Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, or even -gasp- the quote. Honestly.
A/N: A short one shot in Harry's POV (in case no one can figure it out)
Statistic
It was raining. Of course it was. It was always raining nowadays. Or it seemed to.
He numbly ran his hand over the smooth marble memorial plaque. Here in the middle of the battlefield, he felt so vulnerable and small. He felt more alone than he ever did. Even more than those first few days after 'victory'. How anyone could call it a victory though, he'd never understand. He'd slain the monster, and rode off into the sunset but… did anyone really care what happened after the sunset? No. Because that's when the story ends. And everyone assumes that nothing can happen after the monster is gone.
No one cares how the hero feels about it all. No one cared how he felt.
It wasn't a victory. Didn't you have to win to have a victory? He scanned the thousands, millions of names he saw in front of him. They were so familiar, so inescapable. When so many are gone, you can't win.
One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.
It was funny who'd said it. Joseph Stalin, a muggle… guilty of genocide - the massacre of his fellow Russians. A statistic in his very own name.
It was getting hard to make out all those names now, as the rain poured, its droplets cascading over the stone into a muddy puddle at its base. The rain must have fogged up his glasses; gotten into his eyes. He tasted salt. Funny, he never new rain was salty.
He self consciously fingered the crevices of the familiar letters. True, he couldn't see them, but what did that matter? They were permanently etched into his memory anyways.
Ron Weasley. Blasted to pieces in front of his very own family. His remains burned; never seen again.
Hermione Granger. Abducted by muggles, when they too were stringed up into this mess of a war. No one had enough to pay the ransom; those were tough times. Shot through the head with a revolver.
Ginny Weasley. He nearly breathed out a dry chuckle. They would've been married. She'd put up a hell of a fight, that's for sure. But what's one unarmed woman against hundreds of bitter men?
Draco Malfoy. He'd come to the light near the beginning. Still, it's hard to stay sane when the only world you've ever known is crashing down in front of your eyes. Suicide.
The Dursleys. Killed in the massacre - along with what remained of the Grangers and the Weasleys. He'd never known that he'd nursed a soft spot for them until he'd received that cursed telegram. After all, family's family.
Neville Longbottom. Now in the same ward as his parents. A bittersweet ending.
Luna Lovegood, Neville's wife, killed as she went to visit him. At least it had been swift.
There were so many. So many.
Cho Chang. Albus Dumbledore. Argus Filch. Ernie Macmillan. Dedalus Diggle.
Most he didn't even know.
Alanis Chiggleworth. Samuel Brocklehurst. Thomas Ingy.
Yet he was alive. Living and breathing. It seemed almost cruel.
One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.
So they were all just part of a statistic? It certainly seemed so these days. Who took the time to recognize these 'millions of casualties' anymore? Yet they'd all had lives too, once. They'd loved and been loved and fought for all they were worth. He presumed that he was the only one who even bothered to regularly visit this monument now, after so many years…
Well, Harry decided as he pitched up his umbrella and made his way through the soggy turf, sure, they were all part of a statistic, but each and every one of them, every one of them, they were a tragedy.
A/N: Anyone actually heard of Joseph Stalin? Funny guy... bit on the insane side. Kind of like a mini, less well known Hitler.
