Hereafter
by Facade

Rating: PG13
Ship: Harry & Hermione
Canon: Books 1 - 5
Genre: Mystery, Suspense
Status: In progress
Length: 2,997 words in 1 chapter
Published: 14 Mar 2004
Last updated: 14 Mar 2004

The post-war years have arrived and a conclusion has been reached upon the world that peace is now certain, even if
their Hero joined his enemy in death. However Hermione refuses to believe it to be true and her belief grows stronger
when an unexpected event takes place.

From the Unofficial Portkey Archive: https://portkey-archive.org/story/1880/

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Denial

A/N: 3/14/04: Due to massive confusion, I made the ‘memories’ in italics. I hope that makes it better and that it
doesn’t take away from the story. That is my reason for re-posting. The rest of my author’s note and clarifications are
at the end.

Hereafter

Her lips puckered up and her nostrils released but a wisp of white vapor. Meanwhile, her dainty hands trembled as she
wiped them upon the cotton texture of her black dress.

The morning was not a cheerful one, nor did it promise to bring on promises of a good nature. Instead, the strange
drizzling occurring before her own two eyes told her a different story—one that was covered with layers upon layers of
inane information. It was hard to get what exactly it meant to tell her. And, possibly, she did not want to know.

After all, did she want to keep receiving news on the causalities and how dreadful the post-war life was? As if she
needed more reminders! As if she could forget how life for her had changed.

A sob tore through out her body as the mere thought of change, the mutation of her very existence, passed through her
mind.

Mentally she cursed her state. She cursed about her weakness, Voldemort, The Ministry, life again... She had condemned
many things to hell, as of late, and rightfully so.

No one would discourage her from doing so. No one had the urge to stand up and tell her that she was acting stupid, that
she should quit crying and wallowing around in nothing but the past.

Because the past was over with. The past was nothing more than a memory. However joyful and pleasant it was, it was a
memory that will never again be brought to life.

Life.

She suppressed a shudder, another threatening cry, at the word. Her doleful face then looked down at her hands, the same
hands that played with his hair and caressed him....

Stop it, she begged of herself, but she didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want to forget of him... and by denying little
memories to peek through her torn mind, she will possibly obliterate him. And how she protested at that thought! Forget
about him? Would she ever allow that? Even if every time she would backtrack to the recollection of him, she would, at
the end of said memory, hang on to some idle hope. Perhaps that was the problem.

He was the poster child of so much hope, of miracles, that she could not accept that maybe he was... that he could be...

She couldn’t voice it out. She couldn’t even tell herself that he was…A mournful sigh replaced the word. She was in deep
denial, and God did it kill her.

A hand dared to rest upon her shoulder. She held her breath for a second and closed her eyes. Tears gathered at its
corners and with a slight hesitance, they trailed down her cheeks.

“Hermione, it’s over with! Can you believe it? It’s finally over!”

She turned around and smiled despite her tears. A hand of hers covered her mouth as she tried to refrain from laughing
aloud. The boy, no…the man shook his head and tried to make his way towards her.

Her hands quivered with anxiety and agitation. This was the first time she had seen him since the news of the defeat,
since she saw him standing over his long time archrival.

Her eyes scurried past the horde of people that rapidly crowded around him, after his loud exclamation at her.

A slight flop was felt swirling through her stomach. She simply bit her lip as she watched his raven-haired head bob up
and down the crowd. She could almost see him bouncing on the heels of his feet in impatience. All just to get to her.

Another uneasy but pleasant feeling washed over her being. Finally, she spotted him just a few feet away. She smiled
despite the fright that was now crawling up and down her spine, albeit it was a shy and barely noticeable smile, but a
smile nonetheless.

He mimicked her action as he reached her proximity.

They were both nervous and deeply terrified of the other.

His hand trembled as he offered it to her. Vaguely, she moved across the dance floor and away from the shadows. The
light cast upon her figure, and the dark blue dress robes she wore glittered under the passing fairies’ lights. She
heard him gasp as she slowly joined him.

“You look very…nice,” he said lamely. She only turned her head to the side and observed him through a critical eye. He
blushed at her curious gaze.

“We should get out of here,” she offered, and he accepted.

The crowd watched them with undisguised curiosity. Her hand trembled under his, and she hoped that her hands wouldn’t
get sweaty, so he wouldn’t curl up in disgust from her. She quite liked holding hands with him.

A light blue fairy settled upon her hair. It giggled as it tossed a few curling strands that framed her face around.
Harry watched her in awe. She wished that he look away; she wasn’t worth any of this attention.

His hand shook as he brushed a strand the fairy tossed across her face. She only gulped and hoped against hope that he
would not notice that split end she could see very clearly.

“I don’t think you look nice,” he said abruptly. Her heart stopped.

His widely acclaimed eyes widened with horror, “Oh! I didn’t mean it that way Hermione…I…just, er…” He fumbled with the
buttons on his dress shirt. “…I meant that you look beautiful.”

Again, emotions plagued her senses and never was she more gleeful and terrified at where exactly this was heading
towards to. She held her breath.

“…And I don’t mean that you don’t look beautiful everyday, because you do! But tonight you look...”

He bashfully ducked his head and seemed to have a great interest with his black shoes at the moment.

“Harry, I am not going to hurt you if you look at me. It’s not like I am going to turn you to stone with just one
glance,” she chuckled at her own joke. Never had she felt so stupid. Of all the times to bring up the Medusa jokes!

She wished the ground would just open up and swallow her whole when he started to laugh. Oh Merlin, someone save her
from her misery.

“Medusa? Next thing you are going to be sprouting off things about Morgan Le Fay, but... never mind I wouldn’t put it
past you.”

His eyes twinkled with amusement. She simply put her hands upon her hips.

“What is that suppose to mean?” She mocked-glared at him. He stepped closer to her once again, and the excitement and
tension came back.

“`S nothing bad at all. I just meant that you probably ran your local library clean by checking out books on so and so,
because you are being you.”

She wasn’t sure this was a compliment. “And I like your bookworm self.” His teeth tugged at his bottom lip before he
leaned in and whispered, “That means you can very well be educated in more ways than one,” he winked.

She lightly bopped him as he chuckled at her loud exclamations of ‘what a male he was’.

“Well I say I am glad I am a man, because then I would have some explaining to do when I–” His confidence wavered when
he looked at her directly in the eye. Then suddenly he mumbled “do this” and lightly kissed her so softly that she only
stood there in shock, not quite sure what happened.

When he pulled back, she remarked at how horrified he looked. It felt like someone took her insides away and a gritting
emotion pressed her. Was she that horrible to kiss?

“I’m sorry…I thought, that you might return my feelings…after that night, the last battle and just now. I shouldn’t have
done it…” He stumbled over his hurried apology.

Distantly she could recall getting closer to him and tugging him down to her stance.

“Be quiet and kiss me again,” she commanded.

And he obliged.

The tears dropped down her flushed cheeks as she remembered that moment. She held the hand that touched her shoulder and
glanced upwards at the owner.

He was a tall man. He always was gangly and probably will always be, even when the red hair he possessed would
inevitably turn into a dull shade of gray.

“Hermione,” he called somberly at her, “it is starting. We shouldn’t be late for his funeral.”

Her head bowed down as what he said registered somewhat in her mind. She let him take her hand and she followed him
under the dismal sky.

The wind pushed against her frame. Like it was trying to tell her something, and it wasn’t all that hard to defer and
comprehend what exactly.

To turn back, to go away from this horrible reality. How much did she want to obey the weather’s commands. Yet, she kept
on walking next to Ron, with a grim _expression as she passed the standing graves.

Some were hardly prim, they hung crookedly at the side, and this just added to her discomfort. Dry, dead petals from
tarnished flowers, floated and fell in unison. The wind pulled at them and the leaves of the grand oak tree over at the
corner.

Despair clogged her arteries and veins. Each step she took made the fatigue and dizziness of how she was feeling even
more intense. She willed herself to move on and stop protesting at the thought of watching him get buried...

Seeing that physically would somehow make the reality of his death... real. And she didn’t want to give up hoping that
he might be back. Even though the thought of that was pitiable.

“I know you don’t want to go,” Ron choked out, hoarse. “Merlin believe me that I feel the same. No one needs to see
their best friend buried. No one.”

He looked at her through red-rimmed eyes. Her bottom lip quivered at the wretched sight of him. His face was stark pale,
and the freckles stood out depressingly. Also, the black suit hung off his limp shoulders, illuminating how the effect
of this grand depression took its toll on him. She couldn’t say she fared better.

“I know you still think that he could be... God, Hermione he isn’t alive!” He shivered as a harsh breeze passed them
through, his eyes wide with anger. She only gazed, surprised at the outburst.

“Why do you continue with this?! Why do you torture me by believing what I want to believe? Why do you do this to me?
Why do you want to make me believe some illusion?!”

She couldn’t answer him. She only stared back, hardly, as her stare wavered. He grabbed her by the shoulders and his
nails dug into her skin.

“Hermione you were always the sensible one! Harry and I…Harry...YO-YOU BASTARD, HARRY! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO LEAVE?! WHY
DID YOU HAVE TO LEAVE?!”

He collapsed down upon the dank and bountiful earth. She got dragged down with him as he shook with emotion, with
surrender of the battle he put up for the inevitable.

How she wished she could join him.

But she only looked on as he released his despair. Silent tears marked her cheeks as she watched Ron grieve.

“Why don’t you just stop? Why don’t you just give up on this? Hermione, just surrender!”

A dry sob heaved inside him and her hand brushed away at her erratic tears. “I can’t, I just can’t.”

He looked at her in disgust then. She recoiled from him. “What do you mean you can’t?!” The exasperated anger enlaced
his words. He wasn’t being rational, though perhaps she shouldn’t be the judge of that.

“Hermione! Ron!” The loud exclamation promptly made both turn toward where the sound came from. “Where are…what are you
doing here?” Red hair whipped across the face of a young woman that carried upon her features premature lines of stress.
Her brown, doe-like eyes looked in concern at both of them crumpled upon the ground so ungracefully.

“You are both going to be late, it has already started. You wouldn’t want to miss–”

“Oh shut up Ginny!” Ron yelled out. “Do you think I want to go there? Do you think I am just itching to watch his dead
body be plundered in some fucking cement box?! In some Goddamn vault?”

Ginny looked astounded at her brother. She glanced at Hermione, wishing for her to explain whatever was happening.

It was somewhat hard to do so, if she could barely grasp the idea of the situation herself.

“Don’t take that tone with me Ron,” Ginny finally answered. “If you can see past that huge head of yours, you would
notice that none of us look all that dandy about coming here. But we did.”

Ginny looked down at the mangled ground. She plucked a few flowers that seemed to have bloomed recently.

The odd flowers reminded her of him. Then again, everything seemed to. And she was starting to resent it again.

But, as the conversations around her head erupted, she understood that she didn’t want to forget him. Even though pain
accompanied her wishes.

Vaguely she noticed that she walked alongside a guilty and ashen-faced Ron. His eyes were set forward and he did not
look at her once. He was avoiding her. Perhaps this was better. She didn’t want to have another altercation with him.
Both seemed to be overly emotional and another argument would surely cut off the thin thread that held their fragile
friendship together.

Her head set itself downcast and she tried to ignore the slight panging in her heart. Go now, it isn’t too late to go.
You don’t want to see this, you don’t need to. But she did, she had to.

“Hermione, what are you doing? Why did you stop?” Ginny asked.

Ron turned around and watched as the girl he had grown to love as a sister stand still as if she had seen a phantom. She
did not move as she gazed endlessly at the sign.

Godrics Hollow.

“You know... this is the first time I have been here. I…I don’t know why I haven’t before.”

He bowed his head as he contemplated what he said. A small breeze teased his ink-black locks. She brushed them,
unconsciously.

“You have been occupied. You shouldn’t feel bad about it.” Her eyes sought out his. He looked back through abnormally
long eyelashes.

“But I do. Voldemort isn’t an excuse. What about before? Why has no one taken me to see them?”

His eyes looked jaded as he observed her questioningly. Automatically she rubbed him on his back in soothing gestures.

“You weren’t ready. I don’t know if you are still... but here we are.”

He nodded his head, and his hand found hers. They walked past the looming graves and tried to shake off some lingering
leaves that fell upon them from a nearby tree.

A dingy, stone pathway lead them upon the location they came for. His steps were hesitant and he only moved forward
after he looked at her fearfully. She encouraged him with a tighter squeeze of his hand.

“I don’t think I can do this. Maybe they were right,” he shook as he backed away, retracing his previous steps, “I am
not ready.”

Harry looked defeated, for the first time.

“Hermione, stop it! You are ready, you came here today, that means you are ready. You should be by now! It has been
weeks since we have known... and by God, you need to see this to realize–”

Ginny bit her lip as she refrained from voicing out what she truly thought. She looked to the other direction and ducked
Hermione’s inquiring glare.

“You too, huh? You are all the same! You all think I am crazy for thinking that he might still be…Why have you given up
so much hope? Why have you given up on him?” She hissed at a bewildered Ginny.

The younger girl reached out for her, but she shrugged her hand away. She hurried up the hill, her feet pattering on the
dingy, stone path.

What did Ginny know about Harry anyway? They all kidded themselves on comprehending and understanding Harry...but they
didn’t. They just didn’t! After all, if they did, why did they continue questioning her and basically disbelieving her
theory?

Didn’t they understand that Harry would never abandon them... her?

She inhaled a deep breath as she stared at the crowd surrounding the small building. As she exhaled her pent up breath,
she went and joined them.

Maybe they were right.

Probably.

A/N: I honestly hope I did not confuse much. I should probably clarify a few things, but I am going to be very vague,
for the purposes of the plot. There are two ‘memories’ inserted here and I hope you picked up on them and did not say
‘WTF’ to me. Voldemort is dead and the present takes place in the beginning of the post-war years. The trio is about 18
or 17, around that age. Also Harry is ‘dead’. The story is going to get even more eerie as it goes, and I hope you stick
around till then. Thanks to MD, my wonderful beta that gives up many precious hours to go through my horrid fictions.

Oh and on a final note, this is suppose to be the sequel to another fiction of mine: Hero. Although it doesn’t seem like
it yet, there is a crucial point mentioned there that ties into this story later on, so be sure to read that.

Okay, I feel that I should post a few more clarifications. The funeral is Harry’s, you’ll find out how Harry ‘died’
soon.