A New Voice

Some people thought of Hell as a burning wasteland filled with fire, ash and the tortured noise of the fallen. The sky would be streaked red and black with blood, dust, fumes and heat. The ground would tremble with quakes; the air would be acrid and burn with each breath you took.

These people were wrong. If there were a hell, something that he severely doubted, this would be it. He stood on the very edge of the world it seemed, with nothing in front or behind. The plains were flat for miles around and nothing grew on them. There was only cracked and scarred ground, no grass; not even stubble to show that something was attempting to grow.

He couldn’t see that far around himself anyway. The moist and dank grey mist concealed everything but the path he was on. Here and there he would see a yawning gap in the tortured ground, as if it were rebelling and splitting. Some of the path was still charred with memories of lightning striking a target, and burying itself in the earth.

He stepped over a black patch of sparse rock on the path, and tilted his head slightly. Every time he came here the silence still shocked him. There was not a sound; not even the faint rustle of a breeze through the branches of a tree in the distance.

The lack of sound unnerved him because he liked knowing that there was someone else alive in the world apart from himself. He enjoyed the sounds of life other than humanity busy at work. The simple sounds that made him realise that life did go on, despite the pain that people caused.

In this place you wouldn't know it, because there was nothing to be heard that was living. As he walked he couldn't help straining his hearing for something. Perhaps a faint call of a bird in the distance, the rustle of a leaf tumbling across the ground in front of him... anything.

He walked on.

The silence around him screamed. Some people don't believe that silence can scream, but it does... oh it does. And there, in that place, the chorus was particularly deafening. That silence told a story about people; it told a story about pain.

Pain he had to deal with every step he took. The memories were threatening to overwhelm him.

He stopped, wincing in pain and breathing heavily as the barrage began to recede, but only slightly. He could hear the loud and penetrating screams of pain and hate; he still shuddered as that cold, crystalline voice of evil moved through the ranks of the masked Deatheaters. He felt if it was happening around him still.

With each step he took on those godforsaken plains, memories were hurled at him. Those memories that would not fade from his mind, no matter how hard he wished they would. No matter how long he gave time to dull their edges, to silence their cries. He supposed it was an aftereffect of the battle.

This place was like a Dementor in its own right: if you stayed, it would suck the life and remaining hope out of you. He refused to let it do that to him.

He kept up his pace along the path, his black booted footfalls making no noise. The sun shone weakly through the clouds and gave no warmth. Nothing gave warmth here. The sun shone, but it was wan, a reminder of a better place and a better time.

Any place was better than here.

He finally came to the familiar grey and cracking picket gate with its smoke-blackened hinge hanging there. He pushed his way through the gate, shutting it carefully behind him, and turned.

If the lands out the gate were hell, then this was heaven, an oasis as such. The whole feeling of the air around him changed. The air lightened and lifted, taking the oppressive dryness away and replacing it with an elusive scent. This place had harmony, that place outside had only discord. This place had tranquillity; it had a peace that seemed to ooze from the very air he breathed. It carried a quiet calmness about it, that invited reflection and hope from its guests.

He still didn't know how the Ministry had done it. Some said it was Dumbledore's last gift to the world, just before he left it. Others said that it was old magic, come back in the face of human despair. He didn't know how or why, but he enjoyed the result.

Looking down to his feet, he saw they were placed amid thick green grass that went up to his ankles. It was spotted with wild daisies, swaying slightly in a breeze that only they could feel. Ahead of him the red brick path led to a large grove ringed by oaks.

He made his way to the edge of the oaks, finding the sunlight had warmed now, able to actually give some heat and radiance. He looked into the large valley; a valley that had more than grass in it. This valley had gravestones, hundreds of them. The memories of the people who had fought and died in The Last Battle. People he had fought beside and watched die. People he had killed, and those who’d died of the wounds they’d received.

His gaze swept the graveyard. There! A flash of red hair, someone was crouched at one of the many stones. He made his way towards this colour that seemed so out of place in the grove of green and grey.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ginny was hunched down in front of the gravestone, tears flowing down her face unchecked. Each time she visited this place she expected it to get easier. She expected to have the ache in her chest and throat lessen slightly, but it never did. Every time she saw these graves, the graves of people she loved and knew, Ginny just cried. She cried as though it was the first time she’d heard the news, or been at the funerals.

They had been brave... so brave. She remembered Ron, hugging her before he had left school that year, hushing her protests and telling her everything would be fine. It was the last hug from a favourite brother. Fine? She thought not.

A cracked and chipped blue vase held some wilted flowers in it, courtesy of her last visit. She removed the wilted ones and placed a bunch of white daisies in them. White for peace; white for protection; white for love.

Why? She always asked herself this, always. Ginny had asked this question and had never got any answers. It was one of those unanswerable inquiries that everyone wanted to know the answer to. Right up there with the ‘why are we here?’ question.

She didn't know the answer to that one either.

As she stood in the graveyard the silence came back to her. The silence here didn't scream like the silence outside the gate. Here it watched, as if it were waiting for something. Ginny turned, wondering what it was that kept the place so quiet.

She'd heard rumours about the graveyard, no one seemed to know how it came to be; no one had ever managed to keep any birds or creatures there and no one had ever seen it without the sun shining. She couldn't help but wish there were some sounds in here. The peace was lovely but even peace must have some show of life.

Shaking herself slightly, Ginny moved on to the next three graves, each adorned with their names, dates and a simple epitaph. Her hands shook as she gently placed flowers in each of the cracked blue holders in front of them.

Dad, Fred, Percy, even Harry. Ginny looked up to the huge statue that towered in one corner of the graveyard. Harry wouldn't have wanted that, she knew it, and so did Hermione. Harry would have just wanted to be with his friends like everyone else. Yet the Ministry wanted to honour the Boy-Who-Lived-And-Died with that monstrosity. If Harry had been there to see it unveiled he would have been in tears himself, tears of frustration.

It WASN'T fair! She clenched her fists by her sides suddenly. Not bloody FAIR! Not fair on her; not fair on her mother, George, Bill or Charlie who had lost half their family. Not fair on Hermione who had lost her fiancé and best friend. Not fair on anyone who had been part of that infernal war that had cost so many lives.

And for what? A peace that could be as easily shattered as it could have been eight years ago.

She missed them all so, so much. Another tear slipped down her cheek and dripped onto the grass. Ginny's knees gave out just as someone gently put their arms around her and pulled her into his embrace.

"Why do you still come here every month?" he asked.

"You know why, I promised. They all deserve it, everyone," Ginny answered, glancing at a nondescript tomb with an effigy that simply stated- 'Headmaster and friend, forever are you with us'. The feeling of someone's arms around her still distracted her, and he knew it. His hands fiddled with the ring on her finger.

"Draco…" He silenced her by spinning her around and kissing her. She gasped slightly, then moved into her husband's kiss. He always managed help, either by driving her insane or distracting her in more gentle ways. Draco began to kiss her neck, hands moving in gentle circles at the small of her back. His mouth found hers again and everything else receded into the background.

A while later Ginny pulled away flushed, with her head tilted on one side.

"What?" Draco asked, watching her.

"That." On the other side of the grove a bird had begun to sing in one of the trees. It quavered in the afternoon light, giving the feeling as if it had always been there. It was as if a spell had been broken and the healing of the world had begun.

Well, not quite the world, she reflected. More like a little part of it, a part that mattered so much to her and many others. The little part that contained the memories of their loved ones.

Ginny smiled, turning her face to the sound, her hands moving to her slightly rounded stomach. Draco noticed this unconscious gesture and smiled.

It was a new voice for a new life. Ginny smiled, listening to the chorus that had now joined the lone singer.