Title: "Bewildering Bereavement"
Rating: PG I suppose... It's not too bad.
Summary: It is the end of the Final Battle, and Minerva contemplates how much one life cost her. Entirely in her POV
A/N: Some points have been changed to fit the overall theme of the story (because I am highly uncreative), and this was for a competition, in which the prompt was 'Lost' used in any idea or format of the definition. What needed to be included was a hole, either metaphorical or actual, and an article of clothing... I love this ship, and decided to do them justice by picking the two. Anyways, enough with my rant...
Bewildering Bereavement
I have watched you from afar, hardly daring to think that what is impossible truly is possible. You would die for any of us here, in fact, you have already gone, but not for one as you should have, but many. Those many are now all fighting for you; the one they never have known. Perhaps none would fight if they had known the real you. In fact, the children themselves would lay their lives down in your honor. In fact, a few have, and this is the reason I fight; not entirely for you, but for the young ones lost.
Have you ever wondered why I never questioned your decisions? When you would seek most diligently for my opinion, no matter what I said, you would always get your way. Not by force: though seemingly blind with each passing of the day, you would not force me to bend to your will. You were much too kind for that, but because you were so intent in making your plans work, many important factors were overlooked due to your preoccupied mind. I honestly have no idea how you were able to sleep each night with all the burdens you bore screaming in your soul. I now believe there was a piece missing from your soul: a vital piece, lost from so many years of heartache and loss. Thank goodness, your 'savior' has not suffered the same fate.
Harry has grown up much too fast, just as you predicted. I pleaded against you in leaving him with those Muggles, but, as always, you won out, though I refused to tell you why. If you had been Severus in that moment, I would have hexed you for suggesting such a way of life that was not entirely an option. Yet, because it was you, I held my tongue, just as I have for the past forty years. 'Albus, when will you ever come to realize that to survive is not the same as living?' the inquiry flickered into my mind more than once, though you never heard it. As a schoolgirl with a crush, I held my tongue because I loved you.
Now, I am glad you never knew this. Severus loved you, though he never said this. He told me this once, and he knew I was at his mercy. Because of your death, Severus was home free. It was a bit of a relief for the both of us; I would no longer agree to your outlandish ideas of how life should be for your 'little prince', and Severus would never have to agree because of the mercy that you showed him so many years ago. In truth, we were both relieved because we would never agree to something so vile and cruel because you held both of our hearts, and though no words of such lingered from either of us, I have a feeling you knew it. As unsettling as it is, everything makes more sense with every passing year, if put that you knew into that particular context.
Now the three of you are gone: Severus has vanished along with Harry, and you have died less than a year before. I distinctly recall shouting words of nonsense to you before the words of killing silenced you. The words come to me in my times of highest grieving; yes, I loved you enough to grieve you, for although you were impulsive with life and with the safety of all those who inhabited it, my days have been dark without your smile to light them up. As shocking as it may sound from me, I grieved for you because I felt as though having you gone was missing a piece of me: a piece that I was never fond enough of in your presence, nor in your memory. I believe this is what has carved me up most.
Shouts of pain greet my ears as I continue fighting in the cursed halls of Hogwarts; I suddenly find myself grateful to have not heard your scream of death, or seen your face once emerald obscured your eyes of vibrant blue. Perhaps this is why you never told me you left to die at the hand of a trusted colleague; you knew I would never take the news in an appropriate way. Not only that, but I would have attempted to convince you of another route: a simpler one that did not involve death. Oh, I only wish I could thank you.
In the chaos that followed the fight, I find myself in a broken world outside the lingering lights of a school I had occupied for more years than I could say. Amidst the shambles of paraphernalia, I find more than grief-stricken parents that crowded around still figures and pieces of a life that will never be the same again. I know you would have grieved for those people, those frightened children and sobbing parents, but I was selfish this night. I longed to have you by my side in battle, those half-moon spectacles of yours glaring the reflection of curses and hexes that were for wrong. For that, your memory that was forever lost, I comforted the parents of children I never truly knew, and I assisted in healing of many broken bodies, flanked by Madam Pomfrey, another who missed you, but not as deeply as I did.
We traveled far in the darkness, and picked up many things that were lost in the frozen battle between wizards and witches, good and evil. Odd things continued to surface, for example, a bloody shoe, (and I mean this quite literally; blood covered the exterior of it). Also, (what I know in my heart to be your favorite), a purple and orange striped sock that I could only guess to being Luna Lovegood's, for having seen her earlier on this day with such a pair on.
Madam Pomfrey walked a distance ahead of me, and suddenly, her voice quavered out in a shattering gasp. I automatically looked up, frightened beyond words. What could have caused a gasp like that from one like her? "Poppy, what is it?" I asked sharply, desperately trying to obscure the worry in my voice.
What befell my eyes as I rushed to her side was a pair of glasses, clutched in her hand, but not just any pair.
"No!" I whispered disbelief and uncharacteristic hysteria rushing from every side as my voice failed to register my emotions. The glasses were a perfectly round shape, with blood and muck smeared on the face of the glass. Your savior's, your friend's-- Harry Potter's. You have failed my dear friend. You have failed. You overestimated a boy who was so very much like you, and now you are both gone.
Finite