La Vie en Rose

Chapter II: Reminiscences at the top of the Eiffel Tower

Quand elle me prend dans ses bras,

Qu'elle me parle tout bas,

Je vois la Vie en Rose

Elle me dit des mots d'amour

Des mots de tous les jours

Et ça m'fait quelque chose

Il est entré dans mon coeur

Une part de bonheur

Dont je connais la cause

C'est toi pour moi,

Moi pour toi

Dans la vie

Tu me l'as dit, l'as juré pour la vie

Et dès que je t'aperçois,

Alors je sens en moi

Mon coeur qui bat

-La Vie en Rose (Louiguy, Piaf)

A tear rolled down Ronald Weasley's cheek as he was looking at an old Wizard picture of Hermione, taken when they were at Hogwarts. In the picture, she was smiling and waving at him. He missed her smile. He sighed a heart-breaking sigh. He hadn't seen her smile for real for a long time. And even wizard pictures weren't great subsitutes.

Ron bit his lower lip and then his upper one, swallowing back a sob. He shut his eyes hard, trying to push away the tears, but it was no use. He crossed his arms on the safety gate in front of him and leaned forward to put his head on them. He exhaled loudly and painfully. Hermione.

Hermione!

Ron was standing at the third and last floor of the Eiffel Tower. He could see the whole city of Paris and even further away. Hermione was somewhere down there, in one of the little streets or in one of the big boulevards. She was so close and yet out of reach. For now. He would search everywhere to find her. He would force her to talk to him if he had to. And it was likely he would have to.

The wind slapped his face and he saw one of his tears flying away from his face, taken away by the wind. He did not care. He didn't care at all about it. He didn't want people to feel pity for him, but he wasn't ashamed of his grief. They could see his tears, anyway. He didn't give a damn about it. Were he alone, he'd scream her name and his despair at the top of his lungs. He would tell the whole city of Paris how unhappy, how desperate, how hopeless he was. And maybe Hermione would hear him. Maybe... But then again, she had walked away from him. She had ran out of that church, and had disapparated when he was only one inch away from her... How could she have done that? After all that time?

She walked away from me. She didn't even say a word to me. We haven't seen one another in five years and she disapparated, leaving me alone. Was she so blind, so self-centered she couldn't see my tears?

Yes, she had walked away from him, ran away from him. Disapparated from his sight. It wasn't fair. No, it wasn't fair at all. How could she do this to him? How could she do this to him twice? How could she walk away without an explanation when at both times he had seen love in her eyes right before she had left?

When Ron had decided to go alone on a trip to Paris, he had wanted to think about his life. To try to find a way to stop making a mess of his life. His living nightmare. She had been haunting his life everyday for five years. Every single night, every single day, wherever he was. He had hoped Paris would help him forget Hermione Granger. Maybe some French prostitute would be good enough to chase her away from his thoughts for an hour.

He snorted loudly. No British whore had been good enough to make him stop thinking about Hermione. And Merlin knew he had been with many. But no matter how pretty or gifted the woman would be, he would always end up screaming Hermione's name when he came.

So pathetic.

But what a trick destiny had played on him! He would never have guessed she was living in Paris. At first, when he had seen her inside the Sacré Coeur, he had thought she was only an apparition. He had imagined seeing her so many times before that he was sure she would evaporate like the other visions he had had. But she had stayed still. She had had that scared look in her eyes and he had understood that he really was facing her. It had ben like a dream. A dream he had wished to come true for so many years. He had stopped looking for her long ago.

Not so long ago. A year ago.

He told the little inner voice to shut up and leave him alone. He looked up at the picture clutched in his hand and asked, in a shaky voice, "Why? Hermione, Why?"

Hermione! Why??? I loved you so much... Why? Why leaving me after we both admitted our feelings for one another?

He brought the picture to his mouth and kissed it, before rubbing it against his cheek. He had done this so many times before. He had charmed it so that it would never get damaged.

He closed his eyes and remembered the last time he had laid his eyes on Hermione Granger. She had looked so beautiful, lying on her back in his bed, her breasts half-hidden by the sheets. Their love-making had given her a wonderful glow, and he had never seen her eyes looking so bright. Even brighter than when she was reading or proving she was right.

She had completely changed his life that day, in more ways than she could know.

No, she can't know how much she's changed my life. She left too soon to know that.

He remembered kissing her breathless when she had admitted she was in love with him. He remembered taking her to his bed and making love to her. A feeling he would never forget. She had been so soft, so gentle, so loving. Neither were virgins, but neither had ever felt the way they had felt making love together. He remembered her telling him, begging him to love her. Begging him to make love to her. He had told her he loved her. She had told him she really felt a woman when she was in his arms. And they had fallen asleep in the other's arms. Now that he was thinking about it, there had been something desperate in her voice that night.

He now realized it had been her way of saying goodbye. He had thought back then that that night would be a new beginning. The beginning of their life together. Of their loving life. He had let everything down the next day for her, only to find out that she was gone. He had first thought she had gone out buying something to eat, not really convinced. He did not know then that he would have to live five years without seeing her again.

All the hurt, all the grief. He hadn't been the only one to hurt. She had hurt, her family, her friends. Eileen had hurt.

He tilted his head back and cried out his sorrow, his hurt. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, Ronald Weasley shouted a desperate plea which very much sounded like the name 'Hermione'.