Tell Her

There was a knock on his office door. Piercing blue eyes looked up from the papers in front of him.

"Come in," he called.

The door opened to show a young woman with blonde curls, a clipboard hugged to her chest. His secretary, Astris.

"Mr. Weasley, I just got a telegram from your daughter," Astris said. "She asked if you'd like to join her for dinner tonight."

He shook his head. "No, I can't. Would you tell her that I'm sorry?"

With a nod, Astris left the room. When she had closed the door, Ron rested his head in his hands. He wanted nothing more than to see his daughter, but he couldn't bear to look at her. She looked exactly like her mother, and he couldn't deal with that. He knew that she would be angry with him. He hadn't seen her since her mother's funeral, three months earlier.

Unwanted tears filled his eyes as he thought of his wife. She was the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen, though it had taken him years to realise that he loved her. Eventually, the war had knocked some sense into him. After Harry had defeated Voldemort, there was a peace that flowed over the land and it seemed as if nothing bad could ever happen to anyone ever again.

After the Final Battle, Harry and Ginny got married. It was a glorious day, and Ron couldn't have been prouder or happier for his sister. He knew that Hermione enjoyed the idea of starting anew and so he asked her to marry him; she had said yes and they got married about a year after Harry and Ginny.

Then they had a daughter. She was exactly like her mother. She had the same brown, curly hair, and her stubborn - almost annoyingly so - nature, though she had her father's blue eyes and freckles. Her name was Alana and she took followed in her mother's footsteps, being called 'the brightest witch of her age'.

His clock sounding three in the afternoon brought him back to reality. He tidied his desk and walked out of his office, informing Astris that he was leaving early on his way past. He emerged from the building and made his way to his car. It had been Hermione's idea to get a Muggle car. It would make going to work easier for her, she had told him. He had agreed and spent many days learning how to drive it.

He drove to the nearest flower shop and got a bouquet of Hermione's favorite flowers, daffodils. He remembered when she had told him that daffodils were her favorite flowers because; they were simple and graceful, she had explained. As he put the flowers on the passenger seat, he thought fondly of his wife.

As he was driving, he thought back to three months ago. It was Alana's twenty-third birthday and Hermione was driving the two of them back from her house. It was dark and rainy, and another car had lost control at an intersection and hit them from the side, flipping them over. Ron had walked away from the accident with nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. Hermione hadn't made it.

Ron blinked away tears as he pulled into the cemetery where Hermione was buried. He parked the car and picked up the flowers. He slowly made his way through the cemetery to where his wife's gravestone was. He hadn't been able to visit the cemetery at all after the funeral.

There it was. A beautiful pink stone engraved with her name, "Hermione Jane Weasley". Underneath, it said that she was a beloved mother, friend and wife. Ron knelt in front of the stone and placed the flowers on the grass. He looked at the stone, but his vision blurred as he remembered some of their times together.

In their first year, when he and Harry had fought the mountain troll to save her, and when the three of them played on McGonagall's giant chessboard.

In their second year, she had been Petrified and he had snuck down every night to talk to her in the Hospital Wing.

In their third year, when they had all gone to the Whomping Willow and Hermione had stayed with him after Sirius had dragged him into the Shrieking Shack.

In their fourth year - he had been so jealous of Viktor Krum at the Yule Ball and they had had an enormous fight afterwards. And he had been the one who comforted her when Harry had returned from the maze with the Triwizard Cup and Cedric's body.

In their fifth year, he and Hermione had been forced to keep 12 Grimmauld Place a secret from Harry, and all of them had fought in the Department of Mysteries.

In their sixth year, he had tried to make her jealous with Lavender, and ended up hurting himself more in the process. And then he had comforted her at Dumbledore's funeral.

In their seventh year, it was the Final Battle, and he finally realised how much he loved her. When he, Harry, Ginny and Hermione had all lived through the war, he knew that he had to tell Hermione that he loved her more than anything.

Ron sobbed quietly into his hands as flashes of his life with Hermione came to mind. He thought of their wedding day and when Alana was born, and about how happy he was, standing with his wife, waving goodbye to their daughter as she went off to Hogwarts.

Thinking of his daughter, he slowly got up and walked back to his car. He drove in silence to a small brick house on a hill, where he parked and walked up the front steps. He paused a moment before knocking on the door, but when he did, his gorgeous daughter answered it.

"Dad?" she said, tears coming to her eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm so sorry, Alana," he told her, his own eyes misting over. "I'm sorry I haven't been here for you."

"Oh, Dad," she said with a sob, throwing her arms around him.

"I love you, Alana."

"I love you too, Dad."