrown her way by mere shakes of her head. She felt like she was dead, like her soul was with Ron, wherever he was. She felt guilty for outliving him, but hid her feelings from those around her.