Hermione's Ghost

Hermione's Ghost

The mist of the morning hung low and thick, weighing heavily upon every blade of grass it touched. It crowded the air that still echoed a mother's sobs and a father's parting words to the little girl who used to ask if he would twirl her around the room just one more time.

It was going to rain. Any moment now the sky would open upon up and the deluge would hit, washing away all traces of the visitors that stood around the grave. The footprints that led through the freshly turned soil, the handkerchief that fell out of Mrs. Granger's hands just before she fainted, the trodden petals of the flowers Harry Potter crushed in his hands, would all vanish, swept away in a torrent of fury as Mother Earth herself mourned the passing of Hermione Jane.

He sat on the ground, his legs crossed in front of him as he raked the moist dirt with his fingers, his eyes fixed on the marble headstone. Beloved Daughter. Beloved Friend. Simply beloved, he thought as he allowed his hand to sink deeply into the dirt, covering them up to the wrist. The ground was still soft and the soil moved easily with his constant sifting. He wondered briefly if he would reach her coffin if he continued to burrow; if he could feel the glossy mahogany box that housed the remains of his friend. He was up to elbows when the rain finally began.

A voice in his head was telling him that it was time to go, and it became more insistent as the rain fell harder and heavier. But that voice in his head was her voice, her tight, clipped tone of disapproval at his foolish behavior, and that, combined with the fact that the last bits that tethered her to this world lay a mere six feet below him, was enough to make him stay rooted to the spot.

His clothes soaked in every bit of water that touched them, sticking to the skin that was already cold and dank. His hair clung to his face, rivulets trailed from the clumped ends down his cheeks and into his shirt. Huge drops hung from the end of his eyelashes; he didn't bother to blink them away. Puddles of water began to collect in the soft dirt, surrounding him with tiny pools. He watched their surfaces ripple with each new drop, watched as they expanded until they joined together, forming a trench around him. He was remotely aware that he was trembling.

Hours passed and the rain remained relentless as Ron Weasley sat writing letters in the mud with his forefinger. He wondered if the rain would manage to seep through the ground and reach the casket. If he whispered her name into the cascade of water, would his words travel down through the layers of dirt and touch the wood that surrounded her, would they find their way in through some small crack and touch her icy skin. He wondered how long it would be before he drowned.

When his eyes could no longer hold back the rain, when his clothes could no longer absorb the wetness, when he trembled so hard that he could no longer write anything in the mud, Ron tried to stand up. Suddenly the rain began to swirl around him, taking the leaves and the trees and the soil with it. It spun around him, this mad whirlpool, until he could do nothing but tumble into it. He fell, splashing mud several feet around him.

And as the lines of the world began to cloud at the edges, as everything around him began to fade in and out, he glimpsed the faint silhouette of a petite girl with too much hair sitting atop a stone grave marker.

~*~*~

There were voices in his head again; several of them this time. Someone was whispering. Someone was crying. Someone was calling his name.

He slowly blinked his eyes open, squinting painfully at a bright light that hung overhead. Almost immediately the light was blocked by a half dozen heads, and when his eyes had finally adjusted, he found himself looking into the concerned faces of family and friends.

They began to run around him. His mother had collapsed into a nearby chair and was being tended to by his father and brother, Bill. Ginny had run in the hall was and was screaming for someone to come. Remus Lupin was slowly patting the back of Harry whose face was buried in his hands as his shoulders shook fiercely. Strangers rushed in and out; they shone lights in his eyes, pricked his skin, and asked question after question. Ron was oblivious to it all; he could not take his eyes off the figure that watched him from across the room.

Hermione Granger stood silently while others passed frantically around her. She wore her best black robes open, revealing her school uniform underneath. Her shirt, crisp and smooth, was tucked into the top of her pleated skirt. Her bright white socks came up to her knees and her black shoes were perfectly polished. Her hair was thick and frizzy, her eyes, big and brown, and her small hands sat folded in front of her.

There were voices all around him, several of them. Someone was whispering. Someone was crying. Someone was calling his name. But Ron could not answer them. He could only stare blankly at Hermione as she blinked silently back from an expressionless face.

~*~*~

He remained in the infirmary for a week and was allowed to return to classes despite the fact that he hadn't uttered a single word since he woke up. He went about his day as every other seventh year did: he went to his lessons, he rode his broom, he went to the Great Hall. If he noticed the murmurs that followed him, he never let on. If he noticed the looks of concern or curiosity, he never looked back. Life was just as it was before; the difference was that Hermione never left his side. She followed him to his classes, sat across from him during meals, waited on the pitch during Quidditch practice, stood at the foot of his bed when he went to sleep. In the mornings, even with his eyes clamped shut, he knew she was there, standing in the same spot as the night before.

Many nights she visited his dreams; but even there-- where they rode unicorns in the Forbidden Forest, hunted for doxies at the Burrow, walked through the green-tinged streets of Hogsmeade-- even there, she did not speak. Ron understood there was no need for her to bother, no need for her to say a single word.

Hatred bled from her cold, detached eyes as they followed his every step. Accusations and condemnation roared from unspeaking lips. Her very presence was an indictment and Ron bore her ire like a yoke around his neck. It grew heavier and heavier until he buckled from the weight, until he stopped going to classes, stopped eating, stopped bothering to leave his dormitory room at all. The weight of her charges hung from his shoulders until he could no longer sit up straight. That's how Harry found him, sitting up in his bed with his shoulders stooped so far over he looked like he was trying to fold himself in half.

"I've brought you some dinner," he said softly. "You've missed a lot of meals and the house-elves don't know what to do with all the food they have left over." He gave his friend a tentative smile, but Ron remained unresponsive.

"It's been so quiet here without you, mate," Harry said, placing the untouched tray of food on the bedside table. "Everyone is being so damn careful, afraid of saying something that might hurt. I can deal with that though, because it's better than not saying anything at all."

Ron turned to face him. Harry looked so foreign, like the pieces that made up his face were removed and put back wrong. He was emaciated, his sunken eyes settled into skin that was yellowing. Ron wondered briefly how long it had been since Harry ate something. They were both disappearing, both he and Harry were evaporating, and soon there would be nothing left of the Boy Who Lived, nothing left of his best friend.

"Please Ron," Harry pleaded, his voice cracking. "I lost Sirius. I lost Hermione. I can't lose you, too. I can't bear it." Tiny shivers racked his frail body as he began to rock back and forth. Ron expected to see fine fissures cut through the tight skin that surrounded the long bones of Harry's arms.

Harry buried his face in his hands and his shoulders began to shake fiercely. He looked just as he did the day Ron woke up in the infirmary and he first saw Hermione. Yes, they were both disappearing. They would vanish just as Sirius had, just as Hermione had, taken from the world without fanfare or flourish. And as little he cared what happened to him, he couldn't let that happen to Harry. Not to Harry.

"Do you believe in ghosts, Harry?" Ron said softly, his voice brittle from disuse.

Harry looked up quickly and froze as Ron spoke the first words he had to anyone in weeks.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" he asked again.

"Of...of course I do," he said carefully. "We see them everyday."

"No," Ron replied with a small shake of his head. "Not those. Not the kind that talk and tell stories. Not the bits of smoke and fog that roam empty corridors. I mean the ones that only you can see, only you can feel. They ones that don't go away even when you close your eyes. The ones that haunt only you."

Harry's eyes blinked rapidly as he continued to look at Ron. "I see my Mum and Dad sometimes," he said softly. "Sirius, too."

"Do they look at you like they hate you?"

Ron felt the bed shift as Harry sat next to him, felt the warmth of too thin hands covering his own. "No one hates you, Ron."

"She does," Ron said simply as he looked past Harry, to a pair of dead eyes watching him from the other side of the room.

"Hermione doesn't...didn't hate you. She loved you."

How odd, he thought, that Harry knew who he was talking about. "I know," he replied.

"She loved you as much you loved her."

Ron turned back to face his friend. "That's just it, isn't it Harry? I didn't."

"Didn't what?"

"I didn't love her," he finally admitted a loud. "Not like she wanted me to. Not like she loved me. I didn't love her enough. And because I didn't, she died."

Harry's face hardened and his hands squeezed Ron's where they were still intertwined on Ron's lap. "Hermione died because we were attacked in Hogsmeade by a half dozen Death Eaters," he said firmly. "You didn't kill her. You tried to protect her just as you tried to protect me."

"Did I? Did I really try?"

"Ron...."

"I saw them coming." Ron's eyes locked with Harry. If Harry was to know the truth, he was to know all of it. "I saw them coming. I saw two wands pointed, one at Hermione and one at you. I saw the green light shoot through the air and I made a choice. I knew I couldn't protect you both, so I made a choice." His voice softened and he pulled his hand away from Harry. "I chose you. I pushed you out of the way...and I let her die."

Harry remained quiet, looking looked at Ron with detached eyes. And Ron, who could no longer bear the silence of unspeaking eyes, broke. "It's my fault," he said crumbling into himself. His hands coming up and covered his ears as if trying to block any sound from reaching them. "It's my fault and she blames me. She blames me for not pushing her out of the way. She blames me for not loving her enough."

He felt hands grasp his own and a gentle tug trying to pull them away. "No," Harry said calmly as Ron looked up. "You did love Hermione," he continued. "You loved her as best you could. You should never have had to make that choice. No one should ever have to make that choice."

"But I made it..." Ron said in a coarse whisper.

A hand grasped his chin and slowly lifted it. "And Hermione would have understood."

"You can't see her, Harry. You can't see the look in her eyes."

"Is she here now?" Harry asked.

"She's standing across the room, watching me like she always does."

"There's nothing there, Ron," Harry said without looking at anything in the room other than his friend. "There's nothing in this room but you and me."

Ron felt Harry's arms settle around him, felt the warmth that radiated off his small body as it held him close. "You see her because you feel guilty. You feel responsible for her death, but you weren't. Loving her more wouldn't have saved her. You made the choice your heart wanted, and Hermione would never, could never, hate you for that."

He felt the tears then, felt the stream of remorse that ran down his face and seeped into his clothes, touching his icy skin. Soon the world began to blur at the edges and fade in and out and a voice from very far away whispered, "Ron, I would have chosen you, too."

~*~*~

A vibrant patch of grass had grown over the spot that tethered the last bits of Hermione Jane Granger to this earth. Ron ran his fingers through the thick pile, letting the green blades tickle his palms. It was the first time he'd been back there since the day they buried her nearly a year ago.

He was waiting for Hermione to forgive him, waiting for the taciturn lips to grant absolution. For the reticent eyes to glitter as they did when she was alive and she called his name; when she loved him.

He waited for the words to fade.

Betrayer.

Liar.

Murderer.

But they never did.

Harry had told him that Hermione couldn't forgive him because there was nothing to forgive. It was a choice that he made, and while his own guilt might never go away, he owed Hermione more than to just remember her as a ghost who tried to kill him slowly with unspoken allegations. Hermione, his Hermione, would have wanted Ron to follow his heart even if that meant choosing a path that would forever keep them apart.

No, it wasn't about forgiveness at all; it was about honesty, it was about the depth of faith and the many faces of love.

Hermione walked the back alleys of his mind, in the shadows of boyhood crushes and first kisses. He still smiled when he thought of the soft brown of her eyes or the feel of her hair between his fingers. Her voice still reminded him of upcoming exams and reprimanded him for not doing his homework. She was his friend, and that's how she should be remembered.

The wind was whirling around him, kicking up dried leaves and blowing his hair in front of his eyes. Through a curtain of red fringe he saw her: the specter that stood with him in that cemetery, the embodiment of his greatest failure, the epitome of his deepest pain. He took one last look at the face that had haunted him, at the dead eyes and the unspeaking lips of someone he had never known, and he let go.

Laying a bouquet of daisies on a stone grave marker, Ron said goodbye to Hermione's ghost.

Finis