"No. He must have known you would always want to come back."
They'd been looking for nearly an hour already. There was no sign of him whatsoever. Ron settled heavily onto a bench in the Great Hall, distant from the death and pain and emotions because he had so much of his own.
"Blimey, Harry," Ron whispered quietly. "Blimey." He looked up to hear a soft choking sound and someone sit next to him, leaning on his shoulder.
"Oh, god, Ron," Hermione whispered. She swiped furiously at a tear and Ron had no idea what to do.
Hermione Granger did not cry. Or, at least, he'd always thought not here in the middle of a few hundred people like this. He took her hand and led her out of the Hall, to a broken stairway. Faint, barely noticeable stars were visible from inside the remnants of the protective net. Disappearing stars. Invisible, gone, faded. Like Harry, always the star, a trait Ron had been almost constantly incredibly jealous of until this moment. Because Ron wasn't the one walking to his death by himself in a dark forest filled with monsters, Voldemort, and Death Eaters. And he could say his name now. Now that Voldemort had almost surely killed his best friend.
"Harry, you stupid, noble idiot," Hermione hissed. "Noble and chivalrous and stupid!" She buried her head in his chest and Ron awkwardly wrapped his arms around her. He could see every mark on his arms and hers, spatters of blood or sharp, clean cuts that had stopped bleeding quickly. They hurt like he imagined the Cruciatus Curse would. For all he knew, he'd gone through it, been hit by it during the battle. But he did not regret a single mark or moment of pain. Harry might be dead, but he had fought for him. He had fought for what was right. The light, the stars and lightning bolts and sun in the shield of night and thunder and disasters.
"Why didn't he tell us?" Ron whispered, more to himself than to Hermione. She pushed away from him and wrapped her arms around herself.
"We would have stopped him. Don't look at me like that. We would have and you know it too. That stupid, noble idiot." Despite the circumstances, Ron smiled slightly.
"Sounds like something Ginny said after Harry broke up with her to go after Horcruxes." Hermione also smiled faintly.
"Well, that's where I got it from. She was rather upset over the whole thing. I believe her complaints offered multiple versions of 'Bloody effing hell, Harry, for Merlin's sake!'" Hermione admitted. Ron nodded; that sounded exactly like Ginny. "Bloody effing hell," she repeated quietly.
"He couldn't even have had the common decency to say goodbye," Ron muttered, not miffed but merely incredibly, completely defeated. Another tear graced Hermione's cheek and she swiped it away furiously.
"We know he'll have always wanted to come back," she said, voice filling the cool night air. "Always."