Roses and Ashes
By Hoplittlecrocodile
May
It was a gloriously sunny day, the day Hermione Granger-Malfoy discovered she had become a widow.
When Harry Potter, her best friend since she was 11 years old, walked up to her in the rose garden she shared with her husband. He sat next to her by the sundial in silence. He could not or would not speak the words, but Hermione took one look at his sombre face and knew.
A deep, rattling sob broke out from her, and a whispered “How?”
Harry stood there, looking at the broken woman in the beautiful rose garden, repeating “I am sorry, I am so sorry, I am so so sorry,” to her like a never-ending mantra.
Harry Potter had once been the saviour of the Wizarding World, but he had not been able to save his best friend’s husband, nor was he able to protect her from the pain ripping her life into shreds.
Minutes or hours passed, Harry holding Hermione while she cried, until he was able to start, slowly:
“We were on a mission, there had been reports of some stray Death Eater supporters in France trying to stir a resurgence. We had tracked them down to this old church in Burgundy. It should have been easy, Hermione. Godrick, it should have been so easy! There were 17 of us, 5 of them. We had them surrounded in the atrium, all exits were blocked. They had nowhere to go, completely outnumbered. It should have been the easiest mission in the world. Except, I had my intel wrong, there were 6 of them… I was careless, Hermione, it’s all my fault. We had apprehended them all, when the woman appeared at the choir loft and shot a curse at me from above us. I was too slow to notice, it would have hit me. But Draco pushed me out of the way. He saved my life, Hermione. He died a hero.”
“He was already a hero”, whispered Hermione. “He didn’t need to die to prove it. It can’t be right. My husband is not dead. He is not dead decades before his time. It is not true. I am glad you are ok, Harry, and I do not blame you, but it cannot be true… And I need you to leave…”
This was the last time Harry Potter saw his best friend since he was 11 years old, for some time.
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May
Caring for the rose garden was all she had left of him. She would spend all day by the sundial, where her life fell apart, tending to the roses. In her grief, it became her tether, keeping her in the land of the living, when all she wanted to do was not be there. She could not understand why the roses were dying, when she was doing everything to keep them blooming.
“You’re staring again.”
“It’s those damned birds, they look menacing. They are killing my garden.” She shouted.
“Hermione, the birds do not give a damn about our roses, and you know it.”
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May
It had been raining, the day the ghost of Draco Malfoy appeared by the sundial in the rose garden.
Hermione Granger-Malfoy had been feverishly plucking out weeds, the rain mixing with her tears.
“You’re going to catch your death out here.”
Hermione turned around slowly at the sound of his voice, convinced that the wind and rain were playing tricks on her. Surely his ghostly presence was a figment of her imagination, she had finally lost her sanity.
“You didn’t think I’d be able to move on with you like this, did you Hermione?”
“You left me,” she managed to choke out and she felt like she was drowning in the rain, her tears, her grief.
“You know I didn’t want to go, love, but someone had to save Potter’s skin,” he chuckled and, in the wind and rain, it sounded like a mournful song.
“It wasn’t your time to go, it shouldn’t have been you.” She started with a small voice, sobbed, gasping in a sharp intake of breath. “And now I’m here suffocating without you. Please, come back to me. I will do anything, just please,” she screamed.
“I’ll stay. I’ll stay with you awhile”.
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June
His ghost kept true to his promised words and stayed with her. She could never touch him, but he was always there, in a white button down shirt and navy blue slacks, never wearing shoes and always floating just an inch above the ground. The rose garden is where she would see him, and so in the rose garden she stayed.
Sometimes he would float by her, as if sitting next to her beside the sundial, reading together. She would always complain that he’s too slow of a reader.
“Some things never change then.” Draco would say and a half-giggle, half-sob would escape her lips.
Sometimes, she would forget to eat, and he would float off for a bit. He would return with a house elf carrying a tray of food in tow, and refuse to speak to her until she’d finished her meal.
“You cannot do that!” He would say crossly, and after the third time that happened, he wouldn’t talk to her for almost a day. After that, she would make sure she ate, and he would appear content.
Sometimes, he would float just above the sundial, legs crossed and looking more regal than she has ever managed in her entire life, watching her try every spell or muggle fertiliser known to man in her desperate attempts to stop the roses from withering.
“Why are the roses still dying, Draco?” she would ask.
“You know the answer to that,” would be his reply, always.
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July
“Why haven’t you been to see Potter?” Draco asked one afternoon at sunset, while she was drinking a cup of spearmint tea and nibbling on a piece of apple tart, her gaze lost within the ashen roses.
“I can’t. I can’t look at him. Besides, I just want to stay here with you.”
“You know it wasn’t his fault, right?”
“Wasn’t it?”
He floated in front of her. “Look at me, Granger.”
“That’s Granger-Malfoy to you,” she mumbled but did as he asked. She’d never been able to refuse him anything. Now, it was all she had left.
“Hermione, it was not Harry’s fault. I made a choice to jump in front of him. You have to forgive him, and forgive yourself. It’s time.”
“Why are the roses still dying, Draco?” She asked.
“You know the answer to that,” was his reply, same as always.
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July
Dear Harry,
Please know that I truly do not blame you, and the day will come for us to meet again. Today is not that day, but maybe soon. I love you, always.
Yours,
HGM
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August
“I think it’s me,” she said slowly one day, sitting by the sundial next to him. “I think I am killing the roses. I think they need to breathe, and I have been suffocating them. I just didn’t want them to change.”
“Because they are all you have left of me?” Asked Draco.
“Yes…”
“It’s time, Hermione.”
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August
It was a miserably grey summer day, the day Hermione Granger-Malfoy discovered she was going to be a mother.
With Draco’s ghost by her side, she cast the charm. With Draco’s ghost by her side, she wept with despair and joy. Despair, for he will never truly know their child, and for their child will never truly know him. Joy, for the rose garden was not all she had left of him after all.
“I am going to have to go now,” Draco said.
“I know.”
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September
He had been her homeland. He had brought beauty, light, laughter and love into her life. The rose garden they built together had been their castle, and with him gone, in her grief, she had been destroying it and it was all crumbling to pieces. Everything she had touched was turning to ash. In the end, it had been no one’s fault but her own. She had stopped living, and so nothing around her could thrive.
It was time to look to the future, to take care of herself and their baby. It was time to return to the living. The rose garden was not all she had left of him, and she had to keep going for them.
She sees him now in everything. She sees his grey eyes in the cloudy sky, his stark blond in the first rays of sunshine in the morning. She can feel him in the breeze, in every summer raindrop, like a whisper of a caress against her skin.
His ghost may be gone, but he is always there. A part of him will live on, in her heart forever, in their child, and in the roses - blooming once again.