A/N: My first song fic. This little plot bunny jumped me while listening to "I'm Already Gone" by A Day to Remember. Awesome song. Hope you guys and gals like it! Again, my first song-fic so be gentle. I live for your reviews.
Disclaimer: I neither own Harry Potter, anything of JK Rowling's works, or anything related to this song or A Day to Remember. Hopefully my arse is fully covered.
XXXX
As I look round this make shift moving house
I'm searching for whatever's left of me
It's on the ground in a box that reads lost and found
It's lost and found
XXXX
He's lived here for nineteen years. Two of them with the woman standing in front of him with two shrunken trunks.
One for her.
One for him.
They could never say they didn't give it all they had. They had tried everything to make it work, everything to hold on to the love they thought they had.
But when one of them had always had a part of their heart reserved for someone else, there was only so much they could do.
They hadn't talked about it.
They hadn't even fought.
There was nothing to say that either of them didn't already know. She had simply met him in the doorway with both their things packed in their old school trunks. His mother was probably crying in the kitchen. Harry stood behind Hermione. Not saying a word. No one else was home.
XXXX
She said, just let it go
She said, it's all you've ever known
XXXX
"You deserve more Ron. Find yourself, go and find the time in the sun you'll never get here."
She wasn't even crying. It shook him that she cared more about him being happy and whole than being together. It wasn't that she didn't love him; it was that she loved him too much.
He had spent every part of his life here overshadowed first by his brothers, then by his best friend, then by his girlfriend.
He tried. He worked hard. But nothing he ever did seemed to measure up. There was always someone from this house that was better.
It wasn't her fault she was so brilliant. It wasn't anyone's fault that they were all so bloody brilliant.
He had never known one moment where he came out on top.
Never got the time in the sun that he so desperately wanted.
That he so desperately needed.
Hell, he had never even known a time where the two most important people in his life weren't both a comfort from and a source of his insecurity.
XXXX
I've worked it out you'll always bring me down
From here on out I'm doing things for me
XXXX
He was tired of being second best.
Tired of never being able to match up to either of them.
Tired of being the thing that kept them apart.
Ginny had given up long ago. She had never even announced that she was leaving. They all woke up one day and she was gone.
Last time he saw her, at her first game as a sideline reporter, she looked happy, happier than she'd ever been here.
Now he understood. She had finally started living life on her own terms. It was time he did the same.
His girlfriend and his best friend loved him. Loved him enough to let him go.
Loved him enough to make him go.
They knew as much as he did that they brought him down, overshadowed him. They tried hard to make it work, to let in enough light for him. It wasn't their fault he would never live up to The Boy Who Lived and The Brightest Witch of the Age in everyone else's eyes.
It wasn't their fault that he would never measure up in his own eyes.
XXXX
And I'm, I'm out making rounds
On every side of town
That I've been through, that I know
To find my reason to come back home
XXXX
Ottery St. Catchpole wasn't a big town. It was he had always liked about it. Every corner and every lane held a memory. A special place in his consciousness.
It was a reminder of who he was, of where he came from. That was no longer the comforting thought that it had once been.
It was all he had ever known outside of Hogwarts. It was his only home. The only place he had ever thought he wanted to be.
He had even been looking at vacant lots. Places to build his life with her, right next to the life he had always lived before her.
She had never really wanted to live here. He knew that. But she had loved him enough to try.
He walked every bit of it. Reliving every episode, every memory. Looking for something that would tell him he was wrong, anything to tell him to stay.
It was almost a relief to find nothing to hold him back
XXXX
With everything that sets me back
I push back harder to clear the way
There's not a thing that I regret
Can't live my life in yesterday
XXXX
There wasn't anything for him here anymore. Nothing left to tug on his heart and bring him through the door.
Not her.
Not him.
Not the family that, bless them, had never been able to set him free.
He didn't belong here anymore. He was finally free.
XXXX
I'm impatient now. I'm not the type for life alone,
I need someone.
XXXX
He met her on the side of the road that led out of town. She had her bag on her shoulder.
Just like him.
"Where you headed?"
"Anywhere but here." Her eyes held the same desperate need to escape.
"Let's go. Together."
If they were going to leave, they might as well leave together. Besides, he had never done well on his own. He could see on her face the same look of relief that she wouldn't be alone either.
They didn't say another word. They simply walked together. Blonde haired girl and red headed boy.
Weasley and Lovegood.
Away from the life they had lived before, towards whatever awaited them ahead.
They could have apparated.
They could have taken the Knight Bus.
But there was something empowering about placing one foot in front of the other. Something that felt immensely right. As if this had been their plan all along.
XXXX
And I'm, I'm already gone
I'm already something to someone that I don't know
When will I know?
XXXX
There was something, maybe everything for him out there. He didn't even know what it could be.
All he knew was that it was better than what was here.
Out there he could be something special. Something that stood on its own merit.
Ron Weasley.
Not: Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger's boyfriend and Harry Potter's best friend.
He would find someone who loved him with their whole heart, holding nothing back for anyone else. Not having to consciously choose him again and again.
He had no idea when all this would happen. He might look for days, weeks, or years. He might find it tomorrow.
Maybe he already found it in the girl walking next to him.
None of it mattered. What was past was in the past. The future stretched invitingly before him.
Maybe one day he would come back. Maybe they could all be happy ever after together again.
Maybe.
But now he was his own man. His destiny sat in the palm of his hand, ready for him to make it his and his alone for once in his life.
The sun had never before shined so brightly.