Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKRowling.
They meet at the memorial. Dennis – Colin's kid brother, not such a kid, not anymore – is the one who designed it. It's simple, and beautiful, like a black and white portrait. A stone wall that wraps around a portion of the grounds, glistening black marble etched with the names of the fallen. Not just those who died at the Battle of Hogwarts, but for all those who fought the darkness over the years. Those who never lived to see the dawn.
It's Dennis's idea, too, to have the names carved in by the mourners. He's painstakingly plotted out where every name will go, contacted all the next of kin and loved ones, asked them to be present and take part in the remembrance. It takes weeks to gather everyone, because everyone has lost somebody, and everyone needs to be together for this to mean anything at all. This is their Unbreakable Vow: to never let such a darkness rise again. To never let these sacrifices be for nothing.
It is raining on the day when all of Wizarding Britain, it seems, has managed to crowd around length of the gently undulating wall. McGonagall and Flitwick and Hagrid have ensured that everyone is in their allotted place, and it begins.
In the drizzle, it seems like the wall itself is crying as people remember those who they loved, and lost.
Dennis pulls out his wand and etches out that first C. His lips tremble, but his wand hand is steady. He kneels down, and places a photograph – a Muggle one, because in all the magic ones he has, Colin was behind the camera. He's glad, really, that it's a Muggle photo; this way, Colin's smile is perfectly still, perfectly captured, perfect.
Farther down the wall, the Weasley clan is gathered, a horde of flaming red hair subdued in the overcast dankness. They're all weeping, save one; George's eyes are red, but dry, and no one questions his right as he steps forward from the huddle. As he pulls out his wand, he can see his reflection in the glossy stone, and just for a second, he mistakes himself for someone else.
It's the ear, of course, that ruins the symmetry and with it, the illusion. He chuckles (or is it chokes?) to himself, and decides that if this is to be the last prank the Weasley twins pull together, then in damn straight is going to be permanent. Subtle, for once, but permanent.
The wall now, and for always, reads Saint Fred Weasley.
Molly starts forward, eyes flaming, and beneath the name of her son, adds in Gideon Prewett and Fabian Prewett. Her two baby brothers had been thick as thieves, so close they would finish each others' sentences and wear matching sweaters distinguishable only by their initials. They were never apart, not even in death.
She takes her Georgie's hand in her own, and, for the first time in years, he doesn't resist. Ginny takes his other hand, and Percy, hers, and soon, they are a chain of Weasleys. United. And that is something that death can never, ever touch.
The Bones gather as well. If not for the war, it is possible that they would be as numerous as the Weasley clan today. If not for the war, Susan, the youngest Bone, would not be the only one in this generation; Amelia had doted on her, her only remaining niece. Isaac, her father, would not have had to bury what was left of his parents, his brother and his wife and their children, and his sister. Would not have spent almost three decades fearing that his tiny branch of the family, the last branch of the family, was next on the Death Eater's list.
It is possible to lose things you never had. It is possible to miss things that were gone before they were ever truly yours.
They mourn this loss, and Susan cries for her cousins, only five and eight and four, who she never met, and never will.
Andromeda Tonks clutches her wand in one hand, and her grandson in the other, but she cannot bring herself to carve those three names: the two dearest to her, the one dearest to her darling daughter. Her hands tremble, and she drops her wand to the ground, cradling Teddy close to her instead.
"Here," a voice says, cold and stern. Augusta Longbottom towers over her, even more intimidating for the vulture perched upon her steely-colored hair. Her eyes soften a bit as she offers the younger woman back her wand.
"Does it ever get less painful?" Andromeda whispers, hoarse from tears.
"Never," Augusta looks away from the woman whose eyes look so painfully like her own did, when she got that bone-chilling call that Frank and Alice were in St. Mungo's, "Except..."
"Except?" Andromeda is desperate.
"Except when I look at my grandson, and know that somewhere, his parents are so proud of him."
Andromeda's gaze falls on her own grandson, his hair now a mist-gray that matches the somber mood. He is all she has left of Nymphodora. She will be strong, for him. For her. She straightens her shoulders, and takes back her wand from Augusta. For the first time in weeks, her eyes glisten not with overflowing tears, but with something stronger and fiercer as she carves in Teddy Tonks. Remus Lupin. Dora Tonks Lupin.
Her daughter would never forgive her if she was memorialized as Nymphodora.
And for the first time in seventeen years, Augusta Longbottom permits herself to cry as she carves in the names Frank and Alice Longbottom.
The Diggorys crouch beneath an umbrella. Professor Sprout is with them, and a horde of Hufflepuffs are there too, because loyalty extends beyond the grave, but they part and let Cho approach, drenched by the downpour, her wand outstretched, his name upon her tongue. Amos looks at her with red eyes, questioning, almost hostile. She is not a Hufflepuff. It is not loyalty that brings her here.
"I love him," she says simply.
"Loved," he says flatly, because she is an eighteen year old child, and he is in pain, and this is his little boy they are talking about and what could this snip of a girl know about love that she feels like she can lecture a father in it?
She doesn't waver. "Love," she says, "I tried to forget him, I won't deny it. I even Obliviated myself, you know. But then I'd see him in my dreams, or out of the corner of my eye, and everything would come rushing back. There are very few things strong enough to break obliviate. I don't need to be the one to write his name on this wall. I don't need to be the one who makes sure that the Wizarding World never forgets him. But I need to be here, now, when it's done, with other people who will never, ever, forget our Cedric."
It's the way that she says "our" that makes Polly Diggory open her arms and throw them around the girl her son loved. They cry together, tears and memories mingling.
Amos tries to clear the lump in his throat, as he finally sets his son's memory to rest.
A small, mismatched huddle forms at the center of the walls: Dedalus Diggle, Elphias Doge, Aberforth, Arabella Figg, Hagrid, McGonagall, Sturgis Podmore, and even Mundungus Fletcher. The eight remaining members of the original twenty six. They're old now, some of them, all of them older than that fateful night when James and Lily died and they found out that the twenty six was actually twenty five: nobody counts Peter. Some of the fire – the part that was youth and stupidity and naivete – is gone. That part died with the seventeen comrades that they mourn.
It's not their place to write all the names, but it's their place to mourn them all, to remember: Emmeline Vance, who refused to give Death Eaters information regarding Harry's whereabouts. Gideon and Fabian Prewett, Molly's brothers, who fought like the lions they were, who it took five Death Eaters to finally subdue. Dorcas Meadowes, so strong that Voldemort himself had dueled her to the death. Marlene McKinnon, and her husband, and their unborn child, whose death had shaken them all to pieces. Benjy Fenwick, who made a point to rescue as many Muggles and Muggle-born as he could, until his selflessness resulted in his being blasted to bits. Caradoc Dearborn, who had been loyal beyond doubt, who had disappeared without a trace. Edgar Bones, murdered protecting his wife and children. Mad-Eye, who saved them all countless times with his constant vigilance. Frank and Alice, who they all visit, who they all see so alive in the form of their son. Remus Lupin, who was twice the man that most ever manage to become. Sirius, who died as he lived, full of laughter and light. Severus Snape, perhaps, the strongest of them all. James. Lily. Albus.
The remaining eight raise their wands, and configure seventeen white lilies, each tied with a ribbon as crimson as a phoenix flame, that come to rest at the base of the wall.
"They died too young," Arabella murmurs to herself, staring at the names as if it will bring them back.
"The good always do," Minerva replies, wiping an eye and walking away, "Always."
Harry stands alone, for the first time since the Battle, it feels, but the solitude amongst the crowd feels right. He's not the Boy Who Lived, not here. Everyone here Lived, and Lost, even as they won. He has seven names to carve: James Potter. Lily Evans Potter. Dobby the Free Elf. Sirius Black. Regulus Black. Albus Dumbledore. Severus Snape.
He is the one who mourns them most, or in some cases, the only one who is left to mourn them.
He feels as if he is carving the names on his heart and soul, not just on a cold wall. It's a scar and a connection deeper and more meaningful than any lightning bolt.
The last name is carved. As the sky begins to clear and darkness starts to fall, everyone gathers at the end of the wall, and point their wands, together, to fill the remaining space and carve the final phrase, final promise:
Never Forget
A/N: The Vietnam Memorial is (rather obviously, haha) the basis of this Wizarding Memorial; the design belongs to Maya Lin.