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Ron Weasley stood at the edge of the great lake by Hogwarts, skipping stones. The first flew from his hand, a catch and release, skimming the water like a heron.
One, two, three- barely a ripple, then the valiant rock sank beneath the surface. Still, he felt the reassuring weight of three more in his pocket.
Three more chances.
“We can’t keep meeting like this. Someone’s going to find out.”
Ron hesitated before the next throw, enough that the second rock only jumped up twice before it sank.
“Hermione-” it was a greeting and a noise of effort as he swung again; this rock shattered the surface and sank into the murky depths. He turned and there she was, at the line where the trees began to thin, the faintest smile on her lips.
Ron palmed the last rock in his hand. Even though it was the lightest out of the three, it felt like it was dragging him into the core of the earth. His hand felt listlessly to his side.
“Where should we meet next time?”
“There can’t be a next time.” His eyes caught on the silver engagement ring on her finger. Twined metal vines that wove around an unpolished diamond. Anger tore through him like a knife.
Hermione waited for him to throw again.
“Mum visited yesterday,” he said instead. “She brought apple pie- your favourite. Could never say no to that, could you?”
“Ron.”
“I know,“ Ron broke off, and turned back to the lake. To the reeds and the ripples and the silence. “She thinks I should let you go. Which is funny, because mum always told me to never give up. She always said if you want something- if you really want something, you have to keep fighting for it. You can’t ever stop.“
“Ron.”
He lifted his chin, and finally looked her in the eye.
“Was this always going to happen? Were you always going to leave me?”
Hermione sat next to him then on the damp moss, and they looked out over the mist of the morning.
“Probably,” she said. “That’s how life works, isn’t it? Sometimes people leave and we don’t know why.”
For a moment, his heart ached so unbearably, it felt like would fall out of his chest and onto the grass beside her. He’d already given it to her symbolically, he thought deliriously, why not physically?
“Right,” he said, wiping his eyes with the corner of his sleeve, “I’ll make you a deal-“ he held up the smooth rock in his hand, his last, “-if you can tell me why you have to leave, then I’ll let you. I’ll never bother you again.”
There was hope in his voice, but a glance at Hermione crushed it.
“I loved you. And you loved me. Wasn’t that enough?”
Ron didn’t have the words to explain that it wasn’t. Instead, he threw another stone- not the perfect, flat one in his hand. It was a jagged slate that cut through the water in one slice.
There was a splash, then silence. The waters were cool, dark and unanswering.
“We’re meant to be together, I know it. Feel it. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying…”
“I’m saying it’s not fair,” Ron snapped. “It’s not fucking fair.”
Hermione was still beside him. Too still. Her curls didn’t lift in the sharp highland breeze. She let Ron sit with his anger for a moment longer, then sighed.
“How did you find it?” She said. “I never asked.”
“Always the tone of surprise.” The words made her laugh; Ron had forgotten how that sound made him feel. It was a fluttering in his stomach, a shot of firewhiskey. The notion that he could do anything, but only if she was there with him.
“Harry dropped the stone after the battle- I don’t think even he knew where-”
“Harry faced you-know-who by the cave on the north east side of the forest. It was a fifty metre square radius from there- some digging on the weekends-“ His hand brushed through his hair, the gray mixed with red. “Eight years later, I found you.”
“Eight years,” Hermione said, and looked away. “I’d have thought you’d have forgotten about me by now.”
Ron turned to her, and his years showed. There was a crease in his brows, frown-lines heavy in contrast to the fine creases around his mouth.
“Forget about you?” He asked softly, and then he chuckled even though there was no humour to the noise.
“There was a reason Harry dropped the resurrection stone.” When Hermione leaned in to rest her head on his shoulder, he couldn’t feel it. She was made of sunbeams, of nothing, of desperate longing. “I’m not her. You know that, don’t you?”
Ron breathed in, felt the earth murmur around him even though he didn’t know why. He didn’t know how the birds could sing, how the fish swam, how the world kept living without Hermione Granger.
The resurrection stone was heavy in his palm.
“It’s a good skipping stone,” she whispered, and his fingers curled tight.
“How am I supposed to do this?” The lake swam before him as he managed to choke out the words, “everyone keeps saying it gets better with time but when is it going to get better? Every birthday, every Christmas, every good part of my life is fucked because you’re not there to see it,” his sleeve connected with his eyes again, scraped the tears away hard enough to bruise, “and they keep saying I’m going to feel okay one day, but when am I going to fucking feel okay?”
The shadow of Hermione Granger watched him, and didn’t answer. The imitation of what was once her hands sank through his.
“Throw it. Let it sink. This is going to destroy you,” she said, and he knew she was tired, that there wasn’t much left of Hermione Granger; only the gristle that the vultures had left behind.
Molly Weasley had read the tale to her son every night before she’d tucked him in, kissed his head, and promised him that the monsters couldn’t hurt him.
The middle brother returned to his home where he lived alone. Turning the stone thrice in his hand the figure of the girl he had once hoped to marry before her untimely death appeared at once before him, much to his delight. Yet she was sad and cold, separated from him as by a veil. Though she had returned to the mortal world, she did not truly belong there and suffered. Finally, the middle brother, driven mad with hopeless longing, committed suicide by hanging so as truly to join her. That was when Death took the second brother for his own.
Nearby, an old tyre swing creaked on its ropes like the gallows in the morning breeze.
“I love you, 'Mione. Always have," Ron said, and imagined he could feel her hand in his. Imagined he could feel the engagement ring, the one that had always caught in his bloody hair, the one they’d had to resize three times.
"Always will."
He took a breath.
The stone slipped from his fingers, and the shadow of what had once been a woman, the most important woman in the world, vanished into nothing.