Who would do the unenviable task of moving the body? Of moving his body? Would it be the elves whose existence didn't change because of the war. No old curses were broken because of what happened that morning. Would it be the centaurs, tasked with the heavy gift of foresight and reading the stars, to know before knowing is confirmed? Or the goblins who kept the world's wealth in vaults but could not keep their own wealth as it was claimed by those very same race who had precipitated the war? All of whom had been carved into sculptures supporting the weight of wizard kind and many more sculptures in history and paintings and drawings and cartoons. Which beast would bear the weight of carrying that body to its final resting place? Which would be responsible now to carry a weight that wasn't there's again as they had done before this war and the last war and the one before that? It would be the wizards because it had to be. No one else could make to move him and they wouldn't. They couldn't let the history of this day remember that they had done such a thing so that the next time, the next one would know that they too could stand aside and go about the rest of their lives and business and let the wizards who now stood sentinel in windows and doors blasted off their hinges and through the portals of the castle into the open air waiting in fear for someone or something else to do it, that they wouldn't and shouldn't either.

The wizards and witches of England and the world were not to be trusted. They could not keep a promise not even to themselves. Twice, a child of their race had to defeat this man and they couldn't trust that he wouldn't come back again. Not as this man but another. They always did, they always came back. The biggest wars, the ones that threatened all of their lives always were started by the same people who kept coming back and the wizards kept insisting he wouldn't, she wouldn't, they wouldn't. If it wasn't a war, the wizards remained on a perpetual quest to trick or lie or cheat themselves into irrevocable magical contracts, to only negotiate and deal with creatures who had to watch their own gold, silver move into Gringotts. That could only work at Gringotts keeping the precious metals of goods made out of stolen material. To take knowledge that literally sat in the sky and claim it as their course of study when they couldn't control their own gifts.

The giants had been exiled to the mountains and left to their own traditions and mocked for the traditions they were able to keep when they were driven into the dry mountains. Who would notice the skittish and erratic movements of something so small but they were yelling into the crags of the lower hills using magic to amplify their voices to recruit and they had been lied too again. They hadn't waited, they were already making their journey back in daylight using a shielded path, disgusted with themselves. Disappointed in having let themselves dream of anything but the caves in the thin air at the high altitudes they had become accustomed to.

The Centaurs made their way back into the forest that used to extend almost to the edge of the Great Lake. The trees that used to grow where Hogwarts now stood, used to make early wands and burned for fire and used for the beams and floors. The trees used to climb up the ridge of the hills that ring the lake and created a natural border and further shielded the castle grounds. If they had not fought though, then what? The house elves, some of whom were still not free, even on that day but came to an impasse. Some of them knew Heidi from when she was a student and she baked again and served the elves which did not break any magical contract but would make it easier to break one later for some of them. She prepared tea and followed the directions of an old wheezing elf for a magical tonic, bitter then sweet and then bitter again, that was poured into cups and the Hufflepuffs of many ages and years turned their hospitality on the elves and washed the dishes that remained and placed back in the larder what had fallen and swept the floors and sat and listened. A Ravenclaw or two were waved in. Remember with us. Use your gift of the love of learning and knowing and understanding.

The merpeople tread water watching a delegate until all of the bodies on the shore were claimed. The glass window would have cracked and flooded the lower levels of the castle if not for the merpeople imploring the giant squid to hold it together until a wizard could get to it. A wizard! Always a wizard. They had polluted the water again as they were doing all over the world. They couldn't fight the wizards, their magic didn't work that way and it was no lesser for it. They watched as they dragged or levitated their loved ones away. The grindelows would have said something if they could talk. The merpeople could talk but not anything the wizards would understand above water. Hagrid came to the water's edge at dusk to collect all the other pieces and scraps. Thank you. They had always like Hagrid but he couldn't get the blood out of the water. They would have to wait for the tide to wash away, to move the last of the blood out of the lake which could take a very long time. They swam and moved their tales and singing in harmony. Breathing in some of the water and letting it become part of them because they had no choice. Waiting for an explanation of what had happened and how and why. Why were they always killing each other if not for food? They wondered to themselves.

The Slytherins who had left knowing who they would or might end up fighting because they were family or friends started coming back. They knew their own neighbors. What could they have done? True to their houses some of the older ones had called them away from the fight with the clarity of the stakes of the fight. You might die. You are a child and if you do die, you will not have the remainder of your life to realize how big of a mistake that was. To fight against people twice your age, to fight against us. Your brother is going back to fight and you cannot fight against him, your old babysitter, your summer dance teacher. The one who runs away like this always has to go back home to fix it.

This time there was no cold to excuse away the confrontation of all of those children dying and there were so many of them. Many people had to answer for that and many more people had to carry that they weren't old enough to send the others home. This time there was no trial. It was called the Battle of Hogwarts for months after. The world woke up to several days worth of so many stories and images of children when they were even younger so for a generation after, whenever a picture of a baby or school aged child was shown in the papers it was assumed that the child had died, that they were being memorialized. There were so many that they couldn't bear it. When the next Minister for Magic, Kinglsley Shacklebolt was finally appointed after all those years, after all that work after all those stories, he called it what it was and what history confirmed it must be called: the Child's War.

Spring, the time of new life, warming and wakefulness. Twice in her life, Lydia had seen rows of children covered in white sheets levitating in columns like this. The first owls had already left and the parents hoping both what had happened was untrue and that their children were safe. An orderly queue, first to see the body and then to collect their children or to wander the halls dazed. How did this happen right under their noses? How had this happened at all? How did this keep happening?

Lydia sat on a huge piece of stone that had been blown out of the staircase and watched. This was an old bit of magic, a mother collecting her child. Without a wand in her hand, a mother waved her hand. She made a scooping motion and a sheet with a child underneath floated towards her and then the single lone keening of a woman in unnatural pain and the line of mothers and fathers behind her casting glances at every child that passed. Some crying muffled, respectful tears of joy when that child was theirs and the line increasing or shrinking with the day, the sound of wailing growing steadily louder. Lydia passed where she knew a wall should have been and climbed out, a film of tears obscuring her vision and the remainder of her tears stuck in her throat. She was already at the courtyard when she realized that the body was gone. A line of wizards stood flanking each side like pallbearers at a muggle funeral. Their wand parallel to his body. A sheet of fabric unspooled from their hands and whoever was there to witness them bear the body away with the strength of their own arm muscles and conviction. There were many more people than was needed to carry the frail, small body. Dylan's sleeves were rolled up. He and Lydia looked at each other without seeing each other. There was nothing to say. He had hated every job he'd ever had and this would be no exception. They had not been exempt from the end of the war. They had come to collect their master. The castle had been their home too.