Repossession

Disclaimer: The characters and canon situations in the following story belong solely to JK Rowling, Scholastic and WB. I am not making any money from the publishing or writing of this story.

~January~

They stand in a graveyard. The front gate of the graveyard in fact. They stand there and they don't move one step further because they are not sure if they can. Harry looks strait forward, unflinching and frozen. Ron shifts, uncomfortable and uneasy. Hermione just studies her shoes, though they aren't what she is really looking at.

It is muddy and cold and the place is deserted. It is well kept though. The lawns are mowed, the flowers are bright, and the graves are free of dirt. Hermione wonders why they decided to come on such an awful day, and muses that perhaps that is the only day they could ever come. She will probably never visit the graveyard in the summer. Whether that is sacrilege or not, she doesn't know, but she knows what she can handle and what she can't, and she can't handle standing in a graveyard of her peers in the sun.

She thinks about how the previous night, as they lounged around Harry's flat and cradled their firewhisky, Ron deliberated about the Missing Ones. The ones who Should Have Been Here, but weren't, and never will be.

She knows, that tucked away in Ron's coat is a bottle of firewhiskey, because as much as he loves to drink with Harry and her, he wants to drink with Them more. She can't deny her longing for a different path through history, but she refuses to say so out loud. She knows too well that Harry will take it on himself, another burden to shoulder, another death he tucks firmly in his pocket as a fault of his.

They are all happy. They are happy that Voldermort is dead. They are happy that they are nineteen and alive and have their whole lives ahead of them, but they aren't too.

Because the Others were only seventeen, and sixteen, and younger, and They don't have Their lives ahead of them. They have a coffin and stiff clothes and a beyond, though what that is none of them know.

Harry is the one who takes the first step past the gate. And another step.

Hermione watches him, watches his shoulders and how they slump slightly. He stops and turns around to look at them, a small smile spread across his face that looks much older than it is. Hermione wonders if their real age will ever catch up to their looks, or if they will always be one step behind.

"Who should we visit first?" asks Harry, because he has always been strong, and will always be strong, and she prays to God with all her might that his strength will never beat him. Strength is such a heavy burden to wear.

Ron is the next to walk in. And he reaches for the firewhisky as he does so. It's a bottle enough for a large group, but she has a feeling he will consume it all.

"Fred first," Ron says, "he was always the light one."

They both look at her, but her feet are rooted to the ground. A cement block has replaced her muddy shoes she just can't move.

She is frozen, a poll shoved down her spin and pins in her shoulders.

"You coming, Hermione?" Asks Harry, and his eyes glint a little. Sympathy, maybe? Understanding, perhaps? Yet he has always been the Strong One and so he waits because that's what he does for his friends, even if they don't quite deserve it.

"You know what?" says Hermione, and her guts twist and gnaw and rip at each other because she just can't do this. "I think I'll meet up with you guys later."

Harry looks concerned, and Ron looks a little buggered, but Hermione doesn't care. She doesn't want to right now. She wants to drink and forget and go numb. She's not ready to remember yet.

"Are you sure...?" trails Harry because he's like glue in that way. Always bringing them together.

But she nods and her cement feet dissolve and her spine poll cracks and breaks away, leaving her to turn and walk away.

When she reaches the pub she finds a dark corner to wallow in, because she doesn't want to be surrounded by the happy chatter of the Inn's occupants. She wants to be alone and discouraged and depressed by herself.

She doesn't think about graves, but she does think about faces. She thinks about Dumbledore, and Colin and Fred, and all the others. She thinks about seeing them in the Hogwarts halls, and what they did and how they spoke and what she did for them.

Which was nothing, she thinks. She did nothing for them at all.

When Harry and Ron find her, they are swaying and unfocused, and they want to visit again next month.

"I'm sorry," says Hermione, "but I already have plans."

And she does.