A/N Should I be working on The Hogwarts Four? Yes, I really should, but this is what happens when you listen to "Requiem" from DEH on loop. A oneshot. Make of it what you will.
It is a week after the Battle of Hogwarts. Magical Britain is slowly but surely picking up the pieces from their little, ah, domestic terrorist problem. Or perhaps it was a civil war…? The lines get blurry in a community as small as the one they live in.
There is a small Muggle town seldom visited by anyone, much less wizards and witches, that had a strange influx of people in the past few days. They had trickled in over the hours, all of them making the trek to their modest cemetery on the outskirts of town. They were all gone as quickly as they had arrived.
It is a Monday. There is nothing special about this Monday. There is nothing special about the time of day either—noonish, maybe, around the time people get their lunch breaks.
In the cemetery, there is a grave. It's a new grave, too, as grass has yet to grow over the tilled earth. The headstone is white marble, engraved with a name and two dates. There is a girl, almost a woman, standing over the grave, careful not to trod on the exposed dirt. She looks at the headstone, clutching a wilted daisy in one hard and nervously popping the knuckles on the other.
The people had argued, at length, as to whether or not Tom Marvolo Riddle deserved to be buried.
People wanted his remains burned and scattered. Others wanted his body to lie in an unmarked grave. Some had wanted to have the body kept to study the effects of prolonged exposure and usage of the Dark Arts. Privately, she had wanted his body to be thrown through the Veil.
But to some extent, she agreed with Harry Potter's opinion—Lord Voldemort, who had terrified Magical Britain for decades, should be buried like the Muggles he hated. No special Wizarding funeral, not fancy way to dispose of his remains. Tom Riddle would be buried in a mockery of everything he had despised.
So two days after the battle that ended the war, a small group of people gathered in Little Hangleton's cemetery to watch the cheap coffin being lowered into its hole. The newly-elected Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, was there. So too was Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley. Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of Hogwarts. The Chief Warlock was there too, a nameless politician nobody had heard of before his appointment.
The three of them had watched Lord Voldemort's body go down under six feet of soil. The girl hadn't been there, but if she had, she would have noticed the small sigh Harry Potter gave, and the slight loosening of his shoulders.
It was done.
He was dead.
Harry was free.
But the girl, unlike Harry, is not free. She would never be free. Riddle had killed her parents—both of them Muggles. He had killed her older brother.
Sophie Roper is only seventeen, yet she has lost so much. Everyone has, really.
She stands over Lord Voldemort's grave and drops the sad-looking daisy onto the dirt, pressing her hand against his tombstone. Tries to, at least. So many little strips of paper cover the marble, Glamoured with a Notice-Me-Not Charm. Every one of them has a name written there, in every handwriting. There are well-known names:
Albus Dumbledore.
Nymphadora and Remus Lupin.
Sirius Black.
Cedric Diggory.
James and Lily Potter.
And there are somewhat known names:
The McKinnons.
Fabian and Gideon Prewett.
Caradoc Dearborn.
And there are the people Sophie had never heard of before, people who had died anonymously. Muggles, Muggleborns, and those not important enough to warrant any notice. So many dead, and so many who did not have their names on the tombstone.
Sophie takes a bit of paper out of her pocket and affixes it to the marble with a Permanent Sticking Charm, gripping her wand tightly. "Mum, Dad. Ned. I love you guys," she says, throat tight.
Trying not to choke on the lump lodged somewhere between her mouth and her vocal cords, Sophie keeps scanning the papers. Her eyes skate past a name before darting back, narrowing.
Bellatrix Black.
She did not understand the significance of Bellatrix's maiden name being written, much elss that it was written in Andromeda Tonks' handwriting. She could not understand how Andromeda grieved for the sister she had once had, before Tom Riddle swept into the picture with his clever mouth and dangerous eyes.
So Sophie keeps reading, looking for a name she recognizes. She needs to, for reasons she cannot voice.
There are so many names.
She sees Fred Weasley and feels a pang of sympathy for his twin. She cannot imagine the pain George Weasley must be in—not that she ever knew him. She had been quiet, Hufflepuff, and several years younger.
She had been in the same year as Harry Potter, but she was—and is— always on the fringes of things. She likes it that way.
The daughter of two Muggles who had been killed by the genocidal monster lying beneath her feet breathes in.
And out.
A single tear drips down her cheek.
Like a candle's flame, she is there in the cemetery one minute and gone the next. She leaves behind a daisy, no footprints, and two pieces of paper. One has three names:
Liz Roper. Derek Roper. Ned Roper.
The other has one name.
Sophie Roper.