The Beauty of Magic

"Magic," she had told him once, "makes everything beautiful."

Harry leaned his head against the glass pane of the car window. It was the middle of November and pouring down rain, which wasn't surprising for weather in southern Scotland. A procession of black cars with darkly tinted windows followed the hearse as it made its way slowly towards the cemetery. It was a cemetery that was bought and maintained by the Order during the second rise of Lord Voldemort; a place where anyone who died in this war could be buried, a place where everyone could visit those they had lost.

Harry watched as the bleak southern countryside passed by the car in what seemed to be an eerily slow manner considering how fast they were driving. He had attended countless funerals much like this one, being asked to speak at each one of them; tell everyone that soon the day was coming when this war would end, and that their family member's death would not be in vain. As the war pushed on, encroaching on its fourth year of battle, Harry was unsure which side would win. Neither he nor Voldemort could get the upper hand to vanquish their enemy, and it seemed like their men just kept dying. The only major difference was that Harry hated sacrificing his friends and hundreds of other wizards and witches who threw themselves into this battle for him, while Voldemort did not care about the countless who died. It seemed the more people who fell on the battlefield the stronger he grew.

Harry heard a small sniffle from next to him and turned his head to see Hermione silently crying into a handkerchief. He pulled his head away from the window and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her close. With her leaning into him, Harry felt that familiar pain in his heart, the one that told him he would never see her face again. With all the other deaths, nothing seemed quite real; it was as if reality and fantasy has been laced together, and he couldn't figure out which one was which. However, that all changed when he saw her fall on the battlefield. She was in this war for a different reason than everyone else; she had come to him, not seeking his help or to help him, but seeking a way to avenge her own family's death. She wanted to make sure they hadn't died in vain, and when she fell, so did Pettigrew. She had achieved her final wish.

Harry looked down at Hermione's head and pulled her even closer to him, not to comfort her, but to comfort himself. He had to know that at least one person he cared about hadn't been murdered yet, and that there was still hope. But, somehow, Harry knew that through it all this war wouldn't be in vain. He knew that those who had selflessly given their lives for him and for this cause would not be remembered as the fools who followed Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, into an almost certain death for nothing. She had shown him that love really did conquer everything, and had cemented what Dumbledore had tried to tell him all those years ago. It wasn't her hatred for Peter Pettigrew that brought him down; it was her love for her mother, her father, and her sister.

The car came to a slow stop, and Harry released Hermione from his grip to get out of the car. Holding it open for her, he eyed the podium above the maple coffin, and couldn't help but feel more hopeful for the future. He gave Hermione a smile before trudging up the lawn and taking his usual place behind the podium.

"Magic," he said, pausing to get a grasp on his nerves, "makes everything beautiful. We just have to know where to look."

Harry stepped down the podium, a little shaken by the silence that followed his short speech. He knew it was different and not quite what everyone was expecting, but for once in his life he felt like he was telling the entire truth, not just the parts people wanted or needed to hear. He took a few steps forward and picked up one of the lavender roses from a vase next to her coffin-- they were her favorite flower and he insisted they use them instead of the typical white carnations-- and watched as they lowered her coffin into what would become her grave. The tears slipped down his cheeks as memories of her flooded his mind and clouded his vision.

Her honey blonde hair that fell in soft waves around her shoulders and down her back; her light, sage green eyes that matched his in beauty and fire; her pale skin that was virtuously flawless; and her proper manners that she never failed using, no matter the situation, that always brought a smile to his face were only a few of the things that he remembered about her in an instant. There were more important things than her looks, or the way her laugh would ring out when she thought something was truly funny-- she was one of the only people that laughed in this hard and troubling time.

It was the way she turned against everything she was raised to believe in for her own cause and to defend her own beliefs; to avenge the death of those who mattered most to her no matter what pain it caused her.

It was the way she didn't come to him, but drew him to her. She didn't need his help, yet didn't turn it away when it was offered. More importantly, it was the way she loved him so deeply and so completely that he felt like he was the most important thing in her world.

He stood next to her grave and smiled down at the dark wooden coffin tossing the lavender rose down, watching it fall the four feet to the top of it, landing on the dark wood. A tear followed shortly after which would leave a water spot if left too long. He felt someone beside him and turned to see Hermione following suit and tossing the lavender flower down into the grave. She laced her fingers with Harry's in a comforting manner as he watched people on the opposite side dropping flower after flower into the grave.

Harry slipped his hand from Hermione's and moved around the grave until he sat in front of the headstone, running his fingers over the engraved lettering:

Pansy Parkinson

Loved and Cherished Forever
Magic Makes Everything Beautiful.

Harry dropped to his knees and hugged the granite stone letting the tears flow freely. She hadn't been dead for more than a week, and he was already questioning how he was going to move on. He leaned back on his heels completely ignoring all the sympathy looks people were casting in his direction and looked down at his left hand at the silver band that encircled his ring finger. Three months ago he had proposed to Pansy, promising that once the war was over, and if they both made it through, he would marry her.

He knew her heart had once belonged to another, someone she had lost when she was young, but he swore to her that he could love her and make her happy. She had promised him that she would love him more than she had loved anyone in her life; she had sworn to him that she would love him for eternity.

It seemed fate wasn't on his side for those plans. He took a deep breath and rocked up into a standing position and turned to Hermione.

"Come on," he said, brushing past her, "we've got work to do."

Harry strode towards the long black procession of cars never looking back at the gravesite. It was time to bring this war to an end, and Harry was just upset that it took the death of Pansy, the one woman he loved more than his own life, to shake his resolve and spring him into action. He knew there had to be a way to defeat Lord Voldemort; there had to be something else the Order had yet to find, and he had a feeling he knew where it was.