Memories

Hogwarts was burning. Red and orange flames were eating up the Gryffindor tower while others swallowed the portion of the castle that I knew to be the Great Hall. Fire was licking dangerously at the right side of the castle as well, only taking a few seconds before the place that I’d spent the majority of my childhood was completely consumed.

As I stood feet away from the burning castle, I wished I could conjure a wave big enough that would put out the thing that was eating my home. I was exhausted from the battle, though, and new I didn’t have that kind of knowledge anyway.

“What are you doing?! You have to move or you’ll catch fire, Tabby!”

I could hear Neville’s concerned voice and I could feel his strong hands trying to pull me back, but I had gone numb. The place I’d spent my childhood in was burning to the ground and there was nothing I could do about it. Chilled sadness was creeping up in my heart and draining down into my veins, seemingly helping to render me incapable of moving.

Tears trickled down my dirty cheeks, but I didn’t raise a hand up to wipe them away; I thought it would be disrespectful not to take at least a few minutes to mourn for the place that had provided me with the type of life I’d always dreamed of. However, when Neville pulled on me again, my knee’s buckled and he quickly enveloped me in his arms. The streams of salty emotion continued to fall, but I could no longer see my home being destroyed. A mental image stayed with me as he helped me stagger back to whatever cover he’d been under, though, and as every crash vibrated through the already shaking earth I would picture another piece breaking off.

He led me a great distance away and to a little section of the courtyard where a group of people had gathered. I heard as he instructed a few of them to make way for him and as a some others questioned my health. He didn’t answer them, instead chose to worriedly look into my eyes once he’d carefully sat me down on a piece of broken concrete someone had been using as a seat. He knelt down in front of me and brushed back pieces of my blonde hair, his worried eyes looking between mine.

“Tell me what you were doing, Tabby,” he whispered. “Why were you standing so close to those flames?”

He rested a hand against my cheek gently and soothingly began to scale his thumb across my flesh there while his other went to one of my knees. Close to a minute passed and all he did was stare at me, though I could see the impatience rising as his breathing increased. Sniffling a little while letting out a deep sob at the same time, I allowed my eyes to slowly break from his in order to look back over at the Hogwarts castle. Both ends were completely consumed now and it was quickly heading for the middle; soon, the entire building would be overtaken by the destroying element.

“It’s burning,” I quietly said.

“What?”

“Hogwarts,” I simply responded. “It’s burning.”

He glanced over his shoulder then to stare at what I’d helplessly been watching since the near end of the battle. He looked for only a few seconds before he was slowly taking a seat beside me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. He pulled me into his side and gently rubbed my upper arm.

“Well,” he began. “It can be rebuilt.”

I knew he was trying to comfort me with those words, but they did nothing for me. Rebuilding would put the castle back together, but it wouldn’t reinstate all the memories that were made and all the history that been in the walls that were now crumbling to the ground.

“It won’t be the same,” I muttered.

“This is war, Tabby,” he slowly started after letting a small amount of time pass. “I’ll miss Hogwarts just as much as you, but we had to kill them. The castle will be rebuilt and new memories will be made, but you’ll always have the ones you made. No amount of fire or damage can take that away from you.”

Slightly startled at such a deep speech coming from him, I pulled away a little so to be able to look up at his face. His expression was contorted into a mask of concentration and deep thinking as he starred down at the ground. His brow was furrowed and as he looked over at me, I noticed his teeth were running over his bottom lip.

A small smile flittered to my face and I ran a hand over his cheek before planting a quick, passionate kiss on his lips. Even though I thought no words could’ve comforted me, Neville had managed to make me see the destruction in way I knew my mind wouldn’t have been able to conjure up without his words. I realized that I should feel lucky to have been in that castle, where so many grand witches and wizards had gotten their education and begun their scale to greatness. We would rebuild and then it would be my children’s turn to make their memories.

“I love you,” I said.

He smiled and wrapped his hand around my wrist before replying, “I love you as well.”