At the risk of over-indulgence, I am reposting this fic as I have yet to see it come up. Please let me know what you think, feedback is very important to me, particularly as I am unsure of myself in this area.
To all of the kind and encouraging reviewers for my first Potterfic attempt, "The One". Thank you for reaching out with such a marvelous gift.
I failed to disclaimer in my last piece, I figure it should be intuitive on a fanfiction site, but just for good measure: none of these characters belong to me, I am just borrowing them from a far more enlightened woman, Ms. J.K. Rowling. I promise to put them back where I found them when I'm finished.
Phoenix
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I want you to know I was brave.
Not, though, in the way everyone thinks. Despite the fairy tales, and the rhetoric, and the Muggle movies, there really isn't much to that kind of bravery. The kind everyone goes on about whenever they use my name. Anyone would have done the same thing. Faced with a mortal enemy, pure evil, years of anger over a senseless loss. You just react. There is no choice, and you know it. And so you take your best swing.
The true bravery was in the little things. The true bravery was about getting out of bed in the morning. Laughing at Ron's jokes, and the way his eyebrows arch when he knows he's being really funny. Noticing the new highlights in Hermione's hair. Feeling the sun on my face and realizing I was wholly and truly lucky and blessed and happy.
There were times when I couldn't breathe, and they never came when I was staring down the barrel of Voldemort's twisted smile. They came at random moments in Charms class, or in the middle of the night, or at half time during a Quidditch practice.
There were times when I cried. Knees hunched to my chest, broken and alone, even though I knew that in truth I was neither. It would have been easier, and completely possible, to turn to Ron or 'Mione, or Sirius, or Dumbledore or Hagrid. But I couldn't and I didn't. I just folded up like a Muggle lawn chair, and carried on.
That was the true bravery. Even though in so many ways it wasn't brave at all.
I want you to know I was a coward.
I needed things, and I couldn't ask for them.
I needed people, and I put them at risk by needing them. I knew it, but I couldn't turn away.
I pretended things were okay, when I knew with every fiber of my being that they were not.
I denied my love, the very depths of my soul, out of a misplaced sense of self-importance and misguided chivalry.
Thank God Ginny Weasley is as obstinate as her six brothers combined.
I want you to know, to understand that it was like everything you've heard about it, and nothing like what you've heard about it, both at the same time.
I want you to know that I am both less and more than the legend immortalized in stone at the entrance to Diagon Alley.
I want you to know I was brave.
I want you to know I was a coward.