THE PHOTOGRAPH…
By aurorstar18
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, it is the fantastic work of J.K Rowling, only the plot is mine.
A/N: this is one of the first fics I wrote, and I'm only just submitting it now because I only just found it on my computer… I don't know whether its very good, but please review.
Ron Ran, hot tears running down his face, hot, burning tears for his best friends. When he'd read that Harry and Hermione had been killed at their home, he had begun running… And still was.
He skidded to a halt, and gasped when he saw what was left of the Potter-Granger home. A pile of smoldering wood and metal, surrounded by the shriveled remains that used to be a rose garden.
He ran as fast as his legs would take him through the front door that he had entered so many times and fell to his knees, cutting them on splinters of wood and shards of glass. Violent sobs wracked his body as he remembered how many good times they'd had together.
He sat and cried, for how long, he didn't know but when he looked up, he saw something that he hadn't seen before. A green book, singed around the edges. On the forest green cover was four words. Written in gold gilt were the words: 'Harry and Hermiones memories.' Ron opened it and saw many pictures of their Hogwarts days, and he recognized many photos of himself, and many of just Harry and Hermione.
Then he came across a particular page, with two photos side-by-side. One of lily and James Potter, arms around each other, snow falling all around them and one of Harry and Hermione in the same pose.
Ron couldn't help but notice how much the two couples were alike.
He took the photo album home with him and sat at his kitchen table, staring at the photo for hours on end, there was something about the way Harry would look at Hermione and smile the smile that he reserved for his true love. It had been common knowledge at Hogwarts that Harry and Hermione were meant for each other.
"I have to find out what happened after they lived together!" Ron thought desperately to himself, cursing himself for refusing their offer to live with them.
He looked through the photo album for any photos of Hermiones childhood home. He found a photo of two people (Mr. and Mrs. Granger, Ron suspected) in front of a brick house with a green front door and red and yellow roses (Hermiones favourite flower) in the garden. It was a muggle photo, the figures weren't moving.
"Where is it? Where is it?" He thought to himself when he had a flashback of a conversation they had while playing truth or dare in the head boy (Harry)s' room...
"Truth or dare?" Ron asked Hermione, mentally willing her to say dare but with a devilish smile she said: "Truth!"
"Oh... well," He'd had the perfect dare, "Um... Where's your favourite place in the whole world except for Hogwarts?"
"Er... um... Oh! Under my parents' bed, in a thunderstorm I'd hide under there and sing the songs from 'the little mermaid' to myself until I fell asleep."
"What's 'the little mermaid'?" Ron asked.
"Never mind... hey Hermione... we haven't heard much about your muggle life." Harry tilted his head, looking a lot like a curious puppy.
"Oh, well... I grew up in a small town, shepparton in a street called Cradles hollow..."
"Cradles Hollow... Cradles hollow..." Hermiones voice echoed in Rons head as he raced around his apartment, getting a few things together.
He took a taxi to the train station and took the train (He'd had Seamus teach him about muggle money). He kept urging the train... 'Faster, faster, come on...' so it was music to his ears when the driver said "Britansbourge, next stop, Shepparton."
He jumped out of his seat and was the first off the train.
He noticed that shepparton was a very small town, lots of trees and flowers, and could tell why someone like Hermione could love it so much.
Ron ran up to the lady in the ticket booth and said: "where might I find cradles hollow?"
"Er... Go down Main Street and it's the third on your right."
"Thanks!" he said quickly before running off.
He didn't have much time to notice all the quaint little shops and cute tearooms because he was too busy counting the streets.
He skidded to a halt in front of a street sign that said:
Cradles Hollow
He ran to the end of the street, or when the gravel street faded to grass.
He took a deep breath and took the photo out of his bag.
He scanned the houses and then spotted it... The roses, the door, the bricks.
He took another deep, calming breath and went through the gate, up to the front door and knocked on the door.
A skinny, older woman with Hermiones eyes opened the door, she was crying.
"Hello, I'm Ron Weasley... I was one of your daughters' best friends... I'm sorry for your loss... I was wondering if I... well I was wondering whether I might ask you a few questions..."
"Yes… yes, thank you… come in." Mrs. Granger led him inside, the house was just as Ron imagined it, Photographs, books, and there was a staircase right in front of him.
She led him into a lounge room where an older man was sitting, watching home videos. The screen depicted a younger Hermione, about seven, before Hogwarts, running after a Labrador, yelling out: "Minnie, Minnie!" Then, the dog froze and Hermione ran up to it and climbed onto its back, just in time to see the dog unfreeze and keep running.
Ron smiled, Hermione's first sign of witchcraft.
"That wasn't her first time…" Mr. Granger said, as if reading Rons mind.
"Yes, there were many before that, very gifted child, picked things up very quickly."
Ron nodded, that sounded like their Hermione.
"Please, sit down; would you like a cup of coffee?" Mrs. Granger said quietly.
"Yes, thank you Mrs. Granger." Ron answered.
"Oh, for goodness sakes call me Jane!"
Jane left and could be heard bustling around in the kitchen.
"So, were you Hermiones Boyfriend?" Mr. Granger said, eyeing Ron skeptically.
"Boyfriend? No… no no no... Not her boyfriend, her friend."
"Oh, well… tell me about yourself."
"Well, my names Ron, I'm a wizard, I went to Hogwarts as well, and I came to ask you some questions about Hermione…"
"Well, Mr. Weasley, Here you are." Jane had come back carrying a tray with three china teacups on it with a plate of cookies.
"What did you want to ask us?" Mr. Granger said.
"Well, did she ever talk about Harry potter?"
"Oh Yes, all the time, whenever she came home from Hogwarts for the holidays, she was always telling me about the adventures you kids went on, Sirius Black, and the one about the chamber of secrets was my favourite!"
"I haven't been in contact with her before she... well... but did she go on holidays or anything with him?"
"Yes... yes, lots of holidays... Thailand, Hawaii, Japan, Australia, the last one was Las Vegas I think, Hermione always wanted to see the casinos..." Mr. Granger broke down into sobs.
"Oh, I'm so sorry Mr. Granger..."
"Call me Paul."
"Oh, well, did she say anything about the nature of the relationship with Harry?"
"Well, she said she loved him a few times in passing, platonically of course..."
"Yes... of course..."
"Mr. Weasley? Mr. Weasley are you ok?"
"Yes, yes I'm fine… Thank you for your help, Ummm, I'll get back to you, maybe we can have lunch, I'll show you more photos and things, Thanks for the coffee," Ron ran out of the house, He'd just figured out something. He took the train back to his apartment and threw himself down on the couch and took out the photo. He looked at everything, until something gold on the ring finger of both people caught his eye.
They were married.
"THEY WERE MARRIED!" Ron shouted angrily… he'd been jealous of all those rumors that went flying around Hogwarts, Every time Hermione came near him, his breath caught in his throat, He could tell what mood she was in by the perfume she was wearing, He knew what shampoo she used and he knew her voice off by heart.
"THEY WERE BLOODY MARRIED!" He shouted again.
He put his head in his hands and tried to steady his harsh, angry breathing.
"Yeah, we were." Harry's voice said.
Ron looked up; floating up near the roof was a pearly white figure. It had Transparent raven black hair, and a lightning scar on his forehead. Harrys ghost.
"YOU WERE MARRIED AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME, HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO ME WHEN YOU KNEW I LIKED HER?" Ron shouted at his best friends' ghost.
"I didn't know you liked her-"
"Do you know that she has seven smiles… yeah, one when she's around you… one when she's studying, one when she's being sarcastic, one when she's laughing at something funny and one when she's being polite, and one… one when she's just figured something out…" Ron took a deep shuddering breath and continued, "and… and when she was happy, she'd wears her rose perfume, sad, musk, and when she was going somewhere special she'd wears the perfume she got from you, the angel one. Did you know that she used passionfruit and Pear shampoo, did you know that?"
"I knew the shampoo thing and the perfumes, but… not the smiles-"
"That was beautiful." Hermiones ghost had just appeared next to Harry, she had put her arm around him. In Ron's opinion, she looked gorgeous, her hair was pulled into a loose ponytail and she was wearing a flowing white dress.
"So, how did it happen?" Ron asked resentfully.
"Well, we were getting ready to go out to dinner, I had something very important to tell Harry and we heard a crash from the kitchen, and there he was-" Hermione began.
"-Voldemort was standing in our kitchen, he killed me first, I told Hermione to run. But he killed her too, when he caught up with her just in our front garden."
"Oh, well, er…" Ron stammered, "Hang on, that story sounds awfully familiar!"
"Yeah, it's almost exactly the way my parents died."
"How did it feel?"
"What, the killing curse, well, you don't feel much, Just a really huge burning feeling but then, everything's gone."
"By the way, thanks for going to all that trouble, Finding out stuff about us," Hermione said, gesturing towards Harry and herself, "That was really sweet, but you could've just asked us… We've been following you."
"Thanks."
"We'd better go, we have three more people to go and see…"
"Well, bye, I'll miss you Hermione…"
"Bye Ron! I really do love you."
"And Harry, save me a spot up there."
Finis!
