When She Loved Me

Ron leaned against a tree with a wedding invitation in his hand. He was older, about twenty-two. He looks at the invitation, sighs, and leans his head back on the tree. He looked at the branches swaying in the wind, and sighs again. Then he remembers a muggle song he once heard. He thought it went perfectly with his predicament.

When somebody loved me
Everything was beautiful.
Every hour spent together
Lives within my heart.


He remembers when she was Petrified all those hours he spent by her bed before Madam Pomfrey banned everyone from the hospital wing.

And when she was sad
I was there to dry her tears,
And when she was happy
So was I.
When she loved me.


Then he remembers all the times between forgiving her cat for eating Scabbers and the Yule Ball that she, he, and Harry stayed up so late listening to Fred and George's jokes.

Through the Summer and the Fall
We had each other that was all.
Just she and I together
Like it was meant to be.
And when she was lonely
I was there to comfort her,
And I knew that she loved me.


He remembered how, in their first year, he and Harry had saved her from a full-grown mountain troll. She wasn't lonely after that, he thought.

So the years went by.
I stayed the same.
But she began to drift away.
I was left alone.
Still I waited for the day
When she'd say, "I will always love you."


He remembers the night of the Yule Ball. How happy she seemed dancing with Krum. Not taking a second look his way. How desperately he wished he had asked her first instead of thinking of her as a last resort. He remembered so clearly the letter he'd received from her after asking her to come stay with him the Summer after fourth year.

            Dear Ron,

 

                        I'm sorry, but I can't stay with you

                        this Summer. I've already promised Viktor

                        I'd visit him in Bulgaria. Once again, I'm

                        sorry. I'll see you next year.

                                                —Hermione

So much shorter than all her other letters, and he'd known, then, that he'd lost her forever. I'll go. But only to see if she really goes through with it. I won't even stay for the reception. If there is one, he thought scornfully. In his heart, though, he knew that no matter how much he denied it, there would probably be a reception.


He was standing in the hotel lobby waiting to be checked in. He saw the bride and bridesmaids running around trying to find dresses and make-up and the bride who was hiding in various closets and such because she had had a little too much of the free beer the hotel had put out in the corner for the wedding party.

"Ron? Is that you? Oh my God! It is! I'm so glad to see you here! How long's it been? Two years? Oh! And it doesn't really seem like that long ago," he heard a voice say.

Lonely and forgotten
Never thought she'd look my way,
But she smiled at me and held me
Just like she used to do.
Like she loved me
When she loved me.


She forced him to turn around and embraced him. Not like exactly like she used to, but like a friend—and nothing more.


He was sitting in the back of the cathedral. Notre Dame. The second the priest said, "You may kiss the bride," he was going to leave. He wouldn't stay for the reception, just like he had told himself. Why can't this guy get a move on? He was impatient.

When somebody loved me
Everything was beautiful.
Every hour spent together
Lives within my heart.

But he never heard the priest say, "You may kiss the bride." Instead he heard, "If anyone here and present objects to this union, let him speak now or forever hold his peace." He couldn't take it anymore. He stood up. He couldn't let her marry that Quidditch-playing fool. Hermione Krum. It was one of the worst names he'd ever heard.


She looked into his eyes and stopped. Slowly, she took her bouquet from Ginny Weasley, the maid of honor, his own sister, and made her way down the aisle leaving Krum at the altar. He left—and she left with him.

When she loved me.





Author's Notes: See, I told you it was lame. Just something that entered my mind while watching Toy Story 2 (great movie, by the way), and wouldn't leave until I wrote it down. By the way, in case you didn't get it at first, when it says "and she left with him," him is Ron. Lame ending, lame story, plotless story. I'd still like to know what you thought of it, though. Just click that little box down there and review.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hermione, Ron, Krum, the free beer (darn it), Ginny, or any other Hp thing you might recognize. Notre Dame belongs to France. "When She Loved Me" belongs to Sarah McLachlan (or however you spell it).