A/N you know the drill, don't own em. Just a bit of disillusionment from our dear Harry.
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason. -Ernest Hemmingway
He had believed in what he was fighting for, once. But he had been a naïve boy at the time. He had allowed a sense of predestination to cloud his better judgment, allowed the naivety of youth to force him to see the world in black and white without shades of grey to blend things. Voldemort had been right on one thing, there was no good or evil.
There were those that craved control and domination and those that craved freedom. Those who wanted to control, those who wanted to submit, and those who wanted to be free. The whole world was engulfed in shades of gray. There was no such thing as good and bad, good and evil, light and dark, black and white. It was all somewhere in the middle, a shade of grey. And it had taken him until now to learn that.
He stretched in the hot spring, feeling the water seep into the wound on his side, washing away the dirt and grime and the crusted-over blood. The water tinged pink with the fresh blood leaking out, but he didn't care. A fish swam by, looking at this intruder into his springs curiously, and he merely smirked at it. It was lucky to not have to put up with war. It was lucky to not have to think. It would spend it's life swimming past this stream only to mate and die. A fitting metaphor for life. Swim against the current only to get screwed and die. That was the only destiny the fish had to fulfill. And it would be his destiny as well.
That was the only reason he was even still fighting in this war. Out of sense of obligation. He was supposed to be fighting. He had be foretold to be fighting. There was a prophecy about it. If it wasn't for that, he would not be fighting. He would not be in this spring soaking his wounds. He would be in Hogwarts right now, not caring about anything but passing his seventh year. He was fighting because he was depended upon. And he wasn't going to let Dumbledore's death go in vain because he had learned that he had been stupid naïve boy who took the world at face value.
He would continue fighting, even if he hated it. It wasn't for a just or noble cause. It wasn't because he believed in the light winning. He honestly didn't care anymore. He didn't care if Voldemort won. Voldemort had already taken everything from him. His family, his best friend, and his happiness. He had been reduced to a husk, fighting only because he had to. He didn't want to fight anymore. But he had to.
This wasn't a moral crusade to wipe out a horrible dictator. This wasn't some sort of noble cause, no more than World War II had been. He had his history lessons in primary school, lessons that made everything black and white. He had been taught that Hitler was a bad man, and needed to be stopped because he was killing innocent people. What they hadn't taught in school was what he had learned about war first hand. That the slaughter of innocents means nothing to a government. That the only time a government gets involved is when that government is threatened.
The Ministry, like the British government would have been perfectly content to let the slaughter continue. It wasn't affecting them. And most harbored prejudice as it was. Most saw it as a good thing, supported Voldemort's extinction of mudbloods. It was only when their own comfortable lifestyle had been threatened that they acted. It was only when Voldemort made it clear that he was to take over the Ministry that the Ministry did anything about it.
He laughed at the absurdity of it all. He was The-Boy-Who-Lived, savior of the wizarding world, and he hated the war. He didn't want to fight in it. He didn't believe in it. But he was still fighting because he was obligated to. He hated the people he was supposed to save, he hated the Ministry, he hated those that loved him only because he had saved their comfortable lifestyle, he hated the war and everything it stood for.
He had gained respect for Snape over the past few months, after months of fighting out of obligation. He could at least see where Snape's bastard attitude had come from. He didn't forgive the man, but he understood him, understood his hatred of both sides. He could understand why he played both sides against the middle, out of a hatred for both. The Death Eaters were to be hated for their superior attitude, and the light was to be hated for their lack of caring. They weren't even the light, so much as they were the ones who wanted to keep their comfortable life.
He placed a hand to the wound on his side, feeling it already started to scab over again, cleaner this time. Maybe if he survived this war, he could grow to love the world again, but he doubted it. He doubted he'd survive the war. He'd likely die and become memorialized, and fifty years from now, people would remember him only as a boring historical figure, to be studied and bored by, with everything that he fought for going to naught.
The war was pointless. The cycle of history would repeat itself anyway. Voldemort would die, and ten years from now there would be a new Dark Lord to take his place. There was no point in fighting only to die and be ignored after death.