It was almost expected. They didn't know the exact date. They didn't know for a fact that they would be standing in front of [Harry's] grave when he was still young and could have had a bright future. There was a chance that he might have come back from the brink of hostile insanity. Insanity was a harsh word... Perhaps obsession was better. They watched him as he fell farther and farther into his pit. Of despair, of grief, of regret and pain. Nobody could pull him out. Nobody alive anyway.

Ron couldn't quite remember what happened after that. He thought maybe Harry walked Hermione up to the castle, but he wasn't sure what he did with her body. He knew that Harry wasn't speaking to anybody, wasn't going near anyone. After they returned to the school, Ron had holed himself up in the Gryffindor boy's dormitory, where he curled up in his old bed and he stared hauntingly out at nothing...

Ron shook his head, his jaw tightened and his eyes burning with anger and desperation. “Hermione was like a daughter to you. But you already had a daughter. She was this perfect girl that you brought into the family. The one you cooed over being intelligent. The one that kept me and Harry in line. But she wasn't that for us. She wasn't somebody we saw during holidays when school let out or when something terrible happened. We saw her everyday. Every bloody day!” he shouted, shaking his head...

Hours later, the sun rose and his family stirred. He'd already gone through two pots of tea. The creak stopped awhile ago, but he forced himself not to think on it much...