Leaves
September second, 1998. Hogwarts is a changed place for the new and returning students who have arrived. It's a Wednesday, an odd day to start classes if you'd ask Hermione, but she didn't mind. Anything to take her mind off of the changing of the season outside.
It was growing cold early. Autumn had approached under her nose, after spending the summer in mourning with the Weasleys. She could have tried to move on after what had happened only four months prior, but she wasn't ready.
An extra year at Hogwarts was her solution to her grief. Take the classes she'd missed while on the run and forget that the love of her life was dead. Her Fred.
That was pretty hard with the changing of the season coming so soon. The trees, turning from green to their orange, red, and bronze colors, reminded her of him.
Falling leaves reminded her of the first time he'd joined her without his twin. He'd sat beside her, under her favorite tree. It had been October, her fifth year, when she'd had a moment to herself and had been reading. He jokingly shielded her from the leaves that would have fallen onto her book, distracting her more than the leaves did and making her laugh.
The first-year students jumping in piles of leaves raked by Hagrid reminded Hermione of the times he would throw her in without warning, disrupting her reading even more. Of course, he would then dive in himself to retrieve her.
He could be thoughtful at times though. He'd dug through a pile once to find her the perfect leaf. He presented it to her on a transfigured pillow as the perfect bookmark. She still used it, had it preserved magically.
They'd never truly dated. They'd never gotten a chance, but Hermione cherished the times when he would join her to quietly (or not so quietly, rather) read underneath her tree. Their tree. Especially during the fall.
No, the changing colors did not help her. Nothing could make her forget the pain, the ache of his loss. Fall had become her favorite season with his light bringing her happiness. Now, it was a painful reminder of what had been, and was lost.
A/N For Ravenclaw of the Houses Competition, a drabble, using prompt: fall/autumn
Words: 373