The silence cut Harry's heart to the core. There should be tumultuous celebration. Voldemort was gone. For good this time. Instead the whole hall was silent. Almost as thought someone very special had just passed.

Though that was because someone had. Harry found the courage within himself to then around and lay his eyes on her. There on the flagstones where she had been killed and unceremoniously dropped by the Dark Lord lay Ana. She hadn't known Harry was actually alive. If she had, if he had made himself known sooner, maybe she wouldn't have challenged him. Under her perceived circumstance (he shuddered to think) she probably was hoping he would kill her. counting on it even.

As he stepped closer Harry could hardly fail to notice her beauty, even in death. Her skin was pale and clean, like ice, luminous and striking against her deep mahogany hair, which splayed in gentle curls about her head like a halo, gleaming with golden streaks caused by the sun of breaking dawn. She had not died in strife. Her face was peaceful, not a single hint of pain or despair.

Not for the first time in his life, Harry asked himself if he had done this. If he had, by becoming close to her, caused her death in the end. If she hadn't known him, hadn't even met him, she might be alive. And he could see her response in his mind now: if she had never loved him, life would not have been worth living. He understood. He felt the same.

He stood over her now, waiting for a glimmer of hope he knew would never come. A shaky hadn rested on his shoulder. Harry tuned and it was Hermione with Ron beside her. He looked as though he'd been killed himself, pale as a sheet. Harry looked back down at her. "I always tried to push her away, even when all I wanted to do was be near her. I thought I was keeping her safe. Maybe if I had let her get near me…help me, like I let you two do…maybe…But she was different. I know you'd like to hear that losing any of the three of your would devastate me, and it would, but-"

"It's not the same as losing the love of your life," Hermione finished for him quietly, before she removed her hand to stifle a sob. She walked away and Ron followed. Harry however, could not move. He felt obligated to stay where he was. So instead he knelt beside her, wand dropping from his hand so he could reach for her, lift her into his lap and cradle her head to his chest, drinking in the feeling of being close to her one last time.

"Harry?" He looked up. It was Mrs. Weasley this time.

"She's gone," Harry choked dryly. The wave of tears was beginning it's leak from his eyes. Holding the still warm remains of the woman he loved had solidified the fact in his mind that she truly was gone.

"Harry, dear, come away." She was reaching out for him but Harry merely bent his head, sitting forehead to forehead with the corpse he held.

"Don't. Please don't touch me. Just leave me alone."

Hermione was sobbing audibly now in the near distance, but Ron had returned and crouched beside Harry now. "The school's empty. Plenty of space. Maybe you should head for the old tower mate. No one to watch you there. You can...say goodbye."

Harry tried to manage a brave, thankful grin. He could not. "Thanks Ron." The words came out cracked and barely recognizable, at least to Harry's own ear. He slipped one arm beneath Ana's back and another under her knees and lifted her high in his arms as he stood. Every eye in the room watched as Harry carried a limp, lifeless Fabiana Prewett through the crowd, parting and making way as he went. Ron was right, Gryffindor tower would be a good place to have his final moments with her. so after exiting the hall, Harry started the familiar climb along the stairs and passages; one he and Ana had taken so many times before.

After some time, Harry entered the old common room. It was barren, and a mess from the hasty flight. Climbing the stairs he found his old room to be in a similar state of disarray and squalor, however by some chance, his own old bed was quite neat. In fact it was as he last remembered leaving it over a year before. (Harry would later learn from Neville that the students of the house had opted to keep it as it was, and no one took it over, as some kind of tribute to the Chosen One.)

He laid her on the plush down comforter and was instantly reminded of that night in year five when Ron had interrupted some very tender moments on the very same bed after a long night of studying. Harry pulled a chair up close to the bed and arranged Ana's hands and legs in a dignified fashion before sitting himself heavily down.

And now for the words. What was there to say? There was a great deal he had never said, things that had always been understood but never uttered. These were the final moments. But were those things suitable as final thoughts? After a moment, Harry opened his mouth and carefully spoke, deliberately and carefully for fear of ruining their last moments on this earth together.

"I'm so sorry, Ana. The last year…I can't begin to imagine what you have been through. But I can only think that you were treated worse than I can imagine. My fear to keep you too close caused me to lose you that night in this school. I thought you were gone forever, out there somewhere and I would never find you, not before the worst happened. I got another chance tonight. A chance to make it all right and let you make this stand with me. Let you help me. And if didn't. I tried to keep you safe in a way that had never worked before, and it got me killed. That and my cowardice. If I had been brave enough to just step forward during the fighting, during that horrid speech he made…he would never have had the chance to make you…do that. I only hope that, in whatever plain of being you find yourself in now, you find someone to accompany who is more worthy of you than I am."

Harry bowed his head. "I loved you. From the moment we met, I knew there was something about you that would change me. You made me who I am. I wouldn't be half the man I turned out to be without you in my life, and though I tried to hide it and did wrong by you, I hope you at least knew on this night how deeply, passionately, in love with you I am."

He was silent now. There was nothing more for him to say. Well, actually there was, but it seemed inappropriate. The most important pieces were there. He was about to open his mouth to say a final goodbye, when…

"H-Harry?"

Harry's head snapped up and instantly he noticed a slight rise and fall in Ana's chest and her lips were parted where they hadn't been before. But her eyes were closed. And the small voice had been a wisp of a thing. Had he imagined it? Cautiously Harry spoke, calmly, clearly, "Ana?"

Her lips smiled a little. "How do I sound?"

Fresh tears fell down's Harry's cheeks as he grasped for her hand and kissed it hard, trying to imprint everything he was feeling into her skin, before answering. "Beautiful."