A Song for Lonely Hill

A/N: For the past few months I've been writing a lot of different stories, but nothing I really liked. Then this one popped into my head, and I feel like I may get into it. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this, but oh well. Enjoy, and please read & review.

Memories and Surprises---

It was silent as they waited- Silent but for the heavy breathing of the motionless figures scattered in pairs across the battlefield, their wands raised and poised as if in mid-strike. They were frozen in anticipation.

A great, heavy fog swirled around the shadowed battlers, preventing them from seeing anything at all or witnessing the outcome of the most important duel of all- An outcome that would determine the course of the rest of their lives.

It could have been many hours before the smoke finally cleared. No one was ever quite sure. All heads turned towards the center, searching for a body… Any sign that it was over.

Sure enough, one dark, solitary figure remained, his wand resting in hand, chest heaving. A strong, clear voice called out through the night, Remus Lupin's.

"Who is it?"

The air was thick as each person leaned in slightly, desperately, to hear the answer that would determine future's course.

"It's me," the voice was quivering and high-pitched.

"Harry?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, Harry!" this time it was a female voice that echoed through the grounds. She ran forward to him, chestnut hair billowing behind her, arms outstretched.

Remus Lupin raised a hand in protest. "Hermione, no! Not yet." She stopped suddenly and regained her composure, though her eyes grew wide and filled with tears- Of joy, or sadness, it was hard to tell.

"Where is he? Where is Voldemort?" said Lupin quietly, as though afraid of the answer. "I don't see a body."

Harry opened his mouth, but didn't answer.

"Did he run?" Hermione whispered.

"The Dark Lord wouldn't run, you cowering, silly, stupid little girl," sneered an entirely different female voice.

"Be quiet Bella, it is a fair question," said a sinister looking man with long, white-blonde hair on the opposite end of the field.

"Harry, what happened?" insisted Lupin.

"He… I… He's…" the skinny boy stammered, struggling to get the words out.

"Is he dead? Did you kill him?"

The boy called Harry Potter took a deep breath, pushed back his damaged glasses and nodded.

At once the field erupted into motion. People cried, laughed, screamed, fainted, shouted things like, "Impossible!" "But only seventeen!" "I don't believe it!" "Where is the body?" Even Harry Potter cracked a smile at the sudden outbreak of emotion.

"Enough!" cried Lupin. "Harry, where is the body?"

"There." He pointed a shaking finger towards what most had taken for an abandoned cloak. "There isn't much of him left, without his Horcruxes… "

The woman with the sneering female voice called Bellatrix Lestrange darted forward at once, shrieking and sobbing. "No! My Lord, how could this have happened? No!" She cradled the huddled black body in her arms and rocked back and forth, hysterical with disbelief and horror.

Then, a tall, black man shouted, "Stupefy!" and a figure collapsed mid-dash. "That one tried to get away, he did. He was heading for the Forbidden Forest. Theodore Nott, I think."

"Good work, Kingsley," said Lupin, triumphantly. "As for the rest of you Death Eaters, try to escape, you get the same as him. It's over now."

One by one, many of the figures across the field raised their hands into the air, realizing that they were nothing without their Dark Lord. Surprisingly few remained.

---

Hermione's eyes darted along a map, her finger tracing a red line that ran through it. At last she reached her destination, her powerful mind calculating, memorizing the directions and street names.

Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley lived in New York City now, a place in America she was not very familiar with but was often forced to visit for his sake. It was far too crowded and busy for her taste. He often said that it was easier to blend in- Lots of muggles all over the place. Hermione supposed she could not blame them for it. Harry and Ginny could hardly walk down the streets of England anymore without being bombarded by awed people, even though it had been seven years since the defeat of Lord Voldemort.

Hermione, however, had rented a flat in London after leaving school and hadn't moved since. She had been living in the same place for six years. And she could handle the weird looks she got from people when sitting in a tea shop trying to read. They were never as many as Harry received, and she was grateful.

But Ginny's due date was approaching rapidly, and Hermione had promised both her and Harry that she would be there the day their twins were born.

Hermione stuffed the map in her robe pocket and walked briskly to the nearest Appartion Port in London. Continental Apparation was a risky business, and the ministry liked to record who was traveling where. She scowled irritably. It would be a lot easier to just leave from directly her flat and be done with it.

Not only that, but the American Ministry had positioned heavy magical security all around Harry and Ginny's apartment building to keep wizards from Apparating in. Hermione would be forced to walk sixteen endlessly complicated and unfamiliar blocks to get there.

So, alright, she was a little bit bitter about the whole matter, but the fact was she didn't have much time to spare, due to her demanding work, and visits to America were quite a hassle.

Eventually she reached the port and waited in line with a gaggle of young girls who openly gawked at her and whispered behind their hands. Damn it, she thought. Forgot the glasses. In order to lessen the amount of unwelcome stares, Hermione had regularly donned a pair of large, dark sunglasses.

"Name?" said a witch, impatiently. It was her turn in line, at last.

"Hermione Jane Granger."

"Wizarding Security Code?"

"1785-1443-6378"

"ID?" She passed him a card with her picture that was recorded and passed back to her. "Follow the signs so you know where to leave from."

Hermione passed through the doors and entered the United States of America section. Several other people were there, including a man that looked vaguely familiar to her. He had unnaturally died black hair and an angular jaw line. He would have been rather handsome, had his face not been twisted into a self-satisfied smirk. He turned towards her and his face fell in recognition. Just as she Disapparated, she realized who it was, impossible though it seemed.

Draco Malfoy, of all people, going to New York? The absurdity.