After the War

Chapter 7

Fair Warning; these next two chapters are super sad!

The days dragged on in a familiar routine. Knowing what will happen the next day was certainly a new feeling, yet a welcome one to the trio; the comfort as inviting as one of Mrs. Weasley's hand-made jumpers. A few days earlier, Professor McGonagall had informed them all somberly that a memorial service would be held on the upcoming Saturday and gave them some information on what to expect. Harry, Ron, and Hermione would be three of many to receive an award at the ceremony, and it was expected that they, namely Harry, would give a speech. Harry opened his mouth and spewed a string of incomprehensible gibberish trying to reject the unknown honor and the responsibility of a speech, but McGonagall simply patted him on the shoulder with a small smile and told him "You are fully capable, Mr. Potter," before walking away, leaving him gaping and at a loss for words.

It was now Friday, the day before the ceremony, and he still had not written a single word of his expected eloquent speech. After admitting to his procrastination at lunch, Hermione dragged him off to the Defense Against the Dark Arts Classroom that they had just finished mending that morning and sternly sat him at a desk. She sat next to him and drew a spare piece of paper from her ever-present beaded bag and a pen. Harry looked at her distinctly muggle objects curiously.

"I've decided to give up on the whole ink and parchment rubbish," she announced. "Everyone knows I'm a muggle-born anyhow and it's just so much easier." Harry grinned in agreement and clicked the pen, holding it above the college-ruled paper, expecting words to begin to flow out of the ballpoint tip, yet none came. Ron, busy clicking and playing with another pen and scribbling all over a spare piece of paper, failed to notice his friend's struggle. After watching Ron playing with a pen as if he was five, Hermione turned to Harry and drew his own attention back to the task at hand.

"Just write from your heart, Harry," she instructed. 

His hand still did not move across the page. 

"Just write about people you miss, things you're grateful for, what you hope to see in the world, whatever is on your mind," she offered with a small smile.

With that, he finally began to write. When he had filled up a few pages in his slanted scrawl, he read back over it while scratching things out and fitting in minuscule additions to the messy paper. By the time Hermione had explained how pens work multiple times to a bewildered Ron, Harry had written his speech. It wasn't as well-written as Hermione's or as wise as Dumbledore's would have been, but it was his through and through.

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Ron was staring at his figure in the mirror of their dorm when Harry walked up behind him. He anxiously flattened his black robes, trying to smooth out the wrinkles, before stepping aside for Harry to join him in front of the mirror. Harry eyed his messy hair, and instead of attempting to flatten it, which he knew was impossible at this point, he ran a hand through it until it stuck up in the back just like his father's did. Without a word, they headed to the common room where they met Hermione and they walked out onto the Hogwarts grounds. The rest of the Weasleys had gone home earlier in the week, and were already joining the procession finding their seats on the lawn.

Rows and rows of white chairs lined the green grass in almost the exact position as they did about a year ago for Dumbledore's funeral. Now, they faced a new structure near his tomb. Near the mouth of the lake, a large cube hovered just above the grass. It was white and nearly opaque so that you could just see a blur of colors through the haze, and inside of it held a ball of powerful light that shone through the cloudy surface. Around the structure lay pieces of the broken castle, arranged to form a wreath of rubble from which the cube of light emerged.