August 16
Harry stared down at the tiny baby, so tiny he couldn't believe she was real. He reached out for her when her eyes met his (he didn't care what Sev said about her not being able to see him, Harry was certain she was looking right at him) and her tiny fingers curled around Harry's finger in the way that made him feel annoyingly wistful.
He could never get sick of looking at her. She was… she was perfect. She was the perfect blend of her two parents- Theo's nose, Hermione's lips, both of their brown eyes, and her skin was a shade somewhere between the two of theirs, a smooth and unblemished light brown.
Perfect.
"Hi, pretty girl," Harry cooed quietly. He reached in her crib and gently smoothed a hand over her tender head of soft black curls. "Are you awake now?"
Harry wished he could go back to sleep as she looked ready to do. He wished he could hide away from the day that was never meant to happen, but…
"Let's get you dressed, love," Harry whispered. He carefully lifted the baby up, supporting her neck just as Cissa and Sev showed him to do. He held her little blanketed body against his bare chest while he tentatively pressed his lips on her head in a soft kiss of apology. "It's time for your mum's funeral."
Perfectly on cue, Hermione Rose Nott began crying.
Harry ruminated on the last week as he carefully got Rosie dressed. It was… it was fucking miserable without Hermione. It felt as if someone had ripped a chunk of Harry's chest out of his body and expected him to keep moving. He probably wouldn't have, except for Rosie.
Well, Rosie and Theo.
Rosie was still underweight, but Sev was confident that her lungs were finally working as they should, thanks to his potions. And Harry had never doubted his medical skills before, but… but it had only made sense to have Narcissa imperio a pediatric healer from St Mungo's and have them check the baby.
Harry wouldn't take any chances, not with his goddaughter.
Once the healer gave Rosie the checkup, leaving behind a list of nutritional potions safe for infants that would help her gain the weight she needed, Lucius obliviated the man and Tonks got the paperwork to officially name her. Which was when Harry realized that Theo was not okay. He hadn't expected him to be happy, necessarily, but he also didn't expect him to be so broken that he refused to name his daughter either.
"Theo, how do you spell Christina?" Susan asked, wiping her wet face and holding the quill steady as she waited.
Theo sat on the floor, not even looking at the baby that so fascinated Harry. He had his legs curled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them.
"Theo?"
Theo shook his head and ducked it into his knees, a quiet sound of misery ripping from his throat. Susan looked at Harry, and Harry carefully handed the baby over to Fred so he could go sit by his brother.
"Theo? How do you spell the baby's name?" Harry asked him quietly. He put his arm over Theo's shoulders, which caused Theo to abruptly move his face from his knees to the front of Harry's chest.
Harry felt his skin itching from the inside as he held Theo tightly against his chest and let him cry. It… it was painful to listen to and made Susan and Fred both cry while Sev hovered behind Fred and shot Harry a swift look of 'better you than me'.
Harry resigned himself to being cried on while he held his brother close and closed his eyes, refusing to cry with Sev, Fred, and Susan all watching.
He didn't even know it would be a possibility to lose Hermione as they did.
A fight? Sure. Hermione was book-brilliant and duel-average. A fight would give someone for Harry and Theo to attack, someone to rip apart as Harry and Blaise did to Greyback.
Delivering the baby she wanted so badly? No. Harry hadn't even thought that would be a worry he needed to prepare for.
It wasn't until Theo finished crying and Harry thickly asked him how to spell the baby's name again that it clicked for Harry that, despite Hermione dying in such a painfully mundane way, Theo had found an enemy to blame.
"Name her what you want," Theo murmured. He moved his head back to his knees and stared with hollow eyes at the bed where Hermione died. "I don't give a damn."
Harry's eyes flew to meet Susan's, who were bloodshot, red-rimmed, and just as surprised as Harry's undoubtedly were.
But Harry did name her what he wanted. And he remembered how Hermione repeatedly told him that he couldn't name her baby as he carefully penned the name across the parchment:
HERMIONE ROSE NOTT
No offense to Theo's mum, but Harry thought Hermione was a much better name for the beautiful little baby that looked so much like his friend than Christina was.
Harry finished dressing Rosie, making sure she was warm and dry in her solemn black dress with a blanket wrapped tightly around her. She began crying, just a soft little wail, when Harry picked her up, so he sent a stinging hex to his snoring husband as a wake-up call, and he carried Rosie downstairs so she could eat.
"Here." Luna was waiting in the sitting with Draco and Blaise, a bottle already prepared for her. Harry nodded appreciatively and handed Rosie over to Luna so she could feed her.
"Theo still asleep?" Blaise asked gruffly when Harry stretched up on his toes with his arms reaching over his head, too tired to even be self-conscious about his shirtless state amongst his nicely dressed friends.
Harry sighed and lifted his eyes up to the ceiling. "Dunno, wanna go check for me?"
Draco, who was sitting as close to Luna as he could, and who had hardly let go of her in the last week, scoffed quietly. His head was bent down close to Rosie who had closed her eyes once more while Luna fed her.
Harry cleared his throat, spurring Draco to quickly move his face away from Rosie's.
He didn't really know what all the illnesses and diseases were that the healer stated premature babies were susceptible to, but he understood that they were more likely to get sick if people breathed in Rosie's face or kissed near her mouth.
"Your brother, you wake him," Draco whispered while Blaise and Luna nodded in agreement. "Last time I tried, he threatened to shoot me."
"Blaise?" Harry asked hopefully.
Blaise grimaced and shook his head. "You do it. It'll be better if you wake him today," he said carefully.
Blaise had been kipping in Theo's room, staying with him since Harry had to stay with Rosie in his own room.
Fred was too heavy of a sleeper to trust him alone with the baby, Susan cried every time she looked at her, Theo refused to even hold her, so nighttime feedings and diaper changes and potion times had all become Harry's problem. He didn't mind, much, but he'd still been grateful when Narcissa met him in the sitting room one night and took care of Rosie when Harry felt himself nodding off.
Sev offered to let Rosie sleep in his room with him and Tonks, but… but Harry didn't know how much time he'd have with his goddaughter, so he turned down the offer.
Theo though…
Theo was a problem Harry didn't know how to handle.
"I'll go get him ready," Harry sighed. It wasn't that these weren't his people, his problems, but he was exhausted and miserable too. Hermione, for all her nagging and bossiness and her belief that Harry was lazy, had been a part of Harry's life nearly as long as Sev had and it… it was painful to realize that she wasn't there anymore.
But Harry couldn't dwell on it, didn't have time to dwell on it, because someone had to take care of the baby and plan the funeral and make sure everyone else was eating and have the elves pass out hot chocolate at night and force Theo and Rosie to take their potions and and and and…
And Harry had to do it for them because he wouldn't be there the next time someone died and a funeral had to be held. He better not be anyway, because there were only so many people he was willing to bury before he felt like clawing his skin off and joining them.
Today it was Hermione though.
"Theo?" Harry knocked on his brothers door and scowled at the locked handle. It took him a moment to rip down the multiple wards that Theo had entwined and covered his door with. Locking spells, redirecting wards, silencing spells, muffling charms, it was… it was a lot and Harry was more annoyed the longer it took him to untangle and dismantle it all.
When he finally burst in the room, Theo's wards shredded and gone, Harry immediately wished he hadn't.
It was freezing in there, for one. It was also pitch black, which set Harry on edge. And overall, the heavy feeling of gloom and misery and the stench of… probably Theo not showering in a week… reminded Harry so vividly of Azkaban that he had to dig his nails in his wrist to keep from being overtaken by black spots in his vision or throwing up on the floor.
"Theo?" Harry whispered toward the lump on the bed. The room had been rearranged after Harry and Fred moved out of it; the wall that separated the two sleeping spaces had been taken down, replaced with a much more sensible curtain so that Rosie's crib, on her side of the room, hadn't been too separate from Theo.
Rosie hadn't slept in it even once.
Harry, using every ounce of bravery he had (how the fuck did Blaise sleep in there?), considering the air in the room reminded him more and more of Azkaban with every step he took, approached Theo's bed and poked his lump of a body beneath the heavy comforter.
"Theo, you've gotta get up."
Theo's voice was muffled, hoarse and strained, "No."
Harry felt as if he were going to be sick. His head swam and it felt foggy. "Get up," he repeated. Did he sound faint or could he not hear himself over the buzzing air? Why was the air buzzing? Was Harry's skin buzzing?
"Th-Theo, get out," he insisted. "GET OUT!"
The lump beneath the blanket, the thick form that had to be Theo, it wasn't Harry, Harry couldn't be looking at himself, jerked at Harry's harsh yell and a pale face peered above the comforter.
"Sit down, throw up, do what you have to do, then go away," Theo said. "This isn't one of your bullshit dreams, it's my fucking nightmare. If you want coddled, go find your fucking husband," he spat.
Harry grit his teeth, clomping down on his tongue as hard as he could, trying to keep himself on his feet and in the present.
It's not Azkaban.
It's not a dream.
Jesus fucking Christ, OPEN THE WINDOW.
It was stifling in there. It was as if the room were filled with dementors and ghosts and they were closing in on Harry, taking advantage of his exhaustion, making it hard to breathe.
Azkaban didn't have windows, but Theo's bedroom did, and they all three burst open with an loud burst of magic- the sound of the exploding glass acting as a calming potion to Harry's quickly splintering thoughts.
Harry inhaled deeply, breathing in the crisp and fresh air, letting it drive the fog from his mind, then he refocused on his brother.
"Theo, you've got to get up," Harry said, pleased that he sounded even and calm instead of shaky and sick like he was on the inside. He wasn't sure when he'd moved from Theo's bedside to the crib on the opposite wall, but he moved back to the bed and sent a light stinging hex roughly where he thought Theo's head had been.
"DON'T FUCKING HEX ME!" Theo yelled. He sat up- God, he looked like hell -and threw an impressively silent and wandless hex at Harry that Harry dodged and it caught the curtain behind him on fire.
"I wouldn't hex you if you would get up," Harry said as calmly as he was able while he lazily put out the fire. "You can't miss her funeral, Theo. C'mon, get dressed."
Theo scoffed and glared at Harry with more venom than Harry had ever seen from his brother. "You mean the funeral you planned?"
Harry froze and gaped at Theo. Harry had only planned the funeral because Theo refused to and Hermione deserved to have a send-off at least as beautiful as Trent's had been. And even while Theo refused to help, Harry had asked him questions every step of the way.
'Where would she want to be buried?'
'What would she want to be buried in?'
'Is there certain music she liked?'
'Is she religious at all?'
'How do we get ahold of her parents?'
And when Theo refused to answer a single question, Harry had simply turned to the others for assistance.
Sirius took Lupin and some of the wolves to Spinner's End and demolished the tainted house, turning the plot of land in to a cemetery with a simple white wooden building for the ceremony.
Harry had toyed with the idea of having Trent's burial plot moved to the Spinner's End Cemetery, but Fred told him the villagers still decorated Trent's grave with flowers and sweets, so he left it there.
McGonagall had been buried in her hometown, Luna's dad was buried beside her mum, Fred's dad near the Burrow. Amelia was buried by her brother and Susan's mom. Johnny's body was moved to his flat, his family's problem, in Harry's opinion.
Harry did have Barty moved though, with Sev's easy agreement, and he picked out a spot for his own burial when he'd checked the property after Sirius and Lupin finished it.
Fleur, Susan, Luna, and Neville had handled all the other accommodations for Hermione's funeral. Neville had dealt with the flowers, Fleur chose a casket and tombstone while Harry sent Fred to pay for it from their joint vault. Susan and Luna chose an outfit for Hermione with a lot of tears and general misery.
But Harry did try and get Theo to plan it. Every step of the way, he'd asked Theo for an opinion.
"That's… that's not fair," Harry said, his voice shaking slightly more than the acceptable amount of not at all. "I tried to get you to make decisions, I tried to—"
"LIFE ISN'T FAIR!" Theo screamed. He jumped up from the bed so he could glower in Harry's face. His chest was heaving and Harry saw a sparkle in his eyes that looked like barely restrained tears. "She's gone, Harry, gone, and for what? A sick baby that's probably going to die soon? A motherless baby with a worthless father and a godparent planning out his own imminent death?! TELL ME WHAT'S FAIR, HARRY!"
Harry pushed Theo away from him, needing to move closer to the window to suck in some of the crisp morning air.
Theo stood by the bed, glaring and hating Harry and hating his life, and Harry had no idea what he was meant to do.
"She didn't die for no reason," Harry said slowly. "She died for Rosie, your daughter. She's downstairs, waiting for you."
At Rosie's name, Theo turned his back to Harry. His shoulders shook and he ducked his head.
"Get out."
"You're really not coming?"
"GET OUT!"
Harry stormed to the door and gave Theo a look of disgust. "I hope Mione can't see you now, Theo, because she'd be fuckin disgusted, wouldn't she? You won't hold your baby, you didn't plan Mione's funeral, now you're not coming? She'd fuckin cry if she saw this, again," he added for good measure as he'd once consoled Hermione after a fight with Theo.
Harry easily ducked whatever hex Theo threw at his head and made his way to his room.
Just because Theo wasn't going, didn't mean Harry could skip Hermione's funeral. Since, apparently, he'd been elected to once again give a speech over another dead friend.
Hermione didn't get the grand affair Trent did.
She didn't get eulogized in the Daily Prophet as McGonagall had.
Hermione didn't have a lot of friends outside of the gang, and her parents apparently didn't even know they had a daughter anymore.
Hermione's friends and family consisted of perhaps two dozen people, some who only knew her from gang meetings, a baby who didn't understand why people kept crying over her, an absent boyfriend, and Harry.
Harry who was out behind the building, hiding from the crying attendants, and cursing himself for agreeing to do the eulogy.
He wasn't sure why his friends considered him to be the best choice— Harry had a twang in his tone that never seemed to leave, despite Juliana's best efforts. He swore as much as he said anything. And he was extremely conscious of a stammer that made a reappearance any time things were stressful.
"Never should have fuckin agreed to this," Harry muttered darkly as he stamped out his third cigarette of the day.
"So why did you?"
Harry looked up at Sev's softly spoken question and watched as he moved over to stand beside Harry.
"Where's Rosie?" Harry asked immediately, ignoring Sev's stupid question. He'd left Rosie in Sev's arms when he'd lied and said he needed to use the loo just before slipping out the back door.
Sev leaned against the building, mimicking Harry's pose, though he bent his head back and looked up at the cloudy sky.
"Nymphadora has her," he said.
Harry grimaced. "Tonks is fuckin clumsy, Sev. She'll drop her."
Sev didn't look insulted, his upper lip twitched just slightly. "She is sitting and I believe Narcissa, Molly, and Juliana were all hovering quite closely."
Harry let out a heavy breath and tilted his head back like Sev's was. "That's fine then."
The two of them stood like that, a calm moment before the storm that was about to hit, where Harry worked on clearing his mind, pushing down the tsunami inside him, and radiating peace as Sev did.
"Theodore is not coming."
So much for radiating peace.
It wasn't a question, so Harry made an irritable hum in response.
"I attempted to speak with him as well."
Another irritable hum.
"He is not doing well."
Harry lost his, rocky at the best of times, patience at that.
"Who is?" Harry demanded, taking the knot of misery out on the wrong person. "Mione is dead, Sev, she's fucking gone. My goddaughter almost died. Now she's going to live, but with no fuckin mum, no fuckin dad, and no fuckin godfather. Who takes her when I die, huh? WHO CHANGES HER DIAPERS WHEN I'M GONE?"
Harry laughed and punched the wall he'd been leaning on, embracing the ache in his hand as opposed to the one in his head and his chest.
"Who gets up with Rosie at three am when I'm gone, Sev? Who tells her about her mum? Who makes sure Rosie doesn't think her parents would hate her? That baby is going to have no one because Theo is being a selfish little bastard."
Sev didn't say anything while Harry ranted, he merely waved his wand at one point to keep Harry from interrupting the mourners inside the building. He waited to see if Harry had anything else to say, then held an empty hand out when it was clear Harry had finished.
"You are also not doing well," Sev said calmly. "Allow me to heal your hand, Harry."
Harry shook his hand out, sending a shiver of magic down his arm to heal the fracture in his knuckle.
"It is still bruised."
"Shame," Harry snapped.
Sev considered Harry for a moment with his dark eyes before he merely reached out and snatched Harry's hand. Harry could have yanked it back, but that would have led to a fight and Harry didn't have the energy to fight anymore that day.
"As intelligent as you are, as much as you have held yourself together for the sake of all your misfits and your beloved goddaughter, you are still the same sulky and ignorant boy that attacked me in a playground," Sev said quietly as he ran his wand over Harry's hand, instantly healing the bruises and swelling.
Sev looked at Harry solemnly while Harry shamefully dropped his eyes to his hand.
"Do you believe I would leave Granger's desperately wanted and outrageously beloved daughter to starve and flounder?"
Harry pulled his hand away and dropped it lamely at his side. He wished he had pockets in the suit he wore to stuff his hands in.
"I believe you're going to be as bad as Theo when I'm gone," Harry admitted. "I think you're going to try and follow me and you're going to make all those people who count on you just feel like shit and hey, it won't be your problem, right?"
Sev didn't say anything, and Harry kept his eyes on the ground while he steadied his breathing out. He pulled his watch, Sev's watch, from his chest pocket and saw he only had a few minutes before Hermione's service was meant to start.
"Forget it," Harry said. He put the watch away and ran a hand down his face, wiping away whatever expression he had and leaving a stoic and empty one in its place, the same expression he'd worn around the others for the last week.
Harry only ever cried with Rosie. She wouldn't remember it, and the middle of the night had always left Harry on shakier ground than daytime did.
Harry reached out and patted Sev's shoulder. Sev looked shocked, as if it were some huge secret that he would try and kill himself after Harry was gone.
Harry was honestly sick of everyone becoming suicidal. It was hard enough keeping them alive when they had enemies against them, he couldn't fight the world and protect them from themselves as well. It was one of the reasons he'd had Blaise move to Theo's room, someone had to keep making sure he was breathing in the cocoon of anguish he'd been buried in.
"Fred always wanted kids though, eh?" Harry said with a forced lightness and a smirk he didn't feel. "I have to go inside, see you in a minute."
Harry turned and went inside, leaving Sev to stare after him with the stricken expression that Harry's accurate accusation had given him.
"Someone once called Hermione to brightest witch of her age, and I know that for a fact because Hermione quoted it for a week afterwards."
Harry stood in the front of the church-like building, wearing his posh and uncomfortable muggle suit, letting his gaze unfocus as he looked past the half open coffin and in to the crowd of teary eyed mourners. He had tried to focus on Rosie at first, but that only made him feel like burning the building to ash, so he let himself focus on nothing and just talk.
"Hermione was smart, there probably isn't a book in my house she didn't read. Honestly, there probably isn't a book in any house Hermione had spent more than five minutes in that she didn't read. Everyone can tell you she was smart.
"More than that though, Hermione was kind, brave, had a really strict sense of right and wrong, and Hermione was a real laugh when she wanted to be."
Harry didn't look down in the coffin when he moved over to it, he just put a light hand on the dark blue wood. It had bronze finishings on it, matching the prefect badge that Susan pinned to Hermione's clothes.
"It's unfair that Hermione's gone. It's unfair that she only got seconds with her daughter when she should have had years and years. It's unfair that Hermione's daughter won't get to be nagged at or read to or held by her mum. It's worse when you think about how much Hermione wanted that baby."
Harry raised his voice some, focusing on the shimmering nothingness in the back corner of the building.
"Hermione would have been a great mum, she was already a great mum. When everyone told her it wasn't logical to keep the baby, she threw logic away for the first time in her life. It's easy to think Hermione would be here if her daughter wasn't, but Hermione would hate that. Hermione loved Rosie from the instant she knew she was there, she fought for her, and she died for her.
"We should be sad, we should be miserable, from losing Hermione. But I don't think Hermione would change a single thing about her life because in the end, she got to be a mother."
Harry shrugged one shoulder, letting his eyes go unfocused as he looked down at Hermione's peaceful face.
"And that, more than her intelligence and her achievements, is how Hermione would want to be remembered."
Fred squeezed Harry's shoulders and pressed his lips to the top of Harry's head when they stood outside and watched Sirius and Lupin levitate the dirt pile to the top of Hermione's coffin.
Everyone placed something in the coffin before it had been closed and buried. Some of the gang left photos, a few books, Mavis put a hat Hermione knit him in with her. Susan put a whole stack of photos of Rosie in there, openly sobbing as she did it.
Harry put in a photo of Hermione from the baby shower party they'd had back at Hogwarts, her stomach still flat, and her face fond and exasperated. He also left a single letter for her, hoping perhaps she could read it from the afterlife.
He hoped she was with his mum-
Two muggleborn witches, young and dedicated mothers, brilliant and kind-
Dead before their babies could walk.
It would be nice, if Hermione was with Lily Potter.
"Right there," Harry told Fred, nodding to a spot in the yard. "I broke my arm there once, flying while flying," he explained. "That's where I want buried."
Fred didn't say anything, but Harry felt his harsh swallow from where he had his lips pressed to Harry's head.
"I'll tell my brothers I want buried beside you," he said thickly. "Stuck with me forever, Potter."
Harry grinned faintly and cradled Rosie closer to himself. "Not until she's grown up, yeah? Someone—" Harry had to swallow to compose himself as well. "Someone has to raise Rosie. And I think Theo's going to kill himself, Fred. Sev's planning it too, I think and I dunno if Tonks will keep him going or not."
Harry turned his head enough so he could look up at Fred's blue eyes. "Swear it."
Fred was a rock, steady, supportive, fucking perfect.
"I swear it."
Harry let out a heavy breath and pulled Rosie as close to himself as he could. If Fred said it, he meant it.
"I love you," Harry said quietly as Sirius placed Hermione's tombstone at the head of the grave.
"I love you."
Harry, Fred, and Rosie waited until the others left before they approached the tombstone.
Harry ran a hand across the top, leaving behind a trail of conjured white lily petals.
"We miss you, Hermione," Fred said quietly.
"Tell Mum bye," Harry told Rosie in a whisper.
Rosie let out a soft cry, probably discomfort more than acknowledgement that she stood six feet away from her mother's cold body.
The three of them gave one last look at the cold marble tombstone—
Hermione Jean Granger September 19, 1979 - August 9, 1997
'A mother's love endures through all.'
—before turning to leave together, leaving Theo alone in the cemetery beneath Harry's cloak.
*****
Dear Hermione,
I'm sorry.
Mione, I'm so fucking sorry.
It wasn't my fault this time. Everything without you is miserable. Theo is… is not doing good. I'll fix him though, I can get him through this, I hope.
Rosie though… Rosie is amazing. Mione, she's perfect. She's so tiny and fragile and beautiful.
I swear to you, I'm going to keep her safe until the end, okay? And I'll make Theo keep her safe after that. And if Theo won't, Fred swore he would. I can't leave you anything aside from that, but I think that's what you would want the most anyway.
I'll tell Rosie you love her every day, and I'll be the best godfather for as long as I can.
You deserved to be here to watch her grow up, but I hope you're at least watching her like my mum said she watches me.
I'll see you soon,
Love,
Harry