Chapter Text
The second day of May is a difficult one in the Wix world, and even 26 years isn’t enough distance to make it any easier. Everyone is caught in a sort of blurred state between rejoicing and mourning. So much was lost in one night and yet their very lives are built on it’s foundation.
It is a day of mixed celebration and remembrance. Diagon Alley is quiet for once in the year. Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes is closed today and the building is draped in black. The Burrow is crowded, but oddly solemn as they look at the faces of those who were there, and of those young family members who can never fully understand what that time was like. Godric’s Hollow is half shuttered with Wix families joining in memorial services and gatherings throughout the day. The memorials to that terrible event are crowded with charmed flowers and tokens of love for those who are gone but whose sacrifice was not in vain. The main street in Hogsmeade is almost entirely closed, its inhabitants too cast down to open their shops.
Hogwarts is the most solemn of them all.
There are no outward signs that this day is any different than any other within the walls of that castle, but a quiet that the place does not usually know outside of summer holidays descends on the corridors and classrooms. Even Peeves seems to sulk through the halls of that esteemed institution. Even after so many years, now that the school is full of students who are far too young to remember that day, the quiet remains. That quiet drapes over everything and even the most mischievous students take a day’s break from their work of causing chaos. Unbidden by any professors, unwelcome by some of them, that quiet persists despite any attempts to lift spirits. It is as if the castle itself is in mourning, and all those inside it must also be subject to that solemnity.
Harry Potter, after several years of hiding away when that anniversary arrived, began to go out to the memorial services. Now he arrives to as many as he can make an appearance at, accompanying his wife who lost her brother, his children who lost an uncle before they were born, and his godson who lost his parents before he could know them. Then they return to the place where all of this is rooted.
There is an open invitation to Hogwarts every year on this day. Allowing visitors on the grounds and in the school after classes are done on the permission of Headmistress McGonagall who refuses to lose a day of education, but cannot help herself becoming increasingly contemplative throughout the day. Dinner is a crowded affair, with special guests at the head table and visitors welcome to sit with their children or relations. It is a day that the staff of Hogwarts cannot bear to keep the school to themselves. A sorrow of this magnitude must be shared amongst as many people as are willing to bear it.
Of course, there has to be a speech. The day must be marked. It cannot be left unspoken even as everyone knows what they are mourning. Headmistress McGonagall must rise from her place in the center of the table, and she must address the crowded hall before her.
Each year she feels the burden more, as the day itself becomes less fresh in the collective memory and the difference between her age and the age of her students becomes all the more severe. Yet each year, she delivers what is expected of her. She rises and the Great Hall is silenced by that action. She looks along the table to her right and left and out into the hall, especially at the faces there who, like herself, were present on that fateful night, she sighs heavily, and she speaks,
“All of us, gathered here, are well aware of the significance of this date. Still, it must be said that this is the anniversary of the final battle of Hogwarts. It is the day that Voldemort died for the second and final time, ending a decades-long war, the human cost of which remains immeasurable… It is also the anniversary of the deaths of fifty-two brave, clever, determined, and kind friends and loved ones, who left their immutable mark on history when they came to this place and laid their lives down for the betterment of a war-torn world and the attainment of peace they never witnessed. And more importantly, their lives left a mark on the people who knew and loved them or love them still. Those of us who survived that night, who once yearly take on the voices of fifty-two of our fallen sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, relatives, neighbours, students, teachers, colleagues, and friends.
Each of them was, once, just as you students are now. Some of them never grew to be any older than some of you are now… And so… every year, on this date… we mark that they were here. We mark that we survivors were here alongside them. We mark that 26 years ago tonight a battle was fought, loved ones were lost, and their sacrifice allowed that a war should be won, that Darkness should be cut down by Light, and that hatred should be overcome by Love.”
Most students slowly say their goodbyes to visitors and return to their common rooms and dormitories and shared spaces to finish their day in a state of quiet contemplation. A few are taken to evening memorial services by parents and guardians, and rather a large bunch are signed out into the care and keeping of someone who is on their way to the Weasley’s Burrow.
The teachers and staff who are old enough to be survivors of that horrible night turned the care of the school over to the younger teachers and left to join memorial gatherings themselves. Professors McGonagall, Vector, Hagrid, Weasley, and Longbottom meet on the path to Hogsmeade, all heading to the same place at the same insistent invitation.
They end their day at the Burrow. Molly would have it no other way. She gathered more and more people in the first few years after the war, bringing them into her family to crowd their home at Holidays and random Saturdays, and her heart all year long. But it is tonight that she could not suffer the idea of not hosting her family, the emptiness of the house would be an unbearable reminder of who was missing.
So the family arrived, all joining together in a quiet, brief, celebration of their Victory, a toast to the final death of Voldemort. And then a second to the life and humour of Fred. A third to the memory and the gifts of Remus. Another to love and goodness of Tonks. And once more to all of the fallen fifty-two who fought and gave everything for the lives they now lived in peace.
Tears fall every year, for the loved ones they lost that day and the ones they lost throughout the wars against Voldemort. James, Lily, Sirius, Gideon, Fabian, Albus, Cedric, Dobby, Broderick, Mad-eye, Amelia, Emmeline, Charity, Ted, Bathilda, Hedwig… And the list went on and on. Each name spoken aloud, each memory shared, each person honoured.