White Roses
A/N: First, if you haven't already, read Always and Forever. This is the sequel - sorry it's so short, but I couldn't find anything else to say.
Ron wandered slowly along the edge of the Forbidden Forest with his hands in his pockets, gazing up at the starry night sky. He paused by the lake and closed his eyes quietly, letting the moon's glowing rays fall across his face. A small tear trickled down his cheek, leaving a glistening trail on his cheek.
He blinked away the tear and opened his eyes again, continuing to walk. His feet led him almost automatically to the small stone near the edge of the Hogwarts grounds. Ron knelt beside it, dropping softly onto the thick green grass.
He didn't need to read the gravestone; he knew it by heart. It was the gravestone of the one person he had ever loved - Hermione. The wind whispered softly in the trees as he watched the long grasses wavering behind the stone.
Ron slowly shifted one hand to a pocket of his black robes. He withdrew from it a phrase written on the best parchment he could by. He read the words over and over, finally looking up and placing it quietly at the base of the gravestone.
He suddenly felt something. There was a power, intensifying very quickly around the place Ron was standing. It was tense whispers among the trees, a sudden silence descending like a heavy cloud.
The piece of paper he had just been holding began glowing with a faint reddish glow. The color lining it was growing steadily brighter like the tail of the sun. When it grew so bright that Ron had to shield his eyes, it burst into flame, the light flickering in the darkness of the night.
Suddenly the light went out, leaving Ron blinking into the darkness. The piece of parchment had vanished; it was gone. Ron searched all around the gravestone for it, but it had disappeared within moments. He was just wondering why it had caught fire, when his breath caught in his throat.
Beneath the words he had memorized long ago was a new phrase, written in italics, reading, The hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal of the snow; the solemn splendors of the night burn brighter through the cold; the vision passing by in crystal and in rose.
Ron swallowed and the tears he'd been holding back for so long, silently poured down his cheeks. Through the blur he reached a trembling finger to her gravestone and brushed it around her name engraved.
Below the phrase that had newly appeared, there was something sprouting out of the dirt, tossing clods from side to side. Ron blinked, and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes to see better. From beneath the surface of the ground arose a single, white rose, in full bloom and quiet snowflakes descended upon him in a whirl.
And the trees once again rustled in the wind, taking on Hermione's soft voice and whispering, "Always and forever."
Dumbledore smiled slightly as he remembered the words of Firenze, one of the centaurs of the Forbidden Forest. They were known as only stargazers, but they seemed to have a certain power over the stars.
"It was written in the stars for them to be," were Firenze's words as he talked to Dumbledore one dark evening. "When the stars cast their spell in their tall and heavenly tower, it cannot be broken," was one of Firenze's favorite sayings, as well.
He turned to gaze out his window and started in surprise. Hermione's grave was not just the plain gray headstone he had known yesterday. White roses had grown all around the headstone, covering all of the words but a single phrase, which glowed as brightly as the solemn splendors of the night.
A/N: First of all, the phrase I have above is from an English folk melody and is not mine. But it seemed to fit so perfectly. I may write another sequel, but a doubt it. What else would you like to see?