Art Club – Muggle Art
Shattered
You wondered if this was what it felt like to be utterly shattered, broken in a way you had once considered inconceivable, some horror straight out a nightmare.
Your every thought was copied, multiplied and flung back to you. Your mind was a hallway of mirrors you could never escape. The floor was littered with broken shards of memories that cut far too deeply into your mind. You vaguely wonder if the mess left behind will ever manage to heal itself, or if it would simply be covered by layers of useless thoughts and junk. You cannot decide which fate would be worse.
There was light, but it was blinding and painful. You wished for the soothing cool of obscure darkness. Maybe that could hide your pain from everyone, especially yourself. Maybe that darkness could cool the ache within you, fill the empty space in your heart.
Your eyes flicker up once again, catching glance of the still figure of your brother, the one person who you were the closest to, and you wonder why him? Why not someone else? Anyone else.
Hundreds of people had survived, many families had been saved, but why did yours have to be broken apart? Why did you have to lose your older brother?
You know it's selfish but you cannot help but think that Collin didn't deserve to die like he had, someone else should have. Someone should have given their life to protect his, because yes he was that important. He still is, to you.
Your hands float over his cold, still form. You could almost hear the shattering within your mind as your entire world slowly fell to miniscule pieces as your fingers touch the scar he had received when you had thrown your ball onto a tree, and he had went to fetch it. He had fallen off the tree, and broken his arm, but he had still been smiling.
Nothing would ever be the same again. You know this, but you do not want to accept it. You shouldn't have to.
You're still expecting your brother to sit up, grinning, while teasing you for falling for his joke. You know you would laugh and act like no such thing had happened and you were just playing along with his joke so you could trick the world together.
Together.
There was no longer anything you could do together. Despite having experienced the entire episode within your mind, you know it will never happen.
It had been too long since he had fallen.
Too long since you had last seen his chest rise and fall with life and marvelled at the bravery that shone in his eyes before he had stepped out to help protect Hogwarts, and fight with the adults.
You should have stayed with him. Perhaps then he would still be alive. Maybe you would have been the one lying on the floor then, but that didn't matter.
The world needed him, not you. He was the brilliant, fearless one. He was the one everyone, including you, looked up to and admired.
He was gone, and he had taken a piece of you with him.