- Chapter 8 -
The months grow warmer, and Luna and Hermione grow closer. Harry doesn't return from his mission, and Hermione grows more worried, but the worry sits in the back of her mind, only really surfacing when Hermione is alone and trying hard to think of anything other than Ron and his figure burning alive besides her.
She cries, and tries not to look at him, tries to block him out and think of Harry instead. She doesn't know how she's supposed to heal, and get better, and let go of Ron, when all that she feel's when he arrives is horror and pain at his loss and the terrible, tragic way in which he died.
She can hardly remember the days when she was happy to see Ron appear to her, doesn't remember how she was able to touch herself and get off on his screams that now were only able to bring her to tears.
Luna tells her that it's normal, that she's just moving through the stages. One day, she'll find comfort in seeing Ron again, even though now that day seems impossible. Luna tells her a lot of things, and Hermione listens.
"How come I never see your mom here?" Hermione asks one day, when they're out in Hermione's garden, taking care of her flowers.
"She doesn't appear very often anymore. Only when I feel the most sadness."
"Will I get to see her one day?" Hermione asks, and she feels this unfamiliar flutter in heart when she thinks of seeing the woman who gave birth to Luna, this wonderful person that she's grown to love.
"Maybe. If you want to next month, on the anniversary."
Hermione doesn't know what it is about Luna, but one day, she finds herself smiling just to see her cooking dinner in the kitchen, or working out in the garden while Hermione is resting in her room, and the unfamiliar sensation makes her heart ache and tears flood her eyes and she cries and she cries until Ron arrives, and when Ron finally appears, the tears stop and she looks at him with a new expression, an expression that she's never experienced before.
She looks at him as if she's okay, and as if it's okay that he's dead and she's alive, because she'll always love him, and it's time she moved on with her life.
It was time that she begin to live for him, in his memory and with his love inside of her. She would live the way that he would want her to live. Happily.
Luna smiles at her when she comes to bed and Hermione is watching Ron with love in her eyes, instead of tears, and Hermione feel's that warmness again that makes her uneasy and uncomfortable because of its unfamiliarness.
She curls up on her side and let's Luna tuck her into bed, and sighs when Luna slides into bed with her, beside her but never touching her.
She misses the feeling of someone holding her, misses the feeling of Ron holding her, but the hole in her chest that used to ache something fierce at the very thought of Ron's touch is fading, and though it still aches, Hermione thinks it will be alright. Hermione thinks it will be alright if she lets someone else touch her.
Hermione grows anxious and tired and frustratingly aroused all at the same time over the course of the next couple of weeks, because now that she's found some sense of okayness with Ron's death, her needs have come surging back, and there are so many of them she doesn't know what to do with them.
So she works longer in the garden, and takes long walks through the town, wearing prettier, softer clothing that still covers all her ruined skin, and wears hats over her hair to hide the damaged ends. Her skin has grown healthier, tanner, and her body plumper in all the right places.
She can never consider herself attractive again, but she feel's healthier, and that's all that really matters.
She buys puzzles and yarn, stays up longer and sleeps less and less to work on her side projects, because she just can't lie there anymore. She has to get up, and move. She has to do something because she just can't take it anymore.
She finds joy in seeing Ron again, but she doesn't touch herself when he's there anymore. Can't look at his burning body and find pleasure.
Instead, she waits until Luna is gone or busy and Ron has stopped burning to plunge her fingers inside of herself and touch her breasts the way that Ron used to do. And sometimes, she tries to imagine someone else touching her, and the only person who comes to mind is Luna.
Her fingers are wet and her body twitching with intense desire as she tries to get herself off one evening, and she doesn't know when Luna will arrive again, doesn't know if Harry will come home, or if Ron will start screaming again, but she's almost there, and she's so close, and she just wants to come, just wants to pretend she's beautiful again. Just wants to pretend that Ron is still with her, and helping her, and maybe one day they can have a little girl or a little boy and –
And the door opens and Hermione stops moving, her joints locked up and her eyes starting to tear up again, because she's never allowed herself to be caught before. Worse, she's never thought of what Ron and her children would have looked like before.
She can see them now, and she can't get them out of her mind. Their fiery red hair, heavy curls and freckled faces, their beautiful eyes…Ron's eyes.
Luna hovers over her, and her eyes are soft as they look at Hermione's naked body like she's beautiful, and Hermione's tears leak over because these two images, overlayed on top of each other, Ron and her beautiful children, and Luna…Luna looking at her the was she's been dying to be looked at for weeks, are both almost too much to handle.
Luna kisses her, and Hermione lets her, because she's wanted this. She's wanted someone else to touch her for so long, wanted someone's hands on her other than her own, wanted to be loved and cared for and adored and – oh, Luna's fingers are inside of her and her eyes snap open and she just let's go.