Summary: The journal is filled with names, and the stories and lessons behind each one. After the final battle, Harry is writing in far too many.
Disclaimer: Do I look like JKR to you? The answer, my friends, is NO. The title comes from Shakespeare's "Macbeth". If you haven't, you should read it. It's creepy and awesome.
SPOILERS: For pretty much everything. If you haven't read all the books or at least seen all the movies, and don't want spoilers, STOP HERE.
Warning: First published work in the Harry Potter fandom. I'm not even sure it is a fandom—more like a behemoth. Point being, this is my first public foray into the madness!
Note: If you like this, please let me know! I have an idea to continue this by writing out each of the entries in full. Tell me if you're interested in seeing it. Thanks!
James Potter…
Lily Potter…
Quirinus Quirrel…
Nicolas Flamel…
Perenelle Flamel…
Gilderoy Lockhart…
Barty Crouch Sr…
Cedric Diggory…
Barty Crouch Jr…
Sirius Black…
Dolores Umbridge…
Amelia Bones…
Albus Dumbledore…
Alastor Moody…
Rufus Scrimgeour…
Bathilda Bagshot…
Ted Tonks…
Dirk Cresswell…
Peter Pettigrew…
Dobby…
Harry traced a finger over the names in the leather-bound journal, each one heading a parchment page full of his own handwriting in black ink. Some, a rare few, had two pages all to themselves. He'd written the names at the top of each page slightly bigger than he normally would have, so that they jumped out when you looked.
Sighing, the Boy-Who-Lived turned to the page after the one headed Dobby. It was blank. He dipped his quill into the inkpot, gently tapping the tip on the edge to draw off the extra ink. Harry lowered his quill to the top of the blank page, adding the name with exhausted care.
Vincent Crabbe…
Harry quickly filled up the page with everything he knew about Crabbe, pausing only when he reached the end of the page to add a tiny footnote, as he had with every page before it.
d. 2 May, 1998.
No one has to follow orders blindly.
He looked the page over once, and turned to the next, swallowing the lump in his throat. He hesitated only a moment before dipping the quill again and touching the tip to the parchment page.
Fred Weasley…
Harry took more time with this one, pausing between sentences and blinking away tears. It wouldn't do to muddle the ink. He used two pages. At the bottom of the second, he wrote a slightly similar footnote.
d. 2 May, 1998.
There's always time for a laugh.
He stared at the parchment again for a moment, before moving on to the next page.
Remus Lupin…
Harry was gripping the quill so hard his hand was beginning to feel sore. Remus, too, had a full set of double pages. The footnote on his read:
d. 2 May, 1998.
Loneliness is something you choose.
The Gryffindor sighed, dropped his quill, and, removing his glasses, scrubbed his eyes with his sleeve; forgetting the dust and grime and spell residue. He was tired, but there were far too many pages to write tonight, and he wouldn't sleep until then.
Nymphadora Tonks…
d. 2 May, 1998.
True beauty is relative.
Lavender Brown…
d. 2 May, 1998.
Infatuation is different from love.
Colin Creevey…
d. 2 May, 1998.
The unexpected can happen to anyone.
Severus Snape…
The scratching of the quill stopped. Harry laid it down beside the journal for a moment, taking off his glasses to wipe at them uselessly as he considered what to write down. He grimaced, seeing not the wooden desk and journal in the Gryffindor Tower Common Room, but the inside of the Shrieking Shack, and the face of a dying man.
The former Potions Master had been only just as old as Harry's parents—only thirty-eight. He had looked so much older…but the burden of spying and the war had done that to a relatively young man. Harry blinked and found himself back in the Common Room. He picked the quill back up, dipped it again, and began to write.
Professor Snape took up four pages. Harry wrote of his love for a girl called Lily Evans, and how that love helped to orchestrate the Dark lord Voldemort's downfall. At the bottom of the fourth page, Harry did not hesitate.
d. 2 May, 1998.
True heroes hide in the most unlikely of places.
He nodded slowly, flexing his fingers. One more.
Harry would probably never be truly finished writing if he had the ability to document every person who had ever died for or because of him, and the lesson he learnt from them. There were so many he didn't know, so many whose names could never join those he had written in the journal, simply because he had no way of knowing.
So many the world would never know about, simply because no was there when they were murdered. Probably a good few hundred witches and wizards. Most likely dozens of terrified Muggles who had only gotten in the way of Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
Harry frowned, trying not think about all the nameless people he couldn't do anything to save, and picked up the quill again, looking to the center of the next page. In the very middle, with no intent to write any sort of remembrance for the last name, he wrote:
Tom Marvolo Riddle.
d. 2 May, 1998.
Living without love isn't really living at all.
The seventeen-year old gave the parchment one last look, and closed the journal. Plenty of pages were left, and Harry hoped he would not have to use them for a very long time. He stood up and stretched, tucking the journal into his robes. Harry didn't feel quite as tired anymore. Maybe…one more look at his surviving friends' faces, down in the Great Hall.
The dead would be remembered; he would make sure of that. But now, it was time for the living.