A/N: angst. angst. angst. Up for your own interpretation of what happened. Trio angst, AU, post-DH pre-epilogue. :) Written for the 'Writing Your Butt Off and Typing Until Your Fingers Bleed' competition/challenge. This ISN'T Harry/Hermione. Sux. Anyways, enjoy & review!

"oh memories, won't you speak to me? can you show the bottom of my soul that can save me back home?"

She was so thin it was hard to recognize her. Her hair once thick and bronze, fell limply to her shoulders like pieces of burnt twine.

"Dad, Auntie 'Mione is looking sad," said a small boy with dark hair and blackberry eyes, tugging on his father's coat. "Why?"

He looked up, but his father's did not meet his small, wishful eyes. Instead, they were focused on the noticeable coffin of oak, sitting in the middle of the clearing, Hermione's very same lacklustre sadness coating his eyes. The coffin belonged to Ron. That is, it belonged to Ron in only the most technical sense. He had never chosen it, though had it assigned to him.

They had joked once or twice – Ron and Harry – about such things.

Being killed on the job, and how it sounded cool to be a war hero.

How they already were war heroes.

Funerals.

He'd never really meant any of it.

Ron had said he would never accept a strong, stylish coffin, because he would never be one to see it. But the chances that anyone would let him go out in a box of cardboard were nil, and Harry went all out – well, as extravagant as you can be shopping for your best friend's casket.

Arthur Weasley spoke aloud, though as quietly as can be, and little James tugged on his mother's skirt now. Nothing made sense to the small child of only two, and he watched in wonder as those who came to love and raise him, were so broken, and so alone. Ginny did not even look down, and only turned her eyes away, into George's shoulder.

"Daddy," he said again. "It hurts, right here." James patted his chest.

"That's where your heart is," whispered Harry disconsolately, his voice broken.

"Do you and Mummy and Auntie Mione and everyone else have a hurt heart, too?"

Harry nodded.

It wasn't so much as hurt; it was a sharp pain he had never known, it was bleeding profusely, or something like that.

James looked away and around the clearing, and rain fell quite blandly, going unnoticed by almost everyone. Hermione tried to make her way to the front of the crowd, though stopped almost robotically half way through, where she looked as if she were going to fall to her knees. Molly came forward to support Hermione, her face solid and still without a teardrop on it, though the distress in her eyes was unmistakeable.

Harry sidled closer and closer, with James' little hand in his own, feeling off against his callouses. He bit down on his tongue; it was all he could do to keep himself from clenching his fists too tightly.

At his first arrival, he closed his eyes, hoping that this was some horrendously long nightmare. He knew from past experience that it never was.

"He's sleeping," said Harry, unable to think of what else to say. "Uncle Ron is sleeping."

He picked his little boy up in his arms. James stared down for a moment.

"Will he wake up in time for my birthday?" he asked, "He said he'd buy me some Bertie Botts."

"I don't think he will."

"Your heart hurts the most," said the little boy, very abruptly. Harry was unable to meet anyone's eyes. "Auntie Mione's too."

Harry did not reply, but only kissed James on the forehead. He struggled to get down from his father's arms, sliding down his side until his feet touched the ground. Harry did not move. Hermione approached the other side of the coffin, her ragged breaths causing her ribs to strain against the tight black fabric of her dress. He remembered so clearly that her mother simply hated the dress, but Ron liked it. Well, he loved it.

He loved her.

Harry tried his hardest not to look up at her, though failed.

"I love you more than you'll ever know."

Her voice was barely higher than a whisper, furtively blanketed by wind.

Her breath seeped out of her mouth like smoke, made visible by the unnaturally cold day. Her fingers only skimmed above Ron's almost grey skin, drawing back suddenly as if he was made of fire. He caught her eyes on the absent six feet of dirt in the ground, the light being imbibed from her irises.

Her face twisted into something that he couldn't describe, and then she made a break for it. She darted away so quickly and suddenly, her hair whipping behind her. Some people stared, and others looked away. Harry stood for a moment, before he too, ran away from it all.

How selfish it was of him to be running away from the truth. He ran for what seemed like several hours, Hermione not even in sight through all the dense green.

It was a while before he came to the waterfront.

Hermione sat on the dock, one toe trailing through the muddy water. He didn't bother wondering how cold the water was – what difference would it make?

"Hermione, I'm so sorry." he said, his voice cracking pathetically.

He sat down on the dock next to her, his feet and ankles submerged in the icy water. His arm wrapped around her.

She looked up at his profile, words on her lips. She can't help but think that it is, in a sense, his fault. A best friend will do anything for another – Ron did it all for Harry.

It is his fault.

Alternatively, if he had just died when he was a baby, they would have never been friends. She would have never met Ron, and – no, it would have been worse.

His green eyes were as wet as her feet; his raven hair slick and stringy. She pushed her selfishness away, and tightened against Harry; a brother and a sister.

"It's okay," she whispered. "Don't worry about it."