Disclaimer: As much as I wish I wrote and own Harry Potter, I'm not the brilliant J.K. Rowling and therefore none of these characters or places belong to me! I do not own anything except for my own ideas!

Chapter One

Mending Hearts and Lions

When the world says, "Give up," Hope whispers, "Try it one more time."

-Author Unknown

A breeze wisped through the broken window and into the circular room, causing Hermione Granger to open her heavy eyes. She was amazed by the effort it took her to finally get- and keep- her eyelids open. The moment she did, she was extremely confused. Which was quite impressive really. It took a great deal to befuddle the girl.

Hermione was lying in a mahogany, four-poster bed with scarlet hangings. From where she lay she saw a broken window that exposed a brilliant sunset streaked with deep, striking shades of violet, magenta, dark blue, and crimson. A thousand, small, shining stars were barely visible, sprinkled over the beautiful sky. Startled by not knowing where she was, Hermione snatched her wand and sat bolt upright in the bed causing a head rush and a flood of memories to come back to her.

Sneaking into Hogwarts and seeing her old friends. Entering the damp, disgusting Chamber of Secrets. Being shown her deepest fears and harshest memories before destroying the Horcrux-cup. Kissing Ron… Retrieving the lost diadem of Ravenclaw in the Room of Requirement. Fred, dying in mid- laughter… Curses, hexes, and stunning spells illuminating the corridors and grounds of the castle and turning the entire school into a deadly light show… People falling… Seemingly taking forever to fall… So many sacrificed their lives… Time slowing as Harry was revealed to the survivors of the Battle, dead and limp in Hagrid's arms as Voldemort told them they had failed. Neville destroying the snake. Harry… alive. Harry defying Voldemort for the final time… Harry… succeeding.

We did it, Hermione thought with pride, exhilaration, and a great deal of disbelief. He's finished. They're finished. It's over! Hermione was grinning in disbelief and joy when it hit her.

Their side was not the only one that sustained heavy loses.

As tears began to slowly roll down her face, she took in her surroundings. The circular room held four other beds identical to the one Hermione had just awoken in. In fact, in the bed next to her, a petite girl with scratches and tearstains on her face slept. Her flaming, red hair was knotted and tangled, sprawled completely over her pillow. At the sight of Ginny Weasley, one of Hermione's best friends, more memories pried their way into Hermione's thoughts.

Ginny and Hermione stumbled through the portrait hole, too exhausted and full of so many conflicting emotions to speak. Ginny led Hermione up to her dormitory, where they both collapsed on beds, drained physically and emotionally from the battle. The redhead turned onto her side, looking at Hermione while tears flowed freely down her face and onto her scarlet sheets.

The girls did not need, nor wish, to speak as they cried. They could see what the other was feeling in their eyes. They could see the horrific sights their friend had witnessed during the battle. The memories and realization of what had just occurred fueled the many emotions that were now reflecting in the girls' eyes. Pain… Lose… Sadness… Misery… Shock… Happiness… Joy… Hope…

In each other's eyes, the girls saw how the time apart had changed them.

Hermione saw a strength that was never present in Ginny's cinnamon-brown eyes before. There had always been strength and courage, but this was different. It was a hardness caused by painful experiences, disturbing images. Even more leadership and boldness was present in the light brown eyes. Hermione also saw something new. A sense of responsibility and purpose lingered in Ginny's eyes caused by the need to be a leader for others, not the natural inclination to be one. In the months they had been separated, Ginny had become a woman.

While Hermione read her friend's eyes, exposing Ginny's thoughts, feelings, and changes, Ginny studied the mysteries that Hermione's dark brown eyes held. She saw much more courage and nerve than had ever been there before. There was also a great deal of sadness, loss, and pain that Ginny knew had never taken residence in Hermione's eyes before her adventures with Harry and Ron this year. Hermione's eyes told Ginny that she had loosened up and learned to laugh more, because who knew how much time you had left? But the most significant change Ginny saw was written all over her friend's dark brown eye: love swam deeply throughout Hermione's eyes and lit them up making them shine even through her tears. Ginny realized that her friend had experienced just as much pain and loss over the course of time they had been apart as she had and it had taught them both to live life to the fullest.

After hours of silently grieving, celebrating, and comforting each other, the girls cried themselves to sleep.

Hermione stared at Ginny, marveling at how much her friend had changed in the months they hadn't seen each other. She stood up and walked towards the broken window, grateful to have a small amount of time to herself and to collect her thoughts.

Hermione felt that the old, mangled window she now stood by was a great representation of the castle's condition. Shattered glass was scattered below the once ornate and beautiful window. A large hole had been blasted through the middle, knocking out the abdomen and head of what used to be a rearing Gryffindor lion. Hermione concluded that the hole was probably caused by a curse gone of course … but then again… it may have hit its intended target. Right where she was standing. Hermione shook her head, as if the action would clear the unpleasant thought from her mind. She ran her fingers over the black, twining wrought iron that formed the outline of the lion, or, rather, what was left of the lion. It was clotted and morphed in certain areas, as if the curse had burned a hole in the window, not only shattering it, but also melting the edges of the hole away.

The window was as battered and torn as the rest of the castle. Hogwarts had suffered immensely from the final battle. Windows were shattered, doors had broken in, staircases were blasted away, pillars had collapsed, and entire walls had disappeared…

The window looks just like Hogwarts, Hermione mused. It was clearly once beautiful, but now it is dismantled, broken, and depressing, but… fixable. Reparable. It will take a lot of work, faith, and cooperation, but it will be brought back together again. Just like Hogwarts will.

Looking up from the broken window, Hermione's dark eyes now strayed across the grounds of her immense home. The bodies had been cleared away this morning, but she could still see all of the people who had died. It was something so cruel and horrific, Hermione knew it was forever branded onto her mind. Feeling another, harder wave of tears coming on, Hermione fought to get control of herself. She did not want to wake Ginny.

The grief she felt for everyone that had died here throughout the battle felt like a thousand pounds of weight on her back. Fred, whom she would never hear laugh again… Remus and Tonks, gone while their baby boy grew up… Colin Creevey, only a year younger than herself, but his made his age seem like that of a small child… Adults, strangers, fighting for a better life for their children, her generation… Then she saw the faces of the people she had lived with for years and never even gotten to know, the Hogwarts students…

A Ravenclaw girl with straight, blond hair that Hermione would run into time to time in the library, but never introduced herself to, too absorbed in her work to think of it… A boy clearly underage, who should have been with the younger students being evacuated… She recalled confiscating a fanged Frisbee from him as a prefect… A petite girl, whom she thought to be a Hufflepuff, that Hermione had seen in the girls' lavratory… A dark-haired Slytherin boy who fought valiantly for his school…

Tears ghosted down her face as movement on the grounds caught her eye. The giant squid had briefly poked its tentacles through the lake's smooth, glass-like surface, causing a break in the beautiful sunset's reflection in the water. The sky and its reflection in the lake was full of dusty hues of purple, indigo, and deep blue, clearly displaying that the sunset's elaborate show was coming to a close. The skyline became an impressionist painting to Hermione as tears overflowing in her eyes began to obscure her vision. She found that she could not enjoy looking at this breath-taking sight without thinking that Fred, Remus, Tonks, Colin and many others would never be able to view it.

Hermione wiped the tears out of her eyes with the heel of her palm and looked back down at the broken window. She bit her lip while she began to trace the wrought-iron lion again. After a few moments, Hermione stopped crying.

She realized that the broken window was not only symbolic of the state of Hogwarts Castle, but also her heart. Everything she had seen, everyone she had loved who had died, and the strangers she felt eternally grateful to for giving their lives to save others had taken a piece of her heart away. Hermione knew that every survivor of the battle felt the same way. She also knew that just like the window and the castle, their hearts, and her own, could be mended. It would take compassion, unity, hard work, and, most of all, love. Of all the lessons Dumbledore had pressed upon people, Hermione believed that the power of love was the most important of all. Although the threat of Voldemort had been eliminated, their work was not finished. They had much to re-build: a school, a government, an economy, a society, and, most importantly, people's hearts.

It could take years, Hermione thought. But if we console each other and not let the pain and lose consume us, we'll be able to move on. And if we work together-

Hermione stepped out of the fan of shattered glass and squared herself to the window, her face determined and set.

"Reparo." The bushy-haired girl murmured fiercely. Hundreds of small glass shards and dust sprung into the air and quickly arranged themselves to fit into the hole in the broken window.

It shouldn't take that long, Hermione thought with satisfaction. With a final look at her best friend and the mended, rearing lion now plastered onto the window pane, Hermione left the room, ready to embark on a whole new adventure.