A/N: I had to change the character because I forgot I couldn't use Ron. The story is still the same, just a little tiny bit of info on this guy. More later.
"Whiskey Lullaby"
When I sit and look out of my window and think about all that my life has become, it makes me sick. To be so incredibly intelligent, I have been morosely naïve in the ways of love and how they affect me. I was in love-am still in love. I skipped right over the little school girl crushes and things of that nature, and fell head first in love. I knew we would be together. I knew that he loved me and he promised me that when he came back from the war we would get married and live happily ever after. I believed him because I knew it was true. If only I had foreseen what would become of our plans, I could have stopped myself. I should have stopped myself anyway but that part will come soon enough. I am Hermione Jane Granger-Potter and this is the tale of the event that brought my life full circle and caused me to step back and evaluate everything I have ever done.
~*~
Harry left me standing cold and teary eyed on the doorstep of our flat. He kissed me quickly and reminded me that he would return, probably scathed, but that he would return nonetheless. I hoped in the deepest part of my soul that he was right because I knew that I could never live without him. That was on the third of December, 1998.
I waited, quietly and alone, for the call I knew would eventually come. It happened on August fifteenth, 2000. I had waited for two years without so much as a peep form anyone who knew where Harry was. The order never contacted me nor came to check up on me. The only companion I had was Ron. He would sit with me late into the night while I cried myself to sleep. It was only when he was tired of seeing me so drunk that he would take the bottle out of my hand and lay me down for countless nights of unfruitful slumber. The night that Ron came to me, his head hung low and his cheeks tearstained, I knew it was over. I knew that Harry would never return to me like he had promised to long ago. He didn't say much; he knew I didn't want to hear all of the grisly details.
"It's done." That was all he said. I collapsed on the ground in the very spot in which I stood and screamed. I screamed myself quiet many nights after that. Only Ron was there to hear the rattle from my throat as I tried repeatedly to cry out for my lost love. It was only he who saw my tears. When I found that I could cry no more, after months of unrestrained grief, I turned to the bottle as a false comfort. I drank myself into oblivion every night and yet Ron was still there to clean me up and set me to bed.
I had never felt for Ron the things I felt for Harry. He was my other best friend and that was always the end of the line. But those lines became blurred the deeper I fell into my own grief. All I wanted was Harry. I yearned for his touch, his lips against my neck, and his body under mine. It was all that I wanted and all that I knew I could never have again. So in my foolish drunken stupor, I advanced on Ron one particular night. He stopped me, however, and walked out of my life forever.
Over the next few days, with Harry dead and Ron gone for good, I looked towards my next door neighbor for consolation. His name was Vincent Mershaw and he was a law student at the local college. Vincent came to visit me daily, often bringing wine or whiskey with him. We would stay up late into the night drinking. We never talked, not about what mattered anyway. I only told him once about Harry and that he had died and Vincent seemed to understand. He understood so much that he, unlike Ron, did not stop me when I came onto him one night.
We made love that night for the first time, and in my destroyed mind all I could think of was Harry. I made Vincent be Harry and made him suffer as the cries that escaped my mouth that should have belonged to him, carried Harry's name throughout the gravely empty house. We slept together many, many more times after that night. Never once was I sober. It only happened when my need for Harry was very great and almost unbearable and Vincent always succumbed to me in the end
A year after Harry's death, and as I was worse on the bottle than ever, Vinvent and I had a particularly bad encounter. All I wanted was sex, to pretend that he was Harry just for those few sweet moments. But he was tired of my games. He said that he didn't love me and I sure as hell didn't love him and that what we were doing was wrong. Well if I had been sober, naturally I would have agreed. Since I was in no state of mind to argue much of anything, I just jumped him. We had sex in the middle of the floor, mostly because I would not let Vincent up. It ended as it usually did, with me screaming Harry's name into the dark room. The only thing different was Vincent's whispered "oh my god," as a dark shadow loomed over us both.
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