Harry had said in that hollow and dead voice before slamming the door on his way out. Hermione would have followed under normal circumstances, but she was tied then by irrevocable ties to the poorly construed bed. She swallowed hard before allowing herself to look at Ron. All battered and bruised but not broken. Never broken. Those defiant eyes remain open resolutely, though she can tell what a tremendous effort even that was. So stubborn; he never changes.

She would not let herself cry. She cannot afford that moment of weakness in so crucial a time. She had to be strong, but a tear slipped, unbidden, down her cheek. She furiously wiped it away before reaching for another bandage to apply to Ron�s burning forehead. His shaking hand was around her wrist in protest and the corner of his mouth tugged upwards into the slightest shadow of a smile, and she could not choke back a sob in time.

For the umpteenth time since the battle began, she wished for silence and a moment of peace.

Deadly curses. Green and red sparks flying in every single direction. So much noise and so much screaming and never in a million years could she had ever pictured war so vividly in her mind. So many textbooks and so many faded photographs of blood and gore, and here it was in real life and here she was. Here she was, and there it all goes out the window, her old life, her na�ve perspective, her friends.

Ron.

Ron was going, going, and soon to be gone, and there was no spell, no magic, no antidote, no possible cure. When Hermione asked frantically what he was hit with, she was met with averted heads and uncomfortable shuffling. Finally, Hagrid managed to tell her in a broken voice that it was dark magic, a forgotten and forbidden curse. The result was agonizing death and it was irremediable.

Her vision had gone black. Her limbs had gone numb. Her brain had repeated �It isn�t true!� over and over and over again. But the fact was that Ron was going. Going and going and soon to be gone. She had slammed the door of the makeshift infirmary and stumbled to the edges of the barricade without having a clue where she was going. No matter anyways; she always ended up where he was.

Ron reached up slowly to put a calloused hand on her cheek, and Hermione shattered. She knew that he knew what was happening, but he still tried. Tried to hang on, tried to not let the pain consume him, tried to convince her that her abandoning the fighting to be with him was not necessary at all.

�Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference,� he even tried to make her laugh. Tried so hard to laugh and be alright just to reassure her, and Hermione could not help but smile back tearily and joke about the quote being the only Muggle reference he had ever made.

Going, going, gone. Seconds into minutes into hours and suddenly day is into night and they both know that time is running out. The colours in the sky ebb away and bleed back in, and Hermione is left with nothing but one last lingering kiss still tingling on her lips.

Her eyes are dry. She has no more tears to cry.