Written By: Summer Carlisle
Disclaimer: Although I doubt these disclaimers make any difference, it can't hurt. I own only the new plot ideas seen here, not the characters or place names or anything else.
Setting: One year after the final battle, but not entirely DH compatible
Rating: K+
Genre: Hurt/Comfort?
Warnings: You may not be happy after reading.
Note: It doesn't really have that big of a plot or a real pairing or anything, but I really enjoyed writing it and typed it out in about an hour. I may do something more with this idea, I'm not sure. It wouldn't leave me alone though, and I have so much else to work on so I'm just posting it like this.
"Really," fussed Molly Weasley as she stood with her daughter Ginny and Hermione Granger at the front doors to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. "Where could Bill and Fleur possibly be? They assured me just the other night in the floo that they would be here."
"Mum, they're big kids, I'm sure they can take care of this themselves. Let's go inside, we shouldn't miss the opening speech," Ginny said, tugging on her mother's arm. Molly relented and allowed her youngest child to lead her inside, and Hermione was just about to turn and follow them when a flash of silver appeared just outside the gate and made its way toward her. A glowing silver eagle flew to the top step in front of Hermione and she heard Bill Weasley's voice issuing from it.
"Fleur is having the baby! Will contact again as soon as possible!" Hermione gasped as the eagle disappeared and ran inside after the two red haired women.
"Molly! Ginny!" She called just as they had reached the doors to the Great Hall. "I've just seen Bill's patronus! He says Fleur's in labor!" Molly gasped delightedly and had to hold onto Ginny to stay upright.
"In labor! Oh, heavens, that's excellent," she breathed.
"Brilliant!" Ginny said, patting her mother's arm.
"What's brilliant?" Harry had just appeared in the doorway behind them, holding Teddy Lupin. "I was just coming to see where you lot were, have you seen Bill or Fleur yet?"
"Oh, Harry, Fleur's having the baby," Molly said, still breathless from shock. Harry grinned and ran back into the Great Hall, returning a minute later with the other Weasleys who had been inside. They all exchanged words of excitement and anticipation, and Molly lapsed into tears in her husband's arms, muttering about being too young for grandchildren.
"I think we should get back to the…er…party," Harry said, speaking as though the word 'party' left a bad taste in his mouth. Hermione knew why. It was May the second, exactly a year since the Final Battle in which Harry had at last defeated Voldemort. The Wizarding War Veterans office, a newly created department of the Ministry of Magic, had announced plans for a celebratory gathering in Hogwarts to honor the occasion, inviting all those who had fought and survived, from the good side. The Ministry knew nothing about what the war had been like, they had not seen what these war heroes had been through. They did not understand, Hermione thought, how this day that had been filled with nothing but death and loss and destruction. Misery and murder were nothing to celebrate.
She and Harry were the two biggest symbols of peace in their world, the ones the entire wizarding community of Great Britain saw as the center point of the defeat of Lord Voldemort. Perhaps this was true, but this day was not a day of lighthearted celebration and joy for any of the wizarding war veterans. Hermione quite thought the occasion would have been better remembered as a memorial service, attended by people dressed in their best black dress robes.
Thinking of that battle, now exactly a year ago, did not fill Hermione with thoughts of heroic victory or noble warfare. Instead, her mind was plagued with darkness, filled with the faces of so many people, from both sides, who had lost their lives that day. Whether they had been her loved ones or enemies, did any person have the right to have chosen who could live and who couldn't? Hermione had never fought to kill, did what she could to protect, often incapacitating her adversaries, but she had never wanted to murder. War, however, is unmerciful, and death is impatient. When forced to decide in a split second whether to keep that innocence or kill a Death Eater to protect someone she loved, how could she not? She looked at little Teddy Lupin, the orphaned child, now in Ginny's arms, and wished she could have protected everyone.
That murderous flash of green was the only light in her memories of the Final Battle.
They all filed back into the Great Hall somberly, unable to forget what had occurred in that very room exactly a year before. Hermione tried to keep her eyes from straying to the very spot where she had watched Voldemort fall, but she could not avoid it. She noticed Harry's gaze was locked in the same direction. Sitting at the nearest table, she fought back the memories of every person who had died in this room.
Teddy began to cry, and Hermione wondered if he could somehow sense, if he somehow knew that this was where his parent's lifeless bodies had lain only a year before. The room suddenly felt very small, and Hermione wondered who in the Ministry thought it would be a good idea to bring all the survivors back to this place.
A small wizard, the same who had presided over Professor Dumbledore's funeral and Bill and Fleur's wedding stepped onto the raised platform where the teachers normally ate. The hall fell silent.
The wizard spoke of triumph and bravery and honor, he read a list of names of all those, on their side the only ones the Ministry seemed concerned with who had died in the war. Hermione did not want to hear their names again, did not want to picture the faces of those who had been lost. She distracted herself by looking around the crowded hall, seeing many faces she recognized, and many she didn't. In the far corner, at the very end of what was once the Slytherin table, she saw the white-blonde hair and pallid complexion of Draco Malfoy. He looked older now, years older than his age of eighteen. He sat alone, looking as if he was not sure if he should be there at all. Hermione raised her hand in acknowledgment when he looked at her and he nodded once.
Once the tufty-haired wizard concluded his speech, drinks and appetizers appeared on the tables. Hermione stared at her goblet, now full of butterbeer, and marveled at the memory of once refusing to eat because of enslaved house elves preparing the food. She thought of Dobby and wondered how she had not seen that he was the only one who had wanted to be freed. Strange, it was, that those creatures were so happy to serve while she watched her friends die to fight for their own freedom. It was hard to believe now how much she had not seen before.
The guests began to wander around to visit one another, and as chatter filled the room, Hermione caught Harry's eye. He walked over and hugged her, holding her tightly for several moments.
"It doesn't feel right," he said as they released one another. He did not need to elaborate, she knew exactly what he meant. They stood in silence together, understanding one another more than anyone else could. Neither looked away until Harry heard his godson's giggling, brighter than the sun, even from across the room. His eyes went instinctively to where Andromeda Tonks held the baby, surrounded by a group of people seemingly amused by something the child had done. Teddy was like the shining moon on a starless night to Harry, Hermione knew, and she was grateful the joy that child brought her best friend.
"He is so lucky to have you, Harry," she murmured. Harry ran a hand through his already disheveled hair, exposing the lighting bolt scar that had not hurt him for a year now.
"I think I'm lucky to have him."
Hermione eventually wandered back out into the corridor, the buzz of so many people fading behind her as she meandered through her old school. There had been incredible damage to the building during the Final Battle, and much of it had been repaired over the last year. Wandering up a few floors, however, she found that not everything had been rebuilt.
The corridor where the Room of Requirement once was remained destroyed, surrounded now by a low stone wall and a newly built pathway around it. She approached the wall, finding a brass plaque mounted onto it.
This corridor was irreparably destroyed by dark magic during the Final Battle of the war against Lord Voldemort (Hermione was happy to see he was not referred to as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named) on second, May, nineteen hundred and ninety-eight. It has been left here as a memorial to all who fought and all who were lost in the war.
Thinking of Fred Weasley and Vincent Crabbe who had died in this corridor, Hermione was unaware of exactly when the tears first began to fall. No matter what side they were on, no matter what they had done or who their parents were, no one deserved to die like this. Everyone deserved to have someone mourn for them, and mourn she did. Hermione cried for Vincent, and for his father who had also been killed in the war. Hermione cried for Fred, and she cried for George who, although living, was broken beyond repair by his twin's death. Hermione slid down the stone wall and onto the floor and cried for everyone who had lost and everyone who was lost. She also cried for herself. It wasn't until she was slowly sniffling herself back into composure that she realized she was not alone. She saw an expensive-looking pair of dragon hide loafers a few feet away and did not need to look up to see who it was.
"Malfoy," was all she said.
"Granger," he replied, his voice thick and lacking its usual arrogance. She looked up at his pointed, narrow features and thought again that he looked old beyond his years. She wondered if she looked the same way. Without speaking, he held a hand out to her. She eyed it warily and hesitated before taking it and allowing him to pull her to her feet.
"I, er, meant to thank you. All three of you, actually. For what happened that day," he murmured, staring at the ruined floor boards. She nodded, unsure of how to tell him that she didn't believe she deserved to be thanked for anything that had happened that day. He seemed to understand. "You and Potter and…" His voice wavered. "Well you saved my life."
"You can say his name," she whispered, looking up for the first time to meet his gray eyes. She knew, somehow, that he had been trying not to upset her. Why, however, was the part she didn't understand.
"Well, I mean, I know you two were…"
"In love? Yes. But I can't linger on that. I decided he would like it if I moved on, if I wasn't sad for him," she said, unsure why she would tell all this to a boy who had tormented her for years on end. "I think Ron would have appreciated your thanks though, you know, if he were still with us." Despite her assurance that they could say it, her voice faltered over the name of the boy she had wanted to marry.
"I tried to save him, you know. I tried to block Dolohov from getting to him. I really am sorry it happened." His voice sounded desperate, more broken than she could have ever imagined him sounding. She stared into his eyes, holding back more tears. Here was a boy, a man really, who was raised to believe the wrong things, taught by his father to hate and to kill. Here was a man that had been brave enough, far braver than she had ever been, to fight everything he had been trained to believe and betray his family to help the Order. She smiled at him, smiling for the first time in what felt like centuries.
"I know you did." And she did know. She knew how much he had risked, informing the Order of the plans his father and Voldemort came up with during the war. She knew how he was considered a traitor by both sides, how both sides had tried to fight him during that last battle on the Hogwarts grounds. She also knew that he had tried to save him, tried to save her dearest Ron Weasley from being killed by a Death Eater. He'd had no reason to do so, especially since Ron himself had believed Malfoy to be a double agent. But yet, this pale, unnervingly thin man standing before her had risked his life to save the man she loved. She took his hand, never breaking her eyes from his.
Several moments later, neither of them had moved when they heard footsteps approaching. Hermione flinched, fighting her reflex to pull out her wand in defense as she had exactly a year ago, in that very corridor. Draco's hand tightened around hers.
Ginny came around the corner, long red hair swinging over her shoulder, breathless but grinning.
"It's a girl," she panted, sparing only a passing look on the other two's entwined fingers. "They've named her Victoire." Hermione smiled for what was only the second time she could remember in that year. She leapt forward to embrace the other girl, her eyes still on Draco over Ginny's shoulder. He smiled back.
"Victoire," she whispered. Bill and Fleur couldn't have chosen a better name.
A/N:By the way, in case some of you haven't read the stuff about her that wasn't in the books, Victoire was indeed born on the anniversary of the battle, May 2. Also, is there anything canon about what Bill's patronus actually is? I was considering a wolf after Greyback attacked him but I felt like that would be weird since I guess Tonks and Lupin's patronuses were wolves.