Time To Recover
All of a sudden everything was quiet. It seemed to Harry that the world had gone still and that time had stopped.
In the castle it was professor McGonagall that saw the soaring phoenix first.
"HE'S DEAD!" she yelled and by doing so giving a fright to the remaining Death Eaters and more will and power to go on to her fellow professors, the students of Hogwarts and to their parents and relatives that had come along to fight.
It didn't take long to take down the remaining Death Eaters. Most of them just ran for it, not caring about the curses still flying all about them, some of them remained to fight, but in their hearts there was doubt, which made them an easy prey for their attackers.
Harry meanwhile was making his way out of the forest, the corpse of Voldemort floating in front of him. It all seemed so surreal. Draco and Ron were walking behind him, making sure no one would try to attack Harry from the back.
Left and right they saw Death Eaters running off, shooting curses as they went.
At the sight of Voldemort's body being all cold and lifeless the Death Eaters panicked, the truth sinking in for real now. Harry was still walking in a daze. It was hard to take in all that had happened. He had prepared himself for a long and tiring fight with Voldemort. It had been anything but that and he was suprised he had survived it so easily. Somewhere in his mind he wondered if he was dreaming, or that he had indeed died and this was his afterlife.
But then he saw Fred and George running up to him, and professor Lupin and Mr and Ms Weaseley and they were all shouting at him, tears running down their faces.
"You did it Harry, you really did it!" Fred yelled at him once he was near. He clapped him on his back and a huge smile split his face in two.
Harry could do nothing else than nod. He was too overwhelmed and his mind was on Ginny. He wanted to see her and know she was all right.
Ms Weaseley embraced Harry in a big hug.
"Thank you Harry." she said over and over again.
"Where's Ginny?" Harry asked once he had been released.
"She was staying in the Room of Requirment, taking care of the woonded together with Hermione." Ron said
"Let's go find them."
And with that Harry, Ron and Draco took off towards the castle.
"Harry!" someone shouted, and the trio stopped and turned around to find professor McGonagall running after them.
"Harry, leave Voldemort's body out here, on the stairs of Hogwarts. Let everybody see that he is indeed gone."
Harry nodded and let the body of his enemy fall down upon the hard ground just outside the doors of Hogwarts. It felt good, leaving him there, dead and cold.
When he entered the castle he found chaos. Everybody was looking for relatives and loved once. Professors were carrying bodies out to the Great Hall so that families didn't have to go looking through the rubble that was littered across the floor. He saw a young girl lying on the ground, shaking hard. He ran to her and kneeled next to her shaking frame.
"Shhh" he said, "It's going to be ok. I'm going to take you to the hospital wing and make sure you're taken care off. Hold on to me." and he picked the girl up, carrying her to the Room of Requirement. On their way up, they found several more injured students and they all helped them up to get them to Madam Pomfrey.
"Harry, Ron, Draco!"
Hermione was the first one to see the group come in. Harry smiled at her and crossed to room to put the little girl he was still carrying down onto a make shift bed. He was nearly knocked into the bed when Ginny came up hugging him hard. Draco and Ron had both put the chilrdren they had been carrying down and turned around looking through the Room. Draco held Hermione for a moment before he spoke.
"How have things been here, Hermione?"
"Hard, very hard. It's far from easy to see people you know come in being hurt, some on the brink of death. Luckily we were able to save most of them. Dean Thomas was brought in, he's resting over there. There are some others just around the corner.
Hermione was pale, she looked drained, most of her strength gone. She had kept her act together as long as it had been necessary. But right now she was dead on her feet. The same counted for Ginny. They had both worked so hard, trying to keep everything running. That, together with their pregnancies had worn them out. Draco noticed.
"Hermione, sweety, let's go. You're tired and you should rest, Ginny you too. You have both been working hard and you are exhausted. Hermione nodded.
The boys lead their friends away from the commotion, trying to find a small secluded corner.
"Ron? Ron!" Eiliss came running down the stairs.
" O Merlin, Ron you're all right." She said, flinging herself around his neck.
Ron hugged her back fiercely.
"Yes, I'm all right. And I'm happy you are too. Let's go, we're bringing Hermione and Ginny to the staff room. They have had a rough night and need some rest. It's probably the only calm place we can find in the entire castle right now. Once they're there I'll go out to find our friends. I haven't seen any of them in the Room of Requirement, so I guess they're ok."
"Ron, you should go now." Hermione said"
"You don't have to wait here for me. Harry and Draco are here for me and Ginny. Go find them and tell them we're ok. We've only seen your family, but we don't know how Lupin, Tonks, Moody and all the others are. Go find them and let us know ok?"
"Allright, I'll go." Ron said and he left. Eiliss followed right after him.
Once the girls had been put to rest in a corner of the hospital wing Draco, Ron, Harry and Eiliss went back to the castle. They knew there was still work to do. In the Great Hall were blankets on the ground, on them, those who didn't survive defending Hogwarts. They found professor Vector, the arithmancy teacher, there, and Madam Hooch. A little further they saw Cormac McLaggen lying, his parents sobbing next to his body.
Harry turned away from the sight and walked out. There was rubble everywhere and he suspected to find even more victims underneath it.
"Ron, Draco, let's try to lift those rocks over there. We might find some people there. Eiliss, maybe you can be of help with the injured. I see that professor McGonagall is over there, tending to them.
Eiliss nodded and set off, Draco and Ron followed Harry, wands ready, and started to levitate the rocks away. They piled them neatly against a remaining wall, so they wouldn't harm anyone else any more. Harry had been right thinking that people had been buried underneath. They found Roger Davies and Michael Corner, right next to each other. They had been fighting together when the wall had come down.
The three boys kept working for quite some time. The found two more people they didn't know, probably partents or other relatives that had come to help, and three Death Eaters underneath the rubble. They levitated the bodies to the Great Hall before going outside to collect more corpses.
It was a terrible task, and Draco knew that the images would haunt him for a long time. Finding people who had giving their lives to defend Hogwarts was hard. He wiped his had over his face and noticed that tears were streaming over his cheeks. He hadn't even realised that he was crying.
The boys were all exhausted and after a couple of hourse Professor Lupin came up to them.
"Harry, Ron, Draco, you shouldn't be here anymore. Go and have some rest. There are enough people here to help. You have done enough for one day. Take Miss McGlachlann with you and stay with Miss Granger and Miss Weasley. They will need you."
They all nodded and turned around. Once they had found Eiliss they left and joined Hermione and Ginny in The Room of Requirement.
When they got back to the Room they found Hermione and Ginny fast asleep, exactly where they had left them.
"Maybe you guys should get some rest too." Eiliss suggested.
"I'll stay up and keep watch. I can still helpt Madam Pomfrey when they would bring in new wounded."
The boys just nodded. They were dead on their feet, just as much as Hermione and Ginny had been.
Ron looked a little worried.
"You should rest as well Eiliss. You have been going just as long as any of us. Please, just stay. I'll feel better when you're here, with the rest of us."
"All right Ron. But I still want to go and see if Madam Pomfrey needs help. If not, I'll be here again as soon as I can. Otherwise I'll stay there for a while before joining you here." Eiliss said.
Ron nodded and Eiliss left.
"She'll be all right Ron." Harry said.
"Don't worry too much. She's a strong person, and she'll be back here before you know it. Now just lay down and try to sleep, you need it."
"I know, I just don't want to go to sleep just yet. The images of this night will hunt me for the rest of my life. And I don't want to relive it so soon."
Draco placed his hand on Ron's shoulder, trying to give a little solace. Ron just sank down in the nearest chair, his shoulders slumped. Then he suddenly stood and shook his head.
"I'm going to look for my family. I've seen most of them before, but I don't want to just stay here and do nothing. Tell Eiliss to wait here for me. I won't be too long I guess."
"All right Ron, you go. Just be carefull." Draco said, and Ron left the room.
Draco turned to watch Harry, a worried look in his eyes.
"He doesn't look good, does he?" Draco asked.
"No, he doesn't. What he has seen affects him much more than it affects us. We have seen more violence than he ever has. I mean, you've seen it at home, I've seen it countless times whenever Voldemort crossed my path. Ron hasn't seen any of it, except for that time in the Ministry of Magic, at the end of our fifth year."
"I know. I understand that he wants to be with his family. Maybe he'll bring them here, I think we can all use some support from his parents." Draco said.
It was surprising how easily Draco had adapted to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. They had taken him in without any complaint because they knew how much he meant to Hermione. And Draco had almost immediately looked up to them for guidance and help. It seemed that he had found parental love with them, the kind of love his own parents had never given him. Ron's parents had helped Draco to learn how to live without violence, without bullying and so on.
About half an hour later Ron reappeared with his entire family in tow. Mrs. Weasley immediately pulled Harry and Draco into a fierce hug. And then went on to take a look at Ginny and Hermione. Mr. Weasley sat down in a chair next to Draco and the rest of the family found themselves seat around the room. Soon after Eiliss came back in and everybody was back together. Hermione had woken up and sat herself close to Draco. Ginny was still asleep and Harry had positioned himself at then end of her bed.
Nobody really talked, but they all enjoyed the much needed feeling of having a family to rely upon.
Hours passed into days, and days passed into weeks. Slowly, very slowly everbody started to recover from the years of torment and fright they'd had to go through. For a lot of them it took a while to truly understand that danger had now stopped. The ministery managed to round up most of the Death Eaters rather quickly with the help of the few Slytherins, like Blaize and Draco, that had switched sides just before the final war. They were a huge help on the hide-out departement. They knew where most of the Death Eaters would go to try and avoid capture.
And in that time, life at Hogwarts started again as well. It wasn't the same, since some of the students hadn't survived the final battle. Amongst the dead were Lavender Brown, Roger Davies, Marietta Edgecombe, Ernie Macmillan and a number of others. Life would never be the same again, but bit by bit the students found a new routine, a new way of life and of dealing with what had happened. A number of them had also lost members of their family. The Patil twins had lost their older brother, Hannah Abbot and Suzan Bones had lost a niece and cousin, Seamus Finnigan, Justin Finch-Fletchely and Ernie Macmillan had lost one of their parents... the list was endless. There was a lot of grief and sorrow, but somehow a lot of students managed to find good things to think about. They tried to think how their life would be from now on, what would change.
The same counted for Hermione and Ginny, who started showing considerably since they were now around five months along in their pregnancy. It was one of the topics that kept their fellow students rather happy. The thought of new life growing amongst them after such dreadfull times felt really good.
"Hermione, we really need to go shopping soon! There are a lot of things we need for the babies." Ginny said one day. It was friday and the upcoming weekend was a Hogsmade weekend. That would give them the opportunity to go looking for babyclothes, toys and other utilities they'd need.
"I know Ginny. It's all going rather fast now isn't it. It just feels like yesterday that we found out we were pregnant and were scared to tell the boys. But maybe we should ask the boys to accompany us. After all, they are the fathers and thus should have a say in what we buy."
And with that, the next day, the six friends set off towards the babyshops in Hogsmade, looking for what they needed, finally having a good time, with no worries for the first in a long time.
They came home with tons of stuff. Draco nor Harry had spared himself a galleon to buy whatever they thought their children might need. And despite what all of them had been through, they felt happy. They had a full file in front of them and they planned on making the best out of it.
Something that was rather remarkable were the renewed friendships between all the houses. There was hardly and animosity left between the students. Even those of Slytherin were more or less accepted. Draco and Blaize were accepted rather quickly since everybody found out that they had helped the school during the war. It seemed as though the students understood that friendship was a very important part of life and that fighting amongst each other made people an easy prey. There were no house tables any more in the Great Hall. Instead all the house tables had been put in a circle making it clear that there was no end, nor a beginning in the relationships between the students.
Professor McGonagall smiled at the sight. This would be a perfect new start.