Greetings, everyone, Delilah here. Though I've been reading some excellent Harry Potter fanfiction for quite a long time, it was a while before I started writing any and even longer before I decided to publish this one. it didn't help that most of my stories were saved on my old computer, which died on me. So I ended up having to start anew.

Anyway, I got the idea to focus on a few quiet moments a year after the epic Battle of Hogwarts. What sort of reactions would the bereaved display? What would they say to those they lost? I tried to focus less on the Trio and members of their immediate families, simply because they've been covered so much, but I couldn't resist throwing in a little shoutout to the late, great Fred Weasley.

In Memoriam

There is a place, located in a quiet corner of the Hogwarts grounds in the shade of both the immense castle and the silent forest, where people come to remember. The place is quiet and still. There are several stately trees and a well-manicured stretch of lawn. Here and there flowers are placed, left as tokens by loved ones. On days of late spring, much like this one, the green leaves and delicate blossoms in the scattered trees rustled in the warm breeze. The dazzling sunlight seemed to mock those who came to assuage their grief.

She walked along the grassy slope, between the rows of graves. Marble, granite, the final reminders of a hundred lives, prematurely snuffed out. She turned left at a particularly elaborate monument and stood facing the grave she sought. Its location was familiar to her. She had trod this path many times before.

The stone was smooth and had only recently started to show spots of age. For a moment she gazed at it, reading and re-reading the engraved words until they no longer held any meaning.

Cedric Diggory

Beloved Son and Faithful Friend

Champion of Our Hearts

Always the innocent are the first victims

She hadn't visited Cedric in quite a while. It had all been too painful. Cho knew that many schoolhouse romances ended in tears, but this…this was too much. He had been different from all the others. Cedric. There was just something about him—a sort of glow—that told her that here was a boy who was, in every way, a cut above the rest. It was almost as if the world hadn't deserved him.

She reached into the robes and pulled out a fine gold chain. Suspended from the chain was an oval-shaped locket. She opened it. Two teenagers—a boy and a girl—grinned up at her, arms wrapped around each other, they were clearly very much in love. Cho squinted to read the inscription on the inside cover of the locket:

Always and Forever

Cedric and Cho

After years of trying to get over him, of dating other boys and spending more time with friends, of focusing on her career, Cho had reached the conclusion that she could not get over Cedric because she was not meant to get over Cedric. He had been the love of her life. Perhaps she would someday find someone else, but he would never compare. And she would never forget. Always and forever.

As she walked back up the lawn towards the castle, past a veritable crowd surrounding Fred Weasley's grave, Cho Chang decided that she was through with the wizarding world. Everywhere she looked, she saw only painful reminders of what could have been and what would now never be.

Several rows away, a teenage boy led a woman by the hand towards one of the newer graves. The woman cast an eye around this new location. She had never been here before, never seen this part of her son's world, save through the mounds of photographs he brought home. She hadn't even come to the final interment, knowing in her heart of hearts that she could not bear to see them lower the lifeless body of her firstborn son into the cold, hard ground. But she also knew that she had to come eventually.

With a choking feeling, she realized that, given happier circumstances, she would probably never have ventured onto the grounds of the great castle where her son had spent such a large part of his life. This was the place where he had studied subjects she couldn't understand, taught by teachers whose names escaped her. Here he had written essays with titles she couldn't pronounce and played unfamiliar games with his friends, none of whom he had ever invited home during the summer or even introduced her to. Never mind. Now was not the time to lament the fact that Colin had, for the past few years, lived a life that was completely foreign to her, his mother.

"Hello, Colin," she said, rather stiffly. This felt wrong. What does one say to their emotionally estranged, permanently deceased, sixteen-year-old son?

"Hello, son. I made it. I told you I would. You were right—this place…it really is beautiful. I think I can see why you loved it so much…"

Mrs. Creevey felt a bit of a block in her throat. It tightened unavoidably and she felt the familiar burning in the corners of her eyes.

"Why did you come back? Why? Did you know this was going to happen? Did you know there was a chance you'd never come home, and you left me anyway? How could you do this to me? You never told me your magic wouldn't keep you safe…"

Of course, she had known. Deep down she knew that no magic—save perhaps that of a mother's loving arms—could keep her son from harm. She cursed the absurd faith Colin and Dennis had put in those damn countercurses and charms, thinking they could stop malice and cruelty from breaking through.

At that moment, Mrs. Creevey had decided that she truly hated magic.

And yet…

There were other families here, mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. Husbands, wives, lovers and friends all coming to check in one those they had loved and lost. Perhaps they held no such false hopes that magic could have saved their loved ones' lives; perhaps they had merely hoped and prayed that it might.

There is no magic stronger than the love of a mother for her child, she thought, as she and her only remaining child stood, sobbing, hand in hand at her firstborn's grave.

The old woman leaned over, checking the names on various gravestones until she finally found the right one. She gently placed the small boy on the ground, where he amused himself with a fallen twig. Little more than a year old and he was already trailing it through the air like a wand.

Two were buried here, yet one stone sufficed for both. Here lie Remus and Nymphadora Lupin, it read.

Order of the Phoenix

Loving Parents

Love conquers all

Well, not all, thought Andromeda. If love conquered all, her daughter wouldn't be lying, asleep forever, under the grass beneath her feet. Her love could have kept Dora alive, if that were the case.

Dora. She had been a willful child—cheeky. Disobedient, even. Certainly not possessing any of the qualities Andromeda's mother would have approved of in a young lady. But Andromeda didn't care—she herself had been disowned from the family, scorned and threatened, all for her life choices. And so she had admired Dora's spirit and loved her dearly for her quirks and eccentricities.

Dora had never been one to give up. She didn't give up on becoming an Auror, even though the training and requirements were forbiddingly difficult. She didn't give up on Remus, even though he rejected her –"for her own good", he insisted—repeatedly. She didn't give up in the fight against Voldemort, even when things went horribly wrong. And she didn't give up on the idea of a world where Teddy could grow up without danger or fear.

"I won't give up either, Dora," whispered Andromeda. "We'll all make sure he grows up right." And she reached over to pick up the child, who had abandoned the twig and was concentrating on changing his hair color to light brown eerily reminiscent of his father.

"Say hello to Mummy and Daddy, Teddy," she said. "Your mum and dad loved you so much. Never forget them, Teddy."

Perhaps the love they all shared for Dora and Remus could get them through this. Perhaps, in the end, love would conquer all.

In a shady, silent corner near a large crabapple tree lay a grave not often visited. It is set back a bit further from all its closest neighbors, as though unsure of its worthiness to share in this sacred space. The woman in green sighed as she looked down at it. There were no flowers here; nothing left in remembrance of the man whose final resting place this was. Even in death, they are afraid to approach him. I wonder if he would laugh. She took a deep breath and said, "I honestly don't know what to say, Severus."

Professor McGonagall paused, thinking of her former student. He was too young, really, to have embroiled himself in all that he had. It was unfair that no one had known of his heroism until it was too late…though he had made it that way himself, she reflected. He was quite a bad-tempered piece of work. I suppose it was the sum of everything he had been through, or else part of his cover… At times, the professor felt that perhaps she could have done something to prevent so many small tragedies from occurring, all those years ago. For someone who had dedicated her life to the teaching and care of students, the knowledge that she let one slip through her fingers, with such disastrous consequences, was maddening. Had she failed him? How many others were there?

"We never knew, you know. It's a strange feeling, to know someone for such a long time, since you were just a child, and then out of the blue to find that everything you believed of him was a lie. That was what I thought…that night. I don't know why it became so easy to believe that you were a murderer and a Death Eater, and Merlin knows what else, at the time." Behind her square-rimmed spectacles, Professor McGonagall looked slightly guilty. "I suppose that is just proof that Dumbledore was right: no one could have done the job better than you."

She looked around. "I just wanted to say…I'm sorry, Severus. I should never have believed it to be true. I should of remembered how you were when you were with…with Lily. Sometimes, when I watched the two of you, you were like a different person. I should have known you would never have done anything to betray her, at least without realizing your mistake and trying to atone for it. I underestimated you. We all did. I just hope it's not too late."

She laid a handful of pure white lilies on the grave and straightened up. "Forgive us, Severus. We didn't know. I hope you've found happiness, after all you have done for us."

And she turned towards the castle, her emerald green robes billowing out behind her in a manner distinctly reminiscent of the man whose grave remained behind her:

Severus Snape

Hogwarts Professor and Head of Slytherin House

Member of the Order of the Phoenix

Headmaster of Hogwarts

Dumbledore's man, through and through

Always

There is a place, on the grounds of Hogwarts, that has a certain stillness in the air. The students approach this place with a quiet sort of calm, a tension oscillating between reverence and fear. They study under the nearby trees and make snow angels on the flat expanses of grass on cold January days. But when they study, they take care to keep their voices respectfully low, and when they play, their snowballs never fly too near the graves of those the War had taken from them. In the first few years, many students would spend afternoons visiting their deceased loved ones—commemorating birthdays, anniversaries; sometimes just talking about lessons and Quidditch. In later years, these survivors were fewer. They left school and could only make it back on occasion. The new students did not know the stories these graves told, but that did not stop them from approaching the place with an air of foreboding. They sometimes searched out the graves of those figures of Hogwarts legends, that had been learned and retold so many times in common rooms and dormitories: the gentle werewolf, fighting for a society that despised him; the young mother who went to her death trying to make a better world for her infant son; the wise old man who orchestrated his own death in service to his plan to save all; the spy who gave his life in atonement for the death of the woman he loved; the students who stood up and fought for their school. Every year on May 2nd, the little cemetery was crowded with witches and wizards of all ages. Speeches were given, praises lavished on those who slept beneath the springy grass of the grounds. The bereaved—initially peers and close family, later descendents—left flowers and tokens. But soon enough, silence fell upon the place again…stretching on interminably for those who came here to remember.

Thoughts? I am most grateful for your questions, comments, suggestions and, above all, reviews, which are a ray of sunshine in my life.

Cheers,

Delilah