Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to Harry Potter. He is the sole property of J.K. Rowling (but if you want to add Hermione that's alright with me).
Author's Note: Eh, I decided I needed to get away from my novel for a short while and this is the result, an angsty ficlet. Many thanks to Kalie for reading this over for me and sharing her opinion. I really appreciate it.
Eternal Rain
It was raining. It was always raining now, which was fine to Hermione. It matched her mood perfectly. In fact, it matched the wizarding world's mood perfectly. It seemed as though the earth itself was crying, just as Hermione had been doing since it happened.
The mystery was how it all came to pass. Hermione remembered the night he left; she remembered it as if it were yesterday. She remembered how he had hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek good night as he pretended to go up to his dormitory and go to bed. Little had she known that he had slipped past her underneath his invisibility cloak as she stared into the fireplace at the dying embers.
She, like everyone else at Hogwarts, found out the next morning, when Harry didn't turn up for breakfast. Dumbledore announced that he had gone and what he was planning to do. Naturally Dumbledore knew. What didn't he know?
If only Hermione had known.
Weeks later, it was announced that Voldemort was dead. Upon hearing the news Hermione felt such a great feeling of joy and relief that she felt light-headed, but what she heard next took that wonderful emotion away. Dumbledore's grave announcement to the Great Hall:
"Harry Potter is dead."
If she could have felt grateful for her exams being over with, she would have, but the truth was that she could feel nothing but a wave of pain and sorrow. After the announcement, she wandered the grounds until she found a nice secluded spot on which she settled herself and let her tears pour, just as the rain began to fall.
It hadn't stopped raining since.
It was nearly a month later and Hermione had left Hogwarts with top honors and many job offerings, but she didn't care. Her life was gone now; it had left the moment Harry had died. And she had her regrets…
She regretted that she had never told Harry how she felt. A crush that started towards the end of their fourth year had blossomed into something so much more during the years that followed, but Hermione was too insecure about her feelings to ever mention anything about them to Harry. She had watched his doomed relationships sadly, never uttering a word. She had watched as he dealt with death and turmoil and could only comfort him, never telling him the truth even as he muttered about how no one could ever love him.
And now she could never tell him.
There was a knock on the door of her London flat that she lived alone in. Wiping her eyes, she walked over and opened the door to reveal Ron Weasley, her best friend, who was also suffering through Harry's death.
"Hey," he murmured, not looking at her and shuffling his feet, "are you ready to go?"
Today was Harry's funeral. It had taken a month to organize simply because the Ministry of Magic knew that people all around the world would come and mourn the death of their hero, their savior.
"Yes," she replied, grabbing her handbag and walking out the door.
"The whole Ministry is taking a holiday," Ron told her as they headed down the street to a private alley before apparating to the location of Harry's funeral.
A gigantic black tent had been erected for the ceremony in the cemetery where Harry's parents were buried. He was to be buried beside them. Hermione and Ron walked under it and out of the rain where several witches and wizards were huddled together. The Weasley clan was already there, easy to spot because of their vivid red hair.
When Ginny spotted Ron and Hermione approaching, she ran over and embraced Hermione, who barely returned it.
She smiled weakly and handed them both a rose. "For the ceremony. They've set up seats for you two, seeing as you were the closest thing to family Harry had," she told them.
Ron nodded and wrapped an arm around Hermione's shoulders, leading her up to the seats that were placed right before the closed casket that Harry Potter now lied in. Hermione choked back a sob.
Before long, the ceremony began and many, including Ron, had gotten up and spoken about Harry. Hermione couldn't bring herself to address the gathering, not in the state she was in. She was bound to start bursting into tears at any moment.
Then, one by one, people started to rise, walked up to the casket, and place their rose on top of it. Soon, Ron guided her up towards the casket and laid his rose on top of it, then bowed his head as though in prayer.
Hermione stared at the casket, wishing that she could open it and see him one last time, wishing she had told him how she felt when she had the chance, wishing that he hadn't been chosen by Voldemort, wishing that it was her in there instead of him so her pain would just go away.
But nothing could be done. Nothing.
With a lone tear running down her cheek, she whispered, "I love you," and placed the rose on his casket.
Maybe some day, the sun would shine again.