Ostensible Hierarchy
Disclaimer: I do not claim Harry Potter.
Summary: "One cannot enforce one's beliefs upon the world; the true tyrant cannot exist." Voldemort ponders his own fall from the throne decades after defeating the Golden Trio. "If one cannot succeed, then why live?" Hermione's words ring true in his ears.
I am Hermione Granger.
His lips formed the name awkwardly, wincing when the syllables sounded forced. His alabaster skin was immanently lurid to him against the more pristine walls of the chamber. It grew increasingly facile to consign his phantasms to the back shelves of his thoughts though, so his sanguinary skin did not bother him much.
They had ostracized him, mentally tormented him beyond the brink of sanity, unabashedly evinced his pain as a trophy of their victory, and now that he had finally eluded them, he hoped that they had forgotten him. His desire was so desperate however that he knew it wouldn't be realized. After all—regardless of how his throne had been ripped away, how he had been clinically proclaimed an insane monster, how his enemies had ultimately triumphed—he was still Lord Voldemort. There were days when he wished he was still Tom Riddle.
He resumed his reading.
I begin by addressing the time and circumstances of my predicament, which are simply that it is too late for either fight or flight. It is exactly as I had planned it. As I pen this very word, the pounding accrues, in sync with the outer wards' abating in strength. The Dark Mark alone illuminates my writing.
We—Ron, Harry, and I—formally entered the Order of the Phoenix and The War shortly before graduation, young, confident, and foolish. I suspect that, back then, only Harry even partially grasped that we, the children, would not be able to conceal ourselves behind the aegis of adults. Not if we lived to see the end.
We were delegated "safe tasks" upon admission into the Order: Harry used his publicity to rally support, Ron scrutinized The War stances of important personages, and I recorded possible Death Eater movements and motives. The assignments were undoubtedly tedious, sometimes even trivial. I had genuinely felt that I was contributing my share though, for my natural blinkers of youth prevented me from actually seeing Order members who wearily stumbled back, late at night, with crimson designs littering their bodies. My innocence was thus protected, as the adults had intended. I wonder why anyone bothered.
In early March next year, the Death Eaters massacred a poorly-protected Order meeting. Charlie had always possessed a loose tongue around his fellow dragon handlers. March 27th, my parents died at the hands of Bellatrix, who hadn't even known they were my parents. To her, they were only two more muggles with more money than muggles should rightfully have, at a ball too lavish for muggles to rightfully attend. It was an insufferably blunt way of informing me that it didn't matter that I had been Head Girl, that I was Harry Potter's best friend, or that I was part of the Order of the Phoenix. I didn't matter to the opposing side, no matter what I did or who I was. At that time, I had thought, "If I die for the cause today, the Death Eaters wouldn't be targeting me on purpose. I would be another random mudblood that shouldn't be alive."
For two months afterwards, I mourned in the manner of a five-year-old whose lollipop had been torn away, except that it was my world I had to relinquish. It is self-pity that rouses the cries of the five-year-old.
The public soon learned of our losses and rapid opinion changes ensued. I remember the December 23rd newspaper poll results: 68 percent in favor of Voldemort, 20 percent in favor of the Order of the Phoenix, 12 indifferent. I had thought to myself, "These people have lost neighbors, best friends, sons and daughters to Death Eaters"…and then I finally understood the universal instinct for self survival. No one cared whether Light or Dark won, so long as their individual life force was left intact.
I lost my innocence with this confirmation, but my self-pity remained: alone at night, I would envy the fortune of those physically dead, for they had not known the indifference for which they had sacrificed. And yet, even with that knowledge, I still adhered to the path that would lead to a fate worse than theirs.
By September, the Order was stretched too thin and I was sent on the first raid to Malfoy Manor. I spotted Bellatrix from atop the main stairway, and mistaking my rage at the apathetic population as rage toward Bellatrix. I hastily fired my first Avada and I missed; Fred paid for my impulsive decision, then George overpaid. I can't remember if I cried.
The following March, Voldemort was the globally-hailed tyrant of Africa, the Americas, Antarctica and Europe, save for England (if the Order headquarters in London counted). Oceania's people later willingly submitted in a unanimous, continent-wide vote. Soon after, the Asian countries' government officials hosted a similar vote with a cognate outcome. I never shed a single tear. Perhaps this was because my eyes were too dead to feel, like Harry's eyes. Perhaps this was because my eyes refused to feel.
A year later, only Remus, Harry, Ron and I remained as lone protestors against the New Life, as Voldemort had termed it. We couldn't step foot out of the "Headquarters". For me, the reason didn't lay in the 500,000 galleon bounty on my head, but in the nonchalance that I knew waited for me outside. It was cleverly disguised underneath layers of disdain and abhorrence, but the eyes revealed all.
When Remus was assassinated during the full moon, we—the Golden Trio---surreptitiously confessed we weren't truly martyrs within ourselves. Our beliefs in justice and truth had prevented us from admitting it until then, but all those beliefs had been proved false. There were no more reasons to lie for or to anyone, least of all ourselves. .
We devised a plan to bring an end to everything the day we were all cursed twenty-two years earlier: Harry's birthday. I remember those moments so clearly, even though I can hardly recall when I last slept.
At 12:00 a.m., Ron had handed me his finished potion in a crystal phial, a faraway air permeating him. He had stood before his Chudley Cannons poster, not like a man about to die, but reminiscent of a man encompassed in peace.
"Avada Kedavra."
Harry's voice had been as passive as if Ron had been Voldemort, or Neville, or a speck of inconsequential dust. Ron crumbled unceremoniously to the floor.
And then, Harry stood before Ron's body. An unstrained and unfelt smile blossomed in his eyes—a man validating to having existed as a "could-have-been" and to failing. But he didn't care. Harry had been dead before I initiated the curse, before Remus was killed, before Snape committed suicide…
The Death Eaters are now dashing up the four flights of stairs, so I assume that they have successfully broken through my first defenses. My next, and last, is the sphinx I've situated in front of this door.
I couldn't force myself to drink Ron's poison before and I wasn't certain why.
I can now.
My sole reason is and was that I am different. The world remains in apathy only to the point where it can preserve its own pathetic life, and in doing so forsakes its own beliefs. But I had always had my ideals and I had always cared for them. Soon after entering the war, I had wanted to make my beliefs theirs by winning The War. I thought it would be just payment for all the forgotten sacrifices of my fellow Order members and deaths of the Death Eaters' victims. The true tyrant enshrines his beliefs as the world's beliefs. Except that, by the time I had identified my goals, I had also realized that one soul against an ocean of apathy is an equation for failure.
Outwardly, I stopped caring whether I failed or not. But, I couldn't stop caring on the inside. I attempted to convince myself to believe that the world was not worth trying to change. I couldn't doit. My instinct for self survival screamed for satisfaction, but my mind screamed in indignation. Thus, my life arrived at an ambivalent standstill. I remained alive by default until a decision could be reached.
The clock is chiming for the new day's arrival; Harry would have been twenty-three years old today. One year of painstaking deliberation has passed and at last, my mind has won over instinct.
I leave you with one last thought:
If one cannot succeed, then why live?
He crunched the scroll into a compact ball, incinerating it with a flick of his finger. The hammering on the door of the chamber was growing incessant, the frustrated sound of metal against warded wood. So they hadn't forgotten about him and had brought his chains as well.
He shut his eyes and imagined Hermione Granger when he had found her. She had been slumped against the oak desk, quill still wet with ink and her body still warm but clearly dead. At the time, he had laughed at her letter. He had won The War, hadn't he? The people were now enslaved to his will and his beliefs, weren't they?
He laughed bitterly at himself now. When a single chink in his power had appeared, revolts had suddenly sprung up like weeds. Eventually, he had fallen and others had won; the world had readily adjusted to any and all of their beliefs.
He had thought she was wrong, yet here he stood, evidence of her last words.
"If one cannot succeed, then why live?"
He threw the Dark Mark into the night sky and shot himself with a muggle gun.