Christmas At The End Of The World
by Bil!
K+ - General/Angst – HG, RW, HP – Complete
Summary: Even in the dark of a dying world there is joy.
Disclaimer: Not mine, which is probably lucky for them.
A/N: Apocafic, if that's even a category and I didn't make it up, but kinda sappy. This is probably as close as I'll ever get to writing some Christmas cheer for these guys. Not DH-compliant. Inspired directly and completely by a brilliant Stargate SG-1 fanfic by Annerb called "The Last Christmas" (which I think is on this site). I haven't read it in a while, so any details that are the same (hopefully none) are coincidence, but I happened to remember it for some reason at the same time as thinking about HP. Thus, this.
Hermione didn't know how long it took her to reach the rendezvous site. Weeks, certainly, probably months; spent dodging Death Eaters and the crazed maniacs that were the last fragments of Muggle civilisation. The former earned no mercy, the latter inspired no compassion. There were only two things left in this world that she cared about and those were the things she sought with single-minded concentration, leaving a trail of mayhem and destruction behind her.
She didn't care that the sky was almost as black by day as it was by night. She didn't care that the land was poisoned and its people reduced to a starving rabble that spread across her homeland like a vicious, ravening plague.
The war had lasted too long. It had taken something from deep within her and made her into something that would once have terrified her. She no longer had any use for idealism and compassion, no longer had any of the worries about ethics and morals that had once separated her from her opponents. There had been a time she fought for ideals, but now she fought for survival. She fought for the right to find the only two things left for her to love and there was nothing in this hell on Voldemort's Earth that was going to stop her.
The journey was long, but what did that matter? She was looking to the end of it and it didn't matter how long it took her to get there because there was no doubt that she would. She would get there if it meant destroying the world around her. She would get there.
She walked days under clouds of dry black dust and nights under black clouds and grey skies where there was moonlight, cold and silver and aching, but no stars. Thin and dry and dying, like her world, Hermione fought on, never faltering. There would be an end and she would find it.
And then, as she had always known she would, Hermione won free to her journey's end.
Hogwarts was a ruin. She emerged from the once-Forbidden Forest, now black and dead like everywhere else, and looked at the castle without pain. It had been home once, but that was long ago. Now she didn't care that it was truly a ruin, that the crumbled walls and fallen stone weren't just an illusion created for the Muggles. It didn't matter that none of the towers stood any more, or that there wasn't a piece of roof still standing. Hogwarts was a means to an end. Nothing more.
She walked through the broken castle without fear. No Muggles could find their way here – the old protections still held. No Death Eaters could come here – the new protections still stood. As for the castle itself, she gave no thought to the treacherousness of the crumbling ruin. The walls would not fall and the floor would hold. That was simply how it would be.
There was no magic here. She could remember, if she wanted, a time when the halls had bustled with life and magic had flowed through the stone all around her. Now there was no magic in these walls. Hogwarts had been broken, and the only magic that remained was that that surrounded the grounds, protecting something that no longer existed. Hogwarts, great bastion of the wizarding world, had been broken. Just like its people.
Although they had never arranged a specific meeting place, there was no doubt in her mind where she should go nor any doubt that it would still be there. Her world was in tatters, but there were some things which even the darkest of magics couldn't destroy. And so it was: the little courtyard had survived, where they had sat lazily in the sun during a seventh year ruled by fear when it was too dangerous for them to leave the castle. This had been their place, she and the two friends who were the dearest friends anyone had ever had. The only two things left to her in the entire world.
The courtyard was still walled on all four sides; some rubble had fallen in during Hogwarts' slow, stately collapse, but mostly it was clear and untouched. The benches where she had studied and laughed and planned still stood, the stone lion that had watched benevolently over their work and play still crouched in attentive anticipation. The fountain was no longer running, but brackish water had settled in the basin. Hermione wet her fingers and rubbed them together, feeling the water beading on her cracked skin. This was such a dry world, where water was so very hard to find... It was right that there should be some here.
She looked around. The courtyard was empty, but that didn't mean anything. She was here and now all was well. There were no signs of life, nothing to say that anyone had been here since the castle had fallen, but that didn't matter. She knew.
How long did she sit there? Long enough that the black clouds of day became the black clouds of night and the moon shivered at her from behind their mourning veil. Night passed over to the murkiness of morning, sullen afternoon became gloomy evening, but Hermione knew no impatience. This day had been so long in coming that a few more hours were of no importance. She waited, content. Soon enough her wait would be over.
A scuffling noise made her turn slowly, without alarm. A familiar face appeared out of the darkness of a half-crumbled corridor, thatched by a shock of grubby hair that was still recognisably red despite the dirt. He carried a load of firewood in his arms; not the neatly chopped wood that she had once fed Hogwarts' fires with, but rough, broken branches. He piled them on one of the benches and turned to look at her without surprise.
"Harry said you'd come today," he said in greeting. "I knew he was right." He tilted his head slightly, studying her. "Hello, Hermione."
"Hello, Ron."
There was now a scar twisting up his face, pulling his mouth into a permanent sneer, but to her he was beautiful. She had never doubted that they would be here because it could be no other way. Others died, others faltered, but the three of them went on. It was all that mattered, and there was a warmth in her heart that she hadn't felt since they had separated on their individual, futile missions.
She needed nothing more than this moment and the knowledge that they were both near.
It wasn't callousness. It wasn't that they didn't mourn the people they had lost: they did and they had. But in the midst of death and destruction they had found that there was only so much pain they could take in before they had to give it up or break under the strain. It had always been the three of them, leaning on each other, relying on one another. As long as they had each other the three of them could cope with all the other losses because they were each other's strength.
So she helped Ron pile up the firewood and coax the fire into life, and they didn't speak because there was no need for words. They sat on opposite sides of the fire and watched each other over the flames and she sighed with satisfaction because this was where she was supposed to be.
Off-key humming of 'The First Noel' heralded Harry's entrance out of a dark hallway, dragging a great branch behind him. He didn't seem to care that the branch kept sticking on things but just patiently dragged it forward until something snapped and it moved again.
He nodded to her as if he'd seen her just yesterday, as casually as she accepted his stark white hair and his ungainly limp. Ron helped him break up the branch and pile it in a corner ready for use, then Harry came and sat down beside her, Ron on his other side.
The three of them together once more. It seemed that suddenly she could breathe again.
"I knew you come today," Harry said contentedly.
"What's so special about today?" she asked, smiling because it was so good to be back with her two boys. She was happy. And maybe she shouldn't be, maybe she had no right to be after so many failures, so much loss, but she was. Because it was the three of them together again and nothing else was of any importance if that simple fact stood true.
They smiled back, their eyes warm and bright in the firelight. "Merry Christmas, Hermione," Harry said.
It didn't matter that they were sitting here at the end of all things or that they were all that remained of their people. None of it mattered because they were here and they were together. "Merry Christmas," she said warmly.
And it was silly, but it was.
Fin