The Fallout by EveryThursday (reposted)

Twenty-One

Day: 1442; Hour: 8

Lavender has been staring at her for ten minutes now, and Hermione stabs her scrambled eggs with annoyance. "What?"

"Do you think we've made history?"

"What?" Hermione asks again, looking up.

She feels bad for sounding so annoyed, but the morning found her with little sleep and a horrible headache. She felt hungover despite that she couldn't even remember the last time she had drank alcohol. Justin and Seamus were mostly to blame, full out screaming at one another for the past twenty minutes about Quidditch of all possible things. Of course it wasn't really about Quidditch, just like how Draco opted for a shower instead of her yelling at him about pancakes ten minutes ago. In order to avoid the bigger issues, they were all concentrating on the smaller ones. It was called coping, and Hermione didn't think any of them could be at blame for that.

Except Justin and Seamus of course, because her head was pounding.

"What we've done. I mean, the war will...Harry will. Maybe Ron. But do you think we will be in there as well?" Lavender doesn't even pause long enough for Hermione to exhale before she's talking again. "I was just thinking about Hogwarts, and history classes. Reading the stories of dead people - I hated that."

"It isn't just stories about dead people, Lavender. History is made up of people who did great things...great good, or great evil, but great things that somehow shaped the world into what we know of it. It's important to know."

"Why? I mean, I just keep thinking... All of this. It's all just going to be in books that students are going to hate reading about, you know?"

"Then why do you care if your name is in it?"

"I don't know. Well...just, credit, you know? If they're going to talk about it, I think they should talk about every one of us."

Hermione scratched at her cuticle, her nails short and cracked. "Our sacrifices only matter to us, Lav. Everything that was lost here, they just can't put that all down. Even if they did, people wouldn't get it. Not like we do. That doesn't matter. We know what this was, and what we--"

"You just said it was import--"

"The outcome is important. The main events that led us to that outcome are important. For people to know that there was struggle, and to know that there were people that had to meet it, that's important. Lists of names aren't. I don't care if I'm a footnote or nothing at all, I know what I gave and it gave back, and that is enough for me."

"So you mean to say we're not important?"

"Not to history books, no. But it doesn't matter, don't you see that? History will remember us as the Order, and the Ministry, and the brave ones. History will remember us because it was us that sacrificed for that "important outcome". It doesn't matter if they list all of our names for people to skim over and just think about how long the damn list is. They will just know that it was that blob of a list that caused the events at the end of the chapter. But it was never about making history, Lavender. It was about changing the future."

"Well, they should care enough to read the list, and then maybe--" Lavender started, her face pinched in annoyance that grew sharper when laughter cut her off.

"Wasn't that you I heard bitching from the hall about hating to read a dead person's story at school?" Draco glowered at her, his thought that she was a hypocrite all over his face.

"What are you doing? You are getting a glass for that, right?" Hermione cut off Lavender's response, pointing at him and the open jug of orange juice grasped in his hand.