Life Goes On...

Hermione tried to smile. And failed. She tried again. She had to. Today was her special day, after all.

She slumped back in the armchair by the window, closing her eyes to the pale summer sunshine outside. Smiling had never been so painful.....

And yet she had been smiling just moments ago as the girls had fluttered around her, fussing with the hair, smoothing the misty folds of her dress, laughing and bursting with stories of their own special day and she had laughed and smiled along with them- looking every bit the part of the radiant bride she was supposed to be.

And now....

It all came rushing back...

Harry, Ron and her- she tried to remember where they had been. They were smiling and winking and waving at her from the yellowing picture- Ron playing with her hair, even as she glared and batted his hands away while Harry grinned and rolled his eyes at the camera. He had been used to it.

And suddenly she smiled and immediately felt the pain. She had given up trying to fight it- it had haunted her for years after the War. A War that had shattered her, changed her life forever.

She couldn't change that pain.

Hermione longed to change it all back, go back to her old friends and her old family and her old life. Be her old self. Feel protected and loved once again....

She remembered a time when she was happy. A time she had been able to smile through the War.

She remembered Harry with his messy black hair and the emerald-green eyes. She remembered his wicked grin and the way he could make them laugh even as he was screaming inside....

She thought of Ron and instinctively pushed the rising tide of memories away...

She thought of Ginny with her fiery red hair and twinkling brown eyes and the freckles across a pert, little nose. She was with Seamus now. Hermione couldn't quite recollect how all that had exactly worked out but the Finnigans no doubt made the perfect family with two little boys and a pair of twin girls. Hermione was happy for them. And maybe, a little envious.

Just a little bit. Ginny had Seamus and a warm, complete home. Hermione had no one. Ginny didn't have to go through the tangled web of sleepless nights and a haunting past....She had someone she could turn to, to love her back into her dreams....

Hermione was alone. Ron was gone.

She let the savage surge of emotions hit her, the same she had tossed and turned every single restless night to forget. She thought of Ron and the way he had been able to make her feel so special. She thought of his flaming red hair and the adorable freckles and eyes that made her want to drown in the desires they awoke. She remembered how he would tease her, roll his eyes good-naturedly when she got all charged up about S.P.E.W. "Its not spew!" She had said it, like, a thousand times.

She remembered and she smiled, feeling the hot tears on her cheeks. Ron had been there to wipe them away, to soothe her when the nightmares grew unbearable. Just a flash of that lopsided grin, a gentle squeeze of his hand had been all that took to fill her with a warm glow- a glow special just to him.

The tears rolled down and onto the picture. Hermione wiped them tenderly away, willing time to just stop right there at that moment, when she could just be with Ron, and her old world again....

"Almost done, sweetheart?" Mrs. Granger's head pops in at the door. She smiles, "Your groom is waiting."

Hermione walks up to the mirror, wiping the tell-tale tears away. She sees a young bride- soft brown cascades of curls against the dainty white of her wedding gown, and it all comes back to her.

She will be married today.

"You look like an angel, darling," her mother beams.

Hermione looked around the room one last time. She took a last look at the photograph before she left it at the door, to walk down the aisle on her father's arm.

She said the vows and became a wife.

Mrs. Hermione-Granger Potter.

It'd never be the same. But she knew she had a friend.

Life goes on after all....