Title: Do Not Judge Me For What I Have Done, Or What I Have Failed To Do
Author: SuaveAurora
A/N: The lullaby is by Alison Krauss and is called Slumber My Child.
The air was musty and stale; death peeked around the corners of every hedge, every tree, and every wilted flower that struggled to emerge from the cracked, dry soil. The sky was dark and threatening with heavy storm clouds, ripe with rain, hanging menacingly in the blackened sky. A shrill of wind blew violently, forcing the people standing below to grip their cloaks and hold a shivering hand to their hats, lest they fly away in the temperamental wind. The sun was hidden, as it had been hidden for the past ten years, and would remain locked away for years to come.
There was a group of people huddled around the square; a courtyard of coarse dirt and sparse grass. Each one wore long black robes, their faces haggard and weary as soft rain drops fell onto their faces before dripping down to the ground. Wands aimlessly at their sides, they looked towards the center of the courtyard with disdain and mild excitement, their faces set in stone expressions and only their grim smiles and the anticipation in their eyes gave them away. They had waited for this moment for years.
Ever since the war had first began.
But there was one group of people who were not smiling. Who had dreaded this moment for years.
Ever since the war had first began.
Women with long cloaks covering their hair from being rained upon, their eyes misty and guarded, their faces as cold as the spring breeze that swept through the air, huddled close to their warm bodies their children, pale and porcelain, their aristocratic hands gripping their cloaks together as they struggled against the bitter wind. Yet their faces were as masked as their mothers and elder brothers, and only the most trained observer could detect the crystal tears as they fell, softly and quietly, from each glistening blue and brown eye.
No one spoke, no one dared breathe as the names were called out.
"Crabbe, Vincent." A portly wizard shouted from where he stood on a wooden platform, surrounded by the gaping witches and wizards. There was a soft, almost inaudible, scream from the group of women as a man stepped forward, his black robes masking his face as he emerged to the platform, his hands bound behind his back. A young enfant cried and held their whimpering face against their mothers shaking body, and a man, the son of said Crabbe, looked helplessly at his mother, yearning to comfort her but knowing that he was unable of such miracles.
A few seconds later, after his crimes had been read, the man was led from the square and placed in a carriage, to be carried the long trek to Azkaban.
For the rest of his long years.
And this time, there was no escaping, for there was no hope left in any of the distraught witches and wizards, and for once, eternity finally meant eternity.
One witch overlooked the scene, her translucent blonde hair flowing freely in the angry wind, her sapphire eyes staring without expression at those who observed the 'hearing' with quite obvious joy. Her ruby lips were pursed with displeasure and unshed tears glimmered in each eye, occasionally dropping hesitantly onto her pale skin. She stood, once proud and now broken, amidst the other women, her hands clutching her ermine lined robes with such ferocity that they threatened to shed blood at any moment. A diamond ring, which had once been the envy of many a young bride, now rested, tarnished and dull, on a long finger.
Her steady, unsympathetic, gaze was set upon one young man in general. The boy they had once taunted, once never took seriously, the boy whose scar shone as brightly as the many tears on the many faces, the boy whose hair did not lay flat with the steady downpour of rain but rather stuck up disorderly. He kept wiping his glasses on his robes, never taking his cruel eyes from those being led, like lambs to a slaughter, to the wooden platform.
She knew what he was thinking, what those unwavering and harsh eyes were saw. He saw evil men, men who had killed and tortured and sought destruction for pleasure, finally getting their justice. He saw the women who had stood loyally by their husband's sides, crying bitter tears as they huddled with young children. He did not know them as she knew them, however. He only saw pitiful women, women who were too weak to disobey their parents orders of marriage, and children who were as blindly led as their cruel fathers, who would grow up to be as damaged and inane as he imagined them all to be. He saw broken families, broken by their own greed and prejudices, broken by their own unwillingness to cooperate, broken by their despicable leader and broken by their own fault. He saw people who were the mirror images of what he wanted to see, people without emotion but coal for hearts, daggers for eyes, and harpies for voices. He saw monsters.
Because that was what he wanted to see.
And when each name was called, and a despairing moan was heard from the clutter of wretched women, he did not feel regret or pity. He saw hateful people getting what they had always deserved. He saw the faces of his deceased mother and father, of his god father and of his mentor. He saw the faces of his friends in pain and the faces of his tormented childhood.
He saw what he wanted to see.
The woman gave a scoff of laughter which was almost instantly consumed by her tears flowing freely from her eyes. A nearby woman instantly came to her side and wrapped her loving, motherly arms around her friend's frail body as she rocked her softly, like a mother singing a lullaby to a child. The man was distracted and gave a halfway glance to where the woman had stood, but was now kneeling in the wet dirt; her face buried in her friends robes. He shook his head and refused to imagine the pain she was in. How could she be in pain, he surmised, after all that he had suffered? She would never know pain like he had.
Do not judge me. She thought angrily in her head, as she inhaled the smell of jasmine perfume that had once graced every mansion and every childhood home. For you do not know me.
You do not know any of us.
You claim we have such prejudices against you and yours, yet are these prejudices not mirrored in yourselves? Do you not hear the word Slytherin and instantly cringe, instantly group us with those killers you heard stories about. Do you not walk on the other side of the street when you see an aristocratic woman or man in a horse drawn carriage, their faces set forward and glistening diamonds on their necks. Do you not wonder whose blood went into their wealth; do you ever consider that they inherited their wealth from family, not murder? Do you not assume every cruel-hearted person you've ever met was a 'death eater' or that every death eater was, in fact, a cruel monster who tormented young children and had no souls, no hearts? Do you not feel the same hatred towards us as we once claimed to feel towards you.
She had shut her eyes tightly and could hear the dim music of a lullaby being played in her ears. She was a child again; a young girl huddled on a feather mattress underneath a willowing canopy made of cloth. Her black haired vixen of a sister sat beside her, her other gentle sister behind her, as they told stories and whispered in the cover of the night, hovering towards each other for the warmth that the fireplace would not offer. She could feel the ornate brush going through each golden lock as her brown haired sister softly caressed her scalp, as her gentle fingers played with the tendrils by her neck. She could hear her dark haired sister telling her stories to calm her fears of the raging storm that violently shook outside the window. Stories of fairies and magical creatures in another magical world, where there were nothing but unicorns and dancing nymphs as they played all day long.
She remembered the door softly creeping open as a beautiful woman stepped inside, her silk night robes grazing the floor as she crept over to the bed where her daughters sat, her black hair loosely held up in a French braid.
"Can you not sleep?" She asked in her gentle voice.
"The storm rages, mother, and I fear it too much to sleep!" Cried the young blonde haired girl, as she snuggled against her sister's frail body.
Her mother laughed, a delicate laugh, like an angel's harp being played on the highest cloud in Heaven. "Oh my darling child, the storm cannot harm you. The wind is confined outside, and here you are, in a warm house with a fire. The thunder is only sound, and sounds you surely cannot fear. And the lightening is only a lantern to guide others home and out of the storm. Do not fear the rain, my darling, it may hit the skin but it never leaves a mark." Still, she smoothed over the thick lace covers and sat down, the black haired girl instantly scooting over to rest under her mother's thin arm. Her mother stared at the blazing fire and softly sang,
Slumber, my darling, thy mother is near, Slumber, my darling, the birds are at rest,
Guarding thy dreams from all terror and fear,
Sunlight has pass'd and the twilight has gone,
Slumber, my darling, the night's coming on.
Sweet visions attend thy sleep,
Fondest, dearest to me,
While others their revels keep,
I will watch over thee.
The wandering dews by the flow'rs are caressed,
Slumber, my darling, I'll wrap thee up warm,
And pray that the angels will shield thee from harm.
The wizard's booming voice shattered the young women's memories and she pulled away from her friend and stood to her feet, realizing with a shudder that she was still in the courtyard, still surrounded by her weeping friends and the malevolent stares of those who had forever called them enemies.
You may group us as evil, as creatures destined to forever ruin your lives, whose sole purpose in life was to destroy all good in the world. In fact, you may consider yourself to be good and us to be evil, for there is no in between in your eyes, is there? You and yours are the only ones capable of emotion, we are not. Our pain means nothing because we are nothing. We deserve it all, don't we? We are not humans. You do not dare to think of us as humans, as people the same as you and your friends, who were led blindly by a leader who promised us security and safety. But because our lives so starkly contrasted with your own, you will never let us rest.
And because of our delusional loyalty to one we called master, you considered us damned and soul-less.
However, young man, there is no such thing as black and white.
For we are not black and white.
And for what reasons our families delved deeper into the Dark Arts and followed the man once called Lord Voldemort, you will never know. You assume we left Hogwarts and, in our spare time, decided that maiming and killing was the only option left. Options.
You think we had options? Any of us? Or perhaps our school grudges carried over past graduation and neither side could let their pride suffer enough to admit defeat. And so we fought.
Twice we fought. But only now do we acknowledge the end. The Quidditch match is over, and yet there will be no celebrations.
For how can there be celebration when the field is littered with corpses.
But do our corpses matter to you? Do our dead interest you? Or is it only the fallen Dumbledore, the lost Sirius, the death of your parents and the losses of your friends that interests you now? For we do not feel, certainly not as you do. She thought bitterly and with such disdain that she could almost feel blood in her mouth.Certainly we are not capable of such emotions.
And yet,She glanced over at the hunched back forms of her childhood friends, the silent weeping and silent screams that emitted from each fallen form's mouth, almost more unbearable than a tantrum might have been. Still trying to be brave, still trying to uphold family honor and pride. When they had none left.
And yet, you, who has claimed to have suffered more than any of us, has not seen the things that I have seen. You, who claim to have felt the brunt of all the pain felt over the years, have not felt the pain that we have. Your parents died when you were a child, you never knew what life was with them and so you could never truly mourn life without them. And yet I, dear boy, have known life with my mother and beloved father by my side. And I have known life without them. I saw my beautiful mothers body lain against the cold marble floor of our childhood mansion, her skin pale with the loss of blood, her thin black hair thickened with dried blood. I have seen my father, once proud and aristocratic, wealthy and intelligent, cultural and fatherly, broken into pieces as he sat in his study, his once proud head held low in his arms as he wept tears he prayed we would not hear.
I have seen my friends live...and then die. I have seen the bodies of the same people I once attended balls with, ate with at family banquets, and played games with when I was younger. I have seen the bloodied corpses of those whom I called family, those whom I called friends, and those whom I once believed I would not survive without. And survive I somehow did, but never fully. With each dead body, with each broken spirit, a part of me died that I would never regain. That I feared to regain, feared to dwell on the memories and the past for too long, else I realized what I realize now. That without them, I cannot go on.
I have seen my family torn apart, half sent to Azkaban for the long years, ripping them of their souls and sanity. I have seen my child grow up, fearing to befriend those who were as set against him as we once were set against them. I have heard the things whispered about each of the Pureblood families, the stories, the lies and the rumors.
And to think, once, family honor and reputation was all that we had.
Ah, I have seen much more than you. And I continue to feel more pain than you have ever felt in your life. For now it is our families being broken apart, again, without chance of revival. It is our husbands being led to their deaths, some in damp cells in Azkaban, and others to be given the dreaded kiss. It is our children who will grow up devoid of a life with a father, living with the memory of when their mothers once smiled and laughed.
We did smile and laugh, indeed, we used to smile and laugh quite a lot.
The orchestra played as loudly and majestically as they could, their violin bows sweeping against the carved instruments with dramatic flourish. In front of them, filling up the large ballroom, were women in brightly colored robes and sparkling diamonds and rubies, and men with their black top hats and pressed dress robes, waltzing in delightful ecstasy across the marble floor. Crystal chandeliers hung from the frescoed ceilings, as full length mirrors on the walls made dozens of clones of every fashionably dressed witch and wizard.
She remembered looking up at her husband's face, her eyes shining with the pure happiness that she had once felt. He had his strong hand on the small of her back, leading her in the waltz that she had memorized ever since she was a child … practicing for hours with her sisters in front of her mother's vanity .. dressed in her mother's finest silken robes.
She placed her small hands around him and held him close, whispering in his ear, "I very well may be in love you," she teased softly.
He pulled back and looked in her eyes and whispered back, "I very well hope so."
She laughed and threw her head back, her glistening golden hair dancing in the reflection of the many crystal lights. As he spun her across the floor she saw her young son's face as he stood beside the other children, peering around the large banquet tables and ducking behind chairs as soon as they realized they had been spotted. He had stood with his thumb in his mouth, his eyes watching every step that his mother and father took, his little blue eyes reveling in their every graceful move. His mother seemed almost overwhelmed in the bright blue and gold set of robes she wore, and he remembered her spraying vanilla perfume as he stood in her room, watching her place red lipstick on her dainty lips as she sat in front of her vanity. The diamond jewelry adjourning her ears and the necklace that covered her bodice seemed to weigh her down, yet she had never been more graceful in the eyes of her loving son.
Her husband noticed the gaping boy seconds after she had. He laughed and waved his fingers at his son, who bashfully turned and ran after his friends, a blush overcoming his little face.
"How perfect our son is," She whispered softly to her husband. "How wonderfully perfect."
He gazed in her eyes before smiling and pressing her closer to him, quietly responding, "Yes, perfect in every way."
There was a crash of thunder and it took all the woman had in her to remember her mothers once soothing voice. The thunder is only sound, and sound you surely cannot fear. She repeated to herself, a silent mantra.
The man had looked away and was focusing on the newest arrival, whose hands were also tightly bound with unbreakable coils, and whose face was gazing longingly on his red headed wife and his young son and daughter, who had hidden their faces and whose sobs could only be heard but not seen.
Yes. We lived in caves, with bones for our furniture, and the body count of our 'victims' as the only thing that kept us going. The blonde woman thought sarcastically. We never shared happiness with our families, and we never laughed or loved. Whom do monsters love?
You do not know us well enough to condemn us for our faults, and you do not know us well enough or where we have been and what we have seen to judge us. You do not know the tears shared, the laughter spread, the pain felt and the love that we have given and received in return.
"Black, Bellatrix." A dark haired witch stepped defiantly to the platform, her black hair whipping in the wind, her eyes staring straight ahead. She did not hesitate; she did not glance at anyone before she stood silently, awaiting her sentence.
And only one woman amongst the entire gathered group could see the tears, mixing with cold raindrops, falling swiftly down Bellatrix's cheeks.
Bellatrix Black, the horrible woman who killed your Sirius… now she gets what she deserves, doesn't she? She existed only to cause you grief, didn't she? She never loved her family … she did not have one. She never spent hours sitting with her sisters as they tried to decide what to wear, she never brushed her younger sister's hair and she never played house with the porcelain china dolls that her father never brought her. She never sat, mesmerized, at her mother's reflection as she placed each sapphire stone in her ears, getting ready for another Christmas Yule Ball. She never sat in her room, alone, crying bitter tears until a hesitant sister stepped inside and wrapped their arms around her shaking body as she sobbed in their robes. She never felt heartbreak, she never felt remorse. She was born evil and always has been evil.
She has never laughed hysterically as her mischievous cousin removed the chair legs of her Great Uncle Alphreaus arm chair, and she never tried to hide wild snorts of laughter even as her mother scolded her on the damage she could have done her poor Great Uncle. She never regretted joining up with the Dark Lord, and she never spent evenings with her husband, wondering if she would ever become a mother, or ever find the joy in life that she had once known when she was younger.
No, never.
And as she is being led to her death, you will not imagine the gleeful four year old that she once was, setting table cloths on fire with her brand new wand her doting grandfather had given her as a present. You will not imagine the eleven year old girl, first getting her letter, and her excitement as she hastily showed her father the list of the required schoolbooks. And you will not have known the seventeen year old girl who had just been proposed to by her Hogwarts boyfriend, a Rodolphus Lestrange, and who had accepted with tears of happiness in her eyes. You will never have imagined that she had spent the next three hours sitting in her mother's parlor, telling her mother, her aunt, and her two eager sisters every detail and every sentence that he had said.
And now she was going to die, alone, on that dark spring day.
You think your life is so hard, you think that you have felt the most hardship and pain throughout this war, and now that is over you don't know what to do with yourself. You look at the bodies of your friends and feel an overwhelming hatred towards us, because we were the 'causes', the 'scapegoats' of this war. We started it for pure fun, even though we have lost just as many friends and suffered just as many losses.
And continue to do so. For we lost the war, dear boy, and the losers will always suffer more than the winners, for we have not only lost our husbands and our children, our parents and our sisters, but also our hope, our pride, our family loyalties, and all of the memories of a past we once held so dear.
We, Harry Potter, have lost it all.
"Malfoy, Lucius." Was shouted from the platform.
The blonde haired woman could no longer contain her sadness, and as the tears poured freely from her eyes, so did the screams from her mouth. She tried to run to the man, with damp blonde hair and downcast eyes, but someone held her back with strong arms, and whispered words of endearment into her ears.
"Hush, darling, it'll all be over soon." They whispered; their voices like a mother's caress.
"Lucius!" The woman sobbed, her hands held in front of her mouth, her eyes in wide horror as she saw the man raise his head and stare into her eyes, before being carted off to the carriage. "Lucius!" She moaned, falling to her knees.
This time, she did not get back to her feet.
And as her fur lined robes were coated with mud and dirt, she knelt in the ground and let the rain water pour over her face. He was gone, it was over.
For all of them.
Do not judge me, for you do not know who I have been in the past, who I am in the present, and who I might have become in the future. Do not judge me for the dreams of my family and the dreams of my friends, or for the dreams that I, too, once held dear. They differed from your own, but they were still dreams. Do not judge me for the hope I once clung to, or for the advice I once took. Do not judge me for those who I led and those who were led by me.
Do not judge me for what I have done, nor for what I have failed to do.
And Narcissa Malfoy wept.