You're realizing, now of all times, that you never felt what it was like to be alive -- to truly be alive. You have success in school, but that was just the result of eleven years without friends and a pair of hard-working and goal-oriented parents, and that's all you really have. You don't have friends (he's not here), you don't have family (they're not here), and you're now wrenched from having your own family.
He's not here.
You can hear the sounds of strangled conflict reverberating back and forth in the drawing room but you don't want to look because you already know what happened. You had heard, if only for the tiniest fraction of a second, nothing. Normally you should have considered this a blessing, since no overwhelming voice or crazily dramatic sprinkle of argumentative other sides started sprouting up and you were suddenly insane, but it's not. It's just a reminder.
He's not here.
Repeating, drilling into your head are the words. Your body is aching from the pain of the spells, your mind is wandering ever so closer to a brink of total emptiness and you want to give in. You want to give in and find him, just to be given the satisfaction of it all -- just to feel alive. You don't however and the woman lurched cruelly over you is a reminder of why you should fight: show weakness to her and you become her toy, bring out your strength and you may just survive the night.
But when the curse hits you again, it takes everything you have to not give in right there. You don't see what you expect -- you don't see what you've guessed a hundred times you would have. There are no images of a broken Ron, there's no gravestone or an empty Burrow. It's a feeling not too dissimilar to a dementor.
You feel hollow, empty somehow. You can now freely look around and you see that there are only four walls surrounding you, four bare walls with seemingly no portal for your escape. You spin wildly, looking for a way out and reaching for something only to discover that there's nothing to hold on to. There's nothing here, nobody other than you.
He's not here.
You've known friendship, companionship, and being loved for so long that you forgot what it meant to be alone, truly alone. It was a fate worse than death, worse than an ending was a story without a proper set of characters. You want to laugh, somehow, because you know he would make a comment about the comparison to books there. Laughter would be his coping mechanism, but you can't bring yourself to do it. All three of you would have laughed and it would have been marvelous, but now you're alone in this room trying to stifle the cries with the laughter. Stuck in thought it takes a few moments to see that there's a window in the room. When did that get there? You figure why not explore, since you're stuck here now.
The window is an ornate affair, with glass that looks improperly cleaned and trussed with a dull gold outline. You step over to it and peer through, wondering what you'll see on the other side. It's only after a second of staring you realize what this 'window' is: it's a mirror.
You mistook a mirror for a window and you want to laugh again, but the image in front of you silences you. You've never prided yourself on your looks -- it was never your strong suit -- but the gaunt, malnourished frame in front of you horrifies you. Your eyes were sunken in to your skull, matching the frail length of your arms and the hollowed circles above your collarbone.
You're hideous, decrepit, and worst of all you're still alone. You'll forever be alone.
The corpse in front of you is laughing now, laughing at you and you're simply standing and receiving. Words can't describe the image before you. It's inexplicable, but there's a hint of understanding as to what it really means.
He'll never be here.
A sickening crash, a sharp object thrust against your skin, and suddenly you're awake. Or, rather, you must have fallen asleep in the room because he's there. He's breathing, he's standing, and he's staring directly at you. You nearly splinter in two at the sight and pass out. Who ever heard of fainting in a dream, let alone a nightmare?
* * *
And, just like that, you're ripped from the dream once again, but by what?
"Hermione." His voice is tremulous, his eyes concerned, and his existence very much real, "you were thrashing in your sleep-"
You don't give him time to finish because, before you realize it, you've launched yourself at him. The cuts on your arms, the searing pain all over, is masked quite simply by a desire to feel him, it's a desire to know that he's alive and there with you. For a moment the only thing you can feel is the folds of his shirt because you've ensnared your hands in it, curling and twisting it as if it were an extension of his skin and it was screaming 'I'm real,' but then he seems to understand and moves his arms around you, snaking into place. Violent sobs rack your body, cries of combined fear and happiness, and you feel his tired arms tighten and slowly rub imperfect circles around your back.
He's here.
Now he's shushing you, telling you that things are all right and you hear smatterings about Shell Cottage and Bill, that Harry is fine and that everyone else made it out except for Dobby. You cared a bit for the elf, didn't you? So why then does this fall on deaf ears, and why does the pain of his passing only sting the slightest? Your answer is all around you, soothing and comforting you. It's a childish thought, but after being an inch from death -- or worse -- you revel in the idealism of childhood.
He goes to stand up, obviously expecting you to be done but to his surprise, and yours that his own emaciated form can do it, you go up with him. It's also then that you realize you've wrapped your legs around in him in an almost possessive manner. He laughs a little and your parched throat gives a weak reply, only to have him resume what his arms had been doing and you feel the two of you move upstairs.
He apparently doesn't understand the implications an action like this should have, but apparently you don't care either.
He produces a glass of water in his hand and you drink it greedily, relishing in the refreshing cool water almost as much as his presence. He makes a brief detour to set it down on some sort of furniture you can't make out in the dark, and he reaches the bed now. He gently lays you down, slowly attempting to unfurl himself from you, but you only grip him tighter and shake your head into his neck, willing him to understand what you've been through. He whispers into your ear that he'll only be down the hall, but you only shake your head furiously and refuse to let go. He sighs, though you notice no discomfort in his breathing, and asks if he's supposed to sleep on the floor -- you give another negative.
There should be some sort of embarrassment in asking Ron to sleep with you, something in your head saying his physical male self will try and take advantage of you, but you know better. Seemingly aware of your thoughts, or acutely aware of what the closeness could do, he shifts a few inches from you while maintaining the embrace and brings himself to lay across from you. His face is so close, staring directly at you, that you suddenly lose whatever inkling of care that you might have had. You close the gap and don't care what the ramifications are, pushing your lips against his in a frantic, now or never fashion and see nothing register on his face for a few moments. Those moments were the most frightening of your entire life, including the torture.
But there's a response almost immediately after that handful of seconds. He doesn't break away, doesn't look at you disgustedly and storm off. Instead his eyes seem to half-close in a euphoric understanding and he obliges you to the kiss, taking in the simple glory of it and the basic exchange between lips. It's more than that however, and you both know it, but he doesn't make it physically more than that. He lets you dictate the pace and this is all you needed. With a fair bit of hesitation you break off from him and rest your head in the crook of his shoulder, feeling his lonely lips set themselves on your neck. Normally this would mean something far more intimate and would result in a physicality that you both wanted and were afraid of, but you notice he's not forcing it and that he is simply planting small, brief kisses on your neck. They weren't meant to be anything more than comfort.
Reason should have activated long ago and told you to disentangle yourself from Ronald Weasley, but reason be damned for now. You feel him stop and rest his head in a similar fashion to yours, but it ends up taking up your entire shoulder in comparison. You still haven't let go of him, arms somehow remaining in place despite straining cuts in your skin and oddly dull muscles, but neither has he. In fact, his arms had found their way around you when you weren't paying attention and you can picture what this must look like -- legs wrapped around another's, arms locked tightly, and uniformly melded together -- and you couldn't care less what it might imply. You don't care because, at this rate, you will actually meld together and unify.
You can feel his heartbeat pounding against his chest slow down, come to a fluttering median and remain there. Your own is pressed up against his and hope he can feel it too, showing him that you're alive too. Both of you are. You haven't spoken a word, and neither has he, for hours but you don't have to, because there is something about the unspoken bliss that the two of you have shared. There's something about 'the two of you' and 'we' that makes you want to cry, but for reasons you feared would never happen. You've escaped the room, you're here, and there's something more than just you.
We’re here.
More Than Just You by opti
Chapter Notes: I'm usually very wary of writing Shell Cottage missing moments because, honestly, there's just so many of them (you want a good one, go read WeasleyMom's "Scenes from Shell Cottage") but combine a vivid nightmare, time before classes start, and a really anxious/productive writer and here's whatcha get.