Author's Notes:
Thanks for some great reviews so far. I'm glad you like the story, so you keep reviewing, and I'll keep writing.
As for the Imperius Curse, well, I don't want to get into an argument about it, but I will say this. When Voldemort and the fake Moody both cast it, Harry was expecting something. He was not expecting Ginny to attack him at all. Ginny was his friend, her voice in his head would be friendly advice, why would he fight it? Further, the Imperius Curse provides a state of bliss when one is under it, which, under the circumstances, would be similar to the combat calm Harry has exhibited in the past. There's no reason (he has too little experience) he would notice the difference.
As for Ginny's inability to cast the spell, a year would be enough time for her to be trained in it. I'm fairly certain I set up her hatred well enough and deep enough to let her do it, which is where the power for the Unforgivables comes from. But no more arguing. It's a plot point. If you don't like it, or it bothers you, stop reading. You have my full justification now, but this seems more like a topic for debate on the forum, especially as we don't all the details on how the Imperius curse works.
And stop worrying about any R/Hr. He's dead, and I can read the rules as well as anyone else.
If you want to talk about either of these topics further, my email address should be available on the author page.
Anyways, I promised more story and less talk, so here you go.
Chapter Six: Laughter is the Best Medicine
The next few days passed in bouts of unconsciousness and dreamless sleep for Harry. He finally felt himself being shaken awake, Hermione's voice insisting he get out of bed. "Come on, Harry, wake up. We have to go to Hogwarts for the fune…" She broke off, her voice catching oddly.
In addition to Snape, dying three days before the attack on the Ministry to bring them word of the Dark Lord's plan, Professors Trelawney, Sprout and Hooch had been killed during the attack on the school. Even Dumbledore had been unable to save everyone.
The horrible thought actually made Harry feel a slight bit better. Hermione had already left the room as Harry opened his eyes again after a moment. His dress robes were hung by the foot of the bed. He smiled slightly at Hermione's consideration.
Once dressed, he trod downstairs. For now, he and Hermione both lived in Grimmauld Place. It was certainly big enough for them and Lupin, the third relatively permanent occupant. They were waiting by the fireplace downstairs, wearing dark, formal robes. A handful of Floo powder and they were off, Harry going second, a bit too quickly after Hermione.
When he burst out of the fireplace, he saw Hermione had yet to move away from the fireplace, and trying to stop himself, managed to trip and sprawled out into her. They both fell onto the floor, Harry lying on top of Hermione for a second, stunned.
Harry blinked his eyes slowly, wondering why she had gone out of focus, and Hermione giggled. The sweet sound shattered the air like the clearest of bells, and Harry began to laugh. It had been years since he laughed. He hugged her just as Lupin came through the fire, having figured out what would probably happen, seeing how close Harry had followed the young woman. Unfortunately, he failed to account for them bursting into laughter and not getting off the floor.
The older man tripped over Harry's leg, and Harry and Hermione laughed even harder. Lupin, at least, did not fall on the floor. He still had wolf-like grace when he needed it thanks to a certain problem the two youngsters knew about. He glared down at them, but smiled tenderly, ruining the effect. He knew how much they needed the laughter.
After a moment, he spoke, deliberately phrasing it the way he did. "Harry, are you going to lie there on top of Hermione all day, or help her up like a gentleman?" He grinned as Harry blushed bright red, and that set Hermione off again. Harry got up, though, and helped the young witch to her feet smoothly. She pilfered Harry's wand, and with a wan smile, tapped Harry on the bridge of the nose.
"Reparo."
Harry smiled and hugged her again. "Thank you," he whispered, before returning his wand to where it belonged.
From the entry hall, they moved out onto the grounds, and were sobered at the sight. Coffins were lined up, one after the other. Hermione whispered something of an explanation to Harry that those people who had no where else to be buried would be buried at the school, and that they were only having one large ceremony for everyone.
The four professors' coffins were draped in a Hogwarts flag, for Snape and Sprout, edged in their house colors, and the students, draped in their house flag. Those not related to the school, like Arthur Weasley and Moody, were draped in a flag of the Ministry of Magic. The field of colors, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, the bright swatches that were the flags of the school, bearing its coat of arms, and the flags of the Ministry intermingled between them. It was a solemn reminder of how much the fight against evil had cost them.
Twenty-seven coffins lay in neat rows of nine. Harry stared at them, the twenty-seven silently mocking him, all had been his friends, his companions. Even Snape, he had learned to trust him in the end. Twenty-seven years of learning what to do, and still twenty-seven of the people closest to him died. But in the past Harry remembered, this field had been filled with coffins. A thousand students at Hogwarts, twenty teachers, the entire Order, the village of Hogsmeade. Dumbledore. Hermione.
The field was not green with the fresh grass of summer. It was raw and barren, covered in ash and dust, the same color as the ruins of the school, shattered beyond repair, much as Beauxbatons had been twenty months previously. It was obvious what command had been given for Hogwarts and the neighboring village of Hogsmeade. Leave none alive, no stone upon stone, burn and salt the fields with the ashes of the dead, and let the world know the power of the Dark Lord.
The power of the Dark Lord was broken, but fires still burned the Forbidden Forest. The centaurs had been driven out, Grawp was dead, Aragog hiding. Smoke still filled the air a week later as Harry passed between the endless rows of coffins. Those bodies which could be identified had their house flags draped over their coffins, or their family coat of arms, or the school coat of arms, for the teachers.
Harry stopped at every coffin, touching it silently, renewing his vow that each death would not be in vain. None of the thousands of dead would have died without cause. He reached the rows of Gryffindor coffins, and silent tears ran down his face as he saw the small coffins which held the remains of the first years, whom he had not had a chance to know, preparing to fight the final battle. They had kept them at the school because it was safe. Safe. Ha. He recognized the names, but he could not put faces on them, he could not tell himself anything about them. He was lost to the world he had given everything to protect.
"I swear, your deaths will not go unanswered, you shall not have died in vain," he whispered into the wind. It was a wizard's oath, and he could not turn away now. The rage and the pain coursed through him and he screamed, raw and primal, tearing into the fading sun. Power flowed from his fingers, not the power to restore the dead, but the power to rend and destroy. The ground quaked and the sky darkened with a storm, and Harry vanished into the new night.
He gripped her hand in his, feeling the tears well up again. He felt her squeeze back. "Are you okay?" she whispered.
"No." That was all he noticed for the entire ceremony, holding her hand tightly, like a life line. He left immediately afterwards, much to everyone's shock. Except Hermione, who had seen the haunted look in his eyes.
* * * * *
An hour later, Harry did not react as a sooty Hermione popped out of the fireplace at Grimmauld Place. He was sitting motionless on the couch, his arms wrapped around his knees, which were drawn up against his chest. After brushing her robes down and running her fingers through her hair to get rid of the worst mess, she sat on the other end of the couch, facing her remaining best friend in the same position he had adopted.
They were silent for a long time. Neither of them had any tears left to cry, which contributed to the silence. Harry eventually broke the quiet with a comment that sounded, to him, completely inane. "There's still some soot under your eye, Hermione."
The young witch blinked at the sudden noise and made to wipe the aforementioned soot with her hand. "Your other eye," Harry corrected her. When all she accomplished was smearing it on her tear streaked face and the back of her hand, Harry leaned forward and produced a handkerchief. "Let me get it." She froze as he leaned close, his hand tenderly wiping her cheek.
Harry, for his part, froze as well, with his hand poised on her face. The position was extremely intimate for them both, paused like this, her hand on his shoulder to balance him, his hand on her knee for the same reason. They had never been like this before, never this close, without one or the other of them crying. They both felt the tension, they knew it was not the time to mention it, but looking into each other's eyes, neither one denied to themselves. Hermione broke that infinite moment with a small smile. "Harry, what happened to my wand? You haven't told me."
Harry fell back to the other end of the couch, relieved that that was all she had asked about that night. But even still, when he opened his mouth to answer, no sound came out. Hermione shifted down the couch, moving next to him. "Tell me," she demanded, forcing a bit of the old Hermione who had berated him and Ron about homework into it, but both of them knew it was fake. Her voice became soft and tender. "I promise that's all I'll ask for now."
Harry smiled as the last let him know much she cared, how well she knew him, how much she knew he had to work things through on his own before he could discuss them with even her and Ron. "I…" he began, not really thought about how to explain it. "I…" he repeated, then forged on. "Remember what I said about the night Cedric was killed, how my wand… the Priori Incantatem effect?" At her nod, Harry continued. "I knew that if I tried to duel Voldemort, the same thing would just happen again. I wouldn't be able to touch him." He swallowed, remembering what it was Voldemort had done to make sure that the Dark Lord could touch Harry. "I needed something else I could use, so I took your wand." He paused.
"Why my wand?" she asked intently.
Harry swallowed once again. "I remembered you summoning my wand back to me the last time we were in the Department of Mysteries. When the Death Eaters vanished, I knew He was coming and… I just acted."
"But wands are specific…" she began to object, then cut off as Harry smiled slightly. "But Neville used it…" As Harry nodded, Hermione paused to collect her thoughts. "How did it break? Did Voldemort…"
Harry shook his head, and blushed, looking away. "Harry," she began dangerously, but stopped when he looked back, laughter glittering in his eyes, a sight that made her feel like everything might be okay again for just a small moment.
"No, Hermione, it was all my fault. After… after I beat him… after I beat Voldemort, I collapsed, and I…" he started to look away again, but her hands snaked out and stopped him. "I fell on your wand and broke it after I won."
The expression on Hermione's face was priceless. "You… you… you fell on it?" At Harry's glum nod, she burst into laughter and hugged him. After a moment, Harry was laughing too. It was a long, cleansing laugh, good for both of them, body and soul.
"Dumbledore was right. Again." Harry sounded on the light-hearted side of disgusted as he breathed out the words, Hermione leaning against him.
"About what?"
"I said you would kill me when I told you. He disagreed."
Hermione smiled. "I think he knows far more about everything than he lets on, or we give him credit for." She grinned. "You were almost right, though." Her eyes glinted evilly as Harry looked at her sharply. "I'm going to take you shopping."
His eyes bugged out. "I was going to buy you a new wand already," he murmured weakly, defensively.
Shaking her head slowly, Hermione smiled. "We'll start at Ollivander's, of course, but there are plenty of other stores to visit." His eyes got even wider and his mouth dropped open. Tears formed in her eyes at his expression. Burying her head in his chest as she began to cry again, she whispered. "You looked just like Ron did the first time I told him we were going shopping." Tears fell for a second more. "I miss him so much, Harry."
Harry wrapped his arms around her, and felt tears running down his own cheeks, dripping into Hermione's hair where his chin rested. "I miss Ron too, 'Mione." They sat that way until long after they had both stopped crying once more. There was silence for an even longer time before Harry heard Hermione's voice echo up from where she was still cradled against him.
"Harry?"
"Yes?"
"How did it happen?"
"How did what happen?"
"How… how did he… die?"
"Hermione…
"Please, Harry, tell me."
"I can't, not yet."
"Soon, then."
"Soon."
Neither of them left the couch until long after Lupin arrived back and woke them up for dinner.