Prompt 1: Beginnings
Hermione stood near the end of the Hufflepuff table cataloging the chaos of the rubble covered familiarity before her. She couldn't help but marvel at the significance this great hall had in her life. The beginning of her Hogwarts career had been just over there, when she had been sorted into Gryffindor, her hand twitched vaguely toward the teacher's raised platform they were now using to gather the bodies of the honored dead. She'd never admit it to anyone, but at the time she was disappointed because all of her pre-Hogwarts reading had lead her to believe she was a shoe in for Ravenclaw. The sorting hat had known better though, it had told her that while she'd fit very nicely into Ravenclaw she would only truly thrive in Gryffindor.
Her gaze then fell to the now battered Gryffindor table, benches upturned and one segment of the long table broken. It tore at her heart as she realized that broken section was the same spot her first real friends at Hogwarts was solidified. It was the morning after the troll incident in her first year. She was nervous wondering if they would still be friends when Ron and Harry had just sat down next her like it was what they had done everyday. The simple act seemed to bear no significance to them at all but she knew it was an important step in the beginning of a now legendary friendship.
The corners of her mouth twitched upward as Hermione eyes took in the long row of tall windows taking up most of the north wall, all shattered save one. She smiled at the irony of the single saved window, third to last, being the very same window Victor Krum had kissed her under at the Yule ball. She had been explaining to him the significance behind the story depicted in that particular stained glass window and he'd cut her off with a kiss. It should have been a great kiss, her first kiss, she was 15 and on the cusp of woman hood being kissed by a man who was absolutely right for her according to all her pros and cons lists. Smart, hardworking, cultured, courteous, in short everything Ron Weasley wasn't. It was that kiss and the feeling of something missing that shattered her hopes of falling for Victor Krun instead of being hopelessly in love with her best friend to whom it had only dawned on days ago that she was indeed a girl. It was a painful beginning in a long line of attempts to get over him. She found irony in that being the single window saved, when she had always wanted to smash it in the memory of that realization.
She chuckled slightly but it turned into a sob in her throat and she began to cry, openly weeping as the relief of it all being over engulfed her. Ending in the same room it had begun, for her at least. She had eaten and socialized in this great hall now covered in the scars of war. It would see no more beginnings for her.
Hermione had no idea how long she stood there, her shoulders shaking as tears ran down her face. She was only startled back into reality when a large calloused hand encircled her own. She didn't have to open her eyes to know who it was. She knew those hands, and underneath the sulfur taint of smoke and chocking dust she could smell him. The same smell that she'd been unwilling about to admit to during her first potions lesson in sixths year, in from of the entire class. 'freshly mown grass, parchment and ....' Ron, it was some Ron specific mixture of shampoo, soap, laundry detergent and sweat. As his hand held hers the emotional mix inside of her changed.
With his touch he brought hope. This room was no longer the end of a horrible war spanning generations, it was the home of all new beginnings. She opened her eyes again and looked at the room before her again and it was totally different to her eyes. This is where hearts would begin to heal and peace would begin to dominate after years of war. This is where future generations would come to begin their education and flourish in a world that was now safer because of the dust now settling around her feet. She looked up at Ron and he squeezed her hand and she knew, without a doubt, she knew this was a new beginning for them as well.