Prologue
Percy had been locked up in his room for a day now.....Harry hadn't spoken to anyone and there was no Hermione to talk him out of it this time....she had been with him, seen everything with her own two eyes, seen his life fade out of his body as he bled to death beside her.....but unlike her and Harry's silent grief, Ginny's tears were both violent and angry, Bill had tried to talk to her but didn't find it in his heart to make her forget something he couldn't get off his own mind for one second.....this was so unfair, so unexpected...or so Molly Weasley had yelled out to the universe as she shook a numb and paralyzed Hermione asking over and over again if she was sure it were her son she had seen, before Remus snatched her away from Molly.......his death lingered like a question over them all...why? Why did it have to be? how cud it have possibly happened....and the only person who cud answer was now in St. Mungos, in the closed ward......but that was where she wanted to be, wasn't it? But not like this, not like this....not here.............
The silence before the storm
After Hogwarts and after the battle, there had been serenity and peace at last, even for Harry Potter.....he never said it out loud but he finally felt at peace.....at peace with his parents' death, his godfather's unprepared and unnecessary departure, the deaths of countless people he was directly or indirectly connected to......he had avenged them all, and he felt at peace.......never did he recount the details of the final encounter to anyone.....he had relived it over and over in his dreams; but that was before Ginny Weasley had come up to him after her graduation and shyly kissed his cheek and then run away, her face hidden in the chrysanthemums he had brought her, so unlike the Ginny who had fought with her mother to let her join the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes a few days ago; the miracle of love, he had thought dreamily and unexpectedly......what his mother had done for James Potter years ago, her son had done for Ginny Weasley today....but there was always something else on his mind.....he still had not seen the end of it.....a splinter in the core of his mind pierced raw and painfully his every thought, 'This is too good to be true',...he had said to Remus and Remus never answered, neither did Ginny.....and his peace so painfully achieved was disturbed again, knowing someone else felt the same dread he did made the fear of a coming storm more subtle......
Even after the battle, there was still danger.......the Order of the Phoenix, or whatever was left of it, was still on the lookout for escaped death eaters...aided by the Ministry of Magic they had been able to hound and capture all.....all but one......one who had been one of their own in the past, who had once risked everything to save the life of Harry Potter...but was now the most dangerous man alive, someone who knew no pity, who had to serve no loyalties, who had nothing to lose, and nothing to gain.......but now he had paid his debt to the son of the long dead James Potter....he no longer had to fake concern for anyone but himself....all the bitterness inside of him, enhanced through the years....'How long could he hold it in?'...Remus had asked Dumbledore.....'How will he get back at himself, Albus?'......Albus had lowered his head....he had no more answers...like all of them , he too was tired.......he did not want to think of the sword hanging above their heads.....this unanswered question cost Ronald Weasley his life......
Harry and his friends were never told that Severus Snape was still on the lose......they never asked questions either....Voldemort was gone, and that was the end of it..........they tried to live their lives normally again.....each one of the three failed miserably.........
Ron was oblivious to everything, he had never been with Harry at the time of the showdown.......he and Harry had drifted apart since their sixth year, for no known reason......he had stopped struggling to reach the top soon after a Ravenclaw prefect was made Head boy instead of him....he had felt the unfairness of it but he didn't care anymore...something inside his heart told him everything was worthless now......endlessly he heard the voice calling him. 'Potter's stooge'. followed by the echoing laughter of potter himself.......he had stood there, as always his ears growing red with the pain and the anger, his teeth grit and his face lowered watching his sneakers with utmost attention, grinning apologetically at the hole from which one of his toes popped out......'Here I am', he told Harry, ' ..Even if try for ages on end all I will be is a jester to Mr. Potter, why bother to check your mirth, Harry? It's not like I don't realize what you think of me'......he had added to himself.....for the life of him, he had never dared defend himself in front of Harry.....his loyalty stood in the way, he was the weasel part of 'potty and the weasel'....'second best' of the dream team.......'stooge' to the high and mighty Harry Potter; and none of this was sarcastic......he couldn't blame Harry for laughing, Tonks was right.....he knew she always said what she thought, not out of cockiness or malice, but because she never knew what to say when.....at least that's what Charlie had told her when she had unwittingly commented to Bill at his wedding reception, 'So basically, it's because she's pregnant right? And your Mom wouldn't let you do otherwise'.....fortunately neither Molly nor Fleur had been within earshot......he remembered how he had howled with laughter and choked on his crab cake, and Charlie had done nothing but double over laughing fit to die while Tonks had been trying to get it out by practically beating the crap out of him on the pretext of thumping his back to get the guilty morsel out.....and Hermione had spotted him from the other end of the hall and had come rushing to his aid.......Hermione.....he thought she was perfect in every way....too good for him at any rate.....that was why he had stocked up all his feelings inside, locked his heart up and thrown the key away........for Ron the key to living his life since day one had been: 'no regrets'.....life was too short for them.....he had learned more about the truth of this since the death of Sirius.......Harry had inherited Grimmauld place from him as his legal heir.....looking around in the room where Buckbeak was kept, after their graduation from Hogwarts, Ron and Harry had found an old journal, Harry's father's....dating from his fifth year when he had tried to grow mature for the sake of Lily Evans to the middle of year seven when they had started going out finally......Harry was delighted, Ron remembered the way his face lit up when he saw 'James Potter' written on the front page in black ink........Harry hadn't asked Ron not to read it as he went through the pages, but Ron stayed away anyway......Harry's family was sacred to him because Harry had never talked openly about it......but he kept looking at Harry intently, prepared for any unusual burst of sentiment at which he would call for Ginny or Hermione, he did not know how to handle Harry's outbursts, Hermione was the therapist.......boys will be boys, he had thought, trying to cover up their emotional existence from each other..........but instead Harry's face turned blank, he looked up at Ron and handed him the journal, hanging limply from his hand......he had taken it with one questioning glance at his best friend........reading it had revealed the cause of Harry's blankness to him.......each page was covered with not one but two entries....the first one faded and bearing the mark of a dead man's distant memories.....in the second entry, irregular but relatively fresh, like an unfinished prayer or cry for salvation, Sirius' life at Grimmauld place was recorded........Ron's mouth opened and closed in succession, his eyes widening then dimming over......there was a list of things Sirius had to do in the last entry just below an old faded sentence ' She said yes! Lily Evans said yes! We will go out this weekend...on a date!'......number 1, read Ron.....tell Harry I love him and will always be there in spite of my bitterness towards all humanity especially Snivellus.......2. Thank Moony for listening patiently to my rants.....3. Tell Andromeda of my lifelong crush on her...........'Yuck!', he had yelled and thrown the journal back toward the laughing Harry who had merrily replied, 'So what mate? I consider you my brother but I still can't help being in love with your sister, isn't it nearly the same?'.......he had forgotten his revulsion in a genuine burst of happiness, his little sister and Harry, perfect, simply perfect......and Harry had launched a cushion at him telling him how ridiculous he looked staring happily into space like that, like all his prayers had been answered in one go......instead of hurling one of his trademark sarcastic backlashes at his friend, Ron had rushed forward and hugged him.......when they separated, he had turned to see Hermione standing in the doorway sniffing slightly but smiling all the while, along with Ginny who had instantly run down yelling for Fred and George to come quick and congratulate Ronniekins on being finally engaged to Harry.....how they had all laughed in that room as if all was well and good, after what seemed an eternity of sorrow and tears, that laughter had sounded so strange and alien to his ears....this was the last laugh they all shared.....Ginny heard it echo in her nightmares and woke up screaming....Harry would cry for hours when he thought of Fred and George insisting on Ron giving Harry the family ring......it lingered in their memories and each time they were together, they could hear it masked behind their own feeble smiles..........
And then bill had rushed in, tears in his eyes.....McGonagall, Tonks and Moody had gone down....Snape had betrayed Dumbledore......the time had come for the final showdown.......Harry had walked out of the room as in a trance and then..................he didn't want to think of the awful night that followed.....Harry had been alone when he took on Riddle and brought him down......and when Lupin had run in with the good news, Ron had been furious with himself for letting Harry go through it alone......'It was always meant to be this way, it was his Fate, Ron, not ours'.....Hermione always knew what to say.....Ginny had broken down and cried for joy right there on the floor of Dumbledore's office, in Percy's arms who was finally back with the family after he had been saved by the dream team from an attack by death eaters......and him and Hermione had hugged each other out of sheer joy and run out to meet Harry.....
Good times had followed, Harry and Ginny getting engaged to the delight of the whole Weasley clan.....Hermione had come too and told him she had decided to become a healer and he had told her sincerely that she would be the best ruddy healer England had ever seen.......and one day they visited Hogwarts for old times' sake.....Harry and Ron were going for auror training soon and Hermione was going to study at St. Mungo's.....they had walked around and then Harry and Ginny had walked away from the other two dreamily......he had shrugged and she had smiled......they had instinctively moved towards the forbidden forest not talking, just enjoying the gifted silence between two people who knew each other more than they knew anything else in the world.......and then it happened, it was just a few minutes ago, but he felt he had lain here in her arms for a century, his blood dying her clothes the color of Gryffindor..........they didn't have their wands and Hagrid had come only too late.......Snape lay dead on the floor of the forbidden forest, but Ron's lifeless body was there too......he had confessed to her that he had loved her, told her he knew he was useless and the lousiest of the Weasleys, the silly one who never amounts to anything.....but she knew better, she knew why Snape had gone for him instead of potter, because he was the glue that had held them together, he was the very essence of brave and selfless loyalty........she wanted to tell him all this but for once in her life Hermione Granger, the know-it-all, had no idea how to put her thoughts, all her feelings into words.....she had bent over him and cried.....within a few minutes he had died.......
Hagrid had stood there gaping, then Harry had come running and the huge grin on his face had been wiped away forever....Harry Potter knew that all joy had forever been taken away from him.......he turned only when he heard Ginny's disbelieving scream.......they both struggled to find comfort in each other's arms......Hermione had just sat there and stared......when Hagrid had gotten over his first shock he gently removed Hermione and lifted Ron's body..........the funeral, the mourners, everything seemed like a nightmare to Harry..........Harry had stayed with the Weasleys ever since because he knew he had to........even though Molly Weasley hadn't talked to anyone after she saw her youngest son brought into St. Mungo's covered in a shroud, he had read her eyes and the request in them to take Ron's place for her.....he had wanted to yell at her then.....no one could take Ronald Weasley's place, never........Harry was nothing compared to him, Ron was the one who had kept Harry sane through all the hard times.....his unflinching loyalty to Harry was the reason Harry had found the courage to defeat Riddle......but he knew that apart from Hermione no one would understand this.....and she had gone blank, he searched her eyes and her face for a trace of anything at all, but there was nothing.........he knew Ron was all she had since DRACO MALFOY and his squad of junior death eaters had found it amusing to torture her parents and hang their bodies from the ceiling fan right before she came home from graduation.....luckily, it had been Ron and Harry who had floo'd there first to congratulate her more effectively on her being the brightest brain Hogwarts had ever had the honor to ornament further, so had been Dumbledore's modest words....she had been spared the sight of their mutilated bodies hanging from the living room ceiling.....she had lived with Tonks and her mother ever since, who had gladly taken her in seeing the Weasley's found it hard to get by anyway and Harry and Remus spent most of their time trying to solve their own problems as neither had gotten over Sirius yet...........
Epilogue
But now he was gone......Harry thought as he turned in Ron's old bed trying hopelessly to sleep..........he was just trying to get the image of a freckled face grinning at him from the back window of a flying ford anglia out of his mind when Charlie crashed into the room and pulled him out of the bed roughly............' she went to him, she left too'...Charlie's voice seemed to be coming from across the universe.......'huh?', he had managed to say before the truth dawned on him and he crashed back onto Ron's bed, his fingers clutching the pillow already wet with tears from early on................. it was all over daily prophet the next day, Hogwarts commemorated not one but the loss of two former students.....Hermione granger had slit her wrist with a broken shard of her medicine bottle......by her side was a note directed to Harry.....' I know he will never forgive me for doing this and neither will you...but you have Ginny and I have no one....I didn't have a choice Harry, I had to go.....I lost all chance of salvation on the day he was taken away from me, Harry.....I will have no salvation...none at all'.................................
Percy had been locked up in his room for a day now.....Harry hadn't spoken to anyone and there was no Hermione to talk him out of it this time....she had been with him, seen everything with her own two eyes, seen his life fade out of his body as he bled to death beside her.....but unlike her and Harry's silent grief, Ginny's tears were both violent and angry, Bill had tried to talk to her but didn't find it in his heart to make her forget something he couldn't get off his own mind for one second.....this was so unfair, so unexpected...or so Molly Weasley had yelled out to the universe as she shook a numb and paralyzed Hermione asking over and over again if she was sure it were her son she had seen, before Remus snatched her away from Molly.......his death lingered like a question over them all...why? Why did it have to be? how cud it have possibly happened....and the only person who cud answer was now in St. Mungos, in the closed ward......but that was where she wanted to be, wasn't it? But not like this, not like this....not here.............
The silence before the storm
After Hogwarts and after the battle, there had been serenity and peace at last, even for Harry Potter.....he never said it out loud but he finally felt at peace.....at peace with his parents' death, his godfather's unprepared and unnecessary departure, the deaths of countless people he was directly or indirectly connected to......he had avenged them all, and he felt at peace.......never did he recount the details of the final encounter to anyone.....he had relived it over and over in his dreams; but that was before Ginny Weasley had come up to him after her graduation and shyly kissed his cheek and then run away, her face hidden in the chrysanthemums he had brought her, so unlike the Ginny who had fought with her mother to let her join the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes a few days ago; the miracle of love, he had thought dreamily and unexpectedly......what his mother had done for James Potter years ago, her son had done for Ginny Weasley today....but there was always something else on his mind.....he still had not seen the end of it.....a splinter in the core of his mind pierced raw and painfully his every thought, 'This is too good to be true',...he had said to Remus and Remus never answered, neither did Ginny.....and his peace so painfully achieved was disturbed again, knowing someone else felt the same dread he did made the fear of a coming storm more subtle......
Even after the battle, there was still danger.......the Order of the Phoenix, or whatever was left of it, was still on the lookout for escaped death eaters...aided by the Ministry of Magic they had been able to hound and capture all.....all but one......one who had been one of their own in the past, who had once risked everything to save the life of Harry Potter...but was now the most dangerous man alive, someone who knew no pity, who had to serve no loyalties, who had nothing to lose, and nothing to gain.......but now he had paid his debt to the son of the long dead James Potter....he no longer had to fake concern for anyone but himself....all the bitterness inside of him, enhanced through the years....'How long could he hold it in?'...Remus had asked Dumbledore.....'How will he get back at himself, Albus?'......Albus had lowered his head....he had no more answers...like all of them , he too was tired.......he did not want to think of the sword hanging above their heads.....this unanswered question cost Ronald Weasley his life......
Harry and his friends were never told that Severus Snape was still on the lose......they never asked questions either....Voldemort was gone, and that was the end of it..........they tried to live their lives normally again.....each one of the three failed miserably.........
Ron was oblivious to everything, he had never been with Harry at the time of the showdown.......he and Harry had drifted apart since their sixth year, for no known reason......he had stopped struggling to reach the top soon after a Ravenclaw prefect was made Head boy instead of him....he had felt the unfairness of it but he didn't care anymore...something inside his heart told him everything was worthless now......endlessly he heard the voice calling him. 'Potter's stooge'. followed by the echoing laughter of potter himself.......he had stood there, as always his ears growing red with the pain and the anger, his teeth grit and his face lowered watching his sneakers with utmost attention, grinning apologetically at the hole from which one of his toes popped out......'Here I am', he told Harry, ' ..Even if try for ages on end all I will be is a jester to Mr. Potter, why bother to check your mirth, Harry? It's not like I don't realize what you think of me'......he had added to himself.....for the life of him, he had never dared defend himself in front of Harry.....his loyalty stood in the way, he was the weasel part of 'potty and the weasel'....'second best' of the dream team.......'stooge' to the high and mighty Harry Potter; and none of this was sarcastic......he couldn't blame Harry for laughing, Tonks was right.....he knew she always said what she thought, not out of cockiness or malice, but because she never knew what to say when.....at least that's what Charlie had told her when she had unwittingly commented to Bill at his wedding reception, 'So basically, it's because she's pregnant right? And your Mom wouldn't let you do otherwise'.....fortunately neither Molly nor Fleur had been within earshot......he remembered how he had howled with laughter and choked on his crab cake, and Charlie had done nothing but double over laughing fit to die while Tonks had been trying to get it out by practically beating the crap out of him on the pretext of thumping his back to get the guilty morsel out.....and Hermione had spotted him from the other end of the hall and had come rushing to his aid.......Hermione.....he thought she was perfect in every way....too good for him at any rate.....that was why he had stocked up all his feelings inside, locked his heart up and thrown the key away........for Ron the key to living his life since day one had been: 'no regrets'.....life was too short for them.....he had learned more about the truth of this since the death of Sirius.......Harry had inherited Grimmauld place from him as his legal heir.....looking around in the room where Buckbeak was kept, after their graduation from Hogwarts, Ron and Harry had found an old journal, Harry's father's....dating from his fifth year when he had tried to grow mature for the sake of Lily Evans to the middle of year seven when they had started going out finally......Harry was delighted, Ron remembered the way his face lit up when he saw 'James Potter' written on the front page in black ink........Harry hadn't asked Ron not to read it as he went through the pages, but Ron stayed away anyway......Harry's family was sacred to him because Harry had never talked openly about it......but he kept looking at Harry intently, prepared for any unusual burst of sentiment at which he would call for Ginny or Hermione, he did not know how to handle Harry's outbursts, Hermione was the therapist.......boys will be boys, he had thought, trying to cover up their emotional existence from each other..........but instead Harry's face turned blank, he looked up at Ron and handed him the journal, hanging limply from his hand......he had taken it with one questioning glance at his best friend........reading it had revealed the cause of Harry's blankness to him.......each page was covered with not one but two entries....the first one faded and bearing the mark of a dead man's distant memories.....in the second entry, irregular but relatively fresh, like an unfinished prayer or cry for salvation, Sirius' life at Grimmauld place was recorded........Ron's mouth opened and closed in succession, his eyes widening then dimming over......there was a list of things Sirius had to do in the last entry just below an old faded sentence ' She said yes! Lily Evans said yes! We will go out this weekend...on a date!'......number 1, read Ron.....tell Harry I love him and will always be there in spite of my bitterness towards all humanity especially Snivellus.......2. Thank Moony for listening patiently to my rants.....3. Tell Andromeda of my lifelong crush on her...........'Yuck!', he had yelled and thrown the journal back toward the laughing Harry who had merrily replied, 'So what mate? I consider you my brother but I still can't help being in love with your sister, isn't it nearly the same?'.......he had forgotten his revulsion in a genuine burst of happiness, his little sister and Harry, perfect, simply perfect......and Harry had launched a cushion at him telling him how ridiculous he looked staring happily into space like that, like all his prayers had been answered in one go......instead of hurling one of his trademark sarcastic backlashes at his friend, Ron had rushed forward and hugged him.......when they separated, he had turned to see Hermione standing in the doorway sniffing slightly but smiling all the while, along with Ginny who had instantly run down yelling for Fred and George to come quick and congratulate Ronniekins on being finally engaged to Harry.....how they had all laughed in that room as if all was well and good, after what seemed an eternity of sorrow and tears, that laughter had sounded so strange and alien to his ears....this was the last laugh they all shared.....Ginny heard it echo in her nightmares and woke up screaming....Harry would cry for hours when he thought of Fred and George insisting on Ron giving Harry the family ring......it lingered in their memories and each time they were together, they could hear it masked behind their own feeble smiles..........
And then bill had rushed in, tears in his eyes.....McGonagall, Tonks and Moody had gone down....Snape had betrayed Dumbledore......the time had come for the final showdown.......Harry had walked out of the room as in a trance and then..................he didn't want to think of the awful night that followed.....Harry had been alone when he took on Riddle and brought him down......and when Lupin had run in with the good news, Ron had been furious with himself for letting Harry go through it alone......'It was always meant to be this way, it was his Fate, Ron, not ours'.....Hermione always knew what to say.....Ginny had broken down and cried for joy right there on the floor of Dumbledore's office, in Percy's arms who was finally back with the family after he had been saved by the dream team from an attack by death eaters......and him and Hermione had hugged each other out of sheer joy and run out to meet Harry.....
Good times had followed, Harry and Ginny getting engaged to the delight of the whole Weasley clan.....Hermione had come too and told him she had decided to become a healer and he had told her sincerely that she would be the best ruddy healer England had ever seen.......and one day they visited Hogwarts for old times' sake.....Harry and Ron were going for auror training soon and Hermione was going to study at St. Mungo's.....they had walked around and then Harry and Ginny had walked away from the other two dreamily......he had shrugged and she had smiled......they had instinctively moved towards the forbidden forest not talking, just enjoying the gifted silence between two people who knew each other more than they knew anything else in the world.......and then it happened, it was just a few minutes ago, but he felt he had lain here in her arms for a century, his blood dying her clothes the color of Gryffindor..........they didn't have their wands and Hagrid had come only too late.......Snape lay dead on the floor of the forbidden forest, but Ron's lifeless body was there too......he had confessed to her that he had loved her, told her he knew he was useless and the lousiest of the Weasleys, the silly one who never amounts to anything.....but she knew better, she knew why Snape had gone for him instead of potter, because he was the glue that had held them together, he was the very essence of brave and selfless loyalty........she wanted to tell him all this but for once in her life Hermione Granger, the know-it-all, had no idea how to put her thoughts, all her feelings into words.....she had bent over him and cried.....within a few minutes he had died.......
Hagrid had stood there gaping, then Harry had come running and the huge grin on his face had been wiped away forever....Harry Potter knew that all joy had forever been taken away from him.......he turned only when he heard Ginny's disbelieving scream.......they both struggled to find comfort in each other's arms......Hermione had just sat there and stared......when Hagrid had gotten over his first shock he gently removed Hermione and lifted Ron's body..........the funeral, the mourners, everything seemed like a nightmare to Harry..........Harry had stayed with the Weasleys ever since because he knew he had to........even though Molly Weasley hadn't talked to anyone after she saw her youngest son brought into St. Mungo's covered in a shroud, he had read her eyes and the request in them to take Ron's place for her.....he had wanted to yell at her then.....no one could take Ronald Weasley's place, never........Harry was nothing compared to him, Ron was the one who had kept Harry sane through all the hard times.....his unflinching loyalty to Harry was the reason Harry had found the courage to defeat Riddle......but he knew that apart from Hermione no one would understand this.....and she had gone blank, he searched her eyes and her face for a trace of anything at all, but there was nothing.........he knew Ron was all she had since DRACO MALFOY and his squad of junior death eaters had found it amusing to torture her parents and hang their bodies from the ceiling fan right before she came home from graduation.....luckily, it had been Ron and Harry who had floo'd there first to congratulate her more effectively on her being the brightest brain Hogwarts had ever had the honor to ornament further, so had been Dumbledore's modest words....she had been spared the sight of their mutilated bodies hanging from the living room ceiling.....she had lived with Tonks and her mother ever since, who had gladly taken her in seeing the Weasley's found it hard to get by anyway and Harry and Remus spent most of their time trying to solve their own problems as neither had gotten over Sirius yet...........
Epilogue
But now he was gone......Harry thought as he turned in Ron's old bed trying hopelessly to sleep..........he was just trying to get the image of a freckled face grinning at him from the back window of a flying ford anglia out of his mind when Charlie crashed into the room and pulled him out of the bed roughly............' she went to him, she left too'...Charlie's voice seemed to be coming from across the universe.......'huh?', he had managed to say before the truth dawned on him and he crashed back onto Ron's bed, his fingers clutching the pillow already wet with tears from early on................. it was all over daily prophet the next day, Hogwarts commemorated not one but the loss of two former students.....Hermione granger had slit her wrist with a broken shard of her medicine bottle......by her side was a note directed to Harry.....' I know he will never forgive me for doing this and neither will you...but you have Ginny and I have no one....I didn't have a choice Harry, I had to go.....I lost all chance of salvation on the day he was taken away from me, Harry.....I will have no salvation...none at all'.................................