Perfect

Though beauty is rare enough
Still we trust
Somehow we'll find it there
With no guarantee
It seems to me
At least it should be fair

- Alison Krauss

Perfect

Lying quietly in the long grass I listen to the wind, softly rustling the leaves in the tree overhead. The leaves give the tree the effect of being on fire from a distance, like the other trees I can see when I turn my head. I've never seen so many different shades of yellow, orange and brown. It's magnificent. Through the trees thick, strong branches I can see a fantastically blue sky unlike any in the real world I assure you. Somewhere behind me, the sun shines brightly.

This is bliss.

There is nobody around for miles. Nobody to disturb. With only the birds for company, I can lavish in this amazing place. It's so peaceful. Smiling I sit up so that I may fully appreciate my surroundings. I breathe them in. Sweet as sugar.

I'm on the top of a very large hill, surrounded by fields in various shades of green. There are trees and more hills. This is all I can see for miles. This is perfect, unblemished. No Roads and one beautiful ivy covered home on the top of the neighboring hill. There is a river running behind the house, twisting and turning around trees, through fields. Slowly getting up I make my way towards it.

The grass is soft as velvet beneath my bare feet. Beside the river I sit in the precise spot I sat in only hours ago. Beside my love, who has her eyes closed peacefully against the suns rays. Her hands are small with delicate fingers. On her left is a wedding ring. A plain gold band with one perfect heart-shaped diamond protruding from it.

Fool.

To think she could leave me and marry him, like we never happened. Like it meant nothing. Like we could go on with our lives away from each other. No. I could never allow that. If I can't have her then neither can he. I can give her everything she ever wanted. More importantly: What she needs. My undying love. My heart on a string.

She's as cold as ice. Her lips are blue and her perfect skin is as white as fresh parchment. Her once frizzy mop of brown hair is in soft waves around her face, framing her face beautifully. The pink tinge has long left her cheeks. But she looks so peaceful she could be sleeping. But I know she isn't.

She should have chosen me.

I loved her more.

It doesn't matter now though. This place we're in now is our place. Our own special place. I created it purely for us. She told me her dreams and I made it a reality, for us both to share. I created a place where no-one could ever hurt her.

I bought her here to the river. We talked. We laughed. We made love. With our limbs entwined and our lips so close I was breathing her in I told her how much I loved her.

Guilt ridden, she pulled away from me. Many times before she'd told me she loved me. I knew something was wrong. I needed to hear her say it like she had before. She said she couldn't.

Then she explained to me the things I was anxious to know but didn't want to hear.

She'd gone home and packed to leave. To come to me. To be with me. Ron returned. She told him everything. He already knew, proposed anyway. He told her things with me wouldn't last, that it was a childlike fantasy she was acting out. He told her he'd love her unconditionally until the day he died. No matter who she chose, she'd always be the one for him.

He told her he only wished her to be happy and would respect her decision, even if she chose me. Something I could never do.

She knew that.

With me she would have been walking into the unknown I suppose. I'll love her forever, give her everything, but I can never be second best to another man. I cannot share her forever. I cannot live with the risk of losing her to someone else. I need her. I love her.

She came to me to say goodbye, begged me to understand her decision. She chose him.

I could not let her leave me. I love her too much for that.

As she stood to apparate, I reached for her and took her in my arms. As she tried to pull away I held tighter, unable to let her go. She became angry with me, telling me how childish I was being and how foolish I was to believe things between us would last. With all the fear and pain streaming down my face I held her tighter still. She had never been angry with me before. She was struggling to leave now, writhing in my arms, desperate to get back to Ron.

All I felt was her body close to mine, her words on my skin. I heard the air leaving her mouth, but not her words. Her hands on my chest, but not the force behind them. Just the pure electricity passing between us.

Together we fell to the river. She cries my name and it resounds inside my head. She begs to leave. To leave me. As her voice raises and she begins to shout I realise I cannot listen to this. These words were not her own, she'd been brainwashed. I cover her mouth and shush her. We were made to be together. Nobody has ever understood me the way she does, nobody fits me the way she does. After a while she goes silent. She stops struggling. She accepts that we were meant to be together forever. I carry her limp form to the riverbank where I had left her until now.

I left her so I could think. Now returning to her I have it all sorted out. Better than before. No-one can touch us now. We're going to be together now. Forever in this perfect place, created only for our bodies.

Bending I scoop her fragile frame up into my arms, as I have many times before. I carry to our home on the hill. Through the threshold as I would if she were my wife and we were married. Up the stairs and to our bed. I lay her down gently and take my place beside her.

I remove the ring from her finger and slip it into an envelope with a letter enclosed inside it, in Hermione's handwriting. I tap it with my wand and it vanishes. When Ron returns home from his mothers, jubilant at having told her the news of his upcoming wedding he shall find the envelope on Hermione's pillow. He will know she is with me. Like it was meant to be.

Fingering the blade of my knife, sharp and precise, I think of my beautiful love lying beside me. My happiness at finally knowing we'll always be together.

I always knew we'd be together forever Hermione. Deep down, so did you.