Summary: A war-torn Harry Potter just wants to have a normal 7th year at Hogwarts and finally go after the girl he loves. But what better time is there for a beast to strike than when its prey is most vulnerable?

A Flower on the Moon

Prologue

This is the close.

This is the part of the story where the hero sacrifices himself to save everyone.

There was a part of me that probably always knew it would end this way. But I buried it in freezing, shallow depths, just like the gallant sword meant only for brave men that he, who truly deserved the title of "hero", dropped in that lake and gave me a sapphire gleaming hope to follow when there was none left in my empty body, my thoughts so burnt out, nothing but too many invented horrors crushing the void.

I am not a hero.

I am so, so tired. I don't want to die. I don't want to choose the courageous, selfless path.

But I have to because there isn't any other way.

I don't know if I ever really found what I needed to in the old castle so far behind me now, whose fires were slowly being extinguished; graceful, glinting embers rising through the thick smoke and more than enough bodies that once lived within it so brilliantly were being carried by those who knew they would never move again.

I did believe once, a long time ago, that the pain wouldn't follow me here; that this was a place I could dream safely in without spiteful criticism, that misery wouldn't catch up to me like it always did.

I was too naive.

But still, the happiness that was given to me here, it was far more than I deserved.

There was pain, too much of it to know what to do with but I guess the whole walking to my death thing was keeping it all blocked up. And guilt. It weighed down on my fear filled bones.

This act would ensure it would all be finished; the killing, the suffering, the rage still clambering for a foothold inside me.

I was angry with myself. This just felt like some form of running away. An escape.

I would be free from the burden of living. All these emotions, memories; they would be gone, wouldn't they? What would be left of me?

Nothing but a drawn-out story with too many inflated details of inexorable valor one day; maybe a bronze statue with some depressing scripture carved beneath it. A gravestone.

What did I do with my life?

I grew too close to people that I couldn't save.

My strength was not enough. I am leaving behind loss and destruction and sorrow.

I force myself to look back. I feel my pulse rushing by my ears, over and over. The world feels dead; there was a quiet that I just couldn't recognize. The roaring riot red cruelty of the battle was still too raw in my mind, their echoing screams were too imprinted in me, their alleviated eyes, that enduring light gone forever; it was pure agony.

There was no going back.

For a reason I can't come up with I want to see the sun, to hold some sort of warmth in my hands, to smother my face with it, to swallow it, breathe it into me and let it push away everything else.

I close my eyes and suddenly you're behind them. You're with me, shivering in the wet sand with the smell of the ocean everywhere, living on my skin. Your kind hand is settled on my shoulder. I want to be closer, I want it more than my wrecked body can take, so much that I want to run into the sea and drown myself in its frigid waters to get it out of me.

You are too delicately kind.

There were plenty of things I selfishly needed to say in that moment but I kept my mouth shut and right now, god, how I want to just take your hand in mine.

I did not see you on my way to the forest. It's easier this way. There's no time left.

For whatever its worth to you, thank you for everything.

So many heart beats, so many wasted breaths and I spent none of them, not a single one, trying to be by your side. I didn't know how. I have only myself to blame.

This is a well-kept secret. I made sure of it. Unreachable. I couldn't free it, I never even imagined that possibility. I wasn't brave. I never got anywhere.

I find the moon for the last time and I make a wish for you to discover all the weirdly extraordinary things that you always hoped for before turning my back on it.

But its soft light is on your skin, your eyes are dreaming and there are heaven flowers in your hair and in my ruined heart.

The shadow doused trees look unforgiving.

This is the close. The end.

And this is when I think of you.