Disclaimer: JK's. Not mine.
Our Precious Blood
Chapter 2: But First Let Us Fully Live
Hermione sat on the bed in silence with Ron quite a while. Neither seemed to have the slightest idea what to say; words felt meaningless and inadequate. Tomorrow loomed before them, and their past was achingly present. She wondered idly why she and Ron had never dated. She had gone out with only a handful of guys during their years at Hogwarts and after, but it never got serious. Ron had always hated the guys she dated, and showed his disapproval with insults, tirades, and the silent treatment. She had finally decided to stop bothering. To be quite honest, she'd never met a guy worth fighting with Ron over. The truth was, she had always been more attracted to Ron himself than to any other guy she'd ever known. He was fun to be with, and endlessly loyal to her and Harry, and infuriatingly...irresistible. That red hair... Hermione sometimes wondered if his criticisms of her boyfriends had come from jealousy, but if that had been the case, then wouldn't he have asked her out himself at some point? She had long ago chalked it up to brotherly protectiveness, assuming that Ron felt no such attraction. Her pride had taken his evident lack of feeling toward her as an insult, and she'd found herself completely unable to act on her attraction to him, especially because she'd never had any explicit encouragement from him. Even when it felt like so much more than just attraction. Like right now. With Ron sitting so close, and on a bed, she felt the air charged with an energy that had always somehow unnerved and calmed her at the same time. She took a moment or two acclimating to his presence, working on regaining her ability to think coherently.
"Are you scared?" Hermione finally asked quietly.
Ron didn't answer immediately. "Not really." She looked reproachfully at him, her eyes telling him that there was no reason for that; he should have left his bravado at the door. He understood her calling his bluff, smiled wryly, and admitted his fear. "Well, yes, right now I'm scared shitless." She smiled, and, for once, didn't scold his language. Ron went on to explain, speaking slowly and deliberately. "But.I think.when the time comes.I'll be able to..." Die? Or, worse, kill? "...do what I have to do."
Hermione nodded. She felt the same way. Fear would become a nonissue when they were finally faced with the reality of battle. It was the anticipation that was maddening.
"I wish Harry would have listened to you." She said.
Ron ran his hand through his hair and leaned his elbows on his knees wearily. "Yeah. He just refused to accept the fact that we actually want to fight for him. The idiot is already blaming himself for all our deaths."
"I imagine he feels the same way about us as we do about him. We just want to protect each other." Hermione said.
"Yeah."
"He's just ignoring our reasons for wanting to protect him because he can't accept our... sacrifice. And because it would make it that much harder to lose us. That's because he does love us." Hermione danced on the edge of what she was sure was the real issue, and barely managed to keep the focus on Harry
"I know." Ron said. "And he knows that we..."
"Yes, he does know, deep down. But it's easier for him to deny it right now. It's the only way he's getting through this. I don't envy him one bit."
"You're right; me neither." Ron said simply, contemplatively.
Hermione smiled that Ron understood so thoroughly. "But still, it's not fair for him to try to keep us from fighting. It's not his choice."
"It sure as hell isn't! Like he could stop me..When I think about the things they said they were going to do..." he shuddered. "I'd feel a lot better about this whole thing if I knew he was going to be safe and out of the way."
"Me too." Hermione agreed. "But it wouldn't be like him to run."
"No. Too bloody noble." There was both affection and frustration in Ron's voice. "It's just...I don't care what happens to me, as long as Harry makes it. I couldn't stand the thought of fighting.and maybe dying.if I couldn't believe that my fighting and dying meant that he would live. And if we're fighting to secure his getaway, it feels like his survival is more certain. Dumbledore's right; it would only put off his showdown with Voldemort, but at least then I wouldn't have to deal with the possibility of his dying. That's pretty selfish, isn't it? But it's how I feel."
"I feel the same way. For you, is it because he's your best friend or because he's the Boy-Who-Lived?" Hermione asked. She thought she already knew the answer.
Ron answered slowly. "Both, I think. He's my friend and I'd do anything for him. I mean that. I'd be willing to fight for him tomorrow even if that was all there was to it. But also, without him, there would be no...hope. Does that make any sense?"
"Yes, it does. I remember reading about World War I, that when the nations' excuses for being at war seemed abstract and idiotic, the soldiers found a reason to fight in the man next to them. Harry's that and more. Harry's both someone to fight alongside and something to fight for: a friend and a cause. He thinks he's not worth it, but I think he is, and I know you do too." Hermione paused, and looked down at her hands. "I suppose we're a bit luckier than those soldiers. This war isn't meaningless, and, from what I've read at least, magical battles are usually a lot quicker and cleaner than trench warfare."
"Leave it to you to give me a history lesson at a time like this." Ron teased feebly.
"It's never too late to learn." She joked back halfheartedly before turning to what she was sure was his real reason for coming. Her voice didn't sound like her own when it came out. It was stiff and formal. "It, um, looks like we're actually going to have to follow through on all these high- minded sentiments. Two out of every three."
He turned to her with eyes full of pain. "Hermione, I...."
"What?"
"I want you to take the getaway we were going to use for Harry. It's only open for a couple more hours and it's completely secure..."
"Ron." She stopped him. She understood what he was trying to do; it was what he'd tried to do for Harry. But she couldn't let him do it. "I want to fight for Harry too. And if I leave, it means both of you will die. Two out of three. Harry's the one that has to make it, much as it pains me to think of you gone."
"Damnit, Hermione, you're the smart one! Shouldn't you be telling me that statistics don't work like that! For all we know, we could all survive, and six strangers will die instead!" Ron immediately realized how horrible that idea was, and frantically backtracked. "Not that that's any better at all, it's just that I mean--"
"I know how statistics work, Ron. I know there's always a chance. But I also know that if every one of us here doesn't stay and fight, then the statistics will be worse. It's like...each of us has to be willing to give all we have, if we're to have any hope of winning. Of Harry living. If we're not that committed, then Voldemort's already beaten us. And I am." She looked into his eyes, trying to convince him she was right. No, it looked like he knew she was right, but found himself unable to take it in fully. Her voice softened. "Ron, I don't like the idea of you fighting either. In fact, I think I hate it. But it's not as if we really have a choice."
There was a pause. Something in Ron's eyes told her that he wanted to hug her, but was afraid to. It was as if he was afraid she would break. To reassure him, she took his hand. It instantly reminded her of the first time they'd ever held hands: while looking frantically for Harry after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. The day that had begun Voldemort's second rise to power. Which would either be ended or cemented tomorrow. Hermione felt like she had come full circle.
Ron seemed to have grown nostalgic as well. "You know, it's funny: maybe I should have gotten better marks in Divination." Ron said with a dry laugh. "Remember in the Shrieking Shack? What I said...somehow I knew even then..."
"I wouldn't call that prophecy, Ron," Hermione corrected, depreciating the subject that had always annoyed her. "I'd call it...self-awareness. You knew yourself and your purpose well enough, even at thirteen, to be willing to die with your best friend." She smiled. "And you knew me well enough to include me in that. Remember, you said 'you'll have to kill all three of us.'"
"Are you...prepared?" Ron asked her, after hesitating. He'd chosen his words carefully, so that she could avoid the real question if she wanted to, and ramble about the spells she'd practiced. But she knew what he meant--prepared to die.
There was no point in running from it. She gave a short, sad laugh and answered honestly. "No. Can you ever be?"
"I'm not either. I don't want.to have any regrets..." He closed his eyes and drew a shaky breath. He looked down at her hand in his, and seemed to draw courage from the sight of it. "Hermione, I...I...I've always...You....What's wrong?"
The tenderness of his voice had told her instantly what he seemed incapable of saying aloud, and it had the power to spill the tears she'd been holding back all day. She tore her hand from his to cover her face.
"Hermione?" he asked, his concern obvious. He hesitantly touched her hunched shoulder, and in response she swiftly threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing openly now. She knew her crying was quite loud and inelegant, but didn't care. Seeming stunned, he slowly wrapped his arms around her.
"Wh-why didn't you ever t-tell me before?" Hermione asked brokenly between sobs, feebly beating a fist on his chest.
He replied in disconnected self-deprecating phrases, his voice quite unsteady: "I--never got up the nerve--'cause I don't deserve you--and now it's too late and I've messed it all up--so sorry."
"No, it's my fault too," Hermione pulled away to look at him as she protested, wiping her eyes. "I could have said something just as easily but I was too proud..."
"You mean you..." Ron's eyes were wide, his voice disbelieving.
Hermione couldn't believe that he hadn't known, and that he doubted now, what she was sure had always been embarrassingly obvious. The only response she found appropriate was to kiss him.
It was light, and trembling, and soft. Weakened by their emotions, they only brushed their lips together repeatedly, not really having the strength or dexterity to apply any pressure. Their mouths slowly opened to each other, and, after an eternal moment in which they sat suspended in frozen time, Hermione tasted his shuddering, warm breath, and discovered in its fleeting sweetness all that they had lost and would lose. She sobbed against him and felt herself being pulled into his lap.
He rocked her, and stroked her hair, and rubbed her back, and they pressed their wet cheeks together, mingling tears. Hermione clumsily tried to return these comforts to him, because he clearly felt the same sorrow, but her real and solid presence in his arms seemed to be what was helping him the most.
As they wept together, their whispered assurances that they had always felt like this gave meaning to their past, and all regret soon faded far into the background, completely insignificant. Though it stung like cutting deeper into an open wound, it also somehow consoled them to speak of the future they could have had together. Together they built an alternate, happy ending, and lived it vicariously, all the way through, agonizing and relishing in the details of a life they would never survive to know.
In time, all their tears were spilt, and, their eyes red and painfully dry, they gradually stopped weeping and began to breathe normally. Hermione marveled, not for the first time, at the purgative effects of a good cry. Without the distraction of crying and comforting to keep them from noticing it, they slowly became aware of their position in each others' arms. They wiped away the last tears, studying each other for a few moments.
Finally Ron could stand it no longer; he pulled her face to his and kissed her firmly, decidedly, deliberately, savoring each instant. His lips seemed to innately know hers, and they kissed her exactly the way she needed to be kissed. It was so perfect that Hermione barely maintained the power or presence of mind to kiss back, but when she did, its effect on him was unmistakable. He shivered all through him, and placed his arms tightly around her, holding her body as close to him as possible. Though they concentrated their kisses on the lips, they also touched forehead, cheeks, eyelids, and hair. Once, while Ron was at work on her neck, Hermione glanced over his shoulder to see the sunset through the window, its red- gold hues blending into his hair. Gryffindor colors. For the brave.
Hermione wasn't sure if they kissed like that for hours, or mere moments. Time seemed to be on hold; they experienced the deep friendship and unspoken attraction of their common past, the future they could have shared, and the present, with its indescribable depth of feeling, all at once. All their lives, no, all of history, culminated for them in this moment. They touched timelessness, and tasted eternity. She could have done this forever.
But they didn't have forever.
An instinct Hermione hadn't known she possessed told her that they needed each other tonight. They couldn't face death without first having lived.
Slowly, she leaned back on the bed, and he followed, drawn only by his need for continued contact with her lips. It seemed that her mouth all he was aware of; he didn't even notice their change in position until Hermione suggestively wrapped her leg around his. When he felt this, he started to pull back, his eyes wide.
"Hermione..." He began, the one word telling her all he wanted to say. He was simply shocked that she would be so forward (frankly, she surprised herself), and he wanted to know what she meant. But he was extremely reluctant to pull away; she was right that he needed this as well.
"Ron, tomorrow..." Hermione started, her eyes communicating to him the grief she still felt at the thought, and her need for him now. She saw her pain and want reflected in his eyes.
"Are you sure?" he asked softly, after a pause, his eyes earnestly searching hers.
Hermione understood his hesitation because she felt it too. This wasn't how she had imagined her first time either. Before doing this, she wanted him to know that it was not just some animal urge to procreate before death; she didn't need him because of tomorrow. She needed him because she loved him; because of tomorrow, it had to be tonight. Hermione longed to tell him, but knew she was incapable of saying the words without starting to cry again, and, besides, the words were completely insufficient. She would show him instead. To begin, Hermione simply nodded, and touched his face, as if to say 'Only you.'
If it hadn't been for the ever-present thought of tomorrow's battle, she knew Ron would have been smiling broadly with barely contained joy and triumph. As it was, that smile, instead of being spread all over his face, was fiercely concentrated in his eyes, where it mingled with sorrow. Convinced, he lowered himself to her again, to hold her quietly a moment, adorably careful not to crush her with all his weight at the same time.
"I didn't come in here for this..." he whispered into her hair, his tone ironic but serious as well.
Hermione smiled. He would be such a gentleman. "I know you didn't..." she assured him. She put her hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him up so she could see his face. His eyes were a brighter blue than she had ever imagined could exist. He was achingly beautiful, violently impassioned, completely sincere, and totally hers. She lifted her head so that their lips could meet this one, perfect, eternal time.
And so they made love.
The whole time, they were conscious that this was the first, last, and only night that they would do this beautiful thing that they should have been able to spend their lives on. This awareness was as severely painful as their lovemaking was acutely pleasurable. Though opposite, these simultaneous feelings did not cancel each other out, but instead heightened their perception of both. They embraced the rapture and the grief as they embraced each other-enthusiastically and without reservation. Because, as bittersweet as it was to mix such agony with the purest love, the intensity of the mixture was.life itself, all that the world had to offer, all at once.
For Hermione, the sharpest grief came from the always-evident lack of a future in their loving. There was an undeniable futility in their love that threatened to suck away all its meaning, a pitiful sterility that made Hermione's belly ache to swell in a way she knew it never would. The most painful moment may have been when she saw, solid and clearly defined, a sudden vision of a red-headed toddler holding out a book for her to read to him. But the happiness she did feel, that final night, in Ron's arms, was enough. It could have lasted her a lifetime. How many people lived to a hundred and never knew such joy?
When they were spent, they clung to each other until morning, sleeping deeply, but not very long.
Upon waking, they smiled at each other: not lovers' silly, leering grins, but soldiers' smiles of grim agreement. They had finished their crying and their caresses. The time for love's dalliance was over; to try to prolong it now would only hurt more, to refuse to accept this was pointless.
But they were content.
The world had given them all they had any right to demand of it. Now they were to give back to the world the life they had enjoyed so briefly, but so thoroughly. Hermione and Ron were now ready to die for Harry Potter, their friend, who they loved, and whose survival meant victory.
A/N: I have to give credit where it's due: the title of the fic and chapter one's title come from a poem by Claude McKay (1889-1948) called 'If We Must Die' (1919). The entire line is: "If we must die, O let us nobly die, / So that our precious blood may not be shed / In vain." This was the end this fic, obviously. I hope you enjoyed it, this was SOO much fun to write! Please review! P.S. For something a bit more lighthearted, try my other new R/H fic, Don't Bet on Love.
Our Precious Blood
Chapter 2: But First Let Us Fully Live
Hermione sat on the bed in silence with Ron quite a while. Neither seemed to have the slightest idea what to say; words felt meaningless and inadequate. Tomorrow loomed before them, and their past was achingly present. She wondered idly why she and Ron had never dated. She had gone out with only a handful of guys during their years at Hogwarts and after, but it never got serious. Ron had always hated the guys she dated, and showed his disapproval with insults, tirades, and the silent treatment. She had finally decided to stop bothering. To be quite honest, she'd never met a guy worth fighting with Ron over. The truth was, she had always been more attracted to Ron himself than to any other guy she'd ever known. He was fun to be with, and endlessly loyal to her and Harry, and infuriatingly...irresistible. That red hair... Hermione sometimes wondered if his criticisms of her boyfriends had come from jealousy, but if that had been the case, then wouldn't he have asked her out himself at some point? She had long ago chalked it up to brotherly protectiveness, assuming that Ron felt no such attraction. Her pride had taken his evident lack of feeling toward her as an insult, and she'd found herself completely unable to act on her attraction to him, especially because she'd never had any explicit encouragement from him. Even when it felt like so much more than just attraction. Like right now. With Ron sitting so close, and on a bed, she felt the air charged with an energy that had always somehow unnerved and calmed her at the same time. She took a moment or two acclimating to his presence, working on regaining her ability to think coherently.
"Are you scared?" Hermione finally asked quietly.
Ron didn't answer immediately. "Not really." She looked reproachfully at him, her eyes telling him that there was no reason for that; he should have left his bravado at the door. He understood her calling his bluff, smiled wryly, and admitted his fear. "Well, yes, right now I'm scared shitless." She smiled, and, for once, didn't scold his language. Ron went on to explain, speaking slowly and deliberately. "But.I think.when the time comes.I'll be able to..." Die? Or, worse, kill? "...do what I have to do."
Hermione nodded. She felt the same way. Fear would become a nonissue when they were finally faced with the reality of battle. It was the anticipation that was maddening.
"I wish Harry would have listened to you." She said.
Ron ran his hand through his hair and leaned his elbows on his knees wearily. "Yeah. He just refused to accept the fact that we actually want to fight for him. The idiot is already blaming himself for all our deaths."
"I imagine he feels the same way about us as we do about him. We just want to protect each other." Hermione said.
"Yeah."
"He's just ignoring our reasons for wanting to protect him because he can't accept our... sacrifice. And because it would make it that much harder to lose us. That's because he does love us." Hermione danced on the edge of what she was sure was the real issue, and barely managed to keep the focus on Harry
"I know." Ron said. "And he knows that we..."
"Yes, he does know, deep down. But it's easier for him to deny it right now. It's the only way he's getting through this. I don't envy him one bit."
"You're right; me neither." Ron said simply, contemplatively.
Hermione smiled that Ron understood so thoroughly. "But still, it's not fair for him to try to keep us from fighting. It's not his choice."
"It sure as hell isn't! Like he could stop me..When I think about the things they said they were going to do..." he shuddered. "I'd feel a lot better about this whole thing if I knew he was going to be safe and out of the way."
"Me too." Hermione agreed. "But it wouldn't be like him to run."
"No. Too bloody noble." There was both affection and frustration in Ron's voice. "It's just...I don't care what happens to me, as long as Harry makes it. I couldn't stand the thought of fighting.and maybe dying.if I couldn't believe that my fighting and dying meant that he would live. And if we're fighting to secure his getaway, it feels like his survival is more certain. Dumbledore's right; it would only put off his showdown with Voldemort, but at least then I wouldn't have to deal with the possibility of his dying. That's pretty selfish, isn't it? But it's how I feel."
"I feel the same way. For you, is it because he's your best friend or because he's the Boy-Who-Lived?" Hermione asked. She thought she already knew the answer.
Ron answered slowly. "Both, I think. He's my friend and I'd do anything for him. I mean that. I'd be willing to fight for him tomorrow even if that was all there was to it. But also, without him, there would be no...hope. Does that make any sense?"
"Yes, it does. I remember reading about World War I, that when the nations' excuses for being at war seemed abstract and idiotic, the soldiers found a reason to fight in the man next to them. Harry's that and more. Harry's both someone to fight alongside and something to fight for: a friend and a cause. He thinks he's not worth it, but I think he is, and I know you do too." Hermione paused, and looked down at her hands. "I suppose we're a bit luckier than those soldiers. This war isn't meaningless, and, from what I've read at least, magical battles are usually a lot quicker and cleaner than trench warfare."
"Leave it to you to give me a history lesson at a time like this." Ron teased feebly.
"It's never too late to learn." She joked back halfheartedly before turning to what she was sure was his real reason for coming. Her voice didn't sound like her own when it came out. It was stiff and formal. "It, um, looks like we're actually going to have to follow through on all these high- minded sentiments. Two out of every three."
He turned to her with eyes full of pain. "Hermione, I...."
"What?"
"I want you to take the getaway we were going to use for Harry. It's only open for a couple more hours and it's completely secure..."
"Ron." She stopped him. She understood what he was trying to do; it was what he'd tried to do for Harry. But she couldn't let him do it. "I want to fight for Harry too. And if I leave, it means both of you will die. Two out of three. Harry's the one that has to make it, much as it pains me to think of you gone."
"Damnit, Hermione, you're the smart one! Shouldn't you be telling me that statistics don't work like that! For all we know, we could all survive, and six strangers will die instead!" Ron immediately realized how horrible that idea was, and frantically backtracked. "Not that that's any better at all, it's just that I mean--"
"I know how statistics work, Ron. I know there's always a chance. But I also know that if every one of us here doesn't stay and fight, then the statistics will be worse. It's like...each of us has to be willing to give all we have, if we're to have any hope of winning. Of Harry living. If we're not that committed, then Voldemort's already beaten us. And I am." She looked into his eyes, trying to convince him she was right. No, it looked like he knew she was right, but found himself unable to take it in fully. Her voice softened. "Ron, I don't like the idea of you fighting either. In fact, I think I hate it. But it's not as if we really have a choice."
There was a pause. Something in Ron's eyes told her that he wanted to hug her, but was afraid to. It was as if he was afraid she would break. To reassure him, she took his hand. It instantly reminded her of the first time they'd ever held hands: while looking frantically for Harry after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. The day that had begun Voldemort's second rise to power. Which would either be ended or cemented tomorrow. Hermione felt like she had come full circle.
Ron seemed to have grown nostalgic as well. "You know, it's funny: maybe I should have gotten better marks in Divination." Ron said with a dry laugh. "Remember in the Shrieking Shack? What I said...somehow I knew even then..."
"I wouldn't call that prophecy, Ron," Hermione corrected, depreciating the subject that had always annoyed her. "I'd call it...self-awareness. You knew yourself and your purpose well enough, even at thirteen, to be willing to die with your best friend." She smiled. "And you knew me well enough to include me in that. Remember, you said 'you'll have to kill all three of us.'"
"Are you...prepared?" Ron asked her, after hesitating. He'd chosen his words carefully, so that she could avoid the real question if she wanted to, and ramble about the spells she'd practiced. But she knew what he meant--prepared to die.
There was no point in running from it. She gave a short, sad laugh and answered honestly. "No. Can you ever be?"
"I'm not either. I don't want.to have any regrets..." He closed his eyes and drew a shaky breath. He looked down at her hand in his, and seemed to draw courage from the sight of it. "Hermione, I...I...I've always...You....What's wrong?"
The tenderness of his voice had told her instantly what he seemed incapable of saying aloud, and it had the power to spill the tears she'd been holding back all day. She tore her hand from his to cover her face.
"Hermione?" he asked, his concern obvious. He hesitantly touched her hunched shoulder, and in response she swiftly threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing openly now. She knew her crying was quite loud and inelegant, but didn't care. Seeming stunned, he slowly wrapped his arms around her.
"Wh-why didn't you ever t-tell me before?" Hermione asked brokenly between sobs, feebly beating a fist on his chest.
He replied in disconnected self-deprecating phrases, his voice quite unsteady: "I--never got up the nerve--'cause I don't deserve you--and now it's too late and I've messed it all up--so sorry."
"No, it's my fault too," Hermione pulled away to look at him as she protested, wiping her eyes. "I could have said something just as easily but I was too proud..."
"You mean you..." Ron's eyes were wide, his voice disbelieving.
Hermione couldn't believe that he hadn't known, and that he doubted now, what she was sure had always been embarrassingly obvious. The only response she found appropriate was to kiss him.
It was light, and trembling, and soft. Weakened by their emotions, they only brushed their lips together repeatedly, not really having the strength or dexterity to apply any pressure. Their mouths slowly opened to each other, and, after an eternal moment in which they sat suspended in frozen time, Hermione tasted his shuddering, warm breath, and discovered in its fleeting sweetness all that they had lost and would lose. She sobbed against him and felt herself being pulled into his lap.
He rocked her, and stroked her hair, and rubbed her back, and they pressed their wet cheeks together, mingling tears. Hermione clumsily tried to return these comforts to him, because he clearly felt the same sorrow, but her real and solid presence in his arms seemed to be what was helping him the most.
As they wept together, their whispered assurances that they had always felt like this gave meaning to their past, and all regret soon faded far into the background, completely insignificant. Though it stung like cutting deeper into an open wound, it also somehow consoled them to speak of the future they could have had together. Together they built an alternate, happy ending, and lived it vicariously, all the way through, agonizing and relishing in the details of a life they would never survive to know.
In time, all their tears were spilt, and, their eyes red and painfully dry, they gradually stopped weeping and began to breathe normally. Hermione marveled, not for the first time, at the purgative effects of a good cry. Without the distraction of crying and comforting to keep them from noticing it, they slowly became aware of their position in each others' arms. They wiped away the last tears, studying each other for a few moments.
Finally Ron could stand it no longer; he pulled her face to his and kissed her firmly, decidedly, deliberately, savoring each instant. His lips seemed to innately know hers, and they kissed her exactly the way she needed to be kissed. It was so perfect that Hermione barely maintained the power or presence of mind to kiss back, but when she did, its effect on him was unmistakable. He shivered all through him, and placed his arms tightly around her, holding her body as close to him as possible. Though they concentrated their kisses on the lips, they also touched forehead, cheeks, eyelids, and hair. Once, while Ron was at work on her neck, Hermione glanced over his shoulder to see the sunset through the window, its red- gold hues blending into his hair. Gryffindor colors. For the brave.
Hermione wasn't sure if they kissed like that for hours, or mere moments. Time seemed to be on hold; they experienced the deep friendship and unspoken attraction of their common past, the future they could have shared, and the present, with its indescribable depth of feeling, all at once. All their lives, no, all of history, culminated for them in this moment. They touched timelessness, and tasted eternity. She could have done this forever.
But they didn't have forever.
An instinct Hermione hadn't known she possessed told her that they needed each other tonight. They couldn't face death without first having lived.
Slowly, she leaned back on the bed, and he followed, drawn only by his need for continued contact with her lips. It seemed that her mouth all he was aware of; he didn't even notice their change in position until Hermione suggestively wrapped her leg around his. When he felt this, he started to pull back, his eyes wide.
"Hermione..." He began, the one word telling her all he wanted to say. He was simply shocked that she would be so forward (frankly, she surprised herself), and he wanted to know what she meant. But he was extremely reluctant to pull away; she was right that he needed this as well.
"Ron, tomorrow..." Hermione started, her eyes communicating to him the grief she still felt at the thought, and her need for him now. She saw her pain and want reflected in his eyes.
"Are you sure?" he asked softly, after a pause, his eyes earnestly searching hers.
Hermione understood his hesitation because she felt it too. This wasn't how she had imagined her first time either. Before doing this, she wanted him to know that it was not just some animal urge to procreate before death; she didn't need him because of tomorrow. She needed him because she loved him; because of tomorrow, it had to be tonight. Hermione longed to tell him, but knew she was incapable of saying the words without starting to cry again, and, besides, the words were completely insufficient. She would show him instead. To begin, Hermione simply nodded, and touched his face, as if to say 'Only you.'
If it hadn't been for the ever-present thought of tomorrow's battle, she knew Ron would have been smiling broadly with barely contained joy and triumph. As it was, that smile, instead of being spread all over his face, was fiercely concentrated in his eyes, where it mingled with sorrow. Convinced, he lowered himself to her again, to hold her quietly a moment, adorably careful not to crush her with all his weight at the same time.
"I didn't come in here for this..." he whispered into her hair, his tone ironic but serious as well.
Hermione smiled. He would be such a gentleman. "I know you didn't..." she assured him. She put her hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him up so she could see his face. His eyes were a brighter blue than she had ever imagined could exist. He was achingly beautiful, violently impassioned, completely sincere, and totally hers. She lifted her head so that their lips could meet this one, perfect, eternal time.
And so they made love.
The whole time, they were conscious that this was the first, last, and only night that they would do this beautiful thing that they should have been able to spend their lives on. This awareness was as severely painful as their lovemaking was acutely pleasurable. Though opposite, these simultaneous feelings did not cancel each other out, but instead heightened their perception of both. They embraced the rapture and the grief as they embraced each other-enthusiastically and without reservation. Because, as bittersweet as it was to mix such agony with the purest love, the intensity of the mixture was.life itself, all that the world had to offer, all at once.
For Hermione, the sharpest grief came from the always-evident lack of a future in their loving. There was an undeniable futility in their love that threatened to suck away all its meaning, a pitiful sterility that made Hermione's belly ache to swell in a way she knew it never would. The most painful moment may have been when she saw, solid and clearly defined, a sudden vision of a red-headed toddler holding out a book for her to read to him. But the happiness she did feel, that final night, in Ron's arms, was enough. It could have lasted her a lifetime. How many people lived to a hundred and never knew such joy?
When they were spent, they clung to each other until morning, sleeping deeply, but not very long.
Upon waking, they smiled at each other: not lovers' silly, leering grins, but soldiers' smiles of grim agreement. They had finished their crying and their caresses. The time for love's dalliance was over; to try to prolong it now would only hurt more, to refuse to accept this was pointless.
But they were content.
The world had given them all they had any right to demand of it. Now they were to give back to the world the life they had enjoyed so briefly, but so thoroughly. Hermione and Ron were now ready to die for Harry Potter, their friend, who they loved, and whose survival meant victory.
A/N: I have to give credit where it's due: the title of the fic and chapter one's title come from a poem by Claude McKay (1889-1948) called 'If We Must Die' (1919). The entire line is: "If we must die, O let us nobly die, / So that our precious blood may not be shed / In vain." This was the end this fic, obviously. I hope you enjoyed it, this was SOO much fun to write! Please review! P.S. For something a bit more lighthearted, try my other new R/H fic, Don't Bet on Love.