A/N: As always, I do not own 'Harry Potter' or the characters affiliated with it. There, now that that is said, here is my one-shot, angst-y fan fic.
The main character is not named until the end of the fan fic; however, I believe that my readers can probably determine who the character is before the end of the fan fic.
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He stood alone. He stood by the grave and looked down at the name engraved on it. No one knew that he had come. No one would have suspected. He knew he'd get in trouble for it when he got back, but he didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore. No one mattered anymore, least of all, him…
Suddenly, he felt the pain, that awful, awful pain bursting in his chest. It was as if his heart had exploded. His face crumpled with the internal pain and silent tears fell from his eyes.
A scream broken the thick silence, shattered it like a hammer to a sheet of glass. The scream was unhuman, brutal, vicious, a scream that a creature wails when it has lost all hope, when it is beaten to death, and has only the strength to cry out that one last plead for life, but all in vain…
What scared him more was that he realized that the scream had come from him. He dropped to his knees, sobbing silently.
I would be sneered upon if anyone saw me acting like this. I'm supposed to be the great one, the popular one…he thought. But they don't know. This is not about them. This is about me. This is about them…
Suddenly, he started talking, talking to the wind, talking to those beneath the gravestones.
Hey. Yeah, it's me. I know if you could hear me, you'd be thinking that I was the last person you would ever think would be here mourning for you two…
You know, I always thought that if you died- when you died, that I would be happy. That I would be dancing on your grave and all that, running around and celebrating. I know I tortured you, but you tortured me too. You didn't know that? Oh…Well, now you do.
Anyway, I want to talk to you first, Harry. Um…I don't really know what to say now that I've come to speak to you. I'm just confused…so confused, maybe for the first time in my life…
I always expected that you would die. I just never thought that I would be there to see you die. I always thought that it was Harry vs Voldemort. I never thought that there would be others involved that would go down with you. I never thought that I would be there to see it happen…
I am such a coward. I didn't do anything. I have no idea why I followed you. I guess it was just because I'm me. I wanted to put on a show of bravado. Maybe for once I wanted to share the fame that the great Harry Potter had. I'm so stupid, so naieve and so very, very stupid. Before this happened, I thought that life was a game. I never took it seriously. I thought that hey, if you die, you'd always have a second chance. Well, I was wrong…
Maybe it was just this aura of fame and greatness surrounding you that made me think that you could never be touched, never be hurt. You were like a demigod or something in the wizarding world. I never expected that Voldemort could kill you so easily, just like he killed your parents. Avada Kedavra. Just two words. People always say that sticks and stones can break your bones, but words will never hurt you. Whoever came up with that saying should die of an Unforgiveable Curse. Then let's see what they think of words. Those two words have hurt more people than anyone will ever know, and not just the people who were killed by them…
Yeah, I know that people say that you didn't suffer. They tell me that your pain was over in just a second and a green flash of light. But my pain is far from over…So is everyone else's.
I think Hermione was hurt the worst. When she saw the life leave your body, when she saw your corpse crumple to the ground like a marrionette whose puppeteer suddenly let go of the strings, she screamed. I've never heard such an awful sound. I think it scared Voldy himself. Perhaps it shocked him enough to stop him from instantly killing her.
I remember her screaming her heart out, running over to you, the tears glistening on her face, seeing her kneeling down next to you and staring into your blank, lifeless, glassy eyes that were still open, like a doll's eyes. I think that just scared her more. She screamed more and more until I was nearly screaming. I wanted the screaming to stop. I wanted the pain to stop. I wanted the insanity to stop. I wanted things back the way they were before all of this happened…
And the screaming did stop. The scream stopped because of two words, and they weren't Ron's words as he screamed through his sobs, "Shut up! Hermione! Shut up!
He'll kill-" Those two words were "Avada Kedavra!" Personally, I don't think Voldy needed to say them. I think she died of sorrow and shock a second before he even cast the Death Curse.
Seeing Hermione Granger slump forward lifelessly over your body was like the second bombshell to my mind. Just when her screaming stopped, I wished for her to scream again. At least then I would know that she was alive. But she wasn't alive, so it's no use wishing. If wishes were fishes, then there would be no more room in the ocean for water.
Since she couldn't scream anymore and the silence was deafening, I screamed. I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to break the silence, shatter it to pieces. I wanted to burst out of this madness, this living nightmare…
And I did. Me, being the coward that I am, Apparated out of there. I remember the scene vividly in the second before I Apparated. Voldemort finally saw me in my hiding place. His awful red eyes, demon eyes, were glaring at me penetratingly like they wanted to strike me dead on the spot. I saw Ron, his look of terror and then uncontrollable rage as he saw me. I think he probably would have killed me if Voldemort didn't. After all, I was just sitting there, watching the scene play out like a horror movie, and doing nothing when I could have helped…
Anyway…It's no use to ponder that nightmare anymore. It's gone. But the pain isn't. I'm still screaming in my sleep when I see images of that horrible day flashing through my mind. I can't talk to anyone without the urge to scream uncontrollably or to lash out. They don't understand. They weren't there. Now I know what you felt like, Harry, when you saw Cedric Diggory die last year and everyone was making up stories about what really happened during the tournament. Now I know why you were quiet. It was because no one could share your sorrow since no one had personally seen it; no one had felt the horror that you had…
Speaking of Cedric, Cho was still mourning over him. You knew that, didn't you? You knew that and yet you still went to your death, fighting to bring down Voldemort when you knew that it was a one-way trip? I hate you Harry. I hate you. If you weren't dead, I'd want to kill you. How could you be so inconsiderate? You're a hypocrite. You claimed to care so much about this girl and yet you turn around and purposely get yourself killed just because you believe it's 'honorable' and 'noble'. You made her suffer. You're the one who pushed her over the edge. No one could have dealt with all that grief, especially not some fifteen-year-old girl who lost two people who she cared about within a short period of time of each other.
I remember the day when she snapped. She was just sitting in the Great Hall, eating her dinner as usual, silent and emotionless. Then suddenly, her face crumpled up and turned red, like she just remembered something. I saw her silently sobbing, and then she was bawling louder and louder until the whole Great Hall was staring at her. Her shoulders were heaving and she was practically choking on her food as she sobbed. Then she suddenly got up and ran from the hall. Somehow, I knew she wasn't coming back when she left. Well, maybe you'll be happy to know that they found her body, Harry. Her corpse washed up on the lake's shore. So now you've got two girls that you cared about with you, Harry. I hope you're happy.
I hate you, Harry. You've made everyone suffer just so you could die a hero. But I've brooded too much on you. I'm going to talk to Hermione now.
Hermione, I know I sometimes teased you about being a geeky bookworm and made fun of you for getting good grades. But I couldn't help it. I was jealous. Jealousy is a green-eyed monster, a green-eyed monster like that hypocrite Harry Potter. But I guess I cared about you, just like I cared about Harry. Wherever you are now, I hope that you bother Harry to death- or wait…Never mind. Anyway, just bug him and make him feel guilty about what he's done, okay?
You shouldn't have gotten yourself killed just because Harry was killed. I think you should have run away. Voldemort meant to kill him, not you. But you had to get yourself killed because he did, just because he was the little ringleader. Teachers at school are quieter. All of them cry sometimes over your deaths. Even Snape is missing having someone to pick on and torture all the time and having a know-it-all to answer his questions even if he did take points from Gryffindor when you did because he thought you were being a smarty-pants.
Well, you both made us suffer. Everyone misses you, I think. Except for Crabbe and Goyle, but that's probably because together they have the brainpower of a dried raisin. I don't think they can comprehend what's happened. They'll probably start mourning for you too once they realize what happened to you…ten years from now, that is.
I never understood why I missed you, why I grieved for you when everyone else did. I guess it's because people always say 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'. Since I didn't have many true friends, I guess I kept you guys the closest to me even though I denied it. But I'll never admit that I'm truly sad. I know I tortured you sometimes…So I guess I owe it to you guys that I should be less obnoxious to Ron.
I suppose the reason I am sad is because you gave me a challenge. You were always the great Harry Potter and I was always the one trying to soil your reputation and cut you down to mortal size. I suppose your popularity and the fact that nearly everyone liked you intimidated me. I just couldn't take the fact that there was a person that so many people could like when so few people liked me…So I got my pathetic revenge in the form of teasing and torturing you and your friends. But when you got taken out of my grasp by death, there was no one left to be a challenge for me, no one left to torture. We were enemies, but we were close enemies. When an enemy defeats his enemy, he should be celebrating. But when he loses his enemy to some force out of his control, he mourns the loss of his enemy because that means that he can never triumph over his enemy. Because of this, I suppose I mourn. So I'll admit it…
I miss you guys.
I'm not saying it again.
Hermione, don't think that I love you because I don't, and Harry, I know you're grinning wherever you are, but don't you dare get that idea either. I don't love either of you, not even in a friendly way. But I don't exactly hate you now either…I guess I just love to hate, and now that there's no one left for me to hate, I am sad because I have lost all purpose in my life. Maybe I'll discover who I really am later in life, maybe I'll discover that I have another purpose other than to be bitter and to hate everyone because I really hate to hate…But if I don't, then…
Well…I might be seeing you sooner than I thought.
Good bye, Harry. Good bye, Hermione.
He stood up, taking a deep, shaky breath as he looked down at the names engraved on the tombstones in the ground. Then Draco Malfoy dropped a black rose on the graves, turned and walked away.
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