A/N: I own nothing, save for my small collection of words and phrases. It all belongs to the creative goddess of our generation, which sadly, really isn't me.
The song is Our Solemn Hour by Within Temptation, which I also do not own.
This is un-betaed, so any mistakes are my own. See one? Let me know!
It was a Muggle song that became her prayer, her all-encompassing hope for an end to the darkness. It was a song she wouldn't have listened to or really liked in the before world, but in the after world, it was everything that she lived and breathed and thought.
She had been in captivity for over two years, and had started out smug, assuming the best of her people... of the Order. She had blindly assumed that she would be rescued, but she never had been. She fought at first; fought every beating and every torture session, every round of Cruciatus. A ghost of a smile crossed her face at the thought of how much harder things had been back then, and how much easier it had become to simply be. These days, she was almost ignored because she did nothing but lie there and take whatever they dished out. They thought she was completely broken, but the truth was that when they came, she simply disappeared into the fortress of her own mind, surrounded by the haunting truth contained in, of all things, a Muggle song.
Sanctus Espiritus! Redeem us from our solemn hour
Sanctus Espiritus! Insanity is all around us
Sanctus Espiritus! Sanctus Espiritus! Sanctus Espiritus!
She tried to remember how she had first heard the song, and after a moment, the memory popped up in her mind, as vivid as the day it had happened. Her mind was as sharp as ever it had been; she had simply become good at pretending, at hiding her Gryffindor sensibilities and becoming ever more like her Slytherin captors.
It was in the before time. She was at Grimmauld Place for an Order meeting. As the meeting came to a close, the younger contingent had decided to hole up in the parlor for a precious hour together before their imposed separation was enforced. Miss Granger had charmed some Muggle electronic device to work without need for batteries, and cast a variation of the Sonorus charm on it so that they could all sit and listen to the music. She was already getting on in years, and took a seat in a far corner of the parlor to regain her strength before attempting Apparition back home. As her head touched the back of the chair in a bit of abnormal relaxation, the strains of what had become her song had started playing, and she found herself mesmerized by its lyrics and haunting melody.
In my darkest hours I could not foresee
That the tide could turn so fast to this degree
Can't believe my eyes; How can you be so blind?
Is the heart of stone, no empathy inside?
Time keeps on slipping away and we haven't learned
So in the end now what have we gained?
Sanctus Espiritus! Redeem us from our solemn hour
Sanctus Espiritus! Insanity is all around us
Sanctus Espiritus! Is this what we deserve
Can we break free from chains of never-ending agony?
Her breath had caught in her throat, and she thought that if the Muggle world had any idea of what was going on around them, they might have written something exactly like this, and so she wondered what had inspired such a strong song to have been written. As the song came to a close, she called over and asked Miss Granger if she would be so kind as to replay it, just once more. She could tell her request confused the younger witch, but she did it anyway.
Are they themselves to blame, the misery, the pain?
Didn't we let go, allowed it, let it grow?
If we can't restrain the beast which dwells inside
It will find its way somehow, somewhere in time
Will we remember all of the suffering
'Cause if we fail it will be in vain
As the song played again, she mused that maybe they had been to blame for everything that had happened to the Wizarding World. The general public had forgotten the terror of Grindelwald, and had not known that Voldemort would surpass him so completely, but maybe someone should have remembered. She had helped in the fight against the first usurper, and not seen Mr. Riddle for what he would be back when they were both students at Hogwarts. Even after having seen what Voldemort could do the first time, people had been so scared that they'd believed the drivel that the Prophet put out about his return, believing themselves safe if they just pretended that he hadn't come back; after all, it was unheard-of for someone to come back from the dead, even in their world of Magic.
The song had ended again, and she'd left with its words written on her heart and soul. That was the last time she ever saw a member of the Order.
Two years later, a pinprick of light at the end of the hallway ended her musings. She was sat, slumped against the stone wall at the back of her cell, and she watched them drag another body down the length of the hall. She couldn't make out who the new prisoner was at first, but as they got closer, the blood drained from her face and she couldn't stop the tremors that shook her hands as she recognized the green eyes and black hair of the Boy-Who-Lived.
The guards threw him into the cell next to hers, and he lay there, unmoving as the light disappeared and the darkness took over once again. She crawled slowly toward the bars separating their cells and tried to reach him, but couldn't make her hand stretch that far. She tried to call his name, but found that two years of torture and capture had rendered her voice nothing but a dusty croak.
She knew she was looking at a body that was no longer alive. She knew it with every fiber left in her being, but refused to acknowledge the truth. The savior of the Wizarding World, the Boy-Who-Lived, lived no longer. Harry Potter was dead.
Sanctus Espiritus! Redeem us from our solemn hour
Sanctus Espiritus! Insanity is all around us
Sanctus Espiritus! Is this what we deserve
Can we break free from chains of never-ending agony?
After several hours of sitting there watching his body, hoping for some sign of life to disprove the theory that she couldn't make herself think of as true, a single tear fell from the corner of her eye. Acceptance washed over her body; the war was truly over now and the Dark had won. Nobody was coming for her, because if Harry Potter was dead, then surely nobody else from the Order survived.
This realization broke what the Death Eaters never had been able to, and she fell to the floor, a quiet thump marking the passing of one of the greatest Witches to ever grace the earth.
Minerva McGonagall finally let go of her life and was gone, along with the last of the Light's hope for saving themselves from Voldemort.
Depressing, I know, but to appreciate the light, we must accept that the dark exists. I hope you enjoyed this small peek into the bleak future that never was, at least for our Magical heroes and heroines. Sadly enough, there are places in the real world where people are still fighting every day to just stay alive.