Harry closed his eyes, his fists clenched together so tightly his knuckles went white. The building seemed to loom over him, omniscient with secrets and lies and everything that had kept him awake when the city lights faded.
Harry heard the Gryffindor sword drop from his grasp, clattering noisily to the ground. Hermione was shaking visibly, her skin gone parchment white, bleak and drained of all colour.
He'd never seen her eyes so wide yet so unseeing as she knelt beside the body at her feet. Everything was cold, stone and skin that felt like ice.
"No, no, no, no, no…" He heard her whisper, and it snapped Harry out of his daze. She looked crazed, almost, hands flying to Ron's pulse points, shaking him. It was like she was trying to force life back into his still-open eyes.
Harry clenched his jaw down hard, waking him from his memories as he felt his teeth gritting against one another like stones. Bone on bone.
He fell to his knees, pain blossoming on his kneecaps as they came crushing upon the damp floor of the dungeons. He felt bile rise in his throat as his system shut down. Harry closed into himself, hugging his knees to his chest, not blinking. Not this, not now.
Not Ron.
Harry kicked the iron of the gate just to think of something other than that night. Hermione's face, her curtain of hair bent over his best friend. The sounds of Death Eaters running through the hallways.
She backed away from his body and against Harry, collapsing into him, her hands tangling up into his shirt, tears running down her face.
Harry walked up onto the steps of the Ministry, ready to accept whatever they wanted to tell him. It's not like he could deny his fate, after all, and with the world seemingly collapsing…
The ruby of the Gryffindor sword caught what seemed to be the only light filtering into the dark room. Blood red rays played across Hermione's face, and Harry buried his face into her hair, finally letting the tears come.