Carry Me

Chapter Eight

Hermione was dead a few hours later.

She was dead when we reached the hospital and she was dead when I was with her in the ambulance holding her hand, drenched in sweat, tears in my eyes, hoping and praying that everything was going to be all right. Hermione died right in my arms that day. She didn't suffer at all. It would have been just an instant void of blackness for her and then everything gone before her head rolled back onto my shoulder. All her hopes and dreams, all our hopes and dreams were now gone forever.

And not even magic could save her, all the years I had studied and practised and trained, it was all useless in the end, nothing could help her. I tried every spell and every trick I knew desperately looking for an answer. Charlotte grabbing my trouser leg imploring me to stop. I was more in denial than her.

I still am to this day.

We took Hermione to the same hospital, treated by the same doctor. I held Charlotte close in my lap as she buried her face into my wedding tuxedo. And then I went to see her. Her body still, cold as ice, dressed in her white wedding dress. I stroked her hair, her soft auburn hair, feeling each strand run through my fingers. She looked so beautiful lying there like a porcelain doll, expressionless, eyes closed, lips parted. I wanted to kiss her one final time. The fine lines on her face showed how much she had aged since we married, the stress she had been under - but now all of that stress was now gone. She was free from all of that and we had to go on without her.

What had happened to her? For it to be so quick, so sudden. I remembered looking at all the pills in the bathroom cabinet and thinking about what she was going through and about all the suffering and the pain. I asked the doctor and he said it was a rare cancer that was infecting every major organ in her body. She was literally being cooked from the inside.

I wasn't happy with the doctor's opinion but there was nothing I could do, or anyone else to change what had happened. She fought hard but one day her body just gave out on her. It was our wedding day.

"Your wife was a brave lady." said the doctor. "We only gave her thirty days. She lived past that by several weeks. She told us, that you were helping her. She stood me that since she felt loved again that she started showing rapid improvement. She held on for as long as she could. But she's only human, I'm afraid."

His words filled me with love and anger. I was so torn and frustrated that I had been such a terrible husband all those years. But knowing that my love helped her set a deep sadness in the pit of my stomach. I loved her.

I stayed with Charlotte in the hospital.

Charlotte didn't want to leave her side either. We simply stood there for hours holding her until the visiting hours closed and we were asked to leave. A white sheet covered her face, I could only make out the outline of the body that I had carried so close; held so tenderly over the last 30 days. Ron helped me arrange the funeral. He said it was the least he could do. I was glad of his support. Everyone tried to reach out to me in my darkest hour. Even Ginny gave me a call when I got back home from the hospital. I was a bit surprised, but also warmed by her kind words.

The conversation was hazy in my memory, everything was at that time. I met so many people, so many sad and crying faces that I felt like my life was on a orbital slingshot and sadness and grief was the gravity holding us all together.

We buried Hermione a week later in the pouring rain on Hogwarts' grounds. I threw a single rose into the earth where her body lay. We stood with umbrellas aloft and tissues in our other hand as the priest administered the last rites.

Her tombstones was simple. It read: "Here lies Hermione Potter, 1979 - 2015; Loving mother, wife and friend; Taken from us way too soon."

After everyone left, Charlotte and I stayed to say one final goodbye. Charlotte, wearing a bright yellow raincoat, hugged and kissed the tombstones as if it were her. I didn't know what to say. There were no words I could comfort her with, no actions that would make her feel less sad. I was broken. I got down on my knees and called out to Charlotte and I held her in my arms as the rain lashed down, washing away our tears. "It'll be ok, hun," I said. "As long as we've got each other, we'll be ok."