It was difficult to see the path she had followed. This moment had been years in coming, and yet, she felt as if she had just turned a corner and found herself so alone in a world of change.

How long ago was it that she was fighting along side her two best friends? How long since she had held Ron while he was off in one of his drunken stupors? How long since she had seen the last of Dumbledore’s pale face?

Perhaps her path taken was indiscernible from the leaves and branches sewn together in the wood. The very wood that was once so dangerous and wondrous at once now stood as plain as the one surrounding her parent’s home in the countryside. The life, the magic evaporated like some beautiful, shimmering liquid from a pensieve. Hermione felt a loss of comfort in the warm embrace of the magically charged air. Hogwarts, the home for so many young witches and wizards from bygone centuries, lay in desolate ruin. The gate no longer existed, the spells gone. Her guests whispered about the beauty of the castle they’d never seen, but all she saw was the sadness seeping between the laid stones.

The path before her was evident, patted down with a running carpet the same shade as the surrounding grass. At the end stood a man whose love was entirely unexpected, yet welcomed as a meal for a dying man. Was Charlie her path? Was he a means to an end? She was not sure how she arrived here, how he came to be. Confusion was only enhanced by the memories freeing, fleeing across her mind as the flutes began to hum their sweet melody, and her feet moved forward on their own accord.

”Why does it hurt?” Ron slurred into his mug.

“What are you talking about? You’ll be all right,” Hermione soothed in her low tones.

“No. I won’t. What is it all for? Harry’s dead! And he’s been dead for three years, and it still hasn’t stopped. I want to die. I want to go with him, and maybe I can sleep one fucking night’s peace.”

Hermione sat beside him at the bar, unclear on what to say. The mature, adult part of her wanted to comfort him, to take him out and show him that life is worth something even without Harry. But in all honesty, she had no more heart to do so. She stared at Ron, wondering where her love for him went. She felt betrayed, ridiculously betrayed, by his mortal love for Harry. It was not even a romantic love, but so obviously stronger than the one he held for her. Suddenly, she was so angry, she needed a leather strap between her teeth to keep them from shattering.

“You would give everything up for Harry, when he gave everything up for you!” she screamed, standing and unconcerned with her stool clattering on the ale-soaked floor.

“That’s right!” he shouted right back. He faced her, shoulders sunken in, red-faced and sweaty. “He gave it up for us, and all you can do is whine and say how we should move on. Well there is no ‘moving on’! The world has completely changed, and we are like some left-over trinkets from a gravesite! We are supposed to be stuck here! And you are bloody selfish for trying to ignore it!”

The heat boiled in her belly and her air was fiery. “How can I be selfish when I’ve been taking care of you…you drunk! Every day you drown your sorrows, and for what? Everything was pointless. You know, a lot of people are gone, and all you think about is Harry. You do not give one shit about anyone else but Harry. God, it’s like you loved him instead of me!”

His look at her was hollow. There was hardly any flesh left on his cheeks, giving him an appearance that said he was already long gone. His eyes held a sheen that had nothing to do with emotion, and all to do with lack of thought.

A chill ran down her spine, unseen through her white dress. The very idea of a white wedding was ludicrous. She was no innocent. She had killed more than one witch. The dress, if to be correct, would be as drenched with the blood of the dead as much as her virgin blood, so long gone to the boy with the dead eyes.

It was at that inopportune moment that her eyes fell upon the upturned, smiling faces of her mother and father, so blissfully unaware that the world had changed. All they knew was that for a few years, life was dark and frightening, and suddenly, colors amplified and the world grew fresh, anew. They did not know of Voldemort. They had nary a thought for terrible wizard politics. They knew Ron was her love, that after the turning point, she refused to let them touch her. They knew she suffered through his death exactly one year before.

Two weeks after the bar fight, Hermione got a call to check on Ron, as the family was on holiday in France. Ron stayed behind, as he often did in order to spend time with his old lover, alcohol. She chose to take a train and a stroll to his London flat. It was a beautiful day, and she was just beginning to feel all right. In fact, she was considering trying to heal Ron again. Show him what life could be. The life would, she hoped, include the baby that had been growing in her belly for a month now.

She smiled as she opened the door, waltzing in with the air swirling behind her. It took her a moment to feel the emptiness of the home. The dust could be smelled. Her feet clapped against the floorboards in a way she was never previously aware of through all the bustle that normally accompanied the location. It soon became apparent he was not in the house at all. She dashed outside, her hand slipping unconsciously to her lower abdomen. She checked near the chicken pen and the shed. No sign. A scan of the horizon, and she noticed something in the woods.

It was the red hair. They were his old Chudley trainers. It was his body. Dangling. Then it all went black.

Hermione watched her feet as they dragged her to the inevitable conclusion. She spotted her stomach on the way to the ground, and her face twisted at the gruesome memory of the weeks afterward. Days were spent sipping cocoa with Mrs. Weasley, crying and attempting to find some direction. She needed an emotional compass, and everything she knew seemed to be rearranged into a Picasso painting.

She lost the baby in a flurry, from the depths of her own personal Hell. She never told a soul about it, and no one bothered to guess. They just didn’t seem to care.

Then, Charlie had come home for the Christmas holiday, looking healthy and happy….or happy enough, anyhow. He had sent Mrs. Weasley on her way, deftly sidestepping her cheeky comments (she had never liked Hermione much).

He took her away to Romania. She was there as his little sister for some time, watching practices and bringing sandwiches for the Dragon Tamers. Then, after a day spent lying in the hot dirt, he came to her and asked her to marry him. It was awkward. She knew he didn’t know her heart the way she’d dreamed a fiancé would. He brought no flowers. But his hands were strong, and knotted themselves in her hair, and quickly her head bent to bring her face to his. He kissed her lips, her eyes, her nose, her neck. He placed them all over her skin, and at each place, it was as if the pain in that one spot was wiped clean. They met on the floor of his personal bunk. She, covered in dirt. He, covered in God-knew-what. But his kisses were sweet, pecking, gentle. He was not overwhelming. He held her left hand in his right as he cleansed her soul. She squeezed hard on that hand when she was scared, when he got to a part that was as full of tears as her streaming eyes. Still, he persisted.

He kissed the side of her smallest toe and crawled up to lay on her, his heavy weight on her small frame. His eyes were blue. She had never really thought on the color, but now they shimmered from the little light emanating from the lantern in the corner.

“You’ll do it?” he asked, his face unmasked but still plain. He was not worried about rejection. It was the flat look of total comfort and total certainty. Hermione only nodded.

He buried his mouth in the nape of her neck and pulled her up. He took her to his tiny cot, lay her down, and covered her in his embrace, the musky scent of his skin permeating hers.

She was at the altar, and Charlie slipped an arm through the crook in hers. “I do love you,” he whispered calmly into her ear. “I will kiss you until it’s gone.”

She didn’t have to ask what it was he was referring to. They knew. His frown showed the effects of what he saw in her gaze as she strolled to the altar. Her eyes were as empty as Ron’s used to be, and he saw the cringe, the twisting of her features. He also must have seen her arm circle protectively around her middle.

“We’ll start a new one,” his warm breath weaved into her ear, “just as soon as you love me too.”