The War They Were Supposed To Fight
by Elinva

The war was over and everything was supposed to be well.
Harry was supposed to marry Ginny, have some wonderful kids named in memorial after the war heroes. Hermione was supposed to marry Ron, have some more kids which could play with Harry and Ginny's and they'd all be a big happy family.
Neville was supposed to marry some boring girl and do something with Herbology. Draco was supposed to marry some sweet, obedient pureblood girl.
Luna was supposed to find some guy just was weird as her. Supposed to. So many 'supposed to's.

They knew that. They all knew what was expected of them.
Life seemed so simple if viewed through rose-coloured glasses.

But after a life in a cupboard, unloved and abused, later left alone to fight a war that was never his, who could Harry not be scarred? How could he possible be fine? How was everything supposed to be well?
He felt the inner turmoil. The scars left by a war that had started when he was fifteen month old and would only stop when he finally killed Voldemort.

Ginny had only been a small eleven year old girl when the war got to her. But being possessed by a Dark Lord in his teenage years surly couldn't have left her troubled? No psychiatrist needed in war. Only after it. So she grew up. The boy that would one day defeat, what defeated her would be the only one who could possibly defend her from being possessed again. And so she longed for him. But it was war. She met other boys until he saw her as a girl. He protected her. Because that's what boyfriends do. He left her, left her in safety to kill the one threat she's always been afraid of.

Hermione had always been strong. When she first read of a Dark Lord that terrorised the wizarding world for so many years only to be vanquished by a toddler, she hadn't really thought anything of it. It had nothing to do with her. He was dead. So when she met the Boy-Who-Lived she was amazed to meet someone from a book, but she would never have guessed that it could be dangerous to be friends with him.
Their friendship started with mortal danger and continued that way. Since Hermione was a clever girl she soon realised that she was in the middle of a war. True, the war out there hadn't started again, but her inner war began many years before that.
How she longed to become friends with another girl, but everyone she befriended would only be another target for the Dark Lord. So she stood with Harry and Ron. Doing their homework and helping through research and words of reason wherever she could. But she couldn't help Harry against his inner demons, because there was a war raging in him.
She did her best. Always her best. That was what she was supposed to do, so she did it.

At first it seemed like great fun to be friends with a famous person. Not only friends but best friends. Which of his brothers could say to be best friends with a celebrity like Harry? Even though every time Harry got something thanks to being himself it hurt a little inside.
At first Ron couldn't see, how dangerous it was to be next to Harry. Only when he saw his mothers worried looks and her tears after he came home for the summer, he admitted that his Hogwarts life wasn't as peaceful as his brothers' had been.
At first Harry's behaviour seemed normal to Ron but soon Harry's problems got more obvious. When Ron and his brothers rescued him from the Dursleys he got scared, because he couldn't help Harry. He couldn't even talk about it. Ron was ashamed for his doubt and envy because Harry was his best friend, but he still left him over and over again. Why did it hurt so much to have a best friend? Ron wondered. But he stayed with Harry, ignoring the war going on.

For Neville the easy life had ended shortly after Harry's. His parents left him. Not on their own free will. Nevertheless they left him. His gran was not fit to raise him but she still did it. Uncle Algie was no good influence on her (or him for that matter) but he was still there.
Neville's war within himself may have been the most obvious of them all. He was insecure and stuttered. His wand belonged to his dad and the emotional abuse he had to suffer through was just like that. He was supposed to be like his dad. But how could he if he neither knew his dad nor knew himself?
With the right wand and someone who believed in him he slowly found the fighter in himself. What good would a real friend at Hogwarts have done him? But still by the time the final battle got near he was confident in himself, stood up for others and fought for what he believed to be right. The war had forged him.

Draco had always wanted to be like his father. His strong, important father. But the only thing he seemed to be able to do was disappoint him. It didn't matter how his father disciplined him. It didn't matter what really happened in his childhood. The only thing that mattered was that he disappointed his father all the time. He felt lost. Nothing he did seemed right.
When he went to Hogwarts his best friends ... no, his bodyguards were supposed to be Crabbe and Goyle. You couldn't find two dumber boys at Hogwarts. He couldn't talk to them. Couldn't let them see his weakness. The other boys were worse. They were more important. Their opinion of him mattered to his father. Reputation. He felt so lost.
Whenever he looked at Potter and his friends he sneered. They pretended to be so close buddies but he could see it in their eyes. They also had their own battles. Life got more difficult.
The Dark Lord wanted him to kill. His father was supposed to be proud of him. But he didn't want to kill. He was lost.

She was dead. Luna's world came down on her, when she saw her mother dying. She was alone. Of course her father was still there but not really. He was never really there. He was somewhere else. In some distant wonderland Luna couldn't reach. Her mother had always been there. But now she was alone and she wanted to be with her father. So she followed him and found an amazing new world with strange creatures and evil conspiracies.
With this new world she also lost her few acquaintances and childhood friends. Even Ginny distanced herself from Luna. She was alone again. Alone with her aloof father and her new found friends, the strange creatures.
When she started Hogwarts she hoped for new friends, who would love her even with Wrackspurts. Her shoes disappeared and nobody cared. Her wand got stolen, even when she had it in her pockets. They didn't like her creatures. She was alone. When Harry talked to her she thought nothing of it. People talked to her sometimes before they heard the stories of ¨Loony Lovegood¨ or before they heard her speak for that matter.
But Harry was different. He continued talking to her. She liked him. The DA was everything she ever dreamed of. She wasn't alone. She wouldn't leave Harry alone in this war. So she left her world and joined Harry in his. And she saw her own war in his eyes.

Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snake-like face vacant and unknowing.

Only then Harry could let it all out. Could start to figure out, who he was without an enemy impending on his life. Nothing would dedicate him how to live anymore. He could finally choose.

When Voldemort fell the war ended. Now there was nothing out there anymore Ginny had to fear. So she wept. For the innocence she lost six years ago. And the chance to be finally her own woman.

After the battle Hermione went home and burned all the book about war and fighting she had collected for the boys. But the memory of what she read in them would stay with her long after the unexpectedly satisfying smell of burned paper left the air.

Harry killed Voldemort and Ron saw their reactions. Harry would never be normal. Never like anyone else. They had gone through so much together and now the worst seemed to be over. But why was the pain still there? Ron recognised the war inside his heart and started to face it.

Suddenly there was no need for his new found strength anymore. He found himself. He won his inner war before the battle even began. So why were they expecting him to fall back in his first-year personality. It had felt so good to help others. To fight his own battle. He still loved his plants, but they were not everything that defined him. Why couldn't they see him?

He saw the battle. His mother had helped Potter and saved his life. He could go on. Everything his father had believed in had lost. Had been proofed false by combat. If not his father, what were his new guidelines? What would he do know? And how would he do that? He looked around and realised that everyone seemed torn.
He would do it just like them. Step by step.

The war was over. That's what they said. But Luna could still see it clear as day. There was war everywhere. Everyone had their own battles. Everyone had their wounds. Wounds that would only now start healing. So many scarred souls.
How could they say, that the war was over when the real battle had only just begun?

Short oneshot that expresses my main problem with the epilog. Those are just thoughts and as we all know thoughts aren't always well worded but sometimes short and repetitive. I tend to work on my stories after they are finished so this is most likely not the final version.