So it all started because demosthenes91  told me not to kill Harry again.

As I told her, she was practically giving me a direct challenge. Jeez. Telling me not to do something is dangerous.

Well, I didn't kill him again, in the strictest sense of the word.

I was reading over Fragments and I decided that it needed a sequel. Alright, yes, we've already got a sequel from demosthenes91 , a very happy, very wonderful, very beautiful sequel but....

*small voice* I had a plot bunny.

So this is what would have happened had Hermione and Ron not gone back in time and saved the day. Or, possibly, this did happen in one of the timelines. Timelines are tricky things, you know.

Anyway. Here it is. A (not *the*) sequel to Fragments. Major Soul Sucking Angst alert. You've been warned.

 X-posted to fanfict00bs.

A/N: Those of you who can guess the episode of Buffy I’m paying homage to get a virtual cookie. *grin* Only because it’s really very easy. I’m not exactly subtle.

I'm dying to know
do you do you like dreaming of things
so impossible or only the practical

-So Impossible, Dashboard Confessional

“Hey, mate.”

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Ron kneeled down, the wind rustling through his hair.

“How’ve you been?”

Ron waited a moment, before giving an amused snort.

“Right. I s’pose that’s a stupid question. But you know me and my big mouth. Never quite knew when to shut up.”

Ron sighed, feeling painfully alone.

“You’re probably happy as can be—surrounded by girls, some place warm. Probably paying me no mind—just some crazy bloke coming to sob by your grave. I’ve heard that you get good treatment for saving the world these days.”

Fingers numb from the cold, Ron brushed dirt off the grave in front of him. The words on the stone had grown fainter from the ravages of time.

Not that Ron needed the words.

“Guess you probably know what day it is.”

Ron bit his lip.

“She’s gone, you know.”

He let out a small chuckle.

“Left in the middle of the night—she was gone the next morning when I woke up. No note. Nothing. Haven’t heard from her since. She wrote to Ginny a while back. Said the memories finally got too painful for her… said she couldn’t do it anymore. She had to get away.”

Flowers were littered over and around Harry’s grave. The wizarding world still hadn’t forgotten his best friend’s sacrifice.

“I knew it would eventually happen. I’m not completely daft, you know. I was living your life. I must have been all kinds of buggered up thinking I could get away with it. Wasn’t ever much good at being an auror—gave it a go, though. Tried my best. Don’t think I quite managed it as a husband, neither. I s’pose Hermione loved me—in her own way. Not quite like she loved you, though. But we did okay together. We… we hung on to each other.”

The lump in Ron’s throat became more pronounced. He struggled against tears.

“I miss her. ‘Specially now. Right ‘bout this time… she used to get pissed. Can you imagine that, eh? Our Hermione—getting drunk. Not by accident, but on purpose. She… she really loved you, Harry. You should know that. All these years, I don’t think she ever stopped or loved you any less.”

The stillness of the graveyard seemed to mock him. Gray headstones dotted the landscape, his only company.

“Great, now I’m making you feel guilty. Don’t try and tell me you aren’t—you had a guilt complex the size of Mount Everest.”

Ron looked around, almost expecting Harry to be standing over him, his Firebolt slung over one shoulder. Because it was ridiculous to think that he was kneeling in dirt, staring at Harry’s grave.

“Wish I could tell you that things are okay without you. You always seemed to have this buggered up notion that we’d all be better off if you disappeared from our lives. You were awfully stupid about that.”

Ron closed his eyes—his image of Harry appearing before his eyes. Harry as a seventeen-year-old boy, barely a man. That’s where his image ended—he didn’t see a middle-aged man with graying hair and bad teeth. He still saw Harry as a boy.

“Wonder what things would be like if you were here. For one—I probably wouldn’t be pouring my heart out in a graveyard. We’d be with the rest of the world, celebrating. You’d be with Hermione, of course. Probably in some ridiculously expensive house with a bunch of snot-nosed sprogs. Don’t think I’m gonna be baby-sitting them, either. Never much liked kids. ”

Ron had to look away. He rarely allowed himself to indulge in the ‘what if’s.’ The lost opportunities seemed to stretch out before him, lost on a field of browning grass and withered tombstones.

“Always knew it would come to this eventually. It had to be the three of us, you know? With you gone, it was all pretend. We pretended for thirty years. But it got to be too much. For both of us. Probably good she took off when she did… it’s hard sharing your bed with another man’s woman.”

Ron wiped at his eyes, the tears gathering there burning him. His tongue felt thick.

“I reckon it was never supposed to be this way. Didn’t you read the prophecy, you daft git? One of you was supposed to die at the hand of the other. I don’t remember the part where it said that the only way to defeat Volde-bloody-mort was to kick the bucket. Then again, you never were much good when it came to making sense of things. That was Hermione’s job. Maybe she forgot to tell you that there was no fine print.”

Ron stood up.

“Think I’ll go home. What a joke. Empty house. Her stuffs still there—sometimes I think she left it so she’d have a reason to come back. Bloody delusional of me, I know. Loneliness does that to you.”

Ron shoved his hands in his pockets, back hunched over to shield himself from the biting cold of the wind.

“I’m not angry with you anymore. Was for a long time, don’t mind tell you that. Bloody insensitive for you to take off on us, that was. Don’t s’pose there was much you could do about it. I know you would have done anything to come back to her.”

Ron’s throat was burning.

“We both know—it should have been me. Should have been me. You two—you would have made it okay without me. Don’t try and deny it, we both know it’s true. I’m not saying you wouldn’t have felt bad, but things would never have come to this. As long as you had each other.”

Ron toed the ground with his boot.

“Never admitted that to anyone before. I know Hermione never blamed me for it. Just my stuff, I guess. Just my stuff.”

His time with Harry was coming to a close. He wished that he could say that he felt purged—emptied of everything that he’d spent decades carrying around inside. But being here, looking at Harry’s grave—it brought it all back. It brought back everything he’d spent the years trying to push away.

“So… I’ll see you around. Sorry for whining. But you know me. Always thinking my problems were bigger. Things never really change that much.”

Hands shielded in his pockets, Ron turned, burying himself in his cloak as the wind howled around him. He stumbled out of the graveyard—desperate to leave the memories and the loss behind, even as he carried it along with him.

Harry James Potter 

1980-1997

The Boy Who Saved The World 

Tags: harry/hermione, hp_fanfic