My entry for the To Be Or Not To Be Competition, starring the lovely Angelina Johnson and Nymphadora Tonks.
She had never heard the wind scream so loudly.
She could feel the dirt and debris imbedded into her hands as she spread her fingers over the surface of the stone and the dried battle remnants cracked against her skin. Her face and arms were no doubt just as filthy as her hands; she stood there at the top of tower, feeling the wind as it screamed through her hair, and asked herself why it mattered if she was a little dirty?
She was filth, after all.
She could accept it, finally. Why had it taken so long for her to realize that none of it mattered? All of her effort, all of her burning tears, all of her anger, all of her time, none of it mattered.
Why was it she only realized it once everyone else had already been taken away?
"None of this matters," she said, her voice raw and cracked as if it had never been used. The wind carried her voice away, drowned it, suffocated it. Gone. Even that didn't matter.
Maybe, just maybe, Harry Potter would win. Maybe it would all be over. His seventeen years of pain and misery would be over, and he could live without glancing over his shoulder for You-Know-Who every minute of every day.
He had always been a fighter, that Harry Potter. She'd seen it herself when he was on the Pitch, acting as if in those moments, nothing was more important than the Snitch.
She'd felt the same way herself, really; when the whistle was blown and she was soaring against the wind, the only thing she could think of was the Quaffle and the way it darted across the field from player to player.
Hours and hours of sweat and tears, and what for? It hadn't impressed anyone.
It didn't matter.
The wind on the Astronomy Tower... it reminded her of being on her broom, pelting through the sky. That was where she had felt whole. All that mattered in those moments was the Quaffle, and she could forget the rest of the world.
Maybe, just maybe, Harry Potter would win.
But what did that matter? What did ridding the world of the infamous evil sorcerer really do for anyone? Evade the inevitable, perhaps. Would any lives really be spared? No, because if there was anything she knew was guaranteed in life, it was death. And it made no sense.
Why? Why him, why her, why any of them, why now? Why, if nothing mattered, did it hurt so much, like it did matter?
Why?
Maybe, just maybe, Harry Potter would win. And the lives that had been lost tonight would not have been lost in vain.
But what kind of consolation was that, really? She tried telling herself that, tried imagining that it would change something, but it wouldn't. Her mother was still dead, whether or not Harry Potter won, and there was nothing that she could say to herself that could alleviate the cruel and raw pain that was gnawing away at her heart.
Her mother's face floated past her closed eyelids, and she saw the alabaster complexion, slack of the concern or anger or amusement that had always lit her features. The fire in her eyes was gone, and all that was left was the vacant stare of her midnight irises, black... like death. Black with death. A trembling scream was trapped in her throat and she squeezed her eyes as tightly as she could, biting her frail lips together and sinking to the ground.
And, Fred Weasley... Oh, God. He was dead. He was dead, too. She could feel his laugh around her, taunting her, pushing her forward and over the edge. The image of his happy face, so lively and so sunny, danced around in her mind, circled her, and then fell. The image collapsed, rattling her mind, drawing out long echoes, and she saw him, too. She saw the visage of a boy she'd admired so greatly crumple in an instant. She couldn't expel it from her mind. His eyes, the way they shone, clouded over... His mouth, and the way his lips pulled up into that crooked smile, limp and robbed of soul...
Her shoulders convulsed with silent sobs and she wrapped her arms around herself to smother the agony that clawed its way up her back.
It didn't matter... Nothing mattered...
There was flash beneath her eyelids and her mother's scream overcame her mind. She saw her father, his face so dark, his twisted features, the way his mouth roared such vicious, inhuman sounds.
"You... little... scum!"
No, she cried, no, make it go away...
"You dirty, sick, ungrateful little—"
No, Mum! Don't, please!
But her mother did it, anyways, like she always did in her memories. She grabbed his shoulder, yanked him away, and he spun and sent her flying across the room, unfazed, as if he hadn't even known it'd happened.
There was a crack.
"Angelina."
She cowered under his vehement gaze, drawing her legs into herself, folding her head into her knees. She couldn't bear to look up. Couldn't find a will in her body. She couldn't see her mother's fragile figure, thrown across the room, dismantled, unconscious, broken. She couldn't see her mother like that.
"Angelina!" He repeated her name, and his hand struck her face like a shock of lightning.
Tears sprung to her eyes and she shrunk back into the wall, as if she could ever really hide.
"You," he breathed. He breathed fire, Angelina thought. "You. And your mother. You're... you're scum. Filth."
She was crying now.
"Angelina, look at me."
She shook her head fervently, heat rising to her face, so afraid, so afraid...
He thrust her chin up, gripping it tightly with his fingers. She whimpered, but the look in his eyes didn't waver.
"You are filth."
He said it with his jaw clenched, all the muscles in his face tensed, pulsing, so alive with his hatred.
You are filth...
The wind was shrill through her hair again, ringing in her ears, and she brought herself to a standing position.
There was a vague, blurry vision of Fred in the back of her mind, fading into the blackness. He was staring at her, staring, with his eyes so wide and brown, so penetrating, so piercing, so sharp... Tears brimmed his eyes. He was pleading with her.
Red hot blood dripped down a gash in his neck. His chin quivered, his shoulders squared, his eyes so tortured. That look, that look of prolonged pain, so focused on her, so drawn.
He was begging her.
It doesn't matter! Nothing matters!
She turned around as the tremors rattled through her body and she forced herself to face the world below her. This world didn't matter, because it would be gone soon, anyways. That was the way it worked.
Nothing matters, she thought to herself, calmer now, calm.
She'd always known there was only one way out.
The demons in her head screamed, shrieked, beat against the walls of her mind, scraped every thought she owned and every precious memory she held onto as she leaned over the stone castle wall, peering down into her world below.
Her precious, precious world...
Jolts of light erupted through the sky, and something inside her whispered that that was where she was supposed to be, fighting in the battle that her mother and Fred and so many others had died in.
"But it doesn't matter," she whispered back, eyes tracing the ghastly green smoke in the sky. The destruction, the death, the loss, the pain, the terror. "It never did."
No one needed her filth, anyways. No one.
She turned her gaze downwards, finding the dirt trail hundreds of feet below her spot on the Astronomy Tower. She couldn't help imagining how her body would look, splayed across the ground in impossible angles, her bones bent and her skull cracked all the way through, resting in a pillow of blood...
Resting.
Oh, God, that sounded better than anything she could imagine.
And no one would know. No one would suspect... she'd just be another dead in a hundred.
"Remus?"
Angelina tensed, spun in her spot, immediately drawing her wand and emerging from the slabs of gray she had been sinking into. Her blood pulsed furiously, beggingher to stay, but it was only kissing her cheeks with its final moments now. She knew it.
"Remus, is that—"
Her final heartbeats.
There was a figure. A dark figure.
It's a Death Eater. Half of her mind screamed it, and the other half sang. I'm going to die. I'm going to die, aren't I? I'm going to die.
The figure stepped forward, wand drawn as well, pointed high and threateningly at Angelina.
The feeling in her fingers abandoned her, and her wand clattered to the ground, defeated. This was it. She wouldn't even need to defend herself. She'd given up long ago.
But the figure stalled. Confused? The wand was still pointed, but there was silence. All there was was that damn wind...
"Please," Angelina croaked, voice so hoarse and drained. "Please,just do it! Kill me. Please." The tremors returned, along with full-fledged sobs. All that she had left poured out of her eyes in tears, sorrowful, painful, hot, terrible tears.
The figure inched forwards, slowly, lowering the wand.
"Please!"
She could see the figure's face, clarifying, dimly lit. But her eyes were so shrouded with the ghastly tears that all she could see was the arm lowering completely now.
"No! Kill me!" She couldn't take this. She couldn't live now. She couldn't... she had her mind set on it, and there was no turning back. Her mind had already jumped off of the Tower, and she was gone. "I want to die," she said. There was no control. She had no control.
"Oh, no," the voice said, and it was nothing of what Angelina had expected. The wand disappeared, tucked safely away, and the figure rushed up to her, enveloping her.
She cringed away immediately, blinking the tears from her eyes. She could see now. It was a woman.
"I'm on your side," she said, voice so level and tender that it seemed the woman had never raised her wand in the first place. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"But I want to die," she whispered. Angelina didn't know if the woman could hear her over the wind, but she didn't care. "Why can't you just kill me?"
"Because," the woman said, "I'm... I'm on your side. Right? You're a student, aren't you?"
Angelina stiffened, instead letting the saltwater drip from her eyes and leave streaks down her face. She didn't care to wipe the tears away. "I was. I graduated... But now, I'm as good as dead. I'm gone. I'm already gone."
"But, you're not," the woman argued with gentle force. "You're not. You're here with me."
"I'm going to be dead," Angelina insisted. "I want to be. That's all I've ever wanted to be."
"But you can't. Why would you? People care about you, love, people care, so much."
"It doesn't matter. Nothing does. And, you... you don't even know me," Angelina hissed through her teeth.
The woman hesitated a moment, and then asked, "What's your name, honey?"
She cringed, falling into herself again. She could hear her father yelling, screaming, scolding, never pleased with her, always disappointed... "Angelina."
There was a smile that found the woman's face, and she moved only the slightest towards Angelina again. "I'm Tonks. And now," she said, pausing, meeting her eyes, "now, I do know you."
Angelina's cheeks flushed with rage, embarrassment, confliction. She tore away from the woman, turning back towards the wall, where she had contemplated leaping...
"What are you planning on doing?" Tonks called to her. "Jumping off?"
She stood there, paralyzed, gazing out over the wall. Her hands traced the stone, fist clenching and unclenching, feeling her skin as it stretched across her bones.
Am I going to die?
The woman moved beside her, and this time, Angelina couldn't move away. She was still paralyzed, her mad grief now morphed into solid insanity, holding her to her spot.
"Before you jump," Tonks said, glancing out over the wall as well, "would you mind if I said something first?"
Angelina didn't answer. She just stared.
"Well, I'll take that as a yes. Don't worry, I'll leave you to your jumping as soon as I can," she said, and Angelina couldn't believe the woman dared to make jokes when she was standing so close to the edge.
She could do it now... what did it matter, really?
Tonks continued. "I won't ask you why you're here. I was here, for my own reasons, at one point, too."
Angelina gazed at her, her eyes betraying her again and stinging with tears.
"Well, not here," Tonks clarified quickly, as if it mattered, "but basically, the same situation. And I kind of feel the same now as I did then. It's odd, isn't it? You stand here, and you feel the wind, and you look down below... and you wonder, no matter how great your life is, no matter how terrible, you wonder... what would happen if I jumped?"
Angelina shivered.
"You'd die, of course," she said, mindlessly blunt, "but that's not the point. When you're standing on an edge, it's just natural. The impulse... to jump. To end it all. You can feel it, can't you?"
Angelina bit her tongue, allowing herself a little movement of her head, something like a nod.
"It's like we're always asking ourselves, to be, or not to be? That, Angelina, is the question."
And my answer is not.
"What's the harm in being?" Tonks asked, turning from the edge, returning her gaze. "You said it yourself. Nothing matters."
"Nothing matters," Angelina echoed, voice trailing off with the wind.
"So, there's no harm in trying to make it the best you can," she said. "And not just for yourself. For everyone. For anyone you might have lost..."
Angelina flinched, her heart pounding. Is it celebrating? Is it already a step ahead of my thoughts?
"...for anyone you might gain."
Angelina's mind was reeling.
"I had a friend," Tonks said softly, smoothing away the rough edges, "that told me once... In the end, we're all a proper family. True, don't you think?"
She mumbled an agreement, eyes losing their tension, relaxing.
"I've lost a lot of friends over the years," Tonks whispered, but her voice carried on regardless, growing stronger as she continued. "And it's been hard. I saw... so many friends die. But you know what?"
Angelina stared.
"When I'm fighting, in this battle, down there, below..." She gestured over the wall, out into the world. That precious world. "I fight for them. I'm not disconnected. I'm not just there; I'm a part of it. Of it all. I have something to fight for, something to accomplish. And, Angelina."
"Yes?" she choked, feeling the repressed sobs break through and release themselves in gentle waves.
"It does matter. It matters, when you care. When you love."
Nothing matters... Her mind tripped over itself.
Tonks smiled again, and Angelina took a moment to observe her. Her hair fell to her shoulders in soft blue strands, gently caressing her face, framing her bright eyes.
She was so alive.
Angelina glanced over the edge of the Tower, but there was a pang in the bottom of her stomach, and she turned away from it.
I can still jump, she reminded herself. I will. Right after she leaves.
"Angelina," Tonks said, and her fingers latched onto her wrist, grabbing Angelina's attention. "Don't forget any of that. All right?"
Angelina's stare was so blank.
"All right?" Tonks repeated. "Promise me."
Angelina blinked, slowly coming to life, breaking free of her restraints. "I promise."
Tonks released her, and bent down quickly, retrieving Angelina's wand. She handed it back, face complacent, calm. "I have to find my husband, Angelina, because he's waiting for me. But I will see you again soon. All right? Unless you jump, of course."
"What happens if I jump?" Angelina asked, losing trust of her voice.
"Then, it was very nice knowing you, for the brief time that I did." Her eyes flashed, so daringly, and fear overwhelmed Angelina's mind at the thought.
She shook with the wind, and clenched her jaw to suppress the shiver.
I would jump...
Tonks took a step backwards, and gave her a final smile, less strained than any of the others. "I will see you again, Angelina."
Angelina wrapped her fingers tightly around her wand, stowing it in her robes, watching Tonks as she became just a dark figure once more.
"I know I will," Tonks said. There was a glimmer in her eyes, and she was gone.
Angelina stared into the darkness, the image of that woman still so vivid under her eyelids, fading past the visions of her mother and her father and of Fred...
She turned towards the wall again, her fingers tracing the stone a final time, but the touch felt so... foreign. She glanced over it, and felt her heart pound again, like it so faithfully did, and she allowed herself to imagine falling, spiraling down...
She cringed. She jumped backwards from the wall, far away from it. Shame swam through her, from her head to her feet, and she couldn't shake the feeling of Tonks's eyes boring into hers, begging her, begging her not to leave this way.
She fell on her knees, sure she had scraped them, and buried her face in the insides of her arms. The sobs returned, more violent than ever, and she shook with the grief of the world and all of its horror. The world she lived in was at war, and yet she couldn't see past her own fate, her own nothingness, her own void...
That impulse to jump, as Tonks phrased it... Angelina pondered on it, mind racing and swirling, and she clutched at her chest.
She squeezed her eyes, ridding them of their final tears, and stood before turning on her heel for the stairs.
Maybe, just maybe, Harry Potter would win.
And if he did, the Wizarding World would be saved. And if he didn't, at least the lives that had been lost... would not have been lost in vain, with a mistake.
With the impulse to jump.
I really enjoyed this competition because I was able to work with a character we don't really see very often in the book and I was able to give her a bit of background. Also, I've always adored Tonks, and so it was fun to try to capture her character, though that was my first attempt with either of them so it might have been a bit off, but regardless, I enjoyed it.
Thank you to all that read! CHOCOLATE FROGS FOR ALL! ;)