Hestia Jones finds her daughter's body.
The battle, mercifully, stopped. The Death Eaters retreated into the Dark Forrest. Harry Potter was ordered to surrender. The dead waited to be collected.
She finds Meghan slumped over a suit of armor on the second floor. She didn't even realize the body was her daughter's until she unceremoniously flipped the girl onto her back. Meghan's lifeless brown eyes stared up at Hestia's blue ones. She doesn't remember much after that.
By all accounts she was calm. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She apparently carried her daughter's body to the Great Hall herself. That's what they tell her.
But when she comes to, she is sitting in a hallway just outside the Great Hall, staring at the opposite wall. She is surprised to find that she has no tears on her face.
Hestia had never considered the idea that Meghan would stay behind. She hadn't known that Meghan had fought in the battle that she had just finished herself. Looking back, she should have expected it. Meghan is…was an eighteen year old Gryffindor whose mother was in the Order. Of course Meghan would fight.
Hestia fights the last half of the battle when it comes. Then she goes home, makes herself some tea, and gets into bed. The house is silent, like it always is when Meghan is at school. But this silence is different. It is permanent. Meghan was her only child. And Meghan is never coming home.
Hestia cries.