Lunar Eclipse


The hooded figure before him bellowed a curse his way. He swerved, avoiding it by mere inches, but tripping over a fallen figure in the process and crashing to the ground.

The man stood over him, his wand pointed directly at Ron’s face. He could hear the vile laughter through that horrid mask. He could hear his end rushing in his ears but could not muster any real sense of fear. The figure began to mutter something…

“Avada Kedavra!” yelled someone behind the figure. The black-hooded man crumpled to a heap upon the ground, over Ron’s feet. Ron hastened to get up and away.

“Ron!” Hermione screamed shrilly, throwing herself into his arms. “Oh, Merlin, Ron, I thought he’d killed you! I thought you were gone! I thought…”

“Shh, Hermione, quiet! I’m fine, it’s alright,” Ron hushed her quietly, leading her away from the battle raging out before them. He still had his wand out in one hand while the other held Hermione. His eyes were alert, darting every which way as they avoided misguided curses. Making sure there had been no one who’d seen and followed them.

“Ron, have you seen anyone?” asked Hermione, now calmed slightly, hanging onto his hand as if she would float away if she let go, back to whispering. “I saw the twins just a while ago, and I think someone got Kingsley, but I’m not sure if he’s dead.”

“I saw my Mum and…they got Charlie…injured, at least…Where’s Harry?” Ron choked. They’d just stepped over the mutilated corpse of an Auror and he wondered, feeling nauseous as he did, whether his brother looked anything like that.

They’d managed to reach the outskirts for a clearer view unnoticed. He could see the figure of the Death Eater Hermione had killed lying all alone on the ground far away. He could see Fleur attempting to lift Bill inconspicuously. There was Mad-Eye, firing hex after hex at a figure that looked suspiciously like Lucius Malfoy. There was Remus standing over Bellatrix’s body…But there was no sign of Harry.

He glanced at Hermione, noticing as he did the glistening trail that ran down her face from her eyes, eyes filled with a horror unnerving to behold.

“I haven’t seen him and…Ron…I feel horrible…I killed someone, Ron! I’m a terrible person, I-” She broke into horrible, heart-wrenching breaths and moans. Her hold upon his hand became painful. Her eyes were clouding over, losing the determination they’d held not long ago.

Ron grabbed her arms roughly and turned her to face him, whispering in a soothing yet forceful voice, “You did what you had to do! You saved my life. That man didn’t care about anyone else’s life, so why do you think he has the right to live himself? This is war: you fight for who deserves it; you don’t stop to consider the rest. You do what you have to do… You saved me…I won’t let anything happen to you.” Ron glared into her eyes with such a fierce force that they seemed to burn, as though he wanted the fire to spread and set her eyes alight once more.

She merely breathed deeply for a while, keeping her eyes on his as though they would give her more answers that she longed to hear. Then Hermione glared right back; the fire had spread and burned the fear and uncertainty. There was a trail of blood running from her left eye; it seemed to reflect the red in her eyes and her wild hair was singed at the ends. But never had she looked more beautiful to him.

“We have to find Harry, Hermione,” he said in urgency. Before he could move she hugged him, but he was still watching the battle.

“I know. We have to go,” she murmured.

“Hermione,” he whispered, trying to pull her arms from around him, “we need to find Harry. Now.”

She didn’t let go of him. “I love you, Ron. I love you so much,” she whispered into his bruised and bloodied shoulder, a constricted note to her desperate voice.

“I love you too, but right now we have to go,” Ron stated firmly pulling away from her, trying to contain his building impatience. The seriousness, the danger that surrounded them so effectively didn’t permit his mind to dwell upon such a confession, upon a moment that should have been beautiful and eternal. He kissed her hastily and sloppily, not even realizing he had begun and ended anything significant. Then, holding her hand with their wands both out, they made their way back through the battlefield.

Twice they were attacked. The first time by Malfoy, who leered at them as they fought back to back, never to be parted. He stopped leering though when Hermione stunned him, and then used a curse to throw him across the field. The second time Hermione was hit by something, but though in pain she said she managed to hold herself up just fine. They had not left each other’s sides.

And then they saw him. Harry was battling a tall, skeletal figure just ten feet away from them. He was severely injured: his left arm hung limply at his side, and blood streamed freely from his head, spilling over his eyes that looked somehow dulled.

Ron and Hermione watched in a horrified trance. All of the other voices and deadly flashes of colour fading into unimportance as Voldemort fired another curse at Harry and he crumpled to the ground, screaming in pain. Just as they were both running toward their fallen friend, insanely, three Death Eaters stepped before them. Ron lashed out at the first and didn’t even bother with a wand, but swung lethally violent punches. The man said not a word as he fell and his companions seemed slightly stunned. Hermione took out her wand and mumbled something then the second Death Eater was thrown away, knocking into the one standing over the stumbling Fleur and Charlie.

They could see over the shoulder of the last Death Eater that Voldemort was standing over Harry, talking to him. They could not hear what was said, there was too much shouting and screaming and the rushing of spells. Voldemort was, fingering his wand hungrily. Harry looked as if he could barely even see through the stream of blood from his head. Then a Death Eater moved toward them. He sent Ron hurtling backward with a stunner, but missed when he’d aimed at Hermione just afterward. She once again flung a hex at the man and he crumpled to the ground, clutching his eyes. She began to run forward.

Ron screamed out to her. He fought against the curse binding him he used every single ounce of strength and he began to move but only feebly. It was not enough. He forced himself off the ground, slowly, and he watched as Voldemort raised his wand into Harry’s face, as the green began to come from it, as Harry closed his dull and miserable defeated eyes…as Hermione pushed herself before Harry…as the green hit her in the chest.

Ron did not notice when the curse placed upon him shattered away. He did not notice how both Voldemort and Harry stared at her once she’d fallen, shocked. He did not see Harry’s face begin to fill with an unimaginable pain and fury. He did not see Harry stand, filled with a new and horrible furious life, and bellow incomprehensibly into the sky as the very earth seemed to shake, as if it were cowering. Or Voldemort, suddenly alight with fear, send that haunted green flying at Harry again…Or how it rebounded off of Harry as he raised his own wand…How the green collided with Voldemort’s face…How Harry had then screamed heart wrenchingly and dropped to his knees, clutching at her hand as his opponent fell…Ron noticed none of these things, but he noticed, as if in a slow mode, as Hermione sent him her last look.

The curse had almost hit her. A look of fulfilling grandeur came upon her face as it lost all vestiges of fear and desperation and she smiled. She turned her head, the blood on her face gleaming in the sun as it set tragically behind the tall border of the forest, filling this death stained earth with a different kind of red. Her gaze was solemn yet content in a way as it landed upon him and remained there. That fraction of a second before the green met with her heart lasted more than any other moment of his life. It conveyed more to him than a million words ever could. She was smiling. Eternity dwelled in that look. All of those things that should have been…He was aware of them somehow as she smiled. All of the things that were not said...they filled the unearthly connection of their eyes for a moment in time.

And then the green reached her skin, seeped into her heart and took it away. But it could not take with it that look. Even as she slowly fell to her knees, then with her face against the ground, her eyes, even if in a literal sense they were now empty, never left his…never were they parted…

**********************************************************************

Ron heard the stairs creaking as someone made their cautious way up. His eyes flew open in horror. He sat up in bed and frantically began to wipe them on the back of his hand, stuffing the picture under the bed he lay on. He knew it would look suspicious; he’d not gotten up all morning and his face was surely red and puffy. His eyes felt gummed together by very strong glue that stung incessantly.

“Ron?” his mother asked him tentatively, poking her head through the door. Once she saw he was awake she stepped in. “Ron, you haven’t been downstairs all morning, I was wondering when you’d show. Oh, we’re so late already; everyone is probably already there at St. Mungo’s. Merlin’s beard, they’ve probably already seen the baby…”She bit her lip uncertainly. “I did tell Ginny I wanted to be the third to hold that baby, I hope she remembers her promise…a grandmother has every right…” And she continued to mumble on about how and why the right to hold Ginny’s baby third was reserved solely for her. Ron sat praying she would continue in her state of great distraction so as not to see his face that bore the unmistakable signs of grief.

“It’s probably got black-hair…Sirius and James both have black-hair…but then, they are twins, perhaps the chances of having a red-headed baby are just the same…after all, Harry’s mother was red-haired…oh, Ron, isn’t it wonderful! And you’re godfather! Why, you...” Her voice trailed off. She’d noticed his face.

She seemed to deflate before his eyes. She went from careless, blissfully joyful to heavy, miserable and anxious so quickly it was startling. After staring in quiet horror for a while she moved toward him slowly but determinedly. She gazed at him intently as he watched the ground. The wind that blew in from the window whipped her hair into her face but she ignored it completely.

“Ron…”

“I’m fine, Mum,” he croaked, still staring at the ground. There was a little stain of red over near the corner. He wondered what it was from.

She bent down to pick something up off the floor. He watched out of the corner of his eye in silent and somehow numb anguish as she took the photograph from under the bed by the little corner of it that was unhidden. She then sat down next to him but thankfully made no move to touch him. She merely handed back the photo. He took it without looking at her. He glanced at it: there she was. Her brown hair was as wild as ever, her smile as bright, her eyes as dark and indefinable as the night that they, so like it, would never see again. She waved at him. She smiled. He felt his throat clench.

His mother had stood and moved toward the dresser in the corner, picking up a tall glass that sat there. She turned to him, pretending, he knew, to look reprimanding. Her eyes were much too moist for someone trying to seem severe as she said, “You brought this up yesterday morning.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled to the stain, although he knew she wasn’t obliging him to explain or even answer at all. People never demanded much of him anymore.

He could tell that as she stood there holding the dirty cup she was struggling. It was of her nature to comfort, to become rid of her child’s grief even if it were provoked by a nature much more powerful than a mother’s. Even if it were inerasable, she’d try. He admired her for her strength, unconsciously, but was grateful, consciously, that she sensed his needs. At that moment his need was to be alone, to give into pain as it was far more welcoming than light, reason and beauty…those all hurt too much, perhaps even more than acceptance. He wondered how such things could still exist at all to everyone else…Didn’t they remember?

“You are coming, aren’t you?” Mrs. Weasley asked. Once he nodded his head she sighed and walked toward the door, the cup in hand.

Before she could leave him to himself and his immitigable pain, she whispered, “She wanted you left behind, you know. She wanted us all left behind so that we could keep on living, and laughing. That was her wish. Grant her wish…and Ron?” She waited for him to look up until she continued, “You are the godfather. Make sure you’ll be there.”

Once Ron had nodded she left quietly leaving him feeling, if possible, even worse than before. He felt now, on top of everything else, bad about emptying his mother’s happy balloon at being a grandmother for the fourth time, the second time in one month, as Bill and Fleur had had their first child not too long ago, Lucy. But he did not at all feel like going to St. Mungo’s and dampening Harry and Ginny’s sure to be jubilant moods. Not, of course, that he’d ever intended to…he just couldn’t help it.

He wasn’t always this moody and depressed. He normally managed to escape the particularly painful torture that was memory. He only got this way whenever he was somehow reminded of how his life ought to have been. If Hermione were still there would they maybe be having children? Would they be married yet? It would have been four years since the end of the war, which was enough. Or would she want to wait? They would be married of course, wouldn’t they? They would be happy. Maybe they would have stopped bickering. Maybe…

Another blow of grief hit him as he pictured in his head a little boy, or a girl with her big brown eyes and his bright red hair as bushy as hers had been, running around a house, calling, ‘Mummy’!

It was spring in his mind, even if the warm summer’s night seeped in through the window. Spring, the time when hibernating animals awake from their slumber. The time when the ice of numbness is chipped away by that overwhelming, unnameable feeling, the return of life into an empty, torpid cave. Spring, when eyes open to see that the sun still rises from the East and sets in the West, that its presence is still day and its absence is still night. But what difference did it all make? The only change he felt from night to day was the ease with which he fell asleep when the light departed. Every year had been a blank page, as if his book had been put on hold, or tossed away, since the permanent ink didn’t allow a do over. His parchment was irreversibly stained by useless words. The flowers that bloom in the spring are merely the tormenting reminder that there is no life in winter, and will never be.

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He leapt to his feet, flung the picture away and marched from the room, thundering down the stairs of the empty house. He was staying at the Burrow to help his mother and father. His father had been severely injured in the war, losing a leg and injuring the other. He now rolled himself around the house delightfully in a Muggle wheelchair Harry had gotten him Christmas before last.

Ron landed in the kitchen and hurried through the door, not even noticing the newspaper that lay upon the table, with a short little announcement about Harry and Ginny’s baby and a picture of the couple, Ginny looking as round as a beach ball. Ron wondered at how Harry had changed after the war. He was, of course, so much more at peace. And he seemed to take Hermione’s sacrifice as reason to live like no one else had ever lived before. Just the other day he had been discussing plans to take the family to Alaska the next year to see the Northern Lights. And then he wanted them to explore the depths of the ocean. Or else they were all going bungee jumping, some mad Muggle sport. Or perhaps he was just making his kids a chocolate Easter egg that was bigger than his pregnant wife. No one lived like Harry. Life actually seemed to make sense to him. Or perhaps it was the lack of sense that made sense.

And neither did he notice the larger article above it, with an image of the moon hidden by a black shadow and the caption, ‘Get Your Wish Granted during the Lunar Eclipse’.

Ron took the path he knew by heart, as his mind visited it every night, against his will. To go there willingly felt strange, as if he were a child who had listened to his parents tell him endlessly to eat his vegetables and had finally realised they had reason to say it. He made his way through the field across from the Burrow, kicking at shrubs, refusing to feel when a thorn cut through his jeans. He felt slightly surreal, walking this path again, after four years, under the moonless sky. The last time he had walked this path he had been carrying her body, shedding painful, soundless tears. It was the first time he had cried again since that day. He had even forgotten what it felt like.

He walked on until he had made his way through the small wood that divided the field in two. He stepped into the field of green, at places grey where there were tombs. And there it was right in the middle, the tallest of all: a giant polished stone upon which stood a sculptured angel, its arms reaching toward the sky, as if there was actually something more than clouds up there. He glanced up: there were no clouds that night. Even the moon had deserted him.

He made his way over and stared at the stone. The words ‘Our Heroine’ were etched into her tomb, as if those empty carvings could actually hand out some sort of glory. Ron knew very well that after the end of it all Harry had made absolutely sure the world knew just how much they owed their lives to Hermione Granger. He knew that one day every year millions of people raised their glasses, mumbling ‘to Hermione Granger, and all of our heroes’, then said nothing else for a minute, as if those words needed time and silence to reach…to reach what? What was there to be reached, if there was really nothing at all? He knew that every night Harry closed his eyes and turned his head toward the sky, as if there were something to be heard. Didn’t he get tired of hearing the silence? No one ever answered. There was no one there. He knew she was glorified. But where was the glory in death? He did not see it. What was the difference; murder, sacrifice, they all ended the same way. One forsaken, rotting corpse was no different than the other. There was no glory, beauty or good left in the world. All of those things had left with her four years ago.

He let the helplessness wash over him, as his knees gave in and sank to the moist grass. His head hung and a single, lonely drop of water fell from his chin. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to be truly miserable, as he had denied himself any sort of feeling for so long. He imagined she was just behind the stone, looking through it at him…and then he remembered she was not. She was nothing at all anymore.

A creature watched him as he cried. A very small little creature; of an unnaturally bright glow that seemed hidden behind a veil of shadow. Ron did not notice the shadowy glow of the little thing, not even as it landed upon the angel’s head. Even if it had made a sound he wouldn’t have heard. And he couldn’t feel the light emanating from it, as feeling had become something truly obscure to him. He had his eyes closed and in his palm. He was murmuring quietly, not even aware he’d been speaking aloud, “I wish you’d never left my side…I wish it …that’s what I wish…you’d never left my side…”

The creature, unbeknownst to him, rose into the air, in such a fluid motion that denied his belief in the world’s lack of grace or beauty. It floated upward until it aligned with where the moon should have been. Its glow still not appearing from behind the unseen veil, it appeared to look down at him, so lost in a world that didn’t wait. A world that began to change, as if years had passed. The trees were emptied of life, the grass lost its green, and the stone angel faded, as did all the other graves. Only the moon remained as it was, hidden in shadow. Only one thing seemed to bloom as everything else died away: a woman, with eyes as indefinable as night, standing where the angel had been, looking curiously down at Ron.

Ron sensed the chilling change to the air. He opened his eyes. He took in the image of a human foot just before him. His heart seemed to stop. His eyes wandered upward and beheld the figure looking down at him.

“Hermione…”

It was only natural that he should be breathing, but he could not feel the air entering or leaving his lungs. Perhaps he wasn’t breathing. Perhaps his heart wasn’t beating. Perhaps he had died and gone to Heaven. If so, he had been kneeling there in Heaven for quite some time, staring at her.

Even as he convinced himself it was a dream, he had moved forward. He had stood up from the ground and taken three little steps toward her. She was still there, looking at him with those eyes. He reached out a hand, barely knowing what he was doing, and pressed it to her cheek.

Her skin was warm against his cold fingers. It was soft.

“Are you real?” he asked in a croaky, dry whisper. His voice sounded like he had just learned to speak, and still could not do it very well. His fingers didn’t feel like they belonged to his body, and neither did his eyes, taking her in as they were. He felt like he had fallen into a book. He would wake up any time now, to find the clearing empty again. Her cheek would show its self as being nothing more than the brush of the grass against his fingers.

To his utter astonishment, fear, joy, she nodded her head. He noticed her eyes seemed too bright, a little confused, and the corner of her mouth twitched. He knew not if up or down.

Then suddenly the graceful surreal atmosphere of this place, no doubt Heaven, vanished as he gave a strangled little cry and yanked her into his arms, holding her so tightly he almost felt her ribs break.

For a while as he held her he did not know what to think. If he were going mad he would certainly not feel her as he did, so close and so fierce. It must not have been a dream.

Time had stopped four years ago when he stared in to her night-sky-eyes for the last time, and this time, as he looked into them again, it sped up. Feeling so weak from disbelieving joy that he could not manage a word, he felt her hug him back just as tightly. She squealed in a watery way and she let her hand fly up from his shoulder to his vibrant hair. As the joy overwhelmed him so completely tears streamed down his face he picked her up and spun her in circles. She laughed and the sound rang through the empty clearing.

He pulled back to look at her and noticed there were tears in her eyes too. She was there, right there! He was holding her in his arms! The world was good. There was mercy. He felt so alive he seemed no longer to live. Why was life any more real than a dream?

“You really are here, aren’t you?” he asked again. Any word at all that he’d said would have fit.

She let another cry leave her trembling lips and her head nodded again before she had pressed her mouth against his.

It was too short; even though Ron had no idea how long it lasted. What did that matter? Forever wasn’t long at all. They were together now, and life was perfect! What did he care if he’d wasted four years in mourning, running from acceptance? Here they were, and they would soon be going to St. Mungo’s where the happiness would probably become so thick they would choke on it. They would be married, and they’d have kids to look after, cousins for James, Sirius and Lucy. They’d live there with his parents so they could help out, and they’d say ‘Good morning’ every morning and ‘Good night’ every night. Even the now dead-looking clearing, to which he spared no thought, was beautiful to him.

“Ron,” she finally whispered, resting her forehead against his, unable to wipe the confused smile from her face, “what happened?”

“I wished you back and you came,” he answered in a whisper. His voice hadn’t truly recovered yet.

She seemed slightly more confused. “What about the battle…? The last thing I remember is running in front of Harry and then I looked at you and I was…gone…” She stared off for a while, as she saw something there. “It was very…strange…like I was hanging somewhere between two places. Like I was just waiting for something…it was…strange.”

He watched her intently, unable to bring himself to be alarmed or keep the smile from his face. He doubted he would ever be able to wipe it off.

“You threw yourself in front of Harry, and Voldemort killed you,” Ron stated, not minding at all the look of shock on her face. “Then Harry killed him, and all the Death Eaters panicked, and we got almost all of them that same day. And now you’re here! You’re…”

Before he could complete his own sentence, he was overwhelmed by the need to hold her again, and he did. “I’ve missed you so much,” he whispered into her hair, and he didn’t mind at all when his voice broke pathetically, for she was sighing into his shoulder.

She tensed in his arms when they heard a sound, like a twig snapping, from the other side of the dark wood. He pulled away and took out his wand, shielding her protectively.

“Who’s there?” he called. His voice had lost its watery quality very quickly.

Whoever it was answered by sending a curse toward them that barely missed Hermione, hitting the tree behind her.

She screamed and put her arms over her head as bits of bark fell upon her. As other curses were sent their way, Ron took her hand and yanked her away, blocking the curses. His first impulse would have been to stand and fight, but the only thing that mattered now was Hermione, and that she stay with him. No one would dare take her away from him now, after he’d finally gotten her back.

They ran along that path, once imprinted into his mind by horror. He could hear Hermione panting behind him, and he knew she was still confused. He didn’t understand the situation himself, he still thought that it was a dream that was slowly distancing from bliss, but his mind seemed to disregard this fact. Who cared how, anyway?

“Ron, what happened here?” Hermione gasped, looking around.

If he had been paying more attention he would have noticed that the trees around them were fewer, that the weeds rose much higher than they should have, that there was an eerie, oppressing quality to the silence. He would have noticed that the surroundings seemed uncared for, and forsaken.

He slowed down his pace. She was looking around in a dull sort of horror and confusion at the neglect so obviously present.

“I thought you told me the war was over. Hasn’t anyone had the chance to nurse things back?” she asked quietly.

Something was beginning to grow inside of him, but he did his best to ignore it, tugging her along more insistently through the dark, shadowed wood that led them home. He could hear vaguely, somewhere in the distance, angry voices and cautious footfalls, but it was nothing more than a whisper against the increasing pounding of his heart as they made their way out of the wood and into the unkempt field.

“Ron, who were those people trying to attack us? Does someone own that property now?”

He could have told her, no, that land was owned only by the dead, but he just stared ahead of him, completely bewildered for the first time that night: The Burrow was gone. In its place was a large expanse of dead, yellowing grass, and above it, in vibrant green colours, The Dark Mark.

Ron could only stare. He felt Hermione gasping beside him.

“Ron, where are we?” she asked in a confused and pained little voice.

He ran forward, unconsciously taking her along, until he was standing right where the kitchen table should have been. Nothing changed; it was not an illusion, not a trick of some sort. He glanced down and almost felt bad for running upon such miserable-looking grass.

His blissful joy was vanishing, as cold, stifling dread set in. He forced himself to breathe and he ran away, back up to the road. He stood there, not knowing what to do, where to go, what to think. Hermione followed him and reached for his face forcefully.

“Ron!” she hissed firmly. “What happened?”

He stared into her eyes for a while, meaning himself to find a flicker of reason in them, but there was nothing there. Even so, he could not bring himself to look away. “I don’t know…they all left for St. Mungo’s a while ago, because Harry and Ginny just had a baby again, and I was going to go later…but then I went for a walk and…”

The look on her face told him that wasn’t exactly the kind of answer she wanted, but she didn’t say a word and continued to watch him as he whispered, “I was sitting there in front of…in front of your grave. I was feeling so helpless; I started whispering, I think, wishing you hadn’t left my-” he stopped speaking as he hear the sounds of arguing voices coming closer.

“This way,” Hermione whispered, taking his hand and silently heading toward an overgrown cluster of bushes toward the bend in the road to the left. The voices became more distant as they crouched there in thorns quietly. She turned back to him again, an unreadable expression in her eyes, saying, “And what next?”

“Next thing I know, you’re standing right in front of me, back from the dead after four years.”

He saw her shiver, though the air was quite humid and warm. She looked up at the sky, and the sheer black seemed to reflect itself in them.

“Look,” she whispered, “there’s no moon tonight. It’s a lunar eclipse. It’ll happen sometimes, but it’s really rare.” She turned to stare at him, breathing heavily. Ron saw a familiar glint in her eye, only a little obscured. It amazed him, even comforted him slightly that she could still light up with that glow she always got when she was explaining something particularly interesting.

“I think I understand how…I can be here at all. There’s this ancient Celtic myth about the day the moon disappears. It says fairies come out, and they grant people’s wishes. A long time ago there was a huge fuss about this, because people thought they could get anything they wanted. But according to the myth, the fairies only grant wishes to the people that think they can’t live without what they wish for. So, not many people would get their wishes…”

Ron’s head was spinning. It was almost too much to take in. He rubbed his sweating hands across the grass beneath him and took a deep breath. Hermione was looking at him strangely. Perhaps the words ‘can’t live without’ were running through her head too.

“But,” Ron whispered, clearing his throat as he did, “that doesn’t explain why, why the Burrow’s gone, or why all the tombs disappeared…”

Hermione continued to watch him, that glow still present, as if she were trying hard to solve a difficult, unpleasant, question in class. “I think…you might have changed something with your wish. If you change the past, you change the future…”

A chill ran through Ron, a chill that had nothing to do with the weather and frightened away the blinding joy he’d experienced not even an hour ago. He stared at her intently, knowing that she was thinking along the same lines. He took a deep breath and looked away quickly. She put a hand over his, in what was meant to be a comforting way. It only served to chill him further. It would soon be nothing more than the trace of a lost affection, again.

“My darling.” She inched herself softly toward him, until she was holding his face in her hands gently, though slightly shaken. “You haven’t been well, have you?”

He knew she was not asking about his health.

Before he could release his grief upon her, as he was dangerously close to doing, a figure came before them, and stood there over them, having parted a way through the bushes, unnoticed.

Hermione’s stifled scream made his flesh crawl, as they both pushed themselves away further into the thorny growth, reaching for wands in terrified haste, staring with eyes painfully wide at the black-hooded, fogged spectacle before them. Before they could utter a single word, the figure had lowered its hood.

The face was so pale it could have been a ghost. Her long hair was so thin it blew, even though the wind had stopped. It was almost as colourless as her face. Her lips seemed painfully chapped. She had very large eyes. They were very large, and very empty. There was a lingering mistiness to them that gave her a haunted sort of look. She seemed not surprised, not angry, and not concerned as she looked at them on the dead ground.

“Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley,” she said impassively. “I thought you were both dead.”

They looked on transfixed as the woman moved toward them, lowering her wand, and just stood there, staring at them with her unnervingly lacking eyes.

“It’s been four years since anyone’s seen you,” the woman went on, as if she couldn’t see the panic, the confusion on their poor faces. She didn’t seem to see much of anything. “The world can still surprise me.”

Hermione and Ron shivered. She did not sound surprised; she sounded exhausted, apathetic, defeated. It was not pleasant to listen to. It was almost nauseating.

“Who are you?” Hermione asked in a quiet, terrified voice, holding Ron’s hand very hard in her own.

The girl sighed. “I suppose I’m not much of anyone anymore. I haven’t been for years… I’m just a person doing what she’s ordered, because she has no other choice. I am no one, but I was once Luna Lovegood.”

“Luna?” they gasped after a moment of silence.

She smiled mirthlessly. “I don’t look it, do I?”

Ron could not bring himself to even shake his head. He stared in horror. There was something truly grotesque about the once dreamy girl’s transfiguration into an emotionless ghost. Nothing of their old friend lingered in that face.

“What happened to you?” Hermione whimpered.

“Nothing. Life. Death. War. All of them at once, I guess.”

They could only gape at her, repulsed.

“You’ve been gone for a long time,” she murmured unnecessarily. “Things aren’t the same.”

Ron swallowed against the rising bile and fear in his throat. A shiver past through the couple, as they sat there trying to understand. The wind began to blow again, horribly warm and teasing.

“Luna…” Hermione moaned by his ear, gazing up at her, “who won the war?”

Luna looked at her face, at the tears that threatened to spill, and quite simply she stated, “They did. He is master to everyone now.”

“No! No, it’s not true. We won!” Ron protested angrily as Hermione leaned on him silently. Was this all a joke? Why had it started out so beautiful, just to end like this? It was truly an unfair, sick game.

“You’ve been gone very long,” Luna repeated, and Ron fancied for a moment that he saw a flicker of pity in her eyes. But then, as she continued to watch him apathetically, he was certain he had imagined it. “Where were you? You must have hidden very well, if they could never find you.”

They ignored her question. “Luna,” Hermione demanded, terrified, “what about Harry? Where is he?”

Luna lowered her eyes to the ground. Then she pointed up toward the moonless sky. “He’s up there.”

Hermione let out one heart wrenching moan and buried her face in Ron’s shirt. He felt as if someone had knocked all the air out of his lungs. It was all a lie…a very horrible and realistic lie.

“No,” he said in a quiet, dangerous voice.

“Yes. They all are.”

“No!” Ron lunged forward and grabbed Luna by the shoulders, shaking her furiously, gripping her cold, limp arms very hard. He looked into her amazingly, disgustingly tranquil face, in a maddened way. His eyes stung and watered but he didn’t notice. “He’s not dead! Stop LYING!”

He continued to shake her, shouting crazily. She continued to do nothing. Once more she mumbled and pointed, “He’s up there.”

Ron pushed her away, onto the road. Then he dropped to his knees in anguish so deep he couldn’t feel it hurting; it took over completely. He shouted into his hands until he felt as if his throat were bleeding. The tears leaked out unnoticed until he was most likely dry. Luna had lifted herself from the ground and stood there, watching for the longest time. She had not averted her eyes. There seemed to be nothing in the least painful about the scene to her.

Distantly, Ron felt a warm and wet hand upon his shoulder, and he clutched at it. With her other, Hermione wiped at his face. He could hear her sniffling and watery breathing as well. When he looked up, her eyes were no longer filled with joy, confusion, or even dread and horror. They were full of determination. It did not make him feel any better.

“Luna,” she said, turning to the ghost girl, “can you bring us back to the clearing.”

She nodded, glancing around as she did. “I’m alone now. We won’t be found,” she said, already moving toward the little path through the field, which had once been neat and cute. It was a lifetime away now.

“Found by whom?” Hermione asked, as she dragged Ron along with her.

“By the Death Eaters.” Luna blasted the weeds away, unceremoniously.

“Are they here?” Hermione gasped, looking around wildly.

“No, I told them to go on. They have more pressing matters to attend to. Besides, I wasn’t too fond of watching it either…” Luna’s voice grew too quiet for once.

“Wait…you’re with them?” Ron stopped in his tracks and stared in acute disgust at the back of Luna’s head, as she continued to weave her way through the brambles.

“Everyone is with them. Those who refuse, or fight, go to join the angels. None of the strong or brave are left.”

“And you chose to live in his service, rather than die?” Ron demanded loudly, as the anger boiled away inside him.

Luna had no answer for a while. She had stopped her walking, but she had not turned to look into his revolted, murderous face. A light breeze blew, but it brought with it warmth that managed to heat no more than their bare necks.

“I didn’t. But they took my father. They keep him captive, because they find it amusing to see me subject myself to this for his sake. They did the same with your father, keeping your brother Charlie for a few years…they’re both gone now.”

If Ron had thought he could hurt no more, that further pain was impossible, he found that he was wrong. A fresh wave of grief rolled over him and threatened to wash him away. Hermione slipped her shaking hand into his and kept him moving, as he tried his hardest not to picture his family’s eternally lost faces. She had no words to say, though. Her words could do nothing to heal the wounds Luna’s were carving.

“They do that to most everyone they know who ever helped Harry. Somehow, they find it funny.”

“Luna, who’s left?” he could not keep himself from asking, as they retook to walking, and made it out of the field, into the wood.

“Bill hasn’t been found yet. And neither have George, or Ginny, or Professor Lupin…Neville died last week. He took with him what was left of my heart.” Luna actually shivered through the warmth, as they wound their way through trees with empty branches.

“I’m so sorry,” Hermione whispered. It seemed an odd thing to say. Ron realized for the first time how entirely useless those words were.

“They’re going to burn his body tonight. I’m glad they didn’t force me to see it.”

Horror gripped Ron’s throat tightly, and he could not fight it back. He swore quietly, with such venom he almost heard a similar anger provoked into Luna’s breathing. But once again, after a few moments, he realized he had not.

Silence led them to the empty, depressing clearing. He could still see the place where he had knelt upon the grass, as it seemed particularly weak and smothered there.

“I could maybe help you hide somewhere,” Luna offered numbly as she turned to look at them finally. “They would find me out, of course. They would kill my father and me. But I’m beginning to think that would have been the best all along. Nothing’s left for me to live for anyway.”

Suddenly Ron didn’t feel so fearful and disgusted by Luna. He suddenly realized that was the sort of thing that happened to someone when they had truly lost it all, and even through the grief that would not release him, he felt sympathy for her.

“There’s no need, Luna,” whispered Hermione. She was staring directly at him. “We won’t be staying here.”

He shivered worse than ever. He suddenly had an idea where she was planning to go to, and of all the things he’d witnessed and heard that night, it was what horrified him the most.

Luna did not ask where they were going. She looked at them long and hard, then glanced at the sky. She sighed. “I will follow.”

Without another word, she was gone with a pop. But Ron understood her parting words; soon she would be profoundly gone, never to return.

They were alone as Hermione’s eyes pierced his. He looked away. He could not bear it. He would not.

He watched a crinkled brown leaf resisting against the warm wind to remain attached to the old branch of a miserable-looking bent tree. It turned over and over, and every moment it looked as if it might be torn away by the relentless, merciless wind, but the branch did not let it go, no matter how hard the wind blew.

He did not know how long he stood there watching the tree, until he noticed her hand against his face. He closed his eyes tightly.

“I could never live with myself,” Hermione began in a brittle, fragile voice, taking a step closer to him, “knowing that one day I had the chance to save you, and didn’t.”

He made a jerking motion with his head, to show he understood, even if he was unwilling to admit it.

Hermione took another deep breath. “I…I could never survive with the knowledge that everything, and everyone, is doomed, because I’m still here.

“And I can’t last in this place another second, thinking that I’m being watched from Heaven by people that aren’t supposed to be up there this soon.”

Her breathing hitched and he felt the warmth of tears starting to form behind his shut eyes, as his throat grew painfully tight, his hands shook, and something in his chest heaved.

“Oh, Ron,” Hermione whimpered pathetically, “I…I’m sorry. If I could, I would wish for nothing more than to stay here with you.”

Ron swallowed the tightening in his throat and blinked back the pressure on his eyes. When he opened them he noticed that the leaf was still hanging onto the branch, somehow. The wind mockingly intensified.

“It’s not fair. I never wanted to choose…why couldn’t I just have you all? It’s…it isn’t fair.”

She moved closer to him. “Was life fair to Harry when his parents, and Sirius, were taken so early on? Was life fair to Sirius when he was sentenced to Azkaban for Pettigrew’s crime? What about Remus: was it fair when Fenrir bit him? It wasn’t fair to your parents when Percy turned his back on them.”

Her hands gently caressed his cheeks, but he didn’t want to feel their softness. He wanted to feel bitter wind lashing at his skin without mercy. But it didn’t come; only the wind came to blow his hair into his eyes, and then her fingers brushed the strands away.

“Sometimes,” Hermione went on, as lovingly as ever, “life isn’t fair. But even so, we manage to be happy. Did Harry and Sirius, Remus and your parents, did they all quit living just because the world wasn’t just to them? You’ll still have happy moments, Ron.”

“You don’t understand,” Ron whispered against her forearm, looking determinedly to the ground. “I can’t be happy without you.”

She sounded as if she’s swallowed a cry. She breathed in very deeply, as if there weren’t enough air in the clearing. “You won’t be without me. I would never leave you completely.”

“Yes you will,” he insisted miserably. “You’re going to be gone. I’ll never see you again.”

She grabbed his face firmly in her hands and ordered quietly, “Look at me.”

He did. Her eyes swam in tears, her skin had become much paler, and her lips trembled. The sight made him want to scream, cry, throw himself upon the ground and beg. But all he did was stand there, breathing in her scent, gazing into her endlessly black eyes.

“No, you won’t ever see me again. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll be leaving you.” She rubbed the bridge of his nose tenderly, smiling sadly. Then she turned her eyes toward the equally lightless sky. “Look up there.”

He tore his eyes away from hers, feeling the light tickle of a tear creeping stealthily from his lashes, and turned them skyward. All he saw was a vast black infinity and a veiled sort of redness where the moon should have been.

“Can you see the moon, Ron?” Hermione barely whispered.

He shook his head, shivering in the warmth of the summer breeze.

“But is it there?” Her voice shook tremulously.

Ron was silent for a long time, gazing up. His throat had clenched so tightly he felt as if were about to choke. His chest rose quickly up and down and his heart beat pounded against his ribs. Her hands felt as warm as ever as he finally nodded, letting more tears escape helplessly.

Hermione sobbed quietly once, and she let her hands fall down to his shoulders, clutching him tightly. “I’m like the moon. Death is just a shadow I’m hiding behind. If you really love me, you’ll know: I’m always there, even when you can’t see me.”

Ron nodded his head roughly before sobbing loudly and grabbing her into his arms, holding her there, desperately. He held her so tightly he almost left off feeling, as her tears soaked into his shirt unnoticed. The wind blew fiercer than ever and the leaf finally gave up its battle, giving into weakness gracefully.

“I love you, Ron,” Hermione moaned in a high voice into his shoulder. “I wish I’d saved you when I had the chance.”

A creature, like a sphere of veiled light, rose into the air and aligned itself with the hidden satellite, just as he whispered through his tears, “I love you, too. And I’ll miss you.”

Hermione sucked in a little breath and clutched him even tighter as his hand rose to hold her head, as she slowly began to fade. The wind swirled leaves that were forming in thin air around the clearing and the forms of great stones began to be distinguishable from the emptiness. The trees grew back from their relented positions and the grass gained new life.

Ron knew that the feel of her in his arms was slowly fading, that the sound of her sobs was growing fainter, slowly being replaced by the wind. He knew it when his arms fell limply to his side, clutching at air, when the drops ceased to fall upon his shoulder, when his ears were void of everything but that wind. When, after a lingering moment in which he thought he could hear her whisper in his ear one last time, as he thought something brushed against his lips softly, she had glided from his arms, far away into the sky. She had gone to be with all the other angels.

As he took a deep breath and cast his eyes toward the sky, he still could not see the moon. But he knew it hadn’t gone anywhere at all.

*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*””*

The years went by. Ron became an uncle several other times. He was the godfather to Harry and Ginny’s beautiful little red-haired, green-eyed girl, Hermione. He spoiled her with candy and toys behind her parents back. He took her flying, and camping. He told her stories about the woman she was named after.

Ron could never say he had become whole again. He couldn’t say that he no longer hurt, or cried alone at night. The pain never left him, but he learned to deal with it. He liked to think she helped him deal with it, in some way too.

When he watched his family laughing, he managed to laugh with them. When they reminisced together easily and longed for the ones that were gone, he didn’t despair. He listened.

He never went back to visit that clearing. He didn’t need to; he knew that wasn’t where she rested. Whenever there was a lunar eclipse he smiled at the sky through his window, and her words played in his head. He knew it was more than stars watching him when he slept and when he woke.

He learned to live by one rule. It isn’t called sadness, not being whole. It isn’t sadness having said more ‘goodbyes’ than ‘hellos’. Sadness is a refusal to see the moonlight that shines on every night, no matter what. Sadness is an absence of joy.

And happiness isn’t about waking up with a smile on your face every morning, knowing everything will be right at the end. Happy isn’t someone who has never suffered and houses an intact soul. Happiness is nothing more, nothing less, than the knowledge we are and have been loved, even if we really are nothing more than what we are.

If Ron lived by that rule, he knew: he was the happiest man on earth.

""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*""*"*

I hope I did that ending justice. It's not something I think can easily be put into words, but I did my best. Thanks so, so much to my wonderful beta, Hermione_Rocks for helping me so much! And I hope you liked my story, however sad it may be!