“I’m here to tell you the tale of two lovers . . . of a pair that, unfortunately, met their end whilst they were still at school . . .” The old woman sighed and tilted her head back in her chair, just collecting memories. Her grey hair was pulled in a bun with ragged wisps hanging around her neck and face. She brushed it aside as she told her story.
“What happened to them?” a wide eyed boy with blonde hair asked. He was sitting at the woman’s feet, along with his sister, a more feminine version of himself.
“Oh, child . . .” she said delicately, closing her eyes. “I can only remember so much. It was more than eighty years ago, you know.”
“But tell us what you know, great grandmother!” the girl begged, looking into the old woman’s chocolate eyes. They were full of compassion; full of pity; full of hate and malice towards certain people in the world.
“They were a handsome couple. It was rare if you heard someone mention one of their names without the other,” she started slowly, staring at them intently. She had told this story to the children numerous times, yet they always wanted to hear it again. The thrill of romance (and their grandmother being young) made a good story. The woman was full of stories; after all, she was one hundred and one years old. She was nearing her death and she knew it; telling her stories from her youth just made her at ease, and made the time pass more rapidly. She wanted a part of her life to be known, and telling the stories happened to be the thing she loved most.
“Did you know them? At school?”
The woman smiled. “Yes. Yes, I did. They were very good friends of mine.”
“How in love were they, great grandmother?” the girl asked, pulling her legs to rest under chin. She leaned in to listen more closely.
“Oh . . .” the woman said. She rocked her chair for a minute, chuckling again. The children allowed her to reminisce on her childhood for a moment. They didn’t mind the suspense. She finally continued, “They were so in love, dear. There are really no words to express the love that these two held in their beating hearts . . .” she trailed off, closing her eyes and dreaming about seeing the red-haired boy and his bushy-haired girlfriend, holding hands and walking down the hallway of their school, Hogwarts. He kissed her on the cheek as they walked to their common room, muttering the password as they stepped through the way.
He had leaned in and kissed her fully after a few more moments, the girl apparently not expecting it. The boy had felt so free in kissing her; there were just no words to express it . . . but he looked around as he held her. The girl had not noticed. His eyes had rested on another young female; perhaps not as attractive as his current girlfriend, but she would do.
The old woman frowned upon seeing this, yet she didn’t open her eyes. The children still sat around, listening intently to see what was going to happen next.
The girl leaned out of the kiss reluctantly. She loved him so much . . . there was just no possible way that their relationship could ever end; she knew it. She was so happy. She smiled at him and coughed. He felt her forehead.
“Maybe you should go on to bed, Hermione,” he had said, still glancing over in the other girl’s direction.
She had gone to bed; nevertheless, he had told her to, and she wasn’t feeling well anyway.
Perfect, he had thought, the girl unaware of what was to happen that night as she lay in bed, dreaming only of him and the softness of his kiss as the pale moonlight slithered into her room from the glass window above her.
The old woman sighed, realising that she still didn’t want to think about what had happened that night. Hermione, the girlfriend, had been woken up by her red-haired friend, Ginny, whom had told her what her boyfriend had done. Now she hadn’t gone into detail, but it was like she, the victim, didn’t exist any longer. The boy denied her ever being there for him, saying it was her fault that everything had happened this way . . . the usual things a young, immature boy would say to hurt the ex-girlfriend. And she had been hurt. She had cried for days on end, always silently hoping and dreaming that he would come back to her, but it had never worked out.
A dark wizard had killed him a few months later.
“Billy, Gracie,” the woman said almost inaudibly, hoping that they would understand. “You both know about Voldemort, am I correct?”
The two children nodded their heads after looking at each other. “He was a very dark wizard,” the girl explained, “But you helped to defeat him. You and all of your friends.”
She smiled warmly at her. “That’s true.”
“But, grandmother . . .”
”What is it?”
“Then who was the boy? And the girl? You said that they were your friends . . . but did the girl, Hermione . . . did she help you defeat Voldemort?”
The woman chuckled, realising that nearly everyone in the Wizarding world at that time had been deathly afraid of the horrid wizard, yet these two could say his name without flinching.
“Yes, Billy, she did. She helped me very much. But, after you’ve seen two of your best friends killed by Voldemort, one killed by one of his followers, and your husband put in prison for crimes that he didn’t commit, you start to go slightly mad.”
“Was Harry one of the people who were killed?”
Tears slowly came to her eyes. “Yes, he was. And you know the red-haired girl who woke up Hermione to tell her about what her boyfriend had done?”
The children nodded.
“She was also killed.”
The two children hung their heads. She noticed that Gracie was silently crying.
“Gracie . . .” she said softly, leaning over and pulling her close. “What’s wrong, dear?”
“I’m glad that you weren’t killed, great grandmother.”
“Oh, Gracie,” she said. “I helped you to be able to live. I’m proud of that. Don’t cry, dear.”
~ * ~
After the children had gone home, the old woman had stayed up, looking at a worn scrapbook she had made a quite a few years ago. There waved Harry, ready to get on the Hogwarts Express to go to school. There was Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, whom, proud to see her, had ruined the picture by coming too close. Also, there was the boyfriend of Hermione, Ron, kissing her on the cheek while his parents looked at him sharply.
She had wanted to throw that picture away; she didn’t want to have anything to do with him after that, but she had kept it for memory’s sakes. If her great grandchildren had wanted to look at these pictures after she was long dead and gone, they would be able to. She wanted them to be able to remember her stories after she was gone. She was a part of history, and she was proud to have been. Even though every one of her friends and loved ones were now gone that were her age or older, she still had a special place for them in her heart.
Draco, her husband, had died in Azkaban, along with his father and mother. He had been framed for his wrongdoings, but even after the evidence against him had vanished, he had still been held against his will there. She had tried to get him out by pleading with the court; after all, she had helped rid the world of You-Know-Who forever, but it hadn’t been enough. No one had really believed Voldemort’s death until a few years later. By then, it had been too late for Draco.
The old woman had donned the Ministry unintelligent, stupid . . . a bunch of con artists who wanted their way and would trample over people’s hands to get what they wanted. Arthur Weasley had taken over after the fate of Voldemort had been determined. It was the best time the Wizarding World had ever seen since Voldemort’s uprising. And his wife had been extremely proud of him.
Harry, Ron, and Ginny had all perished under the hands of Voldemort and the death Eaters. Numerous grieving and sorrowful days had followed for the old woman upon finding out her friends had been murdered. She hadn’t wanted to live after her husband had been thrown in Azkaban, but after her friends had died, there had really been no reason at all.
But, she had stayed on this brown, cold earth, it eventually coming to a green, happy one where everyone had what they wanted, and no longer lived in fear of an evil tyrant who wanted more and more power. The Wizarding world had been, and is, finally at peace.
The old woman rolled over in her bed carefully, recollecting on her life. She would never forget her childhood; all of those wonderful, and dark as they ended, days at Hogwarts with her friends “ her family as she now that of them as. She wondered how her life could have been if no one had been thrown in Azkaban or been killed. She would have had a lot happier of a life, yet she knew that with them gone, she had still served a purpose. She had still had children and another husband, but she hadn’t loved him the way she had her first. Draco had been a kind and intelligent being once she had gotten to know him. And then, she thought of Ron. He too had been kind; not as intelligent as herself, but he got by. He had broken her heart in two and stomped on it until it was lifeless; she had thought that no hope would ever come out of her life, but it had. She had found Draco, but even he had been taken from her.
All around, she had had a wonderful childhood. She didn’t count those harsh times with the most evil wizard ever to have walked this earth. She thought of her friends, of her teachers, and of her family, whom, even through those tough times had loved her. Those harsh times had only brought them all closer.
She slowly felt herself slipping away, yet all she did was think. Her cleverness had helped her a lot in life, and she was happy to tell it to anyone who wanted to listen.
Everyone she had loved was now gone . . . and she now only wanted to be with them. It was her turn.
She closed her eyes and waited, an image of love in her mind.
----
I tried to give subtle hints, but just in case no one noticed, the old woman is Hermione.