When Love Is Lost

Quote Challenge: Pick a quote. It can be anything -- a proverb, a line from a movie, or something a famous person said. Then make a story out of it.
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When love is lost, do not bow your head in sadness; instead keep your head up high and gaze at the stars, for that is where your broken heart has been sent to heal. ~Unknown

Hermione Granger burst onto the Astronomy tower, furiously wiping the tears from her red eyes. She leaned against the wall and let the chill wind bite at her wet cheeks and push her hair back from her face. She leaned her head against the stone, thinking about what she saw just a few moments ago...

When love is lost...

Hermione swaggered down the hall, a gleeful expression plastered on her face. She was having the BEST day of her existence. She aced her essay for Potions, Harry and Ginny had just gotten together, and most of all, Ron, the love of her life, had planned some sort of surprise tonight!

She hurried around a corner, only to stop dead in her tracks...there before her was a sight that melted all the happiness she had been feeling away and tore her breaking heart from her chest. There, leaning against the wall, was Ron Weasley, his arms pressing a girl into him, kissing with a passion that she had only experienced herself.

Do not bow your head in sadness...

Hermione must have made some noise, though she could remember making none, for he drew his lust filled gaze to her, standing stunned in the center of the corridor, tears beginning to slowly slide their way down her now flushed cheeks.

Ron pushed the girl to the floor, "Hermione! It's not what it looks like!" he almost screamed, his voice still husky with want.

Instead keep your head up high...

A sob tore from her throat and hung in the air before her as Ron rushed forward. Dropping her books she turned and fled down the hallway, not knowing where to go, only knowing that she had to get away, and knowing that she had left her shattered heart on the ground in that corridor...

And gaze at the stars...

Another heart wrenching sob tore from her chapped lips. She slid down the wall and gathered her slowly chilling legs to her chest, and tilted her face toward the glittering sky, watching the cold light twinkle in the darkness, hot tears streaming down her cheeks only to be cooled almost instantaneously by the cold wind.

For that is where your broken heart has been sent...

She didn't know how long she sat there, knees gathered to her chest, slowly becoming numb to the pain inside the place where her heart was usually kept. She finally stirred at the knock at the door she had dashed through earlier that night.

Ron stood in the doorway, his red hair standing out in the darkness. Hermione knew it was over when she could look at him and not feel a tremor in her breast, like tiny butterflies madly trying to escape when there really was none. She could look at him and not notice the way his forehead slightly creased when he was concerned. She knew it was over when she could look at him and not love him.

Hermione stood up from the cold stone and looked at him, shaking her head "It's over. You know it is."

...to heal.

She slowly passed him and made her way down the stairs and to the great hall, knowing her heart was now up in the heavens, glittering with those stars, and in just as many pieces. Knowing that her heart would heal and would no longer be Ron's.