The Missing Piece

[center][b]The Missing Piece[/b][/center]

Hermione Granger sat back in her chair and frowned. Something about the equation she had just written wasn't correct. It looked lopsided and irregular. Yes, something was very definitely wrong about it.

She had taken the summer course in Advanced Mathematics for a reason: to help her with her day to day life now that she had left Hogwarts. Despite the wonderful range of jobs that the wizarding world offered, her husband Jacob Myers could not stand the thought of being married to someone with magical powers and so, she had to take a Muggle job to keep him happy.

Hermione loved Jacob more than anything she could possibly imagine. She had met him in her fifth-year holidays when she was only fifteen and from that day onward she had wanted no one else.

Not even the brief fling with Ron over the Christmas holidays in their last year at the Wizarding school could have dissipated her feelings, although since those nights by the fire in Ron's strong arms, the chaste kisses and whispered words of appreciation, she had often compared the two young men.

There had always been something about Ron in her eyes. There was something in him, something so pure and good and virtuous, it was impossible to think of him as what he was now.

Ron had changed so dramatically at their last term at Hogwarts. Despite Hermione's engagement to Jacob throughout the NEWT exams, he had openly told Hermione that there was no point in fighting if she wouldn't be beside him.

At first, she had been confused and not understood his well-chosen words. Then, as he became darker and more withdrawn, she had come to realise that he had meant he would only fight for her if she fought [I]with[/I] him, as a partner.

Hermione had cried night after night, wishing this wasn't true but by the end of their seventh year, it was unchangeable.

Ron had walked off the train and out of her life, that sunny day in July four years ago, to support something Hermione had thought would never come to be: he had become a Death Eater.

For the first few months, he owled her frequently with nice comments and chat about Harry. There had never been any mention of his dark commitments and Hermione had even dared to hope he was coming back.

Then, Harry had been killed and even though it had broken Hermione's heart, she wanted nothing more than Ron, back on her side.

The Dark Lord had been vanquished yet all of his supporters remained. Draco Malfoy had been crowned the Next Dark Lord and failed miserably when, in battle with Harry, he was also killed. Harry had died exactly two weeks afterwards.

At the hands of his old best friend.

As all the memories came flooding back, Hermione felt tears prickling in her eyes. She shut down the computer and sighed heavily.

There was too much horror in the world. She remembered the headlines.

[I][b]The Boy Who Lived to be Betrayed

Harry Potter VS Ron Weasley: the last fight of our hero

What turns happy young men, sons of hard Ministry workers, to treachery and murder?[/b][/I]

It was a Sunday. Whatever she had to do, Hermione could always put off her work for a Sunday walk.

It took her longer than usual to reach her favourite spot. It seemed to Hermione that she was carrying a heavier load than she used to. She sat down on the bench in front of the great lake and blinked away the tears that tried to cry their way down her soft cheeks.

Jacob never came to her spot with her. Hermione wasn't sure he even realised she was gone.

Over the four years that they had been married, all their preconceptions of ever-lasting love and a sustainable relationship had vanished. Now, their connection was nothing but methodical, permenant and temporary at the same time.

Jacob had been through six jobs whilst Hermione had worked in vain at the same. He had become violent, aggressive. Even today, this peaceful day, she was sporting a sore back from the events of the night before.

A rustling behind her jolted her thoughts back to reality.

Who could it be?

No one knew that she came here.

She turned on the spot and her heart leapt before sinking lower than it had ever been before.

Ron stumbled towards her, hands outstretched and it took every atom of her being to turn away.

"Hermione?" he croaked and she flinched. His voice was gruff and hardly recogniseable, except for the familiar way his tone had lifted whenever he uttered her name. "Don't you remember me?"

"I remember what you used to be," Hermione said stiffly, surprised by how determined her voice was.

"What I am now."

Hermione gave the tiniest of sighs and her shoulders slumped.

"Hermione," he said softly. It wasn't a request but she turned to him anyway, a fiery anger flaring up inside her.

"Don't come near me." She was on her feet but didn't recall getting up. Ron didn't move away or towards her. His expression softened.

"I remember..."

She raised an eyebrow, forcing back the tears that threatened to race forwards.

He gave a weary smile. "I remember when you used to say that to me. When I had a joke sweet from Fred or George-" his expression crumpled and his eyes filled with tears. Fred and George were long since gone, slaughtered by the people he had been associated with for most of his adult life. "When we were friends."

"You turned away from that, Ron," Hermione said, her voice softer than she wanted it to be. His name felt strange in her mouth, foreign and wrong. She vaguely remembered something from earlier, something about a maths equation being wrong.

"I didn't kill them."

"You seem to be the only person who thinks so."

"I didn't," Ron repeated, his voice carrying a tone of urgency and desperation. "Please, Hermione."

"Please? You want please? Alright then, how about this: please tell me why you changed! Please tell me what made you want to leave us. Leave me. Please tell yourself why you did that because you're deceiving yourself. There's still some good in you!" Hermione cried out. She saw Ron flinch. "Please, Ron. Tell me what happened to you."

"I didn't kill them," he repeated in a hollow voice.

"Then why is everyone saying you [I]did[/I], Ron? Why?"

"Because..."

"Because what?" Hermione asked, her voice rising.

"Because I told people I did."

"For who? Who were you protecting? Draco Malfoy's pathetic goons? Who, Ron?"

"That's not important."

"Yes, it is!"

"I'm protecting you. By... By living this torturous life, being hated by [I]everyone[/I]." Ron was shouting now, his uncharacteristically loud voice echoing around the lake. "By being an outcast, unwanted unless I'm dead and people can finally stop being afraid. That's all for you!"

"Why?" Hermione whispered, afraid that if she spoke any louder her voice would crack and she would dissolve into tears, right there, in front of him.

"You shouldn't have to ask!"

And he turned.

And for the third time in her life, Hermione felt her heart straining, waiting to shatter.

"But I'm afraid not to," she called out."

"Why?" he asked, stopping.

"I don't know who to believe." And in that second, not knowing how, she was standing in front of him, looking into his eyes, searching for something she would recognise. "How can I trust you? After all that happened."

Ron levelled her gaze and their eyes met.

Something clicked.

Something so vague and remote clicked as their lips met. It was wrong and it was right and it fit and it was outside the pattern and Ron still tasted of hot mints and still smelt like the leaves of a chestnut tree and their mouths fit together so perfectly and she whimpered and all the tears she had held back stormed down her face and mingled with Ron's and in that instant, Hermione knew what the missing piece of the equation was. It came to her so suddenly that she surprised herself that she hadn't realised all along.

It was Ron.