Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be.
Authors Note: This isn't my best fic- just something to get rid of the writer's block. If you read, please review- it's only polite. No pointless flames, but if you have a real reason to complain, please feel free to do so.
Summary: Even though it's a year late, Hermione graduates at the top of her class, just as everybody had always said she would. Now that she finally has what she worked so hard for, the pride and honor of being valedictorian of her year, she can't seem to find anything to say in her customary speech at graduation. Just when she's getting frustrated, Harry gives her something to write about.
In the last hour and half, the giant squid had surfaced three times, one small fight had occurred on the other side of the lake, twelve couples had walked by holding hands, and Hermione hadn't even come up with a beginning to what was supposed to be a very long and boring speech. Sighing, she pulled her frizzy long brown hair into a tighter ponytail, trying to keep it off of her neck and back, and leaned once again over the blank parchment she had perched on a book in her lap.
How was it that she could write five-page flawless essays on the uses of arithmancy in everyday life, but she couldn't come up with a ten minute speech that summed up the last seven years of her life?
"No luck?" Smiling, Hermione didn't even turn when she heard Harry's voice right by her ear.
"None." She moaned, her head in her hands. " I'm going to look like a complete idiot, standing up there with nothing to say."
"Yes, but if you were a complete idiot, you wouldn't have to give a speech in the first place, so everyone's already going to know you're smart. The speech isn't supposed to be about proving that you're intelligent anyways- it's supposed to be about everything else."
"What idiot thought it would be a good idea to have the one person who likely spent the entirety of their school career with their nose buried in a book give a speech about something NOT book related?" Hermione moaned, scowling when Harry chuckled.
"Well, that's why the speeches are usually boring- `cause even though they're not supposed to be writing about school work, they usually do. They don't have anything else to write about." Hermione opened her mouth to argue that she didn't have anything else either, when everything that had happened to her in the past several years, all the times she'd fought for her life, all the quidditch games she'd cheered at, and all the times she'd attended the funeral of another student made her stop.
In the solitude of the big shady maple tree that she, Ron and Harry had spent so many hours under, Hermione reflected on everything that she had learned OUTSIDE of the classroom in the last seven years. She remembered little, insignificant moments that at one point had meant nothing, and at this point meant everything.
* * *
Ron, Harry, and Hermione sat in utter silence.
It was the first time in a long time that they hadn't had something to worry about, something to talk about, or something to plan, but at this point, it was too late to second guess themselves, and they were too tired to care. Hermione just basked in the warmth of the springtime as Harry carded his fingers through her hair and Ron dozed easily beside her. Months of restless nights had taught them all to sleep lightly, so he no longer noisily snored as he slept, but instead seemed to never really be resting. He needed his sleep and Hermione knew it, so she stayed quiet in an effort to let him sleep, and was surprised when Harry didn't do the same.
"No matter what happens, `Mione," he began quietly, in his deep, low voice, "This is where I want to end up. Not by some massive memorial somewhere, or in a graveyard with a thousand rows of other victims of the wars…just here, maybe with a little plaque."
Hermione didn't say anything at first. When she finally did speak, it was to ask, in equally quiet tones, "Why?"
Harry stopped running his fingers through her tangles and leaned forward to look her in the eye. "I wouldn't mind sleeping here forever."
Hermione would never remember the rest of that night in it's entirety. The curses screamed from throats that were raw, the faces of those who had already fallen, with and without the pale faceless white mask of the death eater, and the smells of blood and burning flesh were all a faded blur, like a bad dream that she'd half-forgotten, by the morning afterwards.
But she'd always remember the bittersweet look on Harry's face that afternoon, under the shade of their favorite tree on the Hogwarts' grounds. The image stayed buried in her mind, burned there for her to remember as they lowered his coffin into the ground a few days later.
Finally, Harry could rest peacefully.
* * *
Wiping away her tears, Hermione turned to smile at the small plaque to the right of her, where it seemed Harry had been just moments before. After taking a moment to collect herself, she finally dipped her soft quill into the pot of ink to her left and began to write.
At the end of that week, after she had spent countless hours editing and practicing her speech in front of the mirror, she was finally ready. Nervously, she waited as Headmistress McGonagall called the attention of her fellow students, their families, and possible future employers to her. Feeling the anticipated stare of dozens on her, Hermione began,
"I know that when most of you hear the word `valedictorian' you think of that stuck-up book-smart know-it-all that sat in the front of every class, had all the right answers, and was only good for cheating off of." Satisfied with the quiet chuckles she heard from her audience, Hermione continued. "And I know that usually, when the valedictorian steps forward to make the big speech that they wasted the last seven years of their life working for, you all kind of groan and slink down in your seats and get ready to sleep, something that, I am pleased to see, doesn't seem to happening to anyone just yet." Many people who had originally begun to settle in for a nice nap began to sit up a little straighter, confused by Hermione's unique beginning to what was often a very boring part of the graduation ceremony.
"But I'm not here to talk to you about grades, or tests, or what we learned inside the classrooms. I'm up here to tell you about my experiences outside of the classroom, because after today, we're going into the real world for good, and that's the lessons that are really going to matter now. Things like loyalty, friendship, love, support, and hope…Things that all of us should be far too familiar with after the last few years."
"We grew up sooner that most people have to. We've been through more, as a group, than most can ever claim to have suffered. We've changed together, grown together, and fought together in a way that few classes who have left Hogwarts before us can claim to have done.
I'm not here to depress you, or to dredge up memories you'd rather forget. We're supposed to be celebrating the last seven years of our lives, and how we've lived them. We're supposed to be looking fondly back at memories of all the good times we've had here, and everything we've accomplished.
It isn't our grades in school that matter anymore. It's what we learned. I could go on to tell you all about the last seven years of my, thank a long list of people who helped to make me into what I am, and then finally hand you back over to the Headmistress, after I've bored all of you to tears, but I'm not going to. I'm just going to leave you with my blessings, and a little bit of advice;
"Live for today, dream for tomorrow, and remember yesterday."
It was an abrupt ending to a different speech, and she'd left her audience stunned and silent, but it had gotten the message that she had wanted to say across. Smiling the same bittersweet smile that her best friend had once worn, Hermione shook Headmistress McGonagall's hand as the crowd began to finally applaud, and then took her seat right next to Ron, who beamed at her.
Up in heaven, Harry Potter smiled.
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