Share The Rain

It's raining outside the common room. Big thick stripes of water dribble down the glass of the window and pool on the tiny ledge outside. Hermione sits on the wide stone sill, safe inside, sure that the rain is only where she is, and wherever Harry is. Where is Harry? She doesn't know. They're not allowed to know. Hermione doesn't let herself feel angry or bitter, no, she just feels tired and leaves the anger to Ron, who is so good at it.

Hermione has been sitting here all night. The common room emptied hours ago and Ron's anger, like the fire, has burned low to a dying, dull glow. All the Gryffindors had been embarrassed by his fuming and trickled to bed early to avoid annoying the volatile Prefect. Neville bravely offered to wait up with them, mainly for Hermione's sake, but then he too went up to bed, knowing that he did not understand them and their relationship.

The stone underneath her body is still cool, the thick glass even more so. Hermione looks out, waiting, but she doesn't know what for. Rainwater starts to seep through a crack in the corner of the window, and soaks into her skirt. She can hardly feel it. She doesn't move.

Ron watches her from a couch, his body taut and alert while hers is curled and fragile. He wonders if her legs are cramped, if she aches for release the way he does. Neither can bear to go to bed, so they wait, and finally he's had enough. He slides off the couch and strides over to her window.

She pretends not to notice him until he is upon her and kissing her softly in an unimaginably awkward position; her head pressed back into the wall while he bends over her. Slowly she responds and calms his pace, stroking his hands with hers and running her tongue gently over his. His tongue in her mouth feels like the rain outside.

Suddenly he turns from her. "We shouldn't be doing this."

"Share the rain with me," she whispers softly, irrelevantly.

"Harry's out there in the rain on his own. He's always on his own."

"Ron," she says as her eyes glisten, "I don't think he minds, you know. I don't think he wants anyone with him and I don't think he wants," she chokes, "love."

He traces along her forehead with his thumb and kisses her temple. He feels as if by standing in front of her he is protecting her from the empty room. The rain seems to have stopped for now; the grounds outside are partially lit by moonlight. He doesn't ask if they are in love.

Hermione tilts her head away from him and turns to press her cheek against the cold glass. She closes her eyes and whispers so softly that she's not sure he can hear, "I think somehow we've been enough for him, or we used to be, but now..."

Ron hoists himself up onto the sill opposite her and leans back, drawing his knees up in an imitation of her posture. "It used to be okay," he muses. "For years it was just the three of us versus everyone else."

She nods, eyes still closed. "I think he realised, after the Cho... thing, that there were other things more important. So he didn't even mind when we..." She trails off, but opens her eyes against the glass, where he can't see.

When we what? he wants to ask. When we woke up after a raucous Halloween feast curled up together and didn't remember how we'd gotten there? When we fought spectacularly, again, and instead of storming off we kissed and the common room erupted into cheers? When you stopped trying to get me to study and scheduled snog sessions instead?

She shifts her head and he can see her eyes, luminous against the window, reflected in the glass and reflecting the glass.

"I just don't know when he stopped caring about us." Then she buries her face in her knees.

He says quietly, "He doesn't want love. You said it. He wants to be alone."

She raises her head and her eyes are dry and they flash. "But he shouldn't be! Why can't we be out there with him?" her voice drops, "Why doesn't he care?"

Something stirs inside of him. It's so wrong to think of it now, but the jealousy has been unleashed by something in her eyes and he can't keep it down. "Would you rather be here with Harry than with me? Would you rather it was me outside in the rain?"

"Ron! You're the one who thinks we shouldn't be... doing this right now." But she won't look at him.

"Him or me?"

"Maybe you'd prefer Harry over me. He wouldn't cry all over you or make you think, would he?" Now she is beginning to get mad, and he doesn't want to protect her, he wants to be angry too, and he's glad he's gotten her mad because at least she's feeling something.

"Maybe you'd prefer a hero so you could be famous too. Maybe you're glad Harry has no girlfriend, because you'd be too jealous that it wasn't you!"

"And you're always jealous of anything he or I have! If I had him, you'd be jealous of both of us, but he's not jealous of me and that kills you!"

They are both leaning forward on the sill, nose to nose and shaking. Outside, the grounds are getting darker and the rain has left beads on the windowpane. He wants to know what she means, he wants to taunt her, tell her to say it out loud if she really believes it, but he doesn't want to hear it himself. He can't take this anymore, so he kisses her because it's easier than hitting her. She kisses back and somehow they become pressed into each other, knees, chests, mouths aligned and arms enfolding each other, until suddenly they fall off the windowsill.

It's not a long way to fall, but the jolt echoes through Ron's spine and he relishes the pain. Their lips break apart as he breaks her fall. Again they stare. She wonders what he wants from her, really. He definitely doesn't want to protect her anymore. In fact, he wants to break her. She knows things about him and he hates that, he wants her to shut up and never speak again because she confronts the dark things deep inside of him. He knows some things about her too, but never enough. He wants to know everything and then maybe he'd have some ammunition as well, but he forces himself to calm down and ask just one of many things that he wants to know.

"Why would Harry be jealous of you?"

"I'm with you, aren't I?"

"Is that what Harry wants?"

"I don't know. Is that what you want?"

What do any of them want? He thinks he knows what he wants from her; all she wants is grounding. What do they want from Harry, why are they awake, what will happen in the morning? Thinking about these things drives him crazy.

As his eyes haze over and wander, she tries to roll away and off him, but her arms are looped around his neck so he rolls too and she lets him and pulls him on top of her. His hands are squashed into the small of her back and crushed into the dusty carpet, and one knee digs into the floor between her thighs. She doesn't feel threatened by him as his eyes bore into hers, just very, very tired.

She breaks eye contact yet again by turning her head to the side. He kisses her earlobe and she shoots him the most vicious of looks.

"Harry's not here. He doesn't want our help," she says tonelessly.

"He doesn't need us," he agrees.

"Even if he were here, he wouldn't care."

"Neither of us can get through to him. It's not as if we haven't tried."

They are so matter-of-fact. It is their game. They are soothing each other, pretending it is no big deal that their best friend does not want or need them anymore.

"So that's it. And you and I, we stay together because there's nothing else for us." And she leans up to kiss him, her lips cold and dragging across his.

"No, we do it because this is what we want." He kisses her properly, his heat engulfing the empty grate of her mouth.

"Fuck Harry," he says, coming away for a moment. "Just..."

"Fuck him," she agrees, an excitement in her eyes that he's never seen before. She trails her tongue along his jaw line and suddenly they are twisting and rolling and exploring like they never have before. He's angry, she's feeling dangerous, and anything could happen.

As his hands move up her thighs, he half-notices that her skirt is wet, and she remembers it too. "The rain came in on me," she whispers. "The windows, they don't keep anything out." In answer he just moves his hands under the fabric, to the cool, slightly damp skin. He is all flushed, but the darkest parts of her are still cold.

The moonlight creeps in and at one point he is utterly transfixed by the play of light on her pale face. Her bones are so tiny, so delicate; she makes him feel large and clumsy.

"What?" she says, staring up from the carpet, her hair streaming out around her like blood in the half-darkness. She sits up, forcing him up, too. Gold flecks her eyes. His hair looks like blood to her, and the shapes of his face seem to blur into one.

"Tell me I'm beautiful," she says quietly, her mouth drawn and the dark circles under her eyes stark against her white skin. "Am I beautiful?"

And he doesn't even have to lie when he whispers, "Yes", and catches her in his arms again, almost squeezing the life out of her half-naked body as he buries himself into her.

When he comes, the explosion feels to her like a shock of ice-cold water - has she been living a dream? The pain rips through her and suddenly she is back in the real world and sees colours and feelings that she has not seen or felt for a very long time. He feels as if his energy and his life and his anger have drained away and maybe into her. His limbs tingle with exhaustion and even in the airless room he begins to feel free.

Later, when the room is dark again, they climb back onto the windowsill. Hermione smoothes her skirt down and leaves her blouse unbuttoned while Ron replaces his vest, but not his shirt. He holds her to him and they look out over the icy grounds together, pressing their foreheads against the glass. Her eyes still contain a strange excitement, but she's longing for the cool night air on her face. He's longing to make her feel it and wondering how much force it would take to push her through the glass.

She leans into him and he traces the lines of her face again, feels each little bump and bone under the skin and imagines smashing each one in. She hates him right now, she hates the feel of his rough hands moving over her skin where moments ago he moved so gently, but she endures it. Everything feels so real and rough to her now.

If this night would just end, everything would be alright. In the morning, McGonagall will tell them that Harry is okay; he has carried out his task and is in the infirmary getting better. She and Ron will visit and Harry will be happy to see them, not listless or annoyed, and she will try not to notice every point of contact between him and Ron, and will especially not note how Harry looks at her or if he touches her or how his hair sticks up and his scar is slightly raw and his pyjamas are unbuttoned at the top and expose his chest... In the morning, Ron will be the perfect boyfriend and she will love him with a closed and uncomplicated love instead of these strange, alien feelings that have been awakened. In the morning, this night won't exist and the things they said won't be remembered because they weren't real anyway, they weren't. In the morning, they'll all be enough for each other, and nothing will be complicated.

When this night ends the sunlight will make things worse. It will make the pale circles under her eyes ugly to him instead of glamourous; the sharp lines of her features will disappear. Harry might be back in the morning, and then what will they have to say to each other? In the morning this room will be full of people and a fire that threatens to jump out of the grate and consume him. In the morning he'll want her whole again, he'll be ashamed of his urges tonight, but there'll be no release for him. Worst of all, in the morning, he'll still want to break something beautiful, even if it's not her.

And outside, the rain begins again. Rain and wind here, and somewhere out there, wherever Harry is, it's raining too. Rainwater trickles in and soaks Ron this time, mingling with Hermione's tired tears on his clothes. He wipes his own tears away before they can splash onto her bare shoulders. She shudders, but her body in his arms is like stone. The rain pours down and the night never ends.

* * * * *

Hermione cuts her hair alone in the Prefects' bathroom. Snip, snip. Harry is back and she can see him soon. She needs to look pretty for Harry.

Using the blunt scissors that she stole from home, she snips the locks under her left shoulder, pulling the hair taut and enjoying the peculiar feel of slicing the fibres. The glide of the blades sends shivers down her spine.

When she has finished cutting she brushes the fallen hair off her clothes. The fine strands are everywhere, all over her skin. She unbuttons her blouse to brush the tiny hairs from her bra and her stomach. She thinks of Ron's hands running over her body and stops suddenly. She thinks of Ron, inside of her, and does the buttons up again. She will shower, and then go see Harry. Maybe the water will cleanse her stupid emotions away, make her feel good and clean again.

Ron paces. He needs to see Harry before she does. He wants to beat her to it. He needs to go now.

He had been awoken in the pre-dawn light by Professor McGonagall's arrival. She brought news tempered with lots of concerned looks and glances around the empty room. His body was stiff from sleeping upright and Hermione had arched an eyebrow at him from across the room, fully dressed already. How had he not woken when she'd moved out of his grasp? Professor had said they could see Harry after breakfast, hours away. Gryffindor began to stir as Hermione sashayed over, pressed Ron against the wall, hovered just short of kissing him and whispered, "You go to breakfast, and don't you speak to anyone about last night." Despite appearances she hadn't showered; he could smell himself on her. It struck him that he didn't want to break her at all; that urge had been satisfied, or maybe only until nighttime again. He doesn't know where she went next. He had bathed and gone down to breakfast to preside like a good Prefect. He always serves his duties while she neglects her place. Seamus Finnigan had leered at him over the toast and Ron had wanted to punch his face in. The students were talking. The students seemed to know, or maybe they were just talking about Harry. He doesn't care. She will.

Hang it, he's got to see Harry. See him now, before she gets there. McGonagall said they could skive DADA. He'll go now. He will.

"Oh," Madame Pomfrey says quizzically, trying to look behind him for his girl-shaped shadow. "Is Miss Granger coming?"

"She went to class," he says, and thrills in the lie against her.

Madame melts away after leading Ron to the curtained bed where there is Harry, half-asleep, cleaned up, looking rueful but triumphant as always after one of these ritual battles.

"Mate," Ron says, then stops. What now? Tell me all about it, Harry. What did he try this time? Were you scared, Harry? Is the Dark Lord really dead, Harry?

Yeah, right. Ron sits next to the bed and quietly hands Harry his glasses. Harry tries to smile, but fails.

Ron doesn't want to look at Harry's pale face, so he stares around the infirmary, and doesn't notice Harry watching him.

"What have I missed?" Harry says tentatively.

"You know the castle stops without you."

Harry blinks, and Ron realises the unintentional sarcasm. "No, it's true. Her--Hermione and I waited up almost all night."

Harry doesn't change at the mention of her name, but Ron almost choked on it. He focuses on the potion flasks that litter the bedside table.

"You fucked her, didn't you," Harry says.

The colours of the glass bottles blur in Ron's eyes. "It wasn't like that, but, yeah..."

The silence threatens to stretch into forever.

"Just as long as you two are happy," Harry says out of nowhere. It's such an obvious lie that Ron doesn't bother to call him on it. Harry doesn't care for either of them at all, and what's more, he knows that they are far from happy.

One of the potions is bright red and Ron explodes.

"Bloody hell, Harry, would it kill you to get involved once in a while?" He stands up, bangs the wall and doesn't feel it.

Harry sits up in the bed with an effort. "Touché, Ron. Do you want to know where I've been? What I did?" It's a shadow of sarcasm but it inflames Ron and he feels the same passion as when he stirred Hermione last night.

"Tell me if you want. What I want doesn't matter, but, damnit, talk to me or something instead of just lying there. Ask me if I worried. Tell me you were scared. Tell me you--oh, anything!" He sits down again, because his raw energy is too much for this tiny cubicle in a tiny room.

"Ron," Harry says, restrained through clenched teeth. "It doesn't matter."

"But--" he draws his chair closer.

"Why don't you tell me something. Like, why you fucked her."

"Geez, Harry, I told you it wasn't like that!

"Then what was it like?"

"I don't bloody know! I wanted to, okay."

"Did she?"

"Yes? It doesn't matter now, does it? We did it. That's all. It's not important now."

"You're fucking clueless, Ron."

"You're fucking annoying, Harry."

Suddenly, somehow, it is alright. They are grinning at each other. Harry puts his hand on Ron's shoulder and Ron shudders inwardly at the grazes on his knuckles.

"Ron, be good to her. Don't take things out on her. Just don't. If you ever hurt her..."

He is speaking quickly, and Ron is not listening, but instead realising that the rueful and triumphant face was really only wan and tired and so very, very pale. Ron softly kisses the rough scratch of Harry's knuckle and everything changes.

Hermione doesn't look for Madame Pomfrey, but marches into the infirmary like she owns the place. In the far corner she can see Ron sitting close to Harry and the scene looks so intimate that she almost turns away, until she sees Harry motion to Ron as if he knows she's there.

Harry whips his hand away, breathes, says, "What are you doing, Ron?" so softly, as if he's admonishing a small child. Then, louder, "What do you want from me?" There's a strange look in his eyes, of bafflement mixed with fearful knowledge.

"I... I don't know. I don't know what I want from you. I didn't know what I wanted from her, either." Finally he allows himself to voice his confusion.

"I wanted nothing from you but the friendship that you've stopped giving me."

Ron draws a sharp breath, Harry continues.

"I've got no answers, you know."

Ron does know it, too. He also knows the impossibility of ever being close to Harry in any way; that's all he wanted, he decides, to be close, but Harry is too far away. Understanding this somehow brings Harry back a little. He gets up to go and sees Hermione, all hair and cheekbones, looking on from the door with dismay written everywhere on her body. When he looks, she changes her expression to the knowing look that usually maddens him, but he can't resist throwing a triumphant grin, as if he's not confused inside, and her face falls as he leaves the room.

Hermione doesn't want to go to Harry now, but he's seen her. She walks forward slowly, and as he holds out his arms she can't believe he's offering that solace. Mindful of pains and scars, she buries her nose in his clean flannel pyjamas. He strokes her hair so softly, the way she's always wanted him to. He's always known. She supposes that he's doing it now because it's all he can do for her; can she do anything for him?

"Why'd you cut it, Herm?"

She doesn't answer. He hasn't been properly cleaned up; she can smell earth and rain on him. It rained on them all last night, and there's no sunshine, not even this morning.

"Did he hurt you?"

"Not last night," she pulls away reluctantly, and finds the hard, unfeeling armrests of her chair. He looks at her and she knows he knows everything and she feels ashamed. She clams up.

"Ever?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Did you want to do it?" He looks at her, hard. "If he forced you, I'll-."

"No, I did want to... I think. Yes, I did. But I wanted..." The non-sentence hangs in the air. But he knows, of course he does.

"Look at me, Hermione." She looks. "Come closer." She does.

She wonders what comes next. Touch me? She wishes she could say it to him. She has leant forward, and without thinking he grabs her chin and presses his lips to hers. She doesn't try to pull away, but neither of them can make the shadow of a kiss anything more. Harry pulls back and sighs.

"I don't love you, Hermione."

"Don't say my name," she whispers.

"I don't want you... especially not now that you've been with him."

Her eyes snap up. Harry has discovered the thrill of malice. She hopes it wasn't her influence.

"Good, because you'd only treat me like he does. You with your self-absorbed saviour complex! At least he and I know what we want, even when we can't have it."

"I know what I want," he says dangerously, "and I'll get it, you'll see."

"Maybe, but I won't care!" She flies out of the infirmary and Harry sinks down onto his pillows. Strands of her escaped hair are on his bed sheets, and his grazes are open and bleeding.

Ron has never heard a gunshot before. He is out by the lake and the loud crack sounds like someone Apparating next to him. He jumps out of his skin and a flock of birds fly upwards from the Forest, magical birds fleeing something beyond their comprehension. Instinctively he knows that the sound meant danger, but not for him. Thoughts fly through his mind as he runs for the Forest, not because he is brave, but because there's nowhere else for him to go.

Hermione has heard a gunshot before, only once, and this one brings the same unnamed fear into her chest. Her heart literally stops for a moment and her skin stiffens and crawls. Today that fear has a name: Harry. She is in the library, where she has hidden all day, covering her work scrolls with aimless journal scribblings. The shot sounded terribly near; have the windows collapsed? Everyone is at dinner, so she scrambles over her belongings and runs out down the stone steps.

It doesn't surprise Hermione that Ron is there, his vibrant red hair incongruous with the stone of his body, frozen over a black mess on the ground. He turns when he hears her and he pushes her back, saying, "No, don't look," and she says, "Look at what?" stupidly, thinking to herself even as she says it how stupid it sounds. He's trying to be gentle but she pushes him away and the sight of Harry's surprised eyes, the gun lying inches from a pale hand with grazed knuckles, and the blood everywhere, the matter of his body everywhere, burns into her eyes forever.

"Is... is he dead?" says Ron, the dumb one this time, and she rounds on him.

"Of course he's fucking dead! And it's your fault. It's all your fault!" She punches him blindly, hurting him even, but he barely notices. Later he will find the purple bruises in the softness of his belly.

"Leave off! It's not," but he lets her hit him again and again.

"You went for him! You made a move, you shouldn't have!"

"Why not? Why can't I EVER have what I want?"

"You selfish idiot! You don't know what you want! You freaked him out, you killed him!"

"You killed him too! You went after him. I know you did. You were just pissed I got there first!"

"He went after me, actually. But he didn't want you," she says triumphantly.

"Nor you!"

Her face crumples. "And he's dead. My God, he's DEAD!" She screams into the forest and howls with utmost pain as darkness begins to fall. He grabs her as she tries to hurt the trees, herself, him; he pins her wrists and holds her to him in a parody of comfort as she scratches at his cheek. She subsides and lets him keep her, and slowly he drags her up to the castle, wondering who is keeping him held up, both of them so in shock, in despair, in total anguish, that they collapse on the front steps and gasp for breath, on the verge of hysterics as the rain starts to fall.

* * * * *

No one knew what to do, that much was clear. When the Great Hall emptied at the end of supper the entire Ravenclaw Quidditch team had stumbled over Hermione and Ron on the front steps, unable to speak, move or even breathe properly. There were tiny smears of blood on the fingertips of one of Ron's hands, and under Hermione's nails, but neither of them would find those until later. Teachers were called and the pair brought inside and to the infirmary, where Hermione began to scream about guns and birds and the Forest and Ron stared out the window at the mass of officials and teachers scurrying between the school and the trees. He saw them bring the body out, something black on a stretcher, and he turned away from the window and threw up on the bed sheets. His eyes watered and he felt absolutely wretched. In a bed near him, Hermione broke out in a cold sweat and felt herself incapable of movement ever again.

But she did move, because she had to - Dumbledore, with a look of resignation as if he'd seen this coming ("Then why didn't you do something?" she wanted to yell) had said the best thing to do was to go back to the dorms and not grieve alone, and her parents would come in the morning. She didn't want her parents, she wanted Harry alive, she thought. Harry has... had no parents to call, sort of a good thing, she thought offhandedly, but his aunt and uncle will probably be glad that he's... gone.

Ron walked into the common room as if in a dream, with Hermione clinging to his arm, almost unable to walk by herself. Pale faces stared at them from every direction, some of them tear-stained, the first-years confused and the seventh-years in shock. Dean went to clap his back, then stopped. Ginny had run up and taken his hand, dropped it, then taken it again. He wanted to pull away, but he squeezed her hand and looked at her little freckled face, so uncomprehending. Neville took Hermione's arm and Ron sighed and led his sister to sit down in a corner, fighting down nausea. He lost sight of Hermione, because his little sister needed him. Harry has left some huge hole that means nothing will be the same again.

It's very late now, maybe midnight at least, and Ron is in bed but not asleep. He feels sure that Seamus is still awake but he is not going to speak; Neville and Dean crept down the stairs some time ago, unable to sleep in a room with one empty bed, Ron supposes. There is some moonlight coming in through the windows, through the half-closed heavy drapes, and he thinks about this time last night and the damp of the common room floor and her hair like blood. He's seen too much blood, lately, and the nausea rises up in him again.

Suddenly she is there, creeping in through the doorway like a ghost. She knows which bed is his and he watches her as she treads over softly, all uncertain, in a simple white nightgown that he has never seen before. "Ron?" she whispers, and without answering he shifts over so there is room for her on the bed. Awkwardly she climbs in and turns on her side to look at him. Her feet are ice cold. He draws the sheet up to their shoulders.

For the longest time they stare at each other. They are all that they have now, with no hope of Harry ever coming back to them. Ron doesn't know what he feels right now. She is in his bed but he doesn't want to claim her again, although the idea of crushing her sort of appeals to him. She has come because there was nowhere else to go, and just his warm breath dancing lightly over her mouth keeps her awake and anchored to reality.

She raises herself up on her elbow and kisses his cheek, not a kiss to start something, but a kiss to make him notice her, remember her and comfort her if he can find it in him. He takes the cue and reaches up an arm around her back; he can feel her skin through the thin cotton. Her hair still feels damp, from the rain that drenched them both, and from her sweat later. The cold sweat makes her smell sickly, but he's pretty sure he has vomit on his breath. She reaches up a hand to the back of his neck, and they lie facing each other, holding each other awkwardly, until he kisses her just to feel something. Her hysteria subsided hours ago but he is still in shock. That shadow slipping out of the room is Seamus, probably embarrassed to be there in the dark with the couple.

A couple, they are, and it feels so strange not to be a trio. While so close to each other, all either of them can think about is the emptiness where there used to be a third person, but where in reality there hadn't been a third for a long time. She tries to slip her tongue between his teeth and instead he turns away and retches over the side of the bed. It's only bile now; there has been nothing in his stomach for hours but his body keeps trying to expel it anyway. She winces and smoothes her cool hand over his forehead, then gets up to fetch a glass of ice water from the pitcher by the window. As she pours, she holds the glass up and the moonlight catches in the clear liquid like starlight and she wishes she could be outside, anywhere but here.

She brings him the glass and holds his hand while he sits up and drinks it. He is silently grateful that she has chosen to be sympathetic rather than vicious. But Ron knows that it's only because she can't care for Harry anymore, so he gets her care by default; these actions are automatic. He puts the glass down on his bedside table and pulls her by the hand so she falls half on and half off him, a tangle in the bed sheets. For a moment there is fear in her eyes, which surprises him, and he loosens his grip and reaches up to play with her hair instead.

"Why'd you cut it?" he asks her quietly, having only just realised that she has.

She gasps at his sentence and remembers another gravely male voice asking the same question just hours earlier. "That's... that's what he asked me before he..."

"What did you tell him?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me why."

"Because I hate it and I want to be beautiful."

"But you are."

She rolls away. "You're lying to me. You always have. He did too. No--"

"Yes! You trick me, both of you, and say things you don't mean." She sits up on her knees in the bed, towering above him, and he gazes up at her.

"You're beautiful when you're on fire. I've missed that about you."

"Oh, shut up." But she slowly lies back down next to him, her sharp eyes watching his. He delicately strokes the skin of her face and no longer feels any anger.

"Ron," she says, a few quiet minutes later.

"Mmm?" drowsily.

"Where do you think he is now?"

He opens his eyes, scared suddenly. "I don't know. Outside, somewhere. Maybe in the rain - oh, but it's stopped now."

"I want to be out in the rain too." She lifts her head up, and something is shining in her eyes that scares him even more.

"No - I'll keep you warm." He tries to pull her to him, to wrap his arms around her and be everything she needs.

"But I don't think you can," she says, utterly seriously. Her eyes bore into him and ask for answers, but he can't give any. He wants an answer from her, while she's vulnerable like this.

"Why d'you think he did it? Was it really because--because I..."

"No, I guess not. I don't know. I think he knew he was going to, though. I think he just finished his work, fulfilled the prophecy, and thought there wasn't anything left for him, and, oh God, why wasn't I enough for him? Why weren't we enough, Ron?"

Instead of rising to a crescendo her voice becomes tremulous. She doesn't blow up but instead breaks down into tears, sobs and gasps that speak more than her hysteria of hours ago. This hopeless crying frightens him; she's supposed to be the strong one, she drives their relationship, if she's not going to boss him or be in charge then what is he supposed to do? Last night he would have welcomed the chance to exploit her vulnerabilities. Now he wants nothing, because anything he could have wanted is no longer possible. Why can't she yell at him? Why can't she be that bitch again, her voice a serrated edge of patronisation and righteousness?

Ron has never comforted her before the way he does now, but it only makes her cry harder. His body feels like Harry's, like any boy's, muscular and slim, although both of them grew too thin this year - she can feel his collarbone too sharply as she buries her face in his neck. He strokes her hair and she wishes she'd never cut it; he's never been this tender. The night's never going to end, and neither will this nightmare of life without Harry.

When he wakes it's early in the morning, again, when the night is darkest. He feels cold, is the window open? He turns and notices the emptiness in the sheets where Hermione's body was. He rubs his eyes and stares at the window.

There is no window. The glass is gone, and there is only Hermione standing just inside, her hair blowing in the icy breeze whistling through the room. His wand falls from her hand onto the stone floor with a clatter. How did she magic the glass away? He doesn't know any charms like that, but of course she would.

"Hermione?" he says uncertainly. What is she about to do?

She doesn't turn back to him, but a smile spreads across her face. She closes her eyes and feels the rain begin to come in on her, soft threads that soak the thin cotton of her nightgown in an instant.

"I have to end it, Ron," she whispers, to herself more than to him. "Or else it's going to go on forever."

"What will?" he asks breathlessly, wanting to pull her back but afraid to go to her in case he pushes her instead.

"Love. The pain. Tonight. It won't stop. It just won't."

"Hermione, don't do this!"

"Come and share the rain with me."

Slowly he walks towards her, and the delicate balance of fear and power in the room reminds him of last night, and reminds him of Harry in the infirmary. They can't be normal anymore; always their encounters are just variations on extremes. She is kneeling on the stone sill now, and he is so, so afraid. He wants to touch her to pull her back, but he's afraid that she will wither away or shatter at his touch.

"Ever since last night I can't stop feeling. You awakened me," she says, but it still feels like a dream to him. "I just want to feel the air on my face... I don't want it to rain anymore."

If he could stop the rain for her, he would, he thinks. He hesitantly reaches a hand out to her shoulder and she turns into him and rests her head on his skin. He breathes out. She reaches a hand back to stroke the scratch on his cheek, to soothe the crusted blood.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," she says, and smiles, tenderly, and he smiles back and breathes again.

She pitches herself forward. It happens far too quickly, he didn't know she was going to do it, and he reaches out for her but she's far gone. She feels nothing but the rain falling with her, but it doesn't touch her, and the cool night air on her face feels like salvation.

From above he can see her body and the blood spread over so many shards of glass like beads. She didn't remove the glass at all; she simply smashed it out. How did nobody on the lower floors notice? How did he not hear and wake up? Her broken body in its white nightgown, her jagged hair spread around her, and drops of blood that he can see even from this height, even in the moonlight, becomes the second image to burn into his brain in a few hours. Rain begins to beat harder, soaking into his hair as he leans out the window, staring in shock, and on the ground the rain makes her blood run through the glass in rivulets, and she is oblivious to it all.

In the morning, Mr and Mrs Granger come and take their daughter away. Mr and Mrs Weasley come, but their son refuses to go. He says he has to stay. He knows he deserves to walk the hallways and have Harry haunt his footsteps. He deserves to stumble over memories that lurk in every corner. He must finish out this year, without them, because they can't finish. He'll get his N.E.W.T.S., for him and for her. The adults think she might be okay, in time, but never the same again. He knows it. He lost them both because he was too selfish, he wanted too much and he wasn't what they needed, and now there's nothing for him but he's not going to go the same way.

He'll see her again, he imagines. Maybe one day he'll visit St Mungo's and come across her in a hospital bed, or watch her learning to walk again, and she'll look at him and smile with recognition. Or he'll see her on the street, able-bodied and unhurt, in sunshine instead of rain and... And they'll look through each other, because nothing is going to be the same. He'll touch her and her skin will be like ice; all the fire gone; he thinks the fire has left him too. Harry's gone, and they can't live without the boy who did. She knew that. He wasn't enough for her, he wasn't what she needed, and she couldn't get it from Harry, either. He broke her and then he turned away so she leaped when he wasn't looking. Maybe one day he can try and be there for her again, but it won't work. Their eyes will look through each other and these endless days will become just a dim memory of rain and blood and the common room floor.