One long and polite yet fruitless conversation later, I bid the forlorn House-Elf goodbye and exited Courtroom Ten. On the trip toward the Atrium, I noticed how markedly different the Ministry looked, after having a Death Eater slip through its fingers. There were ashen-faced wizards running back and forth, glasses askew and tousle-haired. Every few feet, there were workers huddled in corners, whispering and murmuring amongst themselves, no doubt telling their own versions of what had happened in the courtroom.
I knew Mr. Weasley would be coming to pick me up, but not for another hour or so. He had believed, just as I told him, that the trial would be much longer than I had supposed. It struck me, there in the middle of the Atrium, what I wanted at that very moment. I wanted arms to hold me, and those arms, belonging to none other than Ron Weasley, were waiting for me at the Burrow. I Disapparated immediately.
I knocked timidly on the front door a few seconds later. It was Mr. Weasley who opened the door.
“Hermione!” he said, surprised to see me. “What “?”
“The- the trial ended early,” I said, making it clear that something very exciting had happened. Mrs. Weasley appeared at his shoulder immediately and ushered me inside. Before long, I was seated on the Weasley’s sofa, sipping tea and carefully detailing my account of the events in Courtroom Ten.
“Merlin!” said Mr. Weasley, wiping the bald patch on his head. He rose and began to pace. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I remember the old trials down there … Never … No one’s ever done anything like that before.”
“Well, it’s like she said, isn’t it, dear?” Mrs. Weasley said quickly, looking up at her husband. “You-Know-Who stole her right out of the Courtroom?”
“That’s what everyone thought,” I said. “And I daresay that’s the most reasonable explanation.”
A few seconds silence followed.
“Poor dear,” said Mrs. Weasley. “You’ve had quite a day! Are you sure you wouldn’t like some more --?”
“No, I’m really very tired, Mrs. Weasley.” (“Of course, dear,” said Mrs. Weasley.) “I think it’s just best I went home,” I said, heaving a great sigh.
“Well, if you’re sure,” she said, taking my coat off the rack and handing it to me. “You’re welcome here, you know that.”
“Yes,” I said. I Disapparated. I didn’t feel like carrying on the conversation very much longer anyhow.
I ended up in Hannah’s foyer back at Shenandoah. It was darkish in the house, and I lit the lamps with a wave of my wand. “Hannah?” I called, and my voice echoed through the house. I should have known “ Hannah was still at work.
I tiptoed down the hall, not sure why I wanted to be so quiet. It felt wrong to disturb such a perfect silence, for silence, it seemed, was all I had wanted since Ron’s rejection.
I fought to turn Ron out of my mind. Thinking of him now brought only pain. I turned toward the kitchen, thinking I could make a cup of tea. I nearly screamed when I saw a man sitting in a chair at the table, looking at idly down at his hands. He seemed to feel my stare and looked up. When he did, he jumped.
“’Mione,” Ron croaked, his voice low.
I was feeling venomous. “What are you doing here?” I said coldly, turning my back on him and fumbling with the handle on my door.
“Hermione, you know why I’m here,” he said. There was a pain in his voice, and my heart softened.
“Actually, I don’t,” I retorted. “After you’d spoken to me like that, I don’t know why you’d ever want to look at me again, let alone appear in my kitchen.”
I turned around and found him much closer than before. He had risen from the table, evidently, and was now about midway between it and me. I felt rather smothered by the distance closing. His eyes … oh, his eyes … they were so pure … so beautiful …
“I spoke rashly,” he said, taking a step backward. “Never, Hermione. I never meant to hurt you. Well,” he said, thinking for a moment, his eyes twinkling, “I suppose I did. I wanted to hurt you like you had hurt me. I wanted to make you feel that way I had.”
“Oh yeah?” I wanted to hit him, hurt him for hurting me so. “I died the day you left!”
He looked down at his feet, and I was able to withdraw my gaze. My heart was pounding in my throat. I hated him, loathed him with every fiber of my being … and yet …
“I was wrong.” I choked as those three words, so much simpler than I love you, registered in my mind. Never. Never, as long as I’d known him, had he admitted he was wrong. I melted. “I shouldn’t’ve done that. It was wrong, Hermione.”
“It hurt,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “You don’t know what that did to me.” I turned and found the door. “This room. I didn’t leave this room for almost a week.”
There was an odd look in his eyes. He took another step toward me.
“No!” I threw my hand out to stop him. “Don’t you touch me!” I began to cry. His eyes flared up and I could tell he only wanted to hold me. “Ron,” I choked, “Ron! No! I know what I did to you all those years … I “ I don’t deserve you. …”
“Hermione?” he said, a puzzled expression on his face. “Hermione, no …”
“Yes!” I sobbed, no control left in me. “Yes! Don’t you remember every time you kissed me and I told you I couldn’t be with you? I wanted it every time, and “ and then … but I just decided I didn’t want you to get in the way of my career! I wanted to be a Healer, and go to school and to learn! You “ you don’t know how badly I wanted you … how badly I still want you …”
The words came pouring out of their own accord, me shaking bodily as I wept. I wasn’t looking, but even so I could picture the numbness on his face, the hurt in his eyes, the remembrance of what I had done wrong.
“You knew how much I loved you,” he said, his eyes glazed. “I knew that. I knew you were ambitious. But … I just wanted you so badly … you can understand, can’t you? I knew it would hurt, but I don’t regret any of it.”
I choked again. I couldn’t stop myself. I did want him … I “ I loved him “ so much … but I couldn’t hurt him again. It would break me.
“I did hurt you,” I said, mustering every ounce of self-control I possessed. “You know that.”
He opened his mouth to deny it.
“Don’t lie,” I said, tears coming back to my eyes.
Maybe it was the tears returning to my already tear-stained face, or perhaps it was the conviction in my tone of voice. Either way, he closed his mouth, nodded, and muttered, “You did.”
“You see?” I said, smiling for some reason. “We can’t be together … It hurts.”
Ron looked stricken. “I don’t care!” he almost shouted. “I’ll hurt my whole life if only I have you! I’ll “ I’ll let myself be hurt, and love every minute of my life, when I only see you.”
It hit me suddenly how much he had grown since our sixth year. Not only was his face more mature and honest, but his manner of speech had changed as well. But his love “ oh, his love for me had evolved in unspeakable ways.
I sighed and gazed steadily at him. “But you wouldn’t have me,” I said softly, pondering. “I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you again, and I wouldn’t let you have me. I can’t fight against myself. And I would, inevitably, hurt you. To have me, would be to have not. Do you understand?”
He did. It was more than plain in his eyes.
“There are only two ways to live,” I went on, for he remained silent. “Either we give it a shot, and you end up with me, living but not living at all, or we can go our separate ways, remain friends, and hope life treats the other well.”
He looked utterly despondent. “Isn’t there …” he began, “couldn’t there be some chance?” He seemed desperate for a third door, but I could find none.
“Ronald Weasley,” I sighed. “I love you. More “ more than life itself. If there was a third door, I would have found it “ and opened it “ many years ago.”
There was true desperation now in his eyes. “So … that’s it …” he said, with some finality. “There’s … no more … between us. This is the end of the line.”
I nodded, tears in my eyes and a lump rising in my throat. “I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice quavering and cracking. “We could have been happy, if it wasn’t for my selfish pride. I … I don’t deserve you. All you wanted was my life, and I was too prideful to give it.”
I turned away, trying to hide my tears. I didn’t want it to end, but I couldn’t see any other way out. Ron cleared his throat gruffly. I looked up at him for the first time in a few minutes and was surprised to see that his eyes too were filled with tears. The end. This was the end.
“W-wait,” Ron said desperately, his voice quivering with anxiety.
“No, Ron!” I said hysterically, almost sobbing. “No, it can’t be!”
“Not that,” he said, his eyes honest and true. “If we can’t be together, can we “ can I … just one “ one last kiss to remember? Before we go our separate ways, trying to not to hurt each other? One final kiss to remember you by?”
My mind immediately began ringing. “Yes! Yes, you dolt! Kiss him, kiss him, you love him!” I could hardly breathe, let alone speak, but my eyes must have told him the answer. He took my elbow gently and pulled me towards him, planting his lips firmly on mine.
This was not the kiss of two nervous teenagers, loving enough to kiss but not to understand. Not even the kiss of two strangers was this, for we knew each other well. Or of two lovers, for the level of understanding between us was far beyond that. It was not what the world would call passionate, for it was did not look so. It was what the world would call simple, chaste, distant even, but never passionate. It was something that the world could never understand, nor would want to understand, for the world is fixed upon storybook love “ love with a happy ending. This was not the kiss of a happy ending, but a mixed one. One of tears and joy and compromise. This was the kiss we shared “ not passionate by the world’s standards “ for it was a couple’s last kiss, passionate and hungry, but sad and perfect.
When we broke apart, I shook with longing. I wanted him, and from the look in his eyes he wanted me. We knew, though, it could never be “ that we were people too different, or too alike, or whatever the cause might be. We looked into each other’s eyes, long and hard, wishing that it didn’t have to be this way.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and it was true. I had never felt sorrier in my life. For him, for myself, and for what might had blossomed and bloomed.
“Well, I suppose I should go,” Ron said, the light in his eyes gone.
“I’ll show you the door,” I said, near tears once again.
“No …” he said vaguely, not looking me in the eye. “I can manage.”
And before I knew it, I was left alone in Hannah’s kitchen. I sank into the nearest chair, my head in my hands. I knew it was the only way, but I wished … oh, I wished for so many things.
The light clicked on, and Hannah came in, looking slightly worried. “I saw Ron on the way out,” she said, glancing back toward the door. “Did you two “?”
She fell silent at the look on my face, laid her shopping bags down, and bustled out of the kitchen.
I sat there and cried. I don’t know why to this day the sight of her made me feel so low and unwanted, but it did. I felt like this was the worst thing I could have possibly done, but still …
Someone was whispering from the hallway. The light had gone out again, and I was left sitting there in the semi-darkness. I looked up, listening, straining for even the most distant sound. There was nothing. I stood up, feeling a bit foolish, but wary all the same. Something wasn’t quite right, even if I couldn’t hear it.
I turned around and went about making tea, drying my tears now and again. I had just finished filling my mug full of water, when I made the mistake of turning around. When I did, the last word I wanted to tumble out me made its way through my lips.
“A- Adrienne.”