Say You Love Me

{2}

Hermione was trying to grasp everything that Luna was saying to her, to file it away into neat categories that could be studied and looked over, but there was no such luck there.

"I would say that... you have two years left to get him to love you again... or to elect for me to remove them."

The third, unwanted option hung high in the air like a threat. Luna could never, but Hermione felt like her breath was constricted nonetheless. Make Ron fall back into love with her in the next two years, get the flowers and all of her capability to love removed, or just... let herself expire and become compost to the ugly tiger lilies in her chest.

Merlin she had flowers growing in her bloody lungs.

"Luna-" Hermione choked on the words that were to come, and she had thin arms around her again.

"I know, it's an impossible choice."

"Ron isn't going to love me again!" She cried, knowing it was true. "And to not love?"

Sobs clutched at her lungs now, attempting to throttle the life inside of them, but not even that would work.

"I am so sorry, Hermione. I wish there was more I could do for you."

Attempting to compose herself, she let go of Luna and wiped at her eyes, wrapping her arms about herself, eyes shut to center the knowledge she'd gained. What a cursed time to want to know it all.

"Why haven't I heard of this curse before?"

"Oh," Luna said with mild intrigue, though she attempted not to look it. "It was outlawed in China over two-thousand years ago when a wizard used it on a muggle causing it to become folklore. It never even reached the west coast of the continent before it was buried deep in the archives. I only know about it because I speak Chinese and spent some time studying there while becoming a healer."

Hermione really hadn't talked to Luna in a while, but that was not what she was mos concerned over right now.

"Did they have any way to thwart it other than removing the flowers?" She wondered hopefully.

"Not that anyone knows of. What I think you should worry about for now, Hermione, is deciding whether or not you can live without love for the rest of your life and who did this to you. The spell has to be cast, but I can't imagine how the person got past the Ministry's strict laws against it's casting. Things like this have your wand shredded into splinters, let alone snapped in two."

She did not feel any better knowing that, or even thinking about finding someone who had bloody cursed her to die. Giving her a mission didn't distract her from the idea that she was now dying at a much more accelerated rate than before.

"Thank you, Luna," Hermione said to her friend on the brink of tears.

The other woman nodded, looking sad, but understanding that this was something Hermione would need to handle on her own from here on out.

"I'll owl you with follow-up information."

And Hermione was alone to contemplate her thoughts.

It was a few days later when she had finally saddled back up and became herself again after owling in sick to work a few days in a row. To be fair, news like that was devastating to nearly anyone who might have gotten it, but considering the brave face she would need to put on just to go to work or spend time with her all-knowing friends... she'd pulled it together faster than most.

The decision to not tell her friends had been a hard one, but Harry already knew too much and had actually died already, he needn't know that she was headed in the same direction. And Ron... well, Ron was a part of this whole thing much to Hermione's horror.