I Watched

I watched as he died. I watched him walk away. I watched as he was shunned and wrongly accused. I watched, and did nothing!

He was my best friend, but I wasn't any kind of friend to him. What kind of friend just leaves you to fight a battle you can't possibly win, all alone? He was the one to save me from becoming Kentucky Fried Wizard when we – er, I – decided to tickle a sleeping dragon that had made the mountains home. And I just watched as they accused of killing muggle-born students and hoarding strange animals in and around the castle, when the latter was truly me.

They slandered his name, slapped his face, and slaughtered, not only his hopes, but he himself. And it kills me now to know that I was the first to do it all…

He was first destroyed by magic, and then by muggle, at a time when it was more dangerous to be a witch or wizard, than to swallow six pounds of arsenic. It was a time when swallowing poison was not only less dangerous, but more desirable than possessing and practicing magic; and he was fed to the sharks.

Rumeur Skeeter wrote in the Daily Prophet of my "bravery in surviving this malicious beast" and how I wasa "true man" for revieling him for what he was. But while I was being praised as a "lion-heart hero", my best friend was being ripped apart, little piece by little piece, as the dementors took his soul.

The last thing he heard from me was in front of a camera. I spat on him and said, "You are a snake amongst man and wizard alike." Even as I said those words, I saw the flash of pain dart through his eyes, before it turned to anger and he tried to strike me.

There are none in this world who deserve the fate he faced, and there are not enough words to explain what he went through because of me.

Not one day has gone by when I do not think, "Where did I go wrong? At what point could I have stopped all this from happening? Was it when I chose my last words to him, or perhaps further back, when I first learned of the missing muggle-borns, or even further back,when I agreed to build this school with the girls?" But how can one be certain when his actions might have changed the world?

I watched him die.

They took him to a muggle village and cried, "Witch! Witch!" In his pockets they'd placed vials and roots, candles and papers scrawled with gibberish.

That evening he was taken to the stake and burned alive. I stood in the shadows of a building and tried to block out his screams, tried to ignore the smell of burning flesh and hair, tried to blot out the sight that was branding itself on my memory; but I couldn't take my eyes away, couldn't take my eyes away, couldn't cover my ears or pinch my nose. He was my best friend! So I just watched in silence.



As he died, he swore vengeance on those who'd betrayed him (me), swore that one day, a Gryffindor would cry wolf and no one would listen while his heir avenged him and showed what things would really have been like, had he truly done what he was being punished for.

I will never know if his final screams come to life, for this night I am old, and I lay on my death bed. This night I just hope that he will forgive me when I greet him again.

Godric Gryffindor