Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments) Defense Against The Dark Arts (Assignment 2)

Prompt: Write about someone's death. Extra Credit: Write about them returning to walk on the Earth.

Word Count: 750 (ish)

Some people stay behind because they are afraid. Others stay because they cannot bear to leave those who they love. Some believe there is nothing waiting for them in the next world.

None are prepared for the absolutely loneliness of their decision. No one is ready to watch their life fade away as those around them carry on. It is unbearable to watch those you loved slowly grow old, to die and to watch their souls travel on their natural path, leaving you trapped behind.

Eventually, there is nothing left that you care about. But you have to carry on, because there is no other choice. A ghost cannot die, does not need to sleep or eat.

It is a meaningless existence. There is no hope, no possible conclusion. Slowly, ever so slowly, as you lose any sense of what it is to be alive, you fade. No longer visible even as a ghost, you simply disappear. The world becomes muted and you become isolated, alone forever.

I am fading now. Soon, I will be nothing more than a whisp of consciousness, a whisper in the wind, a glimpse in the sunlight. None shall know of me and I will be forgotten.

I was seventeen when I died. It was an accident, a stupid accident, but not even my magic could save me from the car that came rushing down the drive and hit me as I was walking home. If I hadn't dawled at the cornerstore to flirt with Nancy, if my father hadn't had too much to drink that night, then maybe I would have been saved. I can still see the headlights, still hear the screech of the tyres and the honk of his horn. All of it too late. I died almost instantly, but the pain I felt in the few seconds before my soul left my body has haunted me since then.

I went to the funeral. My football team came, and I saw Matthew cry, the sissy. My family was all there, and Nancy, looking suitably upset. I watched them seal my body up in the coffin and I watched them lower it, me, into the hole. I watched as they poured dirt over the top.

I shouted and I hit them but nothing made a difference. My fists went through them and they never noticed me. It was like I was trapped in a sound proof box.

Now I know that ghosts don't form instantly, that sometimes the body doesn't totally relinquish its hold on the soul for a few days and during that time no one can see you. Now it's too late though. I fled my home, just kept moving, but I had nowhere to run to.

For twenty years I haven't spoken to anyone. I have had no contact with my family, friends, or strangers. I am stuck, seventeen forever, a hermit, forgotten by the world. I look the same as I did the day I died, a translucent version of myself. My hoodie permanently stained with blood, the open wounds that will last forever.

I look seventeen, but I am far older than that. Death ages you, lets you see things no one should see. Death stole my life and my youth but it left me. I am a paradox, a puzzle that makes no sense, for who can make sense of a ghost?

Soon I will go. I will leave this wasteland, this Earth that you have destroyed and I will finally be free. I don't know what will happen, where I will go, but oblivion will claim me, and I will be nothing.

That moment is always in my mind. That moment where I chose to stay. I don't know why I stayed, perhaps I thought they would fix me, that if I stayed I would be healed. Maybe it was just too unfair, I was too young. No one I knew had died, I would be alone. I didn't realise the curse I chose, this permanent loneliness. I was blind to the path I had chosen.

I ask of you only one thing. Remember me. However fleetingly, remember me as I am now. You don't know me, but I have shown you everything that I am.

I am John Smith. I am nobody, and soon I will become nothingness.