Prologue

A/N: Hello again everybody! After I finished reading DH, this story simply popped into my mind. So beware for they are minor spoilers of the book. In this story Ron was the one who died, instead of Fred. My take at the aftermath of the war is, too, a bit more depressive that the one in the book, so... If it isn't your cup of tea, don't read it. Shouldn't be longer than four chapters. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: If I owned the characters Ron would be dead, Harry and Hermione would be together, and many deaths would've somehow been avoided. So yeah, I don't own anything but the plot.

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The house is too large and empty for them; too dark and silent, and they instinctively started to try to find solace in each other. The War had only left ghosts and scars. No strengthened friendships, no glorious memories, no smiles. The good side had won, but only just, and that fact itself brought enough frustration and guilt to worry about anything else. There had been consequences, of course... Deaths and tears, broken families and devastation... But those were the natural results of a war, after all. She didn't blame him, and he didn't blame her. But that didn't make the wounds close.

War changes people, and it had made no exception with them. Hermione doesn't know who she is anymore. To what world does she belong? She has lost her innocence, her ingenuity, her love for learning... There was nothing she could offer anymore to anyone. She scarcely spoke, and went out of her way to avoid being noticed. What was she then? A living corpse? A shadow, a shell, of what she had once been, in a distant past?

Harry doesn't even try to go out of his house. His eerily mature eyes are capable of burning holes in your skin, but he won't open his mouth to pronounce a word, a sound, a song. He spends days and days staring at the air, probably remembering the final battle, and the lives lost- what he had to do to finally kill Voldemort. He is unreachable now; strong and yet as fragile as frozen glass.

The Weasleys don't try to contact either of them anymore. Neither Harry nor Hermione worry about this, because they believe it is better that way. In their minds Ron's death is their fault, and no matter how hard they try, they find it impossible to face that sort of adopted family they once cherished. The Order had been disbanded after the end of the war, and Lupin had also passed away along with Tonks. There is no one left now.

Hermione glances at Harry from one end of the table, and quickly lowers her eyes to the plate of food in front of her as he looks up. He stares at her and follows her example a few seconds later. It's always like this. Since Ron passed away, it feels as though a piece of them died with him. Everything seems so insignificant, so irrelevant... It feels disrespectful and wrong to smile about something.

They are both drowning.

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A/N: Short, I know, but this is after all the prologue. I don't know if I'm entirely satisfied with this fic (I have three chapters written already) so let me know if you'd like me to post them, and if you like it so far. Thank you for reading!