The End of a Story

Disclaimer: These wonderful characters belong to JK Rowling. Their fate is ultimately in her hands.

It was so quite.

The air was thick with silence. It pressed on his ears giving him the impression that he was drowning. Drowning in an ocean of silence.

If she was here it wouldn't have been so quite. She always knew how to break the silence. She always knew what to say. Never at a loss for words, that was his Hermione. He could still hear her voice sometimes, echoing through the empty house.

He could hear her best whenever he went into her study. The high book shelves full of thick volumes would loom over him. She had probably read them all at least ten times, if not more. He never picked up any, never read them. Sometimes he would circle the room running his hand over the spines. The binding was worn from use. The knowledge that she had once touched them gave him some small shred of comfort.

He wasn't alone, but he always felt left alone for some reason. There was Rose and Hugo.

Grown and gone. Two words that filled him with pride and sorrow. They came to visit as often as they could with their families.

"We have grandchildren, Hermione." He would whisper to the silence. He knew that she heard him.

He never went out much. Not anymore.

Twice a month he visited the graves.

There were always too many graves. Too much stone, and earth, and pain, and memory. He would always visit them in the same order; Charlie, Bill, Fred, Mum, Dad.

So many gone.

However, there were some left.

Percy had never retired. He was confined to a wheelchair of sorts. He continued to do something or other for the Ministry. He didn't visit often. But they wrote letters back and forth. That was enough.

George always said he was determined to die only when he had lived enough for Fred.

Ginny's spirit of fire was still alive. She kept Harry going and he kept her burning.

In all, four Weasley's alive, five dead.

Five down four to go.

Five stone slabs, five mounds of earth. Five memories.

Then he would visit the sixth grave. The stone was smooth and neat. Orderly and perfect with the deeply carved letters of her name etched on it.

Hermione Jean Granger Weasley

Just how she would have liked it. The inscription always made him smile:

A loving daughter, wife, mother, and friend. Founder of S.P.E.W.

And the bravest witch of her age.

Who knew death could make you smile.

There was no mention of the time she served as Minister for Magic, or of how she helped defeat Voldemort. Those legacies were preserved in other ways.

He had helped write the inscription. The first part was added by the kids. The last part was decided by Harry. When asked why he chose the word 'bravest' instead of 'brightest' he answered, "She taught me that friendship and bravery matter more than cleverness." That was all he could say. Tears are talented at silencing people.

As for the middle section, he had insisted they put in the part about S.P.E.W. Only Harry understood why.

She would have liked it. He never doubted that.

After the grave visits he would come home to his empty house. He would sit for a long time. Sitting and thinking and writing. He wrote hundreds of letters.

To Percy and George. To Ginny and Harry. To Hugo and Rose. And Hermione.

They helped to keep his mind off things.

Ginny and Harry would come for dinner every Thursday night. In the dim light the three of them would eat and talk. It always comforted him to have them there. But it did hurt too.

They were together and alive. He was alive and alone. Life was deadly unfair sometimes.

One steel-gray afternoon in February, Hugo entered his mother's study to find is father sitting there with a book open on his lap.

"Hey, Dad. What are you reading?"

His father didn't answer right away. Slowly he raised his head to look at Hugo.

He smiled.

It had been such a long time since he had smiled so widely. "I can hear her voice."

"What?" Hugo came closer and glanced down at the book in his dad's hands. It was a large extremely old volume. The pages were fading and yellowed. He had never seen his dad read anything as large as this. Along the top of each page were the faded words: Hogwarts a History.

"It was her favorite." His dad ran his fingers over the ink letters. "She would recite it to us all the time."

Hugo said nothing. He sat quietly for a few moments watching his father read. His father would smile and whisper parts aloud. "...bewitched to look like the night sky..." "...cannot apparate or disapparate within..." Respectfully he left his dad to read the book.

Every visit afterward he would find his father in the same spot in the study. Slowly his dad worked his way through the book. Chapter by chapter. Page by page. Word by word. Every time he would whisper, "I can hear her voice."

On the fifteenth visit, Hugo entered the study to find his father asleep. The book lay on his lap. It was open to the final page. He had finished it. Hugo placed his hand on top of his father's.

Hugo's hand was warm. The hand beneath was stiff and cold. There was no life in it.

"Dad?"

Ron couldn't hear him. The tiniest memory of a smile had managed to cling to his cold lips.

He could hear her voice.

It was so quite.

Ronald "Ron" Bilius Weasley

A loving son, brother, father, and husband. Best friend.

And King.

Reviews are always welcome! Thank you so much for reading.