Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or anything in their magical world. These characters and their world belong to the talented J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros.

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Hermione stared at the letter she had received three weeks earlier, with the results of her Newts. The words still confused her. She had no idea why the school and the Ministry would decide to do something like this, on this of all years. She read the letter again, just to be certain she hadn’t imagined it the other eight hundred times she read it.

Dear Ms. Granger,

I understand that this is a difficult time for you and your fellow classmates. Therefore, Hogwarts has decided to hold a graduation ceremony for the first time. We feel that it would be a good healing experience for students, parents and faculty.

This ceremony will be laid out similar to the annual ceremonies in the United States. Therefore, as the student graduating with the highest grades, you are being asked to give a speech, known as the Valedictorian speech.

This speech is meant to be about the future, not the past. This is a time of celebration. Please, remember when you are writing your speech that it is not to be about the war.

Congratulations on receiving top grades.

Minerva McGonagall
Headmistress of
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

What could Professor McGonagall expect to gain by having a graduation ceremony? She was throwing the families of Order members and Death Eaters together and telling them not to speak about the horrors of the last year. Not to mention the family members that had been lost. Surely, she realized that this could lead to no good. Hermione had the distinct feeling that this ceremony was more about the Ministry than Minerva McGonagall.

But it didn’t matter whose idea it was because she had agreed to participate. She had agreed to give this idiotic speech in front of all those people, half of whom hated her. And in less than an hour, she would be doing it.

She was glaring at nothing particular when Tonks came into her bedroom, which she was sharing with Ginny while staying at the Weasleys.

“Are you ready to go?” Tonks asked her.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“How did your speech turn out?”

“I didn’t write one.”

Tonks raised her eyebrows.

“There’s nothing to say. I’m going to look like a fool anyway. What can you say at a graduation when half the students have lost parents, and some of the students didn’t even make it to graduation?”

Tonks gave her a nervous grin. “You have to say something. You agreed to do this.”

“I will say something,” Hermione replied simply. “I’m going to say what’s in my heart and that doesn’t need to be written down. Let’s just go.”

Tonks nodded. They joined the rest of the Weasleys, although they were now missing a few members. Fred and Percy were gone. Lost in the war, like so many others. The Weasley family had been torn apart.

As a group they Apparated to the gates of Hogwarts, which were opened for the arriving guests.

Once inside the school they discovered that they were rather late. Hermione and Ron took their seats with the rest of the graduating class, near the front of the Great Hall, as McGonagall began to speak.

Hermione didn’t listen to her. Instead, she glanced around at her fellow graduates. Malfoy sat with Crabbe, but Goyle was nowhere to be seen. Dean sat beside Ron, where Harry should have been. And Neville was no longer there to forget what when he was supposed to shake hands with McGonagall.

She glanced into the crowd. Narcissa Malfoy sat alone, her husband was gone. Mr. Crabbe was joined by the Goyles, who apparently decided to attend in memory of their son. There was no one there to remember Harry or Neville. Some families had been completely wiped out by the war.

When McGonagall finally finished her speech, Hermione was surprised to realize that she had not taken in a single word of it. She had always been so attentive, but so much had changed.

“As our highest scoring student, Miss. Hermione Granger will now say a few words,” McGonagall concluded her speech.

Hermione was glad that she came out of her daze in time to hear her name called. She took a deep breath and took McGonagall’s place at the front of the room.

“When I received the letter asking me to give this speech, I was confused. I didn’t understand why anyone would want to celebrate after all we have lost. I then read the portion of my letter that indicated I should not dwell on the war during my speech. So I took that into consideration. I even sat down and drafted a speech about the amazing lives today’s graduates can have.

I threw that speech in the rubbish bin because that’s exactly what it was, complete rubbish. I refuse to stand up here today and pretend that the war didn’t happen. I am not going to pretend that there aren’t students here who have lost their parents and parents here who have lost their children.

There was a war. We can’t pretend there wasn’t. We lived through it. We lost because of it. I know that there is not one person here today who hasn’t suffered because of this war. We have all lost.

But it is true that we must move on. The graduating class will go out into the world and we will live our lives. But it is very important that we never forget those who we have lost.

However, I believe it is more important that we remember why we lost them. Our loved ones are not dead because the other side was evil. Our loves ones are not dead because some cruel person took them away. Our loved ones are gone because of hate.

We all grew up in a world of hate. We grew up knowing about the tension between purebloods and Muggle-borns. We grew up knowing about Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix. We were raised to continue fighting this never-ending war.

Well, today I say that we end this war. I want this graduating class to go out into the world without hatred. It doesn’t matter which side any of us were on. It doesn’t matter what blood flows through our veins. It matters that we are all human.

I hope that each of you will realize this. I hope you know that we have a chance to make a difference. Our generation was raised to fight this war. I want us to raise the next generation to love instead of hate. So that they can each have the childhood that was stolen from all of us.

That is the only advice I can leave you with, my fellow graduates.”

With that she returned to her seat, accompanied by thunderous applause.