Reason Enough
By Crystella Shan
Disclaimer: You mean the characters? Yep. Not mine. They're ALL J.K. Rowling's. I just created a really, really long string of words and strategically placed the names of the characters in them.
Summary: Hermione Granger needed reasons for everything. But they were getting scarce now.
A/N: Hmm. This turned out quite different from what I had previously imagined it to be. I hope you guys'll like it. Re-edited
They would win.
Hermione had had no choice but to believe it. If she had believed otherwise, then holding on would stand for nothing in the end. She would not have fought if she thought it to be a losing war. She needed reasons. But they had been scarce and few in between. Her schoolmates seemed to disappear after graduation, no longer under Dumbledore's protection. The Order was getting tired as time stretched by, and their strength seemed to be fueled by force of will alone. To them, every grave was one more reason to fight. Death itself had become a reason. In fact, Hermione had almost expected it to come this way. And now she mutters 'Avada Kedavra' without blinking an eye. Though there always was a slightest bit of remorse, that she could do nothing to prevent this, but her innocence had long faded away with white roses on nameless graves.
Always, the reasons were not enough.
"Harry."
Ginny was lost to them. She had been killed during an important mission to retrieve the Living Stone, something even more powerful than the Philosopher's Stone, which could recreate a physical body from a soul. The mission had failed and the Stone was in the hands of Voldemort. They were in danger.
The war was over. They won.
As the injured crew reported the bad news to the waiting Order, listing the names of the casualties, Harry did not speak, neither did the rest of the Order. The names seemed to ring in the silence, filling every ounce of space in the entire room. In her mind, Hermione could remember her fire, her tainted innocence. She loved Ginny like she would a sister and she would never forgive Lucius Malfoy for that stain. But Lucius had already met his death at the hands of Voldemort. And Ginny was gone. The mission had failed. Now, the entire Order was in danger. Logic, analysis, reasoning. They told her to give up, to surrender immediately; there were no other options left. Reason told her that she was about to die.
They didn't need to fight anymore. Hermione's wand lay limp by her side as she trailed amidst the fallen and failed to register the faint voices of the survivors. She felt as though every last bit of her strength had faded away, her hate tucked somewhere behind with the memories. It was all she could do to keep walking. She seemed to have walked to the end of the world when Hermione finally arrived at Harry's limp form, sprawled unceremoniously on the ground next to Voldemort's corpse.
She didn't notice that the sky was a beautiful shade of blue.
Ginny was dead. Ron cried. Hermione selfishly thought that she might be next.
But she'd forgotten that Harry loved her too. She'd forgotten that Ginny had left them with a ring on her finger.
Snape. Severus Snape was there. He lay on his side, a little away from Voldemort and Harry. Voldemort, brought down with his own servant's poison. Hermione would have smiled if she had the strength. Severus Snape was a servant to no one. This time, no matter how hard he tried to stay in the shadows, the Order would remember him as a hero of the Light.
And the world, as he had wished, would remember nothing of him.
It hurt. The pain was like a dull throbbing in her heart that seemed to haunt the echoes of her footsteps as she walked up to Harry. He had been standing, alone, in the dim light of the living room in the Headquarters of The Order Of The Phoenix. The mission had failed. Ginny had died in vain and now Voldemort knew something that they didn't. The rest of the Order was waiting for his word.
His glasses were unbroken this time. Hermione kneeled on the ground by his side, ignoring the grotesque form of Voldemort's poisoned, rotting corpse. Harry's hands felt cold when Hermione gathered them up in her own. His pulse was weak but he was still breathing, though barely. Hermione felt faint. She willed him to move, to wake up and find Ron quick. She knew things would never go back to the way it was before; she knew all along that it would have been impossible. But they'd won the war, and there was hope again. This time, the world was waiting for them.
Besides, he had to see the sky. It was in the colour of Ginny's eyes.
"Harry."
She whispered his name as she stood beside him. Ron had buried his head in his hands, shaking, silent. Perhaps it would have been easier if it was her instead. The three of them had been prepared to go to the end for Harry ever since fifth year, when Harry finally accepted their loyalty. The Golden Trio.
Ginny was never supposed to die.
They seemed broken now. She wondered if there were any more reasons left. But as she watched Harry stand there taller than he had ever been with his heart breaking and his eyes glistening in the dim light, she thought that, perhaps, he would have been reason enough.