I don't own Harry Potter or the song.
Harry always felt very emotional on Remembrance Day. Even during the assembly's they had been given during primary school. Maybe, even then, he had known that he was destined for war. When he was ten they had played a song to go along with the pictures.
Oh how do you do, young Willy McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
Harry had done just that the week after all the funerals. Sat by each gravestone and talked to them all, imagining what they would have said if they were still there.
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done
And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in 1916
Colin Creevy had been sixteen and Fred Weasley had been twenty. It was too young. They had all their lives to live and it had been cruelly snatched away from them in an instant.
Well I hope you died quick
And I hope you died clean
Oh Willy McBride, was it slow and obscene
He hoped that none of them felt any pain when they went but he didn't feel that was the case. When Voldemort had struck him every inch of his body had ached. He didn't even want to begin to imagine.
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
With the war Harry and Hermione introduced lots of muggle Remembrance Day customs. They had held proper soldier's funerals for their fallen loved ones. They marched, played the last post and held a one minute silence every year on the 2nd of May.
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back in 1916
To that loyal heart you're forever nineteen
Angelina married George many years later but every time she looked at him or her son she would see Fred in his prime. Twenty years old and on top of the world. Colin's brother Dennis was the only one close enough to him to be distraught. Remus and Tonks had died together but this was no comfort to everyone else.
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Forever enshrined behind some old glass pane
In an old photograph torn, tattered, and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame
Maybe, years from now, students would sit through History Of Magic lessons about the heroes. Maybe there would be a family photo that nobody could remember properly.
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post in chorus?
DidthepipesplaytheFlowersoftheForest?
Harry's daughter, Lily, seemed to share his opinion of Remembrance Day. She learned of their traditions and sought to promote awareness of what really happened while she was at Hogwarts.
The sun shining down on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished long under the plow
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
Hogwarts, years later, was a peaceful place. No spells were fired to wound and murder people. The flowers danced in the breeze and people were happy.
But here in this graveyard that's still no man's land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation were butchered and damned
The graveyard had been built at Hogwarts. Students tried to avoid it because it was 'creepy'. It took Harry back to a time where nobody cared when the harmed another. To every student in his time at Hogwarts. Every single one was effected.
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
When Harry heard about all the muggle wars he would mourn every single one of them. He hated war. In some ways, he hated it even more than Voldemort.
And I can't help but wonder oh Willy McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Harry often wondered whether his parents had truly believed that they would defeat Voldemort. Whether all the order had believed that. It wasn't right that they didn't know just why they died.
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing and dying it was all done in vain
Oh Willy McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again
Long after Harry was gone it began again. His great-grandchildren fought for him. They knew that he would have been distraught to know that all his work had been pointless. That his friends and family had all died in vain.
Did they beat the drums slowly?
Did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play the Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
They did it all again. Harry Potter and Hermione Weasley had started the tradition so they weren't going to change it. They beat the drums slowly. They played the fife lowly. They sounded the death march as they lowered them down. The band played the Last Post in chorus. The pipes played the Flowers of the Forest. Too many times.
My history teacher played this song today. It's called "Green Fields of France". It makes me want to cry. I wrote this because there aren't enough Remembrance Day fic's outthere.