Chapter 1 - Asphodel and Cedar

July, 1999

Staring over the gravestones, Hermione Granger sighed. The war was won, she thought.

She had lain a conjured wreath of asphodel and almond blossoms atop the graves of her parents.

It was true. The war had ended in the span of five minutes, after a battle and a skirmish. Harry Potter had done the incomprehensible. He had desisted death, and returned it tenfold. Well, perhaps not tenfold. But as much as was necessary to finally end the life, or rather, half-life, of Tom Riddle.

The battles, the running, the hunting, made her parents death feel like it was years and years ago. But really, it was only two years today.

She belatedly felt the warmth of tears trickling down her face, tickling her nose. She sighed again.

The papers had called it a terrorist attack, but she knew better. And the Quibbler had the right of it. A Death Eater attack upon Kings Cross had taken not just the lives of her parents, but many others, muggles and wizards alike.

She'd already said all she could say to them moments ago. And they weren't there, not really. She was expected at the trial, and as she looked at her light copper watch, a gift, from Harry, she knew she'd spent longer here than she should have. Yet, she couldn't bear to leave just yet.

Suddenly, with a glint, then a curling wisp, of blue-white light, a glowing, white horse appeared. "Get to the Ministry." Her heart ran cold.

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Hermione apparated into a dank alleyway behind the Ministry of Magic.

Something was wrong. She smelled something burning, something sickly she did not want to wrap her mind around. Glass, wood, chunks of stone lay in the streets, appearing singed.

She spied Croaker, her fellow Unspeakable. "What happened?!" She cried.

"Rookwood." He muttered, his tone quite gruff, sending another Patronus before speaking again. "He used - he used the blasting curse. The one that was tested, years ago, with added runic power. I don't - I don't fully understand how he's done it, but it had to be that. The chamber - below the Department of Mysteries - Courtroom Ten - that was where the blast was centered. They're saying everything above it was destroyed."

Hermione's brain chose to focus on the massive destruction that would've occurred to everything contained in the Department of Mysteries. Rather than Courtroom Ten. Her mind could not go there.

"Are you coming?" Croaker called, sounding annoyed. He was nearly around the corner. She hurried to match his pace.

They rushed into the Ministry, to bedlam and disaster. The Atrium, and its inhabitants had not been left unscathed by the explosion. The fountain was nearly empty of its water, and as Hermione ran, her shoes splashed in the water. The monuments that were erected upon the resurrection of the new Ministry were either upended, or fragmented and strewn about the place. Many of the fireplaces were completely destroyed, but there were some with minor damage, some burning, some unscathed.

There were too many bodies, strewn about. None of them appeared to be stirring. She didn't want to think about the fact that none of them were stirring.

Her eyes continued on to the lifts, which were very obviously not in working order. She knew that if she could get to the Department of Mysteries, she could get anywhere in the Ministry. But she knew Saul had said that it had been, apparently, destroyed…

A cry broke her from her reverie, and she looked down, to see a slight woman, stirring feebly. She didn't recognize her. She assessed her wounds. She raised her wand, a healing charm on her lips-

"Granger! With me!" Croaker's voice rang out above the woman's cries, through the roars of the multitudes of fires, and Hermione's wand lowered a fraction. But she steeled herself, and quickly cast a multitude of healing spells that she hoped would save the woman's life until more help could arrive, and followed behind Saul.

He led her to a door that, at first, seemed new, because she didn't think she'd seen it before, but, at the same time, looked old and disused. As they made their way through the door, Hermione was temporarily dumbfounded by the seemingly endless corridor before her. "What… is this?"

"The Corridor," Croaker muttered. "Unspeakable access only, though during an emergency Aurors can penetrate it as well. You just hold your wand up to the knob, and flick your wand in the shape of an M."

"That's… That's it!?" She cried, and he looked affronted.

"Well you've got to be an Unspeakable or an Auror for it to work! But never mind, we're losing time! Focus on Courtroom Ten!"

Hermione understood, and so she closed her eyes and pictured Courtroom Ten in her mind, or at least as it was the last time she had seen it only days ago. She heard a rumbling sound, punctuated by a whinnying scraping. When the sound stopped, she opened her eyes. Down the hallway there was now a door. A badly singed door, that seemed to be missing a chunk that constituted about a third of it, but a door all the same. She rushed forward with Croaker, afraid of what they would find behind the door.

If the Atrium was a disaster, the Courtroom was destruction.

The towering risers where the Wizengamot would sit were nearly destroyed. Where most of them had stood, there lay stone either in the size of boulders, or smaller chunks, and even, dust. The bodies of those who'd sat in them lay scattered within, and some outside of, the ruins.

The prisoner, somehow still chained where he had sat, was clear across the room, though not much remained of him, as he was missing appendages and most of the chair he was still somewhat chained to was gone.

Croaker had already rushed toward the center of the room, kneeling and muttering incantations over a body that could only be the Minister, Kingsley Shacklebolt. She saw Kingsley's fingers twitch. George and Ron Weasley lay mangled and motionless further to the left, and as her eyes continued, she saw a feeble Molly Weasley reaching for Arthur Weasley, who was much too still. She did not see Ginny anywhere, but she knew she was to be present. The trial was, after all, for the wizard that had killed Fred. She saw a mangled body that could only be Fleur. She felt a cloying, choking sob well up in her throat as she examined what was left of her family. She looked past them all, towards the back of the room, and a sigh that she should not have been able to hear drew her attention to the right.

"Harry!" She screamed, her voice full of, to anyone surrounding who was either still alive or conscious, the most unearthly anguish. Time seemed to slow down and speed up, she felt it, as though it were a physical force that was pressing down upon her. She rushed to him.

Her anger and pain felt palpable. The pain she felt at looking upon him in his state felt like a knife slicing through her chest. She felt tears start to well in her eyes, and tried to blink them away.

"Hermione…" He managed, barely. She was wracked with a lone sob, and worried her lower lip between her teeth for a moment.

"I've got to get you to St. Mungo's. Take my hand, I've got to get you up. I'll side-along you." She breathed, starting to move again.

"You can't… Anti-Disapparition jinx." It seemed to be nearly an insurmountable task for him to get his mouth to say what he was trying to say.

"Well, I'll take them down!" She cried indignantly.

"Can't… Not ours. Kingsley tried, before he… You… You know what you need to do," the words fell from his lips, sounding more like a cough or a sigh.

"No!" She shouted, and raised her wand, healing spells falling from her lips with a speed that was nearly inhuman.

"S'not going to work… This wasn't from the blast. Rookwood… I wish it would… You know what you need to do." Harry struggled.

She was weeping in earnest. She focused herself, fixed her wand upon him once more, and cried, "Expelliarmus!" She sobbed as his body was thrown away from her, and a wand of elder flew to her. She caught it. She didn't feel she could rise from her knees, and dragged herself across the rubble to him. She looked into his eyes.

"D'you… D'you think it worked?" Harry whispered, his voice barely a breath.

She sighed. Her hand slipped to his cheek. She avoided a particularly nasty cut near his jawline, but bent down to kiss him.

"I love you," he murmured.

"I-" she began to return his sentiment, but realized the light had left his eyes. Her fingers fell from his face, and reached for his hand. His hand was so still, unmoving. She thought to all the times she'd reach for it and felt his fingers clench tight to hers in her mind, but knew it was some sick dream, some phantom of a movement that was only in her mind, something she'd never actually feel again.

The ground began to shake, and her eyes swam.

"Not Harry." She murmured. Her vision slowly sharpened and became white hot. She felt something swelling within her.

"Not Harry," fell from her lips again, like a prayer.

"Not Harry!" She cried.

She continued shouting her mantra, crazed beyond all belief. The flames began to flicker, and flashed purple. She marveled at the sight, and looked about. She was still repeating her mantra, more quickly and desperate now, as the weight of everything and nothing fell upon her. She felt a profound sense of loss and anguish as her world crumbled around her. But all about, she saw strands, wisps, and slabs of purple, odd bits that didn't make sense. Soft wisps spewing from bodies, yet some bodies with none, slabs that were where the ground once was, and she looked at the great purple fires. It was all so warm and inviting, somehow. She reached out, somehow, to all of it. She looked down at herself, seeing one lone strand, and a wisp as curly as filigree. She thought of Harry, and of asphodel and cedar. She thought her heart was exploding.

"NOT HARRY!" She screamed once more, and then everything turned white.

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AN: I chose asphodel because the first resource for "flower meanings" I came across gave its meaning as "My regrets follow you to the grave" - I belatedly remember the trope, but since this is fan fiction, I've kept it.