Summary: The war left its mark. The pain and loss, the relief and exhaustion, was felt by all. And yet even with its passing, the echoing shadow of its passing remained to breath its unshakeable presence upon those who survived.
This is their story - the story of those left behind to fight in a war that hadn't truly ended and likely never would.
Rating: T, possible increase to M
Tags: Post-War, Not Epilogue Compliant, Multiple Characters, Multiple POV, Heartbreak, Loss, Changing Minds, Stepping To The Future
WARNING: This story, and particularly this chapter, deals with canonical death and passing away as a general theme. If you think this might be triggering, please approach with caution. I really, really don't want to upset anyone.
Chapter 1: The Others
For a moment, the entire world froze.
A boy stood, and a monster fell.
For a moment, that long, long moment, disbelief, hope, and fear battled for precedence. And then that disbelieving hopeful fear erupted.
Throughout the Great Hall, voices tore through the air in triumph. Wails of the defeated, the loyal followers of the Dark Lord, were smothered by cries of joy, of freedom, of promise. That joyful, liberated promise was met by sobs – sadness for what was lost, for those who'd fallen, for all that had been stolen and for a world torn from its blanket of security and bared cold and shaking and exposed to the threat that had been Lord Voldemort.
But no longer.
As the sea of survivors erupted, as shouts of children and exhausted groans of fighters and defenders intermingled with exhalations of sharp relief, that blanket settled just briefly. At first hesitantly, and then with more confidence, it draped around every pair of bowed shoulders. As bodies crashed into one another, arms clinging in desperate embrace and bellows or victory resounded alongside outbursts of, "Harry!" and "He did it! We did it!", the unspoken questions slowly answered themselves.
Is it over?
Is it finally done?
We really don't have to fight anymore?
And most silently, not even heard on a psychic, communal level from the victors: Can we leave now?
Triumph thrummed thickly throughout the victors. The survivors. Those who would step forward another day to fight in a different kind of battle – recovering, changing, growing and learning and being. But silently, unseen by those victors, were the fallen.
No one saw them. No one even could. And yet they watched as many had watched for years. They waited, as so, so many had waited for the chance to take a step from their stasis and progress to something more. To pass into something… other.
Bertha Jorkins, in her ghostly, unseen form, still quivered in the aftermath of what had been the torture curse, inflicted moments before the Killing Curse had struck her down.
Amelia Bones, standing still defiant with chin raised and gaze steady, just as she'd faced her death at Voldemort's hands for the threat she'd posed.
Emmaline Vance, wiped into cessation for her place in the Order of the Phoenix.
Igor Karkaroff, Barty Crouch, the eternally youthful Cedric Diggory and the ever-proud Rufus Scrimgeour. Ted Tonks, still bowed with weariness from fleeing for months before his death, and the house elf, Dobby, content but for a moment upon his own dying breath only to hang in suspension thereafter.
So many. So, so many faces and waiters, dead and killed and broken before they were forced from life. And all of them asking the same questions – yet of themselves, not those around them. Glances were exchanged, hope and fear and yet more disbelief welling.
"He's finally gone," Regulus Black murmured, his dark eyes hollow with the weight of the discoveries he'd made before his death. "He's finally…"
"This is it," Merope Gaunt uttered in a warbling voice. "I can feel it, it's…"
"We can leave," Alastor Moody ground out, his voice gravelly and grating. "No more of this pandering to the fear induced by some Dark Lord."
Invisible heads nodded and something approaching smiles touched equally invisible lips. At the same time, silent tears fell. They could leave. They could finally escape, depart, progress towards what not one of them knew. They weren't ghosts, not Inferi, but something else. Something… stuck.
For Voldemort had upset the balance, they knew. Each and every one of them knew without being told, as a body alive could feel the cold and know it for a chill in the air, or feel a pang of hunger in the gut and know it to be a desire for food. They knew that the upset of magic, of the worlds, of Voldemort's cheating death and dragging aside that veil, had made it impossible to continue. The unsteadiness of the bridge beyond, the wavering frame of the door to the other side, was an insecurity. That instability terrified even the dead.
But no more.
Smiles formed. Tears fell. And it hurt, but there was a moment in which every single one of the watchers, the spectators of the vast sea of relief that spread throughout the Great Hall, eased in their own relief.
Free.
"We must leave," spoke an aged voice, softly, gently, and wearied as they all were - but hopeful too. "This is no longer our world. We must say our goodbyes and thus depart."
Invisible gazes turned towards Albus Dumbledore, the elderly wizard standing tall and unwavering even in death. He nodded benignly, encouragingly, to all who waited alongside him. Then he smiled, to each and every one of the victims of Voldemort's plight who hadn't been able to take a step from a world still teetering with uncertainty.
They followed his instructions. They met his words with tentative steps towards the loved ones that still remained.
Noni Abbott slipped to her daughter's side and, with a wavering smile, patted her head. "Goodbye, my love. Live well."
Ted Tonks drifted in search of the remaining Order members, murmuring thanks, congratulations, regrets they would never get the chance to share.
Colin Creevey pressed his lips to his brother's ear with a murmured, "Look after Mum and Dad, okay?" while Lavender Brown sobbed as she wrapped her unfelt arms around her best friend, blubbering farewells unheard by Parvati's ears.
Figures flooded, mingled, disappeared for a moment in the roiling mania of blessed, wondrous victory. Hands grazed backs, smiles spread softly, and many more tears were shed.
And towards Harry Potter, there stepped a cluster of those long lost and those barely fallen from life.
"You did so well, darling," Lily murmured, touching her son's shoulder as she would never be able to again.
"We're so proud of you," James said, resting his hand upon Harry's other shoulder.
"You did well, kiddo," Sirius said, smiling with fond regret that his godson would never hear his words.
"We owe you the world, Harry," Remus murmured. "The world and beyond. Thank you."
And then they turned. With a final glance and farewell, a final moment in which Fred Weasley clung to his twin and failed to withhold tears, when Nymphadora Tonks turned from what little remained of the Order, and Tom Riddle Senior, a man who should never have been involved, from the sprawled creature who had never been his son, they stepped away. Hands clasped one another's, holding in a chain of linked strength. Such was necessary, because to leave was still terrifying, still promised the unknown, was painful even to those without a body to feel.
Invisible fingers trembled in clutching hands.
Heads turned in a final glance as they clung to one another in absence of those they left behind.
And finally, finally, those who had been anchored so cruelly even in death by the threat of Voldemort… They finally let go.
Through the joy and the triumph, the tears of sadness and excitement and relief, there was felt by all such a feeling of freedom, of stability, of setting right, that for a moment the raucous cries almost dimmed.
Hannah Abbott touched her head absently.
Dennis Creevey brushed a finger over his ear, throat catching at a passing thought of parents and responsibilities.
George Weasley glanced over his shoulder for a twin he could no longer feel and the tears fell as they'd barely had the chance to cease.
And Harry Potter… he felt it, and he knew. Gazing upwards, outwards, and for a second pausing in the riot of grasping hands and back slaps and fierce embraces, he felt them.
"Goodbye," he murmured, too quietly to be heard amidst the screams of persisting enthusiasm. "And thank you."
For once, all was made right with the world. A road to the future was smoothed and doors were swung open. That it could feel both so right and yet so wrong… none could quite understand. But a monster had been destroyed, a people set free, and the blanketing embrace of security and rightness…
It didn't quite erase the loss, but it helped. Just a little.
A/N: What did you think of the first chapter? Want to hear more (please, 'cause I've literally already written another two chapters). Please let me know your thoughts with a review!
~Written for the House Competition Round 4~
House: Ravenclaw
Category: Theme
Prompt: Holding Hands
Word Count: ~1360