Author's Note: First off, sorry to everyone who was expecting a story to be out in the last month. I've been having really bad issues with the internet for the past two weeks, and I just got it back to the point where I can write something without writer's block backfiring on me. Thank you for being so patient, and as always, I hope you do enjoy the story I've written. Without further ado, here's the story! Please read and review if you have anything to say!

Title/Link: In the End

Team: Kenmare Kestrels

Position: Beater 2

Extension Used: Yes

Season 6, Round 12: Write about Ron's relationship with a member of the Order of the Phoenix – Minerva McGonagall

Optional Prompts: (object) skull, (profession) photographer, (dialogue) "You have a kind of aroma about you."

In the End by ValkyrieAce

It had been seven years since the Battle of Hogwarts took place. Students and teachers fought, the divide between the four houses forgotten in the struggle to live for the next day against one common antagonist: Voldemort. Even thinking about that name still gave Ron the creeps.

He had been defeated, but it came with a price. Many people died in the carnage of the Death Eaters' invasion of Hogwarts, people who had cared for others and had others who cared for them. His own damn brother had died to protect the future of the Wizarding World. But he remembered feeling particularly affected by Colin Creevey's death, not knowing why it felt so sick and unjustified for Colin to have died at the hands of this madman.

And after all that time, Ron didn't really know how he had gotten back there.

To Colin Creevey's gravestone by the grounds of Hogwarts.

He wasn't sure exactly how he had come to this particular gravestone, considering his own brother's memorial stone was a few patches away. He never really knew Colin all that well either, only remembering the way he would follow Harry around, the most prominent reason being his admiration for Harry. Colin was someone who had constantly annoyed him during their years in Hogwarts, simply with his presence alone.

So why was he still rooted to the spot, staring at Colin's gravestone?

"You know, lad, you're never going to find the answers you need looking like that."

Ron startled and turned to see his old professor, Minerva McGonagall, standing beside him. He frowned, not wanting to talk to anyone at that point, but here as someone who might be able to answer what questions he did have about his inability to move on from Colin's gravestone. From Colin's death.

"Good afternoon, Professor," Ron started, feeling awkward to even have to attempt conversation when his thoughts weren't helping him in the least. She looked at him then, a familiar twinkle taking over her that reminded him indescribably of Dumbledore's mischief, and he relaxed.

"His was the saddest death of all, don't you think?" she asked, staring fondly at the gravestone as though it were Colin. Ron frowned and turned to her slightly to see what she meant, but all he could see was a faint smile and a fondness that took over her eyes, masking the pain of the last few decades in a single motherly look. He had never thought of her as motherly before.

"I think that's a deduction that's different for everyone," he said, his eyes widening when his professor snorted in response.

"Then, tell me. Why did you become a photographer?" she asked, her eyes speaking of a new knowledge that he so desperately wanted to shine a light onto.

"I became a photographer because I wanted a profession that didn't ever have to lead to death," Ron muttered, glancing at the gravestone for a few short seconds before meeting her eyes again.

He knew that reasoning wasn't true. While it was true that he became a photographer to stay away from the more threatening job aspect, he did love his job now. If he was there out of a whim, he could have chosen to take pictures of something he truly loved. Instead, he took pictures of things that had a more morbid undertone. He usually preferred to photograph places where a great disaster had occurred, though his most recent endeavour into photography had taken him to explore the Chamber of Secrets again. The pile of skull and bones would have been perfect material for his art.

But he had never really had a reason to go into any of it. Why was he so interested in a camera? Why did he start in the first place?

Minerva spoke again. "You have a kind of aroma around you," she said, grinning when Ron startled once more.

"I think you're lying, " she spoke slowly, smiling fondly at him, "not to me, but to yourself. You have a kind of aroma around you. And you standing in front of this grave proves it."

Confused, Ron turned to her again, awaiting the explanation she was sure to give. Of course, she did not disappoint, throwing her arm around his shoulder.

"Colin was… an extraordinary child," she started, "he was happy in the way not a lot of students were. He was a purer child. Even though he wasn't the most social student, he did things easily that others had a hard time doing. It was in that way that he was a true Gryffindor."

A true Gryffindor… Ron thought, his eyebrows furrowed as he thought through her words. He wasn't really sure where she was going with this, but Colin's grip on his emotional stability was making him desperate to know.

"He did things the only way he could, and that was to try his best in absolutely everything. That way, he had no regrets. And he had always done so with a smile."

Ron remembered coming across his dead body in the Great Hall after the war had ended and looking at his ashen face, realizing that there was a smile on Colin's face, even in death. He looked down at his shaking hands, wanting to stop the emotional turmoil from breaking him, but he stood resolutely as she kept going.

"In the heart of everything, Colin's admiration for Harry was just that. Admiration for Harry. Not the Boy-Who-Lived, or the prophesized child, but the simple idea of just Harry. And in that sense, he admired the Golden Trio for everything they've done to protect Harry."

Tears burned at his eyes at the memory of his close friends – at least, they were close once, before they drifted apart from the pain of their own losses – and he stifled them back. As much as he yearned for their company once more, he wasn't sure he could handle it if he was ever to lose them again. And that was something that kept him happy as he watched them pave their own way in life.

"He was loyal to Harry's cause and in that sense, he was loyal to you. And I think you realize that. You want to honour that by taking up what Colin loved the most. Photography."

He didn't truly understand the depth of the honour that went to the students who died in the war. But if anyone deserved to be honoured, it was Colin.

"Thank you, Professor," he said as he walked away. Minerva smiled as he walked through the patch of gravestones to make his way to the castle, only to stop suddenly.

"Oh, and you can't tell someone that their aroma is weird, by the way. Makes you sound much less like the stately professor I knew!"

Ron turned away from the gravestone, as Minerva's laughter echoed through the patch, and walked through the familiar halls of Hogwarts, a smile gracing his face at the prospect of photographing the place where both he and Colin, along with most of the other students of Hogwarts, began dreaming of a life worth living.

Fin

Word Count: 1,190

Additional Prompts:

The Golden Snitch - Through the Universe - (word) 188. Synodic Period — carnage

The Golden Snitch - Ollivander's Wand Shop - Fir: Write about a survivor.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - The 365 Prompts Challenge - 351. Word - Justify