I held my breath as I walked through the door. This was going to be hard. I don't know why Harry wanted to have it anyway. It was going to be so strange without everyone. I was nervous. I was scared. Worse yet, I was on the verge of tears.

I didn't know why I had come. Now I would have to remember, and now I would have to face the other DA members, and their guests. Because that's what it was. A DA reunion, four years since I graduate. Harry and Neville Longbottom were talking with Luna Lovegood, who had been my best friend in Hogwarts. Fred and George Weasley were in a corner with Angelina and Parvati Patil. I had lost contact with everyone but Harry, even my brothers. Ron's death had practically killed me, and Hermione's had worsened it.

I just stood there, staring at the scene. Cho was sitting with her husband Michael Corner and Pansy Parkinson. Pansy was one of Snape's recruited gang of Slytherins that had turned spy for us, along with Millicent Bulstrode, Crabbe, and Warrington. She had actually been their ringleader, and used her influence on Malfoy to save Moody from being killed when he was found lurking around the Death Eater's head quarters. He's almost as stupid as Harry is when it comes to heroics.

Finally, someone came up to me. It was Seamus Finnegan. "Hey, Gin. Its great to see you." He looked red around the ears, just like Ron was when he - don't think about him! I scolded myself. "Err... Gin, I'm married now. I know we never properly broke up, but you never returned my owls and-"

"Seamus, that's wonderful!" I said. He looked surprised. "Who is it?"

"Oh, its Padma Patil. After the attack that-"

"I don't want to talk about the attack."

Seamus' face fell. Maybe he had thought that we would still be close enough to talk, even if noone else could get through to me. "Sorry, Gin. Anyway, err..., when you broke contact, Padma gave me this wonderful picture of all of us. Everyone in the DA. It really help me err... get through it all. Especially Dean and Ron. And so here we are."

"Its great, Seamus. It really is. I'm so happy for you!"

Padma came up then, after having joked around with Lavender. "She's the new Divination teacher, you know." She said, nodding towards Lavender, who was wearing an immense purple boa and sparkly dress. "She really likes it. She'll tell your fortune, if you like."

I frowned, and shook my head. "No, actually I wouldn't like." If the future was anything like the past, I didn't want any part of it. The past was dark. When we were children, we were told we were in a good generation, with no powerful dark wizards to speak of. They were wrong. Very few of us know how wrong.

Seamus jabbed me with his elbow playfully. "Oh, come on, Gin. Live a little."

But how can you live, I thought, when so many have died? How can you breath, when others have already gasped their last? How can you learn to laugh, after crying so hard?
"Gin, go." Padma ordered, her dark eyes boring into me. "It'll be good for you."

And so I went. I approached the dark blob of purple that was Lavender. "Hi, Ginevra." She greeted me in a high, silky-smooth voice that was newly come. "I haven't seen you in awhile."

"Yes, well... I was... err..." I blushed.

" I know the pain, Ginevra. You were the most innocent, and so it has taken you longer to heal." She looked at me in those soft brown eyes, and seemed to look into my very soul. Finally, she snapped out of it. "Come, Ginevra. I shall tell your fortune." So I sat down next to her, and she stared at me intently, as she had before, but I had a sense that it wasn't me that she was looking at – no let me rephrase that. It was me. A different me, and well, I guess it was prospect of a me – a possible me.

Finally, she said in this low, shaky voice:

The flower brings treachery

Armies can bring memories

But only love can heal

The ring will tell a secret story

The kiss will seal

Let the King go

Laugh, and sometimes cry

Sometimes it takes the innocent

Longer to live

And shorter to die

Live while you're alive

Lavender jerked away suddenly, and fell over. Neville rushed over. "Brown! Lavender! LAVENDER!" he yelled, kneeling beside her.