Written for the Ten Commandments challenge at the HPFC forum.
Thou shalt not kill said the minister. That was what he always said. Thou shalt not kill. Fleur had never understood it when she was younger. Why would someone want to kill? Why would someone want to snuff the light out of another person's body? To look at an empty shell and know that it was because of you that there was nothing in it anymore and to feel glee when you did so. Fleur could never understand that and could never believe that there were people out there who did. So that was what Fleur thought about when she was eight years old and sitting in between her parents, listening to the minister talk about killing.
When Fleur grew up she began to understand that there was people out there who were like that, but had never met anyone who was like that and still secretly thought it wasn't possible, even when she heard about all the stuff that went on in England, especially about the Boy-Who-Lived. Because how could there be? But it wasn't until the Tri-Wizard Tournament that she realized there could be.
There had been many death-defying challenges in the tournament and though Fleur knew that in previous tournaments other champions had died, dying wasn't the same as killing so Fleur was never really that bothered by it. Besides, the tournament was supposed to be much safer now. Would they honestly let two seventeen year olds, an eighteen year old, and a fourteen year old (though Fleur supposed that the tournament hadn't really been made for a fourteen year old but still) compete in tournament where they could die. They wouldn't have made it that dangerous would they?
Fleur hadn't thought so much about the difference between dying and killing and the differences between in ages, but something about Harry Potter, something about the Boy-Who-Lived, brought it up in her mind. Because here was a boy that someone had tried to kill, but failed. Failed miserably Fleur would say. But she did wonder something. She wondered if people would count Harry as having killed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. She did. But for the first time, she didn't see anything wrong with killing. Because some people needed to be killed, people like You-Know-Who. Some people that were just so rotted to the core, that it was mercy that they were gone instead of an aching sadness. Besides, it's not like Harry meant to kill him. He was only a baby when it happened. That was the first time that Fleur ever saw the difference of murdering and killing. Fleur's feeling about that only got stronger when he saved her sister, despite the fact that it wasn't like Gabrielle wasn't really going to die. But it felt like that to Fleur and she knew that it felt like that to Harry.
But when Harry appeared with Cedric's body, Fleur wasn't sure what to do. What to believe. On one hand, You-Know-Who was back and that was bad. That was very, very bad. On the other hand, Harry hadn't killed him and honestly, Fleur thought that was bad too. But throughout it all she never doubted Harry because she had seen Cedric's body. It was to perfect for it to have been some tragic accident. And she knew that Harry couldn't have killed Cedric, not because he was the Boy-Who-Lived, not because he was fourteen, but because he was just simply Harry Potter, a good person and a great man.
That was why she joined the Order of the Phoenix. She had heard her mother, asking why she was going over the England to help fight their problems. She had never given her mother her answer. That everyone ignored the problem in England, something that even the English were doing, it would get bigger and bigger until it wouldn't be just England's problem. It would be everyone's.
She understood her mother's fear though, and her worry. But despite how she looked, Fleur had never liked sitting in the corner and had never felt like just sitting still and looking pretty. She needed to fight. She had to fight. And those thoughts and feelings carried her all the way to the Battle of Hogwarts, to the fighting. And it was there that she killed people. Everyone killed someone. She saw fourth years casting the Killing Curse on their teachers, who had probably wanted to do that to them for months. But it wasn't murder because the teachers would have killed the students. Fred was killed. So was Remus and Tonks and Mad-Eye and Dumbledore too before. She was even sorry to see Snape go and it reminded her of Sirius. She had cried her hardest that night when she saw a young woman, she never found out her name, comforting a boy named Colin Creeevy to his death. She sat next to that girl and let her cry it out.
But she remembers seeing Percy killing Augustus Rookwood, the man who killed Fred, and she couldn't help but feel joy. She remembers seeing Harry, and how every thought he was dead, but then he turned out not to be. She remembers seeing Molly kill Bellatrix Lestrange and never admiring her mother-in-law more. She remembers seeing Harry face down Voldemort and having him take his self out. And she realized the minister was wrong. Killing is alright. To take away a life that would hurt you or your family. Maybe it would be correct to say thou shalt not murder. But no one would ever believe that. Because everyone says they could never kill until they're put into a position that it's them or someone else. And then you'd be amazed at what you can do. Thou shalt not kill said the minister. That was what he always said.
Thou shalt not kill.
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