A Year
By Misha

Disclaimer- Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling and is not mine, however much I might wish differently. However, I am not making any money off of this, so please do not sue me!

Author's Notes- This is a short, angsty Hermione piece. It's the year after Harry's death and how she manages to get through it. Sorry, I love angst. Well, that's all, enjoy!

Paring- Harry/Hermione, hinted Ron/Hermione.

Summery- A look into Hermione's life in the year following Harry's death.

Spoilers- All five books, I guess.

---

The hot July sun bore down as Harry James Potter was laid into the ground, almost 23 years to the date of his birth.

Only a small cluster of people was present in the cemetery to see the hero of the wizarding world laid to rest next to his parents. Many had turned up for his funeral and even more had paid their respects in one way or another since the news of his death, but this was different, more private. It belonged only to those who had loved him best.

A young woman with curly brown hair stood rigid, her eyes red from crying. A gold wedding band gleamed from the hand that rested on her rounded stomach and her face was white and grief-stricken as she watched the man she loved be lowered into the ground.

"Hermione?"

Hermione Granger-Potter looked in the direction the voice had come with and saw the sympathy in the eyes of one of her best friends.

"It's time to go." Ron told her gently.

Hermione nodded and followed him out of the cemetery, trying not to think that she was leaving her heart behind on this hot summer day.

---

The leaves had changed colour and autumn was upon them when Lily Potter made her way into the world.

From the moment of her birth on a clear October morning, her eyes were the clear green of her father and the grandmother she was named after.

There were tears in Hermione's eyes as she held the child who so reminded her of Harry. The child who would never know her father.

This child was a sacred gift. It was a part of Harry that would be with her forever, even though he was gone. This child had been created out of love. She was the most precious thing Hermione had ever seen. Her beautiful baby girl.

"Harry's child." She whispered as she held her daughter in her arms. "You're as much his as mine and I'm forever grateful for that."

She kissed the child's forehead gently, tears falling down her cheeks.

She was filled with love and joy at the birth of her beautiful baby, but even this moment was tempered with grief. If only Harry could have been there...

---

Winter came and life went on.

Hermione threw herself into the task of raising Lily by herself and wondered what she was going to do for the rest of her life. It wasn't like she'd ever need to work, Harry had left her more than well-provided for. Still, Hermione couldn't bear the idea of just doing nothing for the rest of her life.

Especially since the more time she spent alone, the more she was able to miss Harry. Not that she ever wouldn't, but his absence was more noticeable when she was all by herself.

Ron was a godsend, always there for her and Lily. But it wasn't the same. It would never be the same.

Those thoughts were in Hermione's head on a February day as she watched Ron play with her daughter.

It should have been Harry. But it wasn't and it never would be.

Besides, Hermione was afraid that if she spent too much time with Ron, he'd get the wrong impression.

She knew that he had feelings for her, that he had always had feelings for her. Though, he had kept them buried since Christmas of their sixth at Hogwarts when she and Harry professed their love for one another.

Ron had come to her that night and professed his own love and asked her why she chose Harry instead of him. She hadn't been able to give him an answer and their had been a silent tension between the three of them for quite sometime.

It had a dissipated a bit by the time they graduated and she and Harry had gotten married, but it never went away completely.

She was afraid that it would grow again, now that Harry was gone and the gap that had always caused Ron to keep his distance no longer existed.

She wasn't ready for that. Not now.

---

Spring brought what would have been her fifth wedding anniversary.

It was a day of tears and grief.

Hermione remembered how happy she had been five years earlier as she bound herself to Harry. She had been eighteen, about to turn nineteen that fall, and life was perfect. She had it all.

Or so it seemed. Who was she to know that in less that five years, her dream would become a nightmare? That her beloved husband would be taken from her? Leaving her with the daughter he'd never see and a bunch of plans that would never reach fulfilment.

It wasn't fair. She and Harry had gone through so much, they deserved the life that had been denied them.

It rained on the anniversary of the day that she had become Harry's wife and she was glad, because it seemed the perfect accompaniment to such a bitter day. A day that had once been so beautiful.

She cried herself to sleep that night and wished for the day to end.

She couldn't help but remember that the previous spring, she had been happy. Harry had been with her and they had been looking forward to the birth of their child.

Now Lily was here, but everything else was gone and Hermione couldn't wait for spring to leave and take with it all the memories of those happier days.

---

A year passed. Summer came again and with it the first anniversary of Harry's death.

Hermione once again found herself in the cozy little graveyard, this time with Lily in her stroller.

It seemed strange that an entire year had passed without him. The seasons had all come and gone and life had continued, even though he wasn't there.

Her life had continued.

She knelt on the hard ground and gently traced the words on the headstone.

Potter,
Harry James
1980-2003.
Beloved Son, Husband, Friend and Father,
Saviour of Us All:

The Boy Who Lived.

Hermione stifled a bitter laugh at those words. They followed him throughout his life and even in death. He was marked by those words, defined by them. He had never been able to get away from them.

But that wasn't how she thought of him. Not as a hero, but as simply the man she loved.

"I love you." She whispered, closing her eyes briefly.

There was so much she wanted to say, but she couldn't find the words. Not today. Maybe someday soon. She didn't know. She knew that the pain would start to ease and life would continue to go on.

She was not all alone, Ron was there and perhaps, someday, she would find with him something that, while never comparing to what she and Harry had had, was good and solid. Something that would make her happy.

After a long moment, Hermione turned and wheeled Lily's stroller out of the cemetery.

She knew that whatever came in the future, a part of herself would always be here with Harry, buried on a summer's day.

The last year hadn't changed that, nothing could.

The End