Pacify
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Hate the sin, love the sinner.
Mahatma Ghandi
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I don't believe in war.
Why should I? How could I? I've seen war from the outside. It's never good. It's not even bearable most of time.
I remember the summer of '97. It's when things started spiralling out of control for me--for everyone. It was always easy to claim that Harry Potter was insane before, or that he was exaggerating. Until we couldn't deny it, we stuck our heads in our little bubble of peaceful ignorance. Books disappeared from the Library at an alarming rate. OWL scores hit an all-time high in '96. Ravenclaws look for shelter in the Library in times of great stress.
So we did.
Sometimes a week passed without any conversation other than "Pass the bread" and "It's mugwort, Professor". Luna Lovegood talking nonsense at me notwithstanding, I think I held out the longest. It was boring, but safe. If only the world is always like that.
The summer of '97 made my friends' letters shorter and terser than before. Every subject became a possible swamp for relationships. You wanted to know about their parents, you got shouted at about letting them worry in peace because it's what parents do. Boyfriends and girlfriends became possible Death Eater targets. Distant relatives were never safe--what if You-Know-Who attacked their village? So it was either books or pets, and you get tired of hearing about Pinkie the Kneazle after the third report about his eating habits.
I went to Diagon Alley for books, ignoring the warnings in the Daily Prophet and on the WWN. I even put on my grandmother's tattered black robe and went to buy Potions books in Knockturn. I found one that suggested the use of enemies' eyelids in curing the brewer's headaches. I filed it away for use during the next school year on the idiots that belittled the war. There would certainly be a few. Jinxes just wouldn't do.
How could they? How could Harry Potter and You-Know-Who do this to the wizarding world? Potter probably has some notion of fighting for the freedom of non-purebloods, which makes it all even more sickening. For the survivors--freedom to grieve, more like.
Nobody wins.
The '97-'98 school year was the most subdued yet. Outside the Battle of Hogwarts, I don't think anyone made sudden movements. Wands were held all the time, but no spells were cast, especially not by the pure-bloods. I was reluctant to use magic even to clean my desk before leaving class. What if someone interpreted it as smugness for my blood? That was one step away from being called a Death Eater and having to walk around with your left sleeve rolled up to prevent rumours.
Some of the cheekier Gryffindors said that You-Know-Who marked young Death Eaters in more intimate places, but after they were forced to show their own "mark-free behinds", they gave up.
The Slytherin table was mostly empty.
That's why I noticed Blaise Zabini sitting alone, furthest from the teacher's table, reading his textbooks when he should've been eating and letting his collars fray at the edges now that there was no one to care.
If one student lets go, it's a chain reaction. And if Hogwarts falls, it's the end of it all.
I sat down next to him in Arithmancy sometime in November. He paid me no mind; we didn't even look at each other. Make calculations, write, erase, think about numbers and symbols and ignore Granger who looked like a wet hedgehog with red-rimmed eyes. Arithmancy has a soothing quality to it.
Unless, of course, the Ravenclaws check out all the books from the Library and refuse to share.
Blaise Zabini was the only person in Arithmancy who agreed to share a book with me. I don't think he liked working alone.
Two months later, when we were tentative friends, he told me he always did his homework in the Great Hall to stave off his solitude. There were fifteen people left in Slytherin by that point. Four of those who had left were now official Death Eaters. He asked elves to bring him sandwiches and wrote his essays to the sound of scraping forks and muffled laughter.
During the battle, he saved my life three times. I saved his twice. I owed him a life-debt.
The deal was simple. He wanted to get away from his mother--every man wanted that at some point. He could only get his share of his dead father's money if he got married. We were of age. I owed him a life debt anyway and there was an unspoken understanding that we probably wouldn't survive more than a year if the war continued.
The legal marriage certificate is dated two days after the Battle of Hogwarts--June 30th.
Harry Potter defeated You-Know-Who in late August.
I hate war. Blaise was killed in Diagon Alley two days before the Light's tragic victory. Potter lost one of his bright green eyes. I lost my parents and my husband, who just so happened to be my only friend and father of the child I was carrying.
Blaise traded his life for his ours in August. He took the Mark the same day he died.
I don't think I'll ever forgive him for leaving me, for taking sides other than in pure self-defense, but I understand.
My child will not grow up with stories of heroism, because there is no such thing. He'll know the other side--the loneliness, fear and regret of being one of those who survive to tell the story.
I hate war, but I loved a warrior.