It was over. Voldemort was dead.
In the excitement Hermione turns to Harry, laughing in joy and pure exhaustion. A form catches her eye. A familiar form. One much too still, too red, too broken. His white blonde hair is messy and his finely pressed robes are shredded. A sob escapes her, such a wretched sound. It tore across the courtyard, stilling the movements of everyone witness to her heartbreak. It was quiet, so quiet she should have been able to hear his breaths but all she heard was the harsh beating of her fragmenting heart. She was running, moving as fast as her weak legs would take her to crash at his side, the side that was covered in his life force taking her very reason for fighting along with it.
“No. Please no. Not now. Not that we’ve won.” She manages to choke out.
A garbled sound escapes the form of her lover. “Hermione….I love…you.”
“No, don’t say goodbye. I won’t let you die. Not yet.”
She whips out her wand, chanting every healing spell she knows. Nothing works. She tries and tries and tries, tears dripping onto his face making trails in the blood that was splattered over his angular cheekbones. Sobs making the spells catch in her throat, she summons every healing potion from her small beaded bag. Spelling them into him, pouring them over his wounds, giving him everything she has.
It’s not enough. It would never be enough for Death was waiting. Death was watching.
Suddenly, a thought comes to Hermione. “Harry! The wand, Harry! Give it to me!.”
Frantically Harry tosses her the Elder wand, it landing neatly in her waiting hand. The cycle continued. For seconds. For minutes. Hours. People had left the courtyard long ago, to go home to their families, collect their loved ones. She couldn’t. Her only reason for living, fighting, loving, was cold and lifeless beneath her. She had already been so exhausted, so tired. But she would do anything, give anything for him to come back to her, to draw another breath, to hear his heart flutter and the sounds that make up her name leave his lips in the way that only ever sounded as nice coming from him. She didn’t think she could bear it never hearing the way his aristocratic accent said her name so poshly, so full of love.
Death was still waiting. For what, only He knew.
She kept pouring herself into him, resorting to the darkest of magics she had learned once upon a time in the Black library when she had time to read, time to live, time to breathe.
She stuttered. Her hand dropped. She took a breath. Once. Twice…and her magic failed. She tried again, pulling on empty magic reserves.
One second. Two. She slumped. Her body giving up.
After a year on the run, hours on the battlefield. Hours chasing hope. She gave all the fight she could. Gave everything. Truly everything.
Death moved.
She could see him now. Death.
“Come child.” Out of fight, hope, and everything in between she stood. Leaving her body behind.
“Let’s go Love.” That voice. The one she never thought she would hear again. He was waiting for her.
Smiling softly they left the mortal realm, chasing after that eternal peace.
Harry Potter was tired. But he had one more thing to do. He walked into the courtyard to see Hermione slumped over Malfoy’s body. Sighing he gently shook her shoulder. Why was she so cold? Why wasn’t she crying? Why was she so still? He shook her more roughy and she fell. Lifeless. Just like her lover.
People came rushing out of the castle at the sound of their Saviors' anguished scream to find him sobbing over the form of his best friend. Hermione Granger, one third of the Golden Trio. Dead. Madam Pomfrey laid a gentle hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Come on Mr. Potter. Let’s set them to rest with the others.”
“How?” Was all that came from the broken hero. Madam Pomfrey cast a diagnosis, confirming what she had expected.
“Magical exhaustion. She ran her core completely dry.” Madam Pomfrey said, a silent tear running down her cheeks.
Suddenly the ground quivered. Not daring to lose another of her students, Madam Pomfrey dragged Harry away from the bodies of his friend and once enemy. Everyone stared. What kind of mayhem was to befall them now? What more misery could they take?
A sprout. A small sprout erupted from the ground between the bodies of the fallen lovers. One felled by grief and will, the other felled by rage and betrayal. An elder tree erupted from the small sprout, growing so quickly it shook the entire courtyard. Flowers and plants long thought lost to the Wizarding world sprung from the bloodied dirt all around them. As the plants and tree sprung from sorrow, hope, and love the roots of the enormous elder tree tenderly wrapped the lovers in a cocooned embrace. Safe. Finally. In eternal rest they would be safe. That safety, that peace, fell around the courtyard in waves. Gentle, caressing.
Thus became the Lover’s Courtyard. A favorite of war veterans and students to come. The grass always green. Flowers always in bloom. That feeling. The feeling of peace and safety so many sought in uncertain times was gifted upon them by the two lovers. For Hermione, covered in the blood of her lover, casting spell after spell, pouring potion after potion, saturated the ground in so much magic, so much love filled grief, that she began to create life. Though not her lover, she gave so much to Hogwarts and the Wizarding world in her final moments. Peace and safety would never have to be fought for in Her courtyard, for she had imbued the very earth with her wish. In the roots of the elder tree would lie their bodies. Cleaned and protected from everything, even decay. Laid in an embrace neither had found while alive, they were content in death.