Summary: He always thought they would be happy after You-Know-Who died. And they would have been, but for one thing:The Great and Evil Onewasn't the only one to disappear, and now Ron is alone and hurting, with nobody to comfort his rebellious anger.
A/N: Angst is good. I am good at angst. So I decided to write this in response to the plot bunny's repeated whacking on my brain today. Have fun.
The house was silent now, silent after hours of wailing and crying and remembering and, finally, that last phase of grief where your body just sinks into a quagmire and your heart feels like it's being strangled. Everyone had left, leaving him to his own demons, there on his tear-stained couch with empty beer bottles and the deafening silence to keep him company.
Harry and Hermione could have filled that silence, but they were gone. Now there was just – nothing. Nothing. Simply empty, a void that you cannot fill with the greatest amount of effort. Ron felt like a piece of his heart had been torn out and left to shrivel. There was nothing.
Nothing.
Ron had wrestled hard with his grief. He fought it until, finally, he gave in and bowed to the tidal wave of fear, pain, hurt, and anger – How could they do this to him? His friends, his two best friends. Dead. Gone. Remembered as martyrs, remembered as the brave. Voldemort was dead, but so were Harry and Hermione, and what kind of victory was that? How could you call it a victory when evil had all the prizes? They had the world, but at a price Ron would have given anything to take back – the lives of two of the best people he had ever known.
"Damn," he muttered, swigging from a beer bottle he knew was empty, tasting nothing and letting his bloodshot eyes fall back to the pictures. Pictures of what? Nothing. There's nothing there anymore. All they are is testaments to his pain. How dare they exist! How dare they!
"How dare you!" He yelled, throwing the bottle -
It landed on the pictures. They fell, shattering to a million pieces, mirror images of them – Harry and Hermione – blown to bits by Voldemort's imploding upon himself, the final key to killing him – gone – dead –
"No!"
The pictures didn't answer him.
"You weren't supposed to die, damn it!" He bellowed, grief making his eyes bug out and fists clench until his nails dug lines in his palm. "We were all – all of us – we were supposed to be happy after he died! We were supposed to be – be – we were – "
His voice froze in his throat.
I was…And then he realized.
His mouth opened in a hoarse whisper, voice cracking. "Hermione…"
We were. Not all three. We. Hermione and me.
It was wrong. It was all wrong, painful, mixed up – Best friends! Hogwarts Trio! What was he supposed to – supposed to –
Hermione!The rage came again.
"YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO GO!" he screamed, hands tearing at his unkempt hair. "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STAY! STAY BY ME! STAY WITH ME! FOREVER!"
Why did everything go so wrong?Nothing happened like it was supposed to. Nothing did. He wasn't supposed to live without them.
It was just him.
Just him. Alone.
The rage left him suddenly, like a carpet yanked out from beneath him. Suddenly he had nowhere to go. What was he supposed to feel? To do? Angry. He couldn't, somehow, couldn't be angry again.
He flopped down onto the tear-stained couch, a beer bottle in his hand, alone in the deafening silence of his house and his world.
You – both of you – you weren't supposed to go.
But nothing happened like I wanted it to.
…I don't want you dead.
Tears flowed.
Ron did nothing to stop them.
A/N: Aagh…too short. Meh. Oh well. Mild RHr, but that I can forgive. Not as fine a piece as I would like, but nice anyway. All I was aiming for was a major angst-fest. Even if you just read it and have no opinion, just review it, please, so I can get some idea of how many hits my stories are getting.
See you around,
Misao7