The Girl Who Lost Everything
Summary: She has been lowered into the ground, flower petals surrounding her grave, dancing in the wind, and everyone has left, everyone but me. Let them remember her as a hero, as someone with the perfect life but I will remember her as she was.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the ideas that inspired me in the first place.
A/N: I was inspired to write this story after reading one but I can't remember the title for the life of me. I've been writing again but this is the only thing I've managed to finish. I hope you like it and remember to review when you're done!
Everyone has left everyone but I. I stand staring at the newly dug earth of her grave, the shining marble tombstone, and the scarlet flower petals scattered on the ground, dancing in the cold February wind. The wind changes direction and a sudden gust takes the flower petals to flight and my gaze follows them into the sky. I stand, staring and remembering her as no one else remembers her-- as no one else knew her.
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There are few survivors that were as deeply involved in the war as we and surviving is all life has become. Joyous people surround us, people that live their lives in the aftermath of the war but we can not. We survive now but we did all of our living during the war. If not for her I would not be surviving and I would have died during that last horrific battle. I owe her my life though I do not know whether or not I am grateful for it. I live in my own agony, in my own pain, in my own remorse.
A month today shall be the first anniversary of the Dark Lord's demise. Tonight I walk the halls though it is not with the same silky gait as before. I do this more to think then to look for students now.
I find myself at the Astronomy tower as I so often do and the guilt encompasses me as I stand at the top of the stairs. I tell myself that it had to be done, that I had no other choice but all I can do is stare at the door and remember that I killed the one man that had stretched his hand out to help me even if it was only to help himself.
I hear a voice and I am snapped out of my thoughts. Some student is up in the Astronomy tower and I decide to shoo them off to bed. I open the door quietly so that I can frighten them. I always loved theatrics and even if there isn't much for me anymore I'm going to stick to my petty amusement.
To my surprise there is only one person there. I catch her face but it is her words that stop me in my tracks. Hermione Granger hero and survivor of the war, right hand of the boy who defeated the dark lord, fiancée to Ronald Weasley, left hand of the boy who defeated the dark lord, sits out in the rain and mutters to her self.
"I can't take it anymore. Everyone thinks I'm indestructible; the girl who never flinches; the girl who always has a smile on her face; the girl that's gone through so much yet doesn't have one scar -- and I'm tired of it! I don't want to live behind a wall of laughter and smiles anymore. I want people to understand how hard it is to be me and to have to deal with all this crap and still be expected to be happy. It's not fair. Why is it that everyone else can just fall apart but I have to be the one to keep it together?" she cries out to the rain.
I haven't given her a thought since I saw her at Potter and Weasley's funerals and even then is was that she was lucky to still be alive but now I see the anguish on her face and I think that maybe she was terribly unlucky. She saved my life that day, that so many others died, as she tore off to join Potter. I was so ready to leave this life that I was surprised when I breathed another breath. She is the only survivor to directly witness the downfall of Lord Voldemort and so she is revered.
She stares out at the sky her eyes fierce and angry and she starts screaming her fury "Do you think it is easy being me? Do you think it's easy putting on the act that I do every day? I smile when all I want to do is cry … I laugh when all I want to do is die … I want to tell everyone how my world falls apart each night when I am laying in bed with tears in my eyes, pleading with God to help me. I want to let everyone know what it is like to be me, pretending to be happy … pretending to like myself. If it was up to me, I wouldn't be pretending, I would actually be happy. Too bad it's not …" by the end she is whispering, her voice full of pain.
She pauses before whispering, "Sometimes it hurts more to smile in front of everyone than to cry all alone. "
She could have had anything she wanted in this new world but instead she decided to return to school and finish her education where her friends couldn't. She still haves excellent grades but she is quiet and subdued now. She has an ocean of fans and admirers but no friends. People continuously crowd her and she doesn't say a thing. I had always thought that she was just enjoying the spot light but now I know she was just ignoring it or at least trying.
Even I thought she had it all. Unlike most survivors she had gotten away without so much as a scar. She had received numerous certificates and medals, awards and prizes and I thought it was her arrogance that kept her from receiving them in person.
The rain has stopped now and is no longer hiding her tears. She stands and moves towards the edge of the tower and I'm about to leap from my place to stop her from jumping but she stops at the edge and doesn't climb onto the stone. Instead she takes something from her robes. It's a scarlet handkerchief and it's wrapped around something. She opens it like a present and takes out the two ends of a snapped wand. They're burnt a little but I would very nearly bet my life that it was Weasley's wand.
"Oh Ron, it's been a year and they said that I would learn to live with it but I can't. You and Harry both were all that I had. You were my family, my brothers, my best friends. You were there when mum and dad both… and Harry was there for me when you died but he needed his own support too. Then Harry had to sacrifice his life to save this rotten world and then who was there. Did you know that there's a fucking bastard out there trying to say that I'm the one who bloody killed Voldemort in the end and Harry was too weak. Harry was never too weak… it was me. If I hadn't shown up at his side then he wouldn't have had to protect me and he could have been here," she paused as wept into the night sky.
"If I wasn't so bloody weak then you wouldn't have had to go off alone to destroy that bloody cup. I'm so sorry Ron…Harry. I should have been there for you guys but it was always the other way around."
"I'm tired of living alone… tired of living. Nothing has changed, you're lives were lost for a lost cause."
"I can't do this anymore. I've been strong, now I just can't. No more calm and cool. I can't lie anymore. I'm breaking down ... and there's nothing I can do about it. I don't want to do anything about it. I've stayed for the world but the world doesn't deserve it," she said bitterly.
She takes up a small knife that I hadn't seen and before I can stop her she has slit both of her wrists. I'm at her side in an instant and I pull her slumped body into my lap so I can heal her wounds. Her eyes snap open.
"Don't," she commands but I ignore her.
"Please," that one word is filled with so much desperation and emotion that it freezes me and the spell I was weaving is left unfinished.
I know that I shouldn't let her die but I can't stand to keep her alive, I can't stand to see the pain in her eyes. I shouldn't but I do and I willingly take responsibility for her death. I cradle her to me, trying to give her as much comfort as I can in her last moments. Tears fall from her closed eyes and I sway her. She gives me a little smile and I try to think that I'm doing the right thing.
I can't feel her breathe anymore and her body is completely limp against mine. I look down at her tear streaked face and her small smile and I cry. I haven't cried in over thirty years, I've seen the deaths of more people than I can count, I've killed more people then I care to know, I've tortured and been tortured but I've not cried since I was a child.
I hold her and cry for some time, her blood begins to dry on my robes, and the ancient stone is now stained with her memory. I have half a mind to follow her; God knows there isn't much keeping me here. In time I get up and bring her to the Hospital Wing and Poppy rushes to us.
"Severus, what happened?" she asks as she checks her pulse.
"I was too late," I lie, my voice so thick of emotion --emotion that I try to hid behind a mask, but right now I don't care.
Poppy looks up at me in shock, as she moves me to put her down on a bed then moves me to sit in another. She takes a warm cloth and wipes my tear stained face gently, like my mother had done when I was a small child. I look at her, my eyes filled with sadness, and she gives me a small smile.
"Lie down and rest now," she croons.
She moves to the lifeless Gryffindor in the bed next to me and starts to clean her body, all the while humming a soft funeral song. It's very well known and is sung at most funerals but never so gently. My whole perception of Poppy has changed and I can't even conceive the pain she must feel with every death she could not save.
After Poppy has changed Miss Granger from the blood stained uniform into a simple hospital gown, and cleaned the blood from her skin, she looks like she is merely sleeping with that small smile on her face, the only thing saying otherwise being the scars on her wrists.
I suddenly think that we should inform people of her death as is usually done but I can't think of a single person that would need to know. I never realized how lonely she really was. Her parents, her close friends, they were all gone in the war or shortly afterward. Some had even chosen the same end as she. She wasn't alone but he realized that there was no one left that knew her, understood her, and loved her. They had all died, one by one, until she was the only one, left behind in the bitter reality called life.
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It has been two days and today her funeral shall be held. Many people have already arrived. Ministry officials, even the Minister of Magic himself shows up, the remainder of the Weasley's, some fellow Gryffindors, what's left of the order of the phoenix, even the general public crowds around. She was famous, youngest recipient of a first class order of Merlin, survivor and war hero, the last of the golden trio. She liberated muggle borns, defeated dark wizards, and had even created the spell to safely destroy the horcruxes and never once was she shunned for her work.
I stand there watching the precession of people laying roses on her coffin. They thank her, they weep, they talk of how the world will miss her, but none of them think of her as the girl who lost everything. We've decided to keep her suicide from the papers, instead giving her cause of death as an experiment gone wrong. Let them remember her as a hero, as someone with the perfect life but I will remember her as she was.
She has been lowered into the ground, flower petals surrounding her grave, dancing in the wind, and everyone has left, everyone but I. I stand there, looking at her tombstone. The words engraved are: Here lies Hermione Granger, first class order of Merlin, friend, survivor, and hero. The world will greatly miss thee.
The world would miss her as they had known her but she would never miss the world as she knew it. I walk away, alone as she had been and promise to remember the girl who had lost everything. I turn back but only to look at the sky and wish that she has found peace and happiness wherever she is. I walk back to the castle and a soft "thank you," is whispered in my ear. Only a trick of the wind.