The Importance of Remaining Steadfast When The World Is Falling Down

She can only stare.

She gapes, wide-eyed, as the body of the Dark Lord, dreaded enemy of her kind [Muggleborns and Purebloods and Half-Bloods and Muggles alike] slides bonelessly to the ground. She makes no noise as he dies, his body riddled with holes and slightly smoking. The field is buried in rubble, stones and pebbles that ate the soldiers as explosions ripped through the final hours of the Last Battle. But she is alive, and staring. Voldemort is Lord no more; he's just as dead as most of the people here.

It's over. Really over.

As she watches the pale morning sky- still more black-eyed blue than gold- filter through Tom Riddle's corpse, Hermione realises that she no purpose in life anymore.

This has been her life since she became friends with Harry and Ron. This has been her battle, her purpose. Everything else- House Elves, politics, schoolwork, OWLS and NEWTS- all were merely comforting distractions from the battle she knew she would face, has faced, did face.

As she gazes, hollow-eyed, at the still-smoking body of Lord Voldemort, Tom Marvolo Riddle, she realises that she has nothing left.

There's nothing left for a soldier who has defeated her enemy.

She has broken a barrier, she has beaten an enemy, and she knows she should be happy, joyous, ecstatic. She knows she should be on her knees, crying tears of joy and laughing until she explodes with happiness.

She smiles, but she thinks that even Voldemort knows that it's fake and empty.

Was this worth it all?

Yes, of course. But....

...what does she do now?

She has absolutely no meaning in life. She has done what she was meant to do. There's no point to her. The world is saved, but her world, all she knows, is falling down around her ears and the everyone else doesn't need her to stay sane, or there, or anything really. Her cleverness, her compassion, are of no use here. She doesn't have a dream to stand on.

She looks around, and distantly realises that Ron and Harry are still alive. A small, lone voice reminds her that she is happy, and she genuinely is. But there's nothing wrong with being a little selfish, and Hermione is thinking about herself.

She asks the voice for help, her dedicated, motivated self, grown-up Hermione, for advice. Where do I go? What do I do?

It has no response for a little lost girl with no where to go.

She should be scared, confused. Instead she can't feel a thing.

She thinks that maybe this is what dying feels like.

The smoke curls as it rises, filling her nostrils with the acrid stench of death, of fire and destruction and hatred as old as time itself. She smells the death of Hermione in it. She looks at her hands, with bruised skin and bloodied knuckles, nicked and cut and burnt.

She turns around and begins to rock on her heels, humming tunelessly as her frazzled, burnt curls sway back and forth.

Ron and Harry turn, smiling, laughing, screaming with joy, and stop when they see her face.

More frightening then the bloodshed, the warfare, the death and the evil is the look of utter lost-ness on Hermione's face. It's blank, and white, and somewhere far, far away, somewhere Ron and Harry can't follow. They call to her, but Hermione isn't at home, and no one can find her. Least of all herself.

She pulls her hands through her hair, not noticing the strands she yanks out as she keeps humming, trying to figure out what's going to happen.

What's going to happen to her? What is she going to do? She's talked of what she wanted to do, but she didn't think she'd get this far, didn't think she'd live to see Voldemort smoulder in front of her feet. She has no real plans, no real goals, just vague ideas that don't seem as important on this side of the second Great War. She doesn't really think that she can do them. They just don't matter as much. She knows she should be doing something,, anything. She's Hermione, and she fixes things, but there's nothing left to fix. Everything is healing, everything is starting to be put back together, there's nothing left for her to do. There's no more room for Hermione Granger, and oh my God, I'm useless.

Everything about her, in her, is numb. Her thoughts, her dreams, her fingers- her very cellular makeup feels as though it's suspended in permanent stasis.

There's nothing left.

Nothing.

All she hears is the wind echoing in her ears. Crying for a lost child, with nothing left, nothing left fighting for, nothing to fix or help.

The wind howls, and it sounds like a child screaming.

She turns her head, and realises dimly that it is a child screaming. A small arms thrusts itself through a pile of rocks, fingers bloodied. It waves wildly in the ever-brighter twilight, palm cut beyond all belief and nails dirty, trying to claw its owner out of the rubble. It reflects the morning sky, lavender and blue streaked with bloody dashes.

Another voice, a higher voice, Hermione at age six with bright pink cheeks and big brown eyes speaks. Go to them. Go. Now.

And she walks, stumbling over rocks she does not see as she lurches towards the grasping hand. She falls to her knees and begins to dig mechanically, just going through the motions of what she's supposed to do.

Dig deeper whispers the voice. Deeper, harder, faster it urges her. Do what you are meant to do.

So she digs. Deeper, harder, faster. And then the hand grasps her fingers, crushing her thin, aching hand in its fleshy, vise-like grip.

She looks down at it in shock as it folds itself around her hand, pleading through its desperate caresses. She feels the newly-formed scabs burst as it holds her, asking for help. It feels...warm.

With her free hand, she begins to plow through the rocks faster, flinging them behind her as she attempts to free the hand, see who it belongs to. She tightens her hand around it as she digging towards the small voice that cries out. Cries out to her.

The six-year old chants Faster, faster and the grown-up whispers Almost there.

She throws a large rock over her shoulder, and she sees it. A face.

A boy. Can't be more than three or four- he's tiny. A broken nose, matted hair, dislocated shoulder, but a boy. It- he- looks at her. Looks at her, and breaks into grateful tears. Thank you! Thank you! the boy shouts, and wraps his good arm around her neck. She pulls him up, pulls him out, and he winds himself around her.

Thank you for helping me he sobs, and hugs her fiercely, kissing her cheek. She stares for a minute, distantly confused, then hugs him, more out of reflex than anything else.

He feels warm. He doesn't let go, and neither does she. The voices rejoice. It's something.

Another voice calls to Hermione, pulling her. She turns around, still holding the little boy, and she sees a forest of waving hands, growing like dandelions in the rubble as they beckon to her, asking for deliverance. Their fingers catch and hold the morning star's light, dazzling her eyes as she regards this little ocean of humanity, these waves of life, that are crashing onto her shore.

The seconds move like centuries as everything begins to gently, silently, invisibly, fall back into place, and moving slowly at the speed of light, Hermione realises that there's still something left for her.

She sees that there's still much for her to do.

She looks around, then runs back to Riddle's corpse. She rips part of his robe off and uses it to secure the little boy on her back, then runs towards the nearest hand. She crouches and starts rapidly moving the rocks, trying to reach the next person. Her fingers bleed, and she sucks on them for a moment, trying to take away the sting.

We're almost there she promises over and over as she digs ever faster. Ron and Harry and others run to other outstretched hands, some buried, some not, as they haul survivors up, one by one, claiming victory over The Dark Lord as each person is brought back. And no one works harder than Hermione as she plunges her arms into the dark holes and grabs hold and forces them up, forces them into the light. She hugs each person she finds alive, and she lets them cry on her, and soon, she's weeping herself, letting her tears wash away the dust and blood and pain. She cries for the ones who don't make it, and she cries for the ones who do, and she cries for herself, and allows the undercurrent of joy wash her clean. She doesn't hear ir, doesn't hear the smile in Harry voice as he leans over to Ron and laughs because Just like our Hermione, keeping us in one piece and helping everyone, even in Hell. I hope she never changes. What would we do without her?

The morning sun shines brightly on the battlefield as the survivors continue to salvage salvation here and there, there and here. Hermione hums tunelessly as the boy on her back dozes. Her arms are sore and scratched to hell and back, but she doesn't really mind.

Hermione has not found a new purpose in life. It's never really changed, you see, from what it was when she was a fat-cheeked, plaid-wearing, over-bearing know-it-all in first class to skinny, over-tired war veteran that you see here today. She's doing what she's always done in some fashion or another. Sometimes she does with life, sometimes she does it spiritually.

Hermione Granger is meant to save people.

And that's just what she's going to do.