Summary: Nights are worse now with another one of his loved ones passing. Ron doesn't know how to handle it, and tries his best to calm himself in the cool morning air. Sometimes, however, there are things you just can't do alone.

Summary: Some things are worse than losing someone, like never having them at all. A short Shell Cottage missing moment.

Warning is for implication, just to be safe.

Summary: The Hawthorn tree is the Celtic symbol of consequence, relationships, and contradiction. It's the symbol of juxtaposition, and also of balance. The beautiful blossoms of the tree are nestled deep within razor-sharp thorns. Despite the harshness of the opposites, it still manages to become reborn each year as the wondrous being of nature we see it as.

Marriage, like the Hawthorne, is rarely -- if ever -- simple. Sometimes the roots decay and the structure dies, and other times the harmony of the union of opposites is enough to keep it alive year after year. Ron and Hermione Weasley's marriage is one such sapling, but will their case be one among the beautiful boughs? Or will it lie dead and trodden upon, long forgotten by time?

This is opti from Hufflepuff House writing for the Great Hall Chaptered Challenge. Prompt: Bonded.

Summary: Sometimes the promise of your life is just not enough. Sometimes the only way to feel something is to end it all. For one man at the brink of both his mind and life, these are his times.