Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. The poem She Walks In Beauty is written by Lord George Gordan Byron.
A/N: This is why I should go to bed before 3:30. I read over it again, but all the content I wrote is still in there.
I believe in the idea of Marauder Day/Present Day paralells. You know, Harry is James, Malfoy is Snape, etc. If you're looking for more about these paralells, HPFGU (The Yahoo! Group-just run a Yahoo search for HPFGU and it should come up) is a great discussion area.
Anyway. What if there was a paralelled relationship-which equals out to two relationships-and during the Very Final And Last Battle, one person from each one died? And then, what if those two people weren't paralells of each other? And finally, what if the two survivors each held a vigil, unwittingly holding them at the same time?
Vigil
She walks into the graveyard. Her sense of purpose distracts her from the hollowness she feels.
He sits next to the granite stone. "Why did you leave me...."
She finds what she's looking for and kneels down, laying the flowers down. They sparkle-with tears or dew, she doesn't know. She doesn't care.
He leans forward and kisses the name engraved onto the headstone. "How long until they forget you?"
"You, brighter than the daystar." she whispers, watching the sun meet the horizon.
He remembers hair cascading warmly down her back.
She can still see the mischivious eyes.
"But you fell." He says.
"How could you leave us?" Her tears have been released from her eyes.
"We went through so much together." He buries his head in his hands, darkness slowly falling both around him and inside him.
"You never deserved what you went through." Her teeth are gritted against the cold. The cold of memories.
"But you never shattered."
"You were a silver pillar. Shining in the darkest night."
"How did you do it? Through all the pressure...." He looks away.
"I'm sorry." Her head tilts back and looks at the sky, the first of the stars coming into view.
"None of us deserved it. But you did least of all. Because you had a normal life before all of this." His hand slips to his pocket.
"All that you lost..." She absently traces a line across the base of one of her left fingers. Tracing the path of a ring.
"All that you sacrificed." He brings out a photo, staring at it for a second.
"We were children, once, remember?" A ghost of a smile flits across her face.
"How long did it take it to lose our innocence?" The sky is almost black. He doesn't move.
"The best days of our lives." She lifts a finger, tracing a constellation in the sky.
"A few years, at best." His eyes focus on the polished stone, not truly seeing it, only remembering.
"It was all gone in one night. One night and everything was lost. You were lost."
"Becoming jaded is a funny thing, isn't it?" He grasps his wand and taps the photo with it, laying it on the ground.
"We had no control over it. They came in, they smashed the windows, hackaxed all the furniture and there was nothing we could do about it." She isn't sure who "they" are. But she knows, somehow, that it's true.
A gust of wind blows, but the photo doesn't budge. He nods a bit, content with his spell. "Innocence. You don't know what it is until it's gone."
"I shut myself off from it all. Tried to deny the fact that I ever loved you." Her crouching figure is enveloped in darkness.
"She walks in beauty like the night." He sighed. "Muggle poetry. I don't know why I started reading it. But it describes you perfectly."
"I'm sorry. And I love you."
The sky lightens slightly as he sits, not moving, not speaking, just carrying out his vigil.
"There was something unconditional about our love. We knew that we wouldn't be able to see each other until the war was over. We knew that it could be over at any moment. And somehow, instead of making us desperate, it did just the opposite."
"You deserved better. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. You were Grace. Pure Grace."
"I would have walked across broken glass for you. And in a way I did. Walked across the glass of love. We would have protected each other to the end. Unconditional love."
"Everyone else is home, love. Sleeping. But I need to stay here. And I will." The sky slowly grays.
"I'm waxing lyrical. Does that give you any idea how bad this is for me?" She laughs unsteadily.
He lets one tear fall down on the ground in front of him, and runs his fingers over the inscription on the grave.
In one corner of the sky she catches a glimsph of pale blue. His eyes. The color of his eyes.
Ron Weasley stands shakily from his friend's grave. "Goodbye Hermione." he says softly. "I'll be back. I promise."
Celeste Sinistra, on the other side of the same graveyard, kisses an engravement: SIRIUS PROCYON BLACK. She draws her dark blue cloak, patterned with stars, around her, and, with shoulders hunched, swishes out of the graveyard.