Written for Emily (DolbyDigital) for the Hugs and Happiness Challenge

The Darkest Hour

Her little girl was sick – she was dying. There was no other way around it. When the Healers hadn't been able to explain what was wrong, they had taken her to a doctor instead. Maybe they could work out what was wrong with her.

And they had. The young doctor – probably only three years out of university – had looked both of them in the eye with regret, as if he didn't want to tell them the diagnosis. Little Rose was fast asleep on the bed, sedated because of her agony.

"Just tell us," Hermione almost pleaded.

"Your daughter has cancer. It has been found too late. I'm very sorry. I am giving her three months at the very most."

Hermione didn't remember much after that. Her legs had given way, and it had been Ron who'd caught her. He'd sat her in a chair by their daughter's bed. She saw tears in his eyes, too – Ron never cried – and felt his firm hold on her.

Three years they'd been given with their little girl. Some would say that was a wonderful amount of time, but Hermione could only think how her baby girl deserved at least ninety-seven more.

…

They told the family the next day. It was Ron, actually, who said the words. Hermione couldn't even think about it, let alone say it. Rose was running around again now, whatever medicine the doctor had administered giving her an energy they hadn't seen in months. She looked the perfect three-year-old out the back, playing with her cousins.

Molly broke down in loud sobs, Arthur barely knowing how to comfort her. Ginny had no words, nor did anyone, really. Harry's only response was to clap Ron on the back and say, "I'm sorry." Everyone else simply stood there, lost for words.

…

"I couldn't imagine being told I only had three months left with my kids," Harry said to Ron as they say in the living room of their home. Harry had come to see if he was okay – which he wasn't – and had just sat with him, acting as a friend should.

"Be thankful you don't." The pain was eating him up inside, but he didn't know how to say that. He didn't know how to explain what he was feeling; that every time he saw her smiling face, heard her laugh, felt her arms wrap around his neck, or her tell him that she loved him… every time he just wanted to wrap her up and lock her away where nothing could hurt her anymore.

He buried his face in his hands. "We can't even tell her," he said. "How do you tell a three-year-old that she's going to die? We can't."

"Then don't." Harry said it so simply that it made sense when the words came from him. When Ron had suggested it to Hermione, it had just sounded wrong. "Let her be a little girl for as long as she can be," Harry continued. "She deserves that much."

Ron nodded. The only thing was… they really didn't know how long they would have her for. The doctor had told them three months at the most.

…

"I don't want any more medicine, Mummy. It's yucky." Rose turned her head away as Hermione tried to feed her daughter the medicine that would keep her pain away.

It had spread, the doctor had told them. It had spread from her arms and her legs into her blood stream. It was now infecting her organs. Soon, the medicine wouldn't even be enough.

"You have to, sweetie," Hermione said, trying to hold back her tears. "Please take it."

"But I'm not sick."

Hermione swallowed a lump that a formed in her throat. "Please, sweetheart," she begged. "Please take it."

Rose shook her head. "I'm not sick."

"Yes… Rose, you are sick. Please take it." She had all but grabbed her daughter then, forcing the medicine down her throat. She hated herself afterwards, but seeing her cry for a few moments was far better than seeing her cry because her legs and arms hurt her.

…

"When will I get better?"

They hadn't told her the full prognosis. All she knew was she was sick, and the medicine would make her feel better. They had never told her that the medicine was only there to take away her pain.

Hermione's mouth moved up and down, but no words came out. There Rose stood, all innocent, wanting to know when she'd be better. One month had almost passed since they'd been told, and she gave no sign of deteriorating further.

"So I can stop taking the medicine," Rose continued, as if her question had an obvious answer.

Hermione swallowed, her eyes filling with tears once more. Ron wasn't home right now, and it wasn't right for her to tell her without him.

"Rosie, the medicine will make you feel better," was all she said. "Wait until Daddy gets home."

…

"I'll die."

They could hear her voice from inside her baby brother's bedroom. He slept in his cot, but she had snuck in there when she thought they were asleep. Normally, they'd make her go back to her own bed, but they let her stay this time.

"But it's okay, Hugo," she was saying. "I'll be in heaven and be a angel."

It was too much for both of them. Tears rolled down Hermione's cheeks; her whole body shook as she sobbed into her husband. He wrapped comforting arms around her, holding her, stroking her. He had tears himself, and as Rose sat in Hugo's bedroom, talking to him, they laid in their own room, crying.

They never should have told her. She was too young to know death.

…

"Daddy… Mummy… Daddy… Mummy." Rose said names as she pointed to pictures in the photo album. Her little fingers barely shook as she did so, but it was obvious that in the past two days she had become just that little bit weaker.

Ron sat on her bed with her, Rose in his lap, and he didn't want to leave. He just wanted to sit with her all day and all night. Normally he'd tell her she'd have to go to bed soon, but tonight… tonight he couldn't.

"And," he said, flipping a few pages ahead and pointing to a little baby with red hair squirming in the photograph, "Who's this?"

Rose studied the picture for a moment, and then beamed. "Hugo!" she exclaimed.

"It's Rose," Ron corrected her. "It's you."

"No," Rose giggled, "I'm not that small."

Ron couldn't help but smile. "You were once," he said. "You were so small that I was too scared to even hold you."

Rose didn't say anything, but looked back at the photograph of herself. "Was I sick then?" she asked after a moment.

"No, Rosie," Ron replied instantly. "No, you were born perfect, and you still are. You're so brave and so strong."

"So are you." Rose flipped back to photographs of her parents at a much younger age.

"Not nearly as much as you," Ron said, thinking of all the times he and Hermione had cried together, and of all the smiles and laughs they had heard from Rose. "You're braver than anyone I've ever met, Rosie."

…

"It's like she's not even sick. She's acting so strong, and I can only imagine how much pain she's in."

They sat in their living room with Harry and Ginny. Their children had come over for a sleepover, but it was late into the night now and they were fast asleep.

"Of course she's strong," Harry said. "Just look at who her parents are. It's engraved into her genes to be strong."

"I'm a mess," Hermione confessed. "We both are."

"As would any parent when they're going through what you are. We're here for you. Everyone is."

"I don't want to lose her."

…

She wasn't supposed to make it to four. A birthday party hadn't even been on the cards. The doctor had said no more than three months without chemotherapy. No more than five with it.

But there they were, singing happy birthday to her, and watching her blow out four candles. She was so excited, oblivious to what everyone else was not – that it was a miracle she was still with them.

The three months had come and gone a week ago. She wasn't even hospital bound; she was still running around. She could enjoy her birthday and open her presents. She knew what it was like to be four.

"I love you, Daddy!" She flung her tiny arms around Ron's waist. "And Mummy and Hugo and James and Albus and Lily and everybody."

Ron bent down to scoop her up. "And they all love you, too," he said to her. "More than anything else in the whole world."

Rose beamed, giving him a wet kiss on the cheek. "I love you the most."

Ron simply held her. "And I love you," he said.

…

"What about that chemotherapy?"

"Ron, we agreed not to. We didn't want her to go through that when the outcome was inevitable."

They had been given the option to elect chemotherapy for their little girl. Five months, they had been told. Five months instead of three. But they would still lose her. That part would never change.

So they decided that instead of having the two extra months with her and watching her go through the harsh treatment, they'd prefer the three months and see her happy and smiling.

Now, though, their minds were changing.

"Three months have been and gone, Ron," Hermione said. "It's more time than we thought. Let's just treasure what time we have left with her. We've already had more than we thought."

He took her in his arms, chin resting on the top of her head.

The day would come soon.

…

That day was the very next one. It was the weekend, and they were going to take their children to the zoo; but those plans soon changed.

Hermione went into her daughter's bedroom to wake her up, but it wasn't what she was expecting. Rose, who had been so excited the day before, hardly stirred in her bed. Her eyes blinked half open, but drooped again a moment later. She felt her heart clench.

"Ron… Ron, come here please." She ran her hand over her daughter's forehead – Rose was in a sweat. "It's okay, sweetie," she said.

They took her to the hospital, and the very same doctor who had wrongly told them three months now told them no more than a week. She'd developed a fever; her whole body was filled with infection and she was too weak to fight it. The cancer had taken over almost all parts of her body now, and only high doses of morphine would dull the pain.

"My poor, baby girl," Hermione said, pressing her lips to Rose's forehead. She was asleep now, unconscious from the first dose of the painkillers. It was hard to know when she'd wake up, if she ever would.

Little Hugo squirmed in Ron's arms, a sign that he was hungry and bored. One of the nurses offered to take him to a children's area for a few hours, but they wanted him with them. They wanted him to spend his last moments with the sister he wouldn't even remember.

"Maybe a Healer –"

"They couldn't even identify why she was sick," Hermione interrupted before Ron could even finish his sentence. "There's no potion to cure her, Ron. We both know that."

Ron, who was strongly against any form of what he called Muggle Healing, hadn't even batted an eyelid when Hermione had insisted they take her to a Muggle hospital after the Healer's tests had come back inconclusive. Even when Rose had tripped and cut her leg open at eighteen months and the wait at St. Mungo's had been ninety minutes, he'd insisted they wait. Rose had been screaming that day until a Healer came to see her, but Ron had been determined.

The last time, however, he hadn't said a word. He'd seen her pain – felt it, even – and if someone else could find out why she was hurting so much, then he was willing to try anything. Now, though, it was obvious he was starting to think magic could save her again.

"She's strong," Hermione continued. "She's proved that already. She'll make sure she lives every second of that week she's got. You know she will."

…

"Read me another story!"

"I think we've read every one in the hospital," Ron answered, fighting a yawn. It was eight at night, on the fifth day of Rose's hospital stint. The night before she'd been overcome by a sudden burst of energy, and wouldn't sleep.

Ron and Hermione were taking it in turns to stay with her – both of them always reluctant to be the one to go home, just in case she wouldn't wake the next morning.

"This one." Rose handed him one they'd read twice already.

"Alright," he said. "But this is the last time." How could he say no to her?"

…

"Mummy! Mummy, I love you!"

Rose threw her arms around Hermione's waist when she came back the next morning.

"Mummy, I love you so much."

Hermione looked to where Ron had just woken up from the small trundle bed by Rose's hospital one. He shrugged, understanding their daughter's sudden burst of affection as little as she.

"Thank you, Rose," she said, crouching down to the four-year-old's level.

Rose smiled, but didn't say anymore.

…

Maybe she knew that was going to be her last conscious moment. As they sat around her bed, morphine pumping through the IV tube, they were told she probably would not wake again.

Ron had said she'd said something similar to him the night before, and had then slept restlessly. She'd lasted only fifteen minutes of Hermione arriving before her eyes had rolled into the back of her head and then doctors had surrounded her.

It was her goodbye, they realised. She'd waited long enough to see her mother, but that was all she could manage.

She had known. There was no other answer.

…

They waited another whole day before the doctors decided it was only the machines keeping her alive now. The cancer had eaten through every part of her body; she was too weak to wake up again.

Tears rolled down Hermione's face, and Ron's, too.

They'd been given almost four months with her when they had been told only three. Maybe they should have been happy, but….

"The last thing she said to both of us was that she loved us," Hermione said weakly. "She… she should have told us that she wanted a pony for her next birthday, or that she didn't want to die."

Ron engulfed her in his arms, hugging her like he might have hugged Rose had she been awake. He thought back to what Harry had told them once, that it was in her genes to be strong and fight for as long as she could.

"Would that have been your last words?" he asked after a moment.

"I think so," Hermione said. "Yes."

"Me too."

"Then we taught her well."

…

The hardest thing they ever had to do was agree to have those machines switched off. What if she woke up? What if they were making the wrong decision? What if by switching them off they were signing away her life?

Even though they knew it not to be true, the questions still lingered. This was their little girl – their baby. She was too young to even be here. She should have been running around with her cousins, causing trouble like she usually did.

"We'll always think of you, sweetheart," Hermione said. "We'll never forget you."

No one else had even had the chance to say goodbye.

…

They visited her grave every day. They'd Apparate to the little graveyard every morning, stay for hours, conjure fresh flowers, and then leave that evening. They couldn't bear to forget about her, or leave her alone for too long.

She'd be scared; that was what they'd tell themselves.

"You know, darling," Hermione said two weeks later, looking bleary-eyed at the tombstone, "Sometimes grown-ups get even more scared than little girls."

They felt scared now – what were they supposed to do without her? Her room lay untouched, the door wide open, the bed unmade. It was exactly how it had been left when they'd taken her to the hospital.

The walls were painted a pale blue, and Rose had even taken to artistically decorating it herself. Neither of them could bear to touch it. It would be like forgetting and moving on.

They couldn't do that.

…

The pain was still raw, even a year later.

It hurt two years later.

Three years.

Four.

Five.

It would never fade. Even when they found themselves laughing at something Hugo did, or smiling when they were with family. Even when a sudden burst of happiness hit them, there was always a reminder of what they had lost.

And no matter what happened, or what they did, that reminder would always be there. She was their daughter, and always would be, and one day they knew that they would be with her again.

Yeah, I enjoy killing characters I like. I thought you would have worked that one out by now :P

Emily, you said you liked angst and RonHermione, so... here is some of both?

What did you all think?