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Bittersweet
Pray that your lonlieness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.
-Dag Hammarskjold, Diaries
The tea was bitter, but that was all right. Tea, like life, was bitter and Hermione had learned to swallow it down without protest. Some days she found she preferred it so. The pain of loss her constant companion, the bitter tears falling upon the ashes of sweet victory...
Hermione Granger Potter was twenty-three years old. She felt a hundred. Had she been at all vain, she would have felt some concern over the fact that worry lines had taken up a permanent residence between her brows, or that she was already sporting a significant amount of grey in her bushy, slightly frizzy mane. But being neither vain nor particularly concerned with such things, and an eminently practical sort of person, she mostly noticed that her knees creaked rather alarmingly when she walked up a flight of stairs.
Hermione Granger Potter was twenty-three years old.
More than a decade previous, her entire world had opened up to endless possibilites as she learned of her magical heritage, and entered Hogwarts for the first time. Two years ago, Lord Voldemort was vanquished forever by her husband, Harry Potter. And two years ago, Harry died.
Neville Longbottom was an Aurur now, of all things, carrying on his parents' legacy. Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom, the unbeatable Aurur team. Hermione had been invited to the wedding, but she had not attended. It was not that she wasn't happy, truly happy, for Ginny and Neville... it was simply too painful. It was proof that the living were carrying on with the work of life, and Hermione could no longer consider herself among their number.
By all accounts, Draco Malfoy was still screaming what little remained of his mind out in Azkaban. A few Dementors remained at the end of the war, and the Ministry had reinstated them as prison guards over the loud protests of many, Arthur Weasley among them. Malfoy had only been spared the Dementor's Kiss because of the public's avowed desire for a lengthy period of tormenthe'd been sentenced for life at his trial. Hermione couldn't bring herself to feel any pity for him, even after having visited the pathetic wretch several months ago. She remembered it vividly; Draco had been cowering in a squalid corner of his little cell, humming tunelessly to himself and occasionally starting violently. Not only had Draco forgotten his own name, he'd already lost his happiest memory; his one moment of triumphthe murder of Harry Potter.
She was glad Sirius was dead. Oh, it sounded awful even to think it, but it was the truth. Sirius died before Harry, so he never had to endure that terrible loss, which Hermione was sure would have unhinged him.
After twelve years in Azkaban, Sirius was not the most stable of men. He literally had nothing left to live for, except Harry... and his revenge. He'd gotten that. Killed Wormtail, for what he'd done to Remus (and to Harry's parents), but he wasn't able to hold off the other Death Eaters. If it wasn't painless, at least it was quick.
Harry had arrived too late, only to find the Death Eaters fled and Sirius' mangled corpse. Hermione still shivered, remembering the strange look on Sirius' pallid face, a peace which had so rarely graced his countenance in life. Harry was... inconsolable. He'd crouched next to his godfather's body, gathering it into his arms and shaking with silent sobs he could not, or would not, give voice to. His eyes had been filled with such raw grief Hermione turned away from him, affording Harry as much privacy as she could.
They'd buried him on a beautiful spring day, not quite a meter from the graves of James and Lily Potter. The funeral was of necessity a quite affair. Despite Pettigrew's increasing involvement in Voldemort's reign of terror on the wizarding world, Sirius was still considered a fugitive. His innocence had not yet been proved to the Ministry's satisfaction, so it was a very small but close-knit group of mourners who gathered to lay him to rest.
Professor Lupin was there, looking more haggard and wretched than Hermione had ever seen him before, worse than he'd looked on the Hogwart's Express so many years before, and worse than he ever looked directly after the full moon. His left sleeve hung limp and empty at his sideeven Madame Pomphrey had been unable to restore his arm after the amputation, for it had been cauterized by Wormtail with silver, damn him. Once again, Remus Lupin found himself the last Marauder.
Harry, of course, as well as Hermione and Ron. Albus Dumbledore, looking grave and with none of the good humour Hermione continued to associate him throughout the long years of fighting. Minerva McGonagall. Mundugus Fletcher, still on crutches and with a heavily bandaged skull. And Severus Snape.
To any muggle that chanced upon it, the solemn marble tombstone simply inscribed his name and dates. But to a wizard, golden characters spelled out the inscription beneath:
Rest in Peace, Padfoot.
Harry neither spoke nor shed a tear for three days. On the third night, he came to Hermione. Afterwards, they held each other and wept... for Sirius and innocence lost...
Hermione remembered very little about Harry's funeral. She was still sunk too deeply into shock and grief... and anger. It seemed so callous for the rest of the world to be celebratingcelebrating! when Harry was dead. Yet she knew it was only natural.
To the wizarding world, he would always be remembered, however ironically, as The Boy Who Lived. But to Hermione, he was simply Harry. Green eyes, rumpled black hair, a small smile which would grace his features all too seldom... and a slightly bemused air which accompanied him as if he simply couldn't believe what was happening to him. It had been that... humbleness... which had so suprised and attracted Hermione. After all the tragedy and abuse in his young life, Harry treated even the smallest thinga good meal, a prank from the Weasley twins, a small charmas if it were infinitely precious, and expectedly fleeting.
Not to say Harry was perfect; far from it, in fact. However much she loved him, Hermione was never blinded to Harry's faults. He was too stubborn, and much too self-reliant. He had a terrible temper, and when it was roused, was known to hold a grudge well past the point of common sense. He was often clumsy, except on the Quidditch pitch, where his Seeker's instinct came to the fore.
He had scraped through his OWLS and NEWTS on raw talent alone; although Hermione had constantly badgered both him and Ron to study. He'd skivved off on study sessions to play Quidditch or make secret runs to Hogsmeade with that infernal Invisibilty Cloak of his. It drove Hermione crazy to see Harry and Ron crouched over quill and scroll in the Common, scribbling down last minute essays and making up Divination homework wholecloth.
Harry, kissing her breathless in the exhultation of a victorious Quidditch match, Ron pounding his back and shouting in their ears. Harry, smudges of ink blotching his lips from a trick Sugar Quill that Fred and George had laughingly passed to him. Harry, with trembling limbs and hollowed out cheekbones as he climbed wearily from the hellhole Lucius Malfoy had trapped him in.
Harry, down on one knee before her, with tears in his eyes and clutching both her hands in his own. Harry, tight-lipped with anger and determination, a cold fury radiating outward that frightened Hermione with its intensity. Harry, his neck bent at an uncomfortable angle to rest heavily on the window of the Hogwarts Express, so exhausted that she and Ron had lowered him down into her lap and spoken in hushed whispers so as not to disturb his brief moment of respite.
Harry, eyes catching Hermione's as he self-consciously pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, the restless firelight masking their mutual blush. Harry, still and silent and looking much too pale against the whiteness of hospital sheets. Harry, wrinkling his nose up in disgust as Ron cheerfully mixed pumpkin juice into his mashed potatoes.
Harry, suspended over her in an inextorable rush of heat-love-passion, eyes darker than the Forbidden Forest in his release.
Harry.
Always Harry, who had snapped shut her thick tomes and coaxed her away for some precious, timeless moment under the stars when it seemed the whole world was coming to an end. He was the first man to ever see her fully. More than a bookworm slip of a girl. More than a means to an end. More than a sister. As a friend, and as a woman.
And she had loved him for it.
A slight cough from the door. "The Sorting will begin in a few moments." The voice was carefully neutral.
Hermione didn't reply; instead regarding the detrius remaining in the bottom of her teacup with dull interest. It looked vaguely like Fawkes, though perhaps that was simply her imagination. Reading tea leaves. How appropriate. She gently replaced the cup upon its china saucer with a sigh and stood. Crossing to the open door, she rested her hand upon the proffered arm as they walked in stately grace to the Great Hall.
"Thank you, Severus."