A Wonderful Fortuitous Love

Alternative Ending

Hermione found Ron in the tent beside hers. He was sitting in front of an antique duchess, hands fiddling with a pure white rose. She pulled up a chair and sat behind him, and he held the flower out to her mutely. And that is when her heart broke for him.

“Oh, Ron…” she murmured weakly, fingertips grazing over the silky petals. She recognised it from Mrs. Weasley’s garden, could just imagine him standing out there for ages with George complaining that they were all the same or Harry trying to be helpful in that awkward way of his.

“Harry told me you’d left,” he said quietly. “He wouldn’t tell me why exactly, but you know.” He shrugged, too rigidly. “I figured it out. There’s only one thing… person… that would make you leave your own wedding like that.”

Her gaze wondered down to the floor. Stupidly, ridiculously, absurdly, she could not help to think her feet were sore, that there would be hundreds of blisters on them tomorrow and they’d be red and swollen and she’d have to lather them with bandages and with sudden ferocity she kicked the bloody heels off her feet. Watched them roll for a bit on the grass, the right going further than the left. Rubbed her feet and tucked them under her as she crossed her legs, thinking furiously that her feet were not the only things she had ruined today. And it was all because she couldn’t make up her fucking mind. And she had never hated herself more than she did in that moment. It was like one of those awful movies her mother loved so much, “There’s nothing juicer than a love triangle,” she would say. And Hermione would have to bite her tongue during the whole movie because the protagonist was so selfish and so cruel to let the other two dangle like that. And now she had gone along and done the same thing, all because she was confused. What was more infuriating was thinking about how angry she was with herself when the real matter at hand was Ron, sitting without a sound.

She wanted his ears to go red, wanted him to stand and shout and declare how much he hated her. She wanted him to leave her because she was too scared to leave him. She had pictured their wedding so many times before. Everyone was happy and smiling and crying and rose petals from some unknown source were falling from the sky as they kissed after saying the most beautifully perfect vows. Hers would have been immersed with big words and tear-jerking sentences and his would’ve been simple and funny but even better because that was just Ron. And while Hermione was thinking this she stared into the mirror on the duchess.

Their reflections did not match how she’d always thought they would look before their wedding. Ron was still looking at his hands, brushing some lint off his sleeve. His mouth was turned down, and his eyes were not the vibrant blue she knew. Impossibly, his hair seemed to have faded two shades. She looked at herself. Her mascara had run down her cheeks, lips too red for such a pale completion. Leaves and twigs were tangled in her drooping bun, drooping so pathetically it didn’t even look like a bun anymore. Her dress was stained with patches of dirt. The tiara in her hair was crooked, and she pulled it out painfully. Looked at it, no longer as beautiful as she’d once thought, and set it on the duchess. They both stared at it, sitting there and mocking them. The sun had long since disappeared behind the newly clouded sky, and somehow without any real kind of warning Hermione knew it was over.

She dipped her head until she found his shoulder, crying soundlessly for the things that could have been. “I’m so sorry, Ron. I’m so sorry.”

His cheek rested on top of her head. “Me too.”

“You’re the last person I would ever want to hurt in this world,” she whimpered.

“I know,” he said softly. “Because, really, who would fall in love with bloody Malfoy if they had the choice?”

She laughed watery. Did not speak for five seconds. “You’re my best friend,” she whispered.

“Always,” he promised.