August 31, 2009: Hermione

August 31, 2009

[This entry is written in black ink; the writing is noticeably clearer and straighter, not as cramped and frantic as the other entries.]

After we left the Ministry of Magic with our papers properly signed and sealed, we went to Diagon Alley. It is much bigger, noisier, and dirtier than I remember. We found a stationery—Quill, Book, and Candle—and bought a set of new quills, two pots with indigo coloured ink.

We Apparated home after that. At the moment each step of wandering around Diagon Alley still means missing names, dead faces, painful reminders. I expect we'll go back in a few weeks or months. We have become used to the Hogsmeade, after all. Eventually, we'll feel at home in Diagon Alley again, too.

Now we're sitting at the kitchen table, with the open ink pots standing at the centre, the quills spread out to choose from.

The ink smells of alcohol and almonds, with the bitter-sharp aftertaste of resin scraping the roof of my mouth. Inhaling the dusty, feathery scent of the new quills makes me sneeze.

Our blood-quills have been destroyed this morning. Before our eyes. The quills will never draw blood from our veins again. We don't have to write another word in these diaries. I know Severus will not continue his diary. But I haven't decided yet.

Vile as they were—I do not believe them wholly evil.

Within the blood-drenched lines of our entries we couldn't hide from the pain. And we could not conceal our agony. Our pain poured onto those pages along with our blood.

And somehow…now…my memories, my fears, my hopes: everything that was before, everything that will never be again—does not torture me the way it did.

When I look at all that blood now, at the list of the dead that I squeezed on the last page and the inside of the cover at the very back of the diary, when I think of my cell, of all those squares and lines, of the long years of silence, it is very strange.

I still feel strangled. That painful pressure still stabs through my forehead. Nausea still makes my stomach twist and churn. My eyes are still burning.

But…I can feel my heart beating. And I can breathe through my tears.

Writing our daily entry has become a ritual.

We have reminded each other to write. We have woken each other to write. We have held each other while we wrote, whispered words to each other when there was nothing left to write.

To sit down now, with our own quills and our own ink, to write about today not because we must, but because we want—

This is power.

Magic.

Severus hasn't picked up a quill yet. He is watching me as I write this. His black eyes sparkle and his short black hair is tousled. A slight smile softens the harsh lines that ravage his features. That painful tension has drained out of him. He is truly just sitting there and watching me as I write, not imagining another world with a different me, not preparing desperate back-up plans...

He pretends to be angry at Draco for the risks he took when Draco went to Lucius and made that deal with him.

But even Severus cannot argue the results.

(Especially now that the Wizengamot have signed Draco's pardon.)

I believe Draco has saved four lives with his bravery.

Lucius is not the wizard I remember, and most certainly not the Minister for Magic I expected him to be. Not arrogant or proud, or even just regal. Instead he seems rather…burdened. Emaciated. Almost…humble.

He, too, has had to live with Voldemort's victory for eleven years.

And with the guilt of not knowing if he killed his own son.

I know that Draco had to hide, at least while Voldemort was alive. But his self-imposed exile in the lighthouse on Bound Skerry was more than that. In a way, he built his own prison there. He was his own judge and jury and executed the sentence without mercy.

Harry would never have wanted that.

Never.

It wasn't his fault that Harry was killed.

That day… The chapter title in "Hogwarts, A Revised History" calls it "The Final Battle". But it was not a battle. It was a carnage. Curses firing off every which way, rebounding, ricocheting…By the time we ended up barricading ourselves in the Shrieking Shack it was all over.

None of us expected to survive. None of us believed that we would be able to escape. Certainly none of us imagined that Voldemort would begin his reign as "Lord Protector of Magic" with "Acts of Magical Mercy" (as the chapter following the account of "The Final Battle" is titled).

But he did. At least he did not kill us. He allowed us to…continue to exist. If not to live.

And now?

Now He is dead.

We are alive. We are in love. We are free.

We have won.

oooOooo

A/N: Many thanks to Mia Madwyn for looking this over and for a very constructive discussion.

Further notes:

One more chapter and an epilogue will follow.