The Child Shall Suffer No More…

"Has anybody seen Harry at all?" asked Hermione as she tried to eat her breakfast.

"Yeah, he got up and went into the room where they are guarding all the bodies of the little ones that got caught up in the fighting" Ron was quiet as he spoke – his normally large appetite gone after losing one of his brothers the night before. "As far as I know, he's still there"

"I'll go and get him" Hermione pushed her plate away.

"Mione, they've tried everything including an Auror strike force – he just won't leave" Ron turned his gaze to look at his newly minted girlfriend. "The last time they tried to get him to move, he almost cursed them out of existence"

"I thought the bodies had all been moved" Neville commented as he gingerly reached for a teapot.

"All the ones that were claimed, but some families were wiped out leaving the kids here… With Voldemort's attack killing them…" Ginny shook her head sadly before continuing. "From what I heard some of the Aurors say, Harry hasn't said anything at all to anyone since the fighting finished. Hell, the only thing they've heard is the occasional loud pop as if he was using a Portkey to come back and forth"

"That's impossible" Ron remarked. "Even I know that is impossible"

"Normally, I would agree… However, Harry does have a tendency to make the impossible happen" Hermione sighed and looked at the table. "Maybe he is just blowing off excess magic or something" and Neville was about to reply to that when he saw Harry come out of the room, go to what remained of the Gryffindor table and spoke very quickly to Seamus who blinked, nodded and then stood as Harry called for an elf – they couldn't see if it was Kreature or Winky – and hold one of the elf's hands before popping away.

"Well, that was strange" Ginny frowned. They tried to figure out what he wanted with Seamus when he popped back again next to Ernie McMillan and Fay Dunbar, spoke to them and then spirited them away – adding much more to the mystery. As the group chatted and try to work out what Harry was up to, Terry Boot came limping and Hermione had to catch him before he fell down.

"Harry… Lake… Others" and then he fainted. There was a shout for help before Hermione suddenly blinked, cocked her head to one side as if hearing something very faint and then turned a deathly shade of white and allowed herself to groan as her tired mind supplied the answer.

"Mione, you okay?" Ron asked quietly.

"I don't know" Hermione's eyes began to fill with tears.

"Are you having one of those women's things?" and that caused Ginny to giggle despite the events of the previous few hours.

"No… Can you hear that?"

"Hear wha- Yeah, very faint. Is that bagpipes?" and Hermione nodded.

"Ernie and Fay are both bagpipe players and they are doing a tune played often at sad occasions, Seamus is Catholic and can, in a pinch, say the right words at a funeral…" Hermione stood and sighed softly.

"He's burying the dead that have no one to take care of them" Ron said as he also rose to stand beside Hermione. "He did it by hand for Dobby and, if he's been burying the dozens…" Ron suddenly felt as if he finally understood everything that Harry had been through since he was a year old. All of the beatings the Dursleys gave him, the bullies at his Muggle school, the bullies at Hogwarts and even the great wizarding world of the country. He counted himself amongst those that had bullied him, although not as much as the Malfoys, and Ron wondered if the magical community would ever see Harry after all was completed. As it was, he stood up and started to walk towards the still splintered and broken doors towards the grounds – thinking about how lucky he was in life. How he, Ronald Weasley, had everything that his friend had always wanted – a family that loved him for who he was.

"Ron? Where are you going?" Hermione was running up to his side.

"Going to apologise" he replied as they went outside where the grounds still bore testament to the defence the staff, students, parents and anybody else that arrived put up. Here and there, a few little bundles marked where a body had still to be recovered for burial and the pair skirted around them as they hurried to the lake.

"Apologise for what?"

"Your parents are dead - you have no family" Ron recited from memory. "I have never seen Harry that angry at me before and I honestly believe he would have killed me then and there. How can I forgive myself for saying that? How can I forgive myself for throwing everything that Harry has lost in his face? I was put in the house of lions, Mione, but I think I was a cowardly one if that…" Ron shook his head. "I'm going to apologise to him, apologise for everything and then go – our friendship is over"

"He will forgive you" Hermione insisted.

"He won't – I know him all too well" Ron stopped where he could see Harry lowering coffins into the ground one by one without magic.

"Will you leave me? Is what we have now going to be over?" Hermione hissed.

"No… I would love to be your boyfriend – if you will still have me that is"

"Of course" Hermione squeezed his hand. "What do you think he will do after this?"

"I don't think he really knows. I mean, its not as if Dumbledore gave him much of an option after all"

"What do you mean?" frowned Hermione as her mind raced with thoughts.

"I might have the emotional range and thought capacity of a teaspoon, but I know strategy when I see it" Ron kicked half heartedly at a few loose stones. "The only one that Voldemort was ever afraid of was Dumbledore, right? Well, if Dumbledore was so much more powerful then why didn't he take care of him before the rise of the Death Eaters the first time around? Once he knew about Sirius not being the traitor, why didn't he tell the Ministry and order him an actual trial to prove his innocence? Why, for that matter, didn't he simply listen to Harry when he told him and others about the abuse his Aunt, Uncle and Cousin gave him during the summers? You saw how thin he was when we saw him after he spent time with them"

"Are you saying that Dumbledore was abusing Harry too?" his new girlfriend paled at the implications.

"Not physically… At least I hope not… But he wasn't trying to teach a boy – he was crafting a weapon to sacrifice itself when the time came. Harry wasn't going out to meet Voldemort in a fight – he was going out to die to go to his parents"

"Oh God" Hermione tried to fight the urge to be sick. "I always told Harry to trust what Dumbledore was doing and he did it. What have I done?" she looked at Ron whose face was going from one of sadness to a mixture of confusion and dawning horror.

"Hermione, how many coffins has Harry put into the ground?"

"Um…" she did a quick count. "Eleven – why?"

"Now count how many tombstones"

"Twelve" Hermione blinked for a moment before Harry raised his wand.

There was a flash of green light…