I know I haven't written in a while. Okay, in a very long time. And I sincerely apologize, but that's life. If you're still around and reading, however, I mean to reward your patience with a new chapter, though I can't vouch for the quality. It may not make much sense at first, because of the new way it's going to be written from here on out, but bear with me. She's reliving some things and they need to be said. It's going to be a little bit of back story for the first few chapters, until I can get the action sufficiently underway! Here's to Rowling and her character's, and especially to our favorites! Read and Review please!
I'd also like to mention that the rest of the story will be written in First Person Perspective, in relation to Hermione. Welcome to the world of women folks.
The adventures the three of us had had together had been terrifying, even before the war. But we'd stuck together throughout it all, rejoicing when times were peaceful and running for our lives when people began getting closer to killing Harry. After all, he was Ron and I's best friend, and we hadn't planned on letting anything happen to him. There was also the promise I had made to Ginny just before we left to hunt horcruxes, which was to bring Harry back, missing limbs or no. I knew how much she loved him. Sometimes, when I lay awake at night I wondered how it was possible for such a young woman to love someone so strongly that the rest of the world would cease to exist if that person weren't there. Other times, I was just jealous.
I had dreamed for a very long time of a love like that. At one time I'd thought it was entirely possible, and had been willing to try anything to make it succeed. Then the actual war had begun, and every thought of romance had flown out the metaphorical window. Survival and success were vital if anything other than evil and darkness was to be associated with the title "wizard." It had been an excruciatingly long battle, full of pain and blood, tears of frustration and of grief, and a drive so fierce as too consume all else. At least, it had been until that fateful moment when Ron kissed me for the very first time. I hadn't been expecting it, but I had wanted it too. For as long as I could remember I'd wanted to be with Ron. Not Harry, as everyone expected. The cliché of the dashing young hero of the modern wizarding world falling for the brains behind it all was too much for me to handle. Besides that, as much as I loved Harry as a friend, even a brother, I wasn't physically attracted to him. Shallow as that may seem, I believe that everyone must be at least a little bit attracted to the physical aspects of their partner in order for their interest to be held. I'd realized quickly that Harry and I were not, nor would we ever be, attracted to one another's bodies. Ron, however…
I'd always had a thing for red heads. The way sunlight would dance over the many shades and highlights infused into their hair had been intriguing to me, even at a young age. Ron, therefore, quickly usurped anyone else in whatever race for my romantic affections there may have been. He had the hair, he possessed a pair of the most beautiful green eyes, his smile was infectious, his loyalty to Harry and I was unfaltering, and he was kind. He had seemed, for many years, to be my perfect match. And, for as many years, he never knew it. A simple kiss, in the middle of chaos, had changed everything of course, as I'd known it would. After everything had calmed and the bodies of our fallen comrades had been respectfully moved to the Great Hall for cleansing and prayers before burial, Ron had come to find me. In shock at the events of the last few hours, I had been shaking terribly, standing in the arms of a grief stricken Molly Weasley as she cried her heart out onto the shoulder of my midnight school robes. Fred, one of her fourth sons, had died in the effort to overthrow the reach of the Dark Lord. His twin George sat silently next to his body, face blank and motionless, save for the tears that fell unheeded from his dark blue eyes. I had long since cried myself dry for all the friends I had lost, each of them as dear to me as family. I can remember extricating myself from Mrs. Weasley's grasp, and steering her towards the more comforting arms of her Husband, Arthur. That's when Ron had stumbled into the Great Hall, eyes roving restlessly through the room, seeking out the familiar faces of his family.
"Oh God. No. NO!" He had shouted it, gathering looks of sympathy from grief stricken classmates and teachers, friends and order members, throughout the crowded room. His face, always so genial, was molded into a mask of such intense pain that it took my breath away. His mother, upon hearing his cry, had turned from the embrace of her husband to envelop her youngest son instead, and they had stood together, Mrs. Weasley quieting her sobs in order to soothe her son and Ron, tears pouring from eyes filled to the brim with pain, suffering, and loss that only time could begin to erase.
"Mum," he'd whispered into the near silence, dropping to his knees and crawling forward to take Fred's hand before turning to stare at the rest of his family, "how?" His voice cracked on the last word, and his hand convulsed on that of his brother's, as if to offer comfort to the wounded body, with no regard to the departed soul.
"Oh Ron," Molly had breathed in quiet desperation, "he was fighting with George through the upper hallways, and they were doing so well." Her lips trembled with a renewed wave of pain, but she struggled on, and my heart broke with the knowledge that nothing I could do would help ease the burden she now carried. "They got separated, and neither noticed at first, in the midst of things as they were. That's when attacks on the walls got stronger, and the main one in the hall that Fred had been fighting in gave way. He had time for one last curse before it…before it fell. H-he d-didn't make it out in t-time."
I watched in complete silence as Ron's countenance changed entirely. From solemn grief, his expression turned to one of utter rage as he rounded on his surviving twin brother, still staring sightlessly into the face of the man who had been, for his entire life, the other half of his personality.
"You!" Ron had yelled accusingly at George, standing and pointing a long white finger at his brother's bloody shirt collar. "You could have saved him, if you hadn't run off and left him in that hallway by himself, fighting for his life! You SHOULD have been there, you filthy coward! But you weren't! The one person who couldn't be separated from him for anything and you chose that moment to assert your individuality! Well, how do you feel? Fred's dead! Dead, because you couldn't be persuaded to stick around once the going got tough! Filthy, skulking, rotten excuse for a…" By this point, Ron was entirely red in the face, Molly was gesturing wildly, still in hysterics, attempting to reason with Ron's fiery temper, and Arthur was attempting to calm Molly. I, however, was still standing off to the side, dealing with my grief silently and waiting for my remaining friends to come to terms with the tragedies that had befallen them. Ron's tirade snapped me out of my memories of the twins' pranks against Professor Umbridge in our fifth year rather quickly though and I moved forward and toward the two boys without conscious thought. All I knew was that Ron was wrong to be saying those things to George. That it hadn't been George's fault that he and Fred had been separated by fatal hexes, and continued fighting their own battles instead of circling back to one another. It wasn't George's fault that a curse of such extreme magnitude hadn't hit the wall beside him as well, not his fault that as the battle slowed he had come upon the devastating scene and discovered Fred, life fading fast, crushed beneath the monumental stones that held up the magical castle. Incensed at the unfairness of life, at the tragedy of the war, at the brutality of the words Ron was yelling, I finally snapped. I could feel the tiny elastic band in my mind break as I walked inexorably closer to that head of gleaming red hair, disheveled from activity, and reached out, seeking to do anything to end the barrage of hateful words uttered in haste and without due thought to the consequences. I watched, detached, as my hand swung out in a wide arc and connected solidly with the side of Ron's jaw. Said personage, having been engaged in drawing another breath to continue his list of insults, promptly reclosed his mouth and looked over at me in surprised outrage, and a fair hand came up to touch the spot I had struck. Chest heaving with suppressed emotion and surprise at my own actions I had turned on my heel and started to make my way toward the wide double doors that would allow me a brief respite from the muffled and sweaty atmosphere that pervaded over every person in the room. Before I left, however, I had managed a glance back, and felt an overwhelming sense of triumph, trivial though it was. Ron had stopped yelling at his brother and was instead standing sullenly next to his father, cheeks still wet, and rubbing viciously at the red hand imprinted on his face. George, though having seemed not to hear anything that had been directed at him in the last few minutes, was a much more surprising site. He had been sitting still, body hunched protectively over that of Fred's as if he was trying to see his brother's soul safe the way he hadn't his body, but his head, that mop of red and copper and gold, was turned slightly in my direction, watching me walk away. His eyes, so dead when I had first entered the room, showed stirrings of the intelligence he'd left momentarily locked away, of the feelings that he was too afraid to let out, lest they consume him. He had nodded then, when he noticed my glance, chin jerked quickly toward the floor in a motion of thanks for my defense of his actions, and then the moment had ended, and he had turned once again to the prone form before him, one last tear slipping over the alabaster slope of his cheekbones.
I had sat alone after that episode ended, for a substantial duration of time, before I was interrupted in my ruminations by the sound of harried footsteps rushing down the hallway. I looked up, expecting to see one of the professors scanning the rubble for any more survivors, or bodies. That thought sickened me though, and I swept it from the forefront on my mind, focusing instead on my soon to be visitor as they hurtled around a pile of rubbish to find me crumpled into a useless heap on the bottom steps of the grand staircase that led to the upper floors.
"So this is where you went." He wasn't happy with me, I could tell that much. After being solidly punched in the mouth after the day we'd all been through, I wouldn't have been happy with me either. He'd deserved it though and, from the sigh he heaved as he lowered himself to sit beside me, he knew it too.
"I shouldn't have said those things to George. I apologized to him, after you left. He didn't say anything, but he heard me. I was grieving, and I know that isn't a very good excuse for what I yelled at him, but it's the only one I have. I'll never be able to take it back, but I'll always regret that I ever did anything to hurt him. He's the one that's the lost the most, out of the family that is, and I should have realized that and left him alone." He was rambling, and the hands that he held in his lap were twisting furiously with grief and nervousness. Slowly, I reached over and took the nearest one with both of my own, clasping tightly in a gesture meant to convey wordless comfort and forgiveness. He broke down again then, and sank even lower on the steps, until his head was resting in my lap and I could feel the warmth from his tears soaking through my robes to the jeans I was wearing beneath. I stroked his hair for what seemed like hours, murmuring words of comfort and friendship, until Harry joined us, looking haggard and spent. He took up a position on Ron's other side, and grasped his shoulder, tight enough that his knuckles gleamed white in the gathering darkness of the ruined fortress that had been our home for so many years. Together, we watched the light fade completely from the indigo sky, secure in the knowledge that we still had another; friends standing tall beneath the burdens life rained down on us.
In the middle of everything, that one kiss had been forgotten. In that moment of peace, I remembered it, and I could feel in his motions and posture the moment Ron remembered it as well. He had looked over at me then, his face half hidden in shadow, and I had smiled sadly in acceptance of what we had both come to terms with over the course of the last half of the day. Together as friends, we made an impeccable team, forged by an unbreakable bond. Together as life partners, we would only be trying to force two incompatible personalities to cohabitate, a fate neither of us deserved. After so much destruction everyone was in need of as much happiness the rest of their life could bring them, and for me and Ron that wasn't going to be found with one another. When we parted, it was with a bear hug, the air crushed from my lungs and my bruised ribs squeezed so tightly I could almost feel them grinding against one another, and it was the best hug I've ever had the honor to receive. But it wasn't a hug the likes of which would begin the type of love affair I had once dreamed of, and I had squeezed him back, a silent thank you for the childish dreams he was handing back to my wounded heart.
Now, as I walked up to the rebuilt stone mass of the school, I smiled. The last of summer's rays of sunshine lanced down onto the heads of my two best friends, sopping wet from their excursion into the lake, and everyone was healing. For some the process was slower than for others. I couldn't help thinking of George and the hidden secrets of his eyes that hadn't been there previously. Lost in thought I continued the climb from hill, to door, to staircase, to dorm, to bedroom without once making a sound, an occurrence that if my companions noticed, they didn't comment on. Even I, talkative as I was, was allowed the occasional moment of silence to reflect and remember, and I was grateful that there were no untoward interruptions, no curious first years around to ask painful questions. Once in the single room I had received upon being selected a school prefect I headed to the bathroom, a whitewashed sanctuary where my thoughts were mine alone. I rinsed the days grime from face and neck, patted my hair as flat as it would go, and flashed myself a weary smile. Though not unattractive, I wasn't nearly as classically pretty as Lavender, or as darkly mystifying Cho, but I wasn't ugly. No, I thought positively, I was a little above average, with straight teeth, and angular features, my body toned by years of running after evil masterminds to help Harry save the wizarding world. Love was still an option then, someday. With that uplifting thought in mind I turned and left the room, seeking instead the comfort of my bookshelf, a gift from my parents in the muggle world, and selected a large tome entitled Pride and Prejudice. It wasn't a school textbook, which might have been unusual for me, in another time, but it was my favorite muggle book, and the one that kept me believing that there was someone out there for everyone, despite our varied faults. Flipping the well-worn pages casually, I came to a stop in the middle of the book, at the part where dear Mr. Darcy is revealing his love for Miss Elizabeth Bennett for the first time. Grinning, I meandered back down the girls' staircase; nose shoved into the spine of my book, I took my usual place in one of the plush wingback chairs, sighing in contentment at the opportunity to tuck my feet under me and lose myself in a world where the choices were, for once, not my own.