A Smile Carved On Your Face

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

A/N: For Round Two of Taragh McCarthy's 'Word Limit Competition'. This time the limit was 1000 words, and the prompt was 'stops the world.' This piece was 965 words :) Enjoy, and please review!

No.

I couldn't believe it. There was no way. Tell me it's not true.

I walk into the Great Hall, and all I see is you. The whole world has stopped, and the only things present are me and you. No people left in my way, no people left to tell me what to do.

Just me, walking dizzily towards you.

I do see the other people, but it's like they've become a haze of skin and cloaks and blood and fear, and you are the centre of my world.

It stopped spinning for you.

I get closer, and I feel a pounding in my head and I want to collapse, to hug the cold ground and wish myself six feet under. I want to be with you, wherever you've gone, because without you, I'm not whole. We were born as one, so we should die as one.

Closer still and I see you clearer, despite the hazy figures obscuring you from view. My confused mind sees them as wraiths, come to collect your soul for the dead, but I know in some part of me that it's just our family, gathered around and feeling their own worlds stopping.

But mine? It'll be worst. See, my world didn't just stop, it jarred to a halt, causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and maelstroms so wild they could never be tamed. My world is scarred and burning and ruined and it'll never recover, and I don't know what to do.

I get ever closer, and now I see your face, in a terrible parody of mine. It looks obscene, so pale and lifeless, yet with that same smile on your face. It's like a sculptor was creating a master piece, yet they slipped and instead gouged out a jagged scar where your lips should be. That smile… It looks so wrong on your dead face. It shouldn't be there. How can you be smiling when my world is over?

I feel angry then. How could you leave me to fight in this world alone?

I want to scream and curse and kill everything. Why should anyone be happy when I'm not? Why should everyone else's worlds carry on when mine has grinded to such a jerking halt?

But then I see the serene look on your face, and I could never be angry at you.

But the world? I could tear it down.

And then I remember. Mirrors. Reflections. Ugliness.

Every time I see a mirror now, I'm not going to see George Weasley, but a face that lives only to taunt my family. To give them quick hope and then rip it away again when they realise it's just me, and you aren't back.

I want it off. I don't want my face, our face. I want it gone, I want to curse it off.

No, I want to scratch it off.

I curl my fingers and begin to press my nails into my forehead. I run them down, forcing them to break the skin, and it hurts, but not as much as losing you hurt.

Suddenly I feel arms around me, pulling my now blood-stained hands away from my face, and I fight them, pulling away and reaching for you.

They can't take me away, they can't.

I haven't said goodbye yet.

I tear free and launch myself at your cold, dead body and now I'm sobbing, and retching and sobbing some more. I feel sick, and my stomach can't take it.

I press you into my chest, and the sobs grow ever louder, and then I'm wailing and I don't care what other people think. I'm wailing for you, I'm wailing for me, I'm wailing for my world.

I need someone, or something, to stop it all for me. To keep me in darkness, at least for a while. Though right now, forever seems a more attractive prospect.

My wailing grows ever more woeful, and now I know that the sound must be terrible. It's like a song, of loss, of horror, and of an infinite sadness that will forever be engraved in my heart. An awful song, yes, but one that I must sing, for my own sanity.

But I can only wail for as long as my voice allows me to, and soon even that cracks, and now I'm empty, and exhausted. I put you back on the floor, and instead curl up beside you, finding your coldness a comfort. You feel just like the stone that I want to swallow me up.

We could be together again, couldn't we?

Could I not just curl up beside you in your grave, and keep you warm until my own heart stops and then we could grow cold together?

Suddenly I can't bear it anymore, and I need to get away. From you, from this war, from the hearts I can hear shattering in everyone's chests.

I stand up, and begin to walk away from you, my lost brother. That lonely soul.

Only six of us now. Only half of me.

The whole world starts to spin again at a dizzying speed, and I'm not sure I can hold on anymore. I try, I do, but it's not going to happen. It's never going to happen again. The floor seems to be rushing upwards to greet my face, and I welcome the coldness and hardness.

Pain cracks and I feel myself slipping into unconsciousness.

I don't want to wake up, I can't wake up. But I know I will with time. I'm not gone gone gone. I can't go and meet you, and laugh and joke, like how we always did.

You see, I know you died with a smile carved on your face, for the rest of time, but me?

I don't think I'll ever smile again.