Manacled

Once upon a time… there had been a girl who fought. Who believed that books and cleverness and friendship and bravery could overcome all things.
But now—
—that girl was gone.
She’d been all but killed during the war.

Harry died. They—they hung him up off the Astronomy Tower, and we watched him rot. They—they hung Ron and his family next to him. And Tonks and Lupin. They tortured them until they died

“The universe finally gave us something.”

I thought we’d both suffered enough that we’d get to have each other.”

our daughter I saved you both. That—is what I want.”

The fanfare is in the light, but the execution is in the dark.

“It would have been a privilege to have been friends with you in another life, Hermione Granger.”

He had my mother in a cage, in our drawing room.

“Or maybe I was just too tired and grieving to keep pushing you away. It hardly matters. You won.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a time limit on grief.”