A/N: I want to thank everyone who left me feedback to the story that precedes this one: "Because of Me." This is its sequel, and I hope it lives up to what everyone who wanted a sequel expected. This takes place on the one year anniversary of Ron's death and is told from Hermione's point of view. Please read and reply!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them, so please do not sue me. You wouldn't get anything anyway because I haven't got anything.
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The sun was shining, and I noticed that the hot August sun had left me sweating. Not that I minded; I always preferred warm to cold, so I was pleased to soak up the last of the summer. Soon enough it would be fall, and after that winter. It was really a gorgeous day. In fact, some people might even go as far as calling it the perfect day.
Not me, though.
This day was the hardest of them all. How could it have been a year? In some ways, it felt as though it were just yesterday that I had seen him, but sometimes it seemed like it had been a hundred years. The past year had been the worst of my life, and sometimes I wasn't sure how I managed to make it through the day. There were so many mornings that I just wanted to lay in my bed and never get up. But I always did.
It's what he would have wanted.
It seemed as though everything I did anymore was for him. What he would have wanted me to do. And what would have made him happy.
Ron.
Oh, God, I missed him more with every passing day. It still seemed impossible to me that only a year ago we were so extremely happy.
A year ago today.
Damn. This wasn't fair. The memories shouldn't haunt me with each waking second, and yet I'm glad that they do. Memories are all that I have left of him- the only man I've ever loved in my entire life.
I remember the last time I saw him as thought it were only yesterday. The very last memories I have of him. The very last time I was truly happy.
*************************Flashback*****************************
An odd feeling roused me from my sleep- not a bad feeling, just one of unfamiliarity. I felt very content with my rest, and I wasn't exactly anxious to wake up, but I opened my eyes anyway.
There he was.
Ron was lying right beside me in my bed, twirling one of my curls between his long fingers and grinning brilliantly at me.
I was shocked at first because I definitely did not go to sleep like this, so it was quite a shock to wake up like this. "What are you doing here?" I asked, smiling back at him. I was thrilled to see him. This was surely the only way to wake up- with one of his arms wrapped tightly around my waist and his blue eyes staring into my own. Yes, this was how I wanted to wake every morning for the rest of my life.
"Well," he said, still grinning wickedly, "I was lying in bed thinking, `Hmm... I'd sure like to snog Hermione right about now.' So, I apparated over, and here I am!"
My eyes caught sight of the open window to my right. "Well, why didn't you just apparate into my room instead of coming through the window?"
He, still smiling at me, pulled me closer to him and said. "Oh, I just figured it'd be better like this. You know in all those Muggle romance novels you have a dashing, heroic, stunning man always sneaks through a window and gets to ravish the fair young maiden."
I blushed furiously. He only shook his head, smirking.
"And don't try to pretend you don't have them," he continued, his eyes flashing toward the bookshelf against my wall. "I've snuck peaks at them while you've been out of the room before. Pure and utter smut, that stuff. I must say, the first time I ever looked in one, I was rather surprised at you, Hermione."
I had to laugh at that. "I do not read them for that reason!"
He just continued to smirk. "Sure..." I chose to ignore him. He continued, "So? Do I get that kiss or not?"
"Well," I said, pretending to ponder it. "I thought you were going to ravish a fair young maiden."
"Oh yeah! Got any idea where I might find one?" he joked.
I swiftly smacked him on the arm and rolled away from him, muttering, "See if you get snogged now."
He laughed and scooted closer to me. "Only kidding!" He kissed me on the cheek from behind and said, "You are the most," he kissed me again, "beautiful," another kiss, "girl," at this, I rolled onto my back and looked at him threateningly to which he rolled his eyes and corrected himself, "woman- excuse me," yet another kiss, "in the entire world."
I smiled up at him lovingly. How did he do it? How did he make me melt with every word he spoke? How did he make my heart explode with happiness every time he came anywhere near me?
I was so in love with him.
"You're getting closer to the snog," I said quietly.
Now that I was lying on my back and Ron was on his side, it was easy for me to tilt my head and capture his lips with my own. As soon as our lips met, it was as though a burst of electricity shot through my body. It wasn't a wild and passionate kiss at all; it was slow and sensual. But it set me on fire. We pulled away soon afterward, and I said, "Ron, my parents are right down the hall."
He shrugged. "I already locked the door to your room. I don't reckon I'd fancy seeing your dad if he ever caught me lying in your bed like this..."
I laughed, thinking of what my dad would do to Ron if he ever witnessed a scene like this. Then I suddenly realized that it was not a funny idea at all. "Good thinking!" I said quickly.
He shuddered over-dramatically. "I don't even want to think about it!"
I laughed and kissed him once more. I leaned back slightly and said, "So, why did you really come over here?"
He wrapped his outer arm over me, and I turned to look at him directly face to face. "I really did just want to see you," he said honestly. "I miss seeing you every morning."
For the past seven years, save summer holidays, Ron and I had seen each other bright and early every morning, having lived in the same house at our school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. School had been over for two months, and we hadn't spent as much time together as either of us would have liked. He was always busy trying to help Harry, and I had moved back home to my parents' house. I missed him, too. Desperately.
"I love you." I knew that I would never get tired of telling him this because they were the truest words I had ever spoken, and I told him every chance I got.
I also knew that I would never get tired of hearing those words the moment he returned them to me. "I love you, too."
We kissed then, and it was as though there was no war outside, no parents down the hall, nothing else on the entire earth except for the two of us. It was always like that when we kissed. Everything else in the world ceased to exist.
I could feel his tongue prodding at my lips, and I was more than eager to allow him the entrance which he was begging for. I parted my lips just enough to let his tongue slip through and brush over my own. Ron, still kissing me deeply, rolled a bit closer to me and turned so that I was halfway on my back again. I frowned a bit when his lips left mine, but when they moved to the hollow of my neck, I found myself wondering what the frown was on my face for and changed it to a rather contented smile.
God, this was wonderful! I couldn't believe the things he could make me feel with just a simple kiss or, even better, a heated touch.
His hands moved from my waist and rose higher up my back to tangle in the mess of brown curls on my head as his lips continued to assault my neck. It was funny, really, that things could get so heated so quickly between us. I groped for the back of his neck and pulled him closer to me as I rolled completely onto my back. He covered my body with his own and started to kiss my lips again. I heard him moan somewhere from the back of his throat when I parted his lips with my own and slipped my tongue into his mouth, exploring every crevice of it.
He kissed me back desperately. The hands that were once entangled in my hair were now moving back around to my face as he cupped my chin in his hands and kissed me with all the passion he knew. His hands left my face and traveled down the sides of my waist to grip my hips, and I jumped slightly at their relocation. The movement of me underneath him made him give some sort of a sound that can only be described as a low growl, as he pulled his lips away from mine and started working once again on my neck which was completely exposed to him as I was only wearing the over-sized t-shirt I had worn to bed the night before. I could tell that the shirt was riding high up my thighs, leaving quite a bit of mentionable skin bare, and I was assured of my assumptions when Ron's hands once again took to moving. I felt his smooth hands on the tops of my legs all at once, and his fingertips started running lines up and down and up and down my outer thighs. I couldn't help but give a low
needing moan at the feelings of his hands on my bare skin.
I leaned up and kissed him, as my own hands traveled down his muscled back and lower to rest on his backside. Unconsciously, I pulled him toward me, immediately taking notice of the effect our little episode was having on him the second our lower bodies came into contact with each other. He was excited, and the evidence was more than a bit noticeable.
All at once, he pulled away from me and shook his head. "Hermione, we need to stop," he whispered breathlessly.
I flung my head back onto the pillow and groaned loudly. I was so frustrated! I was frustrated at myself for getting so into it. I was frustrated with Ron for being so damn sensible. And most of all, I was sexually frustrated.
We always ended up like this- both of us in such an excited state that it made stopping damn near impossible. And yet we always stopped. I wanted to save my virginity until my wedding night, and Ron knew this. He never pressured me to go any further than I wanted to, and I loved for him this. I also hated him for this. The truth was that I did want to make love with him; I wanted that desperately. But I had always planned on waiting.
But that was before.
That was before I knew how wonderful it felt to have Ron's hands on my bare skin. That was before I knew how excited I could get when he kissed me passionately. That was before I knew the aching need that I would inevitably get every single time we got just a little too into the kissing. That was before I was in love.
Now things were different. I was old enough to understand that I was actually very much in love with Ron, and I knew that he was the only man I would ever want to marry. If I were going to marry him eventually, what would the harm be in making love with him just a bit early?
"Ron, I don't want to stop." I looked at him very seriously, and I saw him swallow, his breath still not completely recovered.
"What are you saying?" His blue eyes looked into my own curiously.
I closed my eyes just a bit before I opened them and leaned up to whisper into his ear. "I want you to make love to me."
Ron looked back at me, his eyes seeming to cloud with an unexplainable expression. "Are you sure?" His voice was just as breathless as it had been moments before when he'd insisted that we stop.
I didn't speak. I just nodded and leaned up to kiss him lightly before lowering myself back to the pillow and looking up at him expectantly. Yes, I was sure.
I can't really even describe the way Ron looked down at me with his eyes so full of adoration and love. He wasn't smiling, but the happiness I was feeling was reflected in his eyes.
"I love you."
What I had ever done to deserve this, I had no idea. I had never done anything worth the happiness that I felt every time Ron was anywhere near me.
He kissed me again, and desire stirred deep within me. Yes, I wanted this very much. I wanted this so bad, I was sure I was going to die if it didn't happen soon.
But Ron pulled away once again and rolled off of me, sitting up in the bed. I could have screamed, but instead, I rolled my eyes and sat up as well, turning to look at him.
"Ron, what's wrong?"
He shook his head and swallowed as he turned to me. "We shouldn't be doing this."
What was his problem? "Why not?" I asked, my only child syndrome coming out with the whining tone of my voice. "Don't you want to?"
Ron laughed. He actually snorted with laughter at my question. "Don't I want to? Hermione, are you serious?"
I looked at him, the confusion I was feeling surely showing on my face.
He took my hand and continued. "Of course, I want to. It's all I think about every second of every day." He grinned a little. "Trust me, if you could see my dreams and read my thoughts, you would know how much I want to do this."
I laughed knowingly. Being a seventeen year old virgin, I knew only too well what thoughts and dreams could do to a person. I had had enough of my own to understand perfectly well what he was talking about.
"Then let's do it," I said urgently. "I promise I'm ready. I want to."
Ron seemed to be having some sort of inner battle. I was sure it was the eighty percent of his brain that was overwrought with sexuality that was battling to overcome the twenty percent of his brain which consisted of other thoughts. Surprisingly enough, it seemed as though the underdog was winning.
"But this is wrong."
Wrong? How could he say that this was wrong? "Ron, I don't understand. We love each other. How is that wrong?"
He shook his head. "No, that's not wrong at all. In fact, it's what makes everything else so wrong."
For the millionth time in his life, Ron had succeeded in confusing me with his words. "What the hell are you talking about?" I said it in a way that was a bit snappier than I would have liked, but he wasn't making any sense.
Ron sighed, obviously upset with my lack of understanding. "Hermione, look. I want to make love to you more than I've ever wanted anything in the world. Trust me on that. But this is wrong."
"But I already told you that I want to. I'm ready. I really am," my eyes pleaded with him.
He smiled at me and kissed my forehead. "Well, believe me, I'm ready, too. If you don't want to wait any longer, it's more than fine with me."
Okay, did he realize he wasn't making any sense? "Then what is the problem?"
"Hermione, I love you so much, and I want the first time we make love to be special. I want it to be as perfect as you are."
I smiled shyly, his words meaning more to me than he could possibly have known.
"And this," he continued, "is not the way it's supposed to be. It shouldn't be some spur of the moment thing with your parents two doors down. It should be romantic and special and memorable." He gave me a small smile and brought our entwined hands to his lips and kissed mine lightly.
I realized then that tears were springing to my eyes as I removed my hand from his and threw my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. When I pulled back, I wiped the tears from my eyes and beamed at him. "Thank you."
"For what?" He reached for my hand again.
"For loving me so much," I said. "And for caring so much. Thank you."
Ron squeezed my hand. "I have to go meet Harry soon, but this weekend, I'll make sure that it's just the two of us. I'll find somewhere just for us, and then we can continue this. The way it's supposed to be."
I knew right then that the wait until the weekend was surely going to kill me. But I also knew that the wait would be more than worth it. I nodded, smiling, and asked, "What are you and Harry doing today?"
He looked just a bit uncomfortable, and I could tell that he was about to tell me they were doing something dangerous. Ron knew that I was always scared whenever he and Harry took off on one of their new tasks. They were both eager to be the brave hero- the one that Harry was known as and the one that Ron wanted to be known as; they were brave sometimes to the point of stupidity, and I knew this better than anyone on the earth, having witnessed so many of their feats of heroism first-hand.
"Well, the ministry wants us to try and trap a group of Death Eaters. If all goes well, we might even get Lucius Malfoy today." He looked at me hopefully, as though adding that last bit of information might make me take the news better.
I sighed. Why couldn't we just be normal? Why did it seem as though the whole damn war revolved around us? It wasn't Harry's fault that the whole Dark Side wanted nothing more than his death, it wasn't Ron's fault that he had this great sense of loyalty toward Harry that he couldn't deny, and it wasn't my fault that I was a Muggle-born witch with more book sense than their whole side put together, "Harry Potter's Mudblood know-it-all best friend," nonetheless. But yet these three things that we couldn't help could very possibly prove fatal for us all. It wasn't fair!
"Ron, promise me you'll be careful," I said desperately.
He grinned. "Trust me, I don't plan on getting myself killed today- not with the weekend I have planned for us only a few days away. I wouldn't miss that for the world." He was trying to cheer me up, but it wasn't working.
I didn't want him to go. I didn't want Harry to go either. I just wanted it all to be over. I wanted things to go back to being as simple as they had been when we were eleven year olds at our first flying lesson. Back then we didn't have to worry about anything other than Draco Malfoy. I had despised Ron and Harry then, and the feeling was mutual from the both of them. Life had been so simple then. Our feelings toward each other had changed soon afterward, and pretty soon after that, our lives were anything but simple.
"Don't even joke about that," I warned him, not wanting to acknowledge that he had referred to himself being killed.
His joking face turned serious and he nodded. "I promise I'll be careful," he said quietly. "You know I always am."
That was lie. Ron wasn't always careful. Harry wasn't always careful. Even I wasn't always careful. We had all done some pretty stupid things in the name of bravery in the past, and Ron was perhaps the worst of us all. He was always eager to prove himself, and sometimes he acted in very careless ways. Careful was not what he was; lucky was a much better word choice. And I knew that eventually everyone's luck wore out, but I refused to believe that Ron's would run out anytime soon. I was a stupid, naïve little girl in many ways, and I refused to believe that anything bad could actually happen to any of us. Harry was going to play Quidditch for a living, and Ron and I were going to be married and have a houseful of our own Weasley children. Our lives were going to be perfect.
I didn't relay any of these thoughts to Ron, though. I just nodded. "Okay, good."
Ron got off the bed and stood then, and he held out his hands to help me to my feet. Not close to the floor, I stood on the bed, towering over him. He grinned up at me.
"This is a change."
Ron was very tall, and he towered me by eight inches normally. He wasn't used to looking up at me.
I smiled back down at him and nodded. "See why my neck always hurts?"
He laughed and let go of my hands, grabbing me from behind the knees and lifting me off the bed in a swift movement. He held me like a baby, one arm under my bent knees and the other behind my back, and he spun me around once. I squealed with laughter, momentarily forgetting that my parents were indeed sleeping only a few feet away.
He silenced me with a kiss, and I found that my life was perfect. Yes, it was perfect. When he finally sat me down, he reached for the jacket he had removed after climbing through my window.
"I wish I could stay, but I told Harry I'd meet him for breakfast. You can come if you want."
I did want to, but I had promised my mum that I would go with her to London that morning. I told Ron this and told him to give my love to Harry.
"I will. And I'll come see you tomorrow." He kissed my cheek and squeezed my hand. "And thanks for the snog by the way," he said grinning. "Made my trip over worthwhile."
I just beamed at him and leaned up to kiss his lips briefly. "Be careful," I warned once more.
Ron nodded and pulled me toward him in a hug that lasted a bit longer than usual. He just stood with his arms around me, and I wondered if he was enjoying the feeling as much as I was. Finally, he leaned down and kissed the top of my head, smoothing my hair down a bit with his hands. When he pulled back, he said, "I'll see you tomorrow. I love you."
"I love you, too." I kissed him once more, and then he disappeared, apparating to some small café to meet Harry for breakfast.
Yes, my life was perfect.
*************************End Flashback******************************
But perfection never lasts very long.
Later that night, Harry had come to me and given me the worst news I would ever hear.
Ron was dead.
God, I was so mad! I was mad at everything! I was mad for the obvious selfish reasons such as the fact that Ron and I would never get to be married and live happily ever after and the fact that Ron was the only thing I had in my life that was completely right. And I was mad because fate had taken him away at such a young age. And I was mad at Harry for being the one there with him as he died and not me. And I was mad at Ron for leaving me! After all the promises he had made me, all the dreams he had shared with me, all the plans we had made together... He had left me. He was gone.
And I was alone.
I'm sure that Harry, my parents, and the rest of the world must have thought I had lost my mind after that. I had never known that I could cry that many tears, nor had I known that I could feel so dead when my heart was beating so normally. I didn't want to be alive anymore.
I wanted to die physically right along with Ron; I was already emotionally dead. I even tried to kill myself the day after I found out Ron had left me forever. My mum had just gotten a whole new bottle of her prescription sleeping pills, and they sat in her bathroom medicine cabinet just beckoning to me. I had gone to my parents' bathroom early in the morning and grabbed the bottle. Without thinking twice, I took what must have been fifteen pills all at once, swallowing one after another with no stop. And then I had slept.
The next thing I remember is waking up in a Muggle hospital with my parents' beside me, each wearing terrified expressions. My mum had found me lying there soon enough after I had passed out, and she and my dad had gotten me to the hospital in time for me to have my stomach pumped and my life saved. They were so upset that I had tried to do it, but they both kept my secret- never telling anyone. I didn't tell anyone, either- not even Harry. Two days later, we buried Ron, and the nightmare started.
The nightmare that has been the last year.
How the hell was I supposed to move on after Ron's death? For a year and a half, I had loved him as a boyfriend, and for five and a half years before that, I had loved him as a best friend. How was I expected to just forget that he had ever existed and "get on with my life?"
I couldn't. No, it was impossible.
I tried, of course, to do things as normally as possible, but no matter how hard I tried nothing ever seemed normal. That's because things weren't normal. My life was no longer perfect, and I knew it.
So many things had happened in the past year- things Ron would never know about. He'd never know that Harry ditched the Quidditch dream to become a full time auror, capturing the Death Eaters after their Lord's demise. He'd never know that Harry finally succeeded in capturing Lucius Malfoy who was now spending a lifetime in Azkaban. He wouldn't know that Fred and George made a small fortune selling their finest invention to date- a piece of chocolate that would turn the eater into a body of jello-like flexibility. He wouldn'tt know that his brother Bill and his wife Amy were expecting their first child in late winter. He wouldn't know that his dad got promoted to the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department. He'd never know that I spent the last year working at Hogwarts.
Madame Pince retired the summer after we graduated, and Professor Dumbledore asked me if I wanted the position. I said yes, mainly because I needed something to get my mind off of Ron and also because I loved that library so much. Harry teased me a bit, and I was sure that if Ron had been around, I still wouldn't have lived it down. They would think it quite funny that after practically living in that library for seven years, I was making a career out of running it. As part of the staff, I was expected to call the other staff members by their first names, but I found it absolutely impossible to do this. It was impossible to call Snape by Severus or McGonagall by Minerva, so I still called them Professor, and, oddly enough, they still referred to me as Miss Granger. The year was uneventful for the most part. The strangest thing was the way Ginny and I were treated. Of course, everyone talked nonstop about the past summer, but they always cut their conversations abruptly short
whenever Ginny or I entered the room. They all acted as though we were fragile beings that were sure to break at the slightest mention of Ron or anything to do with him. I didn't mind talking about it, though; in fact, it helped me. It helped Ginny, too. We spent many nights in my room just talking about the things that had happened and trying to make sense of everything. It had made the two of us very close.
But Ron wouldn't know this. He wouldn't know that Ginny had graduated and was now pursuing a career as a journalist, although she promised me not to take any sort of lessons from Rita Skeeter. She was dating Colin Creevey, and they were getting pretty serious. Colin gave me a photo album filled with pictures that he had snapped of Ron, Harry, and I. It was beautiful.
But still, life wasn't normal. Things would never be normal again, and I knew this. And then as I stood looking down at Ron's grave on the one-year anniversary of his death, I cried.
My mind wandered back to the week after Ron's death. I had been in my room asleep because that's all I ever did for a long while- sleep. My mum knocked gently on my door and handed me a letter that had arrived by owl for me. I took it from her and shut the door to my room, sitting on my bed and preparing to open the letter. As soon as I opened it, it was as though I were seeing a ghost.
Dear Hermione,
If you get this letter then obviously I'm dead. I'm only writing this on the off-chance that something goes wrong. I don't plan on you ever receiving this letter, but I'm writing it anyway just in case. As I said before, if you're reading this then I am obviously not there. I hope that you're doing well. If I am dead, then I want you to promise me that you're not mourning too much. I don't want you to cry for me any longer than you have to. Hermione, you have to be strong.
I love you so much. I want you to know that there is nothing in this world that could ever change that- not even death. You are the most beautiful person I have ever known, both on the inside and the outside. I can't believe that you're mine. It still shocks me that you picked me to love. I can't believe that I've been lucky enough to have you in my life. Hermione, you are my best friend, and you have been for years. Now that our relationship is more than just friendly, I regard you as a sort of angel.
An angel that was put on this earth to save me from myself.
Honestly, I don't know what kind of person I would be if you weren't in my life. You know that things haven't always been easy for me, and I've sometimes let the bitterness I hold about my brothers and Harry and my family's financial situation and all those other things get the better of me. I know that I haven't always been exactly nice to you. I know that for years I treated you horribly, and I'm so sorry. I'm sorry that I ever made you cry when we were children, Hermione. I'm sorry for any pain that I ever caused you. You've been the one thing in my life that keeps me sane. You really, truly are an angel.
I'm writing this the night before graduation, and I don't know what's going to happen when we leave this school. Things could all be over soon, and life could be bliss. Or something else could happen. I have no way of knowing anything. The only thing I know for sure is that no matter what happens, you are and always will be the only woman I've ever loved. I don't know what I ever did to deserve you, but it must have been something spectacular because that's the only word I can think of to describe you. The first time I kissed you I knew that you were the only person I ever wanted to kiss for the rest of my life.
I love you.
God, I can't even tell you how much I love you. There isn't enough parchment in the world to tell you that. But just know that I do, and I always will. You will always be my angel, Hermione.
If I do die, please don't waste your life mourning for me. Remember me, but don't dwell on those memories to the point where you don't do all the things you've always dreamed of. You are the most brilliant person I know, and you should never ever waste your talent. Keep living for me, Hermione.
And know that I will always be with you.
Always.
Love,
Ron
That letter was the only thing that kept me going through the past year. It made me realize that there was nothing in the world that was going to bring Ron back and that I had to move on. I had to for his sake. Because it was what he would have wanted.
I would do anything in the world if I thought it would make him happy.
The year had been rough, yes, but everyone did their best to help me. I clung to Harry the most because he could relate the closest to what I was going through. For seven years no one had seen any of us without the other two. Harry, Ron, and I were a trio- best friends for life. It was cliché I suppose, but it was the truth. And suddenly with the wave of a wand, our trio had been viciously cut down to two. Harry and I were all that was left, and we turned to each other for help on getting through it. If it hadn't been for Harry, I'm not sure I could have made it through the year, but he was always there when I needed him. And I helped him as well. He blamed himself completely for Ron's death, and I had finally been able to convince him that it wasn't his fault and that Ron had given his own life because he couldn't allow his best friend to die. Harry was getting through it.
Everyone else tried to help me as well. All of our old schoolmates and teachers gave me their condolences and best wishes. The most surprising visit had been from Draco Malfoy- Harry's, Ron's and my greatest enemy since the very first day of our first year. He had made seven years hell for the three of us, but soon after graduation, he had forsaken his father and turned away from the Dark Side, denying his place as a Death Eater. Ron hadn't believed it at first; he had said that Malfoy was simply trying to trick our side and was going to turn on us all at any minute. But Malfoy (I still couldn't make myself call him Draco) had risked his own life to save Harry and Ron from his father one time, and Ron's feelings had changed. He was by no means best friends with Malfoy, and neither were Harry or I, but we had all learned to treat each other civilly. Malfoy had shown up at my door two weeks after Ron's funeral looking sincerely sorry. He had apologized for everything that had
happened between the four of us in the past and told me that if I ever needed anyone and had no one else to go to, his door was always open to me. He had also said some very kind words about Ron. He told me that he had always secretly admired Ron (although, he still called him Weasley- I guess some things will never change) for being able to put up with all "the shit that he did while Potter got all the credit." It was an awkward visit, and I doubted that I would ever be taking Malfoy up on his open-door offer, but it was nice of him to visit nonetheless.
But even with everyone's support things were still hard. It was still hard for me to get up every morning knowing that I wouldn't be seeing Ron that day or any day after that. It was still hard for me to look at Ginny as she sat in my room late at night and not cry because of the red hair and freckles that reminded me so much of her brother. It was still hard for me to see an article in the newspaper about the Chudley Cannons without thinking of Ron. It was still hard for me to see Harry and not see Ron.
It was just hard.
I was never going to get to know the feeling of being Mrs. Hermione Weasley. I was never going to send any of my own little Weasleys off to Hogwarts. I was never going to hear him tell me he loved me again. I was never going to see his brilliant blue eyes sparkle as he grinned at me. I was never going to feel his hand holding mine again. I was never going to experience the feeling of his soft lips pressed tightly against mine ever again. And I was never, ever going to know how it would feel to look into his eyes as he whispered words of love in my ear while making sweet, slow, passionate love to me. And I didn't want to experience that with anyone else, and I wasn't sure that I ever would.
Maybe in time things would change and I would be able to move on and like someone else. Maybe I could even possibly fall in love again. But I knew it wouldn't be anytime soon. No, for the time being, my heart belonged to Ron, and I knew that at least a part of it always would. He was my first love.
And, so far, my only love.
And I did love him. And I always would. But I was trying my best to move on and cope. After all, it's what he wanted.
As I stood in front of his grave, the sun slowly beginning to set behind me, I glanced down at my left hand and saw the ring that would have been an engagement ring if Ron had lived only a few short weeks longer. It sparkled as the last of the day's sun disappeared behind the trees. In the back of my mind, I pictured where I would be on this day if things hadn't gone the way they had the year before. We would probably already be married, and I knew we would be happy. Blissfully happy. We might have been planning our family, or we might have possibly already had one child. At that very moment, he might have been returning from work, and I might have been waiting for him with open arms and a sweet kiss. Who knows where we would be? But we would undoubtedly be together. And we would be happy.
Was Ron happy wherever he was then? I could only pray that he was. Was he watching me? Did he know how much I missed him? Did he know that I was trying to move on and be strong?
I hoped so.
Because it's what he would have wanted. And I wanted to make him happy.
I reached down and placed the single red rose I had brought to the cemetery with me on Ron's grave. I kissed it before lying it on the ground in front of his headstone.
"Good-bye, my love," I whispered.
And then I walked away, ready to face another year without him.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them, so please do not sue me. You wouldn't get anything anyway because I haven't got anything.
*****************************************
The sun was shining, and I noticed that the hot August sun had left me sweating. Not that I minded; I always preferred warm to cold, so I was pleased to soak up the last of the summer. Soon enough it would be fall, and after that winter. It was really a gorgeous day. In fact, some people might even go as far as calling it the perfect day.
Not me, though.
This day was the hardest of them all. How could it have been a year? In some ways, it felt as though it were just yesterday that I had seen him, but sometimes it seemed like it had been a hundred years. The past year had been the worst of my life, and sometimes I wasn't sure how I managed to make it through the day. There were so many mornings that I just wanted to lay in my bed and never get up. But I always did.
It's what he would have wanted.
It seemed as though everything I did anymore was for him. What he would have wanted me to do. And what would have made him happy.
Ron.
Oh, God, I missed him more with every passing day. It still seemed impossible to me that only a year ago we were so extremely happy.
A year ago today.
Damn. This wasn't fair. The memories shouldn't haunt me with each waking second, and yet I'm glad that they do. Memories are all that I have left of him- the only man I've ever loved in my entire life.
I remember the last time I saw him as thought it were only yesterday. The very last memories I have of him. The very last time I was truly happy.
*************************Flashback*****************************
An odd feeling roused me from my sleep- not a bad feeling, just one of unfamiliarity. I felt very content with my rest, and I wasn't exactly anxious to wake up, but I opened my eyes anyway.
There he was.
Ron was lying right beside me in my bed, twirling one of my curls between his long fingers and grinning brilliantly at me.
I was shocked at first because I definitely did not go to sleep like this, so it was quite a shock to wake up like this. "What are you doing here?" I asked, smiling back at him. I was thrilled to see him. This was surely the only way to wake up- with one of his arms wrapped tightly around my waist and his blue eyes staring into my own. Yes, this was how I wanted to wake every morning for the rest of my life.
"Well," he said, still grinning wickedly, "I was lying in bed thinking, `Hmm... I'd sure like to snog Hermione right about now.' So, I apparated over, and here I am!"
My eyes caught sight of the open window to my right. "Well, why didn't you just apparate into my room instead of coming through the window?"
He, still smiling at me, pulled me closer to him and said. "Oh, I just figured it'd be better like this. You know in all those Muggle romance novels you have a dashing, heroic, stunning man always sneaks through a window and gets to ravish the fair young maiden."
I blushed furiously. He only shook his head, smirking.
"And don't try to pretend you don't have them," he continued, his eyes flashing toward the bookshelf against my wall. "I've snuck peaks at them while you've been out of the room before. Pure and utter smut, that stuff. I must say, the first time I ever looked in one, I was rather surprised at you, Hermione."
I had to laugh at that. "I do not read them for that reason!"
He just continued to smirk. "Sure..." I chose to ignore him. He continued, "So? Do I get that kiss or not?"
"Well," I said, pretending to ponder it. "I thought you were going to ravish a fair young maiden."
"Oh yeah! Got any idea where I might find one?" he joked.
I swiftly smacked him on the arm and rolled away from him, muttering, "See if you get snogged now."
He laughed and scooted closer to me. "Only kidding!" He kissed me on the cheek from behind and said, "You are the most," he kissed me again, "beautiful," another kiss, "girl," at this, I rolled onto my back and looked at him threateningly to which he rolled his eyes and corrected himself, "woman- excuse me," yet another kiss, "in the entire world."
I smiled up at him lovingly. How did he do it? How did he make me melt with every word he spoke? How did he make my heart explode with happiness every time he came anywhere near me?
I was so in love with him.
"You're getting closer to the snog," I said quietly.
Now that I was lying on my back and Ron was on his side, it was easy for me to tilt my head and capture his lips with my own. As soon as our lips met, it was as though a burst of electricity shot through my body. It wasn't a wild and passionate kiss at all; it was slow and sensual. But it set me on fire. We pulled away soon afterward, and I said, "Ron, my parents are right down the hall."
He shrugged. "I already locked the door to your room. I don't reckon I'd fancy seeing your dad if he ever caught me lying in your bed like this..."
I laughed, thinking of what my dad would do to Ron if he ever witnessed a scene like this. Then I suddenly realized that it was not a funny idea at all. "Good thinking!" I said quickly.
He shuddered over-dramatically. "I don't even want to think about it!"
I laughed and kissed him once more. I leaned back slightly and said, "So, why did you really come over here?"
He wrapped his outer arm over me, and I turned to look at him directly face to face. "I really did just want to see you," he said honestly. "I miss seeing you every morning."
For the past seven years, save summer holidays, Ron and I had seen each other bright and early every morning, having lived in the same house at our school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. School had been over for two months, and we hadn't spent as much time together as either of us would have liked. He was always busy trying to help Harry, and I had moved back home to my parents' house. I missed him, too. Desperately.
"I love you." I knew that I would never get tired of telling him this because they were the truest words I had ever spoken, and I told him every chance I got.
I also knew that I would never get tired of hearing those words the moment he returned them to me. "I love you, too."
We kissed then, and it was as though there was no war outside, no parents down the hall, nothing else on the entire earth except for the two of us. It was always like that when we kissed. Everything else in the world ceased to exist.
I could feel his tongue prodding at my lips, and I was more than eager to allow him the entrance which he was begging for. I parted my lips just enough to let his tongue slip through and brush over my own. Ron, still kissing me deeply, rolled a bit closer to me and turned so that I was halfway on my back again. I frowned a bit when his lips left mine, but when they moved to the hollow of my neck, I found myself wondering what the frown was on my face for and changed it to a rather contented smile.
God, this was wonderful! I couldn't believe the things he could make me feel with just a simple kiss or, even better, a heated touch.
His hands moved from my waist and rose higher up my back to tangle in the mess of brown curls on my head as his lips continued to assault my neck. It was funny, really, that things could get so heated so quickly between us. I groped for the back of his neck and pulled him closer to me as I rolled completely onto my back. He covered my body with his own and started to kiss my lips again. I heard him moan somewhere from the back of his throat when I parted his lips with my own and slipped my tongue into his mouth, exploring every crevice of it.
He kissed me back desperately. The hands that were once entangled in my hair were now moving back around to my face as he cupped my chin in his hands and kissed me with all the passion he knew. His hands left my face and traveled down the sides of my waist to grip my hips, and I jumped slightly at their relocation. The movement of me underneath him made him give some sort of a sound that can only be described as a low growl, as he pulled his lips away from mine and started working once again on my neck which was completely exposed to him as I was only wearing the over-sized t-shirt I had worn to bed the night before. I could tell that the shirt was riding high up my thighs, leaving quite a bit of mentionable skin bare, and I was assured of my assumptions when Ron's hands once again took to moving. I felt his smooth hands on the tops of my legs all at once, and his fingertips started running lines up and down and up and down my outer thighs. I couldn't help but give a low
needing moan at the feelings of his hands on my bare skin.
I leaned up and kissed him, as my own hands traveled down his muscled back and lower to rest on his backside. Unconsciously, I pulled him toward me, immediately taking notice of the effect our little episode was having on him the second our lower bodies came into contact with each other. He was excited, and the evidence was more than a bit noticeable.
All at once, he pulled away from me and shook his head. "Hermione, we need to stop," he whispered breathlessly.
I flung my head back onto the pillow and groaned loudly. I was so frustrated! I was frustrated at myself for getting so into it. I was frustrated with Ron for being so damn sensible. And most of all, I was sexually frustrated.
We always ended up like this- both of us in such an excited state that it made stopping damn near impossible. And yet we always stopped. I wanted to save my virginity until my wedding night, and Ron knew this. He never pressured me to go any further than I wanted to, and I loved for him this. I also hated him for this. The truth was that I did want to make love with him; I wanted that desperately. But I had always planned on waiting.
But that was before.
That was before I knew how wonderful it felt to have Ron's hands on my bare skin. That was before I knew how excited I could get when he kissed me passionately. That was before I knew the aching need that I would inevitably get every single time we got just a little too into the kissing. That was before I was in love.
Now things were different. I was old enough to understand that I was actually very much in love with Ron, and I knew that he was the only man I would ever want to marry. If I were going to marry him eventually, what would the harm be in making love with him just a bit early?
"Ron, I don't want to stop." I looked at him very seriously, and I saw him swallow, his breath still not completely recovered.
"What are you saying?" His blue eyes looked into my own curiously.
I closed my eyes just a bit before I opened them and leaned up to whisper into his ear. "I want you to make love to me."
Ron looked back at me, his eyes seeming to cloud with an unexplainable expression. "Are you sure?" His voice was just as breathless as it had been moments before when he'd insisted that we stop.
I didn't speak. I just nodded and leaned up to kiss him lightly before lowering myself back to the pillow and looking up at him expectantly. Yes, I was sure.
I can't really even describe the way Ron looked down at me with his eyes so full of adoration and love. He wasn't smiling, but the happiness I was feeling was reflected in his eyes.
"I love you."
What I had ever done to deserve this, I had no idea. I had never done anything worth the happiness that I felt every time Ron was anywhere near me.
He kissed me again, and desire stirred deep within me. Yes, I wanted this very much. I wanted this so bad, I was sure I was going to die if it didn't happen soon.
But Ron pulled away once again and rolled off of me, sitting up in the bed. I could have screamed, but instead, I rolled my eyes and sat up as well, turning to look at him.
"Ron, what's wrong?"
He shook his head and swallowed as he turned to me. "We shouldn't be doing this."
What was his problem? "Why not?" I asked, my only child syndrome coming out with the whining tone of my voice. "Don't you want to?"
Ron laughed. He actually snorted with laughter at my question. "Don't I want to? Hermione, are you serious?"
I looked at him, the confusion I was feeling surely showing on my face.
He took my hand and continued. "Of course, I want to. It's all I think about every second of every day." He grinned a little. "Trust me, if you could see my dreams and read my thoughts, you would know how much I want to do this."
I laughed knowingly. Being a seventeen year old virgin, I knew only too well what thoughts and dreams could do to a person. I had had enough of my own to understand perfectly well what he was talking about.
"Then let's do it," I said urgently. "I promise I'm ready. I want to."
Ron seemed to be having some sort of inner battle. I was sure it was the eighty percent of his brain that was overwrought with sexuality that was battling to overcome the twenty percent of his brain which consisted of other thoughts. Surprisingly enough, it seemed as though the underdog was winning.
"But this is wrong."
Wrong? How could he say that this was wrong? "Ron, I don't understand. We love each other. How is that wrong?"
He shook his head. "No, that's not wrong at all. In fact, it's what makes everything else so wrong."
For the millionth time in his life, Ron had succeeded in confusing me with his words. "What the hell are you talking about?" I said it in a way that was a bit snappier than I would have liked, but he wasn't making any sense.
Ron sighed, obviously upset with my lack of understanding. "Hermione, look. I want to make love to you more than I've ever wanted anything in the world. Trust me on that. But this is wrong."
"But I already told you that I want to. I'm ready. I really am," my eyes pleaded with him.
He smiled at me and kissed my forehead. "Well, believe me, I'm ready, too. If you don't want to wait any longer, it's more than fine with me."
Okay, did he realize he wasn't making any sense? "Then what is the problem?"
"Hermione, I love you so much, and I want the first time we make love to be special. I want it to be as perfect as you are."
I smiled shyly, his words meaning more to me than he could possibly have known.
"And this," he continued, "is not the way it's supposed to be. It shouldn't be some spur of the moment thing with your parents two doors down. It should be romantic and special and memorable." He gave me a small smile and brought our entwined hands to his lips and kissed mine lightly.
I realized then that tears were springing to my eyes as I removed my hand from his and threw my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. When I pulled back, I wiped the tears from my eyes and beamed at him. "Thank you."
"For what?" He reached for my hand again.
"For loving me so much," I said. "And for caring so much. Thank you."
Ron squeezed my hand. "I have to go meet Harry soon, but this weekend, I'll make sure that it's just the two of us. I'll find somewhere just for us, and then we can continue this. The way it's supposed to be."
I knew right then that the wait until the weekend was surely going to kill me. But I also knew that the wait would be more than worth it. I nodded, smiling, and asked, "What are you and Harry doing today?"
He looked just a bit uncomfortable, and I could tell that he was about to tell me they were doing something dangerous. Ron knew that I was always scared whenever he and Harry took off on one of their new tasks. They were both eager to be the brave hero- the one that Harry was known as and the one that Ron wanted to be known as; they were brave sometimes to the point of stupidity, and I knew this better than anyone on the earth, having witnessed so many of their feats of heroism first-hand.
"Well, the ministry wants us to try and trap a group of Death Eaters. If all goes well, we might even get Lucius Malfoy today." He looked at me hopefully, as though adding that last bit of information might make me take the news better.
I sighed. Why couldn't we just be normal? Why did it seem as though the whole damn war revolved around us? It wasn't Harry's fault that the whole Dark Side wanted nothing more than his death, it wasn't Ron's fault that he had this great sense of loyalty toward Harry that he couldn't deny, and it wasn't my fault that I was a Muggle-born witch with more book sense than their whole side put together, "Harry Potter's Mudblood know-it-all best friend," nonetheless. But yet these three things that we couldn't help could very possibly prove fatal for us all. It wasn't fair!
"Ron, promise me you'll be careful," I said desperately.
He grinned. "Trust me, I don't plan on getting myself killed today- not with the weekend I have planned for us only a few days away. I wouldn't miss that for the world." He was trying to cheer me up, but it wasn't working.
I didn't want him to go. I didn't want Harry to go either. I just wanted it all to be over. I wanted things to go back to being as simple as they had been when we were eleven year olds at our first flying lesson. Back then we didn't have to worry about anything other than Draco Malfoy. I had despised Ron and Harry then, and the feeling was mutual from the both of them. Life had been so simple then. Our feelings toward each other had changed soon afterward, and pretty soon after that, our lives were anything but simple.
"Don't even joke about that," I warned him, not wanting to acknowledge that he had referred to himself being killed.
His joking face turned serious and he nodded. "I promise I'll be careful," he said quietly. "You know I always am."
That was lie. Ron wasn't always careful. Harry wasn't always careful. Even I wasn't always careful. We had all done some pretty stupid things in the name of bravery in the past, and Ron was perhaps the worst of us all. He was always eager to prove himself, and sometimes he acted in very careless ways. Careful was not what he was; lucky was a much better word choice. And I knew that eventually everyone's luck wore out, but I refused to believe that Ron's would run out anytime soon. I was a stupid, naïve little girl in many ways, and I refused to believe that anything bad could actually happen to any of us. Harry was going to play Quidditch for a living, and Ron and I were going to be married and have a houseful of our own Weasley children. Our lives were going to be perfect.
I didn't relay any of these thoughts to Ron, though. I just nodded. "Okay, good."
Ron got off the bed and stood then, and he held out his hands to help me to my feet. Not close to the floor, I stood on the bed, towering over him. He grinned up at me.
"This is a change."
Ron was very tall, and he towered me by eight inches normally. He wasn't used to looking up at me.
I smiled back down at him and nodded. "See why my neck always hurts?"
He laughed and let go of my hands, grabbing me from behind the knees and lifting me off the bed in a swift movement. He held me like a baby, one arm under my bent knees and the other behind my back, and he spun me around once. I squealed with laughter, momentarily forgetting that my parents were indeed sleeping only a few feet away.
He silenced me with a kiss, and I found that my life was perfect. Yes, it was perfect. When he finally sat me down, he reached for the jacket he had removed after climbing through my window.
"I wish I could stay, but I told Harry I'd meet him for breakfast. You can come if you want."
I did want to, but I had promised my mum that I would go with her to London that morning. I told Ron this and told him to give my love to Harry.
"I will. And I'll come see you tomorrow." He kissed my cheek and squeezed my hand. "And thanks for the snog by the way," he said grinning. "Made my trip over worthwhile."
I just beamed at him and leaned up to kiss his lips briefly. "Be careful," I warned once more.
Ron nodded and pulled me toward him in a hug that lasted a bit longer than usual. He just stood with his arms around me, and I wondered if he was enjoying the feeling as much as I was. Finally, he leaned down and kissed the top of my head, smoothing my hair down a bit with his hands. When he pulled back, he said, "I'll see you tomorrow. I love you."
"I love you, too." I kissed him once more, and then he disappeared, apparating to some small café to meet Harry for breakfast.
Yes, my life was perfect.
*************************End Flashback******************************
But perfection never lasts very long.
Later that night, Harry had come to me and given me the worst news I would ever hear.
Ron was dead.
God, I was so mad! I was mad at everything! I was mad for the obvious selfish reasons such as the fact that Ron and I would never get to be married and live happily ever after and the fact that Ron was the only thing I had in my life that was completely right. And I was mad because fate had taken him away at such a young age. And I was mad at Harry for being the one there with him as he died and not me. And I was mad at Ron for leaving me! After all the promises he had made me, all the dreams he had shared with me, all the plans we had made together... He had left me. He was gone.
And I was alone.
I'm sure that Harry, my parents, and the rest of the world must have thought I had lost my mind after that. I had never known that I could cry that many tears, nor had I known that I could feel so dead when my heart was beating so normally. I didn't want to be alive anymore.
I wanted to die physically right along with Ron; I was already emotionally dead. I even tried to kill myself the day after I found out Ron had left me forever. My mum had just gotten a whole new bottle of her prescription sleeping pills, and they sat in her bathroom medicine cabinet just beckoning to me. I had gone to my parents' bathroom early in the morning and grabbed the bottle. Without thinking twice, I took what must have been fifteen pills all at once, swallowing one after another with no stop. And then I had slept.
The next thing I remember is waking up in a Muggle hospital with my parents' beside me, each wearing terrified expressions. My mum had found me lying there soon enough after I had passed out, and she and my dad had gotten me to the hospital in time for me to have my stomach pumped and my life saved. They were so upset that I had tried to do it, but they both kept my secret- never telling anyone. I didn't tell anyone, either- not even Harry. Two days later, we buried Ron, and the nightmare started.
The nightmare that has been the last year.
How the hell was I supposed to move on after Ron's death? For a year and a half, I had loved him as a boyfriend, and for five and a half years before that, I had loved him as a best friend. How was I expected to just forget that he had ever existed and "get on with my life?"
I couldn't. No, it was impossible.
I tried, of course, to do things as normally as possible, but no matter how hard I tried nothing ever seemed normal. That's because things weren't normal. My life was no longer perfect, and I knew it.
So many things had happened in the past year- things Ron would never know about. He'd never know that Harry ditched the Quidditch dream to become a full time auror, capturing the Death Eaters after their Lord's demise. He'd never know that Harry finally succeeded in capturing Lucius Malfoy who was now spending a lifetime in Azkaban. He wouldn't know that Fred and George made a small fortune selling their finest invention to date- a piece of chocolate that would turn the eater into a body of jello-like flexibility. He wouldn'tt know that his brother Bill and his wife Amy were expecting their first child in late winter. He wouldn't know that his dad got promoted to the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department. He'd never know that I spent the last year working at Hogwarts.
Madame Pince retired the summer after we graduated, and Professor Dumbledore asked me if I wanted the position. I said yes, mainly because I needed something to get my mind off of Ron and also because I loved that library so much. Harry teased me a bit, and I was sure that if Ron had been around, I still wouldn't have lived it down. They would think it quite funny that after practically living in that library for seven years, I was making a career out of running it. As part of the staff, I was expected to call the other staff members by their first names, but I found it absolutely impossible to do this. It was impossible to call Snape by Severus or McGonagall by Minerva, so I still called them Professor, and, oddly enough, they still referred to me as Miss Granger. The year was uneventful for the most part. The strangest thing was the way Ginny and I were treated. Of course, everyone talked nonstop about the past summer, but they always cut their conversations abruptly short
whenever Ginny or I entered the room. They all acted as though we were fragile beings that were sure to break at the slightest mention of Ron or anything to do with him. I didn't mind talking about it, though; in fact, it helped me. It helped Ginny, too. We spent many nights in my room just talking about the things that had happened and trying to make sense of everything. It had made the two of us very close.
But Ron wouldn't know this. He wouldn't know that Ginny had graduated and was now pursuing a career as a journalist, although she promised me not to take any sort of lessons from Rita Skeeter. She was dating Colin Creevey, and they were getting pretty serious. Colin gave me a photo album filled with pictures that he had snapped of Ron, Harry, and I. It was beautiful.
But still, life wasn't normal. Things would never be normal again, and I knew this. And then as I stood looking down at Ron's grave on the one-year anniversary of his death, I cried.
My mind wandered back to the week after Ron's death. I had been in my room asleep because that's all I ever did for a long while- sleep. My mum knocked gently on my door and handed me a letter that had arrived by owl for me. I took it from her and shut the door to my room, sitting on my bed and preparing to open the letter. As soon as I opened it, it was as though I were seeing a ghost.
Dear Hermione,
If you get this letter then obviously I'm dead. I'm only writing this on the off-chance that something goes wrong. I don't plan on you ever receiving this letter, but I'm writing it anyway just in case. As I said before, if you're reading this then I am obviously not there. I hope that you're doing well. If I am dead, then I want you to promise me that you're not mourning too much. I don't want you to cry for me any longer than you have to. Hermione, you have to be strong.
I love you so much. I want you to know that there is nothing in this world that could ever change that- not even death. You are the most beautiful person I have ever known, both on the inside and the outside. I can't believe that you're mine. It still shocks me that you picked me to love. I can't believe that I've been lucky enough to have you in my life. Hermione, you are my best friend, and you have been for years. Now that our relationship is more than just friendly, I regard you as a sort of angel.
An angel that was put on this earth to save me from myself.
Honestly, I don't know what kind of person I would be if you weren't in my life. You know that things haven't always been easy for me, and I've sometimes let the bitterness I hold about my brothers and Harry and my family's financial situation and all those other things get the better of me. I know that I haven't always been exactly nice to you. I know that for years I treated you horribly, and I'm so sorry. I'm sorry that I ever made you cry when we were children, Hermione. I'm sorry for any pain that I ever caused you. You've been the one thing in my life that keeps me sane. You really, truly are an angel.
I'm writing this the night before graduation, and I don't know what's going to happen when we leave this school. Things could all be over soon, and life could be bliss. Or something else could happen. I have no way of knowing anything. The only thing I know for sure is that no matter what happens, you are and always will be the only woman I've ever loved. I don't know what I ever did to deserve you, but it must have been something spectacular because that's the only word I can think of to describe you. The first time I kissed you I knew that you were the only person I ever wanted to kiss for the rest of my life.
I love you.
God, I can't even tell you how much I love you. There isn't enough parchment in the world to tell you that. But just know that I do, and I always will. You will always be my angel, Hermione.
If I do die, please don't waste your life mourning for me. Remember me, but don't dwell on those memories to the point where you don't do all the things you've always dreamed of. You are the most brilliant person I know, and you should never ever waste your talent. Keep living for me, Hermione.
And know that I will always be with you.
Always.
Love,
Ron
That letter was the only thing that kept me going through the past year. It made me realize that there was nothing in the world that was going to bring Ron back and that I had to move on. I had to for his sake. Because it was what he would have wanted.
I would do anything in the world if I thought it would make him happy.
The year had been rough, yes, but everyone did their best to help me. I clung to Harry the most because he could relate the closest to what I was going through. For seven years no one had seen any of us without the other two. Harry, Ron, and I were a trio- best friends for life. It was cliché I suppose, but it was the truth. And suddenly with the wave of a wand, our trio had been viciously cut down to two. Harry and I were all that was left, and we turned to each other for help on getting through it. If it hadn't been for Harry, I'm not sure I could have made it through the year, but he was always there when I needed him. And I helped him as well. He blamed himself completely for Ron's death, and I had finally been able to convince him that it wasn't his fault and that Ron had given his own life because he couldn't allow his best friend to die. Harry was getting through it.
Everyone else tried to help me as well. All of our old schoolmates and teachers gave me their condolences and best wishes. The most surprising visit had been from Draco Malfoy- Harry's, Ron's and my greatest enemy since the very first day of our first year. He had made seven years hell for the three of us, but soon after graduation, he had forsaken his father and turned away from the Dark Side, denying his place as a Death Eater. Ron hadn't believed it at first; he had said that Malfoy was simply trying to trick our side and was going to turn on us all at any minute. But Malfoy (I still couldn't make myself call him Draco) had risked his own life to save Harry and Ron from his father one time, and Ron's feelings had changed. He was by no means best friends with Malfoy, and neither were Harry or I, but we had all learned to treat each other civilly. Malfoy had shown up at my door two weeks after Ron's funeral looking sincerely sorry. He had apologized for everything that had
happened between the four of us in the past and told me that if I ever needed anyone and had no one else to go to, his door was always open to me. He had also said some very kind words about Ron. He told me that he had always secretly admired Ron (although, he still called him Weasley- I guess some things will never change) for being able to put up with all "the shit that he did while Potter got all the credit." It was an awkward visit, and I doubted that I would ever be taking Malfoy up on his open-door offer, but it was nice of him to visit nonetheless.
But even with everyone's support things were still hard. It was still hard for me to get up every morning knowing that I wouldn't be seeing Ron that day or any day after that. It was still hard for me to look at Ginny as she sat in my room late at night and not cry because of the red hair and freckles that reminded me so much of her brother. It was still hard for me to see an article in the newspaper about the Chudley Cannons without thinking of Ron. It was still hard for me to see Harry and not see Ron.
It was just hard.
I was never going to get to know the feeling of being Mrs. Hermione Weasley. I was never going to send any of my own little Weasleys off to Hogwarts. I was never going to hear him tell me he loved me again. I was never going to see his brilliant blue eyes sparkle as he grinned at me. I was never going to feel his hand holding mine again. I was never going to experience the feeling of his soft lips pressed tightly against mine ever again. And I was never, ever going to know how it would feel to look into his eyes as he whispered words of love in my ear while making sweet, slow, passionate love to me. And I didn't want to experience that with anyone else, and I wasn't sure that I ever would.
Maybe in time things would change and I would be able to move on and like someone else. Maybe I could even possibly fall in love again. But I knew it wouldn't be anytime soon. No, for the time being, my heart belonged to Ron, and I knew that at least a part of it always would. He was my first love.
And, so far, my only love.
And I did love him. And I always would. But I was trying my best to move on and cope. After all, it's what he wanted.
As I stood in front of his grave, the sun slowly beginning to set behind me, I glanced down at my left hand and saw the ring that would have been an engagement ring if Ron had lived only a few short weeks longer. It sparkled as the last of the day's sun disappeared behind the trees. In the back of my mind, I pictured where I would be on this day if things hadn't gone the way they had the year before. We would probably already be married, and I knew we would be happy. Blissfully happy. We might have been planning our family, or we might have possibly already had one child. At that very moment, he might have been returning from work, and I might have been waiting for him with open arms and a sweet kiss. Who knows where we would be? But we would undoubtedly be together. And we would be happy.
Was Ron happy wherever he was then? I could only pray that he was. Was he watching me? Did he know how much I missed him? Did he know that I was trying to move on and be strong?
I hoped so.
Because it's what he would have wanted. And I wanted to make him happy.
I reached down and placed the single red rose I had brought to the cemetery with me on Ron's grave. I kissed it before lying it on the ground in front of his headstone.
"Good-bye, my love," I whispered.
And then I walked away, ready to face another year without him.