Mending a Broken Heart

You watch as they slowly lower him into the grave. With a dull pain in your chest, you wonder vaguely if he was still the Boy Who Lived if he had died. Your heart aches slightly, and you cannot fathom why that would be. Even when your mum died, you had not hurt this badly.

People talk about broken hearts. That’s all rubbish, of course. Hearts don't break. If they did, you would die. You wonder how stupid the world must be in order to believe in broken hearts, and not in Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. But then...

Then why does your chest feel like something inside it has been torn in half? Why do you feel like maybe you would die. Why, in some deep dark part of you, do you feel like you want to die?

He was the only one who ever listened. He'd let you talk, and he wouldn't laugh at or pity you. He just listened. It didn't matter if he believed you or not. All that mattered was that he didn't run away as soon as he heard what you really thought of the world.

He was the only one, the only one who had praised you when you'd learned something under his tutelage. His hand on your shoulder as he complimented your Patronus...

You turn away from the funeral as a tear falls from your eye. It surprises you. Never before has anything made you cry. Not really. Not since your mother...

Nothing else had ever seemed quite so terrible. Nothing could possibly be so terrible as to see the person you loved most in this world die before you.

You'd grown a second and third skin to cover the hole inside you that your mother had left. You rarely ever thought of her anymore. Taking a deep breath, you turn back to the funeral. In the front row, you see Ginny sob into her teary-eyed mother's chest. Ron is being held up by his brothers. On an impulse, you walk to them. You place your hand on Ginny's back. She doesn't even notice.

You feel eyes burn into your back as you turn around, you see Ron stare at you as tears stream down his face.

~*~

You watch the grave with dead eyes. All your tears are gone. You did not think you would ever again be able to cry. What could possibly hurt as much as this?

Hermione’s dead.

Tears lodge in your throat, but they won’t come out. You'd promised her you’d protect her. She'd gotten mad about that, of course, but you'd promised…

And she'd died.

You'd locked yourself in your room. You wouldn’t speak to anyone. You’d cried yourself to sleep three nights in a row. You didn’t go out to search for Harry when he ran away. You’d just sat in your room, holding her robe to your face as you thought back to all your time together. You’d just sat there, thinking back to your childhood, and weeping it all away.

You hadn’t gone out to help when it turned out that there were more Death Eaters at large than had been reckoned.

You'd just sat there on your bed.

So he'd died.

The ball in your throat burns, but the tears don’t rise to your eyes.

Looking at the freshly tossed ground with eyes void of emotion, you turn to the other grave right beside it. You hadn’t gone to the funeral, but you knew that your heart was down there, six feet below the ground nonetheless.

The hole in your chest where it used to be aches. You walk over to the second grave and place your hand on the soil. "So it's now or never, isn’t it?" you whisper, your voice husky. Against all the odds, a single tear manages to escape your eye. You wipe it away impatiently.

"Oh," a small voice says behind you. You spin around, looking at the petite figure standing at the entrance to the graveyard.

"What are you doing here?" you ask, too drained to fish for a courteous word to say.

"Saying goodbye," she states bluntly. "Don't worry, I can wait till you finish."

"I have," you reply. You get up, dusting off your pants. With a sharp nod in her direction you pull out your wand.

"Pushing everyone else away doesn’t help with the pain. It just makes you an outcast."

Your eyes fly to her big silvery grey ones. Rage begins to build in your chest until you spot the sadness hidden in her pupils. You feel yourself soften slightly.

"I know," you reply gruffly. You feel some blood flow out to your ears, and you know they are turning a little pink at the edges. She turns away, looking off into the distance.

"Oh! Look!" she exclaims, a smile beginning to grow on her face.

"At what?" you ask, looking in the same direction. All you can see is a field, and a sunset.

"Can't you see the heliopath? Oh, it’s beautiful! And it’s all on its own!" The smile on her face grew, and grew warm. "It's a sign of good luck, did you know?"

Kicking the grass with your foot, you try to find a response. "I need to go back home. Ginny needs to be comforted." You finally blurt out.

"And you don't?" she asks, cocking her head to the side. You notice she is wearing tear-shaped earrings.

"I’m her older brother. I should be there for her."

"Because she was his girlfriend, but she wasn't the only one who loved him."

"She was his girlfriend, but she also lost a friend three days ago, and a brother a month ago." You watch her expression. The sadness in her eyes has intensified.

"And you lost your brother, your girlfriend and your best friend."

"How did you know she was my girlfriend?" you ask, taken aback. You had not told anyone about that.

"Because I could tell by the way you looked at each other after the battle at Hogwarts. And I've known you fancied her for years." When you blanch, a smile almost plays on her lips – almost. "When I first met the three of you, I was fascinated. You'd said something to that Slytherin boy. Something about a baboon. You were so funny! But I could see that you liked Hermione, because she was so smart… and pretty."

"She was beautiful," you reply. Your throat chokes up and you need to fight very hard not to let the tears loose. Hermione was… she was all you'd ever wanted. You turn away from Luna. When you turn back, Luna hands you a bouquet of lilac roses. When your eyebrows furrow, she smiles and nods at the grave. "Oh," you answer, sheepish, and accept the flowers. You place them gently on the soft earth. You promise yourself you'd bring new ones when these die. Then you get up and dust off your pants again. You turn to see Luna kneeling by Harry's grave. In the faint sunlight the tear making its way down her cheek twinkles like a jewel. You walk over to her.

"I will miss you, Harry," you hear her whisper. You feel a sudden urge to hold her close to you. Instead, you just put your hands on her shoulders. By her knees, you see a bouquet of lavender roses. "They are a symbol of enchantment," she states airily. The pain in her voice is tangible. You decided to sit beside her. When another tear streams down her face, you wipe it away for her. "They release more pain when you let them flow," she says.

You nod quietly. Looking at the fresh headstone, you feel another wave of tears coming on. This time, you let them fall. You feel Luna's hand on your face. "Ginny wasn't the only one who loved him," she says. She puts her head on your shoulder. "And you do need comforting."

You wrap your arms around her and think that maybe, just maybe, things will be all right.