Disclaimer: the characters are not mine. They belong to a well-known author called J.K. Rowling (what do you mean you have never heard of her?) the plot is mine however (what do you mean it has no plot?)

We all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.
- Unknown

Darkness is the absence of light.

It begins again, Ministry owls stalking students who remain with black edged messages of death. It is strange that they visit all tables within the great hall. Although this is not enough to bind the students. I fear that divided we shall fall.

There will be a few at first, and then the floods will come. The number will ebb and flow as each battle rages around us. Like last time, I will remain with my students until the bitter end. Neither fire nor flood shall move me.

With each dawning day, I see my students hold their breath as the post arrives. I see them offer prayers to every god that today will not be the day the get that letter, that their families are safe.

The deaths are needless. He is only wasting time. Trying to scare my students. It pains me to say that it is working. Each student dreads the post. Every one fears what the owls bring.

No one laughs anymore. No one feels the need to smile. Those that would make us have left. Gone forever into a cruel and heartless world. Everyone feels the void they left.

Oh how I wish I could sooth my students pain. Yet there is no potion, no charm nothing but time that can heal them. I feel so helpless.

I know I am not long for this world. I worry about who will look after my students when I go. I worry about how many of them I will leave.

I look at him, our saviour and I wonder are we expecting too much of him? He is only a boy and yet our very survival lies in his hands. The world expects so much from this child.

I know he will save us, but at what cost will it be?

Every day he loses weight, every night he losses sleep. I see it in his face. His nights are haunted by his past. His days by what he must do. It weighs heavy on his shoulders.

No one can help him. We all ache to help him but we cannot. He will not let any one close enough. Even if he did, we could not help, there is only he that can do this.

I pray that an ending will come quick. In conclusion, may we find the peace we seek.

This is to be a fight to the death. It is my greatest fear that the wait should kill him before he must fight.

I have watched from the beginning. I have seen his victories. I have seen how defeat affects him. Just like his father, he takes it personally.

Should he not prevail, should he lose this battle, the consequences of this do not bear thinking about. We shall be eternally dammed. We shall curse his name. We shall damn him for not protecting us. We shall damn a poor boy for not completing a task that many wizards could not. We shall damn him for the actions of others.

My beloved home should have to close, for we could not stay open with the level of students that would be deemed suitable. Not that they would number more then those who remain as parents seek to protect their children. Just as Lilly Potter sought to protect her child. It is ironic that he should now seek to protect us.

I will not dwell on what may be, not when I am needed now. With death constantly in the air, the students become careless. They take risk that they should not. Many of the girls have fallen pregnant. Many want to keep the children, even thought they are children themselves. So many that we have had to open a maternity ward. With all the deaths, these births fail to increase our number. Not that there is strength in numbers that are divided, there is only one who can save us. One boy to defend us from destiny, for we are all destined to die.

I must focus on what is. Just because there is a war on, that is no excuse to abandon my duty. I swore an oath to protect my students and that is what I shall do until my last breath. However long should I have left then that is how long I will continue to serve and to heal the sick. A fitting career as my namesake is used as a painkiller do you not think?

A/N

This is the result of re-reading Ootp in preparation for HBP. Those that have read HBP will know it has no resemblance to the plot. Nevertheless, I still like it in an angst-y sought of way.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Poppies are used to make morphine.