She doesn't think when she fights- she simply moves through the actions like she's been trained to do so her entire life.
And in a way, she thinks as she dodges a curse that flies with a brilliant blue light, hasn't she?
She has grown up Lavender Brown, a pretty girl, a loyal girl. One who has a tendency for the dramatic, for the romantic.
But all she has ever wanted was a bit of recognition.
For someone, anyone, to notice her.
She fades into the background, common as the flower that is her name, and she is the last noticed, the last remembered, and that is not okay.
So she fights for those who are forgotten, for those who will not be lauded into the next century because she knows, deep in her heart, that she will be one of them.
All she wants is to be remembered.
So when her back is turned and she feels the hot stink of a werewolf's breath and the sharp pain of jagged teeth sinking into her neck, she goes limp.
She meets a girl's eyes across the room, one that has bushy brown hair and is staring at her in horror.
And her last thought is a wish to be remembered.
/
Remus just wants it to end.
He wants to go back to their little house, hold his little son, and drop a little kiss on his wife's forehead.
He is so tired of fighting.
So, so tired.
Because he has fought longer and harder than any single person in this war, because Remus fights for who he is every damn day of his life.
His life has been a series of bad memories punctuated with short, sharp bursts of sunlight that always, always fades away, leaving years of rotting stenches and withering cold behind.
But then he wonders, that if he was not defined by a bite, whether his life would be the same, whether he would be standing here with the most spectacular woman at his back and a baby he could not love more at his home.
He wonders if he would still have a creased photograph tucked carefully away in his robes of four young boys who still had entire lives left to live, or if he would be just another wizard in just another home with just another life lived.
Right before the green light hits him, he prays that Harry finds the picture.
/
Dirk Cresswell is an ordinary man leading an ordinary life.
He wakes up every morning, goes to his job at the Ministry, and comes home, slipping off into a peaceful slumber.
He doesn't think he has anything to fight for.
He is wrong.
The first time they come for him, he realizes how much he has- his sister, her three kids, the woman that he has loved for so long, the intern that works at his desk, looking up at him every morning with bad acne and a hopeful smile, the peace that has been his life until now- oh, he realizes he has too much to live for to go out quietly.
So he battles his way out and he is proud of himself despite the fact that he is now on the run.
The boy, Dean, reminds him a little of his sister's middle child.
He is a tad bit quiet but his fingers are gifted, firmly holding a piece of charcoal and deftly sketching whatever comes to mind.
The first time Dean sketches a lightning bolt shaped scar, Dirk Cresswell realizes how much he has to fight for.
The second time they come for him, he shoves the boy and the goblin behind him and tells them to run.
His last thought is a hope that they made it away.
/
The fight in tandem, wand arms moving as one, feet exactly the same width apart, raining destruction upon any that try to hurt them.
They run quickly, quickly, past the cold suits of armor, past the thick stonewalls, past the cries of the wounded, of the helpless, of the dead.
They fire spells as if they were in a dance, their bodies weaving, tangling, around each other so well that it seems they are as identical as they would like others to believe.
They laugh together when an opponent is felled, and their expressions set, stony faced, when they see yet another body in blue, red, or yellow lying haphazardly across the floor- yet they move on as one entity, as they should be forever.
But his last thought is not about his other half- it is about the goodness of a well-timed joke, and how incredible it is that they can laugh as long as they have each other.
/
All she can think about is her baby.
She wants to live- she does, dammit, but she needs to be here, to fight, to love, to protect him.
She can't help but think that if she kills just one more person- just one more witch or wizard or giant or beast- that perhaps she will kill the one who wants to hurt her little boy.
But as she dodges spells and throws back curses, a little part of her is ashamed because that is not the only reason she fights today.
She catches a glimpse of her reflection in a broken shard of glass and she pauses involuntarily, taking in the sight of her short hair a deep black, her eyes a brilliant gray, and her face twisted into one of pure elation.
Because she is a Black and this is her element.
She has traits of the entire family, she knows.
She has Andromeda's stubborn defiance, Bellatrix's love of battle, Narcissa's care for the family she has protected for years, and Sirius…Sirius's ridiculous belief in his own invincibility.
But those are secrets she will take with her to the grave, and she can only pray that Teddy follows Remus more than her, because she knows that the Black in her will only lead to destruction.
Her last thought is a beg for mercy, for her son to grow up like his father, and not her.
Never her.
/
He is exhausted- oh he is so exhausted.
But he keeps on fighting because who is he if he doesn't?
He fights for his little brother, because it defines how much he loves him.
He fights for Harry, because he can see the goodness in his heart and it hurts him to see the pain that constantly tires his features.
He fights for Dumbledore, because he was the man that smiled gently at him when he asked as an insignificant first year about bringing his Muggle camera to a magical school.
He fights for Romilda Vane, because he alone knows the soft side of her- the girl who just wants to be loved and liked.
He fights for Neville Longbottom, the boy who grew up to be the man that raised an army- an army with him in it- to fight.
But most of all he fights for himself, because if he does not fight for all these people, then he is not worthy of all that they have given him.
His last thought is of a snapshot he took years ago, framed in silver on his father's bedside of a laughing family, frozen forever in silence.
/
Severus Snape has known his entire life that he is nothing special.
That he will always be second best.
He is second is his mother's eyes, in Lily's heart, in Dumbledore's friends, in Slytherin, in pure life itself.
He will never win.
Which is why he chooses not to change.
He has accepted his fate- as one to live and die unloved but it does not change the fact that he himself can love, love dearly.
And he has never forgiven himself for that.
Sometimes he wonders if it is what makes him weak, this love. He wonders if it was his downfall, what led him down this path of utter destruction.
Because he cannot help but remember that half-starved little boy who crouched at the end of the playground, eyes hungry, heart hungry for some small token of affection.
It is her green eyes and her infectious laugh that are always in the back of his mind, and sometimes, when he catches a glimpse of green, his heart rises to his throat, pulse jumping- but then it falls down, down, past his chest and past his feet, to lie shattered on the stone floor underneath him.
When he dies, Severus Snape is proud.
He is proud that in this- in this small, insignificant death, he has won, he is first. For he alone knows the tragedy that has been his life, and he welcomes it- the pain.
His last thought are the first words she spoke to him.
/
She whirls around the Great Hall as if she is dancing a cruel ballet- her feet never touch the ground and she is always in the air, whirling, laughing, mocking those that tremble around her.
She is beautiful and she is great and the worst thing of all is that she knows it and revels in the mixed scent of terror and awe she inspires.
She is invincible, is she not?
She, who has killed and tortured and maimed for her Lord, she, who has battled death and overcome it, she, who is of Pure Blood, she, who is Bellatrix Black!
She is utterly invincible.
Her last thought is the color red.
/
When they are first surrounded, Alastor does not lose his head.
He has always known his duty, and fate be dammed if anyone thinks they can confuse the likes of him.
He flies through the night sky with the ease of someone who has loved Quidditch – a little known fact -and when Dung panics and disapparates, he quickly falls into the old team maneuvers of ducking and dodging, quietly pretending to himself that it is just another Quidditch match and that he has to win, he has to.
The three seconds before he is hit- when he can see the light coming- his last thought is a garbled mishmash of curses and grudging admiration for whoever it was that managed to fell him.
He is dead before he hits the ground.
/
Tom Marvelo Riddle has one last thought, and it is that he will never know death.
But it is a lie.
/
He knows he should not be afraid.
So many have gone before him that the prospect of slipping into eternal sleep should not bother him…. yet it does.
He will admit it to no one because despite everything, he is still tenacious, still holds on to that little bit of his long dead father deep inside of him.
He is terrified.
It takes everything he has to walk out into the raging group that is Voldemort's Army and his legs tremble just as his fingers let fall the black stone.
His voice is not steady and his eyes want to break away from the cold red gaze they are attached to, but they cannot.
He wants to draw strength from something, someone, as he stands there, as alone as he was when he first met the man known as Voldemort. Ginny, perhaps, or his parents, or Sirius, or Remus, or Ron and Hermione, or the hundreds of people he now knows love him so much it hurts but…nothing flashes to his mind.
When he falls, he thinks of nothing.
And that, perhaps, is the most poignant thought of all.
Hello, all. I wrote this a while back and forgot to upload it- so I apologize if it seems a little rough. Please review! They make my day (:
-FantaFaerie