A/N: This is kind of hope-angst, if that makes any sense. Just some of Harry's thoughts, nothing too special. I hope you enjoy it. Harry POV, five years after the Battle of Hogwarts.
"I can't believe we made it," Ron says.
"It's been five years and I still can't believe it," I laugh, looking up at the star-studded sky.
"Sometimes I miss the excitement," Hermione admits. "It had its days, you know."
Ron chuckles. "Like Malfoy Manor?"
"Or Godric's Hallow?" I ask, grinning at Hermione's look of disgust.
We laugh and fall back into that comfortable silence, broken only by the wind whistling between the trees.
War changes minds. It makes you realise how delicate the balance of life is, how quickly everything and everyone can be lost, taken, irreversibly damaged. Some things have obvious effects, like deaths of friends. You wake up every morning for weeks, months even, with the same sharp stabbing pain, a knife straight through the heart, the constant dull ache as you drag yourself mechanically through your day. You look over your shoulder again and again, waiting for the person to walk through the door and yell, "Gotcha! Wow, you really fell for it, didn't you? Ha!" But they never do, and slowly you give up the hope of it ever happening.
That's all acceptance really is, the loss of hope.
Some things are less blatant. We lost something important, something irreplaceable. We lost innocence. Hermione has told me herself that she believes she left her last shred of innocence trashing and writhing on the floor of Malfoy Manor, under the jets of red light, with the interrogatory questions intermingling with her screams. She says that was the point at which nothing was too far, nothing was wrong or twisted, because she knew wrong and twisted better than any of us. She had experienced the merciless nature of a sadist, and she was no longer an innocent.
I believe my innocence ended when Cedric Diggory collapsed next to me under the flash of green light. That was not the first death I ever witnessed, but it was the first one I remembered. It was the first one to haunt me, to take away the refuge of dreams.
I asked Ron the question nearly three years ago, but he has yet to give a final answer. He said he had to think about it. I think he doesn't want to yet.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say he left his last bit of innocence in the cellar of Malfoy Manor, bound to me, helpless to stop the hell on the floor above us. I believe that was when he realised he loved Hermione, that he needed her to survive, that he would be lost without her to steady him, give him certainty in a world of fear and doubt. I think love of that magnitude is in itself a loss of innocence.
He smiles at me and silently, we realise all over again how lucky we are, how close we've come to losing everything and everyone a thousand times over. Hermione, with her head resting on Ron's chest, offers a small, peaceful grin before her eyes flutter shut again. It's been five years, but I still remember the days when their eyes shone brighter than the stars twinkling above us. I haven't given up hope of seeing the light sparkling back in their eyes. We can't regain our innocence, but we can replace it with happiness, the happiness we fought so hard for.