Bathwater

"Stars are falling, faeries calling, what's a girl to do?" Hermione sang softly to herself, rocking. Her hair was hacked off so that it was shorter than Ron's. They'd had to do it after she nearly strangled herself with it. "Moon is shining, Day is lying, lying lying lie lie lie."

Running a hand through her shorn locks, she turned her attention to the people at her door. Ronald was here again, and he was bringing her flowers, and they'd be put behind the special field so she could smell and touch them, but not pick them up. The scattered remains of the last bouquet lay on the floor. She'd gotten sick of watching them die.

Die. She'd watched someone die before. Green eyes fractured, and she smiled to herself. Ronald was not dead, but he had sent her to this cell. She hated that word, death, it always made her think of the Astronomy tower. But what was an astronomy tower but a symbol of affliction and pestilence, a really red start.

"I've brought you some more paints today, 'Mione," Ronald was saying, and she listened to him. Paints were good. She could paint, capture those moments when she'd lost all clarity.

"They've finally done the autopsy on Voldemort's body. They say it was shock that killed him, and old age. Can you believe it? The greatest Dark wizard of our age died of a heart attack." He laughed, and it was mirthless. She trilled alongside him, not recognizing the noise as coming from her own mouth. Ronald leaned in conspiratorially. "I think it was Harry what done it," he confided, and she leaned backwards, allowing him to undo her restraints. They always restrained her before they medicated her, but never before and never afterwards, but since Ronald was here, they left them on while he entered.

"Do you hear them, Ronald?" she whispered dramatically, waving her hand carefully so as to not hit him. He was the only one who still came around, after all, and without him, it would just be the nurses and her, and the voices that came to her just after she'd taken her medication. The nice lady and her man had stopped coming around after they'd come in to find her with her wrists cut, and a face arched out in the wall with her blood, his face just before he leapt to his never-again. After that, she wasn't allowed to touch the vases with the flowers, and the others stopped after she wrapped her hair around her throat so tightly that she almost suffocated. Only Ronald still brought her the paints and the flowers she loved. Lilies. Lilies for him, and his never ever gone forever.

"Hear what, Mione?" Ronald asked quietly, setting up her paints the way she liked them.

"The voices!" She screamed suddenly. "I hear them. They speak to me when the Nurse comes, they tell me that they loved, they loved, they fell." Suddenly there was a paintbrush in her hand, and she blinked at it, wondering how it had gotten there. She turned to her canvas, and closed her eyes. What would come today?

A blonde boy, flying through the air like a bird. His arms stretched wide, his face a passive smile, for who wouldn't be happy to fly? Flying was the real freedom, and in her dreams she could fly, too, just like him. Shapes began forming on the canvas, and Ronald turned pale, tinged green, when he realized what she was painting.

"Did you know that the Dragon never died?" she said conversationally. "I still hear him roaring in the sky. I see him! He's THERE!" Almost convulsively, the bright sunshine turned to night, and Ron could make out the constellation Draco, cruelly mocking him from the flat board. "He's always flying around because he found he could from the tower, the tower of the sky." She started humming, and Ron hung his head. After watching both Harry and Draco kill themselves, Hermione had never been the same. She'd never fully recovered, though no one really knew the extent of the damage done until Voldemort made the front pages. He'd died the same day Harry and Draco did, and while everyone knew, intrinsically, that it was because of Harry's death that he'd gone down too, but the official cause of death was a heart attack. It was the sight of the date on the paper two days afterwards that had sent her into mad peels of laughter that hadn't stopped, and they'd needed to take her to St. Mungo's or go crazy themselves. Her parents had stopped by a few times, but after something happened, didn't return. Ron didn't know all the details.

Finally, the painting was done, and she said so by snapping the paintbrush in half and tossing it to the side. "Unicorn's song, hair of a toad, ogre's eye, and dead lover's load..." she sang quietly, and Ron hung his head again in shame this time. It had taken him weeks to gather the nerve and ingredients for the stunt he was about to pull, but it was worth it.

"Mione, lay with me?" he said suddenly, and lay back on the bed. She immediately flocked to his side, curled up like a kitten, and he rubbed her short hair. "I love you, Hermione Granger." he whispered, and she giggled.

"Why, Ronald. Are you proposing to me?" He nodded, and produced a cup. It was spelled to keep the liquid inside until drunk, and he gave her a few sips before taking a few for himself. She frowned.

"What did you do to me, Ronald?" It was the clearest thing she'd said since her admission, but he was fading to fast to hear it. She nestled her head under his chin.

"Sleepy," she mumured, and he had just enough presence of mind to kiss the top of his head before the darkness claimed him.

----

Hermione Granger was killed today in her St Mungo's room by none other than Ronald Weasley, her former boyfriend. The couple was found dead in her room, having drunk poison together. Miss Granger tragically lost her mind at the sight of Savior Harry Potter and his lover that fateful day at Hogwarts, and didn't recover. Both their families say it was for the best, and though they're grieving, they're glad that the two of them are still together.

Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet Reporter