Harmione One Shots

October 31st

Summary: Halloween night means something different to Harry Potter than it does to everyone else, it's a reminder of a darker time... but also a reminder that there will always be hope.

Ship: HarryPotterxHermioneGranger

All credit goes to Miss_Kath90 on Ao3

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It was October 31st

Again.

For most of the inhabitants of Godric's Hollow, Halloween was just another holiday, one in which their children went trick-or-treating from house to house dressed as witches, ghosts, and vampires or whatever other creature or superhero was in fashion and then returned to their homes to enjoy their loot. Costumes and sweets, that was what that date meant to other people. They didn't have to know that for Harry Potter October 31st was a date that could not be ignored.

It was a date that he could never forget.

Harry took his coat, he could hear noise on the second floor of the house, it was probably her daughter running back and forth in her rooms. In the kitchen his wife hummed an old melody in low voice. The aroma of whatever she was cooking for dinner was delicious and filled the room. No one came to see him off or try to persuade him to accompany him, everyone knew where Harry was going and that he always wanted to take that path alone.

He closed the door gently, on the porch were already placed the pumpkins of different sizes that his family and he had carved the previous afternoon, when it began to get dark, they would light the candles inside them.

A terrifying scarecrow dressed in old clothes from the attic was nailed to the side of the front garden.

The Potters also celebrated Halloween in the muggle style, although for them the date brought mixed feelings.

He walked slowly along the path he knew so well, getting closer to the center of town and further away from his home. His steps were slow and measured, as if his body refused to move forward.

The dry leaves of the trees crunched under their feet, the air had the aroma of freshly cooked homemade food, candy and the sound of happy children's voices already thinking about the night's fun. The sky partially covered by clouds was beginning to show the orange tint of sunset. He saw how some children were already beginning to be seen in the streets with his colorful costumes.

He continued walking, he knew very well where he was going. Every year he went to the same place, on the same date and at the same time.

At that moment when the day was about to cease to be day and the night was approaching.

Harry opened the door of the old gate of the town cemetery, it creaked in response. Someone should worry about greasing the hinges, he thought, but since almost no one visited the place perhaps they didn't find it necessary to take the trouble.

There was no one nearby noticing his presence, so he took out his wand and solved the problem. The door closed without the slightest noise behind him.

Harry couldn't help but take a few minutes to look at the entire place, it was still the same as the previous year and would remain the same the following year. The cemetery never changed, there was no longer room for new graves and some of the ones he had were so old that there was no one to visit them much less to clean them.

Everything there conveyed a feeling of unalterable continuity; it was as if time had stop in that place.

He knew very well the place he was going to; he had memorized it since the first time he went there with Hermione all those years ago. In a few minutes he was in front of the grave that belonged to his parents. Through something that seemed like an acquired habit, he once again read the letters engraved on the tombstone even when he knew them so well.