Last Flicker of Light

Hermione let her eyes slide over everything that had been hers for more years now than she could count, and then stepped out on the moving stairs. Today she felt old; older than she had been for a long time. Reaching the bottom of the stairs she stepped out into the hallway, and turned around to watch the gargoyle jump back to its place. She patted its shoulder. All had been arranged already for Professor Boyer to take over her post. Today was the day for final farewells.

Walking down the halls she felt lonely. Hogwarts had always seemed so desolate in summer, but after Ron’s death it had grown worse with every year. Professor Hermione Granger Weasley smiled to the portraits she passed, as they called out for her to wish her a happy life. She didn’t bother to correct them, though she knew very well that there was no life waiting for her. Her life was slowly drawing to a close, the sun had already been lost behind the rain clouds of sadness, it was late in the evening already, and all she could hope for was a quiet evening and a starry night. Her children had long ago gone through the school as her pupils, her grandchildren had passed before her Headmistress’ eyes, great-grandchildren, she couldn’t even remember all their names, she realized, had already brushed off the dust of Hogwarts and started their lives in the world.

Hermione walked down the marble staircase to the Entrance Hall. She could almost picture a furious Umbridge, throwing suitcases at a drunken Trelawney, or then the Goblet of Fire in the middle of a golden circle, and Harry’s voice wandering who would enter their names for the life-changing contest. Memories, she sighed. She hadn’t heard of Harry and Ginny in what seemed like decades, maybe it really had been decades. She knew they were still alive, living in their cottage in Godric’s Hollow, but she didn’t want to impose herself on them, especially not after Ron’s demise.

The oak Front Doors closed behind her and her legs carried her down the stairs almost against her will. She had to leave, though she didn’t want to; she knew she had nothing more to give to the school. She was too old.

Hermione walked slowly towards the piercingly white tomb. It was old; almost as old as Hermione herself, she realized, but she had lost her strength, her vigour, while the tomb was still as pure as on the first day, a memorial to the strength of goodness, to the power of love.

I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. She heard those words echoing in her mind as she stopped in front of Dumbledore’s grave. She didn’t know where she had heard him say that or whether she had ever heard him say that at all, but those words she knew. She was the last left in Hogwarts to have ever met Dumbledore, and she was old. And she was leaving.

“I came to say good-bye. I’m leaving,” she said to her professor and bowed her head, partly in respect, partly because of the intensity of light reflecting from the smooth and glossy surface. A tear of longing, a tear of sentimentality, a tear of old age ran down her cheek.

“Say it, then.”

The reply was so unexpected for Hermione that she looked up straight at the tomb in astonishment, but the bright summer sun hit her hard in her eyes. She brushed the water out of her eyes quickly and looked again.

A figure had stepped out from behind the tomb; tall, but a bit hunchbacked, wearing a long silky robe which was almost deep black at its lower rim, but getting higher the darkness smoothly turned into sparkling grey and finally silvery white at the shoulders. His white hair was long and streamed down his back, almost as silky as his robes, but old age had cost it the moonlight shimmer it had previously had. He was leaning on a cane with his left hand, his wand ready at his right.

“Malfoy,” Hermione said as she recognized him. She could see that the skin of his face had turned a bit grey and wrinkly, looking like old parchment.

“Granger,” he replied, bowing in mock curtsey and smirking in his own familiar way, though it looked far less intimidating than it had been all those years ago.

“Weasley,” she corrected him, smiling slightly at the fact that she could render Malfoy. At the same time she felt the loss of Ron weighing on her heart harder than it had before, and to change the subject, asked, “What are you doing here?”

“I have as much right to be here as you do,” he answered in a voice hoarse from having to be used for too long; it sounded like a grunt, but she could sense there was no evilness in the words. He was just presenting her a fact.

“Oh, no you don’t, I’m the Headmistress of Hogwarts and I…” she started, but Malfoy interrupted.

“You’re not. You just said you were leaving.”

Hermione saw her mistake. She was almost about to say that she just meant she was leaving the castle for a little while in the summer, but managed to stop in time. There was no point in lying. She stretched out her hand and leaned on the white tomb.

She had expected it to be cold in some unearthly way, but it was warm and its smooth surface almost invited her to touch it. She saw her hand on the stone; so wrinkled, blue and green blotches of ink here and there on the yellowish skin, greyish veins clearly visible through it, her bones looking frail. Malfoy was not as old as she was.

“I came here to say I’m sorry,” Malfoy said suddenly, as if he could no longer bear the silence Hermione had let fall. He sounded sincere and when Hermione turned her gaze to him, he saw a tear in his eyes.

“Finally,” she answered a bit cockily, but then sighed and smiled to his school-time enemy. She pressed her left hand harder to the tomb, as if asking for strength from the long-deceased headmaster, and stretched her other hand out to Malfoy.

Malfoy seemed surprised. He stood there, rigid, for a moment, but when Hermione didn’t move either, pocketed his wand and took her hand. Hermione pressed his hand to the tomb as well.

They heard a thriller whispering through the air, as if emanating from the tomb itself. The air around them was vibrating in the almost non-existent song coming from nowhere. But Hermione felt her years rising up from her shoulders, she felt her mind relax. She remembered the only other time she had heard this music; it was the day Dumbledore had died, and then it had been filled with sadness. Today, though, it was just the shimmer of air that filled her heart with hope and her veins with life. Fawkes, she thought, and smiled.

“Do you hear it? You’re forgiven,” she said, as she let her hand slide off the tomb and turned to face Malfoy again. He was still holding on to the tomb, his other hand shaking on his walking-cane, his eyes closed, and tears falling down the wrinkled cheeks. When Hermione spoke he opened his eyes, but didn’t let go of the white tomb of the man he had killed.

Hermione looked at the saddened and broken man before her, and felt the rain clouds clearing above her head. The sun was low on the horizon, she knew that, but she felt its warm ray touch her shoulder; the last ray before the never-ending night. She knew what she had to do.

“Are you staying in Hogsmeade, Draco? Will you join me for a drink at the Three Broomsticks?” she asked.

Malfoy’s lips curled into a genuine smile as he heard his first name spoken. Still leaning on the tomb he let his cane fall to the ground and instead turned to the old woman standing next to him for help.

“Yes, Hermione, I’d love to.”

The last who remembered Dumbledore left Hogwarts on this morning of June. She walked down the road towards Hogsmeade, chatting merrily and laughing, the man who she had hated more than anything leaning on her and smiling, released at last from the torture of his sins. The last rays of their setting suns were lighting their way for them and the last flicker of light gave them strength to breathe, to live.