Disclaimer: Not mine, obviously.

A/N: This was written almost immediately after the release of Deathly Hallows, but never quite finished up...so I've gone ahead and polished it off a bit, and I figured I may as well post it. Make of it what you will, I suppose.

Coup de Grâce

"Some may have blamed us that we cease to speak
Of things we spoke of in our verses early,
Saying: a lovely voice is such as such;
Saying: that lady's eyes were sad last week,
Wherein the world's whole joy is born and dies;
Saying: she hath this way or that, this much
Of grace, this way or that, this much
Of grace, this little misericorde;
Ask us no further word;
If we were proud, then proud to be so wise
Ask us no more of all the things ye heard;
We may not speak of them, they touch us nearly."

– Ezra Pound, "The Fault of It"

"You have children," said the portrait. It was a stern portrait: the face was crafted of sharp angles and gaunt planes, with hollow cheeks and a straight brow and an irregular nose that was no less imposing on canvas than it had been in real life, though it was now in some peculiar way rendered less hideous. Two black oil crescents made for pitch-colored eyes, keen and cold, and they stared, glittering, from the waxy face, with its tight, narrow mouth and frame of inky hair.

"Yes," said the woman. She was a stern woman: more slender of jaw than she once had been, her cheek less round, her brow more furrowed, with purple thumbprints under each discriminating eye and her skin blanched pale and her formerly unruly hair muscled iron-taut into a lustreless brown chignon.

"You have taught here three years, and you have come to speak with me often. You have never mentioned children."

"I didn't expect they would interest you. You have always expressed distaste whenever I make reference to other students here at the school."

"I know very little of yours," the portrait continued, as if the woman had not spoken at all. "I merely overheard the Headmistress remarking that young Albus Potter had been caught showing the secret entrance to the kitchens to Professor Granger's daughter."

"And the other?"

"I later witnessed Professor Longbottom informing Minerva that 'Hermione's boy' had been appointed to the house Quidditch team."

"Yes, I do have children," the woman said again.

"What are their names?"

"Rose and Hugo."

"Rose and Hugo?" A painted lip curled. "I should have thought you in better taste."

"For Victor Hugo, and Mary Rose of the House of Tudor," the woman defended swiftly. The painted sneer broadened, and the woman's face crumpled in response. "All right, no, they're not. Ron named them. He wanted names that sounded like – well, like Ron and Hermione. He thought it would be sweet."

"Ah, so you did marry Weasley. In that respect, too, I should have thought you in better taste."

"Who would you want me to have married? Ernie MacMillan? Draco Malfoy?"

"I imagine there were plenty of young men for you to meet once you had left school."

"Yes, but none so – " She stopped.

"I beg your pardon?"

"None that were right," she amended, and it was clear that this was not what she had meant to say at all.

"Mr. Weasley, then, was right?"

"Very right," the woman said, flushing. "Perfectly right. As right as right could be."

"You sound distinctly unconvinced."

"I married him. How could I possibly be unconvinced?"

"Well, for one thing, you have failed to mention both husband and children now for three years."

"We have never spoken of personal matters in our acquaintance – "

"On the contrary, Professor Granger, we have spoken almost exclusively of personal matters. No conversation has passed between us which did not in some way hearken back to the very specific details of my personal life and history." Then, changing tactics – "I see that you do not wear a wedding band. Nor, it seems, did you take Weasley's name."

"Ron is dead," the woman said, though this was not a direct reply. The portrait nodded curtly.

"I was aware of that, though not of its connection to you."

"And does it matter? The connection to me?"

"Yes, though not for the reasons you might expect."

"Disapproval?"

"Dishonesty."

Two thinly-penciled brows arched towards a grey-shot mahogany hairline. "You're a fine one to pass judgment for lying by omission."

"Day after day I saved my life through lying. You may very well be destroying yours."

The woman jerked as if to stand, then stilled and fixed the portrait with a glare. "Don't lecture me on making good choices," she snapped, one shaking index finger rising to jab at the portrait in involuntary accusation. "You are hardly the paragon of wise decisions, sir."

The portrait gazed levelly down at her. "The first time you came here, you were looking for forgiveness," it said softly. "What is it that you are looking for now?"

The woman stared for a long, tense moment. "Nothing you can give me," she whispered at last, and fled the room.