Harry's going a bit mad, I think, by the end …
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Where Jealousy Can Lead
by Heir of Darkness
I saw it come my way.
I saw the light. The flash of eerie, morbid green light. And I thought it was the end.
But then, you were there. And it all happened so fast I didn't have the time to react. They say that in moments like these everything goes in slow motion. They're wrong. It always unwinds too fast. For you never will be offered another chance to replay the game.
I saw the curse hit you and I saw you fall. Before I knew it I was flinging myself on the ground next to you. You didn't seem to be hurt, and even if I knew that it was meant like that, I couldn't help but feel the rush of incontrollable hope running up to my head, blinding my eyes for a second of seeing the truth I didn't want to take knowledge of. The only thought that crossed my mind, at the moment, was that the last word you had for me was one of hatred and challenge, and not one of friendship like the one we held for five years. A bitter word of defiance. That very same defiance you still held in your dying eyes, while your soul was fleeing and it was the only thing left.
My gaze swept over your body, frantically looking for something that I couldn't define, a wound to heal, something to cure, but everything seemed perfectly in place and you were still alive. I couldn't bear it, I couldn't bear the thought of you dying like that. Dying a death that was meant for me. I don't remember having said anything, anything but incoherent and stumbling words of regret and begging. Forgiveness, the only thing I asked for. A long litany of I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…
I saw you. I felt the warm stream of the tears staining my face, rolling down my cheeks and their salty taste in my mouth. The world around us was a blur of darkness and the screams of the fighters pierced the silence like daggers through a cloth.
The spells.
The curses.
The scent of fresh blood and burnt flesh.
But none of it mattered anymore to me, to both of us.
Ron, please forgive me.
A horrid, revengeful kind of smile twisted your lips, in such a fashion it made me shiver between my sobs. A way I've never seen on your face before. A smile of triumph and victory on your lips and your eyes sparkling with delight and cruelty, more teasing than the harsh words or the hard looks you used to throw me, and thunder tore the chaos.
Oh, Ron, what have I done to you to see that smile on your lips and that gleam in your eyes?
You shook your head. Slowly, delicately, you shook your head. Your flame red hair – I used to tease you so much about it - spread on the stone ground, like a halo of flame from the fire of jealousy that ate you, consumed you from the inside, that we always had purposely disregarded. Your smile grew even wider, and the stab went deeper, the bleeding cut in my heart gapped open. Your lips moved. No sound came out of them, but I could guess. And I swept away the tears to read the words. But it was over. You stared into my eyes, and I could swear you knew what I was thinking. Thoughts of pain and grief and sorrow. And you enjoyed it.
Again, you shook your head. And you mouthed a single word, a single syllable. You refused.
No.
A yell covered the other screams to my ears. My head hung lamely while the tears that I'd tried to hold back poured freely from my eyes. I don't know for how long. But when I lifted my head your eyes had gone glassy and your body was limp in my arms. The end.
The same taunting smile was frozen on your lips.
They say that you died for me. They remember you as a hero. You saved the Boy Who Lived. You are given fame in your death more than you would ever have been given in your life being his friend. The Wizarding World salutes you.
And you watch all this, wherever you are, and I almost can see your triumphant smile twitching your mouth and feel the burn of your stare in my back.
I keep silent. I keep silent, for you, for your memory. The awe they give you, and which you deserve. I remember, and I understand. Understand your hatred and your jealousy. Why I never wanted to believe in it. It was too much for me to bear. To bear in a best friend's figure. And I figured that just by ignoring it, it would get better. But you knew, you knew. And it just made your envy deeper and carved it more profoundly in your soul. When I trust a look back at you in those times, I see how passionate your eyes were, how hollow your laugh was, how jerkily you paced around the Common Room at night, when I yawned and stretched myself in the comfortable armchairs. So many little things I had overlooked as a teenager, I see now as an adult. And I weep alone while the world worships our names, and does not see the tears threatening to roll out the corner of my eyes.
And you laugh from a better world, oblivious of the good times we had together, plainly delighting yourself with my pain and mourning.
By dying, you won. And you knew it all along. You won your war, stepping out of the shadows. Killing me slowly, retreating in the darkness of revenge. I admit it. You're the winner. But that's not enough for you. Your goal was to make me suffer, and you have achieved it. And yet…
I keep alone. Alone in my disturbing knowledge. Sometimes I seek company in the person of Severus Snape. You don't believe it, do you? Being reduced to that extremity? But he knows. He's one of the few. He just kind of guessed. Wordlessly. We don't speak, just sit in the same room, and mutually understand each other. I know how it feels like, now, to owe someone a debt you'll never be able to repay. You made me understand, didn't you? I'm a shadow. And as my personality melts away with each new dawn, as I become more and more an empty version of myself, I feel you coming back, more and more solid memory every day, and your laugh ringing louder and louder in my ears.
You're right. You're always right. You've always been. I'm vanquished. I beg your mercy. But you don't see it. You ignore it. Purposely. Like I've done. Everyone worships us as the very image of friendship and self-sacrifice. They see us as the saviors of the Wizarding World. But the difference between us is that you died and I survived. I survived, you hear me? I'm not dead.
Or am I? My bodily shell survived. But where am I? Can you answer me? No, don't. Your smile is still vivid in front of my face, the look in your eyes in front of mine every day, haunting my days and my nights, taking over my dreams.
I can't fight. I can't fight a ghost, I can't fight a memory.
The dead are always right.
Semper est mea culpa.
Author's note: Please review.