I've always been curious about this particular unsung hero - there is something utterly tragic about the fact that while people like the Marauders (bar Peter), or Albus Dumbledore, died heroic deaths, this sacrifice that was never truly hailed but must have taken incredible courage was made in vain.
So this is a tribute to not only this particular hero, but all the other unsung heroes in the books as well. Especially those whose stories ended in true tragedy.
(See if you can tell where I do pay little tributes to people like the Marauders. Not that it's hidden or anything, but the similarities aren't a coincidence. I am describing them. Also, any reviews would be appreciated.)
Disclaimer: I own neither the world nor the characters, but the words are entirely my own.
This was not a pleasant death. During a time when the world is ravaged by war, I have seen so many unpleasant deaths. Now more than ever, I have cruelly ripped away the young. I have left behind broken hearts in my wake. I have destroyed entire existences that did not deserve to be tragedies . . .
For some reason, this one resonates within me. I know I am quite unfair, and quite often harsher on those left behind than those I actually take. I can be many things – beautiful and devastating, a nightmare or a wish, a curse or a gift. Most of all, I am uncertain. This is perhaps what generates the most fear about me. Or perhaps it isn't me by myself, but rather the process through which I might come to claim you.
Will you burn? Will your lungs be crushed? Will your heart turn against you? Will you acquire some horrible, incurable disease? Or, as it is now most common, will you die a soldier on a battlefield?
Will you be the one who fought unarmed to give his family the precious few seconds that might be used to escape me?
Will you be the one who fought me all the way, glaring with defiance but coming to me as you had in youth – with laughter and courage?
Will you be the one who faced me just when you finally found something to live for?
Or perhaps you are not a hero. Perhaps you will be the one who was happy to see me, because you don't deserve me, and yet I will condemn you while giving you salvation – though you know in your heart, the betrayal was never worth it. You did not gain a thing, though you lost everything, and even I cannot return to you what is gone.
Through all of this, one can imagine that I have had time to grow used to the incredible bravery I am faced with. These rare, beautiful souls who have learnt that they are willing to give themselves up to me for those they love.
These are the deaths that will be remembered in life. They are remarkable, and stunning, I'm sure. But forgive me if I cannot stop to hail them – I would have a rather endless shrine, and they would become ordinary, and perhaps there would be even more reason to hate me.
That would be a tragedy, am I correct? That they are regarded as ordinary.
This, however, I stop for. And I am stunned. Because it seems to me that although it takes endless courage to die for those one loves, it takes even more to face me alone for those you don't even know. To die for the world – now that is a sacrifice.
I have seldom had a tale so utterly striking to me since that of three brothers I met long ago – or rather, one brother in particular. This is truly a sacrifice for the world – for the future, for the greater good.
This is an instance that will not be remembered by life and the living. If ever they come to know about it, perhaps it will become one – but I know that this sacrifice was not meant to be such by the giver; that he had no intention of being hailed by the world.
Perhaps he wanted to prove to himself that he was not inherently evil. I cannot fault that as selfish, for many a man has attempted this without giving up the one thing valuable to a man like this – his life.
Because this man was alone. He gave up his life knowing nobody would see it, knowing that those who hated him for not being this selfless would never know that they didn't have a reason to hate him after all, except to hate him for not showing it sooner. He faced death without fear for the first time in his life, and although he did not have loved ones he could openly die for, or a cause he could openly give himself to, he did it anyway.
This man was brave.
And I cannot find it in me to remain uncaring to the fact that it was all in vain. In the end, this sacrifice did not matter to anyone but him and me.
There is one thing, but it fails to comfort me. The death of this man – who I believe is wrongfully regarded as a boy by life – was as painful as his life. There was one spot of light in it that was family, human, and it was this light that may have caused him the most pain.
Because he thought a lot about that light, in the days preceding his death. He was a remorseful one, this man. He could only think that his life had amounted to far more bad than it had good. The day before he died, when he was thinking of his death itself and not focusing on the fact that it needed to be done for the good of the world, he threw his head back and declared to the world at the top of his lungs that he hated himself, but he hated his light more for leaving him.
He loved that light.
And that light never heard him. No one did – no one who mattered to this man. I suppose I don't count. I was horribly cruel to this man, though he chose me.
He wanted to atone for his sins, of course. He wanted more than anything for that light to come for him. That light may have been the only thing that could have saved him. That very light that had destroyed a part of him could have persuaded him to be selfish and live. He could have joined the side of good and become one of those life hails, reunited with the only family he truly ever loved and redeemed in the eyes of the living.
But he didn't, this unsung hero, and that is why I respect him. He chose instead to forsake selfishness, and with that one act, he rose above innumerable others in virtue.
In my eyes, at least.
His last thought was selfish. It was not of the one light in his life that didn't fail him – while he was alive, at least – but of the light that did. His brother.
Oh, this family. I have had eons to study light and dark and yet I cannot tell how so much light comes from these brothers, who come from so much darkness. How fitting that they be named after stars.
It will not comfort him, and he may never know it, but though life hails his brother, I hail him.
His name was Regulus.