A/N: So when I was twelve, I wrote this fanfic I was super excited about. And today, nearly five years later, I looked at it. And was absolutely horrified.
Even though the writing was, like, worse than anything I had ever seen in my entire life, I still really liked the idea. So I rewrote it! You know, because I have that kind of spare time. Not like I have a final exam in sociology in two days or anything.
I am cooking dinner now. I haven't in so long. It'll be a nice surprise for my husband, who'll be arriving home from work soon. Normally, I'd be just a few doors down his office at the Ministry, but I had a day off today, much to my mother's-and babysitter to my children-delight.
I smile slightly to myself as I hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet dash inside through the back door. I remember when he and his sisters were stumbling over their own feet. Now he runs everywhere, and his sisters are at Hogwarts.
"Mummy," says Raymond as he walks in. "What's for tea?"
"I'm making pasta," I tell him. "Would you like to help me? You can add the cheese."
He grins up at me and moved to cross the room to our fridge. I watch him go, but glance over my shoulder lazily as I hear a knock on our front door. Our FlooCam shows us who's outside, and when I see them, my world stops. Fear wells up in me, and shaking, I tell my beloved five year old son, my baby, to go upstairs, lock the door to his room, and not make any noise. He is confused.
"Why?"
"Raymond Montgomery-go!"
He recognises the terror in my voice and understands how serious this is. He turns on his heel and runs upstairs.
I walk hurriedly, nearly too frightened to breath, to the door and open it with trembling hands.
The sight of three Death Eaters greets me.
"Mrs Amanda Jane Sterling Montgomery?" one asks.
I nod my head.
"Daughter of Lacey and Benjamin Sterling, sister to Jack Sterling and Jean Peterson? Wife of Alexander Montgomery? Mother to Marlene, Rachel, and Raymond Montgomery?"
Yes, I mouth, unable to find my voice.
"Status?" says the same one.
"Halfblood," I say, begging God for mercy. Don't let them find Ray, please, please, please.
"And your parents?"
How blase they are about this. How calm and collected. Don't they realise the fear they strike through my heart? Do they enjoy it?
"My mother's a Halfblood, too," I say, struggling to keep my voice even and tears out of my eyes. "Her mother's a Muggleborn, and her father's a Halfblood. My father's a Pureblood. As are both his parents."
"And your husband?"
"Pureblood," I whisper.
They nod approvingly. Rosier-that's his name, I recognise him-says, "Could be cleaner. All things considered, not too much filth."
"Nearly none at all," says one I recognise as a Rowle. "Nothing to be ashamed of," she says, shooting me what she probably thinks is a friendly glance.
"Mrs Montgomery," she continues. "Your high position in the Ministry and your heritage and your skill has not escaped our notice. We ask that you join us."
She's stabbed me. She has taken a knife and thrown it through my chest, puncturing my heart.
"Us?" I squeak.
"The Death Eaters, that is," she says.
So they're admitting it now.
My world crashes. What do I do? Do I fight the group that killed my best friend? Or do I join them, to save my family? To save me? To destroy Harry Potter, son of another close friend, also murdered by these people?
My Gryffindor bravery surges through my veins.
"No." I say, and I don't regret it.
"What was that?" Rosier asks in a cool voice.
"I think she said 'no'," says the one I don't recognise.
"Don't do this, Montgomery," Rowle says. "We're giving you an opportunity to keep your family safe. Don't turn it down."
"No," I repeat. "I won't. I won't fight alongside the people who killed Marlene."
I brace myself, readying my wand, knowing I'm not going to win, but knowing I will not let them touch my son.
"All right, then," Rowle says. And with a Crack! they Disapparate.
Ah. So it's worse than I thought.
I turn around, close the door, lock it with three charms, and contact the Ministry. I tell them what happened to me in a letter.
Kingsley-
It's happened. They came. Rowle, Rosier, and another one. I told them I would join. They left. Send Alex home. Send Aurors. Kingsley, my daughters are at Hogwarts, but my son is home.
-Amanda Montgomery
I send the letter with our owl and call my son downstairs.
"Ray, come down."
I move around the kitchen, collecting things I think we'll need. We have defencive potions and items all over the house. Ray will need them. He hasn't a wand.
"Raymond!" I say again, louder this time. "It's all right, please come down now!"
I hear my husband fiddling with a charm outside and the door open and it opens a few seconds later.
"Mandy, what's-"
"Raymond!" I call again, my heart beating fast. "Did you hear me?"
"Amanda," says my husband, walking in. "Is it true? I was with Kingsley."
As he enters the kitchen, we hear a crash upstairs.
"No," I whisper. I run up the stairs, faster than I ever have in my life, Alex right behind me.
"Mandy, what-"
"Raymond! Ray," I cry, banging on his door. "Ray!"
Alex pushes past me. "Alohomora!"
We're too late.
He's there. He's in the room. He's holding Ray, and my drops out of my body.
The monster turns. I'm greeted with the sight of my silent baby, eyes open wide, staring in horror.
Why isn't he screaming? Has he lost to much blood to scream?
Greyback smiles nastily at us and leaps out the window.
I fall to the ground, and clutch my son.
"St. Mungo's," Alex says, in a daze. He grabs both of us and Disapparates.
When we get there, Alex, out of his daze, pushes everyone in line out of the way, but he doesn't have to. Healers are already rushing towards us.
"What happened?" one asks.
"Fenrir Gray-" I say, but they cut me off.
"Take him to the Dai Llewellyn Ward,"
"Code Blue," one says. "Start Nott-Prewett treatment now."
"What the bloody hell is a Code Blue?" says a Healer. I boy I used to know, I realise. Raj Patil.
The other Healer shakes his head. "Purebloods," he murmurs.
Their conversation continues. How? How is anything else going on in the world? Don't these people understand what is going on? That nothing else matters?
He's dead.
He died. The Healers couldn't help.
He's dead.
Fenrir Greyback killed my son.
He was only five.
I wonder what house he would've been in.
Gryffindor. For sure.
He was so brave.
"Don't be sad, Mommy," he told me, with a smile. "It's going to be okay."
It wasn't.
The sad thing is is that those were his last words.
An attempt to make me smile.
He died just minutes after that.
He died because I refused to join the Death Eaters.
I will avenge his death. I will make them pay.
And months later, I have my chance.
I hear screams.
Everyone around me is screaming. Screaming for loved ones, screaming curses, screaming defense spells...
I am not. I am silent. As silent as my Ray of sunshine was.
I am looking for Fenrir Greyback.
I run into the Great Hall, remembering how last time I was here I had been joyful, and I had thrown my hat up into the air with Marlene.
I see him.
The monster.
Something inside me changes. I thought I hated him before? That was tender compared to the rage that burns in me now.
I see Frank and Alice's son and a Weasley, whom I read in the Prophet was dying of Spattergroit, Stunning him.
"No!" I shout, louder than I ever have before in my life. I hear my words from far away. I'm shaking, but not as I was on that day. "He is mine! He killed my son! Let me kill him!"
They Stun him once more to keep him down. They back away. I approach him.
Suddenly, I am alone in the world with Fenrir Greyback.
Everything else is gone. He is struggling to get up, and I hex him. He falls back down. I want to torture him. But even weak, Fenrir can still hit me where any Gryffindor will hurt.
"Oh, I remember you! You're the one whose son I killed!" he says it in a way one would say, "Oh, you were that kid who my friend tutored!"
"Yes," I say, "Now I will kill you." i say that matter-of-factly.
He laughs.
He's laughing. He killed my son, and he doesn't think I can kill him. I am so angry. I don't calm myself down, because I know I will regret it later, and allow the jet of green light to escape my wand.
Fenrir Greyback falls to the ground, with a horrified expression to be on his face until he rots to bones.
And that's it.
Thirty seconds? Forty five?
I wanted a fight. I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to scream so loud, and in his screams, I wanted him to hear the silence of my son. I wanted him to beg for mercy, to regret the day he had been born.
This isn't fair. My hands shake still, and it's yet another kind of shake. This isn't fair. Why didn't he suffer more? He deserved to suffer. He had destroyed so many. He had taken so much.
So much.
From me.
Everything.
It isn't fair.
Maybe that's the way it is sometimes.
A/N: So what do you think? And what would my twelve year old self think, I wonder...