Promises to Keep

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house in in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Hermione sat at her desk, grading essays from her sixth years on which charms they thought were most useful in the everyday life of an adult wizard. Or trying to grade them, anyway. It had been an hour since she'd finished her classroom cleanup and gotten started, and she was still struggling through the second roll of parchment on the first essay in the pile. Her eyes kept wandering away from her work and across the room, to the spot on the desk in the far corner that had, until a little while ago, held Ron's carving.

That tiny space seemed ten times bigger than the whole rest of the large classroom, a black hole, sucking the existence of everything else within view to become her entire world. Staring at the empty space, Hermione felt as if she'd murdered something by erasing it. A drop of cold sweat dripped down her face.

Finally, she could take it no more. She picked up the stack of parchment rolls and carried it into her adjacent office, sat down, and got back to work. In less than ten minutes, she'd finished grading four of the essays, and had just begun a fifth when she pushed her quill into the ink bottle a bit too hard, and it snapped. She lightly opened one of her numerous desk drawers and pulled out a replacement. As soon as she had picked it up, however, she let out a scream so loud it could be heard at the top of the tallest astronomy tower.

Underneath the quill was a photograph of her with Ron. Hermione had never seen this photograph before, and was certain that it hadn't been in the drawer that morning when she'd called Michael in for questioning. She remembered the occasion, a small common room party for Ron's 18th birthday, clearly, but not even Colin Creevey had had a camera.

She stared at the picture in horror for several seconds before dropping both quill and parchment and running, running as fast as she could, out of her office, her classroom, through the corridors, and out of Hogwarts entirely.

The sight of Ron's face, even just in a photograph, reminded her of his promise to come back, no matter what. She had promised to wait for him, and for the twenty years he'd been missing, she had, but today, she had broken that promise. Images of him surrounded her, pounding her brain until she was almost completely unaware of her surroundings.

What she needed, she thought, was a good, strong drink. She seldom drunk, but now seemed like a good time to start. She would just walk down to the Three Broomsticks and get some Firewhiskey. That would settle it all. She would stop being haunted by mad images of a long-dead love, and she could return to dedicating her life to teaching without distraction.

She took several deep breaths, then looked around to take stock of her surroundings and figure out which direction she needed to go to get to Hogsmeade.

It took her a moment to realize that she had no idea where she was, but as soon as she had figured that out, she realized that she must somewhere fairly deep in the Forbidden Forest.

A simple Four-Point spell would give her all the information she needed to find her way back to familiar territory; she reached in to her robe pocket to get out her wand, and her fingers grasped empty air. She must have left it on her desk when she had fled the castle! She would have to follow her nose, and while Hermione was generally good at that kind of thing, there was no telling what obstacles would interfere.

Surprisingly, she didn't run into anything especially dangerous as she walked through the seemingly endless forest. Night set in, but Hermione continued trying to find her way out of the forest. She had been walking for hours, and felt as if she could walk no more when finally, she decided to try to rest a little. Common sense told her that sleeping in the middle of a snow-covered, werewolf-infested forest was not a good idea, but exhaustion overcame her, and she collapsed at the foot of a tree, her eyes falling shut.

She never opened them again.

On the other side of the tree, Ron's breathing finally stopped. As he drifted back into the underworld, he felt cheated out of life for a second time. He had been unable to take the second chance he was given.

"And, why, precisely, do you think I should let you go back?" The leering Lord of the Underworld asked, clearly very bored with Ron already.

"True love," He responded defiantly.